Rare photo of Korean independence fighters A group of Korean independence fighters are seen in a military formation greeting an entourage of Kim Gu, leader of the Korean independence movement against Japan and a reunification activist under the Japanese colonial rule of Korea, on Nov. 5, 1945, at the Shanghai Jiangwan Airport in this rare photo provided by the Shanghai Library. (Yonhap)
The start of vaccinating health care workers in South Korea against COVID-19 has begun:
Chung Mi-kyeong (2nd from R), a sanitation worker of the National Medical Center, receives a Pfizer vaccine at the hospital in central Seoul on Feb. 27, 2021, while Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun (3rd from L) looks on. She became the first South Korean to get the Pfizer product. (Yonhap)
About 18,500 people received a vaccination for COVID-19 in South Korea on the launch day of the nation’s public vaccination campaign against the pandemic, a government agency said Saturday.
The latest “me-too” clone movement in South Korea has taken out two big name athletes:
South Korean women volleyball twin stars Lee Jae-yeong, left, and Lee Da-yeong, right, of the Heungkuk Life Insurance Pink Spiders posing after they selected as all-stars before a V-League game at a gymnasium in Incheon. This picture was taken on January 26, 2021.
South Korean volleyball twins Lee Jae-yeong and Lee Da-yeong have been dropped from their national and club sides amid claims of teenage bullying. The 24-year-old sisters, two of the country’s best known female athletes, have both apologized after being anonymously accused of bullying previous students at their school. In Jae-yeong’s apology she referred to “actions and images from her teenage years.”
You can read more at the link, but the alleged bullying happened 10 years ago in middle school. Because of this they have been dropped from playing in the Olympics this summer and suspended from their club team. This seems like something extreme to do based off of anonymous social media accusations.
I had things happen to me while in school that would be considered bullying, especially since I was an athlete just like these twins and hazing was a right of passage back then. I don’t condone hazing and I think it is good that it is going away, but I don’t wish people that hazed me to be cancelled. Heck I have enough self esteem I don’t need or expect any apology. That is why I think these accusations say just as much about the accusers as the Lee twins. If you read the article the accusers actually consider themselves “victims”. This seems like another example of the cult of victimhood where people search to be part of some kind of victim class to bring attention to themselves, especially in the social media age.
These twins being premier athletes who received a lot of attention in middle and high school probably were jerks. However, people change significantly between middle school and adulthood. Are they still jerks? I don’t know the article doesn’t ask anyone they play with now. It seems like if they were still jerks teammates would be telling their stories to the media.
It seems like this could have been something handled with a statement of apology from the twins and their pledge to lead an anti-bully awareness campaign. It seems like this would have been more helpful to addressing bullying than cancelling them.
U.S. spy ship in N. Korea This undated Yonhap file photo, released by the Korean Central News Agency, shows the USS Pueblo spy ship being displayed along the Daedong River in Pyongyang for anti-American propaganda purposes. North Korea seized the 906-ton ship and its 83-strong crew in January 1968. According to foreign reports on Feb. 25, 2021, the Washington federal court ordered the North to pay US$2.5 billion in damages to the crew, who were tortured and mistreated for 11 months after their seizure. (Yonhap)
S. Korea tests homegrown space rocket’s first-stage engines This photo taken on Feb. 25, 2021, shows the second launch pad on which South Korea’s locally built space launch vehicle, named Nuri, will sit at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, 485 kilometers south of Seoul. The second combustion experiment for Nuri’s first-stage engines was carried out successfully. South Korea is pushing forward for a launch set for October this year, the science ministry said. (Yonhap)
The Korea Herald has an article published on why elderly people can often be seen pulling carts and picking up cardboard in South Korea:
When the temperature dropped to minus 7 degrees Celsius in mid-February, Lee Deok-ja, 74, was dragging her handcart around Deungchon-dong, western Seoul, picking up cardboard.
It was about 12:30 p.m. and her handcart was empty. Lee said she had already been to the junk shop three times that day. Instead of filling up the handcart — which appears to weigh more than 40 kilograms when empty — the petite lady chooses to go to a junk shop several times a day and fill her cart little by little.
“Every time I go there, I get 1,000 won (90 cents), 2,000 won or 3,000 won. That’s how I earn 10,000 won to 15,000 won a day,” she said. The nation’s minimum hourly wage this year is 8,720 won.
You can read more at the link, but the common element on why they pick up cardboard is that they do it to supplement the national pension check they receive each month. It is very difficult to survive on just the pension check and many kids supplement their elderly parent’s income. If an elderly person does not have kids who give them money they end of doing low skilled job as picking up cardboard to supplement their pension.
