China striking back

Having had enough of criticism, the Chinese are finally biting back! About 6,000 Chinese people, mostly students, took to the streets in Seoul earlier this week and physically confronted anti-Chinese protesters and riot police during the Olympics torch relay. According to the Korean media, they beat up a Korean citizen with a flag pole and threw stones and bottles at the police.

And there was a New York Times story today about how Chinese college students in the U.S. are speaking up for their home country, becoming increasingly hostile toward the Western media which they think are blatantly biased against China. That sentiment is expressed well in this poem cited in the story.

"When we have a billion people, you said we were destroying the planet./ When we tried limiting our numbers, you said it is human rights abuse."When we were poor, you thought we were dogs./ When we loan you cash, you blame us for your debts./ When we build our industries, you called us polluters./ When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming."

Well, they may have a point. The world is blaming so many things on China, but certainly, China isn't the only country is the world doing those things. And it shouldn't feel good to get so much negative attention.

But we are talking about China here, a country with a billion people. Yes, that many people can destroy the planet, if they keep doing horrible things, and if that many people build industries freely, it'll pollute the environment like hell. There are ways to keep the billion people without doing too much harm to the planet and there are ways to control the population without abusing people's basic rights. There are ways to build the economy more cleanly.

As its economy grows, China is having greater impact on the world, and it needs to learn to act more responsibily and openly as a member of the global community. And yet, China is going backward, which is why people are getting angry.

I read that China is basically kicking out foreign students by not extending their visas until the Olympics is over, while restricting visa issues for foreigners as a way to deal with growing criticism overseas. Who are they holding the Olympics for after all? That kind of paranoia certainly won't help bolster China's image, nor will hysteric responses the Chinese have shown elsewhere.

Living with Murdoch

It's happening exactly as everyone had expected. The Rupert Murdoch reign has begun to transform the Wall Street Journal, one of the most prestigious daily newspapers in the world, into a News Corp. product.

Marcus Brauchli, the managing editor of the Journal, said he'll resign from the post, and Murdoch will install one of his people in the position. Prior to Brauchli's departure, Murdoch had already replaced the paper's publisher with Robert Thomson, former top editor of the Times.

Changes Murdoch is trying to make are rattling nerves, because he's basically trying to destroy the tradition of the paper by making it appealing to a wider range of readers. He wants shorter stories and more general news coverage, shifting away from the current heavy emphasis on smart, in-depth business and financial news coverage. By doing that, the paper may gain more readership, but it will certainly lose its prestigious status as the world's finest business paper.

Murdoch agreed to keep the Journal's editorial independence, but he's the same Murdoch, and he'll have his way regardless, as the early changes show. The question is how far he will go in breaking the paper apart.

And News Corp. won't stop there and may go far beyond that. Murdoch has just got himself a seat on the AP's board directors, and he's now trying to buy Newsday, the 10th largest paper in the U.S. in terms of circulation. A sad fact of life.

Samsung executives indicted

Samsung Group's executives, including Chairman Lee Kun-hee, were indicted for several charges, including breach of trust and tax evasion. But will they ever be thrown into jail? I don't know. To begin with, none of them was detained.

According to the media, a member of the independent panel investigating the case said there is a "discrepancy" between the law and reality when it comes to prosecuting the conglomerates, or chaebols, given Korea's "unique business practices." So it already looks like these people will likely get away with the charges, like other chaebol executives have in the past.

The dilema is obvious: the whole economy depends on these companies, and it won't do much good for the country to screw them, but there's this thing called justice. Which one should be more valued? I don't know.

Elections

We had parliamentary elections today. Because I've been overseas most of the time since I became eligible to vote at 20 or something, I hadn't got a chance to vote, but I finally did my first voting today. Honestely, I wasn't even sure if I should vote, since I had no idea who were running and what their pledges were. But my parents almost dragged me to the polling place, and I voted for a candidate who seemed to be a liberal. Oh well, at least I exercised my right to vote, unlike nearly half the eligible voters who didn't even bother - the media said turnout was only about 50%, a record low.

Street campaigning during elections - be it parlimentary or presidential - is quite a scene. Candidates make speeches on the back of trucks or in street corners with their entourage, often including celebrities, standing behind them. Their supporters, clad in colors symbolizing their parties, do choreographed dancing, with their supporting songs in full blast.

