2008 declared Korea-Japan Tourism Exchange Year.

I was going to post about the scaremongering going on about Mad Cow Disease in the media, as reported in today's Chosun Ilbo here and here, but The Marmot's Hole beat me to it. For my readers who don't go over that way much, here's a little excerpt from the CI:

The impending resumption of imports of U.S. beef has spawned a proliferation of rumors on the Internet about the perils of mad cow disease, amplifying confusion and fears among consumers. This was not helped by the airing of an edition of “PD Diary”, the famous MBC current affairs program, on Tuesday, which claimed that 94 percent of Koreans have genes that make them more susceptible than Americans or Britons to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), which is the human variant of mad cow disease, and this physical trait makes Koreans two to three times more likely than Americans or Britons to contract the disease.

And one more:

Even madly unscientific rumors like, “Jelly, cookies, a broiled dish of sliced rice pasta and pizza will cause mad cow disease,” or, “Cosmetic products, sanitary napkins, and diapers are also risky because parts of cattle are used in production,” exhorting consumers to hoard such items before the imports, are spreading on the Internet.

(Update: The Korea Times has two similar stories here and here.)

Not unlike the unscientific facts in circulation in Korea about how sleeping with a fan on will kill you, or how wearing miniskirts will ruin your girl parts. My 3rd-grade students (US 9th grade) were really interested to talk about Mad Cow Disease this morning, a completely surprising impulse probably explained by that documentary. We had a good conversation about it, though they kept coming back to their fear of dying from American beef. But they're good kids. For all our sakes I can only hope this crazy-talk doesn't lead to a rise in anti-Americanism as the first Chosun Ilbo article suggests.

Anyway since I have to stick to my quota also in the Chosun Ilbo today is a story about Korea and Japan declaring 2008 a "Tourism Exchange Year." The number of Japanese tourists to Korea has been decreasing, while the number of visitors from other nations---such as Taiwan and Thailand---has been increasing.

One can only hope this branded year goes better than 2005's Korea-Japan Friendship Year, which produced this image of Korean Parliament Members not being too friendly: