Tag: South Korea

I saw this interesting Yongsan Garrison history lesson posted on the USFK Facebook site:

Regimental Bachelor Officers’ Quarters; later Imperial Japanese Army Hospital; now JUSMAG-K Headquarters.

Garrison Front Gate on Itaewon-ro (now the finance office).
The Japanese began their construction of the U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan, which served as their occupation headquarters until the end of World War II in September 1945. These were early milestones in the establishment of the U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan by the Japanese:

Pictured is the casino of Paradise City, South Korea’s first casino and hotel complex, which opened in Yeongjongdo, close to Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, on April 20, 2017. The construction of the mega-scale foreigners-only casino resort, worth 1.3 trillion won (US$1.14 billion), kicked off in late 2011 on a 300,000-square-meter lot. (Yonhap)

According to the article the conclusion of the land transfer to USFK allows the US military to expedite preparations to deploy the THAAD missile defense system to the site:

South Korea and the United States completed the regulatory process needed for Seoul’s provision of a base site for a U.S. missile defense battery, the foreign ministry said Thursday.

A bilateral committee on the status of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) approved the plan for land transfer, allowing the U.S. military to begin work for the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system in the some 300,000-square-meter land in the southeastern county of Seongju.

The land was formerly owned by a Lotte Group affiliate and used as a golf course.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

The Joong Ang Ilbo has an update on the racial incident involving a Columbian man at a Busan Costco.  His activism after the incident led to positive change at the Busan police department that handled his case:

After the incident took place, did the Busan Yeonjae Police Department chief (Ryu Sam-yeong) call to apologize?

That’s correct. On Sunday (April 2) night, three days after, he apologized, saying, “We do have training, but it was very insufficient and we will expand training pertaining to foreigners.” On the next day, I called again and requested to have an internal racial discrimination training session. I went for a lecture to the police station on April 5. When I met him at the chief’s office, he said, “Of police chiefs countrywide, I am the only one with a perm. Of policemen, there are those who dislike hearing a lecture held by a foreigner. I ask for your understanding even though the audience may be small.”

When I actually went to the lecture hall, there were 250 policeman cramped inside. The policeman who handled the incident at the time attended and apologized to me in person. I learned for the first time in my 16 years living in Korea that there was an external affairs section that investigated incidents involving foreigners.

What kind of thoughts did you have?

With all that’s happened, the police chief can be called a hero. Anyone can write or post something. However, the police chief went above and beyond what he had to do and went a step further. In the end, the incident ended on a positive note. I counted, and there are 252 police departments in Korea. The change at the Yeonjae Police Department cannot stop there. The remaining 251 police chiefs must take an interest in safety measures for foreigners.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but the Korean man involved in this incident ultimately giving a half hearted apology for the incident as well.

Why I Don’t Buy Dongwon (and Starkist) Tuna, And Why You Shouldn’t Either | ZenKimchi https://t.co/2nTm7pUnIz

— KingSejong (@KingSejong) April 20, 2017

This newspaper appears to be in remarkably good shape for allegedly being so old.  Even if it is a fake the history of the first newspaper printed during the Joseon dynasty is pretty interesting:

What is possibly the oldest newspaper ever printed has been discovered by a monk of Yonghwa Temple in Yeongcheon, North Gyeongsang. Scholars have yet to verify the authenticity of the newspaper, which is recorded to have been printed in 1577, 83 years ahead of Leipziger Zeitung, the world’s first newspaper, which was printed in 1660 in Germany.“I found it at an auction website that sells old documents and books this month,” said monk Ji Bong on Tuesday. “It was up on the website from January but no one seemed interested. I have been interested in old books and bibliographies for 20 years, so I bought it.”

Ji Bong did not specify how much he paid for it or who he bought it from.

The newspaper is in eight pieces and not all are intact. The dates printed on them are: Nov. 6, 15, 19, 23 and 24, all in 1577, in the lunar year calendar system.

The pieces contain articles about Queen Inseong’s welfare and the fact that the regular discussion of state affairs among the king and the ministers were not held on Nov. 6; that hundreds of cows died of infectious disease on Nov. 15; some records of the weather and the constellation on Nov. 23; and the welfare of ministers, including one by the name of Lee Jung-hyeong, on Nov. 24.

The existence of the oldest newspaper is mentioned in the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty. The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty are the records of the dynasty (1392-1910) from 1392 to 1863, completed in 1,893 chapters in 888 books. Thought to be the longest continual records of a single dynasty in the world, the annals have been registered at the Unesco Memory of the World since 1997.