***

But often, I feel like the candidates' messages get buried. I tried to find out what the candidate I voted for today had been pledging, but she didn't seem to go beyond saying "I'll make this neighborhood a better place."

If not, they talk about such tired topics as the economy and education, especially English.

I think the Korean economy has been doing pretty well since the Asian financial crisis, and you can actually see a lot of improvement here, but the way politicians talk about the economy hasn't changed much. They always say Korea's still a poor country, and Koreans should try harder to make Korea an advanced country, a mentality that almost seems like an inferiority complex.

Similiary, Koreans have a complex about their English, and the amount of efforts and money they put into English education is ridiculous. The new president even considered banning schools from teaching in Korean, which could've been a cultural suicide. He later backed out, only because of criticism that the idea isn't realistic, rather than concerns about preserving Korean culture.

At the end of the day, I'm afraid this country is only trying to be a copycat of other countries. It wants to be like the U.S., Japan, Singapore, while no one is raising fundamental questions about what good it will do for the people. And people are growing tired of hearing the same bullshit over and over again, with nothing being done for them, as the low turnout today shows.

New Korean elitism

In the photo is Jungwook Hong, who's now running for parliament. He wrote his autobiography in the early 1990's right after he finished college, mainly about his experience in U.S. elite schools. Inspired by John F. Kennedy, he went to the same high school as Kennedy and went to Harvard. The first edition of the book sold more than a million copies in Korea, and I also own a copy, which I read twice when I was in junior high. I don't know why other people went crazy over his book, but to me, it was one of the most inspirational books I'd ever read at that time. Back then, he was one of rare Koreans who went to an Ivy League school, an achievement great enough to make me admire him as a teenage kid.

Then everyone, including me, forgot about him for a while before he came out with the second edition of his book a few years ago. The new edition has additional chapters about what he had been up to after college, where he majored in East Asian study. He went to Beijing University to do a master's degree, but only to be disappointed at the quality of education there, so he dropped out. Instead, he decided to go to law school in the states, and went to Stanford law school. After law school, he took the same path as many elite Americans, working at Wall Street investment banks, including Lehman Brothers, specializing in corporate M&A.

And he came back to Korea and took over a media company publishing a major English-language newspaper, which many people saw as a stepping stone to become a politician. The English-language newspaper market in Korea is small - circulation is about 50,000 at the most. To make the company profitable, he launched a Korean-language business paper, which, however, has big tabloid-style entertainment coverage. And he resigned as the CEO of the company this year to run for parliament as a member of the conservative ruling party.

Honestly, I was a bit surprised at his career path. I naively admired him for what I thought was a pure passion for literature and history, and the last thing I expected of him was to be an investment banker. Regardless, it'd be still interesting to see how high he can move up the political ladder in Korea. His background is unprecendented in the old, close-knit Korean political scene, and his entry to it may open up the door for many other foreign educated Koreans later, who, I think, collectively will be a key part of new elites in Korea in the near future, given the number of Koreans studying overseas now. I'm not so sure if it'll be a good thing or bad thing, but it'll be an interesting change.

Back for one last time

So I'm back here, back to exactly where I was two years ago, except I now have two years of work experience under my belt, while I could've been done with the army thing and been a free man by now - is this going to be a worthwhile tradeoff? I don't know, I guess only time will tell.

Right now, I don't feel anything. I don't think much - I'm just trying do whatever I can put my mind to. I've been keeping myself busy unpacking and settling in, but now that I'm done with it all, reality seems about to set in.

I read an interesting article on Yahoo the other day. The Korean government is now trying to encourage more young people to have overseas work experience, and one thing they are thinking about is to exempt people doing certain volunteering work overseas or even just working overseas from the military service. And the same people called me in, forcing me to give up my noble overseas job. What an irony.

Korean missionaries kidnapped in Afghanistan

More than 20 Korean missionaries were kidnapped by Taliban in Afghanistan, and Taliban is threatening to kill them unless the Korean government agrees to withraw its army from Afghnistan.

A similar incident happened barely three years ago, where a Korean man was kidnapped by terrorists in Iraq and ended up dead, and I remember how sympathetic all Koreans were for him.

