Tag: South Korea

It looks like the North Koreans are doing the Park administration a favor with their continued provocations:

Opposition parties are toning down their opposition to the Park Geun-hye administration’s plan to allow the deployment of a controversial U.S. antimissile system.

Following the North’s continuing nuclear and missile provocations, South Korea and the United States agreed that a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) battery will be deployed in the South.

China and Russia have protested the decision, expressing concern that its powerful radar could be used to spy on their territories.

“Our only bargaining chip with China is Thaad,” said Ahn Cheol-soo, former chairman of the People’s Party, during an interview on Monday. “If China agrees to sanction the North, we should recant the deployment plan. That should be our negotiation strategy.”

Ahn’s remark was a departure from the People’s Party’s adamant opposition to the Thaad deployment plan, as it can be interpreted that the party will not disagree with the deployment if China does not aggressively punish the North.

Rep. Joo Seong-yong, a senior party official, also told reporters on Monday that the party will follow the decision of the National Assembly.

The People’s Party formally expressed its opposition to the Thaad deployment as its party line in July. It has also urged other opposition lawmakers to join its protest. The latest remarks by the top party official, therefore, suggest a change.

Sources in the party said concern grew about reactions to its protests after the North’s fifth nuclear test. “Public opposition to Thaad weakened,” a party official said. “And there was a possibility of a sixth nuclear test. The sense of risk grew inside the party that we may gain nothing by insisting on our protest.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but it sounds like the Korean left is saying that they never did care about people’s health and their protests were all politically driven.

#Japanese delegation work on table-top exercise as part of ROK-Japan-US security cooperation dialogue on Maui pic.twitter.com/zBMSEvblDQ

— Pacific Forum CSIS (@PacificForum) September 19, 2016

If you ever thought there was a lot of Kims, Parks and Lees in Korea you would be right:

“If you throw a stone from a hill in Seoul, chances are fifty-fifty that it would hit a Kim, Lee or Park.” So goes a Korean joke showing how common the three surnames are.

A recent census has reaffirmed this _ one in every five Koreans living within the country has the family name of Kim, according to a recent population and housing survey by Statistics Korea.

The number of people with Kim as their surname totaled 10.69 million or 21.5 percent of the total population of 51.07 million.

Coming in second and third on the list of most common surnames are Lee or Yi (14.7 percent) and Park (8.4 percent).

Following the big-three were Choe or Choi (4.7 percent), Chung (4.3 percent), Kang (2.4 percent), Cho (2.1 percent), Yun or Yoon (2.1 percent), Chang (2.0 percent) and Lim or Im (1.7 percent). [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, which includes an interesting discussions about the origins of these three names.

People wait to leave Seoul Station in downtown Seoul on Sept. 17, 2016 as the Chuseok holiday draws to a close. Chuseok, the Korean thanksgiving which fell on Sept. 15 this year, is the season for family reunions, with Koreans traditionally offering a ritual feast to their ancestors. [Yonhap]

Here is another story of someone from China committing a crime against a Korean national on Jeju:

A Chinese man suspected of attacking an elderly woman with a lethal weapon at a Catholic church in Jeju was arrested on Saturday, police said.

The 50-year-old man, whose identity was withheld by police, was hiding at an unidentified place in Seoguipo on the southern resort island of Jeju when police nabbed him, the Jeju Seobu Police Station said. The place is some 40 kilometers away from the scene of the incident.

He has since been under probe on attempted murder charges, they added.

The Chinese man fled the scene after stabbing the chest and abdomen of a 61-year-old Korean woman who was praying inside a Catholic church in Jeju alone at about 8:45 a.m., the police said. The type of weapon used was not specified.

The woman, identified only by her surname Kim, was in critical condition.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I can’t help but think how much different the media reaction would be in South Korea if a USFK servicemember walked into a church and tried to murder someone like this.

