MTU leaders arrested

[Update]

Jamie over at Two Koreas has a worthwhile post looking at the Korean government response to the growth of undocumented workers in Korea. For example:

The Employment Permit System, designed to replace the discredited Industrial Trainee System, remains flawed in protecting migrant’s rights and encourages illegality as it has not been configured to factor in the actual costs of migration to individual workers (in the sense of hidden and illegal recruitment and brokerage costs that persist for migrants from particular regions; short, 1-3 year time horizons for employment that leaves both workers and employers with incentives to overstay the contract; and problems associated with the initial implementation of the EPS which ignored the majority of undocumented migrants in Korea by excluding them from access to permits).

Thus, a large portion of the increase in the number of undocumented year by year consists of overstayers rather than new migrants. Rather than correcting the system, the government, largely at the behest of the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Government and Home Affairs, has chosen to pursue crackdowns on the undocumented while recruiting newer workers from overseas.

Regarding those who have been arrested, they are being treated well but they may be forcibly deported, as "it seems as though the Korean government is trying to arrange consent from the Bangladeshi and Nepalese embassies, even if they don't have passports, personal belongings or money to buy a plane ticket."

[Original post]



Let's start with the Hankyoreh:

Another reckless crackdown on migrant workers is underway. Yesterday three key officers in the Migrants’ Trade Union (Iju Nodongja Nodong Johap) were taken away by immigration agents. The three were clearly targeted. Just the other day two ethnic Koreans from China jumped off the roof of a Chinese speaking church in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, while trying to ditch agents there to arrest them, who then broke their legs and ankles. For how much longer is the government going to continue this inhumane crackdown?

The reason the government is going after foreign laborers with such zeal is said to be because of the rapid increase in the number of undocumented migrant workers. This kind of ruthless crackdown, however, is as bad a policy as one could have. There are said to be some 230,000 undocumented migrant laborers in Korea; is the government going to continue this way until it has grabbed them all?

In January this year, the Seoul High Court ruled in favor of foreign workers seeking to join a trade union despite their illegal status from overstaying visas. Since then the union has been very active. In August the government began yet another crackdown on migrant workers, though this one has been carried on much longer than those in the past. The full Hankyoreh article (excerpted above) talks about the increasing power immigration officers have been given to carry this out.

In the wake of the senseless deaths of migrant workers in a fire at Yeosu detention center this past February, (and in a rising number of workplace related deaths) it was hoped the government would review their policies, but they've, predictably, continued with the only policy they know: crackdown.

Perhaps it's a testament to how much of a threat the government sees them as; it has always targeted the organizers in the hope that if the head is lopped off, the body will die. This has always been a false hope on their part. Most of the migrant worker organizers I've known have been arrested and deported, and I know one of the men arrested on Tuesday. He's a really good person, and does not deserve to have this happen to him.

For all the idiocy (some might say racism) I quoted here, be sure that migrant workers are treated far, far worse than any westerners in Korea are. What's also creepy is the degree to which they watched the men before they were arrested. One of them "takes medication for his stomach and cholesterol and when he got to the jail, they already had it prepared for him."

Two Koreas has more on this here, and a call for solidarity is here.

No names

The saga of the 'exploding phone' seems to have reached its conclusion. The Chosun Ilbo reported on the incident yesterday:

A man in his 30s was killed on Wednesday in what is believed to have been a mobile-phone explosion. Around 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, a worker at a quarry in Cheongwon County, North Chungcheong Province found the backhoe operator identified as Seo (33). The worker told police he found Seo lying beside his backhoe and bleeding from the nose. His phone was on fire. The worker put out the fire and called emergency services. Seo was taken to hospital but pronounced dead on arrival.

There was a precedent for thinking the phone battery was to blame:

In June, the press reported that a 22-year-old welder was killed at a steel mill in Lanchow in China’s Gansu Province after the mobile phone in his chest pocket exploded. This was the first time a mobile-phone explosion has killed a person in Korea.

It said little about what phone was responsible:

Seo used the latest slide phone released by a leading Korean electronics company in April.

With the libel laws in Korea, newspapers not wanting to be sued can't name names. The Joongang Ilbo fudged and said

The cell phone was the product of a well-known South Korean electronics company, police officials said. However, police did not reveal the name of the manufacturer nor the type of the cell phone or battery.

Not true at all. The Korea Times let the cat out of the bag:

The phone was made by LG Electronics. The company said the battery was very unlikely to explode since it was wrapped in aluminum foil, not a solid container. The manufacturer of the lithium-ion polymer battery was also not identified. LG said a Japanese and a Korean firm are its two main battery suppliers.

The Times was also quick to report, once it became known, that it was a co-worker who accidentily killed the man in question.

Kwon, 58, said on Thursday night that he hit Seo, 33, while driving his excavator backward at a stone quarry in Cheongwon, North Chungcheong Province, the police said. The phone was on fire when he found Seo lying down on the ground, and he was too afraid to say about what had happened, the police said.

"I was moving the excavator and Seo was suddently out of my sight. I ran out and saw he was lying down bleeding and his cloths on fire,'' Kwon was quoted as saying by the police. ``All these happened in a moment, and I was too afraid about the accident. So I lied that the battery exploded and killed Seo."

A number of Korean and foreign newspapers incautiously reported that the phone explosion killed the man, even though LG Electronics, the manufacturer of the phone, flately denied such a possiblity, given that the lithium-ion polymer battery is not prone to explosion.

Well then, seeing how the media will eat up anything as fear-mongering as an exploding cell phone, perhaps the police shouldn't have announced the findings in its unfinished investigation so hastily. They won't get the blame, however.

It is not immediately known whether LG is to sue the newspapers and Internet news agencies that hastily blamed the firm for the man's death.

There may be two lessons from this: that the media (and police) should be more careful, and that the media should not be so hasty in revealing the source of public health hazards.

Article on the elderly who live alone

The Joongang Ilbo has a depressing article about the number of elderly people living alone.

According to the foundation, a 66-year-old woman living in alone in a rundown part of Mapo was found dead last month in her home two days after she died. The cause of death was starvation. She had no contact with relatives and had been refusing to get help from the district office.

Also in October, a 67-year-old man was found dead at home. Alerted by a bad smell, the landlord called police, who found a body that had been decaying for at least a month. The man had been suffering from tuberculosis. [...]

There are an estimated 880,000 elderly living alone currently, but the government expects the number to rise to 1 million by 2010.

I can't help but think of a Simpsons episode where their dog becomes a nuisance, and the family thinks about getting rid of the dog. Lisa responds thusly:

"This is our pet. We can question his integrity and disposition, but we can’t question his heart. Are you trying to teach us that the way to solve a problem with something you love, is to throw it away?"

The camera then pans across town to Grandpa Simpson in his room at the retirement home. He looks at the phone, which isn't ringing, picks it up, and says, "Hello? Is anyone there?" Though it is, to a degree, played for laughs, it was obviously commenting on a rather ugly aspect of (North) American society. Reading that "She had no contact with relatives", I can't help but think that it's too bad that this aspect of western society (or capitalist modernity in general) has become a trend in Korea as well. So much for "respecting your elders".