I expected similar reaction this time, only to be surprised how little sympathy, if any, Koreans are showing. Some even say the Koreans are to blame for all the trouble they caused for the country, and they deserve to die because they volunteered to go there for their own interests at their own risk.

Well, for one, it shows how a lot of Koreans hate Cristians for their agressiveness in propagating their religion - you'll see what I'm talking about if you go to Korea , and get dragged by these Christians and preached on the street.

So it's interesting - although they don't seem to remember the fact that the man killed in Iraq was also a missionary and worked for a company in Iraq, supported by some Christian group, and I don't agree that any one deserves to die like that.

Also, what they say is logically flawed. By saying the Koreans are to blame because it would not have happened if they didn't go, they assume the Koreans provided a reason for Taliban to kidnap them. Which we don't know for sure, because Taliban hasn't really referred to any of the Koreans' activities in Afghanistan or their identity.

The Koreans didn't go there to get kidnapped; they just happened to be there. We don't know if Taliban kidnapped them because of what they did there; it's more likely Taliban kidnapped them to use them as a tool for negotiations with the Korean government. If anything, they are victims of politics - the Korean government provided a reason for Taliban to kidnap them after all.

But, on the other hand, it gets me to think about Christianity's audacity, which, in the end, is a hidden element in America's current war on terrorism, and historically has been a source of many conflicts.

The idea that you can just go to a country - never mind it's a muslim country - and help people by teaching them a foreign religion that is Christianity troubles me. What other religions do that? It is rooted in the idea that Christianity is a superior religion to anything else, so your mission is a holy one. It is indeed dangerous and ignorant thinking, and you don't do that unless you are 100% sure what you are doing and ready to die for your cause, in which case, your death is indeed soley a private matter of choice that doesn't have to be a public issue in the first place.

I wonder if the church that sent them to Afghanistan prepared the missionaries for this kind of extreme situation, and if they knew what they were walking into, or if they just thought they were going on a field trip for something that makes you look like a good person. The latter could well be the case, given reports saying they were walking outside in Afghanistan like it was Seoul. If so, it's a shame on the church and its utter hypocrisy.

Korean O.G

From Korea Herald

Hanwha Group chairman Kim Seung-youn was arrested on Friday for his involvement in assault of six bar employees.

A judge at the Seoul Central District Court issued an arrest warrant for the nation's ninth largest conglomerate at 11 p.m. after he admitted part of charges during a three-hour court hearing.

Kim, 55, became the first conglomerate owner in Korea to be arrested for direct involvement in violent acts. He was arrested in 1993 on charges of violating foreign currency rules and was indicted in 2003 for providing slush funds to politicians. He was convicted in both cases.

The prosecution on Thursday asked the court to approve his arrest on six charges including assault, confinement and abduction, which could lead to a sentence of more than 22 years in prison.

Kim is suspected of being involved in the assault of six employees of a Seoul bar on March 8 after his 22-year-old son, Dong-won, was injured in a fight with the employees in a scuffle a few hours earlier.

The court also approved an arrest warrant for his top bodyguard.

"There is a concern over possible destruction of evidence," judge Lee Kwang-man said. He noted that the suspects had attempted to destroy evidence "by influencing accomplices and witnesses while the investigation was under way."

He was detained at Namdaemun Police Station in Seoul. The two could be held at the station for up to 10 days as police carry out supplementary investigations.

Five of the six victims have testified to being badly beaten by the chairman himself with a steel pipe while one was attacked by his son, after they were taken to a construction site at Mount Cheonggye in suburban Seoul.

Kim, who previously denied all charges, admitted yesterday that he went to the mountain area and battering the bar employees. But he denied wielding a steel pipe during the attacks.
After the hearing, he apologized to the public for the second time. "I once again apologize sincerely for causing trouble," he told reporters. "I hope there will no longer be a father as foolish as I."

Meanwhile, police said yesterday that three more people may have been beaten by Kim and that more witnesses confirmed his involvement.

