Category: Uncategorized

Tourism to the DMZ is growing in popularity:

Recently, the DMZ has taken on an added cachet as “gateway to the North,” reflecting a recent thaw in relations between the two sides.

South of the border, nearby rural villages and islands are eager to be included on DMZ tour itineraries.

Kudos to anyone who knows where this village is located. I have driven past quite a few times and it is amazing how much the village has expanded.

The development of tourism along the DMZ is very evident. During my recent visit to Imjimgak which is located near the DMZ, there is a carnival and a festival going on. Just go to the USO at Camp Casey and you can see all the new DMZ tour options available. Plus the name DMZ is becoming almost like a brand name. All kinds of shops selling souvenirs and clothing are sporting the DMZ logo now.

I have mixed feeling about this because the commercialization of the DMZ is causing people to not appreciate the seriousness of the threat facing South Korea. A carnival is not going to teach people about the 1 million North Korean soldiers deployed along the DMZ or the thousands of artillery pieces pointed at Seoul.

I even see it in American soldiers now, that they don’t appreciate the seriousness of the threat literally just down the road. I guess the North Korean threat is not as great a concern as human trafficking, prostitution, and traffic accidents.

(Hat Tip: Budaechigae II)

Oh My News has a a good article about 3D (dirty, dangerous, difficult) workers treatment in Korea and a reverend Kim Hae Sung who has opened a migrant workers hospital that treats all patients free of charge:

“Because of the jobs they do, the migrants are injured frequently and are open to danger,” said nurse Kim. “There are an estimated 400,000 immigrant workers, but more than half of them are here illegally, which means they cannot go to big hospitals as they are not covered by medical insurance and even if they are, the medical fees are so expensive that they can’t afford it.”

But after a year the hospital could not be any more successful. Although small in capacity, it has all the equipment as any other hospital and is busy all year round, with more than 5,000 patients being treated this year alone. The hospital offers every kind of treatment, from dentistry to gynecology, emergency operations and herbal medicine treatments.

The dispute the Camp Humphrey’s commander and the Anjong-ri club owners has finally come to an end:

Club owners outside Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek will fire bar workers who engage in prostitution as well as any of the “entertainment” agencies that provide female bar employees who might later take part in the sex traffic, the head of a local merchants group said Friday.

The merchants also will fire any worker selling alcohol to underage U.S. servicemembers, said Kim Ki-ho, merchants association president in Anjung-ri, the Pyeongtaek City district in which Camp Humphreys is located.

This dispute ended pretty much how they always do, the club owners vow to change their ways then wait a while and go back to the old ways after some time passes and there has been a personnel change over. They continue their old ways until someone calls them on it again. The bar owners face no legal consequences for human trafficking, prostitution, and selling alcohol to minors from the Korean law enforcement, so they will always continue to play this Off Limits game with the Army. The Army needs to police itself instead of relying on the clubs to do the policing for them.

The 9th Infantry Regiment’s Liscum Bowl is returning to Korea:

The 2nd Infantry Division’s greatest trophy, the Liscum Bowl, will return to South Korea after more than two years’ absence while it was restored in the United States.

Maj. Karl Ivey, 2nd ID spokesman, said last week that the silver punch bowl, which has been in America since 2003, would be back at the 2nd ID Museum at Camp Red Cloud by April.

The Liscum Bowl may quite possibly be the world’s most expensive punch bowl because it is valued at $2.5 million dollars. I hoped they are not sending it by US mail back here because it will assuredly get lost in the 2ID post office just like the DVD’s and magazines I order and never get.

The bowl does have some interesting history:

Lt. Col. Ryan Kuhn, the 2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment commander, said the bowl was named in honor of former 9th Infantry Regiment commander Col. Emerson H. Liscum, killed in action in Tientsin, China, on July 13, 1900.

According to the 9th Infantry Regiment’s Web site, the bowl is made from silver presented to the regiment by the Chinese prince Li Hung Chang in 1900 in appreciation for the unit’s actions at Tientsin to quell the Boxer Rebellion.

The 9th Infantry Regiment the Manchus has had long and interesting history. The regiment was first formed in 1799 and fought in the Civil War, battled Indians all along the Great Plains including fights against Gerinomo and Crazy Horse. The battalion also fought in the Spanish-American War including fighting for San Juan Hill and Santiago. The regiment then was moved to the Phillipines and then deployed in 1900 to China to quell the Boxer Rebellion and earning the Liscum Bowl and the name the Manchus. The regiment then joined the 2nd Infantry Division in France in 1917 to fight in World War I. The regiment also fought in Europe during World War II by landing on Omaha Beach during the D-Day landing operation and marching on through Germany.

In 1950 the regiment was once again put into action fighting the communist agressors during the Korean War. Then in 1966 the battalion was deployed to Vietnam where they remained for four and half years before going back state side. As part of the 7th Infantry Division the 9th Infantry Regiment than took part in Operation Just Cause in Panaman before rejoining the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea where it remains today.

