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The first sign of summer time in Korea is not what you normally would think would be a sign of the summer season. In Korea summer time officially begins when national warnings of imminent fan death are broadcasted around the country.

Cathartidae has the latest in the fan death phenomenom that seems strangely limited to happening only in Korea.

For all the latest information on the fan death killer that continues to ravage the population of Korea every summer more than GI driving accidents, check out fandeath.net. As the website says, you never know you may be next.

How many countries in the world do their citizens complain about having too much free time?

On Friday, it will have been one year since the five-day workweek became law for all state-run companies, all financial institutions and all private businesses with more than 1,000 employees. On the same day, the five-day week will go into effect for companies with more than 300 workers.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism recently surveyed 864 adults whose employers switched over to the five-day workweek a year ago. Of those surveyed, 57 percent said they were dissatisfied with the additional free time. Only 5 percent said they were “very satisfied” with it.

Here are some of the reasons Koreans are unhappy about all this free time:

A 40-year-old employee at a brokerage firm in Yeouido, Seoul, who asked to be identified only as Mr. Lim, said he rejoiced when he heard about the new system. But “after driving out to the country every weekend, there was nowhere else to go,” Mr. Lim said.

Sounds like Mr. Lim isn’t trying very hard to find something to do because Korea is anything but boring. There is always something going on here.

Many people complained about the financial burden placed on them by the extra leisure spending. Kim Kang-joon, a 39 year-old office worker, was skating along the Han River with his family last weekend. “I spent 400,000 won ($395) on the inline skates, and we’ve been to several water parks in the metropolitan area,” Mr. Kim said.

Sounds like Mr. Kim needs to take up cheaper hobbies. How about basketball instead of inline skating? Or how about hiking in the numerous parks where the tickets are extremely cheap?

“Since the five-day workweek, I have no strength left to think of anything else but making up for lost sleep, because I have to go to the office earlier than before and I am overloaded with work,” said an employee at Daewoo Securities who asked for anonymity.

Sounds like he needs to learn how to work more efficiently and take shorter lunch breaks to improve efficiency during the work day.

Here’s another shocker:

The survey by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism found that 83.1percent of those surveyed said their spending on leisure had gone up; 16.3 percent said it was the same as it was before the five-day workweek system was adopted.

Imagine that, leisure spending rising because people have more time off. Absolutely shocking news.

I have a recommendation for all these people being burned about by all this leisure time. Take up a hobby or how about spending time at home with your family if you are married.

Some of the Korean civilians I work with tell me the main reason Korean workers dislike the 40 hour work week is because they are making less money because they are working less hours. Not because they have to much leisure time. The truth of the matter probably lies somewhere in the middle.

The flights to and from Korea for USFK soldiers stationed on peninsula will end and be replaced by commercial flights from Incheon. This is great news because flying out of Incheon is a lot nicer than flying out of Osan. Apparently the flights that run twice a week out of Osan are much more expensive than regular commercial flights from Incheon.

But in a cost-cutting move, the Defense Department will by 2008 phase out Patriot Express service to all but five locations: Guantanamo Bay, Diego Garcia, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Incirlik, Turkey. It may use the Patriot Express to airlift troops into other locations when it needs to, Dutcher said.

“It’s financial,” said Dutcher. “Cost saving to the Department of Defense. Now the Department of Defense is losing approximately $67 million per year over what it would cost to fly by a commercial aircraft.”

I hope they let Singapore Airlines fly me home when it comes time for me to leave.

Do any of you English teachers out there get paid this well?

The prison, near Camp Stanley, houses 1,600 South Korean prisoners serving sentences of fewer than five years for less serious offenses. However, most of Smith’s 30 students are serving longer sentences for more serious crimes. They are brought to the prison to attend her classes and kept separate from the other inmates, according to prison officer Kim Gwang Jo.

Smith, who makes about $30 an hour tutoring the inmates and said she never went near a prison before coming to South Korea about a year ago, doesn’t think there is danger in spending time with the violent offenders.

