Suncheon's drama set getting a workout.

Used to be the Suncheon Drama Set's claim to fame was being used for the SBS drama "Love and Ambition" ("사랑과야망"), but lately it's been seeing much more action. Part of the new blockbuster drama plagiarifically-titled "East of Eden" ("에덴의 동쪽") was shot there this month. It survived. There's a photo gallery here of the modifications made to the set in preparation for the highly-anticipated drama, whicih reportedly cost 25 billion won to produce. Here's another one from February, so apparently they had been filming for quite some time, unbeknownst to me.





I guess they had signs up around town this week, but I must have been sleeping. That one is across the street from Choeun Plaza, at one of the busier intersections in town and one I pass every day.



Interestingly, on the drama's trailer and also on the website one of the taglines is "사랑과 야망, 그리고 복수와 화해의 대서사 드라마!" the first part (사랑과 야망) being the name of the drama for which the Suncheon set is sometimes named. Also, according to the Suncheon city website, recent activity also includes the movie 님은먼곳에, starring the lovely Su-ae as a woman who signs on as a singer and goes to Vietnam to be with her boyfriend. Variety, surprisingly, has a review and summary:

Sun-heui (Su Ae) is a traditional country girl, with a gifted singing voice, who's trapped in an arranged marriage to Park Sang-gil (Eom Tae-woong). Under pressure to produce an heir, she regularly visits Sang-gil at the camp where he's doing military service; only problem is that he's really still in love with a college sweetheart.

When Sang-gil suddenly disappears to Vietnam without even telling her, Sun-heui determines to track him down. Script hardly establishes in its early scenes a convincing enough reason -- apart from sheer filial duty -- for her to persist in what turns into an increasingly hazardous venture, weakening the whole film's emotional substructure.

Sun-heui finds that the only way she can get to Vietnam is as a "consolatory singer" (i.e. troop entertainer), and she ends up in a band run by sleazy con artist Jeong-man (Jeong Jin-yeong), who rechristens her Sunny. With long hair, trashy '70s duds and a buccaneering attitude, Jeong-man livens up what looked initially like a pure melodrama, and Jeong ("Hi, Dharma!," "King and the Clown") confirms his smarts as one of South Korea's most unconventional actors, especially good at comedy.

The band's odyssey from Saigon to the battlefront includes Sunny initially blowing a gig in front of some U.S. grunts but later finding her feet entertaining Korean troops. (American military is portrayed in an unflattering light throughout, unlike the kindly Koreans.) Later reels, involving the Viet Cong and a mad dash by helicopter to find Sang-gil go way beyond the bounds of believability. But then, the whole premise was never that believable in the first place.

Gusts of Popular Feeling should go see that movie so he can tell us more about it and its take on, um, history. What the review doesn't mention is that the characters apparently travel through time in order to bribe officers in 1971 with five-dollar bills from 2001, lol.



According to the set's official site, other recent projects include the horrific-looking 블러디 쉐이크 (Bloody um, . . . ?) which was filmed in July, and 분교이야기. Much to my surprise, Mapado 2 and Once In A Summer (also with Su-ae) were also filmed there. The Suncheon city site is pleaesd with all this activity and plans to play on it to attract more tourists. I can't seem to link directly to the release, so I'll just quote it directly. It's Engrish-y, but take a look anyway:

In May 'The Story of Branch School', in July 'Bloody Shake', and in August 'East of Eden'

In recent day, Sucheon Drama Filmed Location is busy and contributes to the revitalization of local public relations and economy and by the photographing of famous movie and drama.

For the while, 'Love and Ambition' of SBS, 'Summer of the Year', 'Mapado 2', and 'East of Eden' of MBC were attracted, and the movie, 'The Story of Branch School' starred Park, Cheol Min was filmed in May, and also 'Bloody Shake' in July and 'East of Eden' in August will be filmed.

Also the 'King's Man' was filmed in January and is waiting the opening on 24, July that the movie is introduced and Suncheon City's Webpage and sightseeing place are introduced in the Movie Webpage. The movie 'My Lover is in Vietnam War' directed by Lee, Jun Ik was attracted and it contributed to the local economy by using the restaurants and accommodations.

In 2006, Suncheon Drama Set was opened at the land of 3,636㎡ that was the biggest drama set in Korea and could see the phases of the times at a glance, and 420,000 of tourists invited. As the open set, it is attracting the movie interested persons and is leaped into the tourist attractions.

The tourists invited Suncheon give an excellent grade to the fresh impression and spectacular of drama set, and especially, the photographers invites the set continuously.

In this chance of the movie, Suncheon City will reinvigorate the local economy through the development of attractive travel packages connected to Suncheon Bay, and especially, the City have plan of 'Suncheon Familiarization Tour' for drama writers. The City publicizes actively the Suncheon sightseeing places that are the best place of the filmed location such as Suncheon Bay, and Naganeubseong where is traditional folk village as well as Suncheon Drama Set.

Oooooooh, Bloody Shaaaaaake, now I get it! 님은먼곳에 is incorrectly referred to as King's Man, known better as 왕의남자, the very popular 2005 film with Lee Jun-ki. The director of 왕의남자 also did 님은먼공에, so that's probably the cause of the confusion.

I've been to the drama set twice, both in the pouring rain, and have blogged about it in more detail here. The set pretty close to one of my schools, and if you want to stetch your legs you could walk there from Suncheon's New Downtown, but since it's kind of hard to explain how to get there, you might as well take a cab or bus 777 and walk back. It's a neat way to spend an hour or two, so I recommend it to fellow Suncheonites. Except to those pricks who ignore me when I be neighborly and say hi at the bus stop or grocery store. Stay miserable.

That's awesomely bad.

Saw this posted on the "I lobe Konglish" Facebook group, but I'm not sure who originally took it. Looks like it also caught the attention of at least one newspaper and one vigilant Korean blogger.

* Edit: Ooops, looks like andyinsk already did a good write-up on it. He posted it to the group, I just realized.

카라 - Rock U

Well, this video is . . . sugary.



The latest single "Rock U" (lyrics here) from the group "Kara," who added a 14-year-old sometime in the past year. She's the one rocking the shit out of the Blossom hat. It's a break from the gangsta stylings in their earlier video for "Break It." There's a higher quality video of "Rock U" available if you click through to YouTube, in case you were curious about that.

I can't find the exact wording now, but I remember somebody commented in our Orientation handbook a couple years ago that everything in Korea tries to be cute, in the same way everything in the States is "Xtreme" and too cool for school. Korea uses a cartoon to advertise where the US would have a gravelly stoner voiceover, and Korean videos often feature cuteness exaggerated to a sickening degree where American videos would lots of brooding and feigned indifference.

Koreans, LPGA, English.

