According to the Korea Times visitors to the Dokto Islands have been damaging the ecosystem there.

“After making the Dokdo islets more accessible, some visitors have damaged the environment by violating a few rules. It is deplorable,’’ said Yoo Hong-joon, head of the administration, in a statement released to the media.

The number of visitors has increased since the government lifted restrictions on access to the islands in March in a move to reaffirm sovereignty over the tiny islets. The change in policy came after Japan’s claim to them.

“We must make an effort to protect the Dokdo islets,’’ Yoo said.

He asked visitors not to use musical instruments or microphones, which can affect the birds on the island. They are also asked not to stray from the designated routes or take soil and stones from of the rocky islands.

Why don’t they use these same rules at all the wilderness parks in the country? It’s deplorable the amount of trash left by hikers and picnickers and the amount of noise pollution at the different parks in Korea. Did anyone expect the masses to behave any diffently on Dokto?

Here is a well written editorial in the Korea Times that makes many good points. Here is a sample:

The past years have seen surges in anti-Americanism, which was initially sparked by an accidental death of schoolgirls being struck by a U.S. military vehicle. Even though the USFK readily expressed “heartfelt condolences’’ and then formally apologized, Koreans flooded downtown to denounce America which has saved a lot more innocent Koreans than they have accidentally killed. Surprisingly, the Korean press has glossed over the accidental death of an Iraqi after being struck by a bullet from a Korean military rifle. The Korean public dismisses this as being “an accident,’’ but was it not also “an accident,’’ which occurred on the Korean road a few years ago?

Interesting comparison of incidents. I’m still waiting to see what the truth of that incident really is. Here is the point I like best:

In addition, U.S. soldiers stationed here have paid a human emotional cost by being away from their loved ones. If people feel Americans do not pay enough for their bases or other costs, these same people should take a sobering stroll around the War Memorial and as they see the names of the multitude of dead U.S. and U.N. soldiers they should remember that freedom is not free. All of this is to protect Korea from a crazed regime in North Korea.

Many Koreans don’t realize how hard it is for US soldiers to come here for a year and leave their wife and kids back in the US. It is a big emotional sacrifice for soldiers to leave their families especially in this day and age when you may have just come off of an Iraq deployment, just to come to Korea for another year away from your family. This causes untold amounts of marrital problems and divorce. Then having people protest you even though you left your family to come here to help protect the peninsula is really frustrating for many soldiers. Read the rest of the article on your own. Interesting reading.

A place I always visit every time I go to Incheon is the beautiful Jayu Park. The park is built on a hill in central Incheon near the train station over looking Chinatown and provides a great view of the Incheon harbor.  This park has a long and colorful history. The park was the first built in 1888 by western immigrants mainly Chinese, Russians, and Americans, and was named Manguk Park (park of many countries) and is credited with being the first western style park in Korea.

The park’s name changed to Jayu Park (Freedom Park) after the Korean War and a large statue of American General Douglas MacArthur was constructed at the summit of the park. The MacArthur statue is widely considered Incheon’s most famous tourist site.

However, recently the statue has been a point of some contention in Korea.

Civic groups in Incheon have complained that local police are wasting manpower in guarding a statue of General Douglas MacArthur, who successfully led the amphibious counter-attack by U.S.-led UN troops here during the Korean War.

Since 2002, Incheon police have been guarding the statue in the city’s Freedom Park for fear of vandalism. Anti-U.S. demonstrations took place in the the park in 2002 and 2003, according to the police.

Three officers have been detailed to guard the statue around the clock. No actual damage has been reported.

Civic groups in Incheon want the statue to be moved to another location so police will not waste time and energy on the mission.

Conservatives in Incheon disagreed. Incheon should feel proud having the statue here, said Han Il-tae, 75.

I don’t think the people in Incheon will ever move that statue. Generally people seem pretty happy to have it there because every time I have been to the park it has been filled with people hanging out, having a good time, and taking pictures of the statue.

Also located inside of Jayu Park is the Centennial Monument that commemorates the Amity and Trade Treaty signed between Korea and the U.S. on May 22, 1882. The monument was built one hundred years later in 1982. America actually has the longest continuous friendly relations with Korea since 1882. Longer than any other country.

Another thing I like about the park is that there always seems to be something going on there. Recently the park had their annual Cherry Blossom Festival. The festival included many traditional Korean music groups, plays, Turkish belly dancers (yeah I thought that was a weird thing to for a cherry blossom festival), a North Korean dance troupe, and a fire works display.