That is some pretty good money to be made teaching prisoners. Apparently the prisoners are really well behaved also:

“I’d be more hesitant to do it in the States. In an American prison the inmates hoot and holler and scream. The South Korean inmates don’t act like criminals. They act like gentlemen. They never say anything that would be rude to me in English. I don’t see them as criminals and I never ask them what their crimes are,” she said.

Maybe some of you English teachers out there need to start looking at the prisons for work. Good pay and well behaved students even though some of them are murderers. It has got to beat teaching a bunch of bratty kids.

The Uijongbu prison sits adjacent to Camp Stanley. You can often hear the prisoners singing cadence in the prison from inside of Camp Stanley. Plus you get a really old school feeling to see prisoners in chain gangs working out in the adjacent rice paddies all day with guards with shotguns guarding them. That has to stink literally.

This is definitely one of those, Only in Korea, stories:

South Korea’s baseball authorities have banned a star pitcher from wearing frozen cabbage leaves in his cap to keep cool during games.

The Korean Baseball Association met in special session after cabbage leaves twice fell from Park Myung-Hwan’s cap live on television.

Apparently Park got the idea because Babe Ruth used to do the same thing. However, Park is not Babe Ruth and Korean baseball has decided to end his cabbage wearing days with one exception:

After two hours, the committee ruled that cabbage was a “foreign substance” and therefore banned from the field.

Players may now only wear cabbage by presenting a doctor’s note in advance.

So how in the heck do you go about getting a prescription to wear cabbage?

Jeff in Busan and the Japundit have more on the cabbage scandal that has rocked the Korean baseball league. Yes I’m being sarcastic.

Now Korea and Japan are fighting over a nuclear fusion reactor to be built by either Japan or the European Union. Japan is bidding to build the reactor in Japan but the Japanese government has worked out a deal with the European Union to drop their bid and let France build it if they are given economic incentives:

In earlier negotiations Japan and the EU agreed on a number of measures that included giving the conceding country positions amounting to 20 percent of the 200 researchers needed for the project, Kyodo said.

The deal also called for the building of related research facilities in the country that gave up its bid, Kyodo said.

However, Korea and China do not like this idea:

Kyodo said China and South Korea have expressed reservations about an agreement reached between Japan and the European Union, which is backing France, that would provide a number of incentives to the side that gives up its bid.

ITER — also Latin for “the way” — is backed by the United States, the European Union, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. It aims to mimic the way the sun produces energy, potentially providing an inexhaustible source of low-cost energy using seawater as fuel.

The problem the Koreans have is that Japan is getting preferential treatment even though they will be paying the same amount of money as South Korea for the project. I can understand Korea’s position but Korea could of made a bid themselves to build the reactor but didn’t. Japan did make a bid and is getting incentives from the EU for possibly cancelling its bid. Now would Korea and China be critical of incentives given to the EU if Japan were to win the bid? Probably not. That is why there arguement seems hollow.

Two adults and a child have defected from North Korea to South Korean authorities patrolling the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea:

Three North Koreans, all believed to be family members, crossed the western maritime border by boat to defect to South Korea on Sunday, the military said.

The North Koreans said they left from a small North Korean port called Gumipo at dawn on Saturday to escape poverty, the military said.

I’m beginning to wonder if this is a building trend?

Friday is the third anniversary of the West Sea Naval battle. For those that don’t remember the battle let me recap it for you.

In June of 2002, one day before the closing ceremony of the World Cup the North Koreans tried to draw attention from all the glory South Korea had been receiving from their amazing World Cup performance by prevoking a naval battle in the West Sea. The North Koreans planned for and executed a premeditated ambush of a South Korean patrol boat. In the ensueing clash six sailors were killed and 18 more were wounded.

Not that this tragedy was bad enough but the government did everything possible to keep the grieving families quiet because they didn’t want to upset the Sunshine Policy. So while the government did everything possible to incite protests over the US Army accident that killed two school girls that began the Xenophobic Hatefest of 2002, they in turn did nothing to address the premeditated murder of six sailors by the North Koreans.

