Tag: South Korea

Just like in the US the Korean government has found that the demonization of smokers is an effective way to raise revenue.  Then again another way to look at it is that smokers put more demand on the health care system and thus should be expected to pay more:

When the administration calculated its 2016 budget, it predicted that total cigarette consumption (shipping) would be 3.46 billion packs, or 600 million (21%) more than this year. Cigarette consumption has fallen by 34% since taxes per pack were raised by 2,000 won (US$1.67) at the beginning of the year, but revenues were projected to increase by 2.854 trillion won (US$2.38 billion) over the year, including national and local taxes.Yet in the administration’s calculations, the projected 2016 shipments were down by just 21.2% from the annual average of 4.39 billion packs for the four years from 2010 to 2013. Critics are now charging that the goal of the cigarette tax hike was not to discourage smoking as claimed – but to raise more tax revenues.  [Hankyoreh]

You can read more at the link.

Both South Korea and Japan are being criticized in an opinion piece in the USA Today by a UN staffer for not allowing in Syrian and other refugees fleeing violence in the Middle East.  However,the article seems to be less a criticism of accepting refugees and more a criticism of Korea not wanting to become a multicultural nation.  I just do not see how it is in South Korea or Japan’s interest to accept thousands of refugees who cannot speak the language, will be culturally isolated, and will likely become long term wards of the state?  South Korea already has the burden of accepting thousands of refugees from North Korea who have their own problems integrating with South Korean society and the UN thinks refugees from the Middle East would do any better?

Japan and South Korea are like estranged fraternal siblings. Both have more in common than they care to admit: an aging population, abysmal birthrates and gender inequality. Both are in danger of losing their workforces unless they open their doors to migrants and refugees. Yet both face resistance from populations that have long taken pride in their ethnic homogeneity and are wary of the outside world.

Whenever a boat overloaded with refugees turns up on other countries’ shores, there are sighs of relief in Seoul and Tokyo that it is happening elsewhere.

South Korea and Japan are both signatories to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, which obliges them to protect and provide refugees with basic rights and social services. Even so, their records of accepting asylum seekers are appallingly low. Last year, South Korea granted refugee status to 94 asylum seekers — a bump from 57 in 2013 — out of some 2,900 applicants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East (this doesn’t include North Korean defectors, who are considered South Korean citizens by law).  [USA Today]

You can read more at the link.

Korea Bang has the translation of an SBS report that researches whether a mother and her two sons were raped and kept as sex slaves.  It is a very odd story that features domestic violence, a religious cult, claims of drugged fueled orgies, rape, and even a mysterious shaman:

On October 29th, 2014, a woman in her 40s and her two sons held a press conference. The title was “Press conference to demand thorough investigation of Mr. Heo and his father’s sexual crimes”. She mainly claimed that her husband, Pastor Heo, her father-in-law and her own parents’ family members all worked together to rape her and her sons. She even claimed that they had had orgies.

Lee: “Would you believe my sons and I had sex with my husband and father-in-law? But it really happened. Sometimes, my father-in-law brought a dozen of his believers. On such a day, we would have an orgy.” (The older son and younger son will be called by false names Junho and Junsu hereafter.)  [Korea Bang]

Read the whole thing at the link.

If North Koreans would be so shocked to see President Park seated next to Chinese President Xi maybe the activist groups should start launching their propaganda balloons into North Korea with DVDs and images of this fact:

Park Geun Hye’s recent visit to China to attend 70th anniversary celebrations marking the end of WWII has been the subject of much attention and analysis, a fair amount of which speculated that the special treatment bestowed on the South Korean leader by Beijing portends stronger bilateral ties between the two nations going forward.

Lee Tae Hwan, head of the Chinese research center at Sejong Institute, said that South Korea and China’s joint criticism of North Korea’s aggravations on the Korean Peninsula sends a strong message to the North that it should cease and prevent further provocations.

“This comes ahead of the upcoming 70th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party in October, when many expect the North to launch a missile or execute another show of strength. Remarks coming out of the China-South Korea meeting will undoubtedly place major pressure on the North,” he explained.

Cho Bong Hyun, a senior researcher from IBK Economic Research Institute, surmised that North Korea “must feel cornered,” after China backed South Korea’s stance that further provocations by North Korea on the Korean Peninsula are “unacceptable.”

“As a nation that was trying to recover its ‘blood-ally’ relationship with China, North Korea probably feels left out in the cold as China is trying to press ahead with a trilateral summit meeting among South Korea, China, and Japan,” Cho asserted.

The marked absence of commentary regarding North Korea’s nuclear development on China’s part, however, divided opinions on the implications for the recent Sino-South Korea interactions. The less skeptical of those watching the issue assert that China’s overt criticism of North Korea’s provocation is a clear indication of its stance and proof positive of consensus with South Korea on the nuclear issue as well.

Cho does urge caution and hasty conclusions from one meeting, noting that “it’s too much to expect denuclearization of North Korea through a single discussion between China and South Korea.” Now, he added, “it is imperative to devise strategies and continuously cooperate with China in order to realize a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.”  [Daily NK]

You can read more at the link.

It is always heart warming to see the images of the separated families meeting during these infrequent family reunions, but I always wonder how much the Kim regime receives from the ROK in return for hosting them?:

Ryoo Si-bong, 76, cannot sleep well these days on anticipation that South and North Korea’s recent landmark deal on easing military tension may make his lifelong wish come true: meeting his older sister living in North Korea.

Until the 1950-53 Korean War broke out, Ryoo, who used to live in China’s northeastern region of Manchuria, never thought he would not be able to see his sister again when she moved to North Korea after marriage.