I couldn't really think of a good title for this post as I'm a few days behind the curve with news that the LPGA will require its foreign golfers be able to speak English by 2009 or face suspension. While I agree that it'd be nice for foreign athletes competing and winning in the US to show common courtesy and be able to give interviews, the LPGA is being pretty crass coming out with this, rather than just circulating an internal memo or whatever it is they do.

The Chosun Ilbo has a pretty level-headed story on it today. An excerpt:

How proficient is their English? First-generation golfers such as Pak Se-ri and Kim Mi-hyun, who blazed the trail to the LPGA Tour, have no problem because they learned English for survival. Grace Park, Park In-bee, and Gloria Park, who learned to play golf in the U.S. and Australia when they were young, can speak English almost as fluently as native speakers.

Some players who left Korea for the U.S. only four or five years ago do have problems speaking English. They have played on the LPGA Tour in a favorable atmosphere created by the first-generation Korean golfers and had no big problems because the LPGA even employed Korean staff for their convenience.

It would be quite embarrassing, I think, if these women ended up not being able to speak, though, given that they've had a year to prepare, have studied the language since grade school, and have been exposed to the language their whole lives. I don't remember where I read it, but it suggested that this English push was part of a larger plan to make the LPGA more attractive to viewers and sponsors. In fact, Libba Galloway, deputy commissioner of the LPGA, said "We live in a sports-entertainment environment," and

“Being a U.S.-based tour, and with the majority of our fan base, pro-am contestants, sponsors and participants being English speaking, we think it is important for our players to effectively communicate in English.”

That business about "sports entertainment" is especially low. First of all, it's women's golf, a popular sport American women participate in, but few watch on TV or follow in the papers. Second, the focus on entertainment has caused problems before, hasn't it, since women's golf's biggest name is Michelle Wie, a woman who stubbornly insists to compete with the men but who fails every time. She is becoming golf's Anna Kournikova, an athlete known more for her sex appeal and celebrity than for any skills she might have. Finally, some of the biggest names in American sports leagues are foreign, players that spoke little to no English before arriving, yet who have gone on to be among the best in their respective leagues. Yao Ming in basketball, Ichiro Suzuki in baseball, to name only two, plus the countless European players in the NHL. Closer to home, Mario Lemieux spoke no English when he came from Quebec to Pittsburgh in 1984, but went on to become fluent, to be among the greatest Pittsburgh athletes in history, and to eventually buy the team. The US might not be the most foreigner-friendly environment---but hey, at least foreigners get a chance to play---but the evidence shows it's ridiculous to say foreigners are bad for business. East Windup Chronicle has a little more on the potential trend toward the "Sexy LPGA."

You'll find more intelligent commentary on this elsewhere, from people who know more about the culture of golf and who are . . . well, more intelligent. What caught my eye flipping through the papers was how, underneath the Chosun Ilbo's piece, was some related articles that ran in the paper. Like I said, their article is level-headed, but I was curious going in since I wondered how indignant a paper could be after writing an article titled "Korean Golfers 'Invade' U.S. Women's Open."

Oh, and of course there's the classic "Culture, Social Factors Behind Success of Korean LPGA Golfers," which we looked at before, and its coverage of why one Korean professor believes Korean women are so good at golf:

Among the factors Shin attributed to the success of female Korean golfers were 1) the Korean "Golf Boom" that began in the 1980s; 2) the toughness of Korean women; 3) the close father-daughter relationship in Korea in which fathers are quite indulgent of their daughters; and 4) excellent hand-eye coordination that is a product of a culture in which women traditionally sew and people use chopsticks.

You all know my weakness, and know I can't talk about Korean women golfers without bringing up this article.

What enables South Korean lady golfers to be so formidable in the U.S. LPGA Tour? It is nothing less than the Koreans' talent to make things skillfully with their hands, a trait handed down from generation to generation for thousands years. Celadon in Koryo and the Yi dynasty are world famous for blue and white china in quality, and you know that pottery involves the same skills as playing golf.

Not to change the subject, South Koreans' special talent to make things skillfully with their hands is also believed to greatly contribute to their making almost a clean sweep of the World Skills Competition. By the same token, Koreans are good at various sports that are played chiefly with the hands: handball, archery and table tennis, to name a few.

Professor Hwang Woo-suk of the Seoul National University who led the first cloning of embryonic human stem cells told in a public lecture that one of his assistants surprised the stem cell big shots of the world with his skills, which were beyond their imagination but actually nothing for Koreans. Professor Hwang, referring to the use of chopsticks, mentioned that the Koreans’ skill with their hands contributed to their success in cloning embryonic human stem cells.

An editor golf fan of an English daily newspaper mentioned that one of the root causes for Korean ladies to play such great golf in the U.S. is closely connected to dexterity, which is also critical to preparing delicious Kimchi, a Korean side dish loved by the people around the world.

Japanese, who also use chopsticks like Koreans, once produced a golf great named Ayako Okamoto, who became a member of the LPGA Tour in 1981 and won 17 events between 1982 and 1992. She was recorded as the first woman from outside the U.S. to top the LPGA tour’s money list in 1987. Among Japanese golfers playing in the PGA of America is Shigeki Maruyama, who is often compared to South Korean golfer Kyung-ju Choi. Despite this, the Japanese do not surpass Koreans in the golf world possibly because they do not attach as much importance to the hands in preparing foods. They use sashimi knife in preparing raw fish, their all-time favorite, instead of directly using hands as Koreans do.

Similarly, the Chinese do not distinguish themselves as much as Koreans in the LPGA tour of America because they do not stress the role of hands in making foods. Their food culture features fire. Mostly they use fire to create taste instead of using their hands. Among Chinese golfers, Hong Mei Yang became the first Chinese player to win a tournament in the United States in April 2004 by capturing the IOS Futures Golf Classic in El Paso, Texas, the developmental circuit for the LPGA Tour.

Of course, there are some other factors that make all the great achievements possible including tenacity and indomitability, two characteristics of Koreans, along with quite a lot of synergy among the South Korean golfers. But without the dexterity unique to Koreans their great success would be hard to imagine.

I'll say it again, that's the worst use of "not to change the subject" I've ever seen.

Tangential to all this, perhaps, but if this story does become big news in Korea---which I expect it will---I wonder if it will call attention to the caps on foreign players in place in the professional volleyball, baseball, and basketball leagues here. Granted these leagues don't attract top talent from around the world, as US leagues profess to do, but I wonder if any outrage directed at the LPGA will cause people to reexamine the quotas in place in Korea's pro leagues.

They got it half right.

This week the Suncheon News called attention to the handicapped parking spots at Suncheon Bay's Eco Museum. The gravel path leading from the lot to the park outside the museum is blocked by a stone stump used to prevent motor vehicles from using it. Hopefully the newspaper just caught the museum with its pants down, since these parking spots are brand new, and I'm sure the museum will figure out a way to remove the barrier. But it's good to see people speaking up about wheelchair-friendliness and making sites more accessible for everyone. I have no idea if the museum has elevators or stairs inside, though.

