Tag: South Korea

Here is an article that explains a challenge that all male Korean college students have to deal with, when to do your mandatory service:

Mr. Oh, a 24-year-old college student, wanted to serve his mandatory military service sometime between January and March of 2013. Aware that he would have to return to school upon his completion of duty, he wanted to hit the books straight away, making no time for staying idle.

In Korea’s current draft system, Oh needed to be wise about which month he starts and ends his service. In the best-case scenario, he could return to school right after getting discharged from the military. In the worst-case scenario, he would have to wait for an entire semester.

In the end, it didn’t work out for Oh. The competition was high. Way too many men had the same thoughts as him and the lucky-draw didn’t play out to his advantage.

Oh eventually began in June 2013, one of the least-expected – and most unpopular – month of the entire year.

He was discharged in March 2015, after the spring semester began.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but this is just another example of why I have a lot of respect for the Koreans that complete their mandatory military service.

Culture shock for ex-culture minister Cho Yoon-sun & ex attorney general Kim Ki-choon: holed up in 71 sq feet cell.https://t.co/eiRAHVH5Qs

— Noon in Korea (@AllNewsKorea) January 28, 2017

If President Duterte has his way the policemen who kidnapped, ransomed and killed a South Korean man in the Philippines will be executed:

On Thursday, President Rodrigo Duterte apologised to South Korea for Jee’s death, saying he wanted to hang the rogue police allegedly responsible and send their heads to Seoul, Reuters reported.

He called again for the death penalty to be reinstated so that he could hang 20 criminals a day.

Duterte also promised the toughest punishment for those behind the kidnapping and killing of the businessman inside the national police headquarters in October.

The death of the South Korean comes as the Philippine police face growing criticism from rights groups and some lawmakers, who say cover-ups and abuses of police power are rampant.  [Asian Correspondent]

You can read more at the link.

It is looking like whatever evidence Korean prosecutors have against Chung Yoo-ra it must be quite flimsy considering Denmark has suspended the ROK extradition request:

South Korea’s special prosecutors said Saturday that they will send documents requested by Danish authorities concerning the daughter of a woman at the center of a snowballing corruption scandal as soon as possible to speed up her repatriation.

Chung Yoo-ra, the 21-year-old daughter of President Park Geun-hye’s close friend Choi Soon-sil, was arrested in the northern Danish city of Aalborg earlier this year for illegal stay. She is suspected of receiving favors from a college in Seoul during its admissions process and on tests by taking advantage of her mother’s ties to the president.

Chung has been in the custody of Danish authorities and has showed no sign of voluntarily coming back home to face a probe.

South Korea’s special prosecutors looking into the alleged corruption scandal surrounding the president and Choi earlier asked local authorities to extradite Chung.

After weeks of review, the Danish prosecution released a statement on Friday that they suspended the repatriation process and asked South Korea to send extra information before making a final decision.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

This seems to me to be pretty sexist because I cannot remember a male Korean president being depicted like this and celebrated by an opposition party:

After the display of a satirical painting depicting a nude President Park Geun-hye the main opposition Democratic Party on Tuesday decided to refer its lawmaker, Pyo Chang-won, to its ethics panel for hosting the exhibition.

About 20 people, presumed to be members of a conservative civic group, rushed on Tuesday to the lobby of the Lawmakers’ Office Building attached to the National Assembly in Yeouido, western Seoul, where the painting was on display, to damage the painting titled “Dirty Sleep” by flinging it to the ground.

The artists participating in the exhibition, including Lee Guyeong, who made the painting, then gathered at the building to issue a statement demanding compensation for the damages and respect for freedom of expression.

The exhibition started on Friday and the painting quickly became the talk of the town.

The painting’s composition is generally based on the 19th-century French painter Edouard Manet’s famous “Olympia”(1863).

In it, Park is lying on a bed and her long-time friend, Choi Soon-sil, is offering up a bouquet of syringes while the Sewol ferry is seen out a window sinking into the sea.