According to witnesses, three more workers had been taken to Mount Cheonggye on the day of the assault, after bar owners paid them money to "pretend" they were the ones who has assaulted Kim's son. The three additional victims were not workers of the two bars, police said.
"We also secured statements from bar employees who witnesses Kim's assault on the bar owner," said an officer of Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency yesterday. "The witnesses appear to have kept silent, afraid of possible revenge from Kim."

Investigators also secured evidence that another gang leader, surnamed Chang, had mobilized his men following a request from Hanwha employees.

Police found from cell phone records that Chang made calls to gangsters and Hanwha employees on March 8 at the three locations. Chang said that he would voluntarily show up at Namdaemun Police Station for questioning, police said.

Police and prosecution investigators are focusing on tracking down a crime gang leader who allegedly took part in the revenge attacks.

The 54-year-old, surnamed Oh, is believed to have been at the crime scenes. Oh has been out of the country since April 27, investigators said.

Police are planning to investigate the bank accounts of Oh to support allegations that he received 300 million won from Hanwha for mobilizing gang thugs to participate in the assaults. Oh is likely to return to Korea voluntarily if Kim is arrested, police said.

By Shin Hae-in (hayney@heraldm.com)

2007.05.12

Virginia killer was a Korean, so what?

The shootings at Virginia Tech were sickening and tragic. I'm still saddened when I look at the photos of the victims, survivors and students mourning. My friends, or even myself could've been there, and just thinking about it scares me. Apart from the emotional reaction, it got me thinking about many things.

This kind of things should never happen, but it happens in every society - that's life. We all have seen worse things happening in the past, haven't we? Still, among others, Koreans were particularly shocked, because the shooter was a Korean, and surely, it had never happened before. The Korean government even apologized - I heard on the radio that the Korean government said it regrets the incident with "a deep sense of sorrow and 'shame.'"

I guess it's fair to say that's how a lot of Koreans feel. A majority of comments on Korean Web sites say the incident is an an embarrassment to the country, it's shameful and they lost face because of Cho.

But is it, really? I don't think so. The shootings happened because of whatever personal issues Cho had and internal social problems the U.S. has - it has nothing to do with Korea and Koreans owe Ameircnas no appology. As far as I know, it wasn't an international terrorist act - at least there has been no evidence of it so far.

Then why do Korean have to feel so guilty? I guess part of it has to do with Korean culture, where people don't want to harm others, people tend to appologize for even the smallest things they did wrong, and people always tend to think as a group. But it's also because of Korean media that played up the fact Cho's a Korean way too much. As soon as he turned out to be a Korean, the whole focus has shifted to that little fact that doesn't really explain anything about his motives for the killings. So it all boils down to this line of thinking for Koreans: a Korean killed these people in the U.S., so Koreans as a group all have to feel ashamed.

Do Americans think the same? Probably not. True, Cho's race has been all over the headlines, but in many cases, his race and nationality have been a relatively small part of the story. I still don't think it's fair to even mention his race or ethnicity in the headlines or in top parts of stories, which some U.S. media did. But I agree his personal background could give some context - even if the killer was a white kid, the media would've talked about where he's from, although it wouldn't have likely been in the headlines or anywhere high up in stories. And overall, I think the U.S. media see the incident as an internal social issue.

That's because Cho is a product of American society, and he apparently went through issues Ameirca uniquely has. He's an immigrant - not fully American, but even less Korean, a unique identity issue people don't have to deal with in many other parts of the world. He was disgusted by upper class Americans - a issue America has long had. He could easily buy guns - again, a unique American issue. The incident could reveal problems of American society on multiple levels later one, such as what immigrants go through in the multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic society Ameirca is, the class gap and gun control issues, etc.

So Koreans, get over it and move on. It's not your problem.

World as they know

http://www.mrbrownshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/mrbrownshow-worldmap-accord.jpg

This is how Singlish transforms into English

http://diodati.omniscientx.com/2006/07/24/channelnewsasia-behind-the-scenes/

Singlish lah

In England, they speak English, in America, they speak American...no, English, and in Singapore, they speak English...no, Singlish.

However American English is different from British English, they are still considered the same language. They have different idoms, expressions, and of course accents, but all the basics are the same.

But Singaporean English is fundamentally different, as far as I can see. Among other things besides the accent, they simplify things to the maximum efficiency. They don't say "excuse me." They say "excuse." If something is unnecessary? Just say "no need." And if, for example, you ask them "can I pay with credit card?" They would say "credit card, can," or "credit card, cannot."

