Tag: South Korea

To be fair a growing number of students may be overweight, but compared to U.S. obesity levels South Korea is doing way better:

The percentage of South Korean students who are overweight or obese inched down in 2023 compared to the year before, but a growing percentage of students were categorized as heavy drinkers, a government report showed Thursday.

Some 29.6 percent of elementary, middle and high school students across the country fell into the overweight or obese categories, according to the joint report by the Ministry of Education and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. This figure marked a slight decrease of 0.9 percentage points from the year before, and of 1.2 percentage points compared to 2021.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

I have seen the Yale, National Geographic, and Discovery apparel in Korea, but never CNN or BBC. Lockheed Martin has got to be the weirdest fashion branding. Has anyone else seen any other weird fashion branding in South Korea?:

On Seoul’s streets today, seeing someone clad in a CNN hoodie, Kodak pants, Yale socks, a Discovery jacket, a National Geographic backpack and a BBC Earth baseball cap may not seem out of the ordinary.

The presence of logos from global non-fashion brands, spanning academia, media and sports, in Korean everyday wear seems to be only growing, now including unexpected entrants like arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin. (…..)

In the case of Yale, its apparel line was launched by the Korean fashion company Words Corporation in 2020 through such a licensing deal. The same goes for the recently launched Lockheed Martin streetwear collections, manufactured by the local firm Doojin Yanghang Corp.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but basically clothing manufacturers license logos from corporations that have brand appeal in South Korea. They find putting them on clothing sells in the Korean market. When it comes to Lockheed Martin they are the manufacturer for both the F-35 and THAAD which explains why they have brand recognition in South Korea.

The NLL in the Yellow Sea has always been a flashpoint that could lead to a wider conflict. The ROK defense minister is clearly letting the North Korean regime know that any provocation they launch could lead to a wider conflict:

Defense Minister Shin Won-sik visits a memorial for 46 sailors killed in the 2010 sinking of the ROKS Cheonan corvette on the 14th anniversary of the incident at Baengnyeong Island in the Yellow Sea on March 26, 2024, in this photo provided by his office. 

Defense Minister Shin Won-sik on Tuesday called for defending the western sea border against enemy threats on the anniversary of the 2010 sinking of a South Korean warship by a North Korean torpedo attack.

The ROKS Cheonan corvette sank near the western Northern Limit Line (NLL), a de facto inter-Korean sea border, in March 2010, after a North Korean midget submarine fired a torpedo at it, killing 46 sailors.

“North Korea is claiming the NLL is a ghost line without legal grounds and is continuously trying to nullify it,” Shin said in his phone talks with the commanding officer of a new frigate named after the torpedoed warship.

“Protect the Yellow Sea and the NLL that the comrades before you have defended by giving up their lives.”

In turn, Cdr. Park Yeon-soo, the commanding officer, vowed to avenge the sailors of the Cheonan if the enemy undertakes a provocation. Park served on the previous warship and is a survivor of the 2010 attack.

Shin’s call came after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last month rejected the NLL as a “ghost” line and called for using force against South Korean vessels violating its waters.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see if the Kim regime tries to see whether or not the ROK government is bluffing on their hardline rhetoric. Kim Jong-un got away with sinking the Cheonan back in 2010 and may think he could get away with such a provocation today as well.

According to the article as Koreans travel more and more people travel to Korea it is causing more opportunities for international couples to meet:

More than 10 percent of marriages in Korea last year were between Koreans and foreign nationals, rising to the highest level in 13 years, according to Statistics Korea, Tuesday.

In its annual report on marriage and divorce, the statistics agency said the number of international marriages totaled 19,700 in 2023, up 18.3 percent from a year earlier.

International marriages accounted for 10.2 percent of 193,700 marriages reported nationwide in 2023 — the highest ratio since 2010 when the figure stood at 10.5 percent.

