Category: Korea-General Topics

Thanks to Nomad for pointing this unsurprising piece of information out:

Nearly four out of 10 persons who died from car accidents last year were pedestrians, a much higher figure than in other advanced nations, according to the Korea Insurance Development Institute.

The agency said yesterday that the percentage of pedestrians who died from car accidents was 38.7 percent in Korea, while the figure was 12.5 percent in France, 14.1 percent in the United States, 15.9 percent in Germany and 27.7 percent in Japan.
“Not only drivers but also pedestrians need to raise their consciousness about safety,” said an official at the institute.

Among the dead from car accidents, the percentage of children younger than 14 years and elderly over 61 years also increased. The figure was 35.6 percent in 2003, up 5.9 percentage points from 2000.

The two age groups on a sharp increase are children and the elderly. I believe it from driving around here in Korea. Children will run out between cars into the middle of the road and elderly people often push carts taking up the whole right lane of a highway. So when you come around a corner you see a cart in front of your vehicle you have to brake or swerve suddenly to avoid an accident. Plus people often walk in the road instead of the sidewalk and cut across the road because they don’t want to wait for the crosswalk to turn green.

Look at the two USFK accidents that have caused such an up roar. The 2002 accident that caused that year’s hatefest involved to middle school students walking in the road. This past June’s accident involved an elderly person cutting between vehicles on the highway without using a crosswalk. The US Army and especially 2ID have gone to great lengths to improve vehicle safety. Imagine trying to drive Bradleys and tanks much less your car through all this. That is why convoy safety is so important here in Korea.

However, I think we will never have an accident free environment until the conditions here change. The police actually enforcing crosswalks and keeping people on the sidewalks would be a good place to start.

It seems like the bickering between Korea and Japan will never end. The latest squabble is that South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said last week that the 1965 treaty between Japan and Korea does not absolve Japan of the responsibility to pay compensation to war crimes victims. However, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi sees it differently. He believes that the 1965 treaty does end all claims to compensation because the Korean government at the time could of given the $800 million dollars that Japanese gave Korea to the individual victims but chose to instead use it for economic development. Here is a passage from today’s Chosun I think really sums up this whole controversy well:

Of the five nations that got money from Japan after World War II, in the name of restitution or funds to “congratulate them on national independence,” only Korea made priority use of the funds for economic development by effectively investing it in basic facilities like the construction of Pohang Iron and Steel (now POSCO) and the Seoul-Busan Highway. In the Philippines, which got even more money, the landed elites spent it any way they liked. In the early 1960s, the Philippines’ per capita income was six times ours; now it is not even a tenth.

In March, President Roh Moo-hyun said he was ready to fight a “diplomatic war” with Japan, adding, “We, too, now have the capability to withstand considerable difficulty.” Yet if the government at the time had not secured foreign investment through its agreement on claims with Japan and sending troops to Vietnam and effectively used those funds for economic development, all the while taking criticism for its “submissive diplomacy” on the chin, the Korean government of 2005 would have no such means to boast about, and would be in no position to fight a diplomatic war.

President Park Chung-hee in 1965 chose to teach his people how to fish instead of giving the fish to them. The Philippines is a great example provided in the article. Their economy ran out of fish a long time ago while the Korean economy still continues to fish.

As horrible as the Japanese Imperial Army’s war crimes are it appears to me that 1965 treaty was supposed to be the agreement that would settle all the Japanese financial liability to Korea. However, when you have a 29% approval rating like President Roh, starting a squabble with Japan is a well used tactic to draw attention away from yourself.

Here is an article from the Heritage Foundation that tackles the issue of if Korea should be entered into the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP). Here is why Korea currently is not eligible for the VWP:

The ROK is currently ineligible for the VWP because the refusal rate for nonimmigrant visas for its citizens exceeds the 3 percent maximum allowed under the VWP. The ROK’s refusal rate currently hovers just below 4 percent. [1] Because South Korea is not a VWP member, South Koreans must endure a complicated and protracted process to obtain a tourist or business visa, which has unfortunately contributed to growing animosity towards the United States.