Another thing is saying "lah" at the end of every sentence. Examples are: "Ok lah!" "Thank you lah!" etc.

Singlish is a hybrid of English that is gramatically so flawed, but they still communicate with it perfectly. Interesting huh?

W.T.F

I went to the homepage of my cousin, who's been in the states as an exchange student for about a semester now, and I was taken aback when I saw his comments about black people. He called them "trash" for no valid reason, and I'm just surprised at how blatant he is.

Maybe it's not just him. Koreans are one of the most racist and exclusive people I've ever known - as a Korean myself, I'm ashamed to say this, but I'm afraid it's true. They hate black people for being black, they hate white people for being white, they hate Japanese for being Japanese. Basically, they hate everyone for being different from them.

For a long time, I'd thought it was more like xenophobia rather than racism. There haven't been not many foreigners in Korea, so it's understandable they can be afraid of foreigners because they hadn't seen them much. But if you call a certain group of people "trash" just because they are being who they are, it's serious racism, and I'm pretty sure my counsin isn't the only Korean who thinks that way.

All the crap in Korea about the Superbowl MVP Hines Ward was the most pathetic and hypocrat thing I've ever witnessed. Bi-racials in Korea had been the most underrepresented people, and all of sudden, that half-Korean, half-black dude was getting all the most positive media attention you can ever get. Koreans were just crazy about him, first because he had a Korean tie, and second he achieved such a great thing in the states, a country they try to hate so much, but can't help but admiring as much.

So on one level, you have these people calling others with darker skin collors trash without feeling any shame, and on another level, you have these people going crazy over a U.S. football star despite his skin color, again, without feeling any shame. That's a real, real shame to me.

Dow Jones crew holdin' it down

With my collegues at a year-end party for foreign correspondents in Korea. The guy in white clothes with thick makeup on isn't my collegue. He's a famous fashion designer that's often mocked for how he looks as you can see. I'm no big fan of him either, but well, he seemed to be a nice person. Oh, I look so proud.

New Orleans, September 2005

When I first saw the horrific images of New Orleans on television, I thought it can't be America. But then I'm starting to think this may be real America, realer than ever.

Bodies of black people pile up, black people shoot and loot, and those images are broadcast across the world. Yeah, Katrina hit the whole city, but only those who had been underrepesented and misrepresented since the day America was born are left dying in the city. After all, there's nothing surprising about those images, because we've been seeing the images of helpess, savage black folks for a long time, not just in America, but in other parts of the world too.

So maybe that's why the U.S. government thought it could ignore them this time too. And it's utterly disappointing because I thought America had been making some progress in adressing racism. I, and many other naive people were wrong. Katrina not only drown the city but also exposed the ugly facet of American society. It's just that racism has evolved into a new form in a way that nobody talks about it under normal circumstances. But in an abnormal time like this, America and that hypocrisy broke down miserably.

Why are we seeing a bunch of soldiers with scary looks and guns wandering the city rather than rescue crews like fire fighters or something? The city was flooded, but there's no war going on. What are guns for now in that city? They need food, water and help, not bullets and coercing. Did Bush spend so much time talking about bombing Iraq that he confuses a natural disaster with a war? Or does he just think folks with different skin colors from his are not just his people so he can treat them like shit?

The way Bush administration responded was undoubtely inhumane, but it was also politically so stupid to make himself look this bad. Even cold-hearted Wall Mart is trying to look like it's offering some help. He could be so negligent, because he doens't care about those people, it's just simple as that.

World at peace

Great.

Journalist loses control

He seems to be in big trouble. He doesn't seem to have learned how to get drunk properly in journalism school.

Story

Engrish talk

I've been pretty busy over the past couple of weeks. I got sick over my food, visited my grandma, have been hanging out, and on top of all that, am still trying to find a decent job.

Speaking of the job hunting, this is what I do when I try to find a job. I go to a job site everyday and type in "English." I do that, because I want an English writing job. Then, I get hundreds of results, ranging from teaching to writing to translating, and it's just amazing how there are so many English-related jobs in a non-English speaking country like Korea.

