The KimcheeGI reports a coming mess: SEOUL, Jan. 14 (Yonhap) — The government’s planned crackdown on rampant illegal online downloading of music, movie and games has driven the country’s Internet users into a state of confusion. In South Korea, about 36 million people use Internet, or 68.2 percent of the country’s population. Many of them have personal homepages or blogs containing downloaded music files and lyrics of pop songs and postings from other Internet sites. It has become a part of their daily life to swap music and movie files using peer-to-peer (PSP) programs. I have to wonder if it …

Whilst spelunking the Marmot’s Hole (the history section) I followed a chain of links to this beautiful essay: Gyungbok (or Kyungbok) Palace: History, Controversy, Geomancy – by Minsoo Kang. It’s definitely worth a look, and I shall hold it in my mind when I am reworking the draft of the novel which, come hell or high water, I will finish this week. (Er, I hope, tonight.)

… to be a fly on the wall during the discussions leading up to this publication: The Korea Times : Korea, China, Japan to Publish Joint History Textbook in May. I’d have given a lot, believe me.

The old (and illegal) practice of playing Korean oompah music (known as bbongjjak) and dancing on buses is the subject of a recent funny post by Japundit. Bus dancing is something I’ve never personally experienced… it’s mostly on tour buses, or as one of my friends calls them, “ajumma [middle-aged women] buses”. Apparently it still goes on, banned or not, and apparently it can be quite dangerous, though usually it’s just old retirees blowing off some steam for the first time in a long life of hard work. I did once party with some old folks like this on a boat, …

I’m doing a little more research for my ghost story, and quickly coming to the conclusion there’s almost no good place to set the story… I can’t seem to find information on any particular locale where UN Troops wouldn’t have been stationed or died. I think I’ll just have to go with some kind of explanation that, “There were some who died here, they just didn’t survive as ghosts in this particular town.” Anyway, during my researches I came across this animated Quicktime map that shows different front lines and areas of occupation during 27 different stages of the Korean …

The following was written as an entry in the contest mentioned on this site, which was announced to me via a trackback to my own site. However, if I understand correctly, it seems that I need to create an account over at Koreanblog to get my entry included, and I’m not about to do that. I’m disapppointed that it’s not going to count as an entry over there, but I’m still going to post this here. It seems I was wrong, and my post actually has been entered into that contest. Cool. I’m just glad to have a chance to …

The other day, when I caught a cab, the taxi driver gave me the same rigamarole about how good my Korean is—it really isn’t, though. Anyway, I asked him if he meets many foreigners, and whether they can speak Korean well. He said that he meets a lot of Japanese and Filipina women, who are married to Korean men. The Japanese apparently don’t speak Korean well, usually, while the Filipinas do. I shouldn’t have been surprised. As I see from The Marmot’s page, The Chosun Ilbo has an article up about The Ministry of Health and Welfare’s release of the …

Dear Korea: Thanks to Oranckay, I see you share another trait with Canada. You’re thinking far too much about America. It won’t do you any good. Trust me, I know.

I ran across a post on a Korean film discussion website which says a lot of what I’ve been thinking about the much-manipulated issue of Korean Comfort Women under Japan. Here’s a taste: To Adrien, Umm… without really going into details… Comfort Women issue requires a lot more level-headed reexamination. Just saying something against the prevalent Japanese-soldiers-as-devils view risks being branded as a “traitor,” since I am ethnically Korean myself, too, but Comfort Women issue has been, IMHO (and I am already stepping into dangerous waters here), abused by all sides: by Japanese right-wingers, by Korean nationalists, by North Koreans, …

Via Dogstew, Gary Leupp’s A Pop Quiz on Korea, which I’ll try next week when I can print it out and circle the answers.