The Heritage Foundation thinks this issue contributes to anti-Americanism in Korea. Trust me, we could enter Korea into the VWP tomorrow and it would change nothing here about the image of the United States. What I’m most concerned about with this issue is fair play with other countries. If the State Department drops it’s standards for VWP for Korea why couldn’t other countries like Pakistan demand the same treatment for helping the US in the War on Terror? Here is the Heritage Foundations arguement for Korea entering the VWP:

These unwieldy visa regulations are a stark con?trast to the strong U.S.–ROK military alliance and trade relationship. The ROK has proven itself a staunch ally of the United States by deploying 3,600 troops to Iraq, the second largest non-U.S. coalition presence after Great Britain. South Korea is also the United States’ seventh-largest trading partner, accounting for more than $70 billion in total bilateral trade in 2004.

The ROK-US alliance at the military level I would agree is still strong. US and ROK Army officers and soldiers work well together, no doubt it. However, at the political level is where there are major problems in the US-ROK alliance. Also, Korea maybe the 3rd largest troop dispatch to Iraq, but what are they doing? Countries with less troops are doing more than Korea. Plus an alliance is a two way street. Korea sends 3,000+ soldiers to sit on an airfield in Northern Iraq every year to fix toilets and play Starcraft and the US sends 32,000+ soldiers to Korea every year to dance on top of taxi cabs. It all evens out to me.

Then the fact that Korea is the 7th largest trading partner does not hold much weight with me either because the majority of the trade is going from Korea to the US and the American goods coming into Korea are heavily taxed making most American products here something only the wealthy can afford creating a large trade imbalance between the two countries.

The visa requirements, while arguably necessary due to heightened security concerns in the post-9/11 world, have regrettably discouraged Koreans from vis?iting the United States. Although the total number of Korean tourists traveling abroad in 2004 increased by 27 percent from the previous year, the number of South Korean visitors to the United States decreased by 5 percent, and the number of South Koreans applying for nonimmigrant visas to the United States dropped from 420,000 in 2003 to 360,000 in 2004.

I don’t foresee the US tourism industry collapsing because a few less Koreans are going to the Grand Canyon. I think the US tourism industry will be alright.

The onerous process of obtaining a visa has also inadvertently aggravated anti-American senti?ments, thwarting Washington’s public diplomacy efforts in South Korea.

Like I said before bending the rules and letting Korea into the VWP will not significantly change the image of America here in Korea. Finally the Hertitage Foundation thinks the VWP would reduce the work load of the US Embassy in Seoul.

These requirements have made the U.S. consular section in Seoul the largest U.S. nonimmigrant visa processing post in the world—processing an aver?age of nearly 2,000 visas per day and straining the embassy’s financial and human resources.

If you ever get a chance swing by the US Embassy sometime and see what a mad house that place is every day. The line to get in there stretches for quite a distance. I always find it interesting about how the same people who complain about the US all the time are probably the same people standing in line for two hours to just get in the US Embassy to apply for a Visa to come to the US.

The Heritage Foundation makes a good arguement but some of the points they bring up are common points many Koreans bring up about how they support America, but once you closely scrutinize them the contributions though commendable are not as noteworthy as one is led to believe. I’m of the opinion that the US has a system in place with a set standard. Meet the standard if you want in.

This issue is made to look like America is the bad guys for not letting the Korea into the VWP. It is not just Koreans. Anyone who doesn’t meet the standard is not allowed in. Korea is not being singled out or prevented from entering the VWP, they just need to work harder to meet the standards set by US law. I don’t see any reason why we should bend the rules solely for Korea. If Korea meets the standards then I say let them in and end the chaos at the US Embassy. I’m sure the employees there would be greatly relieved along with everyone else that has ever had to wait in a line there for two hours.

It appears that one airline had an interesting evening on Sunday:

Cathay Pacific CX 416 was scheduled to leave Hong Kong for Incheon International Airport at 4:20 p.m. on Sunday. The airline delayed the flight twice, first to 5:30 p.m. and then again to 6:00 p.m.

The airline said it made four announcements of the delays, both in the terminal and at boarding gates. But with the airport bustling and the broadcasts made in English and Chinese, some of the Koreans were unable to understand them.

Dozens of Korean passengers protested to Cathay Pacific staff at the boarding gate that the airline had delayed the flight twice but offered no explanation. They also demanded free transport once they arrived in Incheon and compensation for the delay.

