Korea's Stephen Hawking in the news, and not for making his robot voice say dirty words.

From the KT:

Prof. Lee Sang-mook of Seoul National University (SNU) Earth and Environmental Science department was embroiled in a 100 billion won ($100 million) damages suit filed by bereaved family members of his student, who died in a car accident Lee caused.

Lee is often known here as `Korean Stephen Hawking' for overcoming his disability and making academic achievement.

The accusers filed for the suit in a California state court claiming that Lee is responsible in causing the student's death, because he was the driver. In July 2006, Lee and his student had a car accident during a geological survey in Death Valley, CA. The student died and Lee was paralyzed from the neck down. However, Lee resumed lecturing in a wheelchair after six months of rehabilitation.

Okay, maybe he was responsible, but isn't ten million a bit much? Yes, I know you can't put a price on your child's life, in spite of what divorce lawyers say, but it looks like Lee's accusers have learned from their American forbears. They've even learned to grieve without dignity and turn into total pricks:

Besides Prof. Lee, other parties sued by the student's families are SNU, California Institute of Technology, automobile maker Ford and several other relevant organizations.

The article isn't very informative, and I hadn't heard about this guy until today so I don't know anything about him. But it doesn't sound like he's squirreling away money:

Prof. Lee recently published a book about his rehabilitation and vision. The profits from book sales goes to a foundation he established in the name of his dead pupil.

A quick look around Google doesn't bring up any references to the Stephen Hawking parallel outside of that KT article and this post. Looks like a creation of the author. But why not the Korean Jyh-Hann Chang, an asistant professor at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, who was paralyzed from the waist down when he was 19? Or the Korean Dr. Kanalu Young, the late professor at the University of Hawaii? Or the Korean Dr. George Jackson? Or, why not just Lee Sang-mook, a man whose struggles in a wheelchair-unfriendly country ought to be noteworthy in their own right.

These sorts of comparisons have been well-documented on this site. They are done to add credibility to Korean people and places and, it is assumed, to allow non-Koreans to connect to the things they probably never heard of before. The result of the comparisons, though, is that the Korean object is always cheapened because it can never live up to the original. Though they might be significant and good in their own right, when they're accompanied by tacky hyperbole they end up looking like cheap knock-offs. For those keeping score at home we have:

* Korea's Madonna - Uhm Jung-hwa
* Korea's Madonna - Gwangyang's own Chae-yeon
* Korea's Madonna - Bada
* Korea's Usher - Rain
* Korea's Justin Timberlake - Rain
* Korea's Beyonce - Gwangyang's own Kim Ok-bin
* Korea's Michael Jackson - Seo Taiji
* Korea's Angelina Jolie - Kim Hye-soo
* Korea's Naples - Tongyeong
* Korea's Hawaii - Jeju
* Korea's Manhattan - Yeouido
* Korea's Grand Canyon - Bulyeongsa Valley (LMFAO, thanks Michael).
* Korean Alps - mountains in Gangwon-do
* Korea's 9/11 - The Namdaemun arson
* Korea's Bangalore - Daejeon

And *cough*

* Korea's Amsterdam

Not that I don't appreciate the offer

but dude.



Taken at the Andong Mask Festival by Dave Pup. The missing part on the left says "Free transportation service for."

Suncheon Bay (순천만)

I spent part of Saturday at Suncheon Bay, a significant wetlands a few miles south of downtown Suncheon. It is known for not only being incredibly scenic but for being home to loads of migratory birds. It is, as the website proclaims, the "Treasure house of having the various many species."

It was a perfect day for walking around and taking pictures, the first weekend of fall, weather-wise. Here are some photos, with loads more in my Flickr set. Practically everyone in the area has taken a million pictures of the bay, the reeds, the birds, the wetlands, and everything else down there, so if you want to find other versions of what will follow, a Naver search will help.




The bus drops you off near the Eco-Center, whose large front yard is an uncommon site in Korea. The museum has displays on the wildlife that visits the Bay, and there's a small park and a couple of convenience stores nearby. This year there's a train that motors around the park. Here's a local journalist trying to get the scoop on me:



You can take a little boat ride down the length of the river for about 4,000 won. The mud throughout the area is home to lots of crabs and a type of amphibian whose name I don't know. During the boat ride the driver will hit the boat against the shore, and you'll see the land come alive as the little creatures run for cover.



There's a network of bridges that run through the reeds. There are placards that name and describe the various plant and animal species you'll see. And there are mothers and fathers walking with their children explaining, in turn, which species of crab are good to eat.








If you follow the path to the east you'll see it leads up a small mountain. It's a twenty-five minute hike to Yongsan Observatory, where I took the photos you'll see below. Before you get to the observatory you'll go up a few sets of stairs.




There were lots of photographers at the observatory on Yongsan, and they had parked themselves in their spots, making it difficult for others to sneak in and get clean photographs. The weren't really taking pictures, though, and I assume that they were being assholes were waiting for the sunset that was about an hour away.








I'm not a fan of burials, and burial mounds I find especially unpleasant. They're often placed in accordance to feng shui, meaning they're on mountains, overlooking water, and so forth. What that means for you and I, though, is that we have to try and enjoy the scenery next to unsightly piles of dirt and remains. Hell, there are even mounds mixed in amongst the gorgeous Boseong tea fields. I bet the mounds were there first, but talk about presumptuous and selfish. And, where you have burial mounds you have the potential for this:




Only a few children ran around on the lower one, but the upper one has been reduced to a little stump because from people using it as a vantage point. The best case of this kind of behavior happened about a year ago as I was hiking in Suncheon. There's a mound overlooking New Downtown, a mound one guy was using to help him do his stretches.

On a more pleasant topic, here's a white guy photoshopped in:



People in Suncheon can get to Suncheon Bay via city bus number 67, which runs its route 32 times a day and which stops at, among other places, Suncheon University, Central Market, and in front of the bus terminal. It's also a part of the Suncheon City Tour. From October 28th to November 4th it will host the Suncheon Bay Reed Festival (순천만갈대축제), which runs concurrent to the Ramsar Convention in Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do.

For a moment I thought I was hallucinating.

When I saw Oceans 13 in theaters last year I don't know if people were really into it. The movie had star power, but a lot of the jokes didn't seem to stick. People did come alive when the luxury cell phone Al Pacino's character got as a gift was a Samsung. Koreans are often on the look-out for any signs that the world knows of South Korea's existence, and sometimes take it to irritating proportions, such as constant boasting about such-and-such a company, or some athlete or other, or X-thousand years of history, or twice as many seasons as you're probably used to.

I do sort of the same thing, though. Just in a less obnoxious way. I get a kick out seeing references to Korea slipped in to Western media. Generally I feel like my life in Korea has little to do with my life outside of it, but when I see a bit of hangeul on American TV, or drive by a Korean church, or see some ramyeon for sale at Giant Eagle, it's like when Jennifer from 1985 sees Jennifer from 2015 in Back to the Future II.

Case in point I was watching a Britney Spears show on MTV on Sunday---don't ask---and saw her video for "Break the Ice," which was uploaded in March and has over 15 million views. The whole thing's a cartoon, and near the beginning there's some hangeul written on a billboard as the screen pans across a skyline. Nothing unusual, until I did a mental double-take and remembered that the video isn't by a Korean artist, and that not everyone in the world ordinarily reads or uses hangeul. (Hangeul is the most scientific alphabet. Did you know that?)



Another notable example is from an episode of The Sopranos, when Steve Bucemi's character works at a Korean dry cleaners.



It's a particularly notable appearance because of all the similarities between Koreans and Italian-Americans, at least in the stereotypes we've come to know and love get accustomed to. The men share a love of track suits and the women favor big hair and gaudy, colorful pants suits. Both profess a love for family above all else, and will help a family member even if it means hurting strangers. Both love to curse and both have a flair for the melodramatic. And both Koreans and Italian-Americans talk about food 83% of the time.

Quite a few movies set in LA will have some Korean, either spoken or written: Jackie Brown, American History X, Training Day, to name a few. And of course there's that Keanu Reeves movie from earlier in the year, Street Kings. I saw it on the plane over here, and it wasn't that bad, but some Koreans and Korean-Americans took exception to the first few minutes, which portrayed Korean-American gangsters as Korean-American gangsters. My favorite line in the movie, said by "Thug Kim":

Konnichiwa is Japanese. It's insultin' to Koreans.

LOL.

The Korean name in the Britney Spears video isn't news, as like I said the video came out months ago. I was going to look a little more into it but Google kept bringing up bullshit about how the world is falling in love with the beauty of hangeul, the world's most scientific alphabet, that I've decided to just leave you to your own devices there.

From the "you should have hired a proofreader" file.

OCN is going to run a block of superhero movies to coincide with a new "Heroes" season, or something. They've been airing this commercial, but it looks like something is a little off.

Probably should have had someone look at that. Also related, I get thrown for a loop when most Koreans pronounce Batman (베트맨) the same as Beethoven (베토밴). Drives me crazy, too.

That's true, the Confederate flag is pretty sharp.

I've seen these bags all over the place for the past year or so, but had never known where to get them until today, when I happened across "Super Star" in Old Downtown.




They feature what is commonly known as "The Confederate Flag," a symbol of the Confederate States of America, although Wikipedia points out that that particular design was never an official flag of the short-lived nation. Highly unlikely that anybody here knows what that flag is, or what it represents, but it's still troublesome all the same. I don't think it should fly over government offices, and I don't think it should be in the hands of Korean middle school students. Wikipedia has a little more:

The display of the Confederate flag remains a highly controversial and emotional topic, generally because of disagreement over the nature of its symbolism. Opponents of the Confederate flag see it as an overt symbol of racism, both for the history of racial slavery in the United States, and the establishment of Jim Crow laws by Southern states following the end of Reconstruction in late 1870s, enforcing racial segregation within state borders for nearly a century until the Civil Rights Movement.

. . .

White southerners often see the flag as merely a symbol of southern culture, a "country music flag" without any political or racial connotation. An example of this would be the Bocephus Rebel Flag often sold at concerts performed by country music star Hank Williams, Jr., and southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. For some, the flag represents only a past era of southern sovereignty. Some historical societies such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy also use the flag as part of their symbols. Also rockabilly fans hold the Confederate flag as their emblem. The flag has also been used as a symbol of generalized working-class masculinity, suggesting rowdy rebelliousness, and detached from any intended historical, Southern regional, or racial significance, although almost always in a white context, such as construction workers in Montreal.

As a result of these varying perceptions, there have been a number of political controversies surrounding the use of the Confederate flag in Southern state flags, at sporting events, at Southern universities, and on public buildings. According to Civil War historian and native Southerner Shelby Foote, the flag traditionally represented the South's resistance to Northern political dominance; it became racially charged during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, when fighting against desegregation suddenly became the focal point of that resistance.

The bags say "Icekeki," which I thnk is a clothing line, and must be available at a bunch of different stores, because I don't think bags from a little out-of-the-way boutique in Suncheon would turn up in other cities like Gwangju.

Prostitution crackdown at work in Suncheon?

No, I don't think so. Unlike Gwangju's red-light district, Suncheon's is still open for business amidst the nation-wide crackdown. The area was pretty dead, though, but there was one very noticable difference. Normally, women stand in windows and call out to customers. This time the windows all had an opaque covering, and the only time you saw the women was if they hung out the door. So I guess that takes care of that.

I'm reminded of a story from July, when it was announced that an unusued love motel would be converted into a dormitory. The Suncheon News ran this strange cartoon:

Kenya in Suncheon.

Not sure when exactly this happened, but I noticed that Suncheon has a Kenya Espresso coffeeshop now, in Old Downtown, a block from the "It's Skin." This is the second two-story coffeeshop in town, meaning Suncheon is clearly on its way to becoming the Hub of Asia. It's already calling itself the Eco-Capital of Korea.



Pardon the bad picture, it was taken with my cell phone.

I'm a big fan of Cafe Mochas, and I think coffeeshops are neat places in general, so I'm happy about this. When I moved to Suncheon in August, 2007, the only chain coffee shops were Tom n' Toms, Rosebud, and Dunkin Donuts, with a handful of no-name places near Suncheon University, and New and Old Downtowns. Since I've arrived, though, we've gotten a third Dunkin Donuts, two Holly's Coffees, a Ti Amo across from Suncheon University, and a bunch of new one-off places clustered around the above hotspots and also the fast-growing area behind Home Plus. My friend says that it won't be long until we get a Starbucks. I don't know about that; cities of Suncheon's size haven't gotten one yet. Besides, we must remember that the next rung in the evolutionary ladder is KFC, which Suncheon still lacks.

I heard that Kenya Espresso is a Gwangju-grown institution. I couldn't find any more details about it, but Naver shows that all 12 locations it lists are in Gwangju, so it's nice to see local boys doing good.

Korea Times: "Fall Festivals in South Jeolla Province."

Interesting article in today's Korea Times about upcoming festivals in Jeollanam-do. *cough* Wish they didn't feature the "Myeongnyang Japanese-Killing Festival" on the top of the page, though. That's one event I don't think I'll be taking in. Anyway, Girlfriend in Jeollanam-do wants to go to the Namdo Food Festival in Suncheon and the foreigner festival in Gwangju that weekend, and because of her I think I'm obliged to attend the one happening the week after:

The following weekend, from Oct. 15 through 19, is the Gwangju Kimchi Festival. Devoted to the country's representative side dish, it is a great opportunity for foreigners to be photographed doing whatever it is foreigners do when exposed to kimchi.

In other local news, there's a concert happening tomorrow night (Saturday, 27th) September 30th, at Suncheon Jeil College, with the pop duo "Da Vichi" (다비치). It will be at the 비봉광장, but I don't remember the time. If you're looking for something to do, maybe go check out a semi-popular singing act. Or stay home and wash your hair, I dunno.

Poll: Japan most disliked foreign country; US favorite.

Or perhaps just the least disliked at the moment? From the Joongang Ilbo via ROK Drop:

South Koreans continued to rank the United States as their favorite foreign country, the same as last year. About 42 percent said economic cooperation with the U.S. is more important than with any other country, up from 35 percent last year.
This year’s poll showed a staggering increase in anti-Japanese sentiment. About 57 percent ranked Japan as their most disliked country, up from 38 percent last year. China and North Korea followed with 13 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

While South Koreans don’t like Japan, they continue to rank it as the country that South Korea should most emulate. About 24 percent in this year’s poll said Korea must model itself after Japan.

Um . . . okay. There's still a lot of bad blood about Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945, but these latest numbers, and the huge increase in anti-Japanese sentiment, likely have to do with renewed interest in the Liancourt Rocks territorial dispute, which has touched practically everyone here and which is a matter taken quite seriously across the board.


This pops up on Jeollanam-do public school sites.

Back in 2007, another survey of 1,000 Korean adults found that the US was their favorite neighboring country (neighboring? lol), while a survey of 12,000 Chinese found that South Korea was their least favorite neighbor.