“The 2023 ratio of international couples among all newlyweds is noteworthy,” a Statistics Korea official said, noting that the ratio had been above 10 percent mostly in the 2000s but remained in the single digit level from 2011 to 2022.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

A tragedy has just happened off the coast of Japan involving a South Korean tanker ship. Interestingly the article does say what chemicals were being transported in this ship. Hopefully this doesn’t lead to an ecological disaster as well:

 A South Korean chemical tanker capsized off Japan’s west coast Wednesday, claiming eight lives with two still missing, Japan’s coast guard officials said.

The Keoyoung Sun vessel, carrying 11 crew members, made a distress call to the Japanese Coast Guard at around 7 a.m., reporting that it was tilting in waters near an island of the Shimonoseki city in the Yamaguchi Prefecture.

Of the 11 crew members on board — two South Koreans, eight Indonesians and one Chinese — nine have been rescued and two others were unaccounted for.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I fail to see how opening a Japanese restaurant in South Korea makes someone a traitor:

Korean archer An San, who won three gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics in Japan in 2021, caused a stir with an online post that described a Japanese-themed restaurant as a “traitor to the nation.” The restaurant owner accused the Olympian’s remark of wrongly branding his business as being a pro-Japanese collaborator.

The 23-year-old shared a photo of a signboard saying “international departures” bound to Japan on Instagram Saturday, with a comment that read “How come there are so many traitors to the nation in Korea.”

The photo is no longer available, as it was an Instagram Story that disappeared 24 hours after upload.

The sign in An’s post was part of the entrance to a Japan-themed restaurant at a shopping mall’s food complex in the southwestern city of Gwangju, where a Japanese hot pot pub brand created and operated by Koreans is in business.

An’s post triggered online users to harass the business owner, who ended up uploading a letter of plea to end the controversy.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but if someone opens a Chinese restaurant are they traitors too? Or how about a Korean operating a McDonald’s? Are they also traitors?

I can’t feel sympathy from anyone from the western aligned world who gets arrested while visiting or living in Russia. It is well known the risks of becoming detained whenever Russia needs a hostage:

The detention of a South Korean national by Russian authorities on espionage allegations has emerged as a significant diplomatic challenge for Seoul, particularly against the backdrop of strained relations between the two nations.

Observers suggest that the detainee could be caught up in Russia’s hostage diplomacy tactics, and anticipate that the situation could drag on for months, if not years. Moreover, this incident could signal a shift in Russia’s stance toward North Korean defectors, particularly considering the detainee’s purported involvement in assisting North Korean workers in the far eastern region of Russia.

Earlier this week, the Russian state-owned media outlet TASS agency reported that a South Korean man named Baek Kwang-soon, aged 53, was apprehended in January on charges of espionage in Vladivostok. He was subsequently transferred to Moscow’s Lefortovo detention facility in February, typically reserved for high-profile political detainees. The Lefortovsky Court has extended his detention until June 15.

This marks the first known case of a South Korean national being arrested on espionage charges in Russia, where such offenses carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I don’t understand how this guy even thought his joke was funny in anyway?:

Former Democratic Party lawmaker Chung Bong-ju declares his candidacy for the April elections at the National Assembly on Jan. 8, 2024. (Yonhap)

The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) on Friday canceled the nomination of an ex-DP lawmaker over his past remarks ridiculing South Korean soldiers who lost their legs in a 2015 bloody land mine explosion are stirring up criticism weeks before the April parliamentary elections. 

Chung Bong-ju was selected as DP candidate for Seoul’s Gangbuk-B constituency but he has been criticized for the comments he made on a YouTube channel in 2017 about the highly publicized incident for which a South Korean probe later concluded North Korea was responsible. (….)

The panel on the YouTube channel was talking about ways that the two Koreas could use the ski resorts in the North ahead of the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games that the South was hosting. 

Appearing as a guest, Chung said: “We have great stuff in the DMZ, don’t we? Ankle mines. We could all go into the DMZ and give out prizes. Give a set of crutches to each of those who step on the mines.” 

Chung’s remarks have come into the spotlight since he won the party primary. 

In a Facebook post Wednesday, Chung issued an apology over the comments and said he also apologized to the victims over the phone and deleted the YouTube clip. 

But the soldiers told some local media that Chung has never contacted them, much less given an apology.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.