Category: Uncategorized

This from Mark’s blog wouldn’t be so funny if it wasn’t so true.

10. Hey, I think I saw your name on global.
9.  Yeah, I’m thinking about teaching English here when I get out.
8.  Don’t worry, my latest HIV test came out negative.
7.  Didn’t we go to CAS3 together?
6.  So what is your branch?
5.  Baby, let’s split this joint and roll in my Daewoo!
4.  So, baby, who’s your commander?
3.  Yeah, I just did AIP (Another International Player/Playette).
2.  Don’t worry about curfew, I live off post.
1.  I’m here on TDY (Temporarily Divorced for a Year)!

The Katolic Shinja has an interesting report that during Bush’s G8 speech he mentioned Korea as an example for Africa:

I just caught a bit of President Bush’s G8 speech. Lauding trade, not aid, as the solution to Africa’s woes, he noted that just 30 years ago, South Korea was as poor as many Sub-Saharan African nations, but that after pursuing an export-driven economy, South Korea is now as rich as many European countries.

To an extent poorer countries can model themselves after Korea, but Korea did have a few advantages to help their economy become what it is today. First and foremost is that Korea has a homogeneous society that does not have the tribal/ethnic/religous turmoil you see in many poor African countries. Korea does have some internal rivalries such as between Gyeongsam and Cholla provinces but nothing that would even come close to the open warfare that is prevalent in many African countries.

Another advantage Korea had was that US troops stationed in Korea provided a nice economic boost initially by providing jobs and a market for Korean goods. Plus the US troops provided a security guarantee to international investors looking at investing in Korea and taking advantage of its cheap labor. Do you think that anyone would have invested in Korea initially if US troops were not stationed here? If US troops were stationed in an African country I bet international investors would be more willing to invest in that African country knowing that the US military is providing a security guarantee of their investment. Do you think anyone would be willing to invest currently in Iraq if US troops were to pull out tomorrow?

Also Korea was given open access to the US market for their exports and received many contracts from the US government during the Vietnam War that really jumped started the Korean Economy in the late 60’s. Would African countries be given the same access to the US market to sell their goods? Plus Korea has two other huge exports markets right next door, Japan and China to sell their goods to.

It was in America’s interest to have Korea succeed during the Cold War. So Korea was given preferential treatment by the US. This added with Korea’s homogeneous society, cheap labor, a extremely hard working work ethic, plus leadership, despite his faults, from then dictator Park Chung Hee set the conditions that allowed Korea to become the nation they are today.

African countries will find it extremely difficult to match Korea’s success by trying to use the same formula Korea used to build their economy. Lessons can definitely be learned from Korea’s economic success but it is not the 100% solution to solving poverty in Africa.

I think ending the AIDS epidemic should be of the up most priority in Africa before economic development. No country will ever have a strong economy if their youth are dieing off and leaving the next generation as orphans. Would Korea have ever created their economic development if 15% of their population was dieing from AIDS 50 years ago? That along with internal tribal/religious/ethnic turmoil are the problems that many African countries are facing.

I have to give thanks to Far East Cynic for pointing out this sign:

This sign is from a bar in Shanghai, China. With the alleged crackdown on prostitution in Korea maybe signs like this can keep the prostitutes out of the clubs here too.

The Japanese have agreed to a request from North Korea through South Korea to return a stone monument taken from Korea in 1905.

South Korea has asked Japan to give back a stone monument taken from the Korean Peninsula a century ago, an official said Wednesday.

The 2-meter- (6.5-foot- ) high stone monument was built in 1707 in what is now North Korea’s northeastern Kilju county to commemorate a Korean victory in a battle against Japan.

This reminds me of the time I went to the National Museum in Tokyo and the museum had artifacts from Korea that were designated as “gifts” from the Korean kingdom but I looked at the date of the Korean “gifts” and they were from 1592-1598 time period which so happened to be the same time line as the Hideoyoshi invasion of the peninsula where many artistic works were plundered from Korea.

It makes me wonder if this statue is also designated as another such Korean “gift”?

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.