North Korea Zone provided a great link to a Times of London article about the slow demise of the Kim Jong Il regime. Here are some of the interesting points from the article if you haven’t heard about these incidents before:

Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s ambitious brother-in-law, was purged from party office after he tried to build up a military faction to put his own son in power. Mystery surrounds the fate of Vice-Marshal Jo Myong-rok, the soldier once sent as Kim’s emissary to meet Bill Clinton in the White House.

In a telltale measure, frontier guards ordered us to leave all mobile phones at the Chinese border post — rumour has it that the Ryongchon blast was triggered by a mobile phone.

I will have to mark February 16th on my calendar to see if Kim shows himself. It was also interesting to read about the Christian underground:

Word has spread like wildfire of the Christian underground that helps fugitives to reach South Korea. People who lived in silent fear now dare to speak about escape. The regime has almost given up trying to stop them going, although it can savagely punish those caught and sent back.

“They know there is a Christian network to put them in contact with the underground, to break into embassies in Beijing or to get into Vietnam. They know, but you have to pay a lot of money to middlemen who have the Christian contacts.”

Makes me wonder what contacts this Christian underground has with Evangelical Republicans? I wonder if this is coordinated at any political level? If so, who would of thought missionaries would be the ultimate answer to ending North Korea? What I found really enlightening was how Kim Jong Il was really betting on a John Kerry victory in the Presidential election:

Bush’s re-election dealt a blow to Kim, 62, who had gambled on a win by John Kerry, the Democratic candidate. Kim used a strategy of divide and delay to drag out nuclear talks with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea through 2004.

Kim lost his bet and now faces four more years of Bush, who says that he “loathes” the North Korean leader and has vowed to strip him of atomic weapons.

And the Democrats wonder why they lost the last election. In this day an age a perception of weaknesses is not something voters really like. However, make sure you read the complete article. It continues to look like this is going to be an interesting year for North Korea watchers.

Gail Kim a Korean-Canadian wrestler was recently in Seoul competing in a wrestling event here at the Olympic Stadium complex. While in Korea she took some time out to talk to Ahn, Jung-hyun on the Arirang TV talk show, Heart to Heart. Yes, I know Heart to Heart is the lamest talk show ever but they do occasionally have interesting guests such as Gail Kim.

It was an insightful interview for those who are fans of Gail Kim. She is the daughter of Korean immigrants and is from Toronto, Canada. She actually got into the wrestling profession by attending a women’s wrestling college in Ontario. I didn’t even know there was wrestling colleges but I guess there are. She even said that Korea has a women’s wrestling college. After attending the college she worked her way up through the different wrestling conferences until she finally got her big shot in 2003 by being invited to fight in her first WWE match. She won that match against the defending champion and was crowned the WWE women’s wrestling champion.

She also commented that she believed Japanese female wrestlers were more athletic while the US women wrestler are becoming more and more concerned about looks rather than ability. No big suprise there in today’s day and age. She made sure to point out that she is no sex object but an athlete. Fortunately she has the looks going for her so she does not have to worry about unemployment because of that.

When asked if wrestling is fake she just commented that it is physically real and commented no further about it. This was also her first time back to Korea in 16 years. I found that a little surprising for someone with family and cultural ties with Korea. Plus she said she still speaks Korean with her parents.

She was surprised to learn that she was, before her wrestling match in Korea, the most searched name by Korean internet users.

Finally what many of you may be wondering is if she has a boyfriend. The answer is no because she says she travels to much. So for you interested in Gail Kim it is never to late to join a wrestling school, get accepted to the WWE, and get body slammed by 300 pound monsters to impress Gail Kim. I think it would be easier to just find a Korean woman here in Korea granted she would not have breast implants.

It appears that 2ID is about to wage a war on smokers according to Warrior News.

CAMP RED CLOUD — Army officials announced Monday the formation of a special task force to eliminate the use of tobacco products on Uijeongbu Enclave installations.

Osan Air Base recently adopted a similar policy; however the garrison’s move is a first for U.S. Army installations on the peninsula.

All hell is going to break lose if smoking is outlawed on Army installations. There are just so many people that smoke in the Army. Imagine all these people going cold turkey all the sudden. I will be stuck with pissed off people with the shakes all day now instead of irritated people who miss their families and want to go home.

I don’t smoke or use any tobacco products and really think it is a bad habit just like alcohol. However, I believe soldiers should have the right to smoke which is a legal activity just like alcohol. My biggest gripe with smokers are the cigarrette butts they leave lieing around and how some people sham out of work by taking smoke breaks all the time. Division should create a policy that addresses those two problems instead of just banning smoking all together.

If the army is able to ban tobacco what is to stop the army from banning alcohol? They are both health risks, correct? Does anyone from Osan AFB know what the policy down there is for smokers? People will long forget about the curfew controversy if this becomes reality. Once again, only in 2ID. You gotta love it.