The weekly cartoon was also used to draw attention to this situation, in a piece called "Yet another obstacle." Whoa, Get it? Draw attention? Cartoon? *cough*

Quite the arresting magazine cover you've got there.

The latest issue of 한겨레21, with President Lee Myung-bak. They're apparently picking up the theme from last week, when the 한겨레 (Hankyoreh)'s newspaper ran a cartoon with Lee Myung-bak as Hitler overseeing a concentration camp.

Remembering mortality.

A sad story out of Gangneung last week, which ran under the unpleasant title "Kids stay in apartment after mom dies drunk."

A housewife living with her two young daughters away from her husband due to a family dispute died after a heavy round of drinking, but the children stayed in her studio apartment for four days without knowing she was dead.

According to the Gangneung Police Station, Gangwon, the housewife, only identified as Ms. Choi, 36, was found dead in Gyo-dong by her neighbor, Kim, at 4:40 p.m. Thursday.

Choi’s three- and six-year-old daughters were also in the studio. Twenty bottles of soju and beer were scattered throughout the room.

. . .

“Choi’s older sister called me and said, ‘I cannot contact my sister and please check on her,’ so I went to the room,” Kim said. “The room had a rotting smell. Then I found the children.”

Police said Choi’s hungry daughters were eating raw corn when they were found but were otherwise healthy. They were taken by their father on the same day.

I remember a thread on one of the forums a couple of years ago where teachers speculated how long it would take for somebody to find them if they were to die in Korea. And, how long it would take for news to get back home. For people without a social network or careful employers, a person could easily spend a weekend or a long holiday undiscovered, their presence unfortunately not missed by anyone. It wasn't but two months ago that Korea Beat brought us a story from the Chosun Ilbo about an American teacher found dead in his apartment, undiscovered for some time to the point that, as the witness who called the police said, "there had been a strange smell coming out for several days." I also recall reading a year or two ago about elderly Koreans living alone who would sleep with their front doors open because, having no spouse or children around, they feared dying and being left undiscovered. Elderly dying alone and foreigners feeling isolated aren't exclusive to Korea at all, of course, but this being a Korea blog I brought those up here.

Being reminded of mortality while back home and how much of a process dying actually is put me in a different frame of mind, pushed, too, by that story out of Gangneung, and I started to think about what would happen . . . if something should happen to me while here. I'm embarrassed to say that I've never given it much thought before. Well, no more Crown J updates, that's for sure, but I of course meant less for the blog and more for my family who, among other things, would have to deal with the hassle, for lack of a better word, of coming to Korea and getting my affairs in order. Under the best of circumstances it can be difficult for foreigners to navigate this country, and downright frustrating when dealing with banks, post offices, pension offices, and the police. For someone who's never been to Korea before and suddenly asked to accomplish rather complex tasks relating to their dead son, I'd consider it about as close to impossible as you could get while still being possible. Complicating matters greatly would be if my death were in any way suspicious, which in all likelihood it would be, because as we've learned from cases of suspicious foreigner deaths like Michael White and Matthew Sellers, neither Korean nor American authorities can be counted on for anything but obstacles and headaches. To say nothing, of course, of any financial burden beyond my means my family might incur should I be hospitalized.

So even though it's a pretty busy time of year now, I've decided that I need to start compiling a guide to send home that will walk my parents (or whomever) through some of the things they'll have to do in Korea to square things away. I'm not talking just about distributing any assets I may have, because for the time being they can handle those however they set fit. I'm talking more about the basic stuff, the things that would be quite difficult for first-timers in Korea, especially when fatigued, under duress, and most likely alone. How to get to Suncheon, for example, from the Incheon airport. How and where to get a bus ticket, how to find my apartment, where to find all my important paperwork, how to get to my bank, how to empty my account, how to retrieve my pension funds, how to mail stuff home should they find anything they want to keep, and who they can contact for help in case there's none coming from my employer. It will take a little homework, but it seems the responsible thing to do. I'm thankfully my irresponsibility hasn't been a problem . . . in this case.

Reminder about your friendly neighborhood teachers' forum.

Back in September, 2006, my Orientation roommate set up a messageboard for public school teachers from our group to keep in touch, stay on top of happenings and gatherings, share lesson plans and tips, and do whatever else people on messageboards do. It's Waygook.org and isn't exclusive to Jeollanam-do or to public school teachers, although I'd especially encourage teachers in the area's program to join and contribute. Now that the new semester is here it's nice to know of another resouce for materials and teaching tips. To my dissatisfaction the first batch of teachers weren't as involved as I would have liked, and in general weren't very interested in sharing, but business has seen some spikes since then and there's a nice collection of stuff so far. Anyway, an online community is only as strong as its contributors, and the more the merrier and all that jazz, so if you're looking for a place to trade and get feedback on lesson plans, talk about teaching, gab about the news, or go to a place a little more civilized than the bigger forums in town, take Waygook.org for a spin.

"He's a little fur ball."

As the proud brother, you could say, of a cockerspaniel-poodle mix, this story tickles my heart.

A 15-pound cocker spaniel-poodle mix named Pawlee scared off a mother bear and her two cubs Sunday morning after they strayed into his owners' back yard.

Whether his bark was worse than his bite, Pawlee's tactic worked just fine. These three bears got the hint and took off.

"We had just let him out for the morning and he ran into the yard and started barking his head off," owner Fran Osiason said.

Osiason said her 9-year-old son, Jacob, went outside to see what the commotion was about and came running back in to report there were bears in the yard.

She was worried that the mother would come after Pawlee to protect her cubs, but the pugnacious pup, just 8 months old, had other plans.

His barking drove the two cubs up a tree, and they eventually climbed down and hopped over a fence with their mother and retreated into the woods.

My family got our cockapoo---brown with white paws and a white chin, similar to "Pawlee" in that photo---when I was ten and he's still alive 17 years later. Cockapoos are not only durable and intelligent, but adorable, too, as are their puppies, so much so that google suggests that search term for you.

Those are some interesting garage doors.

Taken from here and here respectively, these photos show murals of Olympic weightlifter Jang Mi-ran that have gone up in Gwangju's Daein Market in preparation for the 2008 Gwangju Biennale. From the Joongang Ilbo:

With the 2008 Gwangju Biennale 10 days away, the Daein Traditional Market in Gwangju decorates using art from the Bokdeokbang Project. Bokdeokbang means real estate agency in Korean. The team of artists behind the project tries to fuse art with public places.

The Biennale, which I can never remember how to spell, is one of the premier attractions in Gwangju and a top art exhibit in the country, and will run from September 5th through November 9th. I consider it must-attend for people in the area. Plenty of good photos available through Naver and Flickr, including this one:

G-Dragon's not thinking about the children (hopefully).