Not really related to the survey, but it's nice to bring up these drawings done by Gyeyang Middle School students at the behest of their teachers, which illustrate, pun sort of intended, the degree of anti-Japanese feeling you'll find even among children. They were hung around select subway stations in 2005, the drawings not the children. Loads more photos here and here.

No, I didn't need another reason to hate New York, but thanks for the offer.

From the NYT.

This is old news, but it pisses me off all the same. As you may or may not know, the New York Yankees play "God Bless America" durng the seventh-inning stretch at home games, ostensibly to remember the September 11th attacks. Because the real heroes of 9/11 are and were New Yorkers and their baseball team. *cough* They take the song and the gesture quite seriously, apparently, and will put up chains along the gates to keep people in their seats, and don't tolerate "excessive movement." In August a man was thrown out of the stadium for trying to take a bathroom break during the song.

When he tried to leave his seat during the traditional singing of God Bless America, however, he says he was stopped by a NYPD officer who said he'd have to wait until the song was done.

"I then said to him, 'I don't care about God Bless America. I just need to use the bathroom.' As soon as I said that, he immediately pinned my arm behind my back," Campeau-Laurion told CBS 2.
The 29-year-old says two officers pinned both of his arms behind his back and ejected him from the stadium.

"He shoved me out the front gate and told me get out of their country if I didn't like it," he said.

Please don't take tips on ethics and civic duty from members of the NYPD, or lessons on multiculturalism from security guards. Deadspin has more, including an email from and an interview with Campeau-Laurion.

This week the final game was played at historic but shitty Yankee Stadium, which begs the question, "Have the terrorists won?"

Journalist sentenced to one year for defamation, for claiming actor assaulted her.

The KT has the story that a freelance journalist who falsely claimed actor Song Il-kook beat her up has been sentenced to one year in prison.

``Given the evidence and testimony, it seems to be true that there was some physical contact between Kim and Song. But it was not severe enough to be seen as an assault,'' the court said in its ruling.

The journalist, Kim Soon-hee, had been writing about the actor and told a sports newspaper that he beat her, a story the paper subsequently ran.

Another insightful passage from the 3rd grade English book.

From the same book that brought us the pro-kimchi tirade last week comes this bizarre exchange, which students have to put in order while listening to the CD:




What the fuck is that? There are no foreigners listed among the authors, but who knows if they were employed as proofreaders. Learning about foreign cultures from a Korean English book is often a painful process. My all-time favorite comes from the teachers' guides handed out with the elementary school books. They're pretty much all in Korean except for some cultural tips at the back of each chapter. The best one is this, from the 5th grade teachers' guide:

Western people show exclamation even over trifles. This phenomenon isn't found an oriental culture that appreciates people who control their feeling and taciturn. We can usually see Americans who are moved so easily by things that Koreans aren't effected by. This means they are accustomed to expressing feeling freely and frankly. In Western culture, they start a conversation about the weather when they meet someone for the first time: "It's a lovely day, isn't it?" This is reference to the inclement weather in England. The people who live in an area with nice weather like Korea aren't touched by this kind of thing but Englishmen can be impressed.

Jesus Tapdancing Christ. Keep that in mind the next time the teachers huddle around over 떡 saying "맛있네" sixty-seven times in three minutes, or can't stop themselves from sighing and alternating between "추워" and "더워" seven times an hour.

Teach English to the stars . . . for free!

Here's part of an ad running on WorknPlay:

*Starting date: ASAP
*Time and Date: Will be decided after meeting but mostly it will be once a week.
1.5 hrs/1 day
*Student information : Celebrities of Climax Entertainment, CJ Entertainment
http://www.climix.co.kr/
http://www.cjent.co.kr/
(They belong to the top 5 entertainment company in Korea, They make movies, dramas, produce albums, manage stars,..etc.)
*Notice: There will be no payment. It is a volunteer job.
It is a social networking between Entertainment/ Broadcasting celebrities and English teachers.
You will have lots of fun with Top stars and CEOs.
And you will gain a popularity being as English teacher of those top stars.
(Just like Madonna's Trainer, Celine Dion's English teacher ^^)
We will help you to take picture with them all the time and when you write a book they will be glad to write a recommendations for you.

HT to xCustomx. You know how we always get stories about Nigerians or Russians or Iranians getting busted for posing as native English speakers? How Koreans generally can't tell the difference betwteen a black guy with a French accent and me? It kind of works the same here. Unless it's Ha Ji-won I don't think I'd recognize a single Korean celebrity, so they could just stick any random person in front of me and I wouldn't know the difference. That's not to say they all look the same---black hair, dark eyes, good at math---but rather . . . well yeah, I guess they kind of all look the same.

This would be illegal, by the way, for people on an E-2 visa, who aren't permitted to work or volunteer outside of their designated place of employment. I don't have the regulations in front of me, but I recall they prohibit sleeping with D-list celebrities as part of a language exchange. The ad continues:

For example, this brand-new service, called Starcare, could be best understood if you imagine a situation where a famous star entertainer, seeking to advance into bigger markets like Hollywood in the future, can receive language help offered through Jinnybank, which will link him with the top language schools or excellent English teachers, so that the entertainer can prepare himself adequately before visiting the States.

Thanks to the safe and secure network foundation thus established, most of the major hospitals and language schools and lots of teachers have showed their interest in our new business and we have ended up signing an agreement with some of the top-ranked hospitals and schools in the nation.

Do we really need any more Korean entertainers in the US? Zero is enough, thank you very much.

As I mentioned earlier, a friend of an acquaintance was, according to rumor, Ha Ji-won's English tutor when she was filming something in Jeollanam-do. I don't recall them ever appearing out in public. As a matter of fact something tells me that a celebrity would probably be embarrassed to be photographed with a foreigner, even if that foreigner happened to be their English teacher. Wouldn't having an English teacher imply that they suck at English, hence a loss of face? (Singing "You-Go-Gull" is to an audience of millions is apparently not embarrassing, though). The difference between that earlier situation with Ha Ji-won and this one is that I'm attractive, and would be a boon to any celebrity's career. *cough* And I can lay the pipe.

KT&G rolls out "Pirates of the Caribbean"-themed cigarettes.

I don't think Disney signed off on this. Then again, I don't think they've made a fuss yet about Lotte World and it's, um, "tributes" to Disney World, so who knows if this will even show up on the radar. Actually, the article mentions the movie and the Jack Sparrow character---probably a bad idea---but I don't think Disney has patents on pirates or pirate motifs. The box itself says "Inspired by Black Beard and Calico Jack," but apparently stores have put Jack Sparrow to work advertising for the cigarettes. Thanks for "Grandfalloon" for the scoop, not surpringly on a Marmot's Hole post about Korean movie posters, um, "borrowing heavily" from American ones.

Google will probably poop in your baby's diaper if you're not careful.

Google and YouTube Korea are favorite whipping boys in this time zone. Last month Google and YouTube upset Korea's Victorian sensibilities *cough* by apparently having all kinds of porn and illegal videos up. A little before that was the debate whether YouTube would have to adopt the "real name" system present on the domestic sites here. A few years ago was the business about children being exposed to foreign pornography because of lax security standards. Remember that South Korea is the world's largest consumer of porn.

The latest flare-up has to do with Google apparently exposing personal IDs online. The Chosun Bimbo points out what's wrong with that accusation.

Being that it indexes everything that goes into the tubes (and clearly outlines what and how it goes about things. Haha - Pigeons!) responsibility for "exposing" important personal information rests not on The Google, but on those who chuck up an unprotected Excel spreadsheet onto an open server somewhere on the net. Such people apparently include a Busan elementary school and a doctor amongst others.

The Chosun Ilbo article he's quoting goes on to say that if a person wants to hide their personal information after its been exposed they'll have to sign up for Google. The article makes it sound like a burden, one that takes a week, to which The Bimbo replies:

Aaaaaahahahahahaha! After all signing up for Google is such a chore. At least it doesn't need a bloody National ID number! Tried joining Naver lately??!!

No, I haven't, but I did try to sign up for a Korean site last year but quit when it asked me for a scan of my passport. And those of you out of the country might not be aware that many sites here are inaccessible to foreigners because our ID numbers are 13 digits long though the sites can only handle 12. Hell, we can't even reserve train tickets online, and last I heard my favorite game to watch on TV Kart Rider was still off-limits. There are a bunch of sites where it's easy for foreigners to sign up, provided you can navigate Korean, but the fact remains that bitching about Google's process is ridiculous when you consider that there's a national ID system in place here and that it largely excludes foreigners.

Korean doctors charging "foreigner fees"?

Stolen from here.

Some are, according to posters on Dave's.

When i got there i completed a form which informed me i would have to pay 30,000w for the first consultation and 20,000w for any appointments that may follow. Fortunately as a respectable citizen i pay my medical insurance and had my book/card with me. I explained this to the receptionist. Another receptionist explained that it was an extra charge for foreigners. I explained that i had my medical insurance book and would not be willing to pay this extra fee. They said i should explain this to the doctor.
When i got to see the doctor i explained the situation and he said he would waive the fee. He then asked me a couple of questions and said i should return two times a week. I replied that i would not be willing to pay extra fees due to the fact that i am foreign. He asked me to leave.

. . .

Same thing happened to me in Suwon. I went to an English speaking doctor to get a prescription. They charged me 20,000 won. They told me it was a foreigner fee even though I had my insurance card. The next time I went to another doctor who spoke only basic English and he charged me only 3000 won.

. . .

I just called [ed: the place in the OP] and asked if they charge extra for foreigners. The woman on the other line kind of stuttered her way through an answer, but didn't say yes or no.

I encourage more of you to do the same.

This guy is using his ability to fleece customers. It's total BS.

Needless to say, don't fall for that trick, and take your business elsewhere. Get the name of any place that tries this and pass it along so other foreigners know to avoid it.

As a requisite disclaimer, I have to point out that I've been generally satisfied with the service I've received at hospitals and clinics, especially at Suncheon's 제일병원, so this isn't me letting a few bad apples spoil the bunch. And this service has come without the ninety-minute wait you can expect when you visit my general practitioner back home.

A nice music video about a man who loved his daughter.

This came out this past spring, but I saw it for the first time Monday morning. It's the video for the Dokdo guy's "Sonagi," starring model-turned-actor Cha Seung-won. It's a bit much, and I'm not talking about the ten-minute running time.



It gets even more ridiculous at the end, when Cha _______________ while in police custody twice in a row. I don't want to spoil the surprise.

I had been trying to figure out that guy's name, but I couldn't recall the title of any of his movies. This morning, though, 선생 김봉두 was on, and naver told me it was Cha. That movie, if you haven't seen it, is about a corrupt teacher from Seoul who gets sent down to the boonies and who then beats the shit out of his students for most of the time, although the kids come to love him in the end. When I do as much as raise my voice in class, though, I'm told I'm being "not friendly," so I guess I'll never be a success.

Drawing the Korean flag is hard.

From time to time the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union draws attention to errors in textbooks. The latest case is of some erroneously drawn Korean flags in a 1st grade textbook, brought to our attention by the KTEWU's newspaper, 교육희망.



The paper noticed two other incorrect flags, but my Korean isn't good enough to figure out what they are. I think one has to do with the fluttering in the opposite direction? A few months ago I seem to recall some embarrassment over an old Korean flag on display that turned out to be not only incorrect but also a fake, though I can't find the links right now. Some of these old ones look pretty suspect, even taking into account the different arrangements used on earlier flags, and I think a couple were photographed upside-down. The one in question a few months ago was, I think, the one used by the exiled interim government and which was kept at Ewha University (the flag, not the interim government).

It's interesting the things we don't notice right under our noses. I know the arrangements of the trigram on a Korean flag, for example, but probably wouldn't notice if they were out of place or if the specifications were off. I think I'd notice an incorrect American flag, particularly if it were flying upside-down. But take, for example, some of these logos that have symbols that most people have probably never noticed. Can you see the arrow in the FedEx logo?



Or the H and W in the Whalers' one? I didn't learn about the H until today.



Notice anything in the Goodwill logo?



In a related story, the flag of the Korean Empire (Empire?) is pretty bad ass. Here's a photo of the oldest, courtesy of Korea Beat.

Pittsburgh school board wants to set 50% as the lowest score.

I don't like this idea at all.

Pittsburgh Public Schools officials say they want to give struggling children a chance, but the district is raising eyebrows with a policy that sets 50 percent as the minimum score a student can receive for assignments, tests and other work.

The district and teachers union last week issued a joint memo to ensure staff members' compliance with the policy, which was already on the books but enforced only at some schools. Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers President John Tarka said the policy is several years old.

While some districts use "F" as a failing grade, the city uses an "E."

"The 'E' is to be recorded no lower than a 50 percent, regardless of the actual percent earned. For example, if the student earns a 20 percent on a class assignment, the grade is recorded as a 50 percent," said the memo from Jerri Lippert, the district's executive director of curriculum, instruction and professional development, and Mary VanHorn, a PFT vice president.

I ran into this during my last speaking test here. One of my coworkers asked me what the lowest possible score would be and I said "um, zero," and she laughed and said "impossible." With the stress on the wrong syllable, of course. And so students who attempted to answer but were way off got the same score as students who stared at their shoes and said nothing. I made adjustments to account for partial answers, and since the students had plenty of time to prepare, and were tested on basic phrases from the textbook and from my class, perhaps wrong answers earning the same as no answers would have been perfectly justified. But I didn't lke the idea of it.

I agree with Pittsburgh's rationale a little bit:

The district and union insist the policy still holds students accountable for performance.

"A failing grade is a failing grade," district spokeswoman Ebony Pugh said.

At the same time, they said, the 50 percent minimum gives children a chance to catch up and a reason to keep trying. If a student gets a 20 percent in a class for the first marking period, Ms. Pugh said, he or she would need a 100 percent during the second marking period just to squeak through the semester.

"We want to create situations where students can recover and not give up," she said, adding a sense of helplessness can lead to behavior and attendance problems.

But how about giving people the grades they earn? I'd rather parents and teachers work to prevent students from earning 20s in the first place, yet holding them accountable when they do. Ms. Leonardi, below, brings up a good point:

Judy Leonardi, a Stanton Heights resident and retired district home economics teacher, said she objected to the notion that a student could "walk in the door, breathe the air and get 50 percent for that."

"I don't think it sets kids up properly for college, for competition in life," she said.

To Ms. Leonardi, a 20 percent score means a student isn't trying or needs more help with the material. Automatically putting 50 percent in the grade book, she said, doesn't help the student in either case.

"To me, it's morally wrong," she said.

Give the full article a read.

Goheung has a Dokdo now, too.

Goheung county added another island to the 171 it has already. The other day it renamed a small rock off the coast of Geogeum-do "Dokdo." The Liancourt Rock in Goheung has an area of 0.138 square kilometers, compared to the 0.186 square kilometers of the more newsworthy rocks.