All over Korea you see Hof bars (I would use Hangul but my blog software won’t support it) that serve a variety of mainly Korean beers. I always thought the Korean word Hof was just another Korean word for beer along with maek-ju.

However, I learned something interesting today that the word Hof is actually the Koreanized version of the English word, Hope. During the Korean War many American soldiers while drinking beer at local establishments would toast before drinking with the word, Hope. The soldiers used the toast because they hoped the war would end and they could soon go home.

However, the Koreans that heard the toast of Hope, thought this was the English word for beer and the bar owners used this English word to name some of their drinking establishments after. From there the word just continued to spread to where today you have Hof bars all over Korea.

The Oranckay had a link to an interesting article in the St. Petersburg Times about the ROK Army’s deployment to Iraq.

Korea has just 3,600 soldiers in Iraq compared to 150,000 from the United States. Though they are based in the Kurdish-controlled north – by far the safest part of Iraq – the Koreans spend most of their time in an isolated, massively fortified compound.

The soldiers, some locals joke, are part of the “Coalition of the Sort of Willing.” Undaunted, the South Koreans point with pride to what they have accomplished since they began work here in November:

It is to bad the soldiers are confined to their compound. The Kurdish north is the most scenic area of Iraq and the people are extremely nice and welcoming. The ROK Army is doing what it can to assist the Kurds in the area.

A mobile clinic and base hospital that treat residents of nearby villages as well as those from Irbil, the Kurdish capital; an advanced training program for Kurdish doctors and nurses; a vocational school, still under construction, that will offer classes in computers, electronics and auto repair.

“They are very polite and good,” says Ako Abbas Nader, who has served as a translator for the past month. “They are working for us, and we will work for them.”

South Korea also has contributed an undisclosed sum for local road-paving projects. The work is done by Iraqi companies but supervised by Korean engineers.

The Koreans say they are contributing to the economy by hiring scores of Kurds as drivers, translators and the like. But in a region where no one speaks Korean, soldiers and locals use a complicated system to communicate. Typically, a Kurdish interpreter translates from Kurdish into English, and a Korean interpreter then translates from English into Korean.

It’s to bad that the US media is providing more information about the ROK Army’s deployment than the Korean media. Koreans should be proud of the contribution they are making to democracy in the region. However, they cannot show much pride if they don’t know what is going on with their own soldiers there.

Andrei Lankov North Korea Zone has written another interesting article, but this time it is for the Korea Times. This article is about the development of the Korean bus industry throughout the last century. What I found the most interesting about the article is this excerpt:

Initially the city-owned bus company had 10 vehicles. These were Japanese-made, each seating 12 passengers and painted black. The crew consisted of a driver and a female conductor. The idea of a female conductor was a novelty. It was believed that they were introduced in order to lure passengers from the competing tram company. Only good-looking girls needed apply.

The trick obviously worked: there were stories about students who fell for a bus girl and spent huge amounts of money on tickets just to ride and have an opportunity to look at her. The bus company presumably did not mind such fee-paying romances.

Isn’t interesting that even decades ago the Koreans used Show Girls to sell something? For those not familar with Korea, businesses here often use young, scantily clad, dancing girls to sell products out in the streets and also inside the stores. I’m sure the women long ago on these buses weren’t scantily clad, but it is interesting to see how this practice evolved over the years.

Saturday morning opened up with a needed snow storm. In the 2ID area we have had snow flurries so far this year but nothing significant. This weekend’s storm actually left about 3-4 inches of snow on the ground.

Once it stopped snowing my wife and I decided to hike up a nearby mountain. It seemed everyone else had the same idea because as soon as we stepped out of our apartment everyone else was heading for the mountain too.

Something I found interesting hiking up the mountain was seeing the impact the Korean drama Winter Sonata has had on the public. I saw a few couples reinacting scenes from the well known drama such as walking in each other footprints or trying to balance themselves on a log. You would have to see the drama to understand what I’m talking about.

On one slope of the mountain there was a really nice park where you could see older Koreans doing breathing and stretching exercises while the children were having a big snow ball fight with their parents while others played on the swings. All in all a really nice day to be in Korea.

The theme the past year in Japan has been “Pure Love” or Jun-al in Japanese. According to the Japan Times this crazes was started by the hit Korean drama Winter Sonata.

2004 was the year of jun-ai (pure love), epitomized by the huge popularity of Yon-sama (the reverential nickname for Bae Yong Joon, star of the hit Korean drama “Winter Sonata”) and a craze for sentimental love stories that gripped the nation from Hokkaido to the Okinawa.
So what exactly is a jun-ai relationship? Well, it should be platonic or, at most, include just one sexual encounter. A jun-ai couple should also be faced by many obstacles contrived to keep them apart and pining for a romantic reunion. Jun-ai quotient also rises if it’s a hatsukoi (first love) situation — a pair who fell in love when they were 15 and somehow managed to keep those nascent emotions intact in spite of the passage of time.