G-Dragon, one of five members of one of your students' favorite boybands "Big Bang," wore this, um, inspired shirt at the Mnet 20s Choice Awards, which aired on August 23rd. The 한국경제 noticed, bucking the trend of Koreans paying no attention when people wear vulgar English shirts, as did Pop Seoul. Click to enlarge and read.



I caught part of the show on TV at the gym, not my fault. One of the highlights was Lee Hyori performing Uhm Jung-hwa's "D.I.S.C.O" and Uhm performing Hyori's "U-Go-Gull." Video here, while it lasts. And some other guy, like, held a microphone and walked around and grinded the Wonder Girls while Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back" played in the background, I don't think even making an effort to sing along because you really only hear his voice over the track when he chimes with "everybody" before the bridge. Clearly, as Jin Jun reminds us, those motherfuckers don't know how to act.

That rendition's look, with the silhouetted dancers and the flirtatious runway girls, was *cough* borrowed from Justin's performance at a Victoria's Secret fashion show back in 2006. Take 'em to school, JT:



One more time 'gain, from the same show:



Those with the same birthdays need to stick together.

I'm all for students showing initiative in learning English, but . . .

this seems too much.

Jeon Young-ae, 37, together with her daughter stepped onto a city tour bus arranged for foreign tourists by a Seoul-based tourism agency over the weekend. Jeon took the bus not for sightseeing but to give her daughter an opportunity to learn English.

``It’s the fourth time my daughter has taken the city tour. I am glad when I see my daughter understand what the tour guides say in English and talk to foreigners without fear during the tour,’’ Jeon said.

Jeon is taking advantage of a program provided by Cosmojin Tour, a travel agency. Cosmojin says it sees a growing number of parents with their children participate in the tour program. ``More than 100 Korean children boarded our tour bus during this summer vacation. Students can learn how to introduce Korean cultural heritages in English and they can naturally mingle with foreigners,’’ said Jung Myung-jin, the company president.

More from the Korea Times, including a line from the company president saying they'll soon open official tours but will restrict the number of Koreans. Currently on the English-language Seoul tour site there's no mention of foreign clients being subjected to Korean children, and no advance warning given. Perhaps the practice won't bother tourists in Asia for the first time so much, but after living here for a bit I know I wouldn't want to be used by Korean children and their pushy parents while on vacation. Especially when we're often subjected to "curious" and "friendly" and "want to practice English" students---and adults---whether we're at a tourist site, strolling through the park, walking around a department store, or exercising at the gym, enough that it's extremely annoying and perhaps considered harassment. It doesn't help that so much of those interactions involve catcalls like "helLO" and "HEY" and "hi hi hi hi," or things we've heard a million times like "Where are you from?", "Do you know kimchi?" and "When are you going home?"

The article's title, "Students Take Advantage of City Tour to Learn English" is on the mark with the "take advantage," that's for sure, and I wish the people pushing this forward would take a minute to think about what's best for the paying customers on vacation. There are literally countless opportunities for Koreans to learn and use their English every day, opportunities they misuse or don't take advantage of, and I wish they wouldn't be so zealous to intrude on foreigners like this.

Pretty good turn-out at the celadon festival.

Gangjin's Celadon Culture Festival (강진청자문화축제) attracted some 680,000 people over nine days---the Gangjin Shinmun says 650,000---up from 410,000 last year. That's a nice turn-out for a township that ordinarily has a population of under 2,000, in a county of 41,575.




Helping things, I'm sure, was that the festival's opening night had a concert with SS501, Jang Yoon jung, Ran, and others (small photo gallery here). Yoon Do-hyun was also there, and he's likely to have brought his noraebang-friendly hit "사랑했나봐." SS501, damn, that's pretty big for Gangjin. My students would have been all over that like . . . well, like middle school students at an SS501 concert. Other attractions included fashion designer Andre Kim,




international marriages

,

and white people.





Roughly 6,000 foreigners attended, according to one article, and practically every photo album I browsed on Naver contained at least one photo of foreigners doing something or other, thus keeping alive the belief that having white people at your event in Korea lends novelty and legitimacy to it. I wish I could have attended, but it was held while I was still in the US. The festival was typically held in the fall, and was in October when I went in 2006, and in September last year. Lots of good photos available via a Naver search, and some videos as well.

I've arrived, too, sort of.

It's a big day. Like The Marmot's Hole, I've finally gotten an intro to my site on Naver. I'm happy about that, and everything looks okay, doesn't it?



Could be a lot worse.

There's a bug in Jeollanam-do that's, like everything else, considered good for stamina.

No, not "run a marathon" stamina, but "good for the man" stamina. From KBS, which always seems to have lots of interesting little stories, comes news that the Cultural Heritage Administration has named a type of beetle as a natural treasure because.

A buprestid, a type of beetle with a lustrous color, has been designated as a natural treasure.

The Cultural Heritage Administration recently announced that based on the latest studies by experts, the buprestids only inhabit certain parts of the South Jeolla Province. The CHA said it has tentatively reached a decision to designated the beetles as a natural treasure of Korea.

The buprestids are known for having the most beautiful color out of all the insects found on the Korean Peninsula. The CHA said the species' cultural and ecological values as well as their limited number were the main reasons why it chose the buprestids as natural treasures.

The larva of a buprestid is around 30mm long and a fully-grown beetle is around 30-40mm long. They have a distinct metallic luster. The buprestids lay eggs in broad-leaved trees including hackberry trees and silver magnolia trees and live on rotting tree trunks.

Traditionally, the beetles were used as an aphrodisiac in the southern parts of China.

The article's called "'Viagra Beetle' Buprestids to Be Designated as Natural Treasure," but, as you can see, it doesn't get into any specifics and in fact doesn't mention its medicinal value until the final sentence.

Jeollanam-do already has 877 designated cultural properties, of which 18 are national treasures and 44 are natural treasures. The Jindo dog, though, is the only animal or insect on the list, with most other natural treasures in the province being trees, breeding grounds, or areas used by migratory birds. And if I'm reading it right, it looks like Jeollanam-do has fifteen "cancelled" natural treasures. You can generate a variety of lists by playing around with the search engine on the CHA's English-language site, and can get a county-by-county list here. Suncheon has a whopping 106 designated cultural properties, a province high by a wide margin. Most of them are at Seonamsa and Songgwangsa temples and Nagan Fortress, although what's interesting is how many you'll happen across while wondering through older neighborhoods. That site is pretty Engrishy, though, and one of the most annoying habits on it is how it writes the names of the properties phonetically in "English" without using spaces. For example, using Songgwangsamyobeobyeonhwagyeonggwanseeumbosalbomunpumsamhyeonwonchangwamun to name a particular portion of a prayer book kept at Songgwangsa temple. In my experience the best source of information for cultural properties, at least at smaller sites you'll find throughout Jeollanam-do, are the plaques you'll invariably find in front of each site.

