Over at asiapundits, Jon Twitch takes a lengthy look at the messy process through which Dongdaemun Design Park came to be, a topic I've touched on before here, here and here. It's well worth reading, and his photos of the destruction of the two Dongdaemun stadiums and of the last days of the flea market alone are worth seeing.
Vanity Fair takes a lengthy look at Samsung's business practices and the Samsung Apple patent war (hat tip to Scott Burgeson).
This Joongang Daily article about discriminatory practices by clubs in Seoul slipped my mind, and isn't particularly surprising (the fingerprint ID only requirement is a nice touch, though), but it did remind me of F5 Waeg's comment that "it does make sense to wish for pure blood if you're a big fan of the incest."
And here's an interview with author Gong Ji-young, perhaps best known for writing Dogani, which was turned into a film of the same name which created enough outrage to bring about new sex crime laws.
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ReplyDeleteThat Vanity Fair story on Samsung by award-winning investigative journalist Kurt Eichenwald is devastating, and deserves to be promoted widely within Korea. If the picture of Samsung that emerges from Eichenwald's reporting is one of a ruthless, mafia-like syndicate, and South Korea is the "Republic of Samsung," what does it say about this country's entire economic model? Moreover, parallels between Samsung and the Sewol disaster are not just metaphorical, but also very real:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/14/samsung-apologizes-to-cancer-stricken-chip-workers_n_5321059.html
Profit before people: Is this the "Korean Dream"?