It hasn't shown up on Naver's map, yet, but while looking for it I found that they really went all out decorating the Liancourt Rocks, didn't they?



As I mentioned before Goheung's new slogan is "High Goheung, Happy Goheung!" Clearly.

Korea doesn't want to share its citizens' criminal backgrounds with the U.S.?

So, let me get this straight, foreigners in Korea are forced to produce a criminal background check in order to get an E-2 visa, but South Korea is having qualms about complying with the United States' same request as part of a potential visa waiver program?

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Monday that consultations on South Korea joining the U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP) with the United States were on schedule with the goal of concluding them by the year-end.

Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young denied a newspaper report that the VWP for South Koreans would likely be delayed due to differences between the two countries over ways of sharing the criminal records of tourists.

. . .

Some South Korean lawyers claim that sharing the criminal records of citizens is in violation of basic human rights, while Washington insists it is one of the basic standards to be met by those countries wanting to join the VWP to help protect American nationals and interests from terrorists or criminals who have committed felonies.

HT to ROK Drop on this one. To use South Korea's Ministry of Justice's words:

I just don’t understand why they cannot make some exceptions to accommodate the needs of their own nationals. In Korea, criminal records can be easily obtained online. But they don’t have a centralized system.

Actually, that was arrogantly said in relation to foreign embassies' hesitation to provide criminal histories to comply with new E-2 visa regulations. South Korea implemented those new rules in 2007 without checking first with whether other countries would be willing or able to follow them. South Korea was quite keen on this idea, and immigration put out a release saying in part:

The Korean Government will prevent illegal activities by verifying requirements of native English teacher and tighten their non-immigrant status [...] [and will] eradicate illegal activities of native English teachers who are causing social problems such as ineligible lectures, taking drugs and sex crimes. English teachers, who disturb social order during their staying in Korea such as illegal teaching, taking drugs and sex crimes, will be banned from entering South Korea.[...] [They will] prevent illegal English teaching activities and the taking of drugs and sexual harassment of English teachers, [...] teachers who disrupt the social order by taking drugs, committing sexual harassment and alcohol intoxication.

Perhaps the U.S. should do the same in kind. After all there are roughly 230,000 Koreans staying in the U.S. illegally, and I'll bet they're not raising unicorns and kissing babies.

And for the record I'm not oppossed to teachers having to submit criminal background checks, as a country has the right to allow or bar whomever it pleases, and set its visa regulations any way it sees fit. Thus, it's not unreasonable in the least for the United States to ask for passengers' criminal histories. If I understand it correctly, a criminal offense doesn't bar one from entering the country, but it does exclude one from entering visa-free under the VWP. My gut reaction is to say no to a VWP with South Korea, because wasn't it contingent on the KORUS FTA, an agreement squashed with apparent impunity? But, that's not what developed nations do, how grown-ups behave, and my temper is one reason among many why I'm not a diplomat. Hey, maybe the VWP will mean I can stay in South Korea visa-free for longer than 30 days jaf9wj93owejfjflasf23faa0o.

Maryang-myeon (마량면)

I spent part of Saturday in Gangjin county, but unfortunately the weather restricted our tour to four turns in the town of Gangjin-eup. I did make a point of heading back to Maryang-myeon, a township in the southeastern corner of the county and one of my favorite spots in Gangjin.



When I visited Maryang back in June, 2007, I met that little guy chained to the door of a seafood restaurant. He had quite a noisy bark but was very playful when I approached him. When I walked past the restaurant again this time the dog was gone, but in his place was this tiny, handheld kitten tied to the air conditioner and left out in the rain.




Maryang is a township of 2,576, according to the 2001 census, although the population of the seaside town looks to be a fraction of that. Besides the view, points of interest include: Manhoseong, a 15th-century fortress wall on the west end of town; a string of seafood restaurants overlooking the harbor (this season's specialty is 전어); and Gogeum Bridge (고금대교), a big bridge that connects Wando county's Gogeum-do island to the mainland. When the bridge opened in the summer of 2007 it was a pretty big deal. Two of my three schools took trips to see the new bridge. We also saw hundreds of little crabs running all over the place, cramming themselves into little crab apartments under the docks or the steps whenever somebody walked by. When I visited two summers ago I also saw loads of jellyfish floating among the boats, though there weren't any on Saturday.




The location of Maryang, if "southeastern corner of Gangjin" means nothing to you, which in all likelihood is the case.

The weather was pretty bad, and that's the excuse I'm going with for not taking any good pictures. Instead, here are a few from October, 2006:








맛있는 stingray 드세요!



That's the fire and rescue station. Despite all appearances not, in fact, made out of Legos.



The bus terminal. Seriously.


Gogeum Bridge, from the Wando side.

More on my flickr page. The night view is pleasant as well because the three recently-constructed docks all have multi-colored lights. Buses back and forth between Gangjin and Maryang about twice an hour, but the last bus heads back to Gangjin, and Gwangju, at around 8 pm, so it may be a little difficult to enjoy that nighttime vista. There are three motels in Maryang, so that's an option should you be stuck or looking to spend the night. There are those sea food restaurants, a galbi house or two, a Family Mart, and a few hofs. Weather permitting they also have concerts on one of the piers on Saturday nights. And if you're in the neighborhood they're also having a harbor festival there in October, although I don't think the dates have been set yet.

Whew! 우리나라사람 safe and sound.

The Joongang Ilbo brings us the story that "A Korean injured in Pakistan hotel blast."

A South Korean was lightly injured in the deadly truck bombing at a hotel in Islamabad, which killed at least 60 people, and is quickly recovering, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said yesterday.

No more South Koreans are believed to have been injured by the bombing, which took place Saturday evening, officials added.

The massive bombing at Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel, a popular gathering place for foreigners and Pakistani elite, is believed to have left at least 60 people dead and 200 badly injured, with more dead expected to be found in the wreckage, according to officials there.

“A South Korean who had been dining at the hotel during the bombing suffered scratches but is almost fully recovered,” a Foreign Ministry official said. “The individual was on a business trip to Pakistan, and no more South Koreans have been found hurt.”

You have no idea how relieved I am. And that's today's news from the biggest small town papers in the world.

In that case, they ought to be pissed at the girl scouts, too.

Remember Mad Bull Shit? Yeah, me neither. *cough* It's a shame how the media manipulated the poor, helpless people like that, who had no choice but to go along. *cough* *cough* Too bad there was nobody out there, no scientists or international journalists or anything, presenting the other side of the story. The citizenry---the ones who kept their mouths shut for three months---is certainly entitled to money for the embarrassment caused their reputation as Koreans by the actions of rabble-rousers. *cough* *cough* *cough* I just wonder if white people are allowed to join up, too, because we took the worst of it.

Anyway, the "stroller moms" are in the news again, as they are being investigated for participating in illegal protests. I have no idea about that, about whether they violated the restrictions of the protest permit, and about whether the government should be cracking down on demonstrators in a democracy. But I do know those dumbasses ought to be investigating for being unfit parents who put their kids in harm's way in order to grab headlines and further their dumb-ass cause.




People are of course unhappy about these investigations, claiming the police were overstepping their bounds by visiting the mothers at home without warning. I feel the same way about missionaries, neighbors, and the laundry guy.

`"Police should have sent a written request for summons to them if they needed to question the mothers. Demanding a summons by visiting the house without prior notice is an abuse of authority, and saying that they would arrest her is a threat," the coalition said in a statement.

When was the last time you were given prior notice about anything here, let alone a visit by the cops? There's more:

A blogger ``bigman'' said on Daum, ``No one was hurt by the strollers. The mothers did not organize a coup d'etat with the babies.'' Another Internet user ``eureca'' said the government should understand the mothers who did not have other ways to express their opinion but taking their babies to the protest scene.

Back in June an internet user wrote of the mothers:

I’m in tears. I’m touched by the desperateness of the mother who stood in front of the water canon cars with her dear child.

Protesting beef because they believed it could harm their children . . . by taking their infants to political demonstrations where their children could be harmed. Does not compute. Today's KT piece continues:

The main opposition Democratic Party also denounced police, saying they are investigating mothers who worry about the children's health, in the name of establishing order. ``After oppressing the people and religion, the police are now trying to suppress moms,'' it said in a statement.

Bank account information for injured Suncheon teacher.

Here's the bank account information for the fund set up for the teacher injured in a motorcycle accident in Suncheon, in case anyone would like to donate a little something:

KEB (외환은행)
620 170647 741

According to a mass email I received, medical expenses are not covered by insurance if you are in an accident. Anybody know anything about that? Regardless, all the information, misinformation, and conflicting information I've read points to motorcycles as being way too scary for me.

Prostitution crackdown at work in Gwangju?

All was quiet Saturday night on this street in Gwangju's Daein-dong, a street that normally is alive with flashing lights and women in skimpy clothes calling to you from the windows. Part of the nationwide crackdown, perhaps?



(top) The uncharacteristically dark road, (bottom) This is but one of many 유흥주점 closed that was closed on Saturday. In fact all were closed.

In other news related to the ubiquity of the sex industry here, South Korea spent roughly 14 trillion won (USD 12.3 billion) on prostitutes in 2007. That's 56% the South Korea's defense budget for 2008.

I was in Daein-dong for purely entertainment and investigative purposes, I swear. Wait, that doesn't sound right. It was because Girlfriend in Jeollanam-do wanted to have a look around, and being a responsible blogger I took a few pictures. In the Chungjangno area, a few blocks away, things were also unusually quiet Saturday night and there were cops everywhere. Anybody know what that was about?

Korean infected with TB flies to NZ, hides medication, is quarantined, then sent home at taxpayers' expense.

From the New Zealand Herald, on a story that happened in 2005 but apparently is just getting coverage now:

New Zealanders were forced to pay up $330,000 for a secret charter flight to return a tourist to South Korea after she arrived here with a potentially fatal and infectious illness.

The 67-year-old arrived on an Korean Air flight, aware she had a deadly form of tuberculosis, but hid her medications so she could get through our border control. She spent days with her daughter before visiting a doctor and was then isolated for months in Auckland Hospital.

Commercial airlines refused to carry the woman and the chartered jet had to be fitted with a negative pressure chamber, designed for the SARS epidemic, to ensure the pilots did not catch the illness.

In another case of leading the OECD in undesirable categories, a 2005 Chosun Ilbo article says that South Korea ranked first in the organization of 30 countries in new tuberculosis cases. Eighty-nine percent of cases were considered "active," meaning the patients were at risk of spreading the disease. And how is the disease transmitted?

When people suffering from active pulmonary TB cough, sneeze, speak, or spit, they expel infectious aerosol droplets 0.5 to 5 µm in diameter. A single sneeze can release up to 40,000 droplets.[18] Each one of these droplets may transmit the disease, since the infectious dose of tuberculosis is very low and the inhalation of just a single bacterium can cause a new infection.

Hmmm, disconcerting. The disease has been enough of an issue over time that a descendant of the first foreign settlers to this area established a TB clinic in Suncheon in 1960, and the family continues similar work in North Korea today.

Will he live this down?

The Super Action channel has been running Nicholas Cage movies all day. The actor is sort of popular in Korea, I guess, because he married a no-name Korean woman a few years ago. The channel has commercials that advertise the "한국인이 사랑하는 액션 스타." He does pretty well for himself, in spite of being among the most boring and uncharismatic actors in the business, but nevertheless I still hold him accountable for his comments from 2004:

Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage expressed a strong attachment to Korea on Monday, calling the homeland of his wife a "part of my home" that has food he likes and values he admires. "I wasn't really able to enjoy vegetables until I discovered Korean vegetables. Kimchi is in my spirit and in my mind, it balances my soul," Cage, 40, said, referring to Korea's spicy pickled vegetables during a press conference in Seoul.

I'd like to try kimchi some day, but it's too spicy for me. Do you know kimchi?

Old building in Gangjin.

Here's a picture I took of an old Occupation-era building in Gangjin, February 2007.



This commerce building was in Gangjin, actually, because in June it was torn down.



I commented that I swore I had a picture of it somewhere, and that, at least in recent memory, it hadn't seen better days. The good news is that I found a few hundred pictures on my computer from the past two years that I thought I'd lost, including this one, stuck in a folder under my nose named the wrong thing. The bad news is that there is a corrupted file or something on my current memory card, and I don't think I can fix it without losing the few hundred photos I've stored on there, ranging from China to Chuseok.

Whoa, for a minute I thought they actually made fur coats out of Jindos.

Yes, I know they're a natural monument and all, but you never know around here. Here's the caption of that photo:

Members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals hold a demonstration against the use of furs, wearing imitation fur coats spattered with fake blood in front of a Jindo Fur store in Donggyo-dong, northern Seoul, Friday.

That's an odd name.

Dongguk University still being an uppity little bitch.

From the KT:

Dongguk University has refused to accept Yale University's offer to make a public apology for its administrative error involving the false diploma of disgraced art professor Shin Jeong-ah.

The Seoul school said it would continue its compensation suit, in which it seeks $50 million for defamation.

An official of the university said Thursday that Yale had proposed a compromise during the first settlement hearing held at the Connecticut District Court on Aug. 28.

``The U.S. school said it would hold a press briefing to make a public apology for its mistake and place apologetic ads in Korean newspapers as well as $100,000 if Dongguk drops the suit. It also offered to develop joint education programs,'' the official said.

The school, however, refused the offer. ``We refused, as we thought we can regain our honor by winning the suit,'' he said.

Pardon me, but who the fuck are you? Dongguk? Uh-huh, I see, please remember to pick up my drycleaning this afternoon. You'll remember that Shin Jeong-ah is generally considered the case to call attention to the widespread academic dishonesty that existed and exists in a variety of professional spheres in South Korea. Because Yale mistakenly authenticated Shin's degree when (reportedly) asked by Dongguk when the professor was hired, we're seeing some big time finger-pointing here and back-peddling here.

I first wrote about this Yale-Dongguk business back in February, calling attention to a hilarious, out-of-context quotation on the university's English-language introduction page:

"Our university may not be a top-ranked institution in Korea not to say of a prestigious one in the world."

Indeed. As I said back then,

Worth reminding readers that Shin worked at Dongguk for about two years before her forged credentials were exposed. Not sure if there's a whole lot of blame to spread around. Many of us are familiar, though, with how ridiculously arduous the degree verification process can be in Korea, so all the blown calls at Dongguk are hardly surprising.

"Korean Parents Subject of Int'l Ridicule for Education Zeal" . . . that's news?

Sorry, that was mean. The Korea Times picked up the story about Randy Newman writing a song making fun of Korean parents.