Because I don't want to devote a whole 'nother post to it, I'll just mention here that KBS also has another article about Jeollanam-do on its front page, this one about how Haenam county has posted signs directing pilgrims to its Ttangkkeut Village, located at the peninsula's southern-most point. In what's becoming a disappointing trend in KBS stories, the article doesn't mention who these pilgrims are or what they're doing or why they're doing it or even where Haenam is.

Haenam County recently warmed the hearts of Koreans by installing large sign boards along a pilgrimage route with words of encouragement for the pilgrims. A total of 20 signboards have been set up every 5 km along the route from the village of Ttanggeut, which literally means the "end of the earth," in the direction of Gangjin and Yeongam.

Haenam County's heartwarming project is a part of efforts to establish the village of Ttanggeut as the mecca of Korean pilgrimages. Each signboard bears motivational phrases such as "You are the symbol of new hope" and "May you, who challenge the impossible, have an iron will."

Pilgrims say that the signboards have been immensely encouraging and have contributed to adding enjoyment to their hard but meaningful journey. They also thanked the county for providing them with fresh drinking water along the way.

In addition to the encouraging words and fresh drinking water, the residents of Haenam County have also opened their schools and their civic centers as accommocations for the walking travelers and have even provided them with various goods.

As of August, some 3,000 pilgrims from 40 organizations have visited the Ttanggeut village in Haenam as part of their nationwide pilgrimage trips.

Seriously, after reading that I'd like to learn a little more about what's going on. I had to chuckle about Haenam becoming the "mecca" of pilgrammages---no doubt an Islam-free Mecca---in the familiar spirit of hyperbole and exaggeration, and at the phrases like "May you, who challenge the impossible, have an iron will" that appeared in the article. The phrase written on the signboard in the article's picture? 여러분 화이팅! Navering "국토 종단" tells me that people are travelling across the country, but for what purpose I have no idea. Another signboard:

As good a day as any for a Hitler political cartoon.

Three guesses which paper ran it.

“None of you move!!” yells President Lee Myung-bak.

In his concentration camp he has the KBS president, the MBC program “The Producer’s Notebook,” Koreans who are charged with encouraging a boycott of companies that advertise with the big three conservative newspapers, “candlelight” protesters, and now, Korean athletes in Beijing.

“I’m not part of the ‘critical elements,’” says this Olympic medalist. Members of the Korean Olympic Team who have completed their events are being kept from returning to Seoul so that they can all return together. It is widely believed that the governemt is supporting the event to create favorable conditions for itself.

Regarding the last part about the Olympics, that same newspaper has a write-up about that situation. I consider myself pretty proficient in English, but I can't make heads or tails of it. Do they want the fucking parade or not? And how is getting a parade of athletes together "going back to the era of authoritarian rule"? Seems to me it would be popular with athletes and with pretty much every Korean. According to the article some people would rather the Korean Olympic Committee invest the money into less-popular sports like handball.

Comments left by some say they wonder what the athletes in less popular events, who did not get medals but are worthy of applause, would think.

No doubt, though, that after the national wave of outrage due up after the Korean women's handball team lost tonight to Norway on a controversial last-second call, they'll be welcomed back as heroes and as tragic symbols of how the world is always out to screw Koreans.

Jindo dog show coming to Jindo.

From the Chosun Ilbo:

The dog festival is scheduled to run for three days starting on Oct. 3. Organizers in Jindo, located off the coast of South Jeolla Province in southwestern Korea, will host various events for visitors. These include dog training classes and canine therapy sessions on top of the usual dog show program to select an overall winner.

Jindo dogs have been designated as the 53rd national treasure of Korea and were recognized by the World Canine Organization in 2005.

Given the poor treatment these "treasures" are given around here, it's clear the training classes are needed. I'm sure these neglected animals will appreciate the therapy, too.


Jindo pen in Gangjin, 2006. I count nine.


How many Jindos are living, from Lonely Lifetime.

Speaking of Jindos, have you seen this?

White people still exotic, still all look same.

Here's a video of swimmer Stephen Parry getting mobbed in Beijing as a crowd thinks he's Michael Phelps.

More evidence that Chinese gymnast He is 14.

Pretty convincing evidence, actually, in the form of two official documents produced by the Chinese government. Documents that have since been removed, but are still available in Baidu's cache if you view the original Excel documents as HTML.

Women on welfare giving birth three times as often.

From a Census Bureau study "Fertility of American Women: 2006," issued this month. From pages 14-15:

The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) gave states greater flexibility to formulate and implement initiatives to reduce welfare dependency and encourage employment for members of low-income families with children. For the nation, in 2006, 10 years after passage of the Act, the birth rate for women 15 to 50 years old receiving public assistance income in the last 12 months was 155 births per 1,000 women, about three times the rate for women not receiving public assistance (53 births per 1,000 women).

There's something very wrong with that picture, but of course suggesting that *gasp* women exercise discretion when reproducing, or that certain economic groups have fewer children at our expense is considered the height of political incorrectness and tantamount to an attack on American freedoms. Entire report available here as a .pdf file. From Carpe Diem.

EBS video short on aerial warfare and bombings.

Anybody else catch this six-minute video on EBS lately? I don't understand all the text, but it seems to be about the "advancement" and "development" of aerial bombing campaigns---insofar as you can use those terms without being ironic---with, um, special attention paid to the US military. Seemed a little "adult" to be on EBS, a channel that generally sticks to chalk-and-talk programming.



Taken from here, posted on youtube for posterity, since Naver links seem to change a lot. The person who uploaded the video also has a blog, where you can see screen captures of most, if not all, of the slides in case you don't feel like watching the video. The video description numbers it 452, so I guess it's part of a series. The blog I just mentioned has previous installments if you click through where it says "다른방송보기" above the first screen capture, or if you click back through the page numbers at the bottom. They seem interesting enough to try and get through eventually, and it was nice---and probably super time-consuming---for the blogger to post all those screen captures.

More Opening Ceremony unpleasantness: dancer paralyzed in rehearsal, accident hushed up.

Photo taken from this Korean-language article.

This story's almost a week old but I haven't seen much made of it yet. A young woman was to perform the ceremony's only solo routine, but was injured in a late-July rehearsal, and the story was buried until last week. From the New York Times:

A talented, 26-year-old Chinese dancer was seriously injured during a rehearsal for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic games just 12 days before the show, and faces the prospect of being paralyzed for the rest of her life.

Liu Yan, considered one of the country’s top classical Chinese dancers, was preparing the performance of a lifetime: the only solo dance in a four-hour spectacular that was expected to be seen by a global audience of more than one billion people.

But on July 27, during an evening rehearsal at Beijing’s National Stadium, the so-called Bird’s Nest, she leaped toward a platform that malfunctioned and plunged about 10 feet into a shaft, landing on her back, according to family members.

. . .