1941's "Volunteer"

Somewhere in Korea, 1941

I’ve been watching films from the box set "Unearthing the Past", which Mark over at Korea Pop Wars brought to my attention awhile ago. The box set consists of four of the oldest films still in existence. Three are from 1941, and the other is from 1943. These, of course, are all films made during World War II, and were thus made when Korea was a colony of Japan. Needless to say, these films are windows into the past like no other. You get to see what Korea looked like at that time in moving pictures, but, since film was used as a propaganda device, especially in wartime, you also get to see how the Japanese tried to mold Koreans into good imperial citizens ready to sacrifice for the empire.

What follows is a look at Volunteer (Jiwonbyeong), from 1941. While obviously a propaganda film, it’s also a very well crafted film. Director Ahn Seok-young and especially cinematographer Lee Myeong-woo really deserve credit – some of the shots are really well composed, and the film makes use of numerous tracking shots – not bad for a film shot in the countryside in 1941. A number of the screenshots below were chosen to illustrate how well composed many of the scenes are.


The film begins with a people waiting to see a troop train off at a station in the countryside. The main character, Choon-ho, talks with his friend who wants to become a driver, and then meets his fiancé Bun-ok and talks about wanting to get away from the countryside. He is then called to Seoul where the absentee landlord, (whose father respected his father) turns over the job of overseeing the land to the crafty Kim Deok-sam. The landlord’s sister, who obviously has a thing for Choon-ho, reproaches her brother for this decision, as she realizes this will affect Choon-ho’s financial situation negatively. Choon-ho returns home, and on his way sees young students doing military training in a field; he looks on wistfully.


He arrives home with gifts from Seoul and, while sitting with his mother, sister, and Bun-ok, has this exchange with his sister, who asks

- Did you buy a comfort kit?
- Yes. So you can write your name on the cover and send it.
- I have something to show you. I wrote a letter to a soldier at school the other day. He replied.
- [reading] “I am moved by your innocent, sincere letter.” Would you like it if I became a soldier too?
- That would be so nice. You would be a Korean soldier then?
- Yes, if I became a soldier
- Then I would write you a letter and send you a comfort kit.
[laughter]


But in a conversation with his friend after leaving a building with flags out front after a ‘lecture’, he reveals why he cannot become a soldier.

- The annexation is complete now, but young koreans should serve the empire at war too. Even if we want to, we are not allowed to do so. We are not eligible. How can we really work in unity like this?
- If such a time comes, are you willing to step forward?
- Don’t you know me yet? […] We have our duty.

The accompanying essay in the DVD set calls this scene “a rupture in the militarist propaganda film”, because it reveals that discrimination exists in the empire, which bars Koreans from joining the military. Have no fear; this will later be "surtured".

The landlord’s sister comes to visit and when Bun-ok sees her (a city girl) and Choon-ho together, she trails behind them, feeling rejected.


After seeing the sister off, Choon-ho runs into a Japanese friend who shows him a newspaper announcing the news that Koreans can now volunteer.

The smile on his face after reading this news disappears after he sees his friend, who was trying to hit on Bun-ok, sitting next to her.


After staring at each other for a full minute (in a scene that's unintentionally funny, recalling as it does so many TV dramas), they all part ways. Bun-ok then hears the crafty Kim Deok-sam trying to get her father to forget about Choon-ho and marry her to one of his sons. The following scene in his house is quite fun, as he’s obviously the ‘bad guy’ whose greed and lust are readily apparent (not for nothing is the chain of restaurants named after Nolbu, right?).


Meanwhile, Choon-ho is sitting at home in front of a map of Asia.


In one of the more bizarre, yet fascinating scenes, Choon-ho, dreams of joining the army. What follows are numerous shots where the soldiers march by in rows (several tracking shots are used), and the nature of this scene, with its military order and repetition, is utterly different from the rest of the film.







After this abrupt fetishization of the military, Choon-ho’s friend apologizes to Bun-ok, and she and Choon-ho eventually make up. In a nicely composed shot, the camera pans from her walking down the road, down to her shadow, which is joined by his, and back up to the couple again.


He admits that he will join the military. The results of the recruitment exam are published in the newspaper, which the landlord sees when shown it by his sister.

- Choon-ho passed the exam.
- See. You treated such an able man unkindly.
- I never knew.
- Who will look after his family after he joins a training camp?
- I should change my mind. I will help.

And just like that, joining the army is the deus ex machina which solves all the problems which arose from the landlord giving Kim Deok-sam the overseeing position.


The film ends as it began, with a crowd of people at the train station seeing off a troop train, except this time Choon-ho is on board. Bun-ok and his sister are there to see him off. What’s interesting is how stoic they are. His sister looks neither happy nor sad.

"Go off and die for the empire then, jerk."

In the final shot of the film, Bun-ok’s face is just as mysterious. Again, she’s neither happy nor sad, though perhaps the beginning of a smile can be discerned. Is this failure to cheer of bemoan his departure an example of sullen resistance to the Japanese propaganda effort (and censorship)? Or does it reflect a time when people were less likely to show emotion in public?


Whatever might explain the above shot, this shot is worth looking at:


The Japanese character (the one who told Choon-ho about the opening of the military to Korean volunteers) would likely be termed a caricature of a Japanese person today, except that this film was made at the height of the Japanese military control over every aspect of society in the Japanese empire. What the censors missed was this: in the final shot showing the Japanese character, he’s standing next to the crafty Kim Deok-sam and his sons, who were so clearly identified as the ‘bad guys’. Perhaps, in 1941, that was as much resistance as anyone could hope for.

It would get worse, however. In the aforementioned box set, three of the movies, including Volunteer, are from 1941. The other, Straits of Chosun, is from 1943, a year after it was deemed that every line in every movie had to be spoken in Japanese.

This film (like the other film from the box set I've seen so far), likely began as a typical story - in this case, of a man who loses his position and tries to get it back - which the Japanese authorities insisted be changed to add military propaganda elements. Those elements, which have all been described above, are easy to see in the film because they're so abruptly added in, often interrupting the flow of the story. Choon-ho's conflict with Kim Deok-sam likely would have made for a more interesting story, but the film as it stands is still well made, and is fascinating to examine as a piece of propaganda. It's because of these propaganda elements, however, that this film will never be considered a "worthy" piece of Korean cinema history. It certainly doesn't appear in the Korean Film Archive's top 100 films. Unfortunately, nationalist criteria seem to trump artistry or historical importance every time.

Up next: 1941's Homeless Angels, which weaves military themes into the story in a much more subtle way.

The Hoihyeon Sibeom Apartment

Photo from here.

Looking for something else, I came across this Kyunghyang Sinmun article about the the Hoihyeon Sibeom Apartment on the slope of Namsan south of Myeongdong. It's apparently the oldest such apartment still in existence (I think they mean the oldest 'Sibeom' or 'model' apartments that began appearing in the late 1960s - other projects, like the Seun Sangga predate it, though Seun is a mixed housing/retail project, perhaps disqualifying it). It dates from 1970, and certainly looks unique, built into the hill as it is.

To see for yourself, there are a number of photo blogs, such as here, here, and here, which have numerous photos of the apartment. The one with the nicest photos (such as the ones above and below), however, is here. Be sure to look at photos in other posts listed at the bottom - they're all pretty impressive.