Some Jewish kids still trying
Some white kids trying too
But millions of real American kids don’t have a clue
Right here on the lot
We got the answer
A product guaranteed to satisfy…

Korean parents for sale
You say you need a little discipline
Someone to whip you into shape
They’ll be strict but they’ll be fair

Look at the numbers
That’s all I ask
Who’s at the head of every class?
You really think they’re smarter than you are
They just work their asses off
Their parents make them do it…

Koreans were apparently complaing about it being racist and promoting distorted stereotypes. I'm sure they're just as upset at the newspapers, books, TV shows, and movies in Korea that often fail to portray foreign cultures and peoples in positive ways. The article kind of implies at the end that Koreans should tolerate the song because it presents positive stereotypes, and I think you'll find that the people getting worked up about it are Asian-Americans bothered by the "model minority" thing. I'm sure some hyper-sensitive Asian-Americans will make a huge stink about it, but I don't think it warrants much comment beyond "huh?".

Another reason I don't feel like getting into it is because the story spread through the blogs over a month ago, and East Windup Chronicle, among others, did a pretty good job writing about it and its context.

As we're gearing up for the midterms at school, and as I'm being told to cram loads of material and grammar practice into my bimonthly classes---or being replaced by the Korean teacher entirely---I thought maybe the international ridicule might come from spending so much time and money teaching exclusively to English tests, and then bombing them completely. I hardly think the dawdlings of some piano player amount to international ridicule. Besides, it's hard to believe something trivial from American pop culture would be interpreted as a slight against millions of people. Well, except this time, that time, and that other time.



From here.

A survey on "the successes and failures of Korean International Tourism Marketing."

A loyal reader and commentor on yesterday's post has passed this along:

I’m doing a study of the successes and failures of Korean International Tourism Marketing. I have a brief survey online that I invite you to take. It is designed to be answered by Korean/US bloggers and to give a slight outline of how these cross-cultural thinkers evaluate Korea’s International Marketing.

Go ahead and give it a try here; it takes about five minutes.

I'll postpone my comments on Korea's efforts to attract more tourists. I do know that I've been unimpressed with the cringe-worthy commercials that run on TV, even though they have been considered successful. What I do appreciate, though, is that each city and county has intuitive, informative webpages---the Korean-language ones, anyway---a contrast put into focus when I was recently trying to navigate my home state's webpage a little while ago.

One of the more humorous pastimes available us is to note the tourism slogans adopted by each city, county, and province. I just saw a commercial for "high 고흥, happy 고흥," and I know that I live in "Aha! Suncheon," also known as the "City of Beautiful People" when I'm there and "Korea's Ecological Capital." The best in the province belongs to Jangheung county: "Powerful Jumping . Green Jangheung!" The ones they use for Korea in general are quite ridiculous, so I've developed a few of my own.

* "Come to Korea! No, no, the other one."

* "Korea: So good we decided to make two."

* "We have Viking, we have bumper cars, we have so much fun here." (Um . . .)

* "Korea: In the middle of it all."

I actually like that last one, and it kind of hits on the (sorry) "Hub of Asia" stuff in that South Korea is in the middle of economic and tourism hotspots, and has adapted so quite a bit of foreign cultures over the . . . well, centuries. However, given the big push to brand Korea as unique in a bunch of different ways, I don't see Korea's proximity to other countries and cultures being referenced. Plus, I think it's taken. Anyway, I said as much in my comments on the survey, and would encourage you to leave your own. I think it's a guy's personal study, and nothing official, but who knows what may come of it.

She cares deeply about kimchi.

I came across this in one of my school's English textbooks today. Already on her way to a successful career in hyperbole journalism, I see.

Fundraiser for injured teacher in Suncheon.

As those in the area are probably aware, there will be a benefit at "Elvis" in Suncheon this Friday, from 10 pm on. It is held for Adam, a teacher who was badly injured in a motorcycle accident a few weeks before the end of his contract, and who has a baby on the way. He has a badly broken leg, will be off his feet for a year, and is facing medical expenses of roughly four million won. More information is available via the Facebook event listing.

He was driving without a license, so even though he had insurance the coverage was voided when he was in an accident and it was discovered that he didn't have a license. I don't know the guy, and was at first wary of getting involved with any fundraisers because, while of course nobody wants to see anyone get hurt, I didn't want to publicly advocate for a guy injured while being negligent and driving illegally. Friends helping friends is one thing, but I didn't think strangers would be too sympathetic to a case like this, with consequences that are fairly consistent to drivers in any country, of any nationality. Moreover I'm sensitive to motorvehicle accidents because of how destructive and dangerous they are, and to how common they are over here.

To their credit the people running the campaign have responded to some of my concerns, saying they're interested in not only helping their buddy but getting more foreigners aware about insurance coverage and the necessity of checking and double-checking license requirements. As the organizer put it to me, loads of foreigners he knows are driving around with useless insurance.

I had always heard that licenses were required for some types of motorbikes but not for others, and since I don't drive one I never paid much attention. There is a lot of information, misinformation, and conflicting information out there, and people just seem to do whatever they want, and give advice based on personal experience and their interpretation of quote-unquote rules and regulations. A few recent Dave's threads on the topic are below:

* Scooter over 100 cc need License and Insurance
* Motorcycle stops, DL license enforcement
* Motorcycle license Law Change
* insurance on car/bike but no license?
* The OFFICIAL motorcycle/Scooter thread!
* FAQ: Motorcycles: Getting them registered and licensed

The moral of the story is figure out what paperwork you need to ride your bike or scooter. That won't prevent an accident, but will help alleviate some of the financial and legal pain if you are in one.

They will be setting up a bank account if anybody would like to wire a little something, and I'll pass along the details when I get them.

First birthday.

This 'umble blog turns one year old on Thursday, and what a year it's been. I'm very thankful to the visitors, readers, commentors, and fellow writers who have helped evolve the site and its author. Here's to many more years of Brian in Jeollanam-do! Well, maybe not many.



I'm also thankful that the weather is much kinder than it was roughly one year ago, when a good bit of Suncheon was flooded because of Typhoon Nari, the subject of my first post. I got back to Suncheon the evening of September 16th to find the roads slow going. The area around the bus terminal is lower than the rest of the town, making the building an island amidst knee-deep water. When I told my colleagues and students about having to walk the six kilometers from the bus terminal to my apartment---because no buses or taxis could reach the terminal, buses weren't running routes through town, and taxis weren't picking up water-logged foreigners---they didn't believe me. Here are a few pictures:







My shoes were ruined, as was everything inside my backpack, and it took several cycles to get my clothes clean. My camera actually fell out of my bag somewhere near E-Mart, but I managed to retrace my steps and find it again.

The final two photos are of Dongcheon, the river that runs through town. The second one was taken in March, as close to the spot of the original as I could remember without actually looking at the picture. The trees and people provide perspective, and indicate that the water level had risen a few meters in a few hours.




I haven't been able to find much reliable information on the typhoon, but some articles say as many as 14 Koreans were killed. Here's a small photo gallery from Jeju Island, which was hit especially hard and was declared a national disaster area.

Hollywood film to be shot in Busan, not expected to survive.

A couple days ago KBS had a story about "world famous people" promoting Seoul through ad campaigns. Yes, quote-unquote world famous people. Today the Joongang Ilbo is boasting about a Hollywood film that's to be shot in Busan, which I guess is pretty cool since I like Busan, but I'm thinking this particular news is something you might want to keep to yourself.

David Hasselhoff’s sailing into Busan, but not to reprise his role as a “Baywatch” beach bum. He’s part of a cast of Hollywood actors and a film crew that’s coming to Korea’s second largest city to film the sequel of the hit 1997 movie “Beverly Hills Ninja.”

The prequel starred the late Chris Farley as an overweight white man who, after being raised by a family of ninjas, deludes himself into thinking he can become a great ninja in Beverly Hills. The Busan Film Commission announced yesterday that the city has been chosen as the location where Mitchell Klebanoff, a co-writer of the original film, will make his directorial debut in the sequel, tentatively titled “Tokyo Jones: The Legend of the Dancing Ninja.” This will be the first time a Hollywood movie is filmed on location in Korea.

Dude. Taiwanese supermodel Lin Chi-ling will also be in the movie, a casting decision I can really get behind. *cough*

If the ho's bothering you why not just ejaculate on her back?

I still get lots of hits from people searching for stuff on "Soulja Boy," a teenaged rapper popular in the States now. Last year I did a little compare and contrast between him and the Wonder Girls, who had become popular in Korea a few months earlier. They're not without similarities: the Wonder Girls are teens as is Soulja Boy, both appeal to the same age groups, and both have spawned dance crazes in their respective countries. Though I acknowledge the problems some people have with the Wonder Girls and the way the were sexed-up and marketed, I did and do object much more to "Soulja Boy," whose image and message was and is much more repulsive.

After all, when the Wonder Girls first came out we didn't have the lengthy, thoughful criticism of the sort done by Gusts of Popular Feeling or by James Turnbull at The Grand Narrative (here, here, and here). Rather, people were just annoyed that the band was derivative, were over-played, or that they couldn't sing or dance. As Feet Man Seoul said back in November:

So, I'm just gonna say it: the Wonder Girls have no talent. None. Oh, come on. Don't get mad. Just think about it objectively for a minute. They can't sing AT ALL and they can't dance to SAVE THEIR LIVES. Do you remember their first live performance of "Tell Me"? It was terrible. Horrible. I'm scarred for life. On my eyes. And not using Michael Jackson or someone as the standard, because Korea has enough good dancers to compare with, from all the way back to Seo Taiji and the Boys to Boa and Lee Hyori. They can at least perform decent dances. But what is all this "shaky shoulder dance" crap? So they wiggle suggestively in sync? Whoa – what a concept. *I* can do that, and I'm in my mid-thirties with a gut. I just have to channel my old Kid-n-Play/MC Hammer moves made in front of the TV, but if you give me a few minutes and the motivation, I CAN do the Wonder Girls dance. And what's with them being 14 Western age? That's just pervy, dude, since the two 14-year-olds LOOK 14. We're not talking Britney at 17 with the tongue-in-cheek schoolgirl video – we're talking Jodi Foster in Taxi Driver with the disturbingly bad makeup job. Eww."

And:

So, my point? I’ll make it simple. The Wonder Girls can’t dance. And watching people who can’t even perform the dance that even the original stars can’t dance right to doesn’t do anything for me. And before you say I’m too harsh on the Wonder Girls, let me just say that since JYP made both the dance and THEM, he’s the logical standard of comparison. The way it should be, is the girls should have made the dance sexy and their own, while JYP remains funny and charming doing it for fun sometimes on stage. As it is, he’s much better than his protegées, who are about as sexy as the middle school girls I see in uniforms walking down the street every day. Eww.

There was some attention paid to the girls' ages and their image, but mostly people were getting pissed AND WRITING LIKE THIS because they---thirty- and fortysomething-year-old adults---found a teeny-pop group lame, and considered, like older people everywhere do, that the pinnacle of music and fashion happened when they were 17, back when their favorite bands were still a little older than they were.

While the Wonder Girls made it big with the song "Tell Me," Soulja Boy's big hit "Crank That" had the line "Superman that ho" in the refrain, which means to cum on a girl's back and stick a towel to her. Talk all you want about what the Wonder Girls mean for young Korean women and girls, but I find a guy like Soulja Boy a little more troubling. He has been considered among the musicians at the vanguard of "retard rap," named one of the nine worst trends of 2007 by this blog.

Living in Korea I usually miss all trends back home, but thankfully my brother passed along Soulja Boy's hit from earlier this year, "Tell em YAHHH." I'm no prude when it comes to language, and am pretty foul-mouthed around here, but what does it say about young people when a song with "YAHHH Bitch YAHHH," "Get out my face ho," and "Leave me alone ho before I have to knock your ass out" in the refrain is a hit. Like I mentioned in my c-and-c, the Wonder Girls are in school, while Soulja Boy is a drop-out. Well, he does include his schoolin' in his latest video:

Man I checked out my report card today man I looked at it man I had all Fs on it I took it back to the teacher told him to throw some Ds on it like that
Soulja Boy up in the building
Throw some Ds on it
I checked out my report card
Throw some Ds on it
I checked out my report card
Throw some Ds on it
Aaaaaa

Me and lots of other people get on acts like the Wonder Girls or Crown J for popularizing and capitalizing on terrible English, but here's a guy with the eloquence of a blowjob, rapping to, let's be honest, a demographic that doesn't need any more of these kinds of role models. He also thought it prudent to name himself after a corruption of the word "soldier" when his country is at war. Nice. You can get more of his lyrics here, including the first verse:

Let me tell you about the life
And how you live when you is a star
Every single place you go
The people run up to your car
Everybody wants to talk, and everybody wants to jive
Everybody wants a handshake, or want a high five
And these ugly girls always got a friend
That wants to talk to you
(Bitch, Yahhh, Yahhh, Trick)
(And your friend, Yahhh, Yahhh Too!)
Ain't got time for chitchat
I'm tryin to get this money
So get up out my face
You shit-breath dummy

I'm proud of myself for handling the language-leeches a little better.

ECheat is distorting Korean history.

LOL, while continuing my search for examples of common writing mistakes I came across an essay on South Korea available from ECheat.

Korea is known as the Land of the Morning Calm. This expression comes from the beginning of the modern history of Korea. Koryo means high and clear. This word symbolizes the clear blue sky of Korea. The beautiful nature of Korea is expressed through this ancient name. The beginning of Korean history started from 2333 B.C. The Korean peninsular adjoins China and Japan. Korea was conquered by Japan and divided into South and North Korea at the end of World War II. The Korean War caused devastating damage to Korea. However, it should be noticed that despite frequent foreign invasions, the Korean Peninsula has been under a single government while maintaining its political independence, culture and ethnic heritage.

Or as the Indians call it, maize. The essay also teaches us that Kim Young-sam was elected in 1933, and that we shouldn't hand a Korean a business card with our name and position translated into Japanese because, even though all look same, apparently not all Asians can interpret each variation of scribble. ECheat's motto is "It's not cheating, it's collaborating," which might also be an inappropriate turn of phrase around Koreans.

Ingeniously bad writing.

I was looking around for some examples of common writing mistakes to use in my upcoming teachers' workshop when I came across this.

JYP on the chosen Chosun people.

The Joshing Gnome tells us that pop mogul Park Jin-young made some interesting remarks at a speech last week celebrating the Republic of Korea's 60th birthday, on the topic of growing the "Korean Wave." An excerpt from a translation done by TJG:

“In truth the phrase ‘Korean Wave’ must disappear. It has such a nationalist tint to it and it’s no different from sticking the Korean flag on your chest and fighting.” JYP warned.

“In the Beijing Olympics even if there are catcalls, if the archers shoot well they win the gold medal, but with music and other cultural products if Chinese people start booing Korea and stop buying you fail.” He cited the Jews as a role model that we should follow.

There are always Jews behind all the world’s industries, but they never state in the world market that the products they made are Israeli (이스라엘 것).”

JYP strenuously emphasized, “In US, Japan, and other markets of more than 100 million you can grow in any area, but in a market of 40 million like Korea it’s hard. There are a lot of Jews among the owners of Hollywood and America’s record company presidents. But we should pay attention to the fact that since they’ve removed the taint of nationalism they have been able to obtain a practical hegemony and sell cultural products in the world market.”

