French President Francois Hollande (R) confers France’s highest decoration, the Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honor, on Hanjin Group Chairman Cho Yang-ho at a Seoul hotel on Nov. 4, 2015, in this photo released by the South Korean business group. (Yonhap)

It will be interesting to see if this statue does become an iconic symbol for Gangnam:

The signature horse-riding dance move by South Korean rap sensation Psy will be made into a landmark in front of a large shopping complex in southern Seoul, the local district office said Friday.

The sculpture will consist of two fists positioned in the wrist movement of the dance routine from the 2012 music video for the hit “Gangnam Style,” according to the Gangnam District Office. From above, it will look like two hands wrapping around the Earth.

The office plans to place the sculpture near the COEX shopping and exhibition center before the end of the year, aiming to build a landmark symbolic of the area, such as London’s Piccadilly Circus and Chicago’s Cloud Gate.

It will be designed by Hwang Man-seok, an artist belonging to the Visual Information Design Association of Korea.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

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

A ROK Drop favorite Dr. Andrei Lankov has an article published that explains why the middle class in North Korea will have a harder time transitioning to a unified Korean peninsula compared to their Eastern European counterparts:

In the last days of the communist system, people in most former-communist countries widely believed that the transition to democracy and collapse of the Leninist economy would in no time lead to material bounty, as well as the revival of the liberties once lost to communism.

This was the case at the end of the day – though not everywhere. And even where it was, the transition was far bumpier than the revolutionary enthusiasts had thought it would be. Many an Eastern European engineer, technician or accountant in the early 1990s suddenly discovered that their skills were hopelessly outdated and of little use in the new, emerging capitalist economy. In the former Soviet Union the transition was particularly harsh, and middle class enthusiasm quickly transitioned to disappointment and even desperation. In due time, it was a major reason behind Putin’s rise to power in Russia.

However, generally speaking, over the long run things turned out well for the Eastern European urban middle class, or at least a majority of them. After the first turbulent years, industry began to grow again, while engineers and technicians managed to update their skills, eventually learning how to fix and design modern equipment. Doctors, schoolteachers and functionaries also had time to acquire new skills and learn new rules. It helped that they had little internal competition: In any given country there was only one set of white-collar, skilled workforce; no significant group of outsiders could directly challenge their status. In a unified Korea, by contrast, things are liable to be rather different.  [NK News]

You can read the rest at the link, but this is why I have always believed that if the Kim regime was to collapse the South Koreans would be wise to prevent people from South of the border from buying property or taking up jobs in North Korea.  It is better that the North Koreans do things for themselves poorly than to have South Koreans move in and do things for them better.  This will over the long term create a culture of dependency and eventually resentment in North Korea.

The best people in the South to help North Koreans with the transition would be North Korean defectors.  That is also why I have believed that the ROK government should offer scholarships to defectors for skills that will be needed in a post-Kim regime North Korea.  In return for the free education the defectors would agree to return to North Korea to help re-train their fellow countrymen when the country is reunified.

https://twitter.com/CoolstuffKorea/status/662607871461466112

Parents of college aspirants gather to offer a Buddhist prayer in front of “Gatbawi” Buddhist statue (upper), or Stone Hat Buddha, on Mount Palgong in the southeastern city of Gyeongsan on Nov. 1, 2015, to wish for high scores on the state-administered annual scholastic aptitude test scheduled for Nov. 12. The crucial test is seen as a deciding factor in an applicant’s choice of college and subsequent career. (Yonhap)

This report from the American Psychological Association I take with a bit of skepticism just like I do all the other so called surveys done on military sexual assault.  Just like prior surveys this one also uses the vague term “Unwanted Sexual Contact”.  I have had women grab my butt in the bar before so does that make me a victim of sexual assault that was unreported?  There is a big different between rape and someone grabbing your butt in the bar, but these surveys tend to equate the two which inflates the number.  This survey is no different:

A study has found that up to 15 times more men in the military are being raped by other man than is being reported by the Pentagon.

The report, released by the American Psychological Association on Tuesday, is based on the responses of 180 anonymous combat veterans.

It says the under-reporting is largely due to the stigma associated with sexual assaults and is the reason that the true extent of male-on-male sexual crimes is so vastly underestimated.

The Washington Times reported that most recent Pentagon sexual assault report, conducted by The Rand Corp last year, found that around 12,000 men said they had been sexually assaulted.

The definition of sexual assault means they had been raped, experienced unwanted sexual contact or someone had attempted to commit those crimes.

Of that number, around a third – 3,850 reported rape or ‘penetrative’ assaults.

But the APA said: ‘Rates of military sexual trauma among men who served in the military may be as much as 15 times higher than has been previously reported, largely because of barriers associated with stigma, beliefs in myths about male rape and feelings of helplessness.’   [The Daily Mail via reader tip]

You can read the rest at the link.

I think the concentration of wealth that you see both in the ROK and the US has to do with crony capitalism where politicians are serving business interests more than the public at large:

The top 10 percent of South Koreans control 66 percent of the country’s wealth, with the inequality gap becoming more acute over time, a recent report showed.

According to the report by Kim Nak-nyeon, an economics professor at Seoul’s Dongguk University, Asia’s fourth-largest economy is encumbered by a sizable difference in wealth between the haves and have-nots.

While the rich monopolized wealth that includes both financial and property holdings, the lower 50 percent only accounted for 2 percent of the country’s assets.

The scholar, who based his findings on public data released by the National Tax Service from 2000 through 2013, said the size of wealth controlled by the top 10 percent started growing in the 2000-2007 period, before the global financial crisis, with the average wealth held totaling 624 million won (US$544,500).  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link.

A ROK Drop favorite NK News currently has 2016 calendars for sale just in time for the holidays.  The calendars feature high quality photographs of North Korea that people who have a deep interest in the country may find of interest:

For those interested in purchasing calendar please click here.

https://twitter.com/pearswick/status/661076461978124288