The first apartment complex was the Mapo Apartments, completed in 1963. What's interesting about the photo below is the absence of the long, rectangular apartment buildings which surrounded the complex - they were obviously built later.


Below is a shot of the area from 1970, with the Mapo Apartments on the left.


The area would change considerably over the next few decades, a process I looked at in more depth here.

As for my neighbourhood, the oldest apartment building is the Gonghang Apartment, built in 1975. It's slated to be demolished to make way for the Banghwa New Town.

Please make an exception - just this once

[Update:
For more recent criticism of the media, Feetman Seoul looks at the poor photos the local press took of Paris Hilton in a Hanbok, While Korea Beat looks at the shockingly inappopriate headline of a Sports Hankook Ilbo story about a 15 year-old girl who was forced into prostitution.]


This Donga Ilbo article is amusing:

Korean figure skating sensation Kim Yu-na (17, Gunpo Suri High School) is rewriting the history of her sport.

Yes, I did say the Donga Ilbo, and not the Rodong Shinmun. And thanks, Kim Seong-gyu, for letting us know she was Korean. That was really necessary.

In March, Kim received a short program record score of 71.95 in the Tokyo Figure Skating Championships, and now is the record holder in both short program and free skating scores.

Kim set a record score in the free skate competition with 133 points to take home the Russian Cup in the fifth 2007-2008 Grand Prix at the Khodynka Ice Palace in Moscow yesterday. She won the Cup with a total of 197.20 points, including the 63.50 she received in the short program the day before. 197.20 is Kim Yu-na’s best aggregate score ever.[...]

Although her world ranking is second, trailing behind rival Asada Mao of Japan, this record is as good as ‘proclaiming’ her the current world champion.

No, it's not. Next we'll be told that the fact that she performed flawlessly during all of her practices this month "is as good as ‘proclaiming’ her the current world champion". The same logic is to be found in people saying, "Well, in the 2006 World Cup, Korea tied France, and France beat Brazil, so therefor Korea beat Brazil." Sure it does. Sorry, but the way sports events work is by choosing one competition to be "the big one", the one that determines the world ranking of the participants. All the first place rankings in competitions this year don't mean anything when it comes time for the world championships. It's like the university entrance exam - your 98% average for the past three years of high school means nothing if you blow the exam. I realize that for a great many things, knowing someone and appealing to them can give you a leg up. I know that, quite often, asking for a favour from your cousin's friend's elementary school classmate will allow you to bend the rules in Korea. Korea is not the world, however. I would be surprised if Kim Yu-na didn't bring home a gold medal or world championship at some point, but while she's proven herself to be ready for the big leagues, the attention craving cheap nationalism and faulty logic that lies behind this article shows that the media in Korea, and a whole lot besides, is not.

At least the Joongang Ilbo remembered that there was more to the Cup of Russia than just the ladies competition.

Kim's programs can be seen here and here.

Foreign language high schools

The Joongang Ilbo has a worthwhile article about foreign language high schools, which brings up the recent scandal related to the entrance exam for the Gimpo foreign language high school (which Korea Beat has a good post about here), as well as the Korea Teacher's Union's opposition to the schools.

Horace H. Underwood on Korean and American culture

I found a link to this page in a comment by suddenly susan to this Metropolitician post.

In these articles, Horace H. Underwood the differences between Korean and American culture in a very clear way. They're well worth your time.

Korean Culture: "In" and "Out"
No Men Are Created Equal
Honesty vs. Loyalty: Which is More Important?
Heredity and Environment
Ch’emyon or Social Face in Korean Society

As useful as a candle at noon

[update at bottom]

The police are, that is, when it comes to dealing with incidents involving foreigners and Koreans. Now, I'm sure that's not true all the time, of course, but there are enough examples out there to convince you that choosing the Korean side in an incident involving a Korean and a foreigner or simply ignoring a foreigner if they've been assaulted and the perpetrator has fled is not an uncommon occurrence.

Numerous stories, especially involving foreign women, appeared in the comments section of this Marmot post about a Misuda panelist who was assaulted in her apartment in 2005 (photos here) and who brought her (lack of) treatment by the hospitals and police to light on TV recently, though the media didn't bother to comment on this at first, as she relates in comments here (and below, #88) at the Marmot's.

Usinkorea covers many incidents involving USFK members and Koreans, such as two subway incidents in 1994 and 2002, as well as the indifference of the police after a group of Irish customers in a bar in Itaewon were beaten by bar staff. There's also the case of Ali Khan, who insists he is in prison for a murder he didn't commit, due in part to the fact that the police beat or scared off people who could have testified on his behalf, and in part to their ignoring a confession made by someone else after his imprisonment.

The most recent episode is the arrest of Michael, the Metropolitician, after he called the police to deal with a drunk who was following and harassing him and his companions. There are many other such stories related in the comments to that post, while his follow-up post relates other such stories from people he's known.

Several factors are worth noting, most obviously the xenphobic or racist perceptions of foreigners in which foreign men are 'stealing' or 'insulting' Korean women and foreign women are easy, perceptions helped along by the media and government*. A group of female friends were accosted in McDonalds by a drunk man who pointed at the three of them and motioned towards the door, saying "Come with me now," obviously thinking they were prostitutes. Another girl was followed home from work, tried to lose the man by running up the stairs, then realized she didn't want him to know where she lived and tried to leave, only finding sanctuary in a bakery where she called her boyfriend in tears. Another Korean-American woman was attacked in the elevator of her building, but she fought off the man and he ran away. When she told the security guard and pointed at the man running away, he said it would take too long for him to put his shoes on.

Another factor is the way in which conflicts are resolved. Allow me again to quote what anthropologist Linda Louis wrote in Laying Claim to the Memory of May:

As a social process, the Korean cultural scenario for conflict resolution involves the public expression of grievances by both sides, as a means of informing the neighbors, of shaping local consensus, and of mustering popular support for each side of the argument.

It is above all else also a process that relies heavily on the involvement of a third, mediating party for a sucessful outcome. In fact, it is through the public airing of the dispute that the antagonists solicit the intervention of others. Intense verbal aggression and the public expression of grievances serve not as a prelude to physical violence, but function to mobilize third party intervention, to prevent just such an escalation in the dispute.

Many foreigners are never going to get a fair hearing in such situations, because they can't speak Korean well, on top of being foreigners. I think it does a good job of explaining how "concerned citizens" often appear to help Koreans who get into an altercation with a foreigner.

Another thing common to many descriptions is how people attack foreigners and no one does anything. This is not just confined to altercations with foreigners, but occurs often between Koreans (which may reveal a breakdown in "third party intervention", perhaps due to urban settings where people don't know each other, unlike in the villages where this social practice originated). I've heard several stories like this. In one, a friend was on the subway and saw a drunk man harassing a high school girl. When no one intervened, he chose to, and made the man go away. When, in a conversation with another man, he said that he was a student, the man asked him, "Why did you speak to your elder (the drunk) that way?" Another friend saw a drunk man beating a woman in a girly bar district while a small group of bystanders watched. He was the only one who intervened. When the fight ended and people left, a man ran in and out of a convenience store and gave him some yogurt and said, "Thankyou for doing that." To which my friend thought, "Why didn't you do something?" The friends in both cases were foreigners.