Following several failed attempts to join the state-arranged family reunions, Ryoo is now voicing hope that he may have a chance to meet his 92-year-old sister as the two Koreas agreed in late August to resume the much-awaited reunions of families separated by the war.

“I want to know whether she is alive or not. My lifelong wish is to meet my sister before I die,” Ryoo said, showing an undelivered letter that he wrote to her two years ago while missing her. “This time, I want to be picked for the upcoming reunion event.”

Ryoo is among more than 66,000 surviving South Korean family members separated by the Korean War, which ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving South and North Korea technically at war.

Inter-Korean relations have long been strained amid North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations, but burgeoning signs of better ties are now growing, backed by the two Koreas’ deal on easing a recent military standoff.

South and North Korea have agreed to make efforts to improve their ties and push for the resumption of the family reunions on the occasion of Korea’s fall harvest holiday, Chuseok, slated for late September. The family reunions were last held in February 2014.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This undated file photo shows an outlet of the supermarket chain Homeplus, British retail giant Tesco’s South Korean unit. A consortium led by MBK Partners, a Seoul-based private equity fund, signed a 7.2 trillion won (US$5.98 billion) deal to buy Homeplus, industry sources said on Sept. 7, 2015. (Yonhap).

Here is a feel good story about a Korean adoptee and US soldier stationed at Camp Casey who found her biological family in South Korea:

Sgt. Faith Vazquez calls Defiance, Ohio, home, but she also lived in Hawaii and other duty stations with her mother and Navy father. Her then-childless parents adopted her through a Seoul agency when she was 4 months old.

“I never grew up feeling adopted,” said Vazquez, 23, American Forces Network detachment commander at Camp Casey.

She joined the Army after high school graduation. Her first assignment was a one-year tour at South Korea’s Yongsan Garrison.

Vazquez yearned to know more about her heritage but let her tour pass without searching for her origins. “I was 18, and I didn’t feel mentally ready,” she said.

She then set off for three years at Fort Riley, Kan., where her husband now serves in the Army.

She returned to South Korea for a one-year unaccompanied tour in October, conflicted over whether to seek her birth family. She didn’t want to slight her adoptive parents.

But with an adopted co-worker’s encouragement, she contacted the Seoul agency that processed her adoption. Within weeks, the agency phoned: “Faith, we’ve found your family.”  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

Another mass casualty incident involving a Korean boat has occurred:

The Coast Guard, Navy and civilians combined their efforts Monday to search for eight people still missing from a capsized fishing boat off the country’s south coast but no progress was made, officials said.

The death toll from the accident stood at 10, with eight people still unaccounted for and three others rescued, the Korea Coast Guard said.

The 9.77-ton boat called the Dolgorae, or Dolphin, was found about 6:25 a.m. Sunday near Chuja Island, north of the southern resort island of Jeju, the maritime security agency said. The boat lost contact with another chartered fishing boat around 7:38 p.m. Saturday, about half an hour after it left Chuja for Haenam, South Jeolla Province, it said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Below is a post I thought some of you may find of interest from Reddit Korea in regards to a man visiting Korea for the first time with his Korean fiance’.  I think his concerns of confrontations with other Koreans due to being with a Korean female is overstated.  10 years ago I think this is more of a concern, but no longer.  It doesn’t mean however that it won’t happen.  If something was going to happen it would more than likely be on the subway with some older drunk ajeosi.  It is best just to walk away and not get into a confrontation with one of these people which is best advice I can give.  Something that may take some getting used to though is the stares.  I get this even when not with my wife, but it is even worse when I am with my wife.  Anyone else have an opinion on this?

My Korean fiance and I are going to Korea soon and she is freaking out as she heard stories about locals (usually (old) men) expressing hate towards Korean girls that date foreigners.

She left Korea when she was very young, but still speaks perfect Korean and understands the culture fairly well.

The things she is scared of are…. 1. her extended family judging her for dating a white male as it is considered “prostitute-like” 2. Strangers on the street verbally abusing/staring at/swearing at her for being with a white guy. 3. People assuming that I am a white-trashy dude who is with her for cheap sex.

She says that every single one of her Korean friends (all three of them :p)that visited Korea with her Caucasian husband/bf got verbally abused on the train/bus by total strangers and apparently one of them has been physically attacked by an old man on the train in Seoul.

I find it hard to believe that it is that bad and want to know how true this is.

• Do they really hate Korean girls dating outside their own nationality? If so, why is that?

• What are the chances of noticing/experiencing the hate towards us when we visit Korea?

• What can we do to minimise the chance of getting physically/verbally abused?  [Reddit Korea]

I guess the good news is that if you take the Chinese government at their word they are not planning to send troops into downtown Seoul again to destroy the ROK.  On the other hand I think everyone knows peaceful reunification is never going to happen as long as the Kim regime remains in power in North Korea:

President Park Geun-hye on Friday said South Korea and China could quickly begin various discussions on how to achieve a peaceful unification between South and North Korea.

“Peaceful unification is the fundamental and the quickest way to resolve nuclear and other issues,” Park said in a press gaggle aboard Air Force One on the way back to Seoul from a trip to China, referring to tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Tensions persist on the divided peninsula over the North’s pursuit of its missile and nuclear weapons program. The communist country has a track record of staging provocations against South Korea.

The North — which conducted three nuclear tests — has repeatedly vowed to develop its economy and nuclear arsenal in tandem, viewing its nuclear programs as a powerful deterrent against what it claims is Washington’s hostile policy against it.

South Korea “would cooperate with China for a peaceful unification,” Park said. “Various discussions could begin as soon as possible on how to achieve a peaceful unification.” She did not provide a specific time frame.  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link.