Category: Korea-General Topics

 

UPDATE #2:  The AFP actually has a much more detailed article up about the protest and they quote the Seoul police as saying 30,000 people attended the rally on Wednesday. 

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UPDATE #1: The Korean Media has picked up on the story today with the Chosun Ilbo deeming the rally only worthy of a picture with no detailed information:

The Joong Ang Ilbo has a similar picture but lists more of what the protest was about and that 25,000 people attended.  It is amazing that the anti-US loons can have a protest of just a few dozen people and make more headlines than 25,000 people in front of City Hall waving US and Korean flags. 

You can read more over at Lost Nomad.

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I traveled to Korea this week on leave with my wife.  This is my first time back to Korea since the fall of 2005.  So far it has been an interesting trip.  For example on Wednesday we decided to go take a walk down the Choengyecheon Stream and then walk over to Myeongdong via City Hall in order to get some lunch.  I will blog more about the Cheongyecheon in a future posting but it was a good walk with a lot of people out and about because Wednesday was the Korean Memorial Day.

Anyway while walking along the Cheongyecheon Stream we noticed a number of people that were carrying Korean and American flags which we thought was odd.  Once we reached the end of the stream we walked towards City Hall and we found out why:

In the above picture you can see a number of elderly citizens were lounging in the shade and they were handing out Korean and American flags to people walking by.   The wife and I spoke with them and they said they had just held a rally and that they were protesting the Korean government to recognize their contributions as a secret commando unit during the Korean War as well as protesting the government’s policy towards North Korea.  Some of these guys actually looked familar from protest pictures I have seen before in the Korean media of the veterans groups holding rallies. 

It was Memorial Day and I thanked these guys for their patriotism, service, and their support of the US-ROK Alliance and we then continued on our way.  As we approached City Hall the sidewalks were filled with people wearing blue shirts and holding Korean and American flags.  As we waded through the crowd we saw people in blue shirts handing out US and Korean flags to other people in blue shirts as well as people passing by:

As I looked towards City Hall I could see there was a huge rally going on:

One of the people in the blue shirt we questioned said that the rally was organized by Christian church groups in rememberance of Memorial Day as well as to show support for the US-ROK Alliance.  I was definitely surprised by the turn out because this rally filled the City Hall lawn as well as having people on the sidewalks across the street where I took the picture, not to mention the veterans rallied just down the street from City Hall.  I’m not good at estimating numbers but that should give you an idea of how big the rally was. 

This was personally the largest pro-US rally I have seen and was quite surprised.  What I was most surprised about was the number of young Koreans attending this rally along with families.  Usually pro-US rallies tend to dominated by older people who remember American sacrifices during the Korean War.  Not this one because younger people easily out numbered the older people which is really a good thing to see because younger people tend to be the most anti-American in Korea. 

Maybe the anti-US trend is starting to wear out in Korea?  I have to say just from being here this week I do feel less of an anti-US vibe than in the past from just walking around and talking to people.   Any other opinions on this are welcome. 

Anyway it was lunch time and we were hungry so we started walking towards Myeongdong to get lunch.  We got a really good laugh because the street was lined with US and Korean flags:

What made this funny was that we saw a banner on the front of the Lotte Hotel welcoming people attending some forum between China and Korea.  Right in front of the hotel and all along the road were Korean and US flags.  Probably not to welcome of a sight for the Chinese visitors to this forum. 

I checked the Korean media for any news of this rally and didn’t see anything but maybe they will post something tomorrow.  Anyway it was a welcome sight and hopefully the large turn out for this rally is a sign of positive things to come in the US-ROK relationship.

If you thought Seoul was already over populated, guess what it is going to get worse:

The government predicts more people will flock to live in greater Seoul in the coming years.

The Korea National Statistical Office released a report Tuesday that more than one in two people in the country will be living in the capital and surrounding Gyeonggi Province by 2011.

The census bureau also expects all provinces to have a "super-aged" demographic by the year 2030 with at least 20 percent of the population over the age of 65.

Great more people within North Korea artillery range.  You would think it would be in the interest of national security to reduce or at least stabilize the population in the Seoul area.  Here is another demographic concern for Korea listed in the article:

Also in the future, Korean men will likely have a harder time finding a wife with gender imbalance expected to rise.

This is nothing a few mail order brides from Vietnam and the Philippines couldn’t fix.

Is it just me or is the Chosun trying to make this an anti-Chinese and Indian article?:

Korean students in the U.S. increasingly find themselves in competition with their counterparts from China and India. In major U.S. cities like New York and Washington D.C., an influx of Chinese and Indian students have emerged as rivals for Korean students when it comes to places at university and jobs. Even overseas, in other words, Koreans find themselves “sandwiched”, as the catchword has it, by economically and academically more agile powers.

