More Nobel nationalism.

Last week we read about the Seoul National University President eager to create a homegrown Nobel Prize winner for the sake of creating a homegrown Nobel Prize winner. Today in a Joongang Ilbo editorial we hear from Oh Se-jung, a physics professor at SNU who gets to the real heart of the matter: Japan has 13, South Korea has zero.

We can beat Japan in football and baseball, but why can’t we do so in science? We beat Japan at Go as well, despite Japan’s claim as the origin of the game. In women’s golf Japan doesn’t even come close to us. But why can’t we catch up with Japan in scientific fields?

God, what a fag. To be fair he is asking why South Korean research isn't as developed as Japan's, but when you write something like that you don't really deserve fairness. I dunno why Korean scientific advancements lag behind Japan and others, or why the international scientific community might be a little cautious for some reason.



Also, yesterday the director of the Korea Literature Translation Institute wrote in to the JI calling it "unfair" that another European won the Nobel Prize of Literature.

I want to see the Korean people’s interest in and hopes for a Nobel in literature in a positive light, not just because of my job. Some have a cynical view that our desire for recognition is an aspiration of a developing country, but I am of the opinion that beneath it all, a love for our mother tongue and national pride in our creative accomplishments are in the background of our longing for Korean writers to be acknowledged internationally.

In other news, a Korean jazz artist has planned to release a CD internationally next year, prompting the Chosun Ilbo do write the only natural thing: is this the beginning of a Korean Jazz Wave? See, stuff like this is why people here enjoy seeing Koreans fail.