Tag: South Korea

These so called room cafes also exist in Japan where they are called Manga Cafes. They largely provide a cheap place to stay for people who miss the last train home from work. In South Korea it appears they have become very popular with minors:

A growing number of “room cafes” that do not comply with regulations has sparked debate on teenagers’ sexual activities ― a taboo subject in Korea ― after the government vowed to crackdown on these facilities where underage students were found to be having sex.

Room cafes, which began appearing in the early 2000s, offer a private space with basic amenities to visitors. But in recent years, many of these establishments have evolved into hotel-like facilities. 

Unlike the past, when curtains or partitions were installed to offer privacy, some cafes now provide separate rooms with lockable doors. Many rooms are also equipped with a screen, bed and even a bathroom in some cases.

Although these room cafes look no different from motels or DVD rooms ― where minors are prohibited from entering under the Youth Protection Act ― these facilities have been able to circumvent the law, as they are registered under general business or restaurant licenses. 

As an increasing number of teenagers have been found to be drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and having sexual intercourse at these facilities, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family has been urging local governments and the police to launch a crackdown on “illegal” room cafes.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

President Yoon become the first president in seven years to chair the annual Integrated Defense Council meeting. He plans to chair the meeting every year while he is president:

 President Yoon Suk Yeol accused the previous administration on Wednesday of weakening the country’s defense posture by neglecting necessary drills and relying on a “fake peace.”

Yoon made the remark while presiding over the annual central integrated defense council meeting in an apparent reference to former President Moon Jae-in’s push for reconciliation with North Korea.

Critics have argued the Moon administration’s peace drive bought North Korea time to advance its missile and nuclear weapons programs.

“Under the previous government the meeting was downsized, and integrated drills between the civil sector, government, military and police were not properly implemented because of its reliance on fake peace,” Yoon said during the meeting held at the former presidential compound of Cheong Wa Dae.

“As a result, there was a weakening in combining all national defense powers into one and in the implementation of the nationwide all-out war for the defense of the nation,” he said.

The meeting, designed to assess the country’s overall defense posture, was attended by some 160 officials and experts from the central and local governments, the National Intelligence Service, the military, police, Coast Guard and national fire agency.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but to be fair the previous Moon administration is not solely responsible for the current nuclear and missile threats the ROK now faces from North Korea. Every Korean president since the Kim Dae-jung administration that has paid off North Korea is responsible for funding the military threat the ROK now faces.

It is not looking good for the four people still missing from this sunken fishing boat:

Rescuers searching a 24-ton fishing boat that capsized off the southwestern coast found five missing crew members dead inside the shipwreck Monday, Coast Guard officials said.

Seawater started to flood the ship’s engine room, causing the vessel, the Cheongbo, to overturn at 11:19 p.m. Saturday in waters 16.6 kilometers west of the uninhabited island of Daebichi that lies some 20 km from the southwestern county of Sinan.

The sinking had left nine of the 12 people, including three foreign nationals, on board the ship missing, while the other three were rescued by another boat at the scene.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

A ROK Drop favorite Dr. Tara O has a great article about the investigation into North Korean spies in South Korea. What kind of mental illness must you have if you think the Kim regime is a better form of government than what the ROK has?:

Similarly, the underground organization “HGH” (ㅎㄱㅎ) (presumed to be HanGilHoe or One Way Committee) in Jeju Province was created after North Korean agent Kim Myung-sung met with another spy suspect Mr. Kang since 2017 in Cambodia. (1:47)   It was revealed that while Kang was in Cambodia, he stayed at the same residence in Siem Riep as North Korean agents—Kim Myung-sung and 4 other agents stayed for 2 nights and 3 days, pledging loyalty to the Kim regime, becoming Workers’ Party members with a ceremony, and receiving spy training.  The duration of 2 nights and 3 days was relatively short, because in the past, the similar process occurred in North Korea, rather than a third country, and it took longer due to the complexity of the decryption method, among other reasons.

Kang is a former chairman of the Jeju Island branch of the Progressive Party (진보당의 제주도당), which was formerly the United Progressive Party, which was outlawed by the Constitutional Court.  Its leader Lee Suk-ki went to prison more than once for violating the National Security Law, inciting insurrection, and embezzlement.  Lee Suk-ki was released early from prison by Rho Moo-hyun in 2003 and then again by Moon Jae-in in 2021.

Kang recruited two people—a  Jeju labor official and a “peasants’ activist” (농민운동) to organize HGH.  In October 2021, North Korea ordered HGH to conduct activities calling for suspending ROK-U.S. combined military exercises, dismantling ROK-US-Japan military cooperation, and opposing the import of advanced weapons (F-35) from the U.S. by mobilizing groups, such as the Progressive Party’s Jeju branch (진보당 제주도당), KCTU Jeju Branch’s April 3 Unification Committee (4·3통일위원회), and the Jeju Branch of the National Federation of Peasants (전국농민회 제주도연맹).

The Cultural Exchange Bureau agent instructed spy suspects to form underground organizations in Changwon, South Gyeongsang, and Jeonju, North Jeolla Province, wage an anti-government struggle in solidarity with “progressive candlelight forces,” and propagandize the Juche ideology and the greatness of North Korea’s “State Affairs Chairman Kim Jong Un.”

After their establishment, these underground organizations were operating under Kim Myung-sung’s orders of “struggle against the U.S.” “infiltrate and seize power in the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) and expand their power” and “denounce Yoon Suk-yeol,” among others. 