And then there's the belief that the police will almost never take the word of a foreigner over that of a Korean. So when you mix the likelihood of people coming to the aid of a Korean who's in a confrontation with a foreigner, the likelihood of everyone ignoring a situation when a foreigner (or another Korean) is being assaulted by a Korean, and the fact that most foreigners don't speak the language well and aren't considered reliable witnesses by the police, the advice a police officer gave Michael sounds pretty good:

"You should have just gone home. You shouldn't have called us. Next time, just leave."

(Over at eclexys, Gord comments on "the fact that essentially, the foreigner is supposed to run and hide in his home whenever some jerk feels like harassing someone.")



* The Government has nothing but good things to say about foreigners and does everything in its power to combat stereotypes propagated by the media, of course - just look at the language in a release about new E2 regulations from the Ministry of Justice titled "No More Illegal Native English Teachers":

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 [because we all know how alcohol disrupts the social order here].

It is expected the uneasiness of citizens incurred from ineligible English teachers will be mitigated [...] thanks to this measure on the native English teachers by the Ministry of Justice.

I'm sure the "uneasiness of citizens" towards foreigners in general has come from more than just the actions of some bad apples. Such notices as the one above, or especially articles like this one are more likely culprits:

The person who was searched for around the world for molesting children taught children in a Korean school, and now a native speaker teacher at a public elementary school says other nations are better than Korea. Korea, working hard to learn English, is in a sad state.

Add the 'news' media and police attitudes to that 'sad state', NoCut News.

[update]

I just read this post over at Smee in Jeollanam-do and found something that stood out in the light of having just written the above post. He mentions the truth commission that last year cleared 83 of 148 Koreans found to be war criminals by the Allied war crimes tribunals at the end of World War II, and went on to quote Oranckay's reaction to it:

What annoys me is that one hears sympathy for men who would be called collaborators if they had been working in prisons that held fellow Koreans during colonial rule. Their prisoners were (largely) white, however, so they are afforded as much understanding as possible. And they get to be called “victims.”

Interesting.

Changing communication technology and its effects

There have been a few articles about changes in how communications technology is used in Korea (and the effects thereof) over the past few days. The first... oh, hold on. I just noticed the date - November 28, 2004 - and realized I found it in the "most read articles" part of the Chosun Ilbo's website, likely meaning that some popular website linked to it and made it temporarily popular again. Anyways, the article mentioned the decrease in popularity of email, and has some stats:

The ebb of email is confirmed by a diminishing trend in pageviews, a tabulation of frequency in service used by email users. Daum Communication, the top email business in the country, saw its email service pageviews fall over 20 percent from 3.9 billion in October last year to 3 billion in October this year. By contrast, with SK Telecom, the nation's No. 1 communication firm, monthly SMS transmissions skyrocketed over 40 percent in October from 2.7 billion instances last October. Cyworld, a representative mini-homepage firm, witnessed its pageviews multiply over 26-fold from 650 million instances in October last year to 17 billion in October this year.

I was confused as to how Cyworld could have such explosive growth in the last year, but knowing that the Octobers mentioned above are 2003-2004, it all makes sense. Also It would seem SMS per month at SK went from 2.7 billion to 3.78 billion per month in the year ending in October 2004, averaging about 4.8 and then 6.8 messages per day per subscriber (keep in mind SK makes up about 50% of the cell phone market - more figures here). In June of 2005, it was announced that

Koreans send and receive some 370 million text messages a day, and assuming that an SMS costs W30 to send, the country spends over W10 billion (US$10 million) a day on sending text messages.

That worked out to 10 messages per day per subscriber. A link to an article in May of this year says that "According to a recent study, Korean teenagers aged between 15 and 19 send an average of 60.1 text messages a day." I doubt anyone who teaches kids that age would be surprised by that figure.

Actually, I was fascinated the first time one of my students gave me her Cyworld address. Looking through her photos, it was clear that those taken using her cell phone camera were not meant to stand alone on her site, but were intended to be commented on by adding text or lines and colour to the photos:

"(Miss) Kim's fine feet"

A few of them went for a more traditional style of affixing words to the photo:

"I have a lot of dandruff - please buy me Nizorol"

Some kids' ideas of fun might not appeal to everyone, however:

A parody of Kim Seon-il's beheading (from here).

Students have used their cameras to record other aspects of classroom life as well, such as beatings by teachers. Of course, the inclusion of cameras (and later video) in cell phones has had other effects as well. Combining the cameras with blogs led to the notoriety of these photos -

- showing that you can use cell phones (or their cameras) to enforce norms (or direct cyber-mobs), either intentionally, as in the dog poop girl incident (the poster likely hoped the girl would receive some sort of comeuppance, but certainly did not expect the overwhelming response, which forced her to drop out of university), or unintentionally, as in the case of the girl who took a photo of herself with a member of Superjunior and was hounded by their (rabid) fans.

They can also be used as a weapon to shame people by recording them being humiliated and beaten (a post for another day)...

...or used for political purposes, such as when you catch national assembly member groping a girl at a room salon... (also part of an unfinished post).

But I digress.

The Joongang Ilbo has a recent article on pay phones and their decline in Korea:

According to KT, the number of public phones in Korea has steadily declined from 515,787 units in 2001 to 217,748 as of last year, including some 110,000 at stand-alone booths and the rest inside convenience stores or other outlets. Total calling minutes diminished from 3.6 billion minutes in 2001 to 570 million minutes last year. Not surprisingly, the business has been in the red for the past six years with an operating loss of 50.7 billion won ($55 million) last year, which is expected to be 40 billion won this year. [...]

“A lot of pay phones out there do not make one single phone call throughout a whole month,” said one KT Linkers official. “But we can't just give the business up, since it is a basic public service like transportation and electricity. But there are not a whole lot of people who need it now.”

Lost Nomad links to a New York Times story about a rehabilitation center/boot camp for youth suffering from internet addiction.

Up to 30 percent of South Koreans under 18, or about 2.4 million people, are at risk of Internet addiction [...] They spend at least two hours a day online, usually playing games or chatting. Of those, up to a quarter million probably show signs of actual addiction, like an inability to stop themselves from using computers, rising levels of tolerance that drive them to seek ever longer sessions online, and withdrawal symptoms like anger and craving when prevented from logging on. [...]

To address the problem, the government has built a network of 140 Internet-addiction counseling centers, in addition to treatment programs at almost 100 hospitals and, most recently, the Internet Rescue camp, which started this summer.

One can only imagine the problem will get worse, considering the age at which kids are getting started using the internet. As this Chosun Ilbo article from August tells us,

According to the survey by the Ministry of Information and Communications and the National Internet Development Agency of Korea on Thursday, 51.6 percent of children between three and five are web surfers.

Lastly, Lost Nomad (again!) links to a Reuters article about the "death of the TV" in Korea, as more and more young people turn to the internet to find movies and TV shows, either to watch on their computers or to download to portable devices.

My least favourite development would have to be DMB phones - at least when their owners decide to watch TV on the subway without headphones...