If in Incheon definitely stop by and check out this park and appreciate the great views from the summit. From the park you can see the bustling Incheon harbor right below you, in the distance you can see the bridge running across the bay to the new Incheon International Airport, Wolmi-do Island, and other scattered islands out in the Incheon Bay. Last but not least make sure you visit and pay your respects at the Big Mac statue; if it is still there that is.

The Oranckay first reported about the MBC interview with SGT Mark Walker who was driving the tracked vehicle in June 2002 that accidentally ran over and killed two young Korean girls. The Stars and Stripes has picked up on the story now:

Former Army Sgt. Mark Walker is still haunted by the day three years ago when the U.S. military vehicle he was driving killed two South Korean girls on a country road in Uijongbu, according to a news segment that aired in South Korea late Friday night.

“I know there was nothing I could have done to stop it,” he said during an interview at a McDonald’s in the Atlanta area in April. “I have flashbacks every day.”

Walker granted the interview in April with producers from “W,” a South Korean news magazine that airs each Friday night on the network MBC. He told the network he lost 50 pounds during the subsequent trial and that he sleeps four hours a night, if he’s lucky.

Kim Hyun-Chul, an MBC producer and director, said he wanted the 20-minute news story to explore the American perspective of the controversial and traumatic accident. Kim and his colleagues went to the States last month and spent 10 days trying to find Walker.

They used Web searches on America Online, inquiries to the U.S. military and even random phone calls to dozens of people named Mark Walker in Atlanta before finding the right one, the segment showed. When they finally interviewed him, he agreed to a microphone but not an up-close camera shot.

Here is Walker’s and the Army’s version of what happened:

On June 13, 2002, Walker was driving a 60-ton tracked bridge carrier along Highway 56 in the northern part of the country as part of a convoy. According to court-martial testimony, Walker didn’t see the two 13-year-old girls as the vehicle went up a hill and rounded a curve. After his commander spotted the girls, Walker tried to brake, but the vehicle’s momentum carried them forward and they crushed the girls, according to U.S. military officials’ accounts of the accident.

This would seem to be a tragic accident but the internet rumor mill in Korea destroyed any search for the truth of this accident. The power of the internet is definitely displayed by this case. Many rational thinking Korean people believe Walker ran the girls over on purpose and the Army is covering it up and Walker should be rotting in a Korean prison.

I have had KATUSAs tell me they think the guy ran the girls over on purpose and then backed up on them again to make sure they were dead. Then the rumors about him celebrating after the accident and then joking about it once he got back to camp and caused a fight with a KATUSA. Many of these rational thinking people will tell you there is video of these incidents on the internet to prove their claims, though when asked to produce them no one can. Because they only exist in the collective minds of the people that pass these rumors to bash the US military for their own seperate reasons.

The MBC interview of course made sure to take the mandatory cheap shot at the US military:

The segment, which aired during South Korean prime time just before midnight Friday night, also addressed some of the failings U.S. troops have had in other foreign countries, including scenes from prison abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

What Abu Graib has to do with something that happened in 2002 is beyond me, especially considering the soldiers (I think shitbags is a more appropriate term) involved in that incident are in jail now or at least still standing trial. What happened in Abu Graib it could be argued is the same thing that happens in ROK Army basic training. I don’t think the shitbags at Abu Graib made the terrorists eat feces like the ROK Army does. I would rather be on a dog leash then be forced to eat human feces out of the toilet. So will the Korea media include in every story about the ROK Army the human feces scandal? I think not, but it is a fair comparison.

President Bush came out firing at Kim Jong Il. Courtesy of the Chosun:

U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday called North Korea’s Kim Jong-il a “dangerous man,” a person who “starves his people” and runs “huge concentration camps.” He said, “There is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon. We don’t know if he can or not, but I think it’s best, when you’re dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong-il, to assume he can.”

Unless you are Michael Moore, you have to agree with President Bush on all accounts here. Now the question is; why is the President coming out so strong against Kim Jong Il? Is the time for quiet diplomacy over and the US government is ready to raise the stakes? This may end up being interesing times to be stationed on the Korean peninsula. Can’t wait to see what happens.

