Koreans are by far the biggest educational spenders in the world according to the Korea Times.

South Korea topped the list of household educational spending to total consumption expenditure among the 30 OECD countries, with a ratio of 5.8 percent in 2003.

“Contrary to heavier spending on educational and medical purposes, Koreans are reducing their expenses on public service fees, including transportation fares,” the BOK official said.

This is no surprise with the amount of money Koreans spend to send students to private academies (hagwons) in the evenings and weekends to learn bad English.

My post last week about if North Korea really cheated in regards to its nucear weapons program which was based on an article in Foreign Affairs magazine by Selig Harrison who believes the US may be manipulating or misreading intelligence about the North’s nuclear program in order to create a crisis on the peninsula so the US can continue to control North Korean policy instead of South Korea or Japan.

I don’t agree with everything Mr. Harrison says and Charles Tustison at Korea Watch offers his own rebuttal of the Foreign Affairs article.

Fisking this article is a challenge because there is so much that is inaccurate or misleading. This is not the fault of Mr. Harrison. He is an expert on what is taught and reported about north Korea. However, much of what is reported and taught is based on an inaccurate views pushed by the Korean right and left. These are the views that caused the Clinton administration to underestimate north Korea’s staying power, the views that put south Korean President Kim Dae Jung and later US Secretary of State Albright in meetings with Kim Jong Il under the mistaken impression that he was unable to speak, mentally deficient, or even “delusional.” It is this set of views that caused the Bush administration to offer north Korea’s military aid for removing Kim Jong Il, when it is Kim Jong Il holding north Korea’s military back.

Read rest of the article here, it is an interesting read.

I went to the COEX Mall yesterday with my wife to do some shopping and to check out the aquarium there. Like many things in Korea the experience at the COEX was hampered by the enormous crowds.

Just to get in the aquarium you have to wait in a long line. This was familar theme all day at the COEX. By the end of the day we felt like we were at Six Flags instead of a shopping mall with all the line waiting we had to endure.

At the aquarium you have to push your way through the crowds just to see any fish. People just seem to stand in place forever gawking at fish with no regards for people behind them wanting to see them too. So I had to use my basketball skills and box out for position. I have never seen so many people excited and jockeying for position to see guppies before.

I really wanted to see the sharks that were being advertised all over the COEX. During the tour I saw plastic sharks, balloon sharks, paper sharks, video sharks, and lego sharks. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever see any real sharks. I didn’t see any real sharks until the very end of the tour and had to fight through the crowd to see them. The sharks were pretty cool especially the hammer head shark but I was so tired and claustrophobic by then I just wanted to get out of that aquarium.

The final area you experience at the aquarium is the tunnel that runs through the aquarium that makes you feel like you are walking through the ocean which was pretty cool. In the tunnel they had a moving sidewalk to stop the crowds from congregating in one area. They needed this sidewalk for the entire aquarium to stop the free for all shoving and bumping you need to do to see the other fish in the aquarium.

Overall, the aquarium has a good variety of fish, is interesting to see, and is English friendly. However, the admission fee is a little expensive at 14,800 won compared to other tour spots in Seoul. It is probably much more pleasant to visit the aquarium on a weekday instead of a weekend like I did. I have lived in Korea quite a while and I expect big crowds on the weekends but I am still not comfortable moving through them. But that is life in a city with the population density of Seoul.

Outside the aquarium there was a pretty cool store that sold a wide variety of puzzles. I noticed puzzles of city sky lines of New York, London, Paris, etc. I went and asked the lady at the store if she had any puzzles of the skyline of Seoul. She looked at me with a look of, “Why would anyone want to buy a puzzle of the sky line of Seoul?”, before replying that the store had no such puzzle. This I found surprising since they even had a puzzle picturing Tokyo. I then asked her what puzzles she had of Korea. Of all the puzzles in the entire store the only one they had related to Korea was one lone puzzle that featured a classical Korean painting that I decided to buy. Of all the beautiful sights in Korea you would think they would have puzzles picturing these places.

We did some more shopping and looking around the COEX. The place is just such a massive complex with a huge amount of stores. A definite place for foreigners to check out is the huge bookstore at the COEX. I have never seen a bookstore that big before, plus it features many books in English.

Walking through the labryinth of stores can really wear you out. So we decided to go watch National Treasure at the movie theater at the COEX, so we can sit down and relax. However, we had to do some more standing before we could sit down. The line to get tickets was extremely long and we were apprehensive about standing in another line, but we decided to anyway. Surprisingly the line moved fairly quickly considering how long it was. We were able to buy our tickets after standing in line for only 30 minutes.

The movie was actually pretty good, though it got a little corny after a while with all the secret artifacts and hidden passages the treasure hunters had to find using American history and documents as clues to find the final hidden treasure.

When the movie ended, a couple of college aged girls asked my wife if they could have our ticket stubs because their history teacher said he would give them extra credit in their US History class if they watched the movie, but they had misplaced their ticket stubs. We gave them our stubs but I just hope they don’t take the fictionalized US history in the movie as being real. However, if their history teacher told them to go see the movie, they probably will take it as gospel.