The death toll of those injured in the Kwangju Uprising

I just noticed this article translated over at Korea Beat, misleadingly titled "10% of People Injured in Gwangju Massacre Have Committed Suicide". Some excerpts:

Among the 376 dead of those injured on May 18, 39, or 10.4%, committed suicide — the leading cause of death, the study found. That is five times the national suicide rate of 24.2 per 10,000 people.

Besides suicide, 34 died of disease, 26 of traffic accidents, and 6 of violence. Alcohol abuse, disease, and despair with life were the reasons for death.

On the situation of those who suffer from mental illness due to their experiences during the movement, little research has been one the 56 of those people who have died, 13 of whom committed suicide.

The titled should be "Of those who were injured during the Kwangju uprising and have since died, 10% committed suicide". It's also a bit misleading to refer to it simply as May 18, as it took place over 10 days. The article also refers to other figures, perhaps related to the number of people who received compensation.

As of 1998, 4,540 people were paid compensation according to the 5.18 Compensation Law, of whom 154 were killed, 66 were missing, 94 were dead after injuries, 3059 were injured, and 1,168 were detained and tortured.[...] 639 of the injured victims fall under the groups of the 1st (100% disability) through 9th (50% disability) impairment, who are judged to be incapable of doing any work due to physical impediment or to be pretty limited in finding physically suitable jobs.

The above statement comes from the book below, edited by Juna Byun and Linda S. Lewis.


This book looks closely at those who had to live with injuries after the uprising. As Minoh Lee puts it,

no systematic governmental treatment plans for their injuries were formulated until the early '90s. These victims were socially and politically ostracized as rebels and spies and were not able to come forward for treatment before the 5.18 Special Law was enacted in 1995. Also, most of the governmental measures concerning 5.18 related issues were largely intended for patching them up with compensation payments and superficial memorial events rather than fundamentally healing the victims' trauma.

In considering the number who have died due to their injuries, it might be worth mentioning the official death toll, which Lewis discussed in her book Laying Claim to the Memory of May:

The official government death toll (in 1997) was 238; that includes 191 known fatalities (164 civilians, 23 soldiers, and 4 police officers), as well as 47 of the missing who have now been classified as victims. Responsible estimates in Kwangju would now put the figure up to only about 200 more, or between 400 and 500 victims.

As I mentioned here, she noted in her essay "From Heroic Victims to Disabled Survivors: The 5-18 Injured after Twenty Years" (in the book Contentious Kwangju), that as of 1997, 120 additional victims had died. 69 were gunshot victims in their twenties and thirties; only 17 were in their sixties or seventies. As the article above noted, 376 people who suffered injuries during (or who were imprisoned and tortured after) the Kwangju Uprising have since died. As we see above, 120 died between 1980 and 1997, while 256 have died in the last ten years. The figure 376 is quite a bit higher than the the official death toll of 238.

The quote which opens the introduction to The 1980 Kwangju Uprising After 20 Years, is pertinent when considering the high rate of suicide among the survivors:

"Had I died then, I wouldn't have suffered like this.." (Sang-chul Park, 13 years old when paralyzed from the waist down due to a gunshot wound, Chonnam Provincial Daily News, May 20, 1995).

Cheering on the test takers

I thought I heard some jets flying overhead this evening, but it may have been the sound of 584,934 test takers collectively sighing in relief.

A few years ago I walked by a nearby high school on the night before the suneung, or university entrance exam, and saw several students sitting in front of the school's gate. I didn't have a camera at the time, but I found photos online which depicted the same sort of thing:


I decided to walk by that school last night to see the students at work again, but instead...


I'm not sure why this was. Perhaps the schools chosen to 'host' the test change every year? Cheering for test takers took place elsewhere, as this photo from Myeongdong shows.


There's a more enthusiastic cheering section (complete with drums) pictured in this post. The Joongang Ilbo reported on some new guidelines for test monitors:

At today’s national College Scholastic Ability Test, female proctors have been asked not to do anything ― or wear anything ― that might distract anxious students from the difficult task at hand, according to the Education Ministry. Test takers in the past complained that they could not fully concentrate on the crucial test due to the distracting sound of clacking high heels and the smell of thick perfume, the ministry said.

I wonder if the smoke from this presumed electrical fire at a school in Daegu was distracting? If it was just an accident, then wow, what a terrible day for it to occur. The reporters were also out for the obligatory photos of students being escorted by the police to test sites, and of celebrity test takers (two years ago it was Moon Geun-young, this year it was two members of the Wondergirls).

One of the more worthwhile explorations of test day is the Metropolitician's video from last year.

Yu-na the Vampire Slayer

According to the Korea Times,

South Korean figure staking sensation Kim Yu-na rallied to win the women's title Saturday at the Cup of China, as she stayed on course for a berth at the Grand Prix final in December in Turin, Italy.

Kim Yu-na demonstrates her staking skills

Between those blades of steel and her sensational 'staking' skills, I think Kim Yu-na should be up to the challenge if the forces of evil should ever seek to invade a skating rink.

Her short program is here, and the long program is here. The stake was edited out of the performance on Giles Brian Orser's orders.

Fall

I have to say - I've really come to like eunhaeng namu (gingko trees) at this time of year...


The picture above shows a tree growing from the (sort of) pojang macha part of a former restaurant named, appropriately, the Eunhaeng Namu Jip. The owners moved awhile ago, leaving it empty. Below are some trees in a large park near Banghwa Station.


Now if we could just get some red in there...

Jaeil Jutaek redevelopment completed

The structure of the Seungyun 노블리안 ('Noblian,' meaning 'rich') apartment near my house, built over the last few months, was finished at Halloween. Here are the most recent photos of its rise (with some cribbing from a previous post). A more complete set can be found here, while all of the shots I've taken of this redevelopment, including those of the area before it was demolished, can be found here.

Aug. 15

Aug. 31

Sept. 9

Sept. 22

Oct. 6

Oct. 12

Oct. 23

Nov. 8

Here's a shot of the neighbourhood in May, 2005:


Below are more recent photos. Among the changes since then is the large building at bottom right which has been dismembered; above that, shrouded by trees, are row houses which have been demolished (and are currently being rebuilt as Dongbu Centreville apartments); the green-coloured apartments at top right which have been repainted and rebranded (from Shin-donga Apateu to Shin-donga Pamilie); across the fields at top left the massive Balsan development has been built (and is visible in the photos below); and of course, the Jaeil Jutaek redevelopment seen above - below you can see it's growth in the context of its surroundings.

Aug. 17

Sept. 17

Oct. 23

Nov. 8

It's not supposed to be finished until August of next year - I guess the interior work will take as long as building the external structure did.

Yusin lives on - at school

For those who don't know of the 1972 Yusin constitution, there's a little more information here. Needless to say it was one of the more unpleasant periods of the last 50 years to be living in South Korea, what with the ban on all public protest, people disappearing and being tortured at KCIA headquarters, etc. While this culture of punishment, and the stress that accompanied it, may be gone for most people, I can't help but wonder if it lingers on in Korean schools.

For example, a girl in grade four had this done to her by her homeroom teacher in Gapyeong in April of 2006:


This made the news a week and a half ago:

In the 38-second video clip, a teacher is seen striking the hips of two students in a push-up position with the sword. When one student stands up, unable to endure the beating, the teacher follows him to strike his back.[...]