JYP got laughs and applause when he said “We penetrated the American cultural product market, and we were 7th in the Olympics, and I’m pretty sure our race (우리 민족) has some special talent.”

Pop Seoul has the story now, too, and apparently still doesn't believe in citing sources. The Joongang Ilbo has a different spin to the story.

I don't have the time to look much up now, but from what I understand the above sentiments aren't that uncommon. The most extreme example is, of course, the views put forth in a popular history comic book with tinges anti-Semitic enough to warrant condemnation from the US government. If you're interested in reading a little from the book, brought to the attention of English-language readers by a previous Joshing Gnome incarnation, maybe start with chapter eight, titled "One Must Know the Jews to Truly See America."

Elderly Hwasun county man beats wife, kills self.

An unpleasant story out of Hwasun, where an 82-year-old man beat his 67-year-old wife within an inch of her life, then threw himself out of a 13th-story window. From the Korea Times:

Baek [his wife] was suffering the after effects of a stroke three years ago and had been living with her son, but visited her husband during the holiday. Moon's [the husband] acquaintances testified that the old man often felt lonely and had said he did not want to burden his children.

That's not what you want to hear around the holidays, or ever. I wonder what it would look like if an 82-year-old man hit the ground from 13 floors up.




YTN saves the day. The KT continues to allow ignorant comments at the bottom of the articles, quite an embarrassment for one of only a few English-language Korean papers.

proudafrican (121.136.115.128) 09-15-2008 19:23
oh well, a man has to keep his wife in line, even if it requires a beating from time to time.

proudafrican (121.136.115.128) 09-15-2008 21:37
there is nothing wrong with my comment. I have had affairs with many white women who complain their husbands are weak for not disiplining them. Women are like children, they need to be given boundaries, and punished if they step out of those boundaries

I wrote about that phenomenon back in March, and Roboseyo put his stank on it a month earlier, and it looks like the same tools are still at it, alive and roaming free over on that paper.

A national university without chemistry or physics departments?

That's apparently what's going on at Sunchon National University in Sunch(e)on, Jeollanam-do, in a money-saving move. The Korea Times reports that universities all over the country are slashing unpopular programs:

Konkuk University said Monday it might shut down its European Union Studies and Jewish and Middle East Studies departments from the spring semester after taking into account their poor employment rates and lukewarm response from students.

The university will also downsize its Physical and Music Education departments as demand on teachers majoring in such subjects has been falling, while it will establish an English Education Department to meet the soaring demand for English-specialized teachers.

Seoul National University, the nation's No. 1 school, is considering unifying its three out-of-favor departments ㅡ the Department of Asian History, Western History and Korean History. Sunchon National University in South Jeolla Province has become the first state-backed school to abolish its physics and chemistry departments.

Many other universities nationwide are also seriously considering ending some unpopular subjects such as social welfare studies, sociology, and some European languages.

Some of those seem pretty useful to me. The English-language website for Sunchon National University is no help, as usual, but it does have information on . . . I guess on how some guy from Suncheon invented the door.

Development of the door, rejoicing and shining at master's returning by shining itself after sensing human body. What would be like when you stand in front of the door after work, and the door shines brightly for your returning? So called 'sensitive interior' is rising as the star of high-tech residential culture.

Is that not an embarrassing display of English? Jesus Tapdancing Christ. More on the door, actually a "sensitive door" of some sort, here.

One of the university's claims to fame is being the academic home from 1998 to 2007 of Kong Il-geun, a big name in the field of genetic engineering and one of the men who helped clone glow-in-the-dark cats (because Korea needs more cats). One would think that a university that used to have Kong on its staff would want to preserve its science programs, but given the state of South Korea's genetic engineering programs, perhaps they have a better idea.

Try this on for size.

By now you're seen plenty of Dokdo fashion items, including shirts that say "Do you know ?" on them, followed by some variation on "Dokdo belongs to Korea."



Stolen from here.

If you're like me and enjoy fighting your territorial disputes through fashion, here's the shirt for you.



As you can see, clothing store "Maru" ain't having none of that shit. HMall has plenty of styles to choose from just in time for fall.



Meanwhile, Zen Kimchi offers his own contribution.



I've got one of my own, but am looking for a distributor for it:



andyinsk has one, too:



And one more. I was trying to come up with something witty juxtaposing "get off our rocks" and "get your rocks off," but couldn't do it.

This is going to hurt.

As you've probably heard, K-pop singer BoA plans to debut in the US this fall. YouTube has a couple of teasers of her first single up; here's one:



If she becomes popular outside the Asian-American community, I'll eat my own hat. I'll eat it up, I mean.

"BoA Prepares to Take On Billboard Charts," reads one Chosun Ilbo article. The elephant in the room is, of course, that numerous Korean acts, like Rain, have been hyped to the heavens prior to their American debuts and then subsequently failed to make it in the US. That's not to say that a Korean singer can't or won't some day, but that perhaps a little humility might be in order on this side of the pond since, um, no Korean singer or entertainer has done anything Stateside yet. Or, perhaps people just have different standards of "making it" or "world famous," lol, over here.

I snicker at these delusions of grandeur, the arrogance, but I don't think BoA's a bad person or a bad singer or anything. Hell, if she or her handlers tried a little harder to understand her role in the American market, she might do all right. Eh, actually, probably not, since she's quite derivative and on the bland side. And no, "on the bland side" isn't code for "looks Asian." Nonetheless, I really like her song "If you were here tonight." Anyway, HT to ROK Drop, your #1 source for K-pop news. *cough* sorry. More from YeinJee's Asian Journal and Japan Probe. If you'd like to keep up on BoA's American ambitions, she has an English-language website here.

One more event coming up in October.

Found on this Expat Korea thread.

One of the drawbacks to working in rural Jeollanam-do.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking: "Isn't working in rural Jeollanam-do drawback enough?" HAHAHAHA, good one.



I lived in a town of 16,000 for a year, and travelled twice a week to communities of a few hundred. I had some, uh, hiccups in my housing situation as I mentioned before, and was quite happy to move into an apartment in Suncheon with an indoor bathroom and hot water available every day. I spent a lot of time and energy trying to keep my places in Gangjin clean, but eventually had to learn to tolerate the rats that lived in the ceiling. I never had anything like this, though:

I’ve been living in this place since early August, but never really moved in, since I was told I would only be here for a few months. It’s really gross - there’s only one working light, there’s bugs (including centipedes) everywhere, there’s a huge mold problem (as seen above), and they’re building a new building about 50 feet from my window and start work on it at 6am. I like being even further into the countryside (my current village has fewer than 100 people, I’d estimate), but this house is….gross.

Go visit Waygook Next Door for a couple of photos. My first place in Gangjin was pretty messy when I moved in, but I think I'd be out like a boner in sweat pants if I were forced to live in a place like that. Speaking of boners, my first place had a ceiling light that would turn red if you pulled the strong. In spite of what that implied, nobody ever came around to give me a massage, nor I them.



While some apartments or houses are substandard, most are pretty ordinary, and of a satisfactory size for a young single man or woman. Then again sometimes you can do pretty well for yourself, as in one woman who got a two-bedroom apartment in Naju. That's one reason I inquired about the job before I came to Suncheon. Yep, the same foreign language high school Christopher Paul Neil applied to.

Actually there's only one drama set in Suncheon.

And not "sets," but thanks to the Korea Times nonetheless for running a modified version of my earlier post on the Suncheon Drama Set. A few awkward changes to my English, though.

In the next week or two there will also be an article about October festivals in Jeollanam-do, so keep your eyes open if you think my posts are too long and would prefer condensed versions in the local papers. I'm updating my longer entry about 2008 fall festivals in Jeollanam-do on a regular basis, with new additions and with modifications as new information becomes available, so check back often if you plan on visiting. Most of the big ones are happening in October, and it doesn't look like there will be enough time to see them all.

In other KT news, they're hosting a Dokdo Essay Contest and are looking for entries on the theme of "Why is Dokdo Korean Territory?" I don't think "I don't know" will suffice. LOL at this line:

Applicants providing new evidence on Korea's sovereignty over the islets, including unpublished maps, photos, and documents, will be given high marks.

As if I have those just lying around in anticipation for a contest like this. Actually, with Girlfriend in Jeollanam-do in school all day I have some free time, so I'll bet if I hurry I can make an unpublished map before dinner. Prizes include a plaque and a round-trip tickets to Dokdo. I'll give any foreigner 20,000 won if their fake essay wins. I'll give them an extra 5,000 if they include "Hub of Asia," "Yi Sun-sin," or "the Japanese government must acknowledge this fact" in their remarks, and a further 5,000 won if, upon receiving their tickets to Dokdo, they ask if they'll need a Japanese visa.

"We live in a capitalist society. Why shouldn't I be allowed to capitalize on my virginity?"

A 22-year-old student from San Diego is auctioning off her virginity on ebay, and is hoping to bring in $1 million. Kind of like that big storyline in Memoirs of a Geisha. I'm going to put my bid in tomorrow, but only after the old women from my village have a look to make sure everything is still in place. But on a more serious note this case also draws attention to the less overt dinner/gifts/jewelry-for-sex trades that go on all the time between men and women. And engagement rings are still in fashion, right? If a man did the inverse, and advertised on ebay that he was offering money in exchange for sex I'm sure he'd find himself the target of some kind of sting operation.

I found this story through the Chosun Ilbo, actually, which has a blurb in Korean here.

More English-Only classrooms, more gimmicks.

The number of English-Only classrooms will increase, according to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

The classrooms will allow children to study English speaking and listening or read English books during or after their regular classes. Five elementary schools operated pilot English-only classrooms last year, and the Lee Myung-bak administration aims to expand such English-only classrooms to all schools by 2011. Due to the lack of budget, the ministry expects to initially build about 440 classrooms this year.

Every school I've been in has had a separate English room, and this year it's designated an "English Only Zone." LOL, of course the only time it approximates that is when I'm alone and talking to myself. I lead my classes in English, but neither the students nor the Korean teachers have the English levels necessary for an English-in-English class. And, as I've tried to argue before, there are obstacles in place that hamper English education, including how foreign languages and foreigners are presented and perceived, the ambiguious role of the native speaker in the classroom, and unclear motivations for studying the language in the first place. Given all these barriers---I'm inclined to call them cultural factors, but that brings out the haters---I always shake my head to see more money thrown around, more gimmicks. How about just sitting there, shutting up, and studying? Not everything needs to be fancy and fun.

More from that KT article:

``We'll develop a manual for the design of the classrooms through discussions with teachers who have operated similar classes before, so that the rooms can be used for various programs, including small-group discussions or plays in which all students participate,'' a ministry official said.

``We'll collect good examples of English classroom operation and encourage other schools to adopt the models, so that more students can learn English through more enjoyable programs,'' he said.

I'll bet you three thousand won that the manual for the English-Only classrooms will be written in Korean. Let's make it an even five thousand and bet that native English speakers will not be consulted with the use of these rooms and the implementation of these classes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, a lot of us---me included---don't have Education degrees and, most importantly, don't have Education degrees from Korean universities, thus making us our opinions uninformed and unwelcome. Not that we're to be blamed, considering they're now hiring white people who haven't even finished college yet, and that a even a person with a Ph.D. would still be little more than decoration in the classroom.

Funny anecdote, a colleague came back from spending a month at the teachers' training camp in Damyang. You know, the one where twentysomething white people show Korean teachers with twenty years' experience how to teach English? Yeah, anyway, she really enjoyed it and learned a lot, but told me that she won't use any of the activities at our school because her students don't like speaking English. Nice, a month of free training that amounts to little more than upward mobility and promotion points.

These same paid training opportunities are not available to foreign teachers, and I've said frequently that there should be a system in place where we, too, can gain points for doing demonstration classes, extracurricular activities, summer camps, and training sessions. Teachers who evaluate well would be entitled to more money, better job security, and most importantly the respect of their Korean peers as established, qualified teachers. It would also give us a greater stake in the process and in the communities, and might dispell the belief that we're mercenaries set on one-year deals and ready to go when something better comes along. Moreover it would show a true commitment to effectively using native speakers in the classroom, rather than just throwing them into a classroom alone or using them as ambulatory tape players. Few, I suspect, are planning to teach in a Korean public school for their whole lives, but people who plan to stay for at least a few years might benefit from such an evaluation system. Unfortunately there is little incentive to acquire more qualifications, as our roles are greatly trumped by the importance of grammar and test-taking, and the burden of education is pushed from the public schools onto hagwon, from hagwon onto private tutors, and from private tutors ultimately onto overseas study. Yeah, people should want to do their jobs as best as they can, but what message does it send when the people who can actually use the language are relegated to the backrground, in favor of domestic teachers who, let's be honest, too often aren't interested at all in attempting English in the classroom?

But that was all just an exercise in thinking out loud, as since I've just filled out, again, a form listing my address, my schools, and my job experience for the local school board, implementing and keeping track of a larger policy like that won't be happening anytime soon.

Korean universities not publishing as much scientific research as "global peers."

The KT article's title is "Korean Universities Lag Global Peers in Publication of Papers," which sounds a little pessimistic. South Korea did rank 12th in number of papers, not too bad considering its population, and not too far off its economic strength. Ranking 30th in frequency of citation is more alarming, though, a placement I suspect comes in large part from its reputation for academic dishonesty. My brother was talking about his job prospects after grad school and I joked that he could work in South Korea with his Ph.D. in Pharmacology, and his first comment was about how Korean scientists are always in the news for fabricating their studies. Anyway, an excerpt from the article:

Korea ranked 12th in the number of papers published in a global reference index among 180 countries in 2007, one notch up from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. A total of 25,494 Korean papers were posted on the Science Citation Index (SCI) of the National Science Indicator database. The SCI, a citation index owned by Thomson Reuters, covers the world’s leading journals of science and technology.

South Korea's ranking in frequency of citation, however, fell by two notches to 30th place, the ministry said. Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands had less SCI references than Korea, however, their theses were cited more frequently in other papers.

``It means the quality of growth in universities remains slow despite quantitative development. We will focus on supporting universities to produce higher quality papers,’’ a ministry official said.

The United States topped the ranking with 293,371 papers, followed by the U.K, China, Germany, Japan and France. Korean scientists published a total of 25,494 theses on SCI last year, compared with 23,297 a year earlier. Korea took up 2.17 percent of all SCI papers, a two-fold growth from a decade ago.

Some in these fields are already working on a solution to close the production gap. Not really on-topic, but I thought I read something about this in relation to Korea elsewhere, but it was actually more about China, US, and educational priorities, and was from The World Is Flat. An excerpt from page 269:

According to the National Science Board, the percentage of scientific papers written by Americans has fallen 10 percent since 1992. The percentage of American papers published in the top physics journal, Physics Review, has fallen from 61 percent to 29 percent since 1983. And now we are starting to see a surge in patents awarded to Asian countries. From 1980 to 2003, Japan's share of world industrial patents rose from 12 percent to 21 percent, and Taiwan's from 0 percent to 3 percent. By contrast, the U.S. share of patents has fallen from 60 percent to 52 percent since 1980.