Read the rest but the tone of the article suggests Koreans are supposed to have some God given right to the best universities and jobs in the US. 

Good article in the International Herald Tribune about the increasing suicide rate in South Korea:

In the past 25 years, South Korea has gone from having one of the world’s lower suicide rates to having one of its highest. Although still surpassed by some countries that made up the former Soviet Union, South Korea’s suicide rate ranks among the highest in the 30-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In 2005, South Korea had 24.7 suicides per 100,000 people, according to the Korea National Statistical Office.

In April, Japan announced measures to try to reduce its suicides from a rate of 24.2 in 2005. The rate for the United States in 2002 was 10.2.

The increase in suicides in South Korea has been especially steep in recent years, almost doubling from 6,440 in 2000 to 12,047 in 2005, according to the National Statistical Office.

What is even more troubling about the suicide problem is that many of the suicides are being organized on-line:

The government does not compile figures on how many suicides may have been inspired or aided by the Internet. But in an analysis of 191 group suicides reported in the news media from June 1998 to May 2006, Kim Jung Jin, a sociologist at Korea Nazarene University, found that nearly a third of the cases involved people who had formed suicide pacts through Internet chat sites.

What I find the most troubling about the suicide problem is that so many of them are done by students.  At least according the article the Korean government has finally recognized this problem and taking measures to reverse the trend.

To be fair I see a lot of problems with this survey overall so take what it says about Korea with some healthy skepticism:

In most countries, at least a plurality of respondents thought the UN Security council should prevent countries from acquiring nuclear weapons. South Korea and the Palestinian territories were the notable exceptions, where 55 and 59 percent, respectively, opposed such action to prevent nuclear proliferation.

Steven Kull, editor at WorldPublicOpinion.org, said the positive response showed that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was becoming "something like international law."

He said focus groups suggested that South Koreans generally felt they could best deal with their neighbor North Korea, which has delayed implementing a pledge to halt its nuclear weapons program. The Palestinian response may indicate a feeling that Islamic countries have the right to nuclear weapons, Kull said. Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, although it has never acknowledged it.

Here is the actual site that did the survey which also asked people specific questions in regards to strengthening the United Nations:

Now this is where I have serious problem with the survey because it asks these questions of people with the assumption that the UN actually wants to do the things listed in the survey.  Take a look at the first question, the UN has peacekeeping forces around the world now that for example watch as Hezbollah smuggles arms into Lebanon from Syria or watch as the Arab Sudanese slowly ethinically cleanse the country of blacks.  Additionally many of the UN peacekeepers are often complicit in rapes and the sexual trafficking of women in the very countries they are supposed to be keeping the peace in.  On a side note does anyone find it interesting you hear so very little of this sexual abuse by the UN which is far worse than anything that ever happened at Abu Graib, yet the media can’t get enough of talking about Abu Graib any chance they can get?  Anyway, if the UN cannot manage the few peacekeepers that they have now what makes anyone think they can command an even larger force? 

The assumption that the UN even cares about human rights is another fallacy of this survey.  The lack of doing anything in regards to North Korean human rights violations and the sexual slavery of Korean women in China should be enough to prove this but just take a look at the countries on the human rights council.  Who wouldn’t want such great defenders of human rights like Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia standing up for their basic human rights?  I do have to give new Secretary General Ban Ki-moon some credit for cleaning up the council a bit, but much more work still needs to be done. 

The questions only get more ridiculous:

So according to this survey world opinion would justify both a strike on North Korea for human rights violations and on Iran for supporting terrorist groups and trying to develop a nuclear weapons program.  Heck according to this survey both Thailand and Fiji should be invaded as well to restore their governments.  Does anyone really think the UN much less global opinon would support any of these operations? 

You have to like this solution the IHO came up with for the Sea of Japan/East Sea issue:

The International Hydrographic Organization on Friday made a proposal that could favor Korea in its dispute with Japan over the name of the body of water between the two countries.

At the group’s general meeting in Monaco on Thursday, the IHO discussed how to officially refer to the sea that Korea calls the "East Sea" and Japan calls the "Sea of Japan." No agreement was reached.

Instead, David Wynford Williams, chairman of the meeting, proposed omitting the name from the fourth edition of "Limits of Oceans and Seas," the guide the IHO publishes for map makers around the world.

Under the proposal, an oceanographic map of the area would be published in a two-page appendix to the guide after the two countries settle on a name.

So it is official now it is not the Sea of Japan or the East Sea its just the Pacific Ocean.  Using this logic the Korea Strait between Korea and Japan should also be removed from the map one would think. 