The school, in Jeonju city in North Jeolla Province, said, "The two students often miss class without advance notification. The teacher spoke to them and the students promised not to skip class again but they didn't keep their word. The teacher punished them because they skipped class the previous afternoon, although it seems extreme."

I'm sure anyone who's taught here, even if they're not teaching in public schools, has heard stories of corporal punishment from students. It's not limited to middle and high schools, of course; one pointless story that stands out is of a girl who said she got hit on the hand with a stick by her teacher because of her test score. After I asked her what her score was, she said she got one question wrong. When I asked why she got hit, she told me everyone got one hit per wrong answer. Nice. One middle school girl I remember had had a teacher pinch her upper arm and twist his hand while doing so, leaving a purple bruise. There are also more mundane things like making students stand and squat while holding their ears. One student who received this punishment for being late was walking in obvious pain the next day. While that's not as bad as being hit, you do wonder why pain has to be used to discipline the students. One of my high school students told me she gets held back for 30 minutes after school and has to clean if she's less than 30 minutes late - a penalty which would seem to me to serve its purpose adequately, without need for physical pain.

This has come to light more in the past few years as cell phones with video cameras have become more common. Oranckay reacted as if this was a new development back in April of 2004 in a post titled "girls with video": "Teachers. Cops. Dirty old men. You’ve been warned!" Someone had taken this video of a teacher pummeling a high school girl in Suwon. Interestingly, this predates the Dog Poop Girl by a year, but then netizens weren't cyberstalking the teacher involved. At any rate, this may well be the first such clip. The video's also here on youtube.



A contemporary news clip about this video can be found here.

In November of 2006 another video appeared on the internet (it's also here):

The first-year high school student walked into her seventh period class late, where the teacher forced the girl to her knees and then struck her on the shoulders with a broom multiple times. Other students in the class filmed the incident with their mobile phones, and when the child’s parents saw the video they headed to the school the next day to demand a formal apology and the reprimand of the girl’s teacher.

Another video of a student being beaten (and I do mean beaten) by a teacher in Gimhae made the news in July of this year. A video can be seen here (hat tip to Occidentalism).

This example of a rather petty punishment was posted in February of this year, apparently from Suncheon. It seems more like a ritual to humiliate the students as much as possible, and may be an example of a teacher simply trying to waste time.



Speaking of humiliation, an article translated at Korea Beat describes the results of a poll of

1,248 middle and high school students across the country, finding that 11.2% had experienced having their hair cut by a teacher within the last three years, they announced on the 2nd. 16% of boys and 6.4% of girls had had such an experience, and 22.9% male high school students had.

They're not alway in the most fashionable style, either:


While the practice of grabbing young men with long hair and shaving their heads was, for the general population, confined to the era of authoritarian rulers (it ended in 1982), students in Korea still get to taste that little piece of the past in school. While so many aspects of the Korean education system were simply continued from the systems put in place by the Japanese (like this, for example), most students I've talked to will agree that one thing they like about Japan is the fact that students there can wear their hair however they like.


In mid-May of 2005 protests were held at Gwanghwamun against forced haircuts and calling for liberalization of rules on hair length, as this lengthy Joongang Ilbo article about the issue relates:

Students held a demonstration near Gwanghwamun in central Seoul on May 14, although teachers threatened that those participating in the protest would be subject to reprimands, and went to the area to try to discourage students from rallying. That day, 200 students gathered to protest, along with 400 teachers and, reportedly, 2,000 riot police.

Photos of a similar demonstration a week earlier, which protested against the pressure the system puts on students which often leads to suicide, can be found here (hat tip to the Metropolitician). For (many) more photos of shaved heads, and of bruises from beatings, to head over to nocut.idoo.net (this English page gives a bit of its history, and the photos can be found here). Or you can just watch this video, which compiles many of the photos from the site:



Worth noting is that, at least for most of the students I teach, hair restrictions have loosened a little, with both boys and girls allowed to wear slightly longer hair. Baby steps, I guess.

Going back to the issue of physical violence against students, this two part article from 2002, by teacher with a background in psychology and experience among Koreans in Canada, looks at the problem of corporate punishment in Korean schools (it's also in Korean here).

It has been my experience that the Korean educational system currently accepts, tolerates and legitimizes physical and psychological abuse in its schools. During the last two years, I have personally witnessed Korean teachers physically beat their students to the point that students bled.

On one occasion, a fellow Korean teacher slammed one of my student’s head against the teacher’s desk. This caused the student’s head to cut open and bleed. Other teachers kicked students in the stomach, or beat them with sticks, metal pipes, rods, and wooden bats. Female teachers pinched the cheeks of female students hard enough until tears ran. Elementary school students were beaten over their entire backside with a thick wooden branch while remaining in the push-up position. And on more than one occasion, students were sent to the hospital because of teacher abuse.

I have worked with approximately 180 teachers, and in my opinion more than 70% physically beat students as a method of classroom management and discipline. I have been told repeatedly, teachers beat students out of a deep sense of love. Oddly enough, teachers who beat students have told me they are fearful of sending their own children to the very schools that they teach because of this physical abuse. [...]

It's worth reading it all, even though I may not agree with everything. The second part of the article continues:

A new problem is now emerging out of corporal punishment. As role models, Korean teachers continue to demonstrate to their students that the most effective method of problem solving is through physical punishment. The lesson is simple: If you have a problem, use violence as the solution. Student-to-student violence, and bullying, is now becoming a national problem. These bright students learn more from what we ‘do,’ not from what we ‘say’ as teachers.[...]

The Korean government, on the other hand, has shown their position recently by endorsing physical abuse with specific parameters around the thickness (1cm) and length (50-60cm) of the stick, number of hits to the body (5-10), and so on. Thanks to the Ministry of Education, male students can now be lashed across the buttocks, and female students can be struck on the upper thighs.

The question of how institutional violence reflects on the behavior of students is one worth considering, but not in this post.

Sometimes they come back

A Joseon-era public cemetery on Seoul's outskirts

Ancestral worship, and a propitiation of daemons or spirits, the result of a timid and superstitious dread of the forces of Nature, are to the Korean in place of a religion. Both, I am inclined to believe, are the result of fear, the worship of ancestors being dictated far less by filial piety than by the dread that ancestral spirits may do harm to their descendants. This cult prevails from the king to the coolie. It inspires the costly splendors of the Kur-dong, as well as the spread of ancestral food in the humblest hovel on New Year's Eve.

The graves within an area of ten miles from the city wall are among the remarkable features of this singular capital. The dead have a monopoly on the fine hill slopes and southern aspects. A man who when alive is content with a mud hovel in a dingy alley, when dead must repose on a breezy hill slope with dignified and carefully tended surroundings. [...] The amount of land occupied by the dead is incredible.

- from Korea and Her Neighbours, Isabella Bird Bishop, 1898 (p. 61)

One interesting thing about the second paragraph, as well as the photo above, is that those graves have long since been built over. I wonder if all of those within the graves were carefully reburied, or if... they're still there. Think about that next time you're walking around near downtown Seoul (and why has there never been a horror movie that brings this up, anyways? All you'd have to do is blame the Japanese, and you'd have box office gold!).