The government even told the families to be quiet about the incident and sent no flag officers to attend a memorial ceremony or even offer any condolescences. USFK however did send representatives to the ceremony and USFK Commander General LaPorte offered the families his condolescences.

One wife of a deceased sailor was so fed up with Korea, that she left Korea for good and went to the United States. This is what she said before boarding the plane:

“If the indifference and inhospitality shown to those soldiers who were killed or wounded protecting the nation continue, what soldier will lay down his life in the battlefield?”

Here’s a quote from one of the fathers of one of the murdered sailors that really struck a cord with me:

The father said, “My son is buried in the National Cemetery. But I’m going to take my son’s remains to my family burial site in my hometown.” Having watched the situation develop, he thought his son who was killed by North Korean soldiers was considered nothing more than a criminal.

Some parents said that they are more scared of people who consider the U.S. a bigger enemy than North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who killed their son. We lose courage to defend the country, when we hear that a wife whose husband fell in the battle is preparing to leave this country. Reading a condolence letter from the USFK commander to mark the second anniversary, the wife said, “The Americans remember my husband and his brothers-in-arms better than Koreans… Frankly, I hate Korea.”

What has Korea learned from this incident? Really nothing because if this same thing were to happen again the Korean government would again do nothing. They would probably just increase the rice shipments to North Korea. Is it any wonder North Korea is always so provactive when they know they can get away with it?

The driver of the US Army vehicle that hit and fatally injured an elderly Korean woman is to be charged with accidental homicide by the Korean police. How a traffic accident can be defined as homicide is beyond me. Would a Korean driver be charge with homicide? Anyway what is especially strange about this is that the family has already forgiven the US soldier and does not want to press any charges:

“We hate to see the driver suffer or go through life difficulties through this accident,” he said. “Even though he was warned by the co-driver twice to be careful, the noise prevented him from hearing the warnings. We do not believe he did it on purpose. He was a young soldier, far from home and defending South Korea. The last thing we want is for the driver to be punished.”

These charges are more than likely just a show to appease the protestors and I would not expect to much to come from it. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if some kind of military legal action was taken.

Also, more details are emerging about some of the specifics of the accident:

Lee said the victim’s sister-in-law, Shun In-ja, said she jaywalked across the road in between vehicles stopped at the stoplight in front of her store. As she began cleaning the sidewalk, she heard Kim being run over. Lee said it appeared that Kim was following Shun across the street when she was struck.

It is quite obvious that the victim was negligent by jaywalking across the road especially in between cars at a traffic light. However, this is not uncommon in Korea and anyone driving a vehicle in Korea needs to be especially concious of this and be on the lookout for any threats from wayward pedestrians. It is not right but that is just the reality here in Korea. The soldiers involved in the accident will more than likely receive some kind of punishment through the military for not being vigilant enough in their duties to avoid hitting the pedestrian.

The United States Forces Japan (USFJ) has implemented a new dress code to enhance the appearance of US military personnel in Japan. This new dress code is identical to the dress code in effect for all Second Infantry Division soldiers in Korea. All 2ID soldiers are required to carry a small book called the Warrior Standard Book in their right cargo pocket that describes all 2ID policies including pictures of improper dress clothing. Soldiers like to joke that in the field the book is great substitute for not having a Maxum magazine handy because you can check out the skimpyly dressed women in the Warrior Standard instead.

Here is the slideshow that depicts the new USFJ dress code. These dress codes are very unpopular with soldiers but I tend to agree with them because some soldiers dress like absolute slobs as evident by these pictures:

Why some people feel like they got to show their underwear to everyone is beyond me. However, some of the things prohibited I really don’t find to offensive:

The above clothing is not something you uncommonly see here in Korea or Japan by the civilian population. Just take a look at the people out on a weekend in Kangnam in Seoul or go to Roppongi in Tokyo. So if soldiers are to dress like this I don’t see why the surrounding population would be offended by it?

A dress code is definitely needed but maybe it can be fine tuned to accomodate the soldiers and still give a positive image to the surrounding population.