In the annals for Nov. 28, 1577, in the lunar calendar, King Seonjo (1552-1608) is recorded to have rebuked his ministers for printing newspapers without the king’s permission. Seonjo is recorded to have shut down the publication, rounded up some 30 people who took part in it and sentenced them to a severe punishment.

Historians have said the king was against the publication of a newspaper at the time because he was afraid that state secrets may be leaked to ordinary citizens or foreign powers.

“The publication of the newspaper at the time was a big deal to the royal court,” Ji Bong said. “They say the people who published the newspaper disappeared one morning and the people who possessed any copies had to destroy or hide them.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Deputy Secretary of State, UnderSec for Arms Control, Asst Sec for East Asia also might not hurt https://t.co/G47n3Gwiaf

— John Delury (@JohnDelury) April 16, 2017

Civic environmental activists carry out a protest warning about fine dust in Incheon, west of Seoul, on April 19, 2017. Fine dust, mostly from China, poses a serious threat to the health of the country especially in the spring. (Yonhap)

I like how the media is bashing President Trump for repeating something that Chinese President Xi said to him during their recent meeting in Florida:

Following his meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, Donald Trump made a shocking admission of ignorance to the Wall Street Journal, on the subject of China and North Korea: “After listening [to Xi] for 10 minutes I realized that…it’s not so easy.” Trump has been called out for having his views on such an important geopolitical issue shift dramatically in a matter of minutes. He also may not know who rules North Korea.

Right before that line about listening to Xi, though, Trump said something arguably even more shocking. He claimed that “Korea actually used to be a part of China.” This is a glaring historical inaccuracy that has, somehow, not yet enraged South Korea, which is usually extremely defensive about suggestions that it is lesser than China or has ever been dependent on it.

Trump also made it clear in the interview that when he says Korea “used to be a part of China,” he is talking about the entire Korean peninsula, not just the North. Here’s the full quote:

[Xi] then went into the history of China and Korea. Not North Korea, Korea. And you know, you’re talking about thousands of years …and many wars. And Korea actually used to be a part of China.

“No respectable historian would make such a claim,” said Kyung Moon Hwang, a history professor at the University of Southern California and author of A History of Korea, when I asked him via email to assess Trump’s statement.  [Quartz.com]

You can read the rest at the link, but here is the Korean reaction to the quote:

South Korea on Wednesday dismissed the controversial remark reportedly made by U.S. President Donald Trump that Korea was “part of China” as untrue and not worthy of response.

“Whether that is true or not, Korea hasn’t been a part of China for thousands of years and it is an historical fact that the international community acknowledges and no one can deny it,” a foreign ministry official said on the condition of anonymity.

“It is worthless to respond to this kind of story,” he added.

Controversy is growing here after U.S. online media reported that Trump made that remark in an interview with the Wall Street Journal while sharing what was discussed with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in their recent summit held earlier this month.

In the story titled “Trump weirdly says Korea was part of China, which is totally wrong and could enrage South Korea,” Quartz reported that Trump quoted Xi as making the remark during the summit.

It is not clear if and in what context Xi said so, nor is it certain whether it is an accurate quote or an error that possibly occurred in the process of interpretation. The remark was not mentioned in the WSJ interview.  [Yonhap]

So it is a remark with no context and was not in the actual WSJ interview and we are all supposed to get enraged by this?  Even if the remark is true, people instead of getting upset with Trump should get upset with Xi.  Considering China’s ongoing Northeast Asia Project is it any wonder Xi would claim to Trump that Korea was once part of China? The Northeast Asia Project has been going on for years where the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) have been claiming that the ancient Koguryo kingdom in Korea was founded by a Chinese minority tribe.  They have even registered Koguryo sites with UNESCO with no mention of the kingdom being Korean.

This is all likely being done to set political conditions for the possible Chinese domination of North Korea if the Kim regime was ever to collapse.

Just when you thought you have seen it all this comes around, good luck guys!:

Over the past few years, South Korean pop music, or K-pop, as a whole has grown into a legitimate cultural force to be reckoned with. And while the scene has moved and evolved at lightning pace, some also began to look back and wonder: what makes K-pop K-pop?

EXP Edition, an experimental boy band which released its debut single “Feel Like This” on Monday in South Korea, is the brain child of Kim Bora, through which she asks that exact question in a unique and interesting approach.

The four-member team, artistically speaking, seems to fit the generic K-pop mold, exuding confidence in its K-pop cred and style. The catch? Its members are mostly white and all American, as opposed to being Korean or at least of Korean descent.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link, but the band is part of a project from students at Columbia University’s fine arts program to see what defines K-Pop.  Interestingly they are facing criticism from people outside of Korea for appropriating Korean culture.  Didn’t South Korea appropriate pop music in the first place from western countries so why can’t four Americans make a K-pop band?