The painting portrays the suspicion that Park was sleeping or receiving cosmetic treatment during the April 2014 Sewol ferry sinking. Park’s head is combined with a nude body from the painting “Sleeping Venus”(1510) by Italian Renaissance master Giorgione, which inspired Titian’s “Venus of Urbino” and later Manet’s “Olympia.” Unlike in “Olympia,” which is distinguished by the woman looking directly at the viewer, in the new work Park looks down, as if in shame.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

This is a sign of how importantly the new Secretary of Defense views the region by making this his first overseas trip:

James Mattis, secretary of defense in the Donald Trump administration, is expected to make his first overseas trip to Korea and Japan next month, according to multiple diplomatic sources. Mattis is expected to hold talks with Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo amid concerns over North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations.

“Secretary Mattis, as his first overseas trip, is reviewing visiting Korea and Japan as his top priority,” one diplomatic source in Washington said Tuesday. “This shows that the Trump administration following its inauguration is unswervingly putting emphasis on its relationship with its two allies in Asia.”

Multiple officials said that retired four-star Marine general will visit Korea as early as next week.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Here is an odd story about a Buddhist statue believed to have been plundered from Korea by Japan, that thieves stole from a Japanese temple in 2012 and returned it to Korea:

A local court on Thursday ordered an ancient Buddhist statue, stolen from a Japanese temple in 2012, to be handed over to a temple in Seosan on South Korea’s west coast that has claimed ownership.

The Daejeon District Court ruled in favor of Buseok Temple, which filed a lawsuit against the Seoul government in April to take back the statue of the Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, which was stolen by Korean thieves from Kannon Temple in Tsushima, Nagasaki Prefecture, in October 2012.

“Based on (Buseok Temple’s) statements during court hearings and onsite inspections, it is assumed that its ownership of the statue is sufficiently acknowledged,” the court said in its ruling. “Considering its historical, religious values, (the government) has the responsibility to return it to the plaintiff.”

The Japanese temple has demanded the return of the statue. But a South Korean court granted an injunction in February 2013 to suspend its return to Japan following a request by Buseok Temple. Temple officials claim the statue was illegally plundered by Japan.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if this will become a new trend with Korean nationalists, trying to steal cultural items from Japan and bring them back to Korea?

South Korea protests over its athletes getting hotel reading like this at the Asian Winter Games in Japan. https://t.co/i4VEaBgqaH pic.twitter.com/x0Ixqym1Za

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) January 25, 2017

This aerial photo, taken on Jan. 26, 2017, shows heavy traffic clogging one side of a highway linking Seoul to the southwestern port city of Mokpo in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, on Jan. 26, 2017, as the annual exodus for the Lunar New Year holiday begins. Known as “Seol,” the Lunar New Year, which falls on Jan. 27-30 this year, is one of the two major traditional Korean holidays. The state-run Korea Transport Institute forecasts that as many as 31.15 million people will travel to their home towns or tourist sites nationwide during the Jan. 26-30 period. (Yonhap)

I have not read this book in question, but I have read The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan, by Sarah Soh and based on facts undoubtedly there were women that voluntarily became prostitutes for the Japanese military.  Arguably most were forced into prostitution by Korean brokers who acquired girls sold off by their families or misled women into thinking they were doing other work. This same system was in place even after the Japanese military left and the US military entered South Korea:

A local court on Wednesday acquitted a South Korean scholar of defaming women who were sexually enslaved by Japan during World War II through her controversial book.

The Seoul Eastern District Court found Park Yu-ha, a professor at Seoul’s Sejong University, not guilty of the charges, saying academic freedom is a basic right guaranteed by the Constitution.

Park was indicted in November 2015 over her book, “Comfort Women of the Empire,” which has been accused by victims and some civic groups of disputing the coerciveness of the “comfort women” system.

Prosecutors said Park defamed victims by describing some of them as “voluntary prostitutes” or “comrades” of Japanese soldiers.

“The opinion rolled out in the defendant’s book can raise criticism, objection and could also be abused by those who deny the coerciveness of the comfort women system. But it is, in any case, a matter of value judgment that goes over the authority or ability that can be executed by the court under the procedures of criminal cases,” the court said.  [Yonhap]

You can read much more at the link.