In today’s Korea Times there was yet another complaint about ROK Army forces falling under the command of the USFK commander General Laporte:

The recent series of frictions in the bilateral military alliance is attributable to Korea’s outgrowth from the basic framework half a century old. Nothing tells the imbalance between the two nations more symbolically than that the 700,000-strong Korean Army should follow the command of the 37,000 U.S. troops if war eventuates. The geopolitics surrounding this peninsula will always limit its self-defense capability, but that should hardly be the reason for the extremely disproportionate relationship with foreigners. Korea needs _ and deserves _ some maneuvering space.

First of all USFK only has 32,500 soldiers right now. Secondly General Laporte would only command the ROK Army in case of a full scale war with North Korea. He has no control of the ROK Army during peace time. Then to infer that General Laporte only commands 32,500 soldiers is misleading. There will be thousands of reinforcements from the US plus all the Naval and US Air Force assets that would be involved in a second Korean War. The vast majority of combined arms power (ie: MLRS, bombers, stealth bombers, cruise missiles, submarines, etc.) is provided by the US which a US general is trained to unleash on the enemy. A ROK Army general has no experience with the sophisticated weaponry the US can bring to bear on an enemy thus the need for an American commander during war time.

Just across the street from the Incheon train station is Korea’s only Chinatown. This Chinatown does not compare to Chinatowns in cities like San Francisco, New York, or Vancouver, but it is still interesting place to spend an afternoon visiting for those who live here in Korea.

The Chinatown in Incheon was officially established in 1884 in an agreement between the Korean King and the Chinese Qing Dynasty emperor in the Seonlin-dong hillside in Incheon to create a free trade zone for Chinese merchants. Incheon was chosen as the site for this free trade zone due to the port city’s proximity to the Korean capitol of Seoul. This hill side sits on prime real estate in central Incheon located between the Incheon train station and Jayu Park.

Before the Korean War the Chinese community in Incheon and Korea in general flourished. In 1942 Korea had 80,000 registered Chinese immigrants. After the Korean War the nation wide distrust of the Chinese due to their invasion of Korea during the war plus the post war policies of then South Korean President Park Chung Hee forbidding the Chinese to own businesses and moving them out of Seoul to help Korean business owners, led to a mass reduction in the amount of Chinese people living in Korea. Currently the public’s attitude toward the Chinese has improved but there is still only 30,000 registered Chinese residents in Korea and only 500 of them live in Chinatown. Even today racism may be alive and well against the Chinese who do live in Chinatown according to this Korea Herald piece that includes an interview of a Chinatown family.

Although the days of the Chinese not being allowed to own businesses are over, racial discrimination is still a reality, some Korean-born Chinese say.

“The reason why there is no Chinatown here is because Koreans don’t like foreigners,” says Irene Chu, 32, the Korean-born Chinese owner of Chinese Fusion Restaurant in Incheon. “They don’t even like Chinese people working for them. The Koreans are very protective (of their culture).”

As Chu gets up to take an order, her 60-year-old grandfather breathes a long sigh and pipes in.

“They mistreated us, looked down upon us and saw us as foreigners. I am Chinese. I don’t consider myself Korean. Things have improved now, but what does it matter anymore? I’m an old man,” says the grandfather, who came to Korea when he was 5.

In fact when was in Chinatown I saw very few Chinese at all. Many of the street vendors were all Koreans selling Chinese junk. I went to a large, newer looking Chinese restaurant to eat. I asked the waitress dressed in a traditional Chinese dress if the people in the restaurant were Chinese because they all looked like Koreans to me. She told me that the only Chinese that worked in the restaurant were the cooks that prepared the meals. Everyone else was Korean.

The last time I went to Chinatown was four years ago before the current development of the area and then I actually met more Chinese people then I did now. The area has been greatly developed since then and that has probably brought in more Korean businesses to cash in on the increased tourism.

The development of the area has caused Chinatown to look much nicer but it all seems kind of fake after a while because all the decorations are not authenic, like many of the people, and are just cheap plastic displays. If this artist’s rendition of the new Chinatown to be built in Ilsan is any indication of things to come, Korea will soon have the equivalent of a Chinese theme park filled with more cheap plastic decorations and wannabe Chinese people than Incheon’s Chinatown could ever possibly have.

Never the less Chinatown is still a great place to spend some time checking out. Grab a bite to eat at one of the local restaurants before heading up to Jayu Park. The food is one of the few authentic Chinese experiences you can have in Chinatown. For 20,000 won I stuffed myself with a huge meal that included sweet and sour pork, fish, clams, oysters, etc. Even with its quirks Chinatown should be part of any travel itinerary for those spending time in Incheon. It gets a GI thumbs up.