The airline promised to provide meal coupons (HK$45), phone cards and transport according to its flight delay regulations. It says it also went beyond regulations in offering US$25 coupons toward in-flight duty-free goods and discount airline tickets during their next trip.

Okay, airline delays happen all the time and the airline offered meal coupons and other incentives for the delay. I have been delayed for up to five hours before and all I got was a meal coupon. So what Cathay Pacific was offering in compensation seems pretty good in comparison to my experiences with flight delays. Anyway this is what some Korean passengers decided to do:

The furious Koreans then started protesting vociferously, screaming and waving their arms. Alone among the 308 passengers, the 44 Koreans refused to board the aircraft. Attempts by the pilot to convince them fell on deaf ears.

They wanted more compensation and refused to board. So this is what the airline decided to do:

The airline then decided to let the flight take off at 7:14 p.m. without the Koreans, explaining it could not delay any longer. At this stage some of the Koreans relented saying the most important thing was to get back to Korea first, and suggested the airline must have had its reasons. When the flight arrived at Incheon at 11:34 p.m., five buses were waiting to take passengers to their regional destinations.

The Koreans that did not board were offered another flight the next day but the airline would not provide lodging and accommodations for them. The Korean passengers are demanding compensation and an officially apology from a high ranking Cathay Pacific official.

Looking at the article I cannot find where the airline was at fault. Delays happen all the time. The article did not say what the delay was for but maybe the plane had a flat tire or something. That is how I got delayed at the Phoenix airport for 5 hours because the plane needed a new tire. I didn’t go berserk, I got a meal coupon got something to eat read the paper and got on the plane when it was ready.

According to the article Cathay Pacific gave the Korean passengers everything they were entitled to for a delay of 1-2 hours. Why would someone demand a hotel room when the delay was not even 2 hours long?

Then should the plane have taken off without all of its passengers? The Korean passengers apparently were given every opportunity to board the plane and they refused. The airline has to think about all of the 308 passengers, not just 44 self absorbed ones. The airline delayed the plane over an hour longer waiting for the Koreans to board before they finally let the plane go.

It was their choice not to board the plane and I think the airline has a responsibility to do what is in the best interest of the majority of the passengers which is the plane should of left. Cathay Pacific shouldn’t feel any obligation to house people that voluntarily don’t board their plane. The passengers should feel lucky the airline gave them another flight the next day.

Make a scene, yell, protest, demand compensation, and an official apology from a high ranking official. Doesn’t this sound familiar? This is a strategy taken straight out of the anti-USFK play book. Now my final question is, how much did this people have to drink before trying to board the plane?

Korea plans on building a new casino that will focus on Chinese gamblers:

“South Korea is betting on a new US$120 million casino project to lure more Chinese gamblers to a market that has traditionally focused on Japanese high-rollers.

“There are currently 13 casinos in South Korea that draw about 600,000 gamblers a year, mostly Japanese and Chinese.

“With about a half billion dollars in annual revenue, South Korea’s casino industry is still far behind the former Portuguese colony of Macau, which is about to surpass Las Vegas as the world’s richest gambling venue. Macau reportedly attracted 16.7 million visitors last year who spent about $5 billion.

The Korean government may soon regulate the Korean dog meat industry

The South Korean government’s moves toward regulating the dog meat industry have people on both sides of the issue foaming at the mouth.

Last week, the South Korean cabinet announced it would draw up rules prohibiting the brutal slaughter of dogs for food and push laws that set guidelines on hygienic processing and sale of dog meat.

The moves are seen in South Korea as an attempt to police an industry that while drawing international scorn is a tradition in many parts of Korean culture.

To legalize the dog meat trade, the law on livestock slaughtering should be revised to include dogs, the Korea Times quoted an unnamed senior government official as saying.

But last week’s decision is only intended at thoroughly controlling the hygiene standard of dog meat, which is considered as food in reality.

While South Korea has laws against several methods of killing dogs, it doesn’t outlaw dog meat sale or consumption.

Not everyone is happy about this:

The issue flared during the 2002 World Cup, when soccer’s international governing body called on South Korea to stop the practice.

Animal-rights groups reacted swiftly to the government’s move to regulate the trade.

Setting a hygiene standard on dog meat means nothing but legalizing the dog meat industry, the Korea Animal Protection Society stated in a news release.

