It’s Not Just the Lateness of Industrialization: How and Why Korean SF Doesn’t Quite Work

This entry is part 2 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

I should be grading in-class essays, but my guilt at not yet having done so has been assuaged by the fact that another professor in the department, someone above me, confessed to not having graded her midterms either, and not feeling the slightest bit badly about it! So among all the other insanity of the last week, I also spent some time working up a couple of abstracts for a conference that I think I have no realistic shot at, mostly because I’m not an “official” Korea studies scholar, but at least one of my abstracts was for an essay …

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Lest My Rage Seem Misspent

UPDATE: There’s no more reason to be cautious now, so I’ll just come out with it, and hope Google gets used in the hiring process in Korea soon. The seemingly-alcoholic, clearly racist, sexist, and scummy foreign English teacher I discuss in the post below is named Patrick Stewart, who worked in South Korea at the Catholic University of Korea during 2008. (I think from 2007-2009, or maybe from 2006-2008?) I know personally of at least three cases in which he sexually harassed female instructors at our university, the Catholic University of Korea, including very late at night at their apartment …

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Mad Cow Update

This entry is part 5 of 14 in the series Beef Protests '08

As I’ve said before, it’s worth listening to what scientists say. I’m willing to listen when the Professors Kim of Hallim University say that their research findings have been wrongfully exaggerated by those who oppose US beef. Others online have pointed out how unfortunate (yes, truly) it is that Koreans aren’t (yet) up in arms about other issues that need serious attention, from traffic fatalities to avian influenza — which is true, and I really wish people were. We’ve got H5CN1 in the neighborhood now. (To that I’d add reforming police service, which right now is almost as useless as …

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Free Speech? F*ck You, Citizens!

This entry is part 4 of 14 in the series Beef Protests '08

How is a democracy supposed to work when citizens can be criminally prosecuted for disagreeing with the government? It’s too bad that there’s nobody left outside Korea who can pressure the government here to actually allow criticism, differing opinions, and so on. But hey, when the major governments of the world are convinced they have God on their side… The national prosecution and police say they are going to criminally prosecute people involved in spreading so-called “mad cow horror stories” (gwangubyeong goedam) on the Internet, in addition to prosecuting the organizers of candlelight protests against imports of American beef. A …

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Translations from the Maggot’s Lair Marmot’s Maggoty Comment Lair Hole

This entry is part 6 of 14 in the series Beef Protests '08

I wager most commenters over at Marmot’s don’t imagine this much attention is paid to what they say. (Then again, I can’t imagine most would care, but…) Someone out there seems to have translated the comments thread at Marmot’s Hole for the discussion on the beef import policy protests I’ve discussed in recent posts. (I guess this might explain some of the new traffic I’ve been getting from what, judging by the usernames, look like Korean users I’ve never met before. I was wondering how that happened, and thought it might be my new story that’s in the July issue …

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