The union that represents USFK workers is threatening to go on strike if USFK continues its plan to cut 1,000 Korean civilian jobs in response to the 9% drop in funds the Korean government is willing to provide to the USFK.

USFK has said the shortfall could mean cutting up to 1,000 jobs among South Korean workers at U.S. bases. During a news conference in early April, USFK chief of staff Lt. Gen. Charles C. Campbell said, “We will be required to make tough but necessary decisions in the areas of force capabilities; pre-positioned equipment and stocks; personnel and services; construction; and command-and-control equipment currently provided to ROK military forces.”

I just can’t imagine all the Korean civilians I work with daily and share common friendships with standing outside our front gate chanting slogans and rioting. Talking to my Korean civilian friends they really do not want to strike because they feel that is really going to upset the goodwill and friendship they share with the American soldiers but if your lively hood is getting terminated what else are you supposed to do? I will feel really horrible if this strike happens. I really hope it doesn’t come to that.

The Japundit has a good post about this article in the International Herald Tribune.

The article focuses on a historians attempt to recognize Kim Il Sung in the resistance movement against the Japanese colonization.

Kang Man Gil, a renowned historian appointed as head of a prestigious government committee preparing for the 60th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, was asked a question by a reporter last week and he said what few historians dispute. When his reply was reported, however, many South Koreans called for Kang’s dismissal.

“It’s a historical fact,” Kang said, adding that “Kim’s anti-Japanese struggle should be considered part of the nation’s independence movement.”

So maybe the Japanese are not the only ones white washing past history?

The controversy over Kang’s comment illustrates how divided South Koreans are, as the government of President Roh Moo Hyun tries to re-examine the nation’s modern history.

It also reminds South Koreans that, a decade after his death, the Communist leader’s specter is still haunting them.
Here are some funny propaganda “facts” put out by the communists up North.

The personality cult in North Korea surrounding “Great Leader” Kim and his son, the current leader, Kim Jong Il, rests on the senior Kim’s mythical role as an anti-Japanese resistance hero.

The nation even invented a new calendar, counting the world’s history from Kim’s birthday, April 15, 1912. North Korea once called that the 20th century’s “most turbulent day,” the day when the “Sun of the East” rose and when the British passenger ship Titanic, symbol of “swashbuckling Western imperialism,” sank. In the world according to North Korea, this is the year 94.

Read the rest of the article on your own because it is good reading but it just goes to show every country has skeltons in its closet in regards to history. The fact the Kim Il Sung was an active resistance fighter is definitely a piece of history Korea wants to keep quiet about.

The wife of a sailor killed in the 2002 West Sea Naval Battle with North Korean warships has reportedly left the country.

Kim Jong-seon, the widow of Petty Officer Han Sang-guk, who was killed in a June 2002 naval battle with North Korea in the West Sea, turned her back on her homeland Sunday and boarded a flight bound for the United States. Before getting on her flight, she said, “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?”

In the battle on June 29, 2002 — one day prior to the closing ceremony of the Korea-Japan World Cup — six sailors were killed and 18 wounded when a North Korean patrol boat that had crossed over the northern line of control ambushed a South Korean naval vessel. The bereaved have spent the last three years in an atmosphere where it was difficult to even grieve. Nervous government officials, worrying that the incident might cast a pall over the Sunshine Policy, even warned the families to please be quiet.

I posted on the neglect the families of this tragedy have received last summer. The point of my post last summer was how hippocritical things here in Korea are when USFK is still having protests about the two girls killed in an accident in June 2002 which everybody up the chain of command including President Bush apologized for and we the military have made huge improvements to further improve safety and reduced total convoy movements to prevent another accident in a country where thousands continue to die from domestic traffic accidents anyway while in the same month a few days later the North Koreans diliberately kill six South Korean sailors in an ambush to draw media attention away from the World Cup finale the next day and nobody cares. Where are the candle light vigils, demands for apologies, demands for compensation, and calls for a more equal relationship? Obviously the North Koreans are getting the better end of this relationship and the families of the victims are getting a cold shoulder from their own government.

Here’s a quote from an article last summer that really really stood out to 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.”

Frankly I can’t blame her for wanting to leave Korea after the treatment the families have received.