Category: Korea-General Topics

Hopefully it does not come this, but it would be interesting to see what the reaction in South Korea would be to a Paris style ISIS terrorist attack?  Fortunately it would be logistically very difficult for ISIS to pull off such an attack with the limited access to guns in South Korea.  That is why if they did try an attack I would think an explosive or fire in a confined area with a lot of people is the route they would go:

The so-called Islamic State has once again included Korea on a list of potential targets of terror attacks.

In a video clip on Wednesday, Korea was included among 60 countries belonging to what ISIS calls a “global coalition” that also includes the U.S., Japan and France.

In September, Dabiq, ISIS’ glossy propaganda magazine, named Korea among 62 countries that are supposedly part of a new “crusader coalition” and targeted for potential terror attacks.

The latest list includes two new targets — Russia and China — that were for some reason not on the list earlier.  [Chosun Ilbo]

By the way I did notice that North Korea did not make the list.  I wonder if Kim Jong-un feels left out?

42% of all wealth in #SouthKorea is inherited, Dongguk University study https://t.co/2ZAuqrykJb

— KEI (@KoreaEconInst) November 24, 2015

This sounds like an off the cuff remark that President Park should not have said because as bad as the KCTU is they are not ISIS.  With that said if the KCTU would not hold violent protests there would be no need for masks in the first place:

South Korean President Park Geun Hye on Tuesday (Nov 24) called for a ban on masks at demonstrations, less than two weeks after huge anti-government protests rocked Seoul, as she warned “terrorist elements” may infiltrate demonstrations.

The president also drew parallels between masked protesters and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) – prompting organisers of the recent rally to say her comments had left them “speechless”.

More than 60,000 people protested against the conservative government’s push for labour reform and state-issued history textbooks in Seoul on Nov 14, in the biggest protest in the country for nearly a decade.

Many scuffled with police, who responded with water cannon and liquid pepper spray, leaving dozens injured and one protester in a critical condition.

Police have come under fire for what critics describe as excessive use of force, while about 200 demonstrators are being investigated after dozens of police buses were damaged.

Park described the clashes on Nov 14 as an “unacceptable” incident and called for “strong measures” against the protesters, especially those in masks.

“At a time when acts of terrorism are taking many lives around the world, some terrorist elements may sneak into such protests and pose a threat to the lives of our people,” she said at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

“In particular, masks in protests should not be tolerated. Isn’t that what the ISIS is doing these days, with their faces hidden like that?” she added.  [New Straits Times]

You can read the rest at the link.

I saw this posted over at the Marmot’s Hole about how a professor from Sejong University Park Yu-ha was charged without detention for writing her book “Comfort Women of the Empire”.  What crime did she commit writing this book?  The crime was defamation due to her attempting to accurately portray an unbiased history of the comfort women issue:

“she wrote the book in an attempt to re-portray them in light of the variety of testimonies provided by former comfort women.  She said their words opened her eyes to the sheer diversity of the circumstances and experiences of Korean comfort women, and to the bigger picture of ‘an empire and its colony.’

“Park believes that Japan did not recruit comfort women in Korea, which was part of Japan from Tokyo’s perspective, in quite the same way that it did on the front lines and in occupied areas, such as in the Philippines. In those areas, records show that Japanese soldiers were directly involved in the forcible and violent taking away of comfort women. ‘Many of the Korean comfort women were apparently recruited while being cheated by agents of prostitution, some of whom were Koreans, or being sold by their parents,’ Park said. ‘While some have testified they were forcibly taken away by military personnel, I suppose that such cases, if there were any, were exceptional.’

But Park emphasized that Japan is not exempt from its responsibility for the comfort women, who were taken to ‘comfort stations’ against their will and experienced pain. That is because she sees the relationship of an empire and a colony in the backdrop of the Korean comfort women issue.  [Asahi Shimbun]

You can read the rest at the link, but the Korean public likes to think that all the comfort women were girls sleeping in bed and kidnapped by evil Japanese soldiers while the Japanese rightists like to think they were all willing prostitutes.  Both historical narratives are untrue if one really looks at the history.