On the same page a quotation from David Greenberg, former news editor of Science journal, from the San Francisco Chronicle in 2004, which shines a little light on the numbers:

To put scientific publishing trends in context . . . it's important to look not only at overall percentiles but also at the actual numbers of published papers. At first, it may sound startling to hear that China has quadrupled its scientific publication rate between 1986 and 1999. But it sounds somewhat less startling if one realizes that the actual number of Chinese papers published rose from 2,911 to 11,675. By comparison, close to a third of all the world's scientific papers were published by Americans---163,526 out of 528,643. In other words, China, a nation with almost four times the population of the United States, published (as of 1999) only one-fourteenth as many scientific papers as the United States.

Anyway, the ranking of 12th shows room for improvement, but I don't think it should be anything to cry about.

There's that H-word again.

In an effort to become a "globally competitive business HUB" the country will be separated into seven development blocs. Locally

Southwestern Jeolla Province is to be developed as a center for culture as well as renewable energy development and other green growth-based businesses, while Busan and South Gyeongsang Province will become the logistics hub for Northeast Asia.

On the "Green" front, the Expo coming to Yeosu in 2012 has a tagline of "The Living Ocean and Coast: Diversity of Resources and Sustainable Activities." From Korea.net

The main reasons Yeosu's theme and bid appealed to judges is the growing sense that we humans are depleting the ocean's resources and causing rising sea levels and coastal disasters. Yeosu itself embodies harmony between development and conservation -- a beautiful port city surrounded by some 300 beautiful islands and the miles upon miles of picturesque coastline and seas within the vast National Hallyeosudo and National Archipelago marine parks.

Yeosu and the surrounding area is also home to several industrial complexes, including the Yeosu National Industrial Complex, one of the world's largest petrochemical production sites. The Gwangyang Steel Works and Port of Gwangyang, Korea's second-largest container port, lie just across the bay.

This harmony between the Yeosu area's pristine marine parks and vibrant industry make it the ideal place to prove development and conservation are not mutually exclusive.

Whether all the development projects going on in the region are consistent with that "green" theme is another story. The Expo's website could not be reached for comment since, in an unhublike move, all but the Korean-language portion are down.

As I've mentioned before, other development projects in the area include Gwangyang's Free Economic Zone, Haenam county's "Tourism and Leisure City," Muan's "Namak New City" project to build up our provincial capitol, Yeongam's Formula One racing track, and projects in line with Naju's designation as an "Innovative City." Plus all the stuff going on with the Expo, new highways and railways, and so on.

In another ambitious project, or maybe a piece of brainstorming on a napkin that made it to the papers, it was decided back in May that a "mega economic zone" would be built in the south to rival Seoul. From the Chosun Ilbo:

The government will start building a mega economic zone on the south coast later this year by grouping Mokpo in South Jeolla Province, Busan and other southern cities. Tentatively named the Sun Belt economic zone, it will have as big a population and economic power as the Seoul metropolitan area. The government will subdivide the area into three zones: Busan, Mokpo and southern central zone, which clusters together six cities and counties in South Jeolla Province and South Gyeongsang Province. The economic zone will house industrial complexes and research and development parks.

That article links to a January one about the presidential Transition Team's plan to divide the country into seven development zones, among other ambitious ideas. An excerpt:

The plan is to group 16 large cities and provinces into five economic zones -- a central metropolitan zone (Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province), a Chungcheong zone (Daejeon and the Chungcheong provinces), a Jeolla zone (Gwangju and Jeolla provinces), a Daegu-North Gyeongsang zone (Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province) and a southeastern zone (Busan, Ulsan and South Gyeongsang Province) -- plus two special zones for Gangwon Province and Jeju Island.

Each zone will be managed by a headquarters with planning, coordination and financial supervisory authority and will get receive subsidies from central government for management of various projects and coordination of policies and programs with cities and provinces under its jurisdiction. This will create separate local economic municipalities.

The committee is thinking of making the central metropolitan zone a hub of international finance and state-of-the-art industries. The Jeolla zone would link the Saemangeum project with tourist, leisure and corporate cities on the southwestern coast, such as Gwangyang and Yeosu. The Chungcheong zone would become a science-technology-education-R&D-bio belt. The Daegu-North Gyeongsang zone would become an energy, electronic and textile industries hub, the southeastern zone a shipbuilding-machinery-maritime-cultural industrial area; the Gangwon zone a tourist and medical hub; and the Jeju zone a tourism hub.

Meanwhile, the committee said construction of the Jeolla regional section of the KTX bullet train line will be completed by 2012, a year earlier than previously scheduled, to galvanize the economy in this part of the country, and to start construction of a new international airport in the southeast, either in Milyang, South Gyeongsang Province or in Busan, as early as 2009. New third-generation ports will be built in Saemangeum, Gwangyang and Busan, together with highways linking the economic zones and highway belts around large cities.

Well that's in your face.

I forgot there's also a Biennale in Busan, on from September 6th through November 15th. Like the one in Gwangju, this one is a big art exhibition featuring international and domestic artists. I was reminded of that festival while navering around for something else, I swear, and coming across this:



Way to get right in there.



Ah, I see now, it's the bus driver from South Park.



It's a statue on display at the Biennale, and it's given me an excuse to take more depressing news off the top of my page. I got those photos from here, here, and here, respectively.

Besides the Biennale, Busan will also have an International Advertising Festival from October 21st through the 24th. Thanks to James on The Grand Narrative for bringing that up. It sounds neat, but happens to be from Tuesday through Friday, conveniently serving to keep the riff-raff out.

One of these things is not like the other.

A series of photo albums of guests arriving at the late Ahn Jae-hwan's memorial service. And one unfortunate inclusion. Click to enlarge.

South Korean suicide rate highest in OECD.

New data on an old topic, from the Joongang Ilbo:

A “suicide virus” is spreading in Korea. According to the National Police Agency, 13,407 Koreans committed suicide last year, a 3.4 percent increase from the previous year. This means some 36.7 people take their own lives each day. The medical community estimated that the number of people who attempt suicide is 32 times more than those who succeeded. If they’re right, some 430,000 people a year, or 1,175 per day, attempt suicide.

According to a 2008 report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the suicide rate in 2006 was 21.5 out of every 100,000 Koreans, the highest among OECD member countries. In fact, it is twice the OECD average of 11.2 suicides per 100,000 citizens.

In 2006, the number of people who succeeded in suicide was 37 percent more than the number of people who died from car accidents in Korea.

South Korea also tops the OECD in pedestrian accidents. It would be kind of tasteless to say the way to stop Korea from leading the OECD in these categories, or bringing up the rear, would be to leave the OECD, so I won't say that. South Korea is also the biggest spender on private education in the OECD and, as reported in today's Donga Ilbo, has the "worst ratio of foreign direct investment to gross domestic product" among the organization's member nations. More figures available from the OECD's page on South Korea.

A couple of good reads on suicide in Korea from Gusts of Popular Feeling here and here, both of which generally look at the influence of peer pressure. Two more good ones, here and here, from The Metropolitician.

Ugh, that's horrible.

Last month I talked a little bit about mortality, reminding us that, unfortunately, foreigners outside of a social circle or those under the employ of careless bosses might became ill or die at home without anyone noticing for quite some time. What put me on that topic was a story in the Joongang Ilbo about two young children left alone in an apartment with their dead mother for four days. This morning the Korea Times has one even more disturbing. A man was found eleven months after hanging himself in his apartment; the new owner found him in July and thought he was a mannequin, and left him there. He came back in August and came to the same conclusion.

It was not until Monday that Kim found out what the ``mannequin'' was: Kim's girlfriend who came to help him clean the house said that it looked like a human body, and Kim touched it, learning that she was right.

``Neighbors did not know Sohn was dead, because the body did not give out a bad smell as it was dried up in the well-ventilated kitchen. He had severed ties with his family and lived alone, so no one tried to contact him over the last 11 months,'' the officer said.

Odds and ends.

Because I don't feel like doing, like, 15 different posts.

** The Seoul Podcast put together a list of 57 things to see and do in Korea. I'm grateful for some of those suggestions because I had never heard of them before. Seoul and Gyeongju were well-represented, Jeollanam-do not. The thing about living in Seoul or Gyeonggi is that there's not much of an awareness of the rest of the country. Hell, a lot of foreigners believe that anything outside the capital is a backwater. Especially on a hagwon schedule, many foreign English teachers don't get to vacation anywhere outside of Gyeongju.

As far as what I'd put on the list, I'd have to include the Boseong tea fields. I'd also put Haeundae Beach, a place I really enjoy even though many are turned off by the crowds. I think it's gorgeous, and the crowds add to the experience. Matter of fact Busan wasn't mentioned at all, nor was Gangwon-do, the Jinju Lantern Festival, the Seoul palaces, or any of the sites famous for cherry blossoms or fall foliage. I'd also put something about love motels. Sure, "sleep in a nasty yeogwan" made the cut, but nobody wants to do that. Good love motels are cute, kitsch, and comfortable, and as I've written before often trump more, um, standard accomodation offerings. I was also surprised to see Jeju fail to make anyone's list. I've never been, and I know it's hyped to the heavens by locals, but I'm sure it's pleasant. Hell, I definitely thought somebody would mention Jeju Loveland. Namhansanseong in Seongnam is a pleasant hike along an old fortress, something Bundang folks ought to try. Locally you could also make a case for adding Jirisan, Jirisan on New Year's, and Yeosu's Hyangiram hermitage on New Year's to a Top 10 list.

** It was a pretty good podcast. Give it a listen to hear about the bullshit Seoul tried to pull "rectifying" the Lonely Planet Korea's writer's impressions. See here for some background.

** In an article about the Ramsar Conference coming to Changwon in October, there's mention of Suncheon Bay, with the line that it's the fifth-largest wetland in the world. Huh, I didn't know that, and am not sure if that's right. I don't care that much, so I just did a half-assed Google search and didn't find anything. Suncheon isn't mentioned in this book's table of contents, nor are there any Korean contributors. A little while ago Suncheon adopted the slogan, self-appointed I'm sure, "Korea's Ecological Capital" (대한민국 생태수도), based on the reputation of Suncheon Bay. It apparently coexists with "Aha! Suncheon," one of the shittier ones out there. The Suncheon city website has some more information:

The respondents of 89.5% evaluated the fixing of strategy, 「Korea's Ecological Capital, Suncheon」 that the environment-friendly eco-image brought into relief as the 'well-done'.

On the other hand, the priority field for the next 2 years of the 4th popular election was the revitalization of the local economy(40.1%), and next was the construction of eco-environmental city(16.5%), construction of self-governing city(13.2%), bring up the educational city(12.4%), and construction of cultural sightseeing city.

So that clears all that up.


Part of Suncheon Bay's swamplands, as seen from the observatory on Yongsan, just to the east, from August 2007.

** I wanted to mention this earlier, but Robert Koehler had a really neat write-up about Mokpo and its colonial architecture. I had no idea all that was there, and it gives me further incentive to spend some quality time there. He apparently made his way through our 'umble province last weekend and stopped in Jindo and Haenam, including Mihwangsa temple. When I was there a few of the buildings were still under construction. It's a nice place, though, and from Dalmasan behind it you can see 땅끝마을, the village at the soutnern-most point on peninsular South Korea, and beyond.


땅끝마을, the village at the southern-most point of peninsular South Korea, as seen from Dalmasan, fall 2006.

** Another thing I wanted to mention earlier was this filming set in Gwangju that's falling into disrepair. I'm a fan of filming and drama sets, but not necessarily of the films and dramas shot there, and would like to check it out before it disappears.

** KBS continues to be a neat source for extensive travel write-ups on stuff in Jeollanam-do. They recently ran articles on Geumseong Mountain Fortress (금성산성) in Damyang and Geumil-do in Wando. They have an impressive collection of 44 articles on tourist destinations large and small Jeollanam-do.

** Gwangju's Chonnam National University released a cultural guidebook to the Jeolla provinces, titled "New Journey into the Jeolla Region." I've been trying to get a copy, but Interpark apparently doesn't accept bank transfers from KEB.

** Holiday Inn and Ramada will be opening locations in Gwangju in the near future, and will provide what looks like the first decent tourist hotels available in the city. If Naver is to be trusted the Ramada will be in Sangmu, surrounded by scores---pun!---of love motels. Another Naver cafe said it was to open this month, but I haven't found any other mention of that. Anyway, all this news does not bode well for the 라마다여관.

** Quite a few railway extensions planned in Korea over the next decade, according to a Railway Gazette article. Of local interest:

Meanwhile, design work is in full swing on the 231 km Honam high speed line, where construction is expected to start next year. This will diverge from the existing route at Osong to serve Iksan, Gwangju and Mokpo. The 182·2 km as far as Gwangju was originally to be completed in 2015 and the final section to Mokpo in 2017, but South Korea’s President Lee Myung-Bak now says he wants to see the line operational to Gwangju before his term of office finishes in 2014.

Costing 10 500bn won, the new line will cut the total distance from Seoul to Mokpo to 320 km compared with 410 km for the existing route via Daejeon. Fastest journey times will be halved to 1 h 46 min.

The existing Honam line has already been electrified to accommodate through KTX trains from Seoul, and work is now underway on a similar upgrading of the Jeolla line which diverges from the route at Iksan to serve Suncheon and Yeosu. With the coastal city selected to host the Korea International Expo in 2012, KR began work in December 2003 on complete reconstruction of the 32·4 km Suncheon – Yeosu section at a cost of 650bn won. Double-tracking and electrification is now 70% complete and on course to be finished by the end of 2009.

I'm a big fan of ambitious public transportation projects, and got a kick out of this map showing planned extensions of the Seoul subway system. I saw this three or four years ago, and have no idea if it's apocryphal . . . but the idea that Seoul subway will extend into Gangwon-do and Chungcheongnam-do gave me a chuckle.

I, too, was curious . . . but no, the Seoul subway will not come close to meeting the Daejeon one. From 천안역 to 반석역 will still be about 80 km apart.


Larger version here.

That's one way to handle protestors.

A man stabbed three people outside Jogyesa temple in Seoul early this morning because they were demonstrating about the dangers of American beef. An excerpt from the KT:

The assailant, identified only by his family name Park, argued that U.S. beef is safe for consumption before assaulting the men just outside the Jogye Temple, headquarters of the country's largest Buddhist sect.

The victims are members of the Anti-Lee Myung-bak Cafe, an online community supporting organizers of the anti-U.S. beef protests who have been taking refuge since July in the Buddhist temple to evade arrest.

"A man approached arguing that Korean beef is more dangerous than U.S. beef, and then appeared to leave before coming back with a knife," a witness was quoted as saying.