After the movie we tried to get something to eat at the many popular western style restaurants like Bennigans, Uno’s, Outback, etc. they have at the COEX. Coming from 2ID eating in one of these restaraunts is a real treat. However, the wait to get into every one of these restaurants was over an hour. With the midnight curfew we didn’t want to take the chance of not having enough time make it back up to 2ID land. If you are late for curfew for any reason you receive a field grade article 15 which is severe punishment. It doesn’t matter if your bus broke down or the taxi driver got lost, you still get in trouble. So you have to budget extra time for unforeseen things that can happen.

I wouldn’t want to be out past curfew and kidnapped by all the terrorists roaming the Korean streets looking for American soldiers between the hours of midnight to 5:00 AM. Couldn’t the terrorist just kidnap me before midnight? Well, people smarter than me make these decisions, so we decided to get some Burger King instead and head back up to 2ID land before the terrorists come out. Obviously I avoided any terrorist ambushes and safely made it back to 2ID land with an hour and a half to spare. I guess the Army is right about the terrorists not coming out before midnight after all.

I don’t see this one happening but who knows. The Chosun Ilbo is reporting that Kim Jong Il and President Roh Moo-hyun have been invited to Moscow to attend the 60 year end of World War II memorial.

Both President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il have been invited to attend a celebration marking the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory in World War II to be held in Moscow on May 9.

Will Kim Jong-il attend? During gathering such as these, North Korea has usually sent its nominal head of state, President Kim Yong-nam of the Supreme People’s Assembly Presidium, or simply failed to attend. Korea Institute for National Unification researcher Chon Hyun-joon said that because Kim Jong-il has never attended an international event attended by foreign heads of state, the possibility that he might attend the upcoming one in Moscow was currently low. He said, however, that because Kim has broken with expectations before, it was premature to completely rule out his attendance. A Cheong Wa Dae official said all measures were being considered, including ones based on the presumption of Kim’s attendance.

I don’t think Kim Jong Il will attend this gathering because he likes to portray the image of the crazy mad man and man of mystery. Rubbing elbowes with world leaders does not help that persona. Could you imagine if him and President Bush ran into each other much less Roh Moo-hyun?

If you haven’t heard about the English Spectrum-gate scandal head over to to Marmot for all the latest updates. However, I can’t help but think this thing is getting way over blown. Now even the Korea Times is getting in on the Spectrum-gate scandal with this article by Mike Weisbart.

Koreans have never liked the Hermit Kingdom moniker. Especially in this epoch of globalization, they want to be seen as open and worldly, with emphasis on `open’ in particular, given their eagerness to showcase for the world their amazing successes and, in no small measure, counteract their infamous inferiority complex by proving to themselves that they finally have arrived.

True, there is so much to admire. Indeed, much to be jealous of. But you really have to wonder sometimes if Koreans are ready for the Big Stage. A couple of ugly incidents in the past few days might shake your faith.

The first takes the form of a diplomatic dispute between China and Korea playing out at the government level. The second is taking place much closer to the ground via an Internet campaign by those oft-talked-about Korean netizens, some of whom have called on their members to assault foreigners at popular night spots like Hongik University and the Sinchon area.

Sounds bizarre, doesn’t it? The problem got its start on a discussion board at a website catering to English teachers living and working here in Korea. Aside from providing info on job opportunities and Korean culture and travel, the website also operates discussion boards where people can discuss issues and, as is often the case, vent frustrations about their experiences in Korea.

Most of the talk is just innocuous griping and or uninformed Korea bashing. But in this case, some Korean netizens latched on to a particularly infantile posting by one foreigner who extolled the virtues of Korea by arguing how easy it is to have sex with Korean women. It didn’t take long for the conversation thread to be noticed by netizens. Angered by the perceived slight to the honor of their women, they inundated the English website and put it out of commission.

But they didn’t stop there. Soon, discussion boards at popular portal sites were being filled with talk about the incident. One board I read was bursting with comments like “let’s punish the foreign assholes,” followed by calls to beat up foreigners seen walking around holding hands with Korean women. And because everyone knows that foreigners all hang out in bars at Hong-dae and Sinchon, people were told to gather there and watch for offending waygook-in.

One fringe Korean news site went so far as to put up a grainy photo showing one of the many smoky night clubs where Koreans and foreigners often mix on the dance floor. Young Korean women figure prominently in the foreground so one can only surmise that this was supposed to enrage the already lathered-up netizens even more.

Now, the campaign has somehow morphed into a drive to force out all the unqualified English teachers. Note how the inferiority has turned to superiority.

Weisbart concludes the article with this:

It seems that Koreans employ a double standard when it comes to how foreigners are expected to behave here and how they themselves are allowed to act outside the country. The incident in China shows a startling lack of sensitivity and, given the Chinese claims that the lawmakers had held an illegal press conference, Koreans should consider themselves lucky their representatives weren’t detained.

