Tag: politics

NCC-1492 and The Good Ship Daehan

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This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series Who's Complaining in Korea

This is part three in a series. You may wish to read the above links. If you don’t: Part 1 discussed reasons why so many expatriates complain about Korea. Part 2 seemed to rush off onto a tangent mostly focused on Iksan, a small city where I lived for a couple of years when I first arrived in Korea, and the unevenness of its development. I ended discussing a landfill crisis there, and describing how young locals were all dressed in their usual stunning finery, promenading serenely past barricades of trash bags blocking the sidewalk. Then, with promises to return …

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Got China?

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A couple of them in this post on a blog I just discovered (in the Columbus, was-already-there sense), The China Beat. Particularly cool are the piece on Li Wei  at 1000 Words and Virtual Shanghai. Plus why Jonathan Spence absolutely, totally rocks like a motherf*cker. (More here.) Listen to Spence’s Reith lectures here… even if you do skip the long (and iffy) question periods. Or download the MP3s (from links listed) here. I’m listening to lecture #1 now — which is about Confucianism, by the way, and thus of interest to all you Korea-watchers —  and the big question is: …

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For the Two People Interested…

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This entry is part 13 of 14 in the series Beef Protests '08

I’ve uploaded the last of my 2MB Demo pics, from the last big night (July 5th), here. Oops! Some were from the Catholic “Emergency” Mass, and thus are now in this set. Some were from the last big night, July 5th, in this set. I found some pics from earlier on, too — the best guess I can make is June 11th, in this set. I added a couple to the first set also, shots which I found just now in the wrong folder.  And of all things, a shot from the trip I made to the local temple on …

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On the Ajumma Slain in North Korea, and Anti-Communist Paranoia in the South

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This entry is part 9 of 14 in the series Beef Protests '08

Well, I heard about this when I got home last night, and when I got up this morning, I found that Marmot’s Hole had a post up on the story. The comment thread, and a subsequent post by Andy Jackson (and its comments), were of course filled to the brim with vitriolic snark on the recent protests, which everyone is still calling the US Beef protests, though the whole thing was a much bigger mix of issues than just beef. Though at least the first commenter on that post pointed out how poorly it reflects on so many at Marmot’s …

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Fake Beef Consumers? Media Failsafes and Media’s Future

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This entry is part 12 of 14 in the series Beef Protests '08

It’s true that Koreans are not nearly so freaked-out about US beef as they were a month or two ago. The numbers are changing. ROKDrop writes that: With pictures of people lining up outside of meat markets with coolers in hand to buy US beef undoubtedly public opinion is going to shift greatly in favor of US beef. Well, yes, that’s true. And yet… Amusingly, or depressingly, I’m not sure which, both the Joongang Ilbo and the Maeil Gyeongjae (Daily Economics) have already had to issue apologies for using staged photos with fake consumers to accompany stories on the, er, …

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V and the Protesters

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This entry is part 11 of 14 in the series Beef Protests '08

Some of the protesters have been using references to V for Vendetta during the demonstrations. Turns out Scott went up and talked to them, and asked whether they knew that V is an anarchist, or that the V sign is an inverted anarchy symbol. They didn’t. Scott thinks they’re “retards” who are guilty of “ethnocentric cultural misappropriation,” and that “they think that going to a massive anti-government demonstration is cosplay and means nothing serious in the end…” and that I’m being patronizing in excusing this. I disagree. Wanna know why?

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Drunken Manslaughter Trip in Cambodia

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Next time someone throws around the stereotype about how Westerners in Korea are drunken sots who behave badly, remind them of that Korean guy who went drunk driving in Cambodia in July 2008, killed a family, and refused to tell his name to the cops (and anyway cannot speak English or Khmer). Ask them when was the last time a Westerner did that in Korea. Seriously, ask them. And don’t accept the thing about the tank and the two schoolgirls on the country road back in 2002: the drivers weren’t drunk, two girls is not a whole family, and it …

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Gin Lane & Soju-ro: Part 1 — The Preamble

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This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Gin Lane & Soju-Ro

Right, so I said this would be a long time in coming, but yesterday afternoon and evening — during my train ride in and out of Seoul, as well as during a couple of breaks I took when the humidity and heat and human density proved too much for me at the protest I attended — I all but inhaled Jessica Warner’s Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason, a kind of legal and cultural history of the Gin Craze that swept through the poorer classes in London in the first half of the 1700s (and, to use …

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Fovea &c.

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I’m collaborating with a classmate from Clarion West (shall I out you, sir?). The working title, which my collaboratron said was a placeholder but I rather like, is “Fovea.” Yeah, I had to look it up, too. It is what looks to be my first story involving, you know, space suits, landing on a seemingly deserted planetoid, dangerous hunters in pursuit… sorta space-adventurey, really, though with all kinds of other themes and stuff bubbling beneath the surface, and I’m feeling like I ought to check out some older, spacey SF, since I read and write so little of that stuff. …

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