The main reason for this post, speaking of horror stories ( "How can he be back?! I - I thought he was (politically) dead!"), was because I found an article about Lee Hoi-chang. Above is an image of the GNP's greatest nightmare - Lee Hoi-chang comes back to life, devours all of Lee Myung-bak's flesh (taking time to pose with his skull), and hands Chung Dong-young the presidency. Okay, that's not what this article is about; it's about how Lee Hoi-chang has "relocated nine of his ancestors' graves in the hopes of winning his third run in the presidential election." The article goes on to talk about how the belief in 'Poongsoo (or Fengshui) and the location of graves are related, and how Lee is not the only person who has relocated family members' graves in the hope of better political fortunes. It's well worth a read, as it reminds you that behind the LCD screens and cellphones there are superstitions which were old when Isabella Bird Bishop wrote about them 110 years ago.

Let them smear cake!

[Update] A student offered the opinion (regarding smearing cake) that cake isn't even liked all that much by many people, and that it serves a more ceremonial function at birthday parties; it's main purpose is to look good. I couldn't help but think of food used during chesa, some of which is left behind. Interesting. Another student's comments reminded me that other than sweets like yeot or yakgwa, intensely sweet desserts or candies haven't traditionally been part of the Korean diet, though Haitai Caramels have been around for quite a while. The following ad is from 1960:

[Original post]

A little while ago, Kevin at Big Hominid wrote about his students' reaction to pop-tarts and discussed the differences between Korean and western tastes in sweets:

It's a strange paradox of the Korean palate that Koreans love spicy food when it comes to meals, but seem to prefer cakes and cookies that, by Western standards, are woefully bland and desiccated, bereft of all oomph.

Be sure to read the entire post. I'd have to add that, due to the Korean taste for mayonnaise and ketchup, there is quite a bit of creaminess and sweetness to be found - but not usually in places were I might expect to find it at home (salads come to mind here). I never ate mayonnaise before I came here (I've never been a condiment person) but have learned to tolerate it; ketchup on the other hand I despise.

The first dessert that comes to mind, of course, is cake. I've always thought that most western style cakes in Korean (excluding Baskin Robbins ice cream cakes) taste like airy nothingness. The problem is not with secondary characteristics such as there sometimes being cherry tomatoes on top (or sweet potato inside). The problem lies at the core - the lack of flavour and sweetness in the cake itself and the icing - so I found myself nodding in agreement with everything Kevin wrote.

There are certain cultural differences that exist regarding cake as well. I remember the first time I ate cake in Korea (a few days after first arriving here), I noticed that my Korean co-workers were eating it with chopsticks. I thought, "Well that's different." Seconds after thinking that, one of these co-workers started laughing and pointing at me, saying, "He's using a spoon! That's so funny!" (thinking of those days, I just reminisced about the first wedding I attended in Korea here. It still rates as the weirdest one I've been to, other perhaps than a traditional wedding... at Lotte World).

Several years later in an adult class, which was mostly made up of middle school girls, a student bought a cake for my birthday, and after I blew out the candles, one of the girls scooped up a bit of icing from the cake and smeared it on my cheek. I'd never seen this before, but when I asked them, "Why are you putting icing on my cheek - ok, now make both cheeks?" they told me that it was very common for people to do that at birthday parties. Since then, I've seen it happen a few times. Some of my male Korean friends have told me that they like to mash the entire cake into their friends' faces on their birthdays.

Though I may not be a big fan of western style cakes sold in Korea, I can't help but think that mashing a piece into someone's face is no way to treat a cake. On the other hand, between the amount of uneaten sidedishes that are left behind when out for dinner in restaurants, and the requirement for anju to be ordered when drinking (even if no one is hungry), enormous amounts of food get wasted in Korean restaurants to begin with (at least, you hope those uneaten side dishes are going into the garbage). So perhaps wasting pieces of cake isn't considered to be a big deal by younger people who have grown up in relative affluence. Not that wasting food doesn't happen elsewhere, of course, but I've never seen someone order food in Canada and leave it untouched without taking it home, something I've seen many times here (when people are compelled to order anju at a bar even though they might have eaten already).

Coming up next - a new fad that is sweeping the nation:
Wasting food!

There may be another reason, which I thought of the other day. A week ago my friend and I realized we'd missed another friend's birthday, so I decided to make a cake for him the next time we went to his restaurant. I'm not sure if you can buy cake mixes at Hannam supermarket or such places, but I have a few cake mixes brought from home (and I have a small oven) so I made a cake and figured out how to make boiled icing (though the internet page with the recipe didn't emphasize the need to ice the cake as soon as you finish making the icing. As a result, the icing looked as haphazard as hardened lava, though it tasted fine. At any rate, I took it to the restaurant and pulled it out when my friend wasn't too busy with customers. After cutting it into pieces, a Korean friend who had had quite a bit to drink picked up a piece and motioned my friend over. I guess the beer had dulled my senses, because for some reason, in the second or two that this all occurred, I thought he was going to feed it to him (as in 'shove it in his mouth'). But no. Instead he shoved it into his face, it fell on the floor, and my drunken friend fell forward and spilled beer everywhere, apparently sending some onto the next table. Now, seeing as this was not a cake you could buy, I would imagine, anywhere in Korea, and seeing it was something I had made myself, I wasn't entirely happy that he'd basically just tossed a piece away (I probably would have been less happy at that moment if I'd noticed that he'd spilled beer onto the plate the cake was on, but a friend quickly dumped the beer out before anyone noticed, only telling me about it later). Now, at any birthday party I've seen happen at my friend's restaurant, people almost always share cake with the other customers. Since we'd annoyed the people at the next table, my friend gave them some cake to make amends, and I soon realized that, thought I'd made the cake for his (late) birthday, he hadn't even had a piece yet, so I managed to secure a tiny piece for him. I'm glad he liked it, but I wish he'd had more than just a spoonful.

The point of all this? I think it's pretty rare for Koreans to make cakes themselves, so the cake that gets smeared on people has been purchased somewhere. From the experience I had, the question that arises is this: If people normally made their own cakes here, would they be as ready to waste their own handiwork? Or can smearing cake on people's faces be just be seen as an aspect of the large scale waste of food that goes on in Korea to begin with?

'Tell me' the effect this will have...

After it was suggested that a celebrity may have taken part in a sex tape, members of the public are having a hard time trusting actors and singers. Yesterday, the actors seen above were filmed with cell phone cameras and digital cameras to ensure that nothing inappropriate occured while they posed with a child. Both later broke down and admitted they had lied about their university degrees.

While many articles have appeared insinuating that others in the celebrity community are as guilty of such crimes as the singer who may have appeared in a sex video, it appears many young people haven't received the proper education.


On Saturday, in an event that shocked the nation, hundreds of girls protested in front of S&M Entertainment demanding that boy band Superjunior date girls no older than 13 years old. After an agonizing debate, the group apparently gave into the protesters demands. After disappearing upstairs for 10 minutes, a number of girls left with what were said to be vouchers to Myeong-dong area stores in their possession.

