Here is the latest South Korean movie that is expected to rekindle anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea:
The shape of Hashima Island resembles a warship from a distance as shown in this photo taken by South Korean photographer Lee Jae-gab in July 2008. The photo was provided by Lee. (Yonhap)
When Choi Jang-seop left for Japan more than seven decades ago, the 16-year-old did not know that the journey would change his life.
He was one of hundreds of Koreans who were conscripted into forced labor on Japan’s Hashima Island as part of the country’s mobilization of Koreans during World War II. Korea was under Japan’s colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.
Choi — wearing only underwear — toiled eight hours in a hot, cramped undersea coal mine with the constant fear of death. Other survivors said they worked for 12 hours at a time as three eight-hour shifts gave way to two 12-hour shifts with the rising demand for coal during the war.
What’s worse is that forced laborers, mostly in their teens and 20s, were given food that was mostly remnants of beans after the vegetable oil had been extracted, a situation that led to malnutrition and starvation among some forced laborers.
“I was hungry all the time and life was miserable beyond description,” Choi recalled of his days on the island between 1943 and 1945 in a recent interview with Yonhap News Agency at his small apartment in Daejeon, some 160 kilometers south of Seoul. [Yonhap]
You can read much more at the link, by the way has anyone seen the movie yet?
Maybe it is just me but it seems like there is something inappropriate about a “Hunger Games” theme park considering the movie involves teenagers hunting each other to the death:
Audiences that raved about novel-based science fiction adventure film franchise “Hunger Games” will be able to experience the thrill at a theme park on Jeju Island.
Landing Jeju Development, a wholly owned subsidiary of Landing International Development Limited, said Wednesday it signed with the United States’ Lionsgate, the franchise’s distributor, to build “Lionsgate Movie World” as part of recreational resort complex Jeju Shinhwa World now under construction.
The theme park, built over 122,000 square meters, will be Lionsgate’s first branded outdoor park and the biggest among the studio’s location-based entertainment businesses.
The park will have seven zones, each themed around different blockbuster movies and featuring reproduced streets and towns, rides, 4D experience halls, restaurants, cafes, souvenir shops and entertainment performances. The thematic movies include the “Hunger Games,” “Twilight Saga” and “Now You See Me” franchises and “Robin Hood,” to be released next March. [Korea Times]
Here is another example of the equivalency many journalists try to make between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump:
People watch President Trump on TV at a railway station in Seoul on Wednesday.
I think if I really think about it, I’m a little concerned. But it’s also in the sense that I’m concerned about how easily accessible nuclear weapons are increasingly in this world. And it’s not just North Korea. It’s the United States, it’s Russia, it’s all these different countries.
There’s another layer of hypocrisy in the way we report about North Korea. Like, the United States owns nuclear weapons, but why is North Korea in the axis of evil that doesn’t get to because it’s supposed to be the less rational one? I’m just generally afraid of nuclear weapons in general. I’m just as afraid of Trump owning nuclear weapons as Kim Jong Un owning one. [VOX]
You can read more of the interview at the link, but does this South Korean journalist believe Japan should get nuclear weapons because everyone should have the right to pursue them? That is the obvious logic being advocated for here.
Plus in my opinion anyone who thinks President Trump is just going to wake up one day and authorize a nuclear weapons strike should not be taken seriously. The same can be said for anyone who thinks Kim Jong-un is just going to wake up one day and launch a nuclear weapons strike as well.
I wonder if this guy was scammed into making some kind of large cash purchase of real estate by the group with the intent of robbing him?:
Six foreigners are on the run after stealing a bag of cash from Seoul Station earlier this month.
The bandits, from countries including Mexico and Colombia, stole 360 million won ($316,000) from a Korean man at a fast food restaurant at the train station in Jung-gu, on Aug. 2, according to Seoul Namdaemun Police on Monday.
Three men and three women were involved, of whom at least some had left Korea, police said.
They said the gang had waited for the victim at the station and followed him into the restaurant.
The man left his bag on a table and went to place an order with the cashier while a person with him kept an eye on the bag.
