Tag: South Korea

This book title as expected is not going to go over well in South Korea:

The former Japanese ambassador to South Korea has stirred controversy with his book titled “I’m happy because I’m not born Korean.”

The book written by Masatoshi Muto will hit Japanese shelves on June 1. It’s uncertain why Muto, once regarded as a pro-Korea Japanese diplomat, penned the controversially titled book, in which he reportedly describes South Korean President Moon Jae-in as “the worst president ever elected in South Korea.”

Recollecting his meeting with Moon, apparently before his May 9 election, Masatoshi wrote, “North Korea was the only thing he (Moon) had in his head,” according to South Korean newspaper Dong-A Ilbo, which reviewed the book.

The diplomat also laid bare his acrimony against Moon, calling him a “populist” and saying Moon will push forward with anti-Japan policies if it helps bolster his popularity.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but outside of Park Geun-hye hasn’t every Korean politician used anti-Japanese policies to boost their popularity and look where she ended up, in jail and on trial.

Road to self-driving cars paved with promise: https://t.co/boixHbg8zX pic.twitter.com/uMF9RwxnOc

— KoreaJoongAngDaily (@JoongAngDaily) May 29, 2017

It is pretty amazing that South Korea only established their first national park 50 years ago and it was the actions of local residents that made it happen:

No matter where you are in Korea, a mountain is likely to be somewhere in the vicinity. There are over 45 million visits to Korea’s national parks in any given year. Jirisan National Park itself accounts for nearly 3 million visits. However, just 50 years ago, Mount Jiri, the second-tallest mountain in South Korea, was the site of rapacious deforestation and likely would have continued to be without the initiative of one local hiking association.Born around Mount Jiri, 65-year-old Woo Du-seong, the president of a conservationist association for Mount Jiri, spoke on Monday as he recollected the events that took place in his youth. It is now 50 years since Mount Jiri was designated the first national park in Korea on December 1967.

“We collected 100,000 won from 10,000 households paying 10 won each,” said Woo. “In 1963, the money could have bought a house in this neighborhood.”

National parks were nonexistent at the time and the first to embark on conservation originated from the bottom-up by Gurye, South Jeolla, residents, including Woo’s father, Woo Jong-su (now deceased).

“According to residents in the area in the early 1960s, in just Gurye alone there were 250 trucks carrying loads on the streets daily. Portable sawmills with circular saws connected to the top of military-grade truck engines were everywhere in valleys.”

Feeling the hurt more than anyone else were the residents of Gurye who had spent their entire lives under the majesty of Mount Jiri. Among them, members of Yeonhaban, a local recreational hiking club, were especially indignant at the sight of these brazen sawmills.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but today Korea’s National Park system is really impressive with many great trails and facilities that began with the establishment Jirisan National Park fifty years ago.

Over at the Korea Herald they have an article published that details some of South Korea’s most prolific serial killers.  Most I have heard of before, but there was actually a group of serial killers called the Jijon Clique that murdered five people and ate them in 1993 that I had not heard of before:

There was a crime group that systematically murdered people as well.

Kim Ki-hwan, 25 at the time, organized the group dubbed the “Jijon clique” in July, 1993. All in their 20s, they had hated the rich and decided to “act out.”

Their first target was a 23-year-old factory worker, who they raped and killed in 1994. They also set up a makeshift jail and incineration facility in a basement of the leader’s house in South Jeolla Province.

While it all started from their frustration against the rich and the economic polarization in society, their targeted victims were not always wealthy. One of the five people they killed was also one of their members, Song Bong-eun, who tried to secede from the group.

In September, 1994, they kidnapped four people and killed three of them in the most brutal ways. One victim, after being tortured, escaped to report the gang to the police. The six members were finally caught and were executed in November the same year.

In their testimony, one of the members revealed that they had practiced cannibalism, because they “gave up on being human.”  [Korea Herald]

You can read more about South Korea’s past serial killers at the link.  However, one serial killer not mentioned in the article that may also be its most famous is the Hwaseong Serial Killer that has never been caught.  The killings were featured in one of Korea’s most well known crime movies, “Memories of Murder ” which I highly recommend watching for those who haven’t seen it already.