Police said the suspect runs a restaurant near the temple and plan to seek an arrest warrant for Park on charges of attempted murder.

It's titled "Drunken Man Attacks 3 After Argument Over US Beef," and it's apparently noteworthy that he was drunk since alcohol is the cause of, and excuse for, so many incidents here.

Actor Ahn Jae-hwan dead at 36.

Picture from here.

Actor Ahn Jae-hwan, 36, was found dead Monday apparently from asphyxiation. His death comes less than a year after he tied the knot with famous comedienne Jung Sun-hee.

The actor, whose real name was Ahn Gwang-seong, was found in his sports utility vehicle parked in Hagye, northern Seoul, Nowon Police Station said. The time of death is assumed to have been several days before. According to interim reports, there were no signs of choking or medication but as briquette ash was found inside the vehicle, the actor is believed to have killed himself using toxic fumes.

``He is believed to have died from smoke inhalation, but we will have wait for a post mortem to find the exact cause,'' a police officer said.

Observers assume a recent string of business failures could have driven him to kill himself. He reportedly left an apparent suicide note in the car saying he loved his wife and asking people to show her compassion. The note also indicated that he wanted to be an organ donor, if his body was found in time.

Ahn, who owned several bars, restaurants and shoe stores, was reportedly heading for bankruptcy and he recently had to sell a lucrative bar he owned in Gangnam as a last resort. It was revealed that he owed about 4 billion won to private moneylenders. The loan sharks had threatened his wife, calling on her to repay the debt. She had planned to meet with them Monday to discuss the issue.

Some observers said Ahn had long showed signs of suffering problems. A couple of weeks ago, he was sacked from his job as a TV presenter on the entertainment news program ETU, allegedly because he had missed several live broadcasts. Some media reported that he hid himself since then, but his agent explained it was merely an attempt to go on diet.

More from the Korea Times and Drama Beans. Admittedly I'm not familiar with him, although I thought I recognized his wife's name. I mentioned her in an earlier post because she "decided to quit" all three of her TV shows based on some comments she made about American beef during the height of Mad Bull Shit. Pop Seoul says she collapsed and was taken to the emergency room after hearing the news.

Foreigners chillin.

Went to the Gwangju Biennale (September 5 - November 9) on Saturday, but because it took us by surprise by closing at six we only saw about half of the indoor and outdoor exhibits. What we did see was pretty artsy-fartsy and over my head, as you'd expect from an art festival, and it felt like college all over again. Unfortunately we had to rush through the domestic exhibits, and will have to take a little longer next time. I did, however, notice this photograph:



It's titled "Brad's Day Out and His Friend" (외출 나온 브래드와 그의 동료) and was taken by 박진영, a.k.a. Area Park. It's of two foreigners chillin in a decrepit abandoned elementary school. The photo I took of the photo looks worse than this photo I stole off the internet, so I'm going with this one. Click to enlarge, and for a few other photographs and an article on the artist, in Korean, here. Blurb on it from Newsis from 2006 here. The Joshing Gnome could not be reached for comment.

And you can see a few more photos of foreigners chilling here. That I have to tell you they're not safe for work will give you an idea of how happy I am to bring them to you. *cough* HT to Korea Beat for those. You know, if you're looking to get fired from your teaching job there are much easier ways to go about it than marching in a parade wearing nothing but an apron, being photographed in that state, and having that photograph passed around the papers.

Was Hunter Davis and "Self-Control in a Foreign Country" fake?

A couple days ago an American named Hunter Davis wrote a harsh, judgemental letter to the Korea Times after his Korean girlfriend had been assaulted by a foreign guy. Titled "Self-Control in a Foreign Country," it reads:

First and foremost, I would like everyone who is reading this to know that I feel extremely lucky and honored to be living and teaching English in Korea. Korea is a beautiful country filled with amazing cultural traditions as well as breath-taking scenery.

This article is in response to an article written by a Korean girl addressing some negative actions taken by Korean citizens against foreigners living in this country. Her article was published on the Korea Times online edition this past spring.

Having good luck is something many people take for granted, but not me. Many other foreigners living in Korea, mainly U.S. military and English teachers, are not aware of how lucky they are to be able to live in a country almost free of things like crime and drug abuse that plague many countries in the West.

This is the reason for writing this article. Foreigners in Korea need to have a better understanding of the basic principal that we are guests in another country. Too often, I see and read about drunken and disillusive foreigners causing problems and getting into trouble. Is it really that hard to maintain a positive public image of oneself while in a foreign country?

I came to Korea six months ago from the U.S. to teach English. Soon after arriving here, I met a beautiful Korean girl that I am lucky enough to call my girlfriend. She is a university student in Daegu. Unfortunately, I live an hour and half away so we are not able to be together except on the weekends.

This weekend was different. Her family wanted to spend time with her as it was her last weekend of summer vacation so we did not get to spend our typical weekend together where we enjoy dinner, movies, the occasional trip to the beach and perhaps some shopping. I did see her briefly for a few hours Saturday afternoon.

My girlfriend returned home to Daegu at her father's request that evening. She called me to tell me she had gotten home safely and was going to go to bed early and had no plans for the night. Everything seemed normal so I went to bed early too.

Sunday afternoon rolls around and I had not heard from her. I finally decided to call her at around 4 p.m. When I talked to her she sounded sad, upset and hurt. She told me that she had gone to downtown Daegu to help a friend get home that had had too much to drink.

On her way home, a foreign man followed her and assaulted her in a secluded part of downtown Daegu at about 3 a.m. Sunday. Like I mentioned earlier, I have only been in Korea six months and the amount of time I have heard about assaults on Korean girls by foreign men is absolutely horrifying and despicable. I thanked God after she told me repeatedly, ``I'm OK, I'm OK.''

It turns out, that I myself am REALLY not okay. Needless to say, the man tried a series of unsuccessful advances on my very frightened girlfriend. When she told him she was not interested, the man assaulted her by punching her in the stomach and in the head, and then left her lying on the ground. If there is any kind of luck in a situation like this, it is the fact that the assailant did not inflict any more harm and that she was not sexually assaulted.

I am well aware of the large concentration of American men living in and around Daegu city. There are numerous military bases located there, which in my opinion cause nothing but problems for the citizens of Daegu and do nothing for the U.S. except to continue to give my country a ``black eye'' by tarnishing the reputation of the respectful and civil Americans living in Korea and elsewhere.

I like to consider myself as a reasonable person, so I will address the fact that I am well aware not all U.S. military men go around assaulting Korean girls late at night ― only a small number of people are guilty of this crime. What I don't understand is how a foreign man can justify an action such as assaulting or raping a Korean girl and think that they are entitled to do so?

True, many, if not most of these incidents go unreported. And I am working hard to convince my girlfriend to go to the police about the incident. We all know that we will never find the guy who did this to her, but I also know that it's the right thing to do.

Finally, I want to send a message to every foreigner living in Korea. Be it an English teacher, a businessman or a GI, show some respect for your hosts. Exercise some self-control for once in your life. Korean people are kind people by nature. Do not take advantage of this kindness.

davishb21@gmail.com

On Dave's people were speculating that his girlfriend was actually out with her real, Korean boyfriend at 3 a.m., rather than simply having gotten out of bed to help her drunk friend. Some thought he might have been a sock of another foreigner either trying to rile Koreans up or to sling mud at the rest of us. And others suggested that the letter was written by a Korean impersonating a generic foreigner, given some of the awkward language, the several mentions of enjoying and respecting Korea, the picture of a white guy in a baseball cap and backpack that accompanied the letter, and of course the use of a national newspaper to smear an entire demographic. The email address appended to the bottom of the letter turned out to be a phony, too.

A Dave's poster said she worked with the guy, although another linked to an advisory on Korea Bridge that said the real author was impersonating somebody else. Nevertheless the article seems to have been removed from the KT site. Is an apology in order for printing inflammatory garbage like that? For not verifying the identity of the author? For allowing an assault that may or may not have happened to be a vehicle used to besmerch foreign men? For letting a guy suggest that foreign men feel entitled to sexually assault Korean women?

Invest in Korea Where technololgy leads (and where all is full of love)

An advertisement for Invest Korea in the September, 2008 issue of Korea magazine. The future Korea will apparently resemble Bjork's "All is Full of Love" video, and we can assume that robots will most likely make out with each other.

Gangjin, Jangheung, Yeongam counties to merge?

The Gangjin Shinmun writes that there are discussions to merge three counties in southwestern Jeollanam-do into one administrative division. Don't know if it's anything more discussions, and I haven't seen the information printed elsewhere. From the little I can make out, the article talks about other merger scenarios that haven't gone anywhere, including the Yeosu-Suncheon-Gwangyang merger that was to happen by 2010 but which has apparently been shelved. The article also says that a possible Mokpo-Muan merger is discussed every year, a union that would kind of make sense given the new capital of Jeollanam-do will siphon off a good bit of Mokpo's population and the new Muan International Airport has replaced the old Mokpo one.

Mergers and shifts aren't uncommon in Jeollanam-do, and probably happens a lot in other provinces, too. Townships seem to change counties pretty frequently, based on what I've seen on Naver, on government websites, and on the histories hanging in my schools' lobbies. The Dong-A Ilbo talked a little about that in relation to the proposed tri-city merger last year:

There have been 40 cases of integration of local administrative districts. The Yeosu of today was born by merging Yeosu City, Yeocheon City and Yeocheon County in 1998. Suncheon is the combination of Suncheon City and Seungju County in 1995. Likewise, Gwangyang is the combination of Dong Gwangyang City and Gwangyang County in 1995.

And a brutal bit of English I've cited before gives a geneology of Jeollanam-do reminiscent of Genesis and the passage about who beget whom:

Suggog and Jisan branch offices in Gwangju-city were reorganized and then Pug-gu ward office was created by reorganization of the administrative district in accordance with Presidential Decree No.6930 on Sept.26, 1979. Samil-and Dolsan-myeons of Yeocheon-county were promoted to each Samil-up and Dolsan-up, Gwansan- and Daedeok-myeons of Jangheong-country to each Gwansan-up and Daeduk-up. Ilro-myeon of Muan-county to Ilro-up, Gumil-and Nohwa-myeons of Wando-county to Gumil-up and Nohwa-up, Jido-myeon of Shinam-county to Jido-up and 9 myeons of 6 counties were promoted to up by Presidential Decree No.10050 on Oct.21, 1980.
Gumsung-si was created by integrating partial areas of Naju-up and Yeongsanpo-up by Law No.3425 on July 1, 1981(promulgated on Apr.13, 1981), and Daegeom-myeon in Gwangyang-county, Dodeog-myeon in Goheong-country, Pukil-myeon in Haenam-country.
Unnam-myeon on Muan-country, Jindo-myeon, Palgum-myeon and Sineui-myeon were created in Shinan-county on Feb.15, 1983 according to the reorganization of administrative districts by the regulation to alter the districts of city, county, ward, up and myeon and to alter myeon boundary by Presidential Decree No.11027 on Jan.10, 1983.
Ssangam of Seungju-county was promoted to Seungju-up and Hongnong-myeon of Yeonggwang-county to Hongnong-up by presidential Decree No.11772(promulgated on Sept.26, 1985) on Oct. 1, 1985. Yeocheon branch office was expanded to Yeocheon-si and Gumsung-si into Naju-si by Law No.37985(promulgated on Dec. 28, 1985) on Jan.1, 1986 . Gwangyang branch office was established by Jeonnam provincial Law No.1554 on Dec.30,1986.
Yangsan branch office of Junam-myeon, Goheong-county was promoted Sanae-myeon of Goheong-county and Hoijin branch office of Daedug-up of Jangheong-county to Hoijin-myeon of Jangheong-county, Gumdong branch office of Gumil-myeon, Wando- county to Gumdang-myeon, Wando-county and Bokil branch office of Nohwa-up, Wando-county to Bokil-myeon, Wando-county by Presidential Decree No.11814 on Apr.1, 1986 and the existing Gwangju-city was promoted to Gwangju Municipal city and separated from the province, and the administrative districts of this province were changed into 6 cities ,22 counties and I branch Office,(29 ups, 208 myeons) 96 dongs, 33 branch offices of up and myeon and 6,491 dongs and ris).
Samhyang-dong of Mokpo-si was established by Jeonnam Provincial Law No.1081 on Jan.1, 1987, Songjeong-si and Gwangsan-county were included in Gwangju-city by Law No.3963 on Jan.1, 1988.
Jugpo branch office(area 31.30) of Yeocheon-county and Pyungpoongdo branch office( area 3.34㎢) of Jeundo-myeon, Shinan-county were established by Jeonnam Provincial Law No.1177 on March. 5, 1988 and Gwangyang branch office was promoted to Donggwangyang-si by Law No.4050 and Taeun branch office(area 5.01) of Hugsan-myeon and Goyido branch office(area 0.5㎢) of Ape-myeon, Shinan-county were established by Jeonnam Provincial Law No.1284 on Jan.1, 1989. Sengil branch office of Daeju-myeon, Gangjin-county was changed into Mary-myeon and Sannae-myeon of Goheong-county into Yongnam-myeon on Apr.1, 1989.

LOL, that's just from 1980 to 1989. Much much more here if you're interested. Unfortunately, trying to find English-language information on Jeollanam-do often requires sifting through mountains of crap like that.

Just for the sake of speculation, should the three counties merge into a single city it would have a population of 148,183, making it the fourth-largest administrative division in the province.

I thought this was going to be about people dying on Chuseok.

Thankfully, the Joongang Ilbo had better taste than me, and the photo was instead of Yeonggwang county's regional specialty.

If you keep teaching your students to put "man" after sentences, I'm going to punch you.

Ouch, this is quite the video on Korea.net, as part of some "WOW Korea!" user-created content drive or something about the wonders of living in South Korea. "How do they know where we are?" the guy asks after ordering delivery. Um, because you told him where you are, maybe. But the hits don't stop there. If you hurry you can go and take the quiz on bullfighting.

The site also has a section for you to upload your own stuff, titled "Show! Your WOW Korea." My alma mater has a similar phrase, popular more among students than among administrators. If you want those around you to show their Indiana University of Pennsylvania school spirit, you might encourage them by saying "Show us your IUPness."

Well, it's just a UCC on some website, and not as bad as the "Seoul: My Story" commercial that was running pretty frequently on the Discovery Channel for a while. They had a Chinese woman describe some of the highlights of her trip to Seoul---"we have Biking"---but for some reason she left out assaulting Koreans at Olympic torch relay protests.

HT to The Marmot's Hole.

Fall festivals in Jeollanam-do, 2008 edition.

Here's a list of some festivals in and around Jeollanam-do this fall. I've tried to get as many as I could, but if you know of any other interesting ones in the area, please add them in your comment and I'll stick them into the post. Also, as of my original post some of the festivals haven't announced their dates yet. As they become available I'll edit the post to reflect them. And if anybody has any reviews from this year or last, feel free to share.