But gang members distracted him by dropping money on the floor. The others snatched the bag and fled. [Korea Times]
Justice Minister Park Sang-ki gives a certificate of Korean nationality to 6-year-old girl Diana, a granddaughter of the late Korean independence fighter Kim Man-Kyom (1886-1938), at the justice ministry in Gwacheon, south of Seoul, on Aug. 11, 2017. (Yonhap)
I don’t think long time Korea watcher are surprised by this kind of media collusion with Samsung:
“Dear respected Mr. Chang Choong-ki! …. I have finally mustered the courage to send you this text message, after hesitating again and again. My son XXX applied to the XXX department of Samsung Electronics…. His application number is 1XXXXXXX, and he graduated from XXX University with a degree in electrical engineering….”
The sender of the text is an anonymous journalist from CBS, a major Christian broadcaster in South Korea. He is essentially asking one of the most powerful men in Samsung Group to help his son get a job.
“I am always grateful to you,” the journalist wrote.
Chang Choong-ki is the former vice head of Samsung Group’s now-defunct Future Strategy Office, a central but opaque organ in the Samsung machine that sponsored media, dealt with government relations, and oversaw key business decisions across the conglomerate’s 70+ affiliates. Chang is also one of the key figures in the country’s biggest political scandal in recent memory, the so-called “Park Geun-hye/Choi Soon-sil Gate.”
The CBS journalist’s text message is one of many recovered from Chang Choong-ki’s phone by SisaIN, a South Korean magazine. This week, SisaIN released an exclusive by Joo Jin-woo, an investigative reporter well-known for tackling sensitive topics (even taboo, in some outlets) like Samsung and heads of state.
According to Joo, Chang had corresponded with a wide network of authorities in different sectors: officials in the presidential Blue House, the National Intelligence Service (South Korea’s spy agency), prosecutors, journalists, and more.
In one text, Im Chae-jin, a former head of South Korea’s Prosecution Service, mentioned his son-in-law, an employee at a Samsung factory in Suwon: “Can you help my [son-in-law] XXX be dispatched to India?” Im emphasized that his daughter also wanted the transfer.
In another, an anonymous journalist from major daily Munhwa Ilbo asked Chang to increase the amount of sponsorship for the newspaper. “We’ll reward you with good articles,” the anonymous reporter wrote. [Korea Expose]
I recommend reading the whole thing at the link, but media collusion with not only industry, but political parties is something that is not only a problem in South Korea, but as the last election cycle showed, in the United States as well.
From my perspective the McDonald’s in South Korea always seem cleaner and more professionally run than most I see back in the US:
An inspector of the Korea Consumer Agency leaves a McDonald’s restaurant in Gangnam, Seoul, carrying an ordinary paper bag without an airtight sterilization container./ Courtesy of McDonald’s Korea
McDonald’s Korea has filed a court injunction against the disclosure of the results of the Korea Consumer Agency’s sanitary inspection, the U.S.-based fast food chain said Wednesday.
The agency recently investigated 38 hamburgers marketed by six fast food franchises and five convenience store chains, following lawsuits over alleged undercooked McDonald’s patties.
Five Korean consumers have sued the company so far, claiming their children suffered hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), or the so-called “hamburger disease,” after eating McDonald’s hamburgers.
Although none of the products contained the controversial E. coli bacteria, which is known to cause HUS, the agency found that one McDonald’s hamburger contained staphylococcus aureus above the standard level. The bacterium is a common cause of food poisoning.
The agency initially planned to unveil its findings Tuesday, but scrapped the plan following McDonald’s Korea’s complaint that was applied a day earlier.
McDonald’s Korea criticized the agency for neglecting the required procedures.
“Food hygiene tests should be conducted by trained inspectors who should not hide their identity. A sample should be contained in an airtight sterilization container as well,” a spokeswoman of McDonald’s Korea said.
“However, an inspector, who visited our Gangnam store, pretended to be an ordinary customer. He also carried the sample in a paper bag, not immediately putting it into an airtight sterilization container.” [Korea Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but I can understand McDonald’s beef (pun intended) if the inspectors are not conducting inspections by agreed upon standards.