This seems like a lot to ask of her daughter that grew up in the United States and has been a US citizen for over a decade:

Foreign Minister nominee Kang Kyung-wha said Friday she expects her first daughter will give up her U.S. citizenship and switch to Korean soon.

“There will be a family meeting to discuss this matter,” Kang told reporters. “I think my daughter will decide to give up American nationality. What’s important is how she feels about it.”

Kang’s daughter, who was born and grew up in the U.S., chose to become American in 2006 when she was 22.

Her daughter’s nationality has emerged as a controversial point ahead of her confirmation hearing. Cheong Wa Dae earlier said it heard from Kang before she was nominated as the country’s first female foreign minister that her daughter may discard her U.S. nationality.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

It makes me wonder how many other Korean schools over the years have been conducting illegal wage skimming of foreign English teachers as well?:

Kyonggi Elementary School has been accused of skimming the wages of eight foreign teachers over several years with a contract clause that turned out to be illegal.

The wages that were taken from the native English teachers amounted to 45 million won ($40,240), with some losing more than 10 million won, according to labor attorney Jung Bong-soo, who represents the victims. They filed a collective complaint with the Seoul Regional Ministry of Employment and Labor in March, demanding reimbursement of their losses and replacing current contracts with “fair” ones.

The skimmed income ― 10 percent of their hourly wage ― was transferred to an independent Korean recruiter, who searched for and hired native English teachers on behalf of the private school in Seodaemun, northwestern Seoul.

The recruiter, surnamed Joo, is known to have introduced himself as a school adviser and is said to have drafted the contracts, including the controversial clause. The victims said they had signed their contracts not knowing the clause enforcing the monthly deduction was illegal. Under Korean employment law, giving recruiters a portion of a person’s first salary as an “introduction fee” is legal, but recruiters are not allowed to make regular deductions.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at at the link.

Via Popular Military comes a video filmed by Korean-American servicemembers serving in USFK. They interviewed random South Koreans in Daegu on what they thought about the US soldiers in their country.  The opinions on the whole were largely favorable with most criticism being soldiers spending too much time in clubs, womanizing, and not learning Korean.

Shown is a minke whale found dead after being caught in a fishing net in waters off Sokcho, Gangwon Province, on May 23, 2017. The whale was sold for 37 million won (US$32,997). (Yonhap)

Many people have kind of expected the Chinese boycott to slowly dwindle away after a while and it appears it is beginning to go away:

China appears to be easing up on a wide-ranging unofficial boycott of Korean goods and service over the stationing of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery from the U.S. here.

The state-run People’s Daily, a bellwether of official opinion, repeatedly referred to Korea as a “close neighbor” recently after a telephone call between President Moon Jae-in, who is skeptical about the deployment, and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on May 11. This was closely followed by the dispatch of a special envoy to Beijing, former prime minister Lee Hae-chan, last week.

Korean businesses are resuming marketing in China that ground to a screeching halt amid the THAAD spat, and there are signs of sales recovering.

Chinese travel agencies expect Beijing to lift a ban on cut-price group tours to Korea as early as July, and visa applications are rising to 50 to 60 percent of last year’s level after falling to as low as 20 percent.

Chinese travel agencies are asking Korea tour operators about their packages again. The head of one travel agency here said, “Last week, three or four Chinese travel agencies expressed interest in summer tours. We have yet to see actual reservations, but the atmosphere has definitely changed. [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

It looks like the North Koreans have flown another drone over the DMZ:

South Korean troops fired warning shots at an “unidentified object” flying across the heavily fortified border from North Korea Tuesday afternoon, the South’s military announced.

The military detected the object traversing the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) southward in the Chorwon area in the eastern province of Gangwon at around 4 p.m., according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

It added the South’s military fired warning shots along with dispatching a warning broadcast.

A defense source said the military fired more than 90 K-3 machine gun rounds, adding it may have been a drone.

The South’s military is analyzing the object and its route and has beefed up its air defense posture, said the JCS.  [Yonhap]

It looks like the ROK military needs to get themselves fielded with these systems to counter the drones North Korea is increasingly using.