An unnamed source at the Ministry of Information and Communication said that he was mystified as to how these pop stars could have behaved in such a way. He was also concerned about the behavior of the throngs of teenaged girls.

"We've done so much to discourage prostitution involving underaged girls," he said. He went on to describe the MIC's recent campaign, which involved concerts on university campuses* in an effort to counter the rising trend of men in their early twenties procuring underaged prostitutes. An advertising campaign also took place.

"They could be your daughters or younger sisters.
Do you really find such girls attractive?"

The spokesperson hinted that resignations within the ministry may occur within the next few days. "Many thought that using the Wondergirls in an ad campaign against teenage prostitution would be a good idea..." he said, his voice trailing off as a smile crept across his face.




* But really, do skip to 7:30 here and wonder just how much I'm taking the piss.

Musical odds and ends

I noticed that Mark over at Korea Pop Wars had put up links to some old Korean videos/live performances which are well worth watching. Worth noting is the youtube user who posted them, orienkorean. Following that link to his profile will turn up hundreds of Korean indie rock videos (from bands you've probably never heard of), as well as some older pop/rock music as well. Some more older music is also linked to here (and some of it is referred to in an older post of mine here).

One video he posted was the following, by byul (not female singer). Byul is an indie pop/electronic band who are also involved in design (every cd comes with a book of photos and art). Below is apparently the only video they've done, which is for one of the two songs they contributed to the 2001 movie "Take Care of My Cat" (they also did the soundtrack for "Cat" director Jeong Jae-eun's short "The Man with the Affair" from the 2003 omnibus "If you were me"). Their new cd/magazine is out on Wednesday.



Worth noting is that a few years ago at Koreanfilm.org, Darcy mentioned how he thought Wong Kar-wai's 1994 film Chungking Express did a good job of capturing what Hong Kong is like, and asked what Korean film captured what Korea was like. Take Care of My Cat was mentioned by many as being such a film, capturing as it does affluence and poverty, Seoul and Incheon, dance clubs and crumbling hovels, airports and police stations, text messages and migrant workers, and homeless and handicapped people.

3rd Line Butterfly is another good local indie band, though it's been three years since their last cd came out (which was far beyond what their other releases had hinted at). Someone once described them as 'Sonic Youth meets Sanullim", but you'd be wrong not to include the Velvet Underground as a rather large influence on the last cd. Anyways, here's the song '29, Suddenly'.



There's lots of other videos out there as well, something I've just started to notice in the last month. As for 3rd Line Butterfly, this song is pretty good too. I rather like Delispice's first cd, a song from which can be found here. 우리는 속옷도 생겼고 여자도 늘었다네 (known as the "Underwear Band" is also quite good; I set this video to their music. Oh, and I just thought of the group Gong Myeong, who I saw at the SSamzi sound festival in 2001 - a video of one of their performances can be found here. Their first cd is quite good, but their second cd rates as one of the most disappointing I've ever heard.

As for older stuff, there are a few videos of Sanullim playing live which are well worth a watch, such this one, and this as well. The second song in the first link sounded very familiar the first time I heard Sanullim's second album. It was then I realized I'd seen the guitarist play live at the cine-rock night at PiFan in Bucheon back in 2001, though I didn't know who he was at the time. Needless to say, their second album (from 1978) rocks, and I was pretty happy when a little soju bar in Apgujeong which had only lps played the entire album after I requested one song from it. Damn, I miss my vinyl collection.

For something fun (if you like Takako Minekawa and the anime Azumanga Daioh (Ajumanga Daewang in Korea)), this video (made by a fan) is pure genius. This official video is amusing as well. On the Japanese tip, off the top of my head there's also Cornelius, Salyu, Supercar, and for when you really want to piss off the neighbours, Melt Banana.

For something entirely idiotic, be sure to read this. Several hundred Superjunior fans gathered in front of SM entertainment to protest the inclusion of a new member to the group. And here I thought the protest by students against people gathering acorns in the forest (because the squirrels will starve) was dumb. Nope. These fans win the prize for the most moronic protest I've ever heard of. Also, Popseoul wonders why the hell the Wondergirl's song 'Tell Me' is so popular (do watch the video). In the past two weeks I've had numerous students either sing the song, write the lyrics in their notebooks, or ask me "What does 'tell me' mean?" ("Tell me why you want to know" would be a good answer). It is undeniably catchy, but I'm left needing something to drown it out. How about going back to it's source? Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express, Suicide's Ghost Rider, or, especially, Donna Summer's I Feel Love (all from 1977-78 - unless you want to go back to the Silver Apples in 1968).

Anyways, I just discovered this documentary on Nick Drake, so it's probably best to end this now.

Haunted houses, etc

After reading the story of Jelly's Halloween party at I got 2 shoes, I thought I'd post a few pics of the haunted house I've done every year for the past few years. It's evolved a bit but last year I found the most efficient way of making it work and just copied it again this year (referring to photos taken last year to help me out). It only took myself and another person an hour and a half to put it together this year. The webcam shot below shows the layout:

There should be black fabric was hanging down in several places; luckily it's not at the moment, or it would be more difficult to see everything. Picnic mats needed to be hung up to block out the light from the windows. Anyways, the kids enter from the right (that's the door in the foreground) and, guided by me with a flashlight, proceed to the bottom left, where they are shown the ghost at the top of this post, which is wrapped around a wall-mounted fan, so it has the appearance of moving. Then, behind the couch is a tunnel that they have to crawl through. I meet them at the other end tell them to look behind them, where they see this on the ceiling:


I've attached fishing line to it's arm and looped it over a push pin above it, so with a few tugs it looks like the arm is moving (well, it's startles some of the kids, I guess). Then the 'graveyard' is pointed out at the other end of the room, and as we start for the door one of my co-workers comes up behind them in a... Darth Maul mask. Unfortunately, the other, better, masks disappeared this year. Then as they run from him, another teacher chases them, and with blood makeup, bandages, and fake fangs, she is pretty scary. They I herd them out the door (where they get candy) and wait for the next group. What's missing in the photos is the music, which makes all the difference. I use the track "Aumgn", from Krautrock band Can's 1971 album "Tago Mago". It's about 10 minutes long, but an excerpt is here. Needless to say, it's an incredibly creepy track, and sets the mood as soon as you enter the room. Once the students enter the tunnel, I turn on another cd player next to the tunnel, which plays a track from Current 93's "Dog Blood Rising", so as to startle them even further (who knew declassified CIA psychological torture manuals could be so useful? Just kidding - it's not like we throw bags over their heads and send them to Syria; a flight to Uzbekistan is much cheaper). Anyways, the reactions range from jaded fourth graders who laugh at everything to younger kids who.... laugh at everything. Until they see the bandage-wrapped phantom, that is, and then they shriek like the little children they are. Heh heh heh. My favourite was the kid who laughed at everything and then when he saw her covered his eyes and ran away. I assume someone must have guided him to the classroom across the hall, because when I popped my head in a minute or two later, he was still covering his eyes.

And that's how we do Halloween in my neighbourhood.

Sorry for lack of posts; I've been down with a cold and just plain busy. I've got a half-dozen posts sitting in draft form - I just have to finish them. Unfortunately, current events always give me something else to write about...