Her head was not badly injured, and she can move her arms. But she has no feeling below her chest, she said in a hospital bed interview. She cannot move her lower body, including her legs.

Doctors have told her family it is unlikely she will ever walk again.

. . .

The organizers of the opening ceremony initially asked witnesses and friends not to disclose the accident ahead of the Olympic Games on Aug. 8, according to people who have visited Liu in the hospital.

But earlier this week, after inquiries from several newspapers, members of the Beijing Olympic Committee visited Liu and announced that they would soon hold a news conference.

For the most part, the Chinese state-run news media have not reported the accident, although Peoples Daily, the Communist Party’s official organ, mentioned it in a small article on Tuesday.

. . .

“I hope one day I can just stand up like a normal person,” she said wiping away tears.

The fireworks were fake, the singer was fake, the children representing China's minority groups were fake, and now this, to say nothing of the American killed in broad daylight at a Beijing tourist attraction, the gymnasts that more and more evidence is suggesting are underage, or the other scandals that have yet to be revealed. What a mess.

Go read the NYT article, it's short. In it Zhang Yimou expressed regret at what happened, saying if he had given clearer instructions there may have been fewer injuries. Zhang talked more about the, um, "challenges" of planning and rehearsing the Opening Ceremony in an AP report compiled from varous sources.

[Zhang] told the popular Guangzhou weekly newspaper Southern Weekend that only communist North Korea could have done a better job getting thousands of performers to move in perfect unison.

"North Korea is No. 1 in the world when it comes to uniformity. They are uniform beyond belief! These kind of traditional synchronized movements result in a sense of beauty. We Chinese are able to achieve this as well. Though hard training and strict discipline," he said. Pyongyang's annual mass games feature 100,000 people moving in lockstep.

Performers in the West by contrast need frequent breaks and cannot withstand criticism, Zhang said, citing his experience working on an opera performance abroad. Though he didn't mention specific productions, Zhang directed an opera at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 2006.

"In one week, we could only work four and a half days, we had to have coffee breaks twice a day, couldn't go into overtime and just a little discomfort was not allowed because of human rights," he said of the unidentified opera production.

"You could not criticize them either. They all belong to some organizations ... they have all kind of institutions, unions. We do not have that. We can work very hard, can withstand lots of bitterness. We can achieve in one week what they can achieve in one month."

Read that whole article, too, for context, but here's another excerpt:

Some students of the Shaolin Tagou Traditional Chinese Martial Arts School in Henan province who began training for the event last May were injured in falls on the LED screen that forms the floor on which they performed and was made slippery by rain, said Liu Haike, one of the school's lead instructors.

"At one point, the children had to run in four different directions. ... When one fell, others quickly followed," Liu said, adding the injuries were minor.

While in Beijing, the constant exposure to the dizzyingly hot summer resulted in heatstroke for some students, particularly during one rain-drenched rehearsal that stretched on for two days and two nights.

The students were kept on their feet for most of the 51-hour rehearsal with little food and rest and no shelter from the night's downpour, as the show's directors attempted to coordinate the 2,008-member performance with multimedia effects, students and their head coach told the AP.

"We had only two meals for the entire time. There was almost no time to sleep, even less time for toilet breaks," Cheng said. "But we didn't feel so angry because the director was also there with us the whole time."

Table tennis not sexy enough.

Because of disappointingly low attendance at Olympics matches, the International Table Tennis Federation wants its female competitors to show a little more T and A.

Women players mostly wear baggy shorts and shirts unlike their tennis counterparts who dress for comfort as well as style.

“We are trying to push the players to use skirts and also nicer shirts, not the shirts that are made for men, but ones with more curves,” International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) vice president Claude Bergeret said.

I was gonna write how typical this was coming from Beijing, but it was actually a French guy who said it. The article goes on to cite Japan's Naomi Yotsumoto as an example of a woman who's got it right.




We live in Asia, after all, where nobody passes up an opportunity to snap upskirt pics.



The directive to get sexier came also in 2007 during the Women's World Cup of Table Tennis in Chengdu, China. A few examples of the results available here and below.

I guess American beef wasn't so bad after all.

Hell, if Michael Phelps ate it:



That's from a Chosun Ilbo cartoon last week, and the Joongang Ilbo tells us that American beef is numer 2 in Korea behind Australian.

Now that the ban on imports has been lifted, U.S. beef is rushing into the Korean market. After imports from Australia, it now ranks second among imported beef by shipment volume and volume to pass quarantine inspection.

. . .

To restaurants, the advantage of U.S. beef is its low price. According to the industry, 100 grams of premium Korean-bred hanwoo beef sells for between 6,000 won ($5.73) and 7,000 won at a butcher shop. The same amount of Australian beef sells for between 3,000 won and 4,000 won. E-net Corp., a U.S. beef importer, sells its product for around 1,000 won.

Back to the cartoon, that same weird depiction of Phelps showed up the day before, next to Korea's champion weightlifter Jang Mi-ran.



Hey, anything to take the sting off.



Then again, I guess he does kinda look like that, but still. I watched a surprising amount of events back home, but hadn't yet tuned into the Korean coverage until tonight. Do they really have the same coverage on all the networks? I don't get how or why that works. Man, everyone was right about them showing highlights of Korean matches rather than events featuring other countries, and they really lay it on thick. Anyone else find it hard to root for Team (South) Korea? And then feel kinda bad getting as worked up about Korean nationalism as the Korean nationalists you're annoyed with? Yeah. I think I stick up for Korea more when I'm at home than I do here, and remember the US more fondly when I'm half a world away from it.

Something else that caught my eye was a thing SBS had on called "1분 차이나," with short little vignetes on Chinese culture. I like how they included---among representative Chinese sites like the Temple of Heaven, the Terracotta Warriors, and the Water Cube----Zhang Ziyi from The Road Home.



As they should have, mind you, because she's hot. At first I figured she was just thrown in there either for no reason or because she's a generic smiling pig-tailed Chinese girl in that shot, but after watching the first "episode" maybe they threw her in as a nod to Chinese cinema and to Zhang Yimou. Well, SBS ought to be thankful it's doing anything at all in Beijing after the stunt they pulled, leaking footage of the Opening Ceremony a few days early.

Google Korea is upsetting Victorian sensibilities again.

Google Korea is in the news again, this time in the Chosun Ilbo in an article today titled "Google Video a Hotbed of Illegal Videos." I scratched my head upon first seeing the title, because whenever I'm looking for a Korean music video or a clip from a Korean TV show, the first places I turn are Naver, Daum, and the lot. But the article focuses, too, on the threat of pornographic and dirty videos, a tune we've heard before around here. A couple excerpts:

The Korean version of Google Video, the search engine recently launched by Google Korea, is becoming a hotbed of illegal clips. Despite its powerful search technology, the site seems powerless to prevent users uploading pornography and copyrighted content.

. . .