Sounds like the Hollywood Bar in Itaewon isn’t so bad if you can get in that is:

And if you are coming to Korea next week and are wondering where to meet Korean women amenable to westerners “charms”…well that takes us full circle. Yes, Itaewon is the place to go. And for the English teachers that live in Seoul, Itaewon means only one place…Hollywoods.

Unlike the majority of other bars in the area, Hollywoods features a female clientele that aren’t working, in the strictest sense anyway. And this is the main reason that Hollywoods attracts as many women as it does men. Yes, every weekend hordes of goggle eyed expats stand around Hollywoods’ dance floor ogling the nymph-like Korean waifs that dance on seductively. The number of ageing western men that have beautiful young Koreans draped all over them is staggering, and a real indicator of why so many English teachers stay in Korea for years at a time. If you can’t get a girl in your local town, don’t worry! Come to Korea and find a beautiful Korean girl who will be with you simply because you are western, loaded, or both. While this might seem like an overly cynical attitude, one trip to Hollywoods on a Saturday night will turn you into a believer. There is a stigma about Asian girls in the west that has them penned as pliant, cooing submissives, frigid until marriage and even that is dependent on father’s blessing. Well, Hollywoods and Itaewon in general puts that myth to bed.

Anybody willing to confirm this?

(Hat Tip: Japundit)

What genius figured this out?

The most dangerous time for sexual assaults is from midnight to 4 a.m., with guest houses and public baths the most common locations. That conclusion is suggested by police data on sexual assault from 2001-2005 released to Grand National Party lawmaker Yoo Jeong-bok.

Even more shocking is that young women were the ones most targeted for sexual assaults.

I have always found Andrei Lankov’s writing very informative and insightful and his latest in the Korea Times about the North Korean black market is no different:

The North Korea of the 1960s or 1980s was not a society of complete equality. It had its rich and poor. But the affluent people were affluent either because the party-state bureaucracy chose them, such as government officials and a handful of the most prominent scholars and writers, as well as people who were allowed to work overseas and were paid in hard currency, or allowed them to be affluent. For example, this was the case with the repatriates from Japan. From the late 1980s, the situation changed. Some people began to make money not because they were paid and showered with privileges, but because they learned how to use market capitalism.

The markets began to grow explosively around 1990, and North Korean “black capitalism’’ was conceived around this time. The first really rich people began to appear, even though they had to hide their success both from the authorities and their fellow countrymen. And one had to use whatever advantages one had, as competition was tough. In the late 1990s, the North Koreans used to say “there are only three types of people in North Korea: those who starve, those who beg and those who trade.’’

The breakdown of the economy in North Korea also had the side effect of empowering women:

When economic disaster struck, this arrangement had unintended consequences. The men kept going to their factories and offices, even if their wages were becoming meaningless. They were afraid of the still formidable state machine, they wanted to keep the status traditionally associated with proper jobs and they also needed the rations _ as long as the rations were forthcoming. Women, especially housewives, were free to pursue completely different economic strategies. They took up market commerce with great enthusiasm and soon comprised a majority of North Korean vendors. This also meant that the women’s earnings became the major source of income in many Korean families.

This is an interesting article as always from Lankov worth checking out.

This is not very surprising, but Korean National Soccer Team Coach Joe Bonfrere has resigned his head coaching job:

Jo Bonfrere has stepped down as coach of the Korean national football team. The Korea Football Association (KFA) convened a technical committee meeting Tuesday and announced that Bonfrere had expressed his intention to resign. It said a new coach would be named next month at the earliest.

Bonfrere saw the writing on the wall and resigned before he got fired. I don’t really hold Bonfrere responsible for all the problems the national team is having because he is not the one missing all the open shots during the games; the players are. However, coaches always get fired before players so it will be interesting to see how this all works out with the World Cup only one year away.

Any chance you think that they may hire a Korean coach?

A highly sensitive military secret code has been leaked on the Internet:

Army investigators have started into a leak of secret military decryption codes on the Internet. A military source said Monday, a cryptographic code, a class-three military secret, was discovered on an Internet website. “We are tracking the leak and checking the accuracy of the document.”

Cryptographic codes are used to decipher encoded messages, and authorities are checking if the leaked code is currently in use by the military. If it is shared across the board, the armed forces would have to change the way they encrypt confidential communication.

The code was leaked on the Internet by using a picture of a document that contained an actual Army lieutenants name on the document with the code. Somebody is going to get in deep crap over this I’m sure. With UFL going on and so many new people on TDY here in Korea and the vast numbers of ROK Army soldiers on all the US camps, it will be extra difficult to trace who leaked the code.

In honor of Operation: Paul Bunyan I have decided to start a series called, Then and Now, to highlight the rapid changes and development of the Korean peninsula. Look for more Then and Now in the future.

The Bridge of No Return Following Operation: Paul Bunyan:

You can see the left over stump from the tree cutting in this picture

The Bridge of No Return Today:

At the bottom of this picture you can see the plaque commemorating Operation: Paul Bunyan