Korea is officially in love with the English language. I guess it was a couple years ago. Some rich yet dumb parents got their children's tongue trimmed so that they can pronounce English words more easily. There are thousands of English schools all across the country and native speakers of English are always welcome. The government is trying to build an "English town" where people speak English and write official documents in English. Thousands of students go abroad to study Engish for a year or so, without which it's now become almost impossible get a job. In this country, speaking English, preferebly with nice and smooth American accent, is a prestige that people yearn for, oftentimes for nothing.

English education is now a mamoth industry that generates billions of dollars each year and it's been growing like no other industries have. And, English-language media here is a weird hybrid between education and journalism. People in English-speaking countries read their newspapers to get information. And people here read English-language newspapers to study English. As long as they are written in English and can feed them with new vocabularies and idioms, people don't complain about the quality. So this puts English-language journalism here in a really weird position. If people don't care about what they get from reading, what do you write for? Of course, foreigners here rely on English-language media, but they only represent a small portion of the audience.

Your readers would underline your sentences and frantically try to memorize them, like they do when they study with their textbooks. Contents don't matter to them, because study materials are meant to be boring anyway. Doing real journalism as a career is nothing but a remote fantasy to me now. Do it in Korean? Well, I don't think so, Korean-language media have their own problems I don't wanna deal with and you don't wanna know.

Military goes naked

Another military story.

See, in Korea, every male citizen has to do the complusory military service. It's two years long, and you live on the base, almost completely separated from the outside world. And this is what happens when you do that to 20-year old men.

As I haven't been in the military yet, I don't have a complete grasp of what this is all about - I'll find out pretty soon. I can see it's a kind of physical punishment, but I don't really understand what this does to the military morale and stuff. Or maybe, many days of separation from girls can homosexualize guys.

I've heard so much bad stuff about the military here, from my father, friends, uncles, cousins, etc. You walk 80 miles a night, they beat the hell out of you, you do anything they tell you to do, blah blah blah. As a flat-footer, walking that long distance kind of worried me, but I wasn't really scared of those things. But these photoes do terribly scare me. Gosh, I don't wanna be the subject of sexual pleasure for guys.

Or maybe it's just that all the stuff I've heard about the military wasn't substantiated enough for me to take it seriously. But then, with the help of digital technologies and Internet, I'm actually seeing it. And now I have to take it serisouly, hoping the revealing of these ugly truths would help make things better. Internet is a cursed blessing, really.

Who's to blame?

I guess it was about a week or two ago. A Korean soldier, known as Private Kim, allegedly opened fire and threw hand grenades at his collegues sleeping inside the barrack. The incident left eight killed and two wounded.

Then, the military's own investigation team said Kim's motive was to retaliate on verbal abuses he received from his seniors. They went on to accuse Kim of premeditating the shooting. According to the military, Kim was a videogame freak, oh well. So now we have a brutal murdurer who mercilessly killed his friends over some unkind words.

Now the whole media make him such, and the whole nation has turned against him. He's the one to blame, because the crazy m.f went on a shooting spree just because he couldn't put up with some bad-mouthing, part of daily military lives that everyone else takes for granted and has no trouble with. Seriously, the military did such a great job at pointing fingers at Kim that the whole nation just believes he's the bad guy. Mad props to the military for holding that press conference with the survivors attending, who were sobing and weeping all the way through what looked rather like a well-orchestrated show.

The problem is we've never heard a word from Kim about why he did it. It was the military that told us what he said. In fact, we've never even seen his face. Well, maybe what the military told the public indeed came out of Kim's mouth, but who knows what they did to make Kim say what they wanted him to say. Who knows how much was manupulated and fabricated? Better yet, technically, he's not exactly convicted yet, but does he even have a lawyer? With one military body doing all the investigation, it looks like the case has been all wrapped up nicely and everyone's happy. Yeah, the military found an easy and quick way out - blame one individual for all, rather than looking into problems of the entire system that actually might have driven Kim to do that. As long as everyone's happy with that, who cares? The military knows that well, because they've been doing that years after years.

Time would go on, and people will forget about what happened. Kim will live rest of his life locked up in prison, and people will stop talking about him. Wanna know the truth? Get over it. And move on, just like everyone else.