Google's negligence has caused concerns about copyright violation. For example, Type in "Prison Break,” the popular American TV drama, and set the parameters to "more than 20 minutes," and as many as 2,480 43-minute clips show up.

. . .

A similar video search service is also provided by domestic web portals Naver, Daum and Empas, who filter search results in various ways. In the case of Naver, monitoring personnel review search results. But Google is determined not to impose such restrictions on its search function, remaining faithful to the concept of freedom of information.

And the caption to the accompanying photo:

The search word ‘sex’ yields more than 1 million video clips in results on Google Video in this screen capture.

By contrast, typing sex or other dirty words into Naver will bring up an age-verification screen. Once I was looking for a TV clip I had seen on Jeollanam-do, but wanted to see all the videos relating to the area, so I typed "Jeolla" in Korean. Turns out it means "naked," so the search wouldn't go through. I'm not sure what's beyond the formidable ID check, and whether porn will show up after you verify your age. People would be leery, perhaps, of browsing such content if they knew their movements were being recorded.

I talked a little about Google Korea last week when an article came out talking about YouTube Korea's potential adaptation of the "real name system" used on Korean portals. I mentioned that Google Korea eventually agreed to censor search terms on its site, meaning that if you search for something dirty you'll get an age-verification prompt above the results. (However, I'm not sure what's preventing people from searching those same terms on google.com, which does not have such filters.) I couldn't find the original articles that ran at the time, but many were a little over-the-top in accussing Google of exposing children to pornography and other filth, as if the search engine were to blame for the children doing the actual searching. That hubbub came around the time the South Korean government announced it was blocking foreign pornographic websites after apparently some dirty movies were uploaded to an internet portal.

Major internet portals have come under fire recently for a lack of responsibility.

On March 18, two pornographic videos were posted on Yahoo Korea, the nation's second most visited portal and over 20,000 users downloaded the files. Yahoo Korea has faced a barrage of criticism for having left the clips for six hours.

Daum carried a video of half-nude foreign fashion models for seven hours last Tuesday. Naver is also being criticized for not having removed a nude photograph for about four hours.

When you type in a variety of dirty terms in Korean into Google Video you'll find some hardcore porn and nudity, but not surprisingly I guess it's usually foreign. That tells us that not only is Korean porn kind of lame, but that you also have Koreans uploading this foreign pornographic material to Google, unless people from other countries are typing filenames and descriptions in Korean. And clearly Koreans were the ones doing the uploading to the Korean portals, which if I'm not mistaken prohibited foreigners from signing up with them at the time. Google has consistently come under fire in large part, I think, because it is foreign and represents a foreign menace, and South Korea neither likes foreign invaders nor plays nice with foreign companies.

Ironically, South Korea is the biggest consumer of pornography in the world, with the average Korean spending almost four times as much as the average Japanese and nearly twelves times as the average American. I came across those stats from this 2007 blog entry, which is worth a read. An excerpt:

. . . [T]he South Korean government has recently been clamping down on internet sex after some laughably tame incidents in March. An article entitled Foreign Porn Sites Will Be Blocked explains that it all started when two porn videos appeared on Yahoo Korea on March 18th. "Daum, the second-largest portal site, also carried an audio-visual file of foreign fashion models exposing their breasts for approximately seven hours last Tuesday," Korea Times reported. "On the same day, a Web surfer posted a nude photo of a woman at the top portal Naver but the company did not remove the picture for about four hours."

The South Korean government responded to these "wardrobe malfunctions" with wild abandon. “We are set to deny access to porn sites based overseas, with details being unveiled early next week,” said the Ministry of Information and Communication. According to ZD Net Asia, the government's Korea Internet Safety Commission will use domain name and URL filtering methods to check not only IP addresses but also file indexes and sub-directories as well -- "because most of obscene materials originate outside South Korea".

Heh, have a look at the Seoul Times, an English-language online newspaper that routinely has nude and NSFW images in its photo galleries, the one I linked to having been up for the past six months or so. Unsurprisingly they tend to be of foreign fashion models. If you want local talent . . . hmm, I guess you don't have any options outside of the major newspapers, the entertainment websites, the blogs, and the internet cafes devoted to racing girls.

Another slant-eyed picture from those lazy, greasy sp*cs.

Like the Spanish men's and women's basketball teams, the Spanish tennis team also posed for a slant-eyed picture in preparation for the Beijing Olympics.



The above picture was, and still is, on the team's official site. The pictures and the explanations offered by the Spanish teams---"We felt it was something appropriate, and that it would be interpreted as an affectionate gesture" said one Spanish NBA player---make for good talkshow fodder, I guess, but what I'm really looking forward to is Italy's women's soccer team reenacting another stereotype held of Asians: the sideways vagina.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Gurye massacre.

A Truth and Reconciliation Commission has released its findings in a probe into civilian killings in Jeollanam-do right before the Korean War. KBS has the story:

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has announced probe results on a civilian massacre incident that occurred around the time of the Korean War.

It confirmed that during an uprising in the Yeosu and Suncheon areas in Jeolla province just before the Korean War, the police and military killed some 160 civilians in Gurye county between late 1948 and July 1949. The killings were justified by saying the civilians were cooperating with rebels and attempting to enter the then labor party.

The commission says another 600 were killed in Cheondo county in North Gyeongsang Province and 140 in Ganghwa, Gyeonggi Province by police and military on charges of collusion with North Korean communists.

The commission says most of the victims who were farmers were killed without due legal process. It is calling for a state apology and memorial projects.

These commissions are always a little iffy and political, and could also be called "Truth and Reconciliation Omission," so initially you'll have to take the story with a grain of salt. However I don't have any reason to doubt civilians were rounded up and killed in Gurye county given what went on throughout the region and what little I've read about Gurye's history. Matter of fact they had a small service for 12 victims of the Yosu-Sunchon Rebellion, or whatever term you'd like, of 1948, near Gurye's Bongseongsan mountain in 2007. I can't quite tell if it's a funeral service, an excavation, or if the human remains are being reinterred.



For a little more reading from this blog on that rebellion, browse this category. More on this latest story and the incident in Korean here and here.

YouTube Korea in trouble?

From the Hankyoreh yesterday:

Google’s YouTube (youtube.com), the world’s largest video site, has become subject to the real name system, which obliges Internet users to use their real names when posting information to Web sites. YouTube now stands at a crossroads and must decide whether to adopt the real name system or alter or drop its service in Korea.

The government announced on July 22 comprehensive measures to protect online information, expanding the number of sites subject to the real name system from media outlets, portals and UCC sites getting up to 300,000 visitors a day to those getting just 100,000 a day. YouTube, which was getting 800,000 visitors weekly as of the second week of August, will from next year be subject to the real name system. An official with the Korea Communications Commission said that YouTube, even though it is an overseas site, will not be exempt from the system, and that Google has, in the past, accepted Korean regulations, such as those regarding underage protections.