The Korean government is of course over joyed by this announcement and here is why:

The deletion of the name in the upcoming guide should draw international attention to the issue. For Korea, making the dispute a global issue could prove helpful to its efforts, while Japan is trying to keep the matter quiet to preserve the status quo.

Here is a reality check to the Korean government, nobody but Korea and Japan give a crap about this issue and that is why the IHO just pulled the name off their map because their tired of hearing about it because it is so stupid.  This is not a global issue and will not ever be a global issue and no one besides Korea and Japan cares. 

So says the environmentalists:

South Korean fishermen caught 80 percent more whales than they officially reported, a finding that is fuelling suspicions that — far from accidentally netting cetaceans — they deliberately try to snare them, New Scientist says.

In a report carried in this Saturday’s issue, the British science weekly cites DNA experts, who estimate South Korean trawlermen caught 827 minke whales between 1999 and 2003.

This compares with the figure of 458 that the fishermen officially reported to the authorities. Whale meat can be sold legally in South Korea if the animals are caught by accidentally in fishing nets, but these deaths must be reported to the authorities.

I wouldn’t be surprised that some illegal whale hunting is going on in Korea, but I have to wonder about the data collection methods of the researchers to determine this:

Scientists led by Scott Baker of Oregon State University bought minke meat in South Korean markets and used DNA "fingerprinting" — getting the genetic ID of each animal — to calculate how many individual whales had been caught.

The figure of 827 is arrived at mathematically, using the number of signatures to estimate the whales’ population and the size of the so-called bycatch over the four years.

I fail to see how genetically testing a few strips of whale meat leads to the number of 827?  I like whales as much as the next person, but whale protesters have very little creditability with me, especially when read things like this and the fact that the top whale environmentalist Paul Watson preaches that mankind is a virus that needs to be wiped out. 

This article from the Joong Ang Ilbo about the possible sale of the F-22 fighter plane to Japan I found quite interesting:

When reports surfaced last month that Japan is trying to purchase the new F-22 Raptor, the most advanced U.S. fighter plane, the news had a ripple effect in the region.
Despite Korea’s drive to modernize its air force, the ultra-modern plane could alter the balance of air power and spark a drive by South Korea and China to catch up.
The Raptor, which is so far banned from export, is felt to be so far superior to anything else in the air that Japan would gain an immediate regional edge if it flies the plane. “Whatever is out there cannot match up with it,” retired Air Force general Keum Ki-hyun said of the F-22. “It’s like elementary school kids trying to win a fight against college students.”

Well that is only fitting because the South Korean government has been acting "like elementary school kids".  Where the heck has the ROK government been for the last five years, to busy drinking sunshine Kool-Aid?  While the South Korean government has been busy undermining the US-ROK alliance at every turn and using anti-Americanism for short term domestic political gain for the past five years, the Japanese government has been busy building stronger political and defense relations with the US.  The elementary school kid credentials of the ROK government is further apparent by their concerns that the possible purchase of the F-22 by Japan is some kind of sign of an impending attack on Dokdo. Is it any wonder why the F-22 is being sold to Japan and not to South Korea? 

The Chosun has an article today that has all you would possibly ever wanted to know about the greatest pressing issue of our time, no not Dokdo, but the Sea of Japan / East Sea issue: 

The government is tense ahead of the International Hydrographic Organization conference in Monaco next Monday, which is expected to decide the official name of the body of water dividing Korea and Japan. The body is to settle whether a new edition of "Limits of Oceans and Seas," a guide book for map makers around the globe, will use both "East Sea," Korea’s name, and "Sea of Japan." In a closed-door meeting on Thursday, Korean officials reportedly stressed the need to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

I find it quite interesting that the Korean government is tense over this East Sea / Sea of Japan nonsense, but could care less about 485 South Korean civilians kidnapped by the North Koreans or the many North Korean defectors trying to come to South Korea which the ROK government continues to be indifferent if not unhelpful to. 

Using the logic the Korean government is using to lobby the IHO to have the Sea of Japan permanently called the East Sea doesn’t that mean that the IHO would also have to change the name of the Korea Strait that runs between Korea and Japan? 

Is what Kim Dae-joong claiming, that your childhood was ruined by coming to America, true?:

The children led their lives apart from their parents and roamed the streets. Living in blue-collar neighborhoods, the schools the children attended were often prone to crime and offered a poor educational environment. Not all of them, of course, but the children of many Korean emigrants, lived lives without pride or community consciousness, and eventually ended up on the wrong side of the tracks. In the end, many Koreans who went to America for the sake of their children’s education saw their children ruined by it instead.

 I don’t think it is true that all these Korean-American kids are ruined by coming to America and Kim Dae-joong is just overreacting to one isolated incident of violence from one emotionally disturbed person.   However, I am interested in hearing opinions from those who live in the community.