What Professor Park writes about is the same historical narrative that Sarah Soh wrote about in her book “The Comfort Women“.  In the book Soh provides documented evidence that most of the Korean women put into the comfort women system were sold by Korean brokers.  The actual kidnapping of Korean women by Japanese soldiers would be a very rare occurrence when the broker system made so many of these women readily available.  This does not absolve the Imperial Japanese from responsibility since they ran the comfort woman system that provided the demand for the Korean brokers to meet.  To make even worse is that many of these girls were teenagers when sold into prostitution.  I see no way that a young teenager should be considered a willing prostitute.  Especially when many girls were sold by their families into prostitution for money due to the extreme poverty.  This was actually a practice that was going on well into the US military era in South Korea.

It is pretty clear that the comfort women issue is not black and white, but has more nuance to it then each side is willing to admit.  Ultimately the Imperial Japanese government was responsible for the actions of the Korean brokers that supplied the majority of the Korean girls.  The Imperial Japanese had to have known how young the girls were and the unethical and deceptive actions the Korean brokers were taking to make them available to the Japanese military.  There is no need to rewrite the history of what happened to the comfort women when the truth is bad enough.

The Joong Ang Ilbo is continuing its fascinating series of interviews with the 89 year old former Korean Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil.  This next interview describes how Kim Jong-pil started the first tangerine orchard on Jeju Island and started his own cattle ranch which was ultimately seized by the military dictator Chun Doo-hwan:

During my 46-day confinement at the Army Security Command in 1980, only once did I cry. It was after I heard the news that the security command had announced in corruption charges that I had illegally accumulated 21.6 billion won ($18.6 million). A number of my assets were to be confiscated included a tangerine orchard on Jeju Island and a cattle ranch in South Chungcheong that I had donated to the Unjong Scholarship Foundation. I could not keep myself from crying after learning of the Chun Doo Hwan group’s perfidy. During my lifetime, I shed tears just a few times. I cried at the funeral for President Park Chung Hee in 1979. Recently, I cried when my wife Young-ok passed away.I shed tears in the interrogation room 35 years ago because the Chun group took away my dreams and ambition. Though 35 years have passed, I feel compelled to raise the issue in regard to the Unjong Scholarship Foundation. In May 1968, I declared my retirement from politics and relinquished all formal positions. I was determined to contribute to the improvement of the country through other means. I remembered a line from a book on Napoleon that I had read in middle school. The Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon in the battle of Waterloo, was asked how he had beaten the French emperor. He said he had fought in the spirit of Eton College and the victory was possible because of what he had learned on that school’s playing fields. His remark inspired me deeply and led me to nurture ambitions that I would one day set up a school just like Eton.

To set up an educational institution, I needed financial means. So I decided on a pioneering farming venture. In June 1968, I visited a vast track of land in Seogwipo, Jeju Island, and decided to turn it into a tangerine orchard. Agricultural experts told me I would fail and said the land was not suitable to such farming. But I pushed ahead. I bought 430,000 square meters of land for 32.5 million won. The price was very cheap because everyone thought the land was infertile. I deployed a crane and even dynamite to break through rock. I set up a tent nearby and spent the whole winter of 1968 there. I purchased 49,840 tangerine seedlings from Japan and planted them. About three years later, they bore fruit.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link which includes how he started his cattle ranch in Seosan and how Chun Doo-hwan seized these two agricultural properties from him.

Happy Birthday to South Korea's National Security Law, introduced 67 years ago today. (Related story: https://t.co/LZRc5M8t6I)

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) November 20, 2015

It looks like the new regulations put in place by the ROK government to better police international marriage licenses is working as intended:

The number of international marriages of a Korean and foreign spouse is on a steady decrease, along with falling divorce and childbirth rates among multicultural families, the state-run statistics agency said Thursday.

According to a multicultural family report compiled by Statistics Korea, the number of international marriages stood at 24,387 in 2014, the lowest since 2003. It fell 9.5 percent from a year earlier, showing a steady annual decline since 2008.

The steady decline has been attributed to government efforts to sort out unlicensed marriage agencies and insincere marriage deals to prevent marital violence and marriage fraud.

The number of husbands at least 10 years senior to their wives made up 37.5 percent, down from 44.8 percent in 2012 and 41.7 percent in 2013.  [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link.

It doesn’t sound like this Indonesian recently arrested in South Korea for ISIS ties was much of a threat, but it is good to see that authorities are taking threats seriously considering that ISIS has declared South Korea as part of the “Crusader Alliance” and eligible for terrorist attacks.  If anyone is wondering South Korea has reportedly had 200 Syrian refugees arrive at its airport.

The news that police are questioning an Indonesian national in Korea about his ties with a terrorist group linked to al-Qaida brought home the message that the country may not be completely safe from terrorist attacks.