The article continues to tell of YouTube Korea's increased traffic over the course of 2008, even though it was lampooned early on as being a failure. I'm curious, though, besides being written in Korean, does YouTube Korea differ from any of the other YouTubes? Is there anything beyond the language barrier preventing people from contributing should the site go down?

Google, which owns YouTube, hasn't been very successful in Korea. That January KT article I just sited said Google and Yahoo each have less than 5% of the market-share of internet searches. A lengthy Associated Press piece from 2006 goes into why Google may be struggling. An excerpt:

Still, Google faces an uphill battle, simply because it can be tough to change Internet users' habits.

Many Korean Internet users start their Web browsers with portal sites such as Naver that offer detailed category listings, online shopping and news headlines. Koreans embrace the visually rich websites because they also benefit from being a world leader in per-capita broadband connections — meaning fancy graphics and animation flow quickly onto their screens.

That's a marked contrast to Google's celebrated bare-bones approach, with sparse graphics and a single search box. The company has only recently sought to change its approach and become a place on the Web for people to hang around and not just jump to other links.

Lee Jae-suk, a 24-year-old university student in Seoul, said he prefers Naver for searches because of the wealth of its results that skim websites, blogs, news and video and organize them by category.

"Google's site is just not enough for everything. Their search results especially are too limited," said Lee. "I think Google is paying less attention to Korean Internet users' demands."

A Business Week article from January, 2006 said basically the same thing:

Why is Naver so popular? One reason is that Naver can deliver more relevant search results than Google can, at least on its home turf. A simple Google search will return only certain kinds of Web pages, and a user needs to click another link to find, say, related images or news stories. NHN offers a mix of categories including blogs and community sites unless the user specifies a particular kind of document. A Naver search for a subway station, for instance, will return a map, information on the subway line serving the station, connecting bus lines, restaurants and shops near the station, blog entries mentioning it, and more. "Google has a superb search engine," says Choi Jae Hyeon, NHN's search chief. "We have, however, built up knowhow and a database by extracting knowledge from users' brains."

Blogger The Daily Kimchi offered his take in 2007:

Although I am a big fan of Google's products and services (Gmail rocks my socks), I believe Google will fail to dominate the South Korean online search market. Why you ask? Things work differently here, as Koreans have an immense amount of pride towards their homegrown products and services, as opposed to foreign companies. Prime examples of these failures? Think Walmart (now E-Mart), French retail giant Carrefour (now owned by E.Land Corp), and recent B&Q's failure to penetrate the Korean retail markets. These large multinationals have suffered greatly and have been forced to sell off their remaining stores in the country to local Korean companies (B&Q is still up in the air). Even automobile manufactures have a tough time in the Korean market. The majority of the cars you see here are either badged Hyundai, Kia, or Samsung.

Considering that South Korea is one of the most wired countries in the world, the people here definitely are web-saavy. If their preference of internet portals is along the lines of their retail choices, then Google might have a higher mountain to climb than expected. Google Korea might take a large number of users away from Naver and Daum (although Google is now working with Daum), but it will never be viewed as the number one search engine in Korea--the people here won't let it happen.

TDK goes on to compare the simple look of Google to the busier-looking Korean portals, saying, like those interviewed in the AP story, that Koreans prefer a more complex look. I don't know anything about that, but I recall reading something on the Metropolitician a while back (can't find the link now) about the iPod, and how some were skeptical it'd do well because it was too simple-looking, and didn't have any of the bells and whistles Korean consumers, supposedly, expect. In spite, or maybe because of its simplicity the iPod has been popular in Korea from what I hear. If I'm remembering the Metropolitician's point correctly, and I may not be, he said it had a lot to do with how it was marketed, and how it came to be perceived as cool.

A Year in Mokpo looked at "Naver vs. Google" in a November post, and directed us toward an OhMyNews article with a different theory as to why Google failed compared to domestic sites like Naver.

A prevalent theory in Korean dotcom circles is that Google failed to impress demanding Korean customers with its lousy service. This is at least what Naver and other major local portals want Koreans to believe.

Choi Mi Jung, who leads Naver's "Knowledge Man" service, a Wikipedia-like online encyclopedia built by the spontaneous participation of Netizens, scoffs at the sloppy interface and unfriendly way Google's Korean site presents its search results. "It is how meticulously their service was designed that made the difference," she says.

However, the real reason behind Google's difficult path in Korea is that its highly praised search technology was rendered practically useless in the Korean language sphere when major portals decided to block Google search robots from crawling around the content they hold, industry observers universally note.

But to echo again what has been said before, given the failures of other Western corporations in South Korea, due to their failures to adapt to the local market or to a citizenry fiercly loyal to domestic products, I wonder just how successful Google and its products can and will be. But I'm not a tech blogger, and don't know anything about that, so others will have to debate what's going on in more detail.



Anyway, related to both the beginning and the middle of this post is the news story I thought of immediately after reading the Hankyoreh piece. A couple of years ago Google was in some trouble for supposedly exposing minors to explicit content. In contrast to Google at the time, Korean portals have an age-verification system, meaning if you search for what's considered adult content you'll be diverted to a screen requiring you to type in your name and national ID number (주민번호). Google eventually agreed to checking users' ages, but not before locals started slinging the mud, accusing Google of exposing their children to pornographic material. As if the search engine is to blame rather than the children actually doing the searching. Keep in mind, too, softcore porn runs on many cable channels after dark, and it's not all that unusual to see a topless woman or somebody's backside go prancing across the screen. And, again, what's preventing a Korean user from just typing in adult-themed search terms, in Korean, to Google.com, rather than Google.co.kr? Unfortunately I can't find any of the original articles on the moral panic, but I remember the hot air and indignation at Google obscured what otherwise would have been fodder for a reasonable debate: whether Google should have to conform to Korea's standards or the other way around.


My friend Google turned up this picture of Kim Hye-su in the film 타짜, on Korean TV every once in a while. Couldn't find the picture of her backside, or one without a blurred nipple, but Lord knows I tried.

Google also ran into some trouble back in 2006 when hundreds of thousands of those citizen ID numbers were revealed to be wholly or partially exposed online. This Chosun Ilbo article makes the connection between Google and the reported leak, but provides no evidence. In fact, it says the number of victims could be much higher than the 900-some-thousand found in the government search

since there is no protection of personal information on international search engines such as Google or MSN.

Gotta love this line, too:

The first six digits of ID numbers, meaning their date of birth, of an astonishing 808,446 people were exposed on 5,344 websites, revealing an abject failure on the part of domestic public agencies and private firms to protect personal information.

Um . . . yeah, the first six letters are the person's birthday, thanks for keeping that secret. Considering the regularity with which we hear about online security breaches here, I don't know if there's anything about Google that makes it particularly less safe. But perception is reality, sometimes, and perhaps it's much easier to prey on the inherent distrust of foreign entities.