East Asia Research

You can read much more at the link, but this should all serve as a reminder of the possible motivations of the anti-USFK and ROK government protesters especially if they are affiliated with the KCTU.

Via a reader tip from Korean Man comes this news of some pretty cool anti-drone technology being developed by KAIST. Hopefully is works because drones are clearly going to play a major role in future warfare as we are currently getting a preview of in Ukraine:

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) announced on Tuesday that its researchers had developed a counter-terror anti-drone technology for use in urban areas.

After finding that drone makers’ control function components have different electromagnetic sensitivity, the research team analyzed the sensitivity-maximizing frequency by drone brand.

With this, the research team proved that the use of narrowband electromagnetic pulse waves can instantly neutralize target drones remotely.

Unlike existing anti-drone technologies, the use of electromagnetic pulse waves with a specific frequency in a narrow bandwidth can minimize the impact on nearby electronic devices.

Even when a group of drones using the same control function components attack, this technology can make the drones fall straight to the ground.

In other words, if 100 enemy drones fly together with 100 ally drones, this technology can take down the enemy drones without influencing ally drones.

Korea Biz Wire

You can read more at the link.

This missing child and murder case is totally bizarre and it is only a matter of time before this is turned into a movie:

A woman was given a suspended prison term in a retrial on Thursday in connection with the mysterious disappearance and deaths of two 3-year-old girls.

Reversing an earlier prison term of eight years, the appellate division of the Daegu District Court sentenced the 50-year-old woman, surnamed Seok, to two years in prison, suspended for three years.

The court acquitted Seok of charges that she had switched her 3-year-old daughter with her granddaughter of the same age years ago in the southeastern city of Gumi. 

The case first surfaced in 2021 when the mummified remains of a 3-year-old girl was found at the former home of Seok’s daughter, surnamed Kim. The girl is suspected to have died from starvation up to six months earlier.

However, it was only later found through DNA tests that Kim is not the mother of the girl, but her older sister. The child’s supposed grandmother was in fact the biological mother.

Based on the DNA results, prosecutors added child abduction and switching charges against Seok by alleging that the two women gave birth around the same time and that their babies were switched at birth. 

Prosecutors alleged that Seok had unloaded her newborn onto her eldest daughter to raise with her then husband. Kim had raised her younger sister by thinking that she was her daughter.

Seok, however, said she had not given birth to another child, insisting the DNA results are false. The whereabouts of the missing child remain unclear.

In previous rulings, the district and appeals courts had acknowledged the biological relationship between Seok and the dead girl, convicting her of switching the babies. 

The Supreme Court, however, struck down the verdict, saying the DNA test results cannot stand as evidence for Seok’s alleged switching of the babies. 

On Thursday, the appellate court sided with the top court, acquitting Seok of switching babies and only convicting her of attempting to dispose of the body.

Yonhap

What I don’t get is why Seok would switch the babies around the time of birth to just likely kill her granddaughter after the switch? If she was going to kill a baby why didn’t she just get an abortion? Also how did the daughter Kim not notice she had a different baby? The daughter was sentenced to 20 years in jail for killing the baby when she reached age 3 that uncovered this whole sorted affair.

I think this qualifies as a first world problem:

While the increasing imports of sex dolls serve to comfort lonely men in Korea, they’re also frightening some men, particularly garbage collectors. 

According to the Kookmin Ilbo, a Korean-language daily newspaper, a garbage collector recalled his frightening encounter with a sex doll at work.

“I saw a bit of hair in the trash pile and pulled at it assuming it to be a wig,” the newspaper quoted him as saying in an online post. “What I got was a beheaded woman. Can you imagine how much that frightened me at first (assuming it was a real dead body)?”

He went on to say that instead of throwing away the doll as a whole, “the owner dismembered the doll and wrapped the parts separately. The head wasn’t wrapped tight enough. When I saw the decapitated head, my heart stopped. My hands are still shivering. Those wishing to buy sex dolls, please think also about how to properly dispose of them.”

It’s not the first such incident, according to the newspaper. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The Korean government is really going to have to promote and set the example to get people to stop wearing masks when they have been socially conditioned for so long to wear them:

“I am sure that the government decided to revise the rule as it is certain about managing the virus situation. But I still want to wear the mask for the sake of myself,” Kim said as she was waiting in line for her latte at a Starbucks store in Seoul’s Seocho district.

Just like previous days, most of the people in the store masked up while waiting, except for when they were drinking or eating.

Most commuters also kept their face masks on in indoor areas of public transportation and even outside transportation hubs as they viewed masking as something between a habit and a security.

“It feels a little awkward to take off my mask,” Chang Joon-won said as he was coming out of a subway entrance in Seoul’s Seocho district to head for work. “It has become like a part of me.”

All of the around 30 people waiting for a subway train at Seoul’s Dongdaemun Station wore masks. 

“It is uncomfortable, but I will continue to wear a mask as the COVID-19 pandemic has not yet ended,” Kim Soo-ah said. 

Teachers, students and school staff showed mixed emotions about the end of the school mask mandate, as most students opted to wear face coverings while going to school.

“Nothing will immediately change, as kids are used to (wearing masks),” Park Soon-ae, a mother of two daughters, said as she escorted her kids to Daerim Elementary School in Seoul’s Dongjak district.

Over a 30-minute period, only one student showed up at school without a mask.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.