We cannot believe the government is moving to legalize the dog-eating practice of some Koreans, which is not only harmful for national interests but also disgraceful and reproachable.

I don’t eat dog meat and probably never will but I think that eating dog meat here is something paticular to Korean culture just like eating beef is part of American culture. In some areas of the world such as India eating beef is frowned upon. In other areas eating pork is frowned upon. Other countries eat horses. There is a lot of differences in cuisine all across the world. So if Koreans want to eat dog they should not be prevented from doing so and those of us who do not eat dog meat should not judge Koreans negatively for doing so. It just something particular to their culture.

However, something we can judge them on is how they butcher the dogs. It is really inhumane to beat a dog to death just to get the adrenaline flowing into the meat before butchering. In the 2ID area of northern Kyongi province there are a lot of farms that butcher dogs and it is sickening to hear the dogs getting beat to death while in the field pulling night time guard duty. So if the Korean government wants to regulate something they should regulate the treatment of the dogs but should allow people to eat dog if they want to as long as the butchering process is humane. I however don’t expect much to change. I’m sure the next time I go to the field I will hear more yelping dogs.

Interesting read in this Asia Times article about the continuing clashes between President Roh of Korea and Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan.

Against all these recent favorable social and cultural exchanges by the peoples of the two countries, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun recently, on February 25 and March 1, repeatedly urged Tokyo to continue grappling with its past. On March 1, in his speech commemorating an uprising against Japanese colonial rule 86 years ago called the March 1 Independent Movement of 1919, he urged Japan to offer a heartfelt apology and settle its past history with Koreans – invasion, occupation, enslavement and forced labor, comfort women – by paying compensation if necessary in order for real reconciliation to take place.

Japan has offered its apologies and, in effect, compensation in the form of hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and grants. South Korea, however, has been planning a probe of collaborators with Japanese occupiers, a sore point with Japan and something that could embarrass some of South Korea’s top families who benefited during the occupation. The opposition wants to probe collaboration with North Korea.

Why is President Roh continuing his Japan bashing with so many positive social developments between the two countries?

While Roh is apparently trying to maintain buoyancy for his administration – his ratings have fallen significantly, far below the 70% in his prime just after his inauguration in February 2003 – by playing politics with the past, he also seems to have conveyed an unspoken warning to Tokyo, reflecting domestic public opinion: Many Koreans are alarmed by changes in Japan’s traditional pacifist military posture and growing right-wing bias in Japanese politics and society.

Could President Roh actually be using Korean nationalism to raise is low approval rating? Say it ain’t so. For Japan’s part they are not doing much to help themselves with the whole Dokto dispute. I still don’t get what Japan hopes to get out of the whole dispute. Korea will never give up those two islands. The Asia Times offers some other things Japan can do to improve relations:

For Japan’s part, it should reconsider postwar education policy in its modern history. Japanese education appears to have emphasized postwar Japan as a defeated nation, which suffered from aggression by great Western powers and which received two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war – not as aggressor and victimizer in Asia. Because of this reluctance to face up to the past, in the postwar period Japanese education and ordinary parents seem to have avoided teaching much about neighboring countries’ history and geography. Perhaps most high-school students cannot cite the name of five cities in South Korea now, although they can probably cite names of five cities of the US. (This, of course, is thanks to major-league baseball, Japanese baseball players Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners and the New York Yankees’ Hideki Matsui, among others.)

For Japan, to face up to its troubled past and reconcile with neighbors is also strategically important to establish regional diplomacy, especially when South Korea and China are vigorously opposed to Japan’s permanent membership on the United Nations Security Council.

Japanese education about past history is really as white washed as many Koreans claim. I remember going to the National Museum in Tokyo and seeing Korean artifacts on display. The displays would say certain artifacts were gifts from Korea but in reality they were stolen during the Hideyoshi invasion of Korea in 1592. They had no display about World War II in the national museum but I did find a display at a different museum that honored the Japanese Kamikazes. This display called World War II the Greater East Asia Co-properity War. The Japanese were just trying to free the Asian people from colonialist Europeans and Americans and that Americans were evil in dropping the two nuclear bombs on them.

