The headline for the article states that 55% of Korean men link sexual assault with women’s behavior.  This is sure to get some people upset who believe nothing a woman does should cause them to be a victim of sexual assault:

More than half of South Korean men believe that sexual violence can diminish if women are more cautious about their conduct, a government survey showed Monday, revealing that society’s stigma towards sexual assault victims remains high.

In a sexual violence survey by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family on 7,200 adults aged 16 to 64 conducted from September to December last year, 55 percent of men answered “sexual violence can be reduced if women are careful.” The same response among women stood at 42 percent.

Among men, 54.5 percent thought “excessively revealing fashion” was a cause of sexual violence, while 56.9 percent believed that if a woman is raped while taking a ride offered by a stranger, they themselves are partly responsible as well.

Also, 42.5 percent of male respondents believed that if a woman goes to a man’s home after their first encounter, she is consenting to sex, while 8.7 percent even replied that some women “enjoy being raped.”

Meanwhile, 30.7 percent of women believed that “men cannot control themselves when they are sexually aroused,” while 22 percent of men agreed with the response.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

More Chinese retaliation for the deployment of a THAAD battery to South Korea:

China has blocked access to newly updated clips of South Korean music and dramas on the country’s online video sharing platforms, sources said Sunday, in an apparent bid to retaliate against Seoul’s move to deploy an advanced U.S. missile defense system.

The move followed China’s decision to prevent South Korean pop stars from appearing on Chinese entertainment programs since October as South Korea decided in July last year to station the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system on its soil.

A website uploading South Korean dramas said on its social media account on Weibo that it will stop updating video clips of South Korean entertainment programs for the time being.

“Everybody should be aware of the reason for this,” it said, hinting at China’s toughened restriction on Korean pop culture, widely known as “hallyu.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

A few of my pieces on daily life in North Korea made it into an e-book by NK News. Download and read for free at: https://t.co/KSA1FI61et

— Andrei Lankov (@andreilankov) February 24, 2017

Liberal and conservative groups host two separate rallies — one calling for President Park Geun-hye’s resignation and the other against Park’s impeachment — in central Seoul on Feb. 25, 2017, as she marked the fourth anniversary of her presidency. Park was impeached in December over a massive corruption scandal centered on her close friend Choi Soon-sil. The Constitutional Court is expected to determine whether to approve the impeachment or not next month. (Yonhap)

So many people think of Kim Jong-un as a crazy madman, however I consider him to be a rational, but ruthless leader.  The things he does may seem crazy, but they tend to always have the purpose of maintaining his regime’s survival.  Understanding that Kim Jong-un is a rational actor instead of a crazy madman is basically what this Joong Ang Ilbo op-ed is stating:

That the younger Kim is ruthless is unquestionable. But he is not necessarily crazy. If he had an uncontrollable violent temper, his father would not have groomed him to succeed him. His economic policy alone shows him to be practical to an extent. It may be naïve to blame an instable temperament for his acts of brutality and to assume that they underscore the vulnerability of the North Korean state. Such a simple interpretation could distort our North Korean policy.

Tyranny could be his choice. It is certainly his inheritance. Kim Jong-un may be naturally ruthless, or strategically so. It could be a means to maintain power. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin resorted to an infamous reign of terror. Under his command, 5 percent of the Soviet population was killed. He ordered the execution of 700,000 from 1937 to 1938. Such sheer brutality reveal him to be a hideous madman. But such terror was also necessary to build his authority and transform the Soviet Union into a global superpower. Studies of confidential documents by Stalin paint him as a reasonable dictator.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read much more at the link.

Kim does not want to be the next Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi, dictators that were eventually executed by their own people.  Kim’s inheritance is a mafia state which his father Kim Jong-il understood that only someone willing to be ruthless could run.  That is why his oldest son Kim Jong-nam was passed over because he was simply too nice to run a mafia state.  Kim Jong-un on the other hand was clearly the correct choice because he has shown he is willing to take whatever measures are necessary to ensure the regime’s survival.  So Kim Jong-un is not crazy, he just ruthless.

I saw this question posted on to Reddit and figure I would comment on it:

I’m wondering why the foreigners who re-sign year after year until they’re past the 5+ years in Korea mark and don’t learn Korean stay in Korea? If you, after more than five years in a country you are choosing to live in, can’t have a conversation in Korean, isn’t that racist/Eurocentric? What reason would you have for not bothering to learn your host country’s language? The Bangladeshi worked in the factory has learned it, why haven’t you?

I get the “I thought I’d just be here for a year but then I re-signed,” I really do, but after five, six, seven years you’re a long-termer.  [Reddit]

I don’t think it is racist to not become proficient in Korean.  From the US military perspective I knew servicemembers who had many years of service in Korea and could not speak Korean.  A lot of it has to do with working in an English work environment plus Korea is so English friendly as well especially around US military bases that knowing Korean is not mandatory.  Getting fluent in Korean takes a lot of time and work that most people don’t have.  However, many folks who have served many years in Korea do know enough Korean to get around and communicate simple things.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

Seoul's 'High Line' to Open in May https://t.co/THrtzvB6dz pic.twitter.com/Vt7AnsA3ta

— The Chosun Ilbo (@EnglishChosun) February 23, 2017

Members of conservative groups take part in a rally in areas around Seoul City Hall on Feb. 25, 2017, the fourth anniversary of President Park Geun-hye’s inauguration, to urge the Constitutional Court to dismiss the impeachment. Park was impeached in December over a massive corruption scandal centered on her close friend Choi Soon-sil. The court is expected to determine whether to approve the impeachment or not next month. (Yonhap)

It looks like the ROK military like the US military has taken a very strong stance against prostitution:

Three Korea Military Academy (KMA) cadets were expelled a day before their graduation for allegedly visiting prostitutes, the elite school said on Friday.

“We received intelligence regarding their illegal activity on Monday and it was proven grounded through an internal investigation,” a KMA official said.

The official said the three visited a “massage parlor” in Gangnam, an entertainment district in southern Seoul, on Feb. 4. “One of the cadets admitted having sex there, while the others claim they didn’t, arguing they paid money but didn’t (have sex) out of a sense of guilt,” the official said.

A separate police investigation is under way, the official said.

The KMA had it 73rd commencement on Friday with 248 graduates who will be commissioned as Army second lieutenants. The highest distinction, summa cum laude, went to female cadet Lee Eun-ae.   [Korea Times]