A brief note: as always with blogs by foreigners in Korea, caveat emptor. I’ve done a lot of work confirming a lot of this, but there are many points of view I’ve not represented. Yes, some protesters have been badly behaved. Yes, I haven’t been at the protests daily, like Scott Burgeson. Yes, I rely on my fiancée Lime for some news, some confirmation, and she’s a pretty good wingperson (er?) for photography, pointing out things I hadn’t noticed myself. Anyway, if this interests you, read other people’s posts about this whole series of events — I recommend Gusts of …
Tag: politics
Inept Security Theater
It’s one thing when people have to put up with security theater in the airports of the world, but my sense is that, unlike one might expect, the Korean airport security have not quite upped the ante on pointless and officious ritual. It’s possible to get through security relatively quickly. Though, uh, that might not be such a good thing. Recent high rankings for Korea’s Incheon Airport — the main international airport in the country — in customer service and airport quality seem to ring a bit hollow, once you hear the story that just hit the news… Because you …
I’m Voting…
… well, I’m not. As far as what I’ve been told, I’m not allowed to vote because I’ve been expatriate too long. Which is bloody stupid, but it’s what I was told during the last national Canadian election. (If you know different, please tell me!) But this is amusing and very interesting, and so are the Mac ad ripoff political spots here. I’m sure there are similar things on the right, though I wonder how much mass appeal is possible given the obvious disadvantages of the Right agenda. Still, the thing to remember is, we’ve only had an internet less …
Greased Shipping Containers
Why do people keep saying Lee Myung Bak won with a “landslide” or “overwhelming” majority? (Example here, but I’ve seen it time and time again all over the Korexpat blogosphere.) Is Wikipedia’s entry on Lee wrong? Lee won the presidential election in December 2007 with 48.7% of the vote… and Voter turnout was one of the lowest ever for a presidential election in South Korea. Or is is a “landslide victory” now less than a majority of an apathetic voter turnout? I mean, even the examples in Canada (for example, which has a consistently multiparty election system) only include cases …
Why Oh Why Can’t We Have a Non-Schitzophenic Media?
Oh yes, I’m thinking of Brad DeLong’s posts about the American newsmedia. Screenshot from someone browsing Daum today. One side reports that a protester was half-blinded by a water cannon used by police, and on the other side, the headline underlined in red suggests (roughly) that “claims of injuries from water cannons are lies.” (I know, I know, it’s the internet, but this really is what it’s like in the print media too. No wonder nobody I know here who actually thinks on a daily basis trusts the news, especially the mainstream news, and no wonder demonstrators have been ejecting …
The Day the Ruling Party’s Website Went Offline
Why was this image placed on the website of the ruling political party’s website? Why was some hacker logged on there as an admin, and responding to all commenter’s complaints with the same phrase: “Myung Bak is asleep!” What could possess anyone to do something so foolhardy? That’s the question I’m trying to answer in this post. It takes a while to get to, but I hope the read is worth it.
Seuma’il, Sshipal Balgaengi! (Smile, F*cking Commie!)
Over the last few years I’ve been trying to understand why so many Koreans seem to support the idea that Korea needs top-down censorship and top-down elimination of anonymity online. They often cite the abhorrent behaviour of “Korean netizens” as evidence, with the Dog Poop Girl cited as a minor example and the suicides of many pop stars who were criticized online as major evidence of the cruelty and need for firmer controls online. (Michael has a post up that pretty much says the same thing I’ve been saying since I first encountered this weird rationalization: that a pop star …
Just… Wow.
Ellen Datlow linked this at Matthew Good’s site: Wow.
Mad Cow Update
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 …
Free Speech? F*ck You, Citizens!
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 …