Their view of history is definitely misguided but I see as much chance of them changing their approach to history as Korea ever giving up Dokto. So each country just needs to learn to live with the other because neither country is going to change to much to accomodate the other. But as long as there are politicians who need to raise their approval ratings both countries will continue to use nationalism to bash each other with.

If nationalism against the Japanese doesn’t work for Korean politicians, there is always low quality English teachers and GI’s to bash on too. These fits of nationalism seem to run in cycles. First it is GI’s, then low quality English teachers, and now they have moved on to the Japanese. I guess that means they will be coming after us GI’s again next. I better enjoy this quiet time while it lasts.

According to the Chosun, 10% of Koreans are married to a foreigner.

Some 10 percent of Koreans are married to foreigners. Often they are men who marry women from developing countries.
Korean men unwilling or unable to find spouses at home are increasingly turning to life partners not only from among ethnic Koreans in China but from Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and Cambodia and from Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Often there is a commercial element to these unions. Many such couples lead contented lives, but many other marriages fail due to racial discrimination and ill-treatment.

This can be particularly damaging to women from Third World countries, who already find themselves socially isolated because of language and culture barriers and have nowhere to turn to if they suffer violence from husbands or other family members. Those who escape to shelters run by private charities often bear scars that will take a lifetime to heal.

I find the stat that 10% of Koreans are married to foreigners to high. I can’t say that 10% of the Korean people I know, and I know a lot of them, are married to a foreigner. Here is something else I find unbelievable:

“Overall, I think the proportion of problem families to ordinary families is 7:3. But all cross-cultural families have problems,” said Min Myung-suk of Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, who has been married to a Filipina for nine years.

It is mostly the Korean husbands who are responsible for the failure of such marriages, according to experts. “Men are responsible 90 percent of the time. They should help their foreign wives to adapt to life in Korea,” but they do not, believes lawmaker Kim Chun-jin, a member of the National Assembly’s Social Affairs and Welfare Committee.

So basically this stat is telling me that 7 out of 10 families with a foreign spouse is having problems. That is disturbingly high and with such a high number of problems it makes me wonder why Koreans want to keep importing wives. There has got to be a better way for men here to meet women to marry. Difficult problem and I am not sure what the solution is.

Why would Korea issue this warning? in regards to islamic radicals establing aid stations.

“This group is here for humanitarian reasons,” said Indonesia’s chief detective, Lt. Gen. Suyitno Landung. “We should not be prejudiced against them. I’m worried the media is exaggerating the threat of this group.”

Against such a backdrop, the South Korean government issued a warning Thursday that it had “acquired intelligence that our relief groups in Indonesia and some other areas are becoming a possible target of terror attacks.”

A South Korean Foreign Ministry official told the AP on condition of anonymity that the statement was “not based on verifiable intelligence” and was a “precautionary warning.”

Any terrorist attack against a country providing relief supplies in the Tsunami affected areas would be totally idiotic. They could not win any popular support from the Indonesian people if they did it. They won’t do it because of these reasons. These Islamic terrorists are smart and well trained plus they are masters of propaganda and watch all the news channels. There is no way they can win anything by attacking American or Korean troops. Is Korea just looking for an excuse not to deploy the ROK Army there?

One of the urban legends any new GI in Korea hears about is that if you contract the “black syphyllis” you will not be allowed to leave Korea and will be put on a island. I always thought this urban legend was fiction but it appears there is actually a grain of truth to it.

Christmas on Sorokdo Island isn’t about standard holiday festivities where family members gather and lavish gifts on each other, and exchange visits with well-wishing neighbors and friends.

This tiny deer-shaped island off the southern tip of the peninsula has long been a sanctuary for people with a disease once considered taboo; Hansen’s disease or, as it is more widely known, leprosy.

What is really interesting about the island is that the residents cannot leave due to their illness but tourists are allowed on it.

The island was quarantined for decades, but parts of it opened to the public in 1986 to help show people from the outside world the illness is not a social taboo.

Entering the island now after a 10-minute ferry ride from the mainland is possible for regular tourists, who are permitted to venture a third of the way into the island’s hilly areas where Sohn and others like her live.

Sorokdo is full of deer of all colors which run freely in the hills. It is extraordinarily picturesque, with wide green expanses and many varieties of trees and flowers in a park in the center.