I plan to hit the Biennale this weekend, and catch the Lantern Festival and the Namdo Food Festival, and head out to Piagol to walk around amidst the fall foliage. I'd also like to visit Gokseong, Namwon, and Suncheon Bay for the Reed Festival, but who knows if there'll be enough time.

I plan on making weekends out of the out-of-town festivals. For information on other points of interest in Jeollanam-do, take a look at this post I did on Roboseyo's site. Or, suggest your own.



Korea Dance Festival (전국무용게)
* September 3rd to September 12th
* Held at the Mokpo Culture and Fitness Center---not sure how to translate 목포문화체육센터---two-and-a-half kilometers east of the bus terminal. Thanks to Ms. Parker in Korea for the tip.
* Official site.


2008 Gwangju Biennale (광주비엔날레)
* September 5th to November 9th
* A reknowned art festival held biannually in Gwangju with exhibits produced both domestically and internationally. Held predominantly at the Biennale Exhibition Hall, the Museum of Art, and Jungoe Park (중외공원), all on the north side of the city, a few other happenings seem to be . . . happening in Daein Market and Gwangju Theater. The Biennale Hall is accessible via a number of buses, and a 5,000 won cab ride from the Gwangju Bus Terminal or Gwangju Station. The official site has loads more information, including exhibit information and a summary of this year’s theme:

The identity for the 2008 Gwangju Biennale encompasses all related materials — from posters, advertisements, brochures, and catalogs to this website. Just as this year's Biennale has been curated as an "annual report" highlighting exhibitions that took place between January 2007 and September 2008, the identity concept is based not on a single theme, but on bringing together all kinds of content, with the time period as criteria. As such, the basis for the Biennale identity is a flexible, recognizable graphic system using the numbers 07 and 08 as strong graphic elements — bookends, quite literally signifying that the content presented between them comes from these two years. Like the Biennale itself, the identity creates a flexible framework into which all sorts of information can fall, from lengthy narrative text to a wide range of imagery. In this way the content becomes part of the identity itself.

* Official site
* Images from Flickr and Naver.




Hadong Cosmos Festival (하동코스모스축제)
* September 19th to 28th
* Held in Hadong county, in Gyeongsangnam-do but which borders Jeollanam-do. In celebration of the "cosmos" flower. Takes place in Bukcheon-myeon. No information on it in English on the website, but it does tell us a little about the "Real Mullet Festival":

The festival of real mullets called frog founders, fall gizzard shads, or winter real mullets among gourmets are held in Noryang, Hadong.

* Information from the Hadong county site, in Korean.


Bulgapsan Sangsahwa Festival (불갑산상사화축제)
* September
* The 2007 festival was held in September, and was in celebration of the Sangsahwa, a flower considered a symbol of unrequited love since the flowers and leaves never appear at the same time. It is also a significant flower to Buddhists.

1000 years bloom, 1000 years wither, the leaf never meets the flower, love without cause and effect, karma determines life and death.

So reads a piece of Buddhist scripture quoted by Light Enough to Travel who has an excellent post on this. Bulgapsan is a mountain in Yeonggwang and Haenam counties, notable for the festival and for the temple Bulgapsa. Buses run from Yeonggwang to Bulgapsa nine times a day, according to the temple's site.
* Information from the Yeonggwang county site, in Korean.


Yongcheonsa Kkotmureut Festival (꽃무릇큰잔치)
* September
* 꽃무릇 is another name for the Sangsahwa, and there is another festival in Jeollanam-do for it, this one at Yongcheonsa temple in Hampyeong county. People on Naver say buses go to the temple from the Hampyeong terminal, which is probably true but don't quote me on that.
* Information from the Yongcheonsa site, in Korean.


Jeonju Sori Festival (전주세계소리축제)
* September 26th to October 4th
* Held at the Sori Cultural Performance Center (소리문화의전당) in Jeonju, Jeollabuk-do, which besides the festival has lots of historical points of interest. The English-language version of the festival's site is still dedicated to the 2007 version, but it gives an overview thusly:

Jeonju Sori Festival is an annual festive event held for the aesthetic communication between the musical heritage of Korea, including pan sori performances developed in Jeon-ju, and the today's music lovers. Moreover, it may provide ordinary people and those who love music in Korea and abroad with an opportunity to appreciate highly advanced music of the world and reassess the meaning of traditional music in modern space, and offering various chances to experience while creating a new form of performances.

* Official site.


Gokseong Simcheong Festival (곡성심청축제)
* October 2nd to 5th
* In Gokseong county at the Simcheong Train Village on the Seomjin River. Cheong, surrname Sim, is a character from the pansori Simcheongga, and who has become a symbol of filial piety. I'm not sure exactly what the festival entails, although I've always wanted to visit that village. It's a scenic area, too, being in the foothills of Jirisan. If you're interested in reading the latest updates on the 2002 festival, you can find it from the Gokseong county page here.






Jinju Lantern Festival (진주남강유등축제)
* October 1st to October 12th.
* In the city of Jinju, Gyeongsangnam-do, a beautiful display that’s about as close to a must-attend festival as you’re going to get down here. Lanterns float on the river a short walk from the bus terminal, and are also displayed along the hillside. There are also a couple of tunnels strung with lanterns made by local students. Nearby attractions include 진주성, a fortress overlooking the river. Unfortunately it does have its roots in trying to kill Japanese, but there's nothing you can do about that. As far as accomodation goes, last year I was told I'd better make a reservation at a love motel in advance, but seeing how many motels there are in Jinju (Naver pulls up 102) that doesn't seem necessary. I was at the 여우비, but passed dozens of motels while walking there from the river. That area of 계동, 10 or 15 minutes behind the E-Mart that's behind the fortress, has quite a few motels.
* Bus schedule for Gwangju, and for Suncheon, if you can navigate Korean.
* Official site.
* Images from Flickr.


Mokpo Hairtail Festival (은빛갈치축제)
* October 3rd and 4th
* Not sure how to translate that, but it's held at Mokpo's Peace Park in honor of fish who reflect silver in the water.
* Information from the Mokpo city page, in Korean.




Namwon Heungbu Festival (남원흥부제)
* October 4th and 5th
* In the city of Namwon, Jeollabuk-do, across Jirisan from Jeollanam-do. It’s a pretty little town, and this festival is dedicated to the well-known folk tale of Heungbu and Nolbu. The city calls itself the "City of Love" because of all the places related to the popular folk tale Chunhyangga, set in the city.
* Official site
* Images from Naver




Gwangju Chungjangno Festival (광주충장로축제)
* October 7th to October 12th.
* Held on and around Chungjangno in downtown Gwangju, accessible via subway stations Geumnam-ro 4-ga or Culture Complex. Attractions include concerts, art exhibitions, a “시간여행” with relics from the 1960s and 1970s, and of course b-boys. The sites are spread out over a few locations in the Chungjangno area, though you can check the website for more information and for a small map.
* Official site.
* Images from Naver.



Can't find the real poster yet.

Namdo Food Festival (남도음식문화큰잔치)
* October 9th to 13th
* Another of the province's biggest and most popular. This one is held at the Nagan Folk Village, which is worth a visit in and of itself. Last year they ran shuttle buses from the Gwangju bus terminal to Nagan, though I can't confirm whether that will happen this year because the webpage is currently down and now that the webpage is up and running we see there will again be shuttles to Nagan from Gwangju up to eight times each morning. Here's transportation information and a timetable for those shuttles. Suncheon buses 63 and 68 run to the Folk Village, although when the festival isn't on they run rather infrequently, so I recommend setting out early. Suncheon is near and dear to my heart, and there are plenty of places to visit if you decide to make a weekend out of it: Suncheon Bay, Seonamsa and Songgwangsa temples (Seonamsa is better), and the Suncheon Drama Set, to name a few.
* Official site.


Myungryang Strait Festival (명량대첩축제)
* October 11th to October 14th
* To commemorate the Battle of Myungryang Strait, a naval battle fought during the Imjin Wars with the Korean fleet led by national hero Yi Sun-shin. A solar-powered turtle ship will debut to the public this weekend. Held at two locations across the straight from each other in Haenam and Jindo.
* Official site.
* Images from Naver.





That 2007 poster looks pretty neat.

Gwangju Kimchi Festival (광주김치대축제)
* October 15th to 19th
* Like a lot of these things, the festival's official site inexplicably leads to a previous year's information, and doesn't give the dates for this year's festival but for a little blurb there on the homepage. The English-language version doesn't work, either. A reliable source told me the festival is lame, and seems like an excellent place to go and get swarmed by photographers eager to snap shots of white and brown people elbow deep in cabbage. That's not my thing, if you haven't noticed yet, and I don't think I could handle this festival. It's held at and around the Gwangju Folk Museum on the northside of town near Biennalle Hall, is accessible by a number of buses, and is a cheap cab ride as well.
* Official site







I couldn't resist.

Naju Yeongsangang Culture Festival (영산강문화축제)
* October 24th to 26th
* Held near the Yeongsan River in Naju. Other points of interest in Naju include two large gates, the remants of an old wall that surrounded the city, and Samhanji Theme Park, a filming location for a popular historical drama.
* Official site

Hampyeong Chrystanthemum Festival (대한민국 국향대전)
* October 29th to November 23rd.
* A beautiful festival from the looks of it, held in Hampyeong county, site of the Butterfly Festival each spring. Pictures and further information available from Naver.

Gogeum Moonlight Festival (고금원송축제)
* October 28th and 29th
* Held in Gogeum-myeon, Wando county.
* Information from the Wando county site.


Gwangyang Char-broiled Meat Festival (광양숯불구이축제)
* October 10th to 12th
* There's got to be a more graceful way to translate that. Held at a park on Seocheon, a stream that runs through town. In West Gwangyang, actually, the part of town with Gwangyang Station and the bus terminal. There's a short profile on last year's events here, and more information from the poor souls at the Gwangyang English Town:

w : I'm hungry.
m : Me, too.
w : Do you like bulgogi?
m : Yes, I do.
w : Gwangyang Sut-bulbogi festival opens in Seocheon.
m : Sut-bulgogi?
w : Yeah, Sut-bulgogi. The main food is beef.
The beef is roasted on a charcoal fire.
It's very delicious and sweet.
m : And then, how much is it?
w : It is about 12,000won.
m : Are there any events there?
w : Yes, there are many events.
m : I see. Let's go there. Hurry up!
(m : man w : woman)

And no, I have no idea what the "Mr. Korean Cattle Contest" is.
* Old information from the Gwangyang city page in Korean and English.


Maryang Harbor Festival (마량미항축제)
* Nine days in October
* The dates haven't been set for this festival at the harbor in Maryang-myeon, one of my favorite spots in Gangjin. It's a very scenic spot, but it'd only be worth going if you live in the area. The last bus from Maryang to Gangjin-eup leaves before 8 pm, so plan accordingly if you don't want to be stranded.
* Information from the Gangjin county site, in Korean.
* Photos from my October, 2006 visit.


Boseong Seopeonje Sori Festival (서편제소리축제)
* October 25th
* The dates haven't been set here, either, for the festival celebrating the region's pansori traditions. Last year it was held over two days.
* Official site.


Hwasun Unju Culture Festival (화순운주문화축제)
* October
* Held at Unjunsa temple, one of the most noteworthy in the province. Last year's was held for two days. Asia Planet says:

Every fall, Unjusa Temple hosts a large-scale festival, and visitors flock to this area to enjoy other spots such as the Dogok Hot Springs and the exotic Yeomsotang (goat stew).

* Old information from the Hwasun county page, in Korean.


Suncheon Bay Reed Festival (순천만갈데축제)
* October 28th to November 4th
* At Suncheon Bay, accessible via city bus No. 1. Also a stop on the Suncheon City Tour.
* Official site.
* Images from Naver.



Jindo Arirang Festival (진도아리랑축제)
* November
* The dates haven't been released for this festival in honor of Jindo's version of the famous Arirang folksong, though last year's was held in November.




Jangseong Baekyang Maple Festival (장성백양단풍축제)
* November 1st and 2nd
* At Baekyangsa temple in Jangseong county, a place many public school teachers in Jeollanam-do have been since it was part of our week-long orientation.
* Information from the Jangseong county site, in Korean.
* Images from Naver.


Daeheungsa Maple Festival (대흥사단풍축제)
* November
* No dates set yet, so with this and with the other 단풍 festivals in Gurye and Jangseong, you may have to play it by ear. Held in Haenam county, at another notable temple in the province, Daeheungsa.
* Information, in Korean.





Piagol Valley Maple Festival (피아골단풍축제)
* Another popular spot for viewing the changing maples is Piagol Valley at the base of Jirisan in Gurye county. It's crowded, but I didn't find it overwhelmingly so last year. Buses run from the terminal in Gurye-eup to both the valley and to Yongoksa temple (pictured above), a short walk away. Buses ran rather infrequently when I was there, so I'd advise getting to Gurye-eup in the morning. There was a festival in late-October last year, but I went a week later and it was still good. There is no information on the 2008 festivities.
* My photos from last fall, photos from Naver.

Korea Times: "English Study Fever May Irk Foreign Tourists."

As you can imagine it was cleaned up quite a bit from the original draft, and the title was changed from "Holy shit, can you give it a rest for like two fucking seconds while I'm trying to do this vacation?" to something not of my choosing. My latest KT piece objecting to students using a Seoul city tour to practice English on the unwitting foreign customers also proves that I'm incapable of taking a good photo.

Well, how about putting a stop to prostitution for the sake of stopping prostitution?

When I saw the article titled "Brothel Bust Ignites Protest" I knew it was going to be good. A prostitution crack-down has been underway in Jangan-dong, apparently, since July 28th, and the pimps aren't happy, especially after one of their own hanged himself in a parking garage last week. Said the deceased:

``We are aware it's illegal. But there is no choice but to do this for a living at least for now. Please suspend the operation for a while and give us a chance to look for another job,'' Choi said in the will.

The death added fuel to the pimps' anger, leading them to take to streets Friday to protest against what they call the cleanup operation.

The police chief's resolve is unshaken, though:

Despite the backlash, Lee Jung-goo, chief of the Dongdaemun Police Station, reaffirmed he would not ease up on the crackdown until his district is recognized as ``prostitution-free zone.''

``I will put all my energy into eradicating the red-light district during my term since it has become a hotbed of tax evasion and other heinous crimes,'' Lee said.

Um . . . instead of eradicating the red-light district because it's a hotbed of human trafficking, indentured servitude, disease, and abuse? I'm not against a legal sex industry, but this article is just weird, go read it all. A minute-long video report here. In related news, the KOREA BEAT posted a translation of a Sports Seoul article on the sex industry. Damn, I haven't heard of most of those types of places.

Ingenious Dokdo promotion.

I love this comment made to Gusts of Popular Feeling's post on "Patriotic summer fashions":

i'm still waiting for dunkin to start production on dok-donuts.