Pyongyang Receives Key Japan Officials Before Report Release http://t.co/dfAf17X3KD

— The Diplomat (@Diplomat_APAC) September 9, 2014

The Korea Herald has an editorial published that attempts to explain racism in Korea:

“We apologize, but due to Ebola virus we are not accepting Africans at the moment.”

This is what a bar in Itaewon, a popular area for expats and tourists in Seoul, publicly posted in front of its property last month.

The statement triggered thousands of angry comments online, both from expats and locals ― especially after the public learned of reports that the bar admitted a white person from South Africa, while banning almost all dark-skinned individuals, regardless of their nationalities.

The incident is likely to get attention from Mutuma Ruteere, the U.N. special rapporteur on racism. Ruteere is scheduled to visit Seoul later this month to monitor the situation of racial discrimination and xenophobia in Korea and will file a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council next year.

The incident is one of the growing number of racism cases in the country ― Asia’s fourth-biggest economy, a key manufacturing powerhouse in the region, as well as the producer of hallyu.

While the nation’s immigrant population continues to rise, Korean racism ― both structural and internalized ― is becoming a growing concern to the international community.

Complex nature of racism in Korea

Korean racism, however, must be understood differently from its Western cousin, experts say.

It is a complex product of the country’s colonial history, postwar American influence and military presence, rapid economic development as well as patriotism that takes a special pride in its “ethnic homogeneity,” according to professor Kim Hyun-mee from Yonsei University.  [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link, but first of all I find it interesting with everything else going on in the world that the UN is going to send someone to investigate racism in Korea and actually issue a human rights report?  Korea definitely has some racism issues, but it has definitely improved over the years as Korea has become more globalized.  If this UN investigator wants to see really bad racism then he should head north of the border to North Korea.

Secondly in my opinion much of the remaining racism in Korea has to do with ignorance and perpetuating stereotypes than true hatred of someone of another race.  Really true hatred of someone of another race is mostly limited to the Japanese, if they can even be considered another race.  But maybe I am wrong and I look forward to other opinions on racism in Korea.

I have been dubious of the whole ALS ice bucket challenge and this is why:

On Friday morning, the ALS Association announced that donations related to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge had surpassed $100 million in only a month. To put that number into  perspective, that is a 3,500 percent increase from the $2.8 million that the ALS Association raised during the same time period last year. More than 3 million people have donated, the association says.

From a marketing standpoint, the ice bucket challenge is pure genius. The marketing campaign has eclipsed everything else in the charitable fundraising industry, according to experts. It’s fun to do, fun to watch and easy to nominate someone else to participate.

But critics are now saying only a fraction of the money raised is actually going toward ALS research.

According to charitable watchdog groups like the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), over 73 percent of all donations raised are going to fundraising, overhead, executive salaries, and external donations. The ECFA won’t deem a nonprofit as a reliable charity unless at least 80 percent of donations make it to their intended projects.

Other charitable watchdogs are citing a pie chart on the ALS Association’s own website that breaks down how it spends the money it receives. According to the chart, 28 percent is spent on research.   [The MIssourian]

The ice bucket challenge has been so pervasive that as the above picture shows it has even been done in North Korea. By the way for those who are interested in giving to a charity I highly recommend the Fisher House Foundation which Charity Navigator has listed as putting 94.7% of their donations towards their programs.  You can go to just about any major military base and see the impact of a Fisher House.

For US military members in Korea with dependents be advised that the Courageous Channel exercise is coming up:

Military family members and a number of civilian employees in South Korea soon will take part in the annual Courageous Channel evacuation drill, essentially a dress rehearsal in case of war or natural disaster on the Korean peninsula.

The noncombatant evacuation exercise, frequently called NEO, will be from Sept. 15-Oct. 5 at various installations on the peninsula, U.S. Forces Korea announced Tuesday.

During the exercise, participants will undergo a walkthrough of a potential evacuation that will include NEO binder checks, briefings and practicing assembly and registration procedures at on-post NEO centers. All Department of Defense-affiliated noncombatants with a date eligible for return from overseas of Nov. 1, 2014 or later, including nonemergency essential U.S. government employees, are required to participate. [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

'Horrendous'; Japan's GDP growth revised to -7.1% in wake of sales tax increase http://t.co/dpANFqRkvy

— TwitchyTeam (@TwitchyTeam) September 8, 2014

I wonder which US military installation we will see closed first, Futenma in Japan or Yongsan Garrison in Seoul?

Japan will make every effort to achieve the “earliest possible” relocation of the Futenma base to the proposed site further north on the island of Okinawa, new Defense Minister Akinori Eto said Monday.

“We have to avoid keeping the (U.S. Marine Corps) Air Station Futenma in the center of Ginowan, which is densely packed with houses and schools,” Eto, 58, said in a group interview at the Defense Ministry. “Though we are fully aware of the various opinions among the local public, the only solution to avoid continuous use of the Futenma air station is its relocation to (the shores of) Camp Schwab” in the city of Nago.

Eto stressed that the ministry will be tenacious in explaining the significance and benefits of the relocation to Okinawa’s residents.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

If this is true than I do not see how the Air Force is going to win on this issue:

An atheist airman at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada was denied reenlistment last month for refusing to take an oath containing “so help me God,” the American Humanist Association said Thursday.

And in a Sept. 2 letter to the inspectors general for the Air Force and Creech, Monica Miller, an attorney with the AHA’s Apignani Humanist Legal Center, said the airman should be allowed to reenlist without having to swear to a deity, and instead given a secular oath. Miller said the AHA is prepared to sue if the airman is not allowed to reenlist.  [Air Force Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but the Air Force is blaming Congress for the wording of the enlistment.

Compared to the comfort women the women who used to work as prostitutes outside of US military bases definitely do not receive the same level of social support:

More than 70 aging women live in a squalid neighborhood between the rear gate of the U.S. Army garrison here and half a dozen seedy nightclubs. Near the front gate, glossy illustrations posted in real-estate offices show the dream homes that may one day replace their one-room shacks.

They once worked as prostitutes for American soldiers in this “camptown” near Camp Humphreys, and they’ve stayed because they have nowhere else to go. Now, the women are being forced out of the Anjeong-ri neighborhood by developers and landlords eager to build on prime real estate around the soon-to-be-expanded garrison.

“My landlord wants me to leave, but my legs hurt, I can’t walk, and South Korean real estate is too expensive,” says Cho Myung-ja, 75, a former prostitute who receives monthly court eviction notices at her home, which she has rarely left over the last five years because of leg pain.

“I feel like I’m suffocating,” she says.

Plagued by disease, poverty and stigma, the women have little to no support from the public or the government.

Their fate contrasts greatly with a group of Korean women forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops during World War II. Those so-called “comfort women” receive government assistance under a special law, and large crowds demanding that Japan compensate and apologize to the women attend weekly rallies outside the Japanese Embassy.

While the camptown women get social welfare, there’s no similar law for special funds to help them, according to two Pyeongtaek city officials who refused to be named because of office rules. Many people in South Korea don’t even know about the camptown women.  [Star & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but what few people realize is that many of these former prostitutes were sold to pimps by their families and forced to become prostitutes.  Other were abandoned children or orphans that were taken in by the pimps to become prostitutes.  Could it be that the same thing was going on in regards to the World War II comfort women and thus the collective amnesia in regards to the former camptown prostitutes?