The Japanese set great store on the hatsukoi thing, being convinced that the purest love comes when one has never loved before. For this reason hatsukoi is considered sacrosanct, a treasure that will never be tarnished with petty problems that inevitably plague a relationship between seasoned lovers.

What I found the most interesting about this article was how Japanese men and women view each other.

What a lot of women say, however, is that the young men of this country are too thick to understand this need for emotional drama. Twenty nine-year-old Minako says resignedly: “Kono kuni no otokowa fukami ga nakute nijigenteki sugiru” (The men in this country have no depth and are too two-dimensional).

Men are also bound by tradition: For a long time, any Japanese male who spewed forth about kojinteki kanjyou (personal feelings) was considered a big-time wimp and a loser. However, recognizing society’s need for men to hone their verbal skills, many companies now encourage their male employees to participate in company-sponsored communications classes. Whether this new trend will transform them all into Japanified versions of “Yon-sama” remains to be seen.

Sounds like Japan needs to import the metrosexual lifestyle.

This Japan Times article about relationships between Japanese women and westerners is quite interesting given the fact that Japan has actually published manuals about meeting foreign men.

Some of the magazines have taken the subject a step further and include real how-to manyuaru (manuals) with such titles as: “Gaijin Daalin wo Getto Suru Killaa Item (Killer Items That Will Get a Gaijin Darling)” and “Gaijin to no Renai wo Kekkon ni Musubitsukeruniwa (How to Convert a Gaijin Love Affair into Marriage).” Most of these instruct women to combine the traditional yamatonadeshiko (stereotypically demure Japanese woman) with gendaiteki tsuyosa (modern-day strength). For example, a gaijin hunter should carry a hand-ironed handkerchief at all times, but she should also be able to voice her opinion on current affairs, preferably in English. (Oddly, there’s no mention that in order to do so, she should subscribe to this paper).

I particularly like the stereotype given to western men in Japan:

In any case, the manuals seem to be working since statistics show that the number of marriages between Japanese women and foreign men has doubled (8,158 couples in 2003) over the past 20 years. For many women, foreign men represent everything naisu (nice) that Japanese just can’t (or won’t) provide. Top on everyone’s list is the conviction that foreign men are sweeter and more romantic, that they will keep saying “I love you” well into middle age. And if the daalin is from the U.S. or Europe, he will of course, smilingly share the burden of kaji (household chores) and ikuji (child-raising) and be home by 8 p.m. — at the latest. Chances are the daalin will take her back to his home country to live in luxury, and most importantly, their children will have the coveted daburu kokuseki (double nationalities). There it is, the scenario of the ultimate kachigumi (winning team).

Even Korean men have a favorable stereotype:

Interestingly, Japanese women choose Korean men over any other nationality, followed by American. Experts say the Yonsama Ninki (Bae Yong Joon popularity) may have something to do with this. But according to my girlfriends, they’ve always suspected that Kankoku no otoko wa jyounetsuteki de ichizu (Korean men are passionate and faithful), much more so than the cold, distant, absent Japanese male.

Why would someone even need a manual on meeting western men to begin with? Most single western men are probably trying to meet Japanese women anyway. I wonder if Korea has any manuals on meeting western men like the English Spectrum guys had for Korean women? I wonder if that would make the same amount of headlines? It would be interesting anyway to see Korean women’s point of view on meeting western men.

Here is a only in 2ID story for you. Last night a drunk Korean man made threats to some soldiers about a suicide bombing in the ville. The MP’s then proceeded to clear out the ville of all GI’s. Ajushi may be on to something here. If you want to clear a club of GI’s just announce a suicide bombing is going to happen and instantly you got all the girls in the club to yourself. Not a bad move.

Possibly the MPs are being a little to jumpy about this. What are the odds of ajushi going “mujahadeen” on American soldiers? It must be some what credible because the MP’s took action. If it was at least someone of middle eastern dissent that made the threat, I would give it more credence.

The Army is to jumpy about force protection issues here in Korea. Korea is an extremely safe country and I feel much more safe here then I ever did at lets say Ft. Hood for example. Yet we did not have warnings about Killeen “mujahadeen” trying to kill us, midnight curfews, and a expansive list of off limits areas.

All these force protection announcements portray to soldiers a negative image of Korea as being an unsafe country and indirectly causes possible stereotyping and suspicion of Koreans and other foreign nationals that live in Korea. Korea is a safe place to serve and interact with the people. You can travel any where in Korea safely and as long as you treat Korean nationals with respect the vast majority of them will treat you with the same respect. This is the image of Korea we should promote, not suspicion. I just think Army officials should use more prudence before going overboard with all the force protection advisories.

However, if you are out in the “ville” tonight beware of the TDC “mujahadeen.”