As I write this, there is thankfully no news that any foreigners were attacked on Saturday night. We’ll have to wait and see how much damage the incident in China causes to ROK-Sino relations. However they pan out, both situations raise awkward questions about the true nature of Korean feelings toward non-Koreans and whether Koreans will ever learn how to relate with others.

Well said and hopefully this whole stupid incident will just go away. However, I do love this quote from the Marmot.

You know, if I were a GI, I might be enjoying this all. God knows I’ve heard and read enough bitching from English teachers about how the military types make them look bad. Well, 8th Army personnel, here’s your chance for a little payback. Next time you see an English teacher, tell him you were thinking of growing your hair long, but you didn’t want Koreans to confuse you for being a hagwon instructor.

Yes I have heard plenty of English teachers bitch about GI’s and so it is ironic that they get stuck with this. If any English teachers out there need some high and tights to blend in with other GI’s now, I can hook them up. My wife can cut your hair for cheap. Plus I can give you tips about blending in as a GI in Korea.

The New York Times is reporting that North Korea is prepared to rejoin the six party talks soon.

SEOUL (Reuters) – Negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear programs can and will resume in weeks rather than months, a U.S. congressman said on Friday after rare talks with the North’s number two leader appeared to break a logjam.

“I am convinced, as are my colleagues, that if in fact we move along the process we are moving along today, the six-party talks can and will resume in a manner of weeks as opposed to months or years,” said Weldon, whose delegation also held talks with other North Korean officials.

Good to see they got those Kim Jong Il portraits back up for the congressional visit.

The Flying Yangban has a really good post that provides a good summary and analysis of the North Korean defector issue. It appears the Yangban has been all over this one for while. Go check it out.

Korean President Roh Moo-hyun has offered an invitation for Japanese Emperor Akihito to visit Korea according to the Japan Times.

SEOUL — South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun said Thursday his country would welcome a visit by Emperor Akihito, despite the sensitive issue of Japan’s past colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
However, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said in Tokyo later in the day that the time is not ripe for the Emperor to visit South Korea.

“It’s not at such a stage yet. The Imperial Household has a full schedule for the family,” Koizumi told reporters in response to Roh’s remark.

Roh told a news conference that Emperor Akihito has a “standing invitation” to visit. The country was under Japan’s colonial rule between 1910 and 1945.

“We are ready to welcome him and he would be met with the most cordial reception here,” he said during the nationally televised conference from the Blue House presidential office.

A visit to South Korea by the Emperor is a highly contentious issue because of lingering anti-Japanese sentiment over Japan’s colonial occupation. Japan has been reluctant to proceed with such a visit due to such animosity.

This would really be a great opportunity for Japan to offer an apology for past war crimes against Korea but apparently either Prime Minister Koizumi does want to make such an apology on his watch or he doesn’t want the spectacle of massive protests that are sure to happen if the Emperor ever did come to Korea. Probably a little of both. However, a compromise on this might be on the way.

Tokyo is reportedly considering sending Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako to South Korea this fall to deepen relations between the countries. 2005 is the 40th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties between Japan and South Korea.

A trip by the Crown Prince and Princess could help pave the way for a visit by the Emperor.

In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda would not confirm whether such a trip is being planned by the Crown Prince and Princess.

If the Crown Prince comes to Korea and offers a real apology about past Japanese war crimes this should really set conditions for a visit by Emperor Akihito. Hopefully the Japanese offer an apology to finally let history be history but I just don’t see the Japanese doing it though. If they don’t do it there will always be a level of animosity towards the Japanese in Korea.

When I read Japanese were boycotting North Korean products I immediately thought of, boycott what counterfeit US dollars and Nork heroin? However, North Korea actually does have some legimate exports to Korea besides the illegal variety.

But although the number of consumer goods bearing North Korean labels has visibly declined of late, experts on the reclusive state are divided over whether this means fewer products are coming in or they are merely being given another country of origin, including seafood caught in North Korean waters but identified as Russian or Chinese.

On the other end of the spectrum, boxes of expensive North Korean “matsutake” mushrooms were prominently displayed in the better supermarkets, selling for 10,000 yen to 20,000 yen each.

Now is the “Great North Korean Boycott” having any impact on North Korea? According to this guy it is:

Lee Young Hwa, a professor at Kansai University who is an expert on the North Korean economy, said the effort has had some effect.

The fashion set may breath a sigh of relief that, thanks to boycott pressure, North Korean suits are no longer easily found.

I have never seen any store selling North Korean suits when I have gone to Japan but I find it hard to believe Nork suits have Japanese clothing companies on edge. Next time I go to Japan I am going to have to buy me a North Korean suit just for the novelty of owning one. I would love to compare the quality between Itaewon tailors and North Korean slave labor.

I will be amazed if this construction project ever happens Building a road from China to Taipei just doesn’t seem possible. But going to the moon not to long ago never seemed possible, so who knows maybe the Chinese can do it.