According to the National Police Agency, the 32-year-old man arrested at his house in South Chungcheong Province on charges of violating immigration laws and forging documents, is suspected of supporting the Nusra Front, a Syrian branch of al-Qaida. The police found a model M16 rifle, a bowie knife and several books on Islamic fundamentalism at the man’s home.

The man, who entered the country on a forged passport in 2007, uploaded a video clip of himself waving a Nusra Front flag on Bukhansan Mountain on a social media site in April. Last month, he uploaded a picture of himself wearing a cap featuring the terrorist group’s logo standing in front of Gyeongbokgung Palace, the police said.

The recent National Intelligence Service report that about 10 people in Korea have publicly expressed support for the Islamic State and two Korean nationals attempting to join the IS have had their passports canceled is a cause for concern about potential terrorist activities in the country by Korean and foreign nationals alike. Also a reminder that the country needs to stay vigilant about potential terrorists entering country is the revelation that 48 people who were either affiliated with international terrorist groups or categorized as security risks have been arrested and deported since 2010.   [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link.

I had to roll my eyes when the article describes a two hour drive as a “tough journey”:

It was a tough journey. It took more than two hours for the eight-member girl group to reach the destination. The road was not well-paved, and some sections were full of twists and turns. Their performance was not broadcast on TV, and the girl group was also paid a lot less for the gig compared with other performances hosted by private event organizers.

To put it simply, it was one of the least attractive jobs out there for entertainment groups, but 9Muses could not turn down the offer.

“Many people think of 9Muses as guntongnyeong, and they have been much loved by soldiers for a long period of time,” a person who works for Star Empire Entertainment said. “Thus, we try not to say no when we get offers from the military.

“In addition, popularity among young soldiers helps expand their fandom among music fans in their 20s.”

Guntongnyeong is a compound word made up of the Korean word gun, which means military, and daetongnyeong, which means president.

The neologism is often used when describing girl groups that are popular among members of the military.

And the title of guntongnyeong is much coveted among girl groups because “popularity within the military is often used to measure one’s popularity,” according to another industry insider.

Because of this, many girl groups take time to perform at military bases, which are usually located in remote areas of the country.

Recently, the JoongAng Ilbo wanted to identify which girl group among all-female acts were the No. 1 choice among soldiers. The newspaper ran a survey of 466 soldiers who were on their way back to their posts after taking leave.

It turned out that the eight-member girl group AOA received the most number of votes among survey responses. The respondents who voted for AOA included soldiers of various ranks.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link, but you would think they would make more effort to appeal to US soldiers as well in an effort to make their image look more international.

The pro-Kim regime lackeys in the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions were able to mobilize a pretty impressive number of people to protest the decision to implement state approved history textbooks and passing regulations allowing companies to more easily lay off older workers to help younger workers find jobs.  The protest was the largest since the anti-US beef protests in 2008.  These history books have not even been written yet, but I would not be surprised if like the anti-US beef craziness of 2008 that these textbooks end up being much to do about nothing.  However, it gives the leftists in the KCTU reason to mobilize and bash the Park government:

 

Tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators marched in Seoul on Saturday in what police believed was the largest protest in the South Korean capital in nearly a decade.

About 80,000 people were expected to turn up for the downtown rallies that were to stretch into the evening, according to an official at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, who didn’t want to be named, citing office rules.

The marches, organized by an umbrella labor union and civic groups, brought together protesters with a diverse set of grievances against the government of conservative President Park Geun-hye, including her business-friendly labor policies and a decision to require middle and high schools to use only state-issued history textbooks in classes from 2017.

Members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions briefly clashed with police who unsuccessfully tried to detain KCTU President Han Sang-goon during a news conference, but there were no immediate reports of injuries. A Seoul court had issued an arrest warrant for Han over a failed court appearance, after he was indicted for his involvement in organizing a May protest that turned violent.

Demonstrators, many of them wearing masks and carrying banners, occupied a major downtown street and began marching between tight perimeters created by police buses, intended to block them from entering large roads leading to the presidential Blue House. A large number of police, many wearing helmets and body armor, move swiftly to flank the demonstrators.

This was probably the largest crowd seen in a demonstration in Seoul since 2008, when people poured onto the streets to protest the government’s decision to resume U.S. beef imports amid lingering mad cow fears, said the Seoul police official.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link.