It will be interesting to see how much jail time this guy gets for his illegal organ transplant scheme:

The person responsible for 87 illegal organs transplant cases was arrested by the police, putting an end to eight years of hiding in China.
During that time, South Korean patients were supplied organs from deceased Chinese, some of whom were victims of accidents or executed convicts.

The Busan Metropolitan Police reported Monday the suspect, identified by his surname Kim, was arrested and charged with brokering an illegal organs trade with his Chinese partners in China.

Kim, 43, arranged a total of 87 illegal organ transplant surgeries between June 2006 and February 2011 by opening an online community site, which he advertised as a community forum for patients in need of organs transplant. By luring potential clients who were ailing from illnesses such as chronic renal insufficiency and liver cancer to his online site, Kim was found to have brokered illegal transplant surgeries worth around 6 billion won ($5.3 million) in total.

Kim pocketed 600 million won, the police discovered.

The police said Kim led the illegal campaign by arraigning schedules and locations for surgeries. In most cases, organs came from Chinese convicts just executed on death row or Chinese people killed in accidents. Among the 87 cases, six involved organs from live donors. Details as to how the suspect kept in touch with his associates in China were not disclosed.

The police added Kim had stayed in China since 2008 as an illegal alien and avoided arrest. After eight years of living in self-imposed exile, Kim, possibly exhausted from years of laying low, contacted police in South Korea in June and expressed his intention to turn himself in. He was arrested upon his arrival last month at Gimpo International Airport.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

A trail is flooded by heavy rains in South Korea’s southern port city of Busan on Sept. 17, 2016. The southern region has been affected by the influence of Typhoon Malakas that is headed northward with strong gusts. The country’s weather service, Korea Meteorological Administration, issued advisories or warnings for a number of southern cities, including Ulsan and Busan. (Yonhap)

Has anyone ever tried traditional Korean gamhongro before?:

During the Japanese colonial era, there was a crackdown on home brewing, followed by the influx of alcoholic beverages from the West. Traditional Korean liquors subsequently faded from popular use, but have recently been making a comeback.

There is, for instance, gamhongro, literally “sweet red dew,” which was considered one of the three best liquors of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). This drink has been passed down by Lee Ki-sook, the 60-year-old daughter of Lee Kyung-chan (1915-1993), who was known for his ability to brew moonbaeju, a drink made from wheat and millet that has been placed on the National Intangible Cultural Heritage list. In modern times, gamhongro has only ever been produced within Lee’s family.

In former times, Koreans enjoyed gamhongro so much that it even appears in a traditional folk tale, titled “Byeoljubu-jeon,” which is about a turtle luring a rabbit into the sea to use its liver in order to cure its ailing king. The rabbit takes the bait when the turtle tells it that there is a plentiful supply of gamhongro lying in wait beneath the sea.

Before passing away, Kyung-chan taught the art of brewing to his two sons. Ki-choon, the elder son, learned the recipe for moonbaeju while Ki-yang, the younger son, was taught how to make gamhongro.

When Ki-yang died in 2000, gamhongro almost disappeared from the world forever, but feeling the dire need to pass on her father’s legacy, Ki-sook started making gamhongro based on what she had seen her father do.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Typhoon Malakas May Affect Korean Peninsula Late this Weekend https://t.co/ikgnHJzMKI #Korea #busan #seoul

— Haps Magazine (@hapsmagazine) September 15, 2016

If anyone is wondering, there have been no sign of nuclear fallout landing in South Korea:

South Korea has yet to find any traces of radioactive materials from North Korea’s latest nuclear test, a nuclear safety commission here said Thursday, confirming the country remains safe from nuclear fallout.

“The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission has not found any traces of radionuclides, such as xenon, in its tests of soil, water and air samples following North Korea’s fifth nuclear test,” the commission said in a released statement.

The commission has been testing samples every 12 hours since Monday, two days after the communist North said it successfully conducted its latest nuclear detonation test.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.