Category: Korea-General Topics

Here is some good news for the people in Korea:

Anchor: The Ministry of Health and Welfare says no new cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome were reported for the sixth straight day on Saturday, marking the longest period of time to date in which no new cases were confirmed.
Our Mina Cha has more.

Report: The Ministry of Health and Welfare said Saturday that no new cases of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) have been reported for the sixth straight day, leaving the number of total confirmed MERS patients from the current outbreak unchanged at 186.

The Ministry’s central MERS-response headquarters said this marks the longest period of time to date in which no new cases were confirmed since the outbreak in South Korea that began in May.

Three more patients have fully recovered and were released from hospital, while one more patient has died from the deadly virus.

Five-hundred-13 suspected patients remain under quarantine at home or hospital, 53 fewer than Friday.

If the MERS outbreak continues to subside at this pace with no additional patients, those under quarantine are also all expected to be released by around July 25.   [KBS World Radio]

You can read more at the link.

https://twitter.com/SouthKoreaDaily/status/618156399789346816

For those going out to clubs in Itaewon over the long 4th of July weekend, here is one club you will not get into:

An upscale nightclub in Itaewon, Seoul, has stopped accepting foreign customers over the past two weeks in fears of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a virus that has taken lives of 33 people in South Korea, the owner of the club said Wednesday.

Kim Jong-hyun, owner of Lounge & Club Move contacted The Korea Observer and requested that we remove an article that we published a day earlier as he believes it implies the club has a racist policy in place.

“We absolutely don’t accept foreigners because of MERS,” said Kim. “Above all, Korean people don’t want them. This is Korea, isn’t it?”  [Korea Observer]

Here is what he had to say about US military servicemembers:

“Most of the time when a customer loses a cellphone, the CCTV reveals that the thieves are Middle Eastern people or foreigners.”

Kim agreed with his manager Lee’s statement that the club has been hesitant to have foreign customers because it is hard to make them liable when they cause property damages, sexually harass customers or start a brawl.

He also stressed that foreign customers frequently start a fight with U.S. servicemen.

“U.S. servicemen don’t behave badly. The problem is other foreign customers who constantly provoke them into a fight,” Kim said.

“It is better not to have them because we lose too much for trying to make a small amount of money from them.”

You can read the rest at the link, but US servicemembers have been accused for so long for being the ones to start fights in Korea that I don’t know how to react.

If anyone has wondered what most of the South Korean population would do if North Korea attacks, this poll gives some indication:

Four out of 10 Seoul residents would simply flee to another country if another war breaks out on the Korean peninsula, a poll suggests. Also, more than 60 percent of Seoul residents said they have no idea what the instructions are in the event of a war.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government surveyed 3,039 residents earlier this month and found that 36.2 percent would escape to a safer place, while 5.6 percent said they would leave Korea. Only 11.6 percent said they want to take up arms to defend the country, and the remainder would be willing to give the military some auxiliary support  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

According to the KoreAm Journal they are hoping that the recent Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage across the US will help change the opinions that supposedly many in the Korean-American community have about gays:

As much as Friday’s ruling resonated around the country, some advocacy groups are urging greater acceptance within the greater Korean American community of LGBTQ individuals—an issue touched on by KoreAm in this June 2013 feature story about the community’s attitudes towards same-sex marriage.

“We’re thrilled by the national progress on LGBTQ equality, but deeply disappointed by the hostility we and our families continue to face in Korean American communities,” The Dari Project, an LGBTQ Korean American organization based in New York City, said in a statement. “There’s no way to sugarcoat it: homophobia and transphobia are still incredibly serious problems in Korean American communities and cause very real harm to LGBTQ Korean Americans.

“We urge Korean American allies to not be silent when they witness homophobia and transphobia in Korean American communities and to use today’s court decision to start conversations in their families, churches and other Korean American community spaces that will help Korean American communities recognize the humanity of LGBTQ people just as the Supreme Court did today,” added the organization. [KoreAm Journal]

You can read more at the link, but considering how churches are such an integral part of many Korean-American communities it may take a while for opinions to change, but I think they eventually will.

Unwed women fired for being pregnant in Korea http://t.co/BJ9VSVh3D5 #코리아옵저버 #pregnancy #korea #expats pic.twitter.com/buTpBP905d

— The Korea Observer (@koreaobserver) June 23, 2015

On the 50th anniversary of Japan-South Korea ties, a president carries her father's legacy. http://t.co/BpRCMgo3Wv pic.twitter.com/5XiM5ae4q7

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) June 22, 2015

For those of us who were in Korea in 2000 when the Yongsan Water Dumping Incident happened this news about 25 companies dumping toxic chemicals in the Han River with hardly any outrage shows the entire hypocrisy of what happened back in 2000:

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Friday it has caught 25 companies releasing wastewater polluted with hazardous chemicals into the Han River.

Most of the polluters are small and medium-sized enterprises operating factories to make textiles and metals, according to the municipality. But it refused to disclose their names.

The city government suspected the firms discharged nearly 3,000 tons of wastewater poisoned with potassium cyanide, chromium, lead, copper and phenol, all of which should be tightly regulated for its potential health risks.

The city found the illegal wastewater release after taking samples from 52 locations along the river during an inspection that began in April.

“The city received tips about their illegal activities,” a city inspection officer said. “We know there are businesses which have released hazardous chemicals into the river. This year, inspection has been stricter because of a drought. If factories upstream leak chemicals, it could cause serious damage to drinking water for Seoul residents.”

The Han River is a major source of drinking water in Seoul and its surrounding areas.

The inspector said the level of potassium cyanide found in water was 765 times higher than the permitted amount. The amount of chromium was 10 times more than the allowable limit. The level of lead, copper and phenol showed 4,098 times, 628 times and 222 times, respectively, higher than the regulated cap.  [The Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but this is just another example of why I do not recommend drinking tap water in Korea.  To put this pollution in perspective South Korea went into a anti-American hatefest over 20 gallons of formaldehyde that was diluted first by running water, then was processed through the Seoul waste treatment system, and finally through the Nanjido central metropolitan treatment plant along with 1.9 million gallons of other sewage and waste. Here we have 3,000 tons of potassium cyanide, chromium, lead, copper and phenol dumped in the Han River with little criticism.

I can remember many years ago when the anti-US groups were complaining about US diplomats and servicemembers not paying their parking tickets.  It is interesting you don’t hear a peep from any groups about Chinese and Russian diplomats not paying their tickets:

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said Tuesday that it would strengthen enforcement of traffic violations by foreign embassy vehicles in Korea in an effort to curb immunity and collect unpaid fines.

Diplomats in Korea are obligated to pay penalties for traffic violations, but police enforcement over them has not been strict due to immunities granted by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which was signed in 1969.

The number of traffic violations by Foreign Service workers has risen sharply over the last four years, rising from nine incidents in 2012 to 81 last year. The Korean police long relied on traffic enforcement cameras for surveillance of foreign service workers, but with the new measures, field crackdown is expected to be implemented with full force.

The police will forward requests to the embassies regarding the matter. The countries that have fully paid the penalties are the United States, the United Arab Emirates and Japan. The countries that have registered the highest number of violations in the last three years are Russia (23), China (12), the U.S. (12) and Mongolia (10).  [Korea Herald]

https://twitter.com/pearswick/status/611461194960908288