Pakistan to invade USA

Something India and Pakistan has at least this in common (they actually have a lot more than this in common)

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2009/12/195_57173.html Yes, they spelt ‘opinion’ incorrectly.

This Week in Korea December 11 2009

*Seoul’s Triangle

*More money for Korea Times

*Bai Ling ‘disgraces herself’

*Yoona is the most beautiful girl

*Korea’s exports and kids

*India to invade USA, pursue terrorist

Korea is leading the way in creating an economic bloc with China and Japan. The title for this article is “Seoul to Chart Roadmap for E. Asian Union“. This sounds vaguely familiar though last time it was mentioned it ended up in the architect’s assassination and deification of the assassin Ahn Jung-geun. Don’t expect the paper that offered a 12-part series on Ahn Jung-geun, sometimes saying that his Catholic faith led him to break a commandment but that was OK because he was a patriot, to make any mention of Ito Hirobumi and his plans for an Asian Union to stave off Western aggression.

Other famous triangles the reader may be aware of are the Bermuda Triangle and the Golden Triangle. Either way, really bad connotations from the graphic used in the article. Good job ‘bridge linking Korea to the world’ (Park Moo-jung, CEO Korea Times).

Rep. Jun Byung-hun (or Rep. Jun Jun Byung-hun if you got the print edition) is putting forward a bill to promote English newspapers. The bill calls for 10% of the Newspaper Promotion Fund (this year at 25.3 billion won) to be allocated to local English newspapers so they can maintain reports with journalistic integrity. The representative’s quotes almost sound like a wishlist for what many expats have been trying to tell the Korea Times it needs to do! What is frightening (this is teacher George now) is how the paper is used to learn ‘real English’, whatever that means. The paper is routinely riddled with simple spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, factual errors and the occasional altering of reality to sell a preconceived narrative (see Drugs in Korea among others, and thank Jon Stewart for that quote).

This is also in stark contrast to Mr Foolsdie’s idea about a market and good products vs bad products. I guess if your “newspaper” that reports the “truth” is not selling well then it is probably not a “good” product and needs to be kicked to the curb.

Bai Ling is looking great for 39. This “news” article considers her latest attire as exposing too much. Actually, the Korean version asks whether she is exposing too much. The English version simply tells you she is exposing too much. The writer goes on to say she ‘disgraced herself’ but did not feel embarrassed.  In the writer’s opinion she ‘got disgraced’. Has the writer been to Hongdae, Chungdam, Apgujeong or Gangnam? The article also states she made her debut in 2005 with an appearance in Playboy. A simple search on imbd reveals her debut on the American scene was in 1992’s Pen Pals. Nice try to cast aspersions on her career. I’m not going to outline the grammar mistakes in this piece.

Yoona, the self-proclaimed ‘Most Beautiful Girl’ of SNSD, claims her ideal man is Japanese. She is usually the one with the scowl on her face if another member of SNSD draws attention away from her. Her other qualities include modesty and reticence.

Korea relies on exports too much to power its economy. Normally the solution would be to encourage domestic spending (ie, the advice given to China by everyone else) which seems to be what will happen, though no concrete ideas as yet. They are also considering lowering the school entry age by one year to lower nursery costs. This will just lead to parents sending their children to nurseries (they really mean kindergarten) at 3 instead of 4, which of course in Korea is 4 instead of 5. To get the jump on Korea, Japan is rumoured to be considering lowering the entry age for elementary school to 2 years.

Finally, what happens when India decides to invade the United States because one of the Mumbai bombers was from Washington, DC. Video here, from 3m 20sec.

This Week in Korea December 8 2009

*Korea Times: why it’s not a newspaper

*Korean holidays

*Advice for drinking

*Japan to take on 5-year-old Korean record holder

It’s been a rather boring week at work, but that has given me the chance to study more so no complaints from me. Weather (up until today) has been fantastic. It’s not as windy yet as it was last year but there is still at least 3 months of winter to come so I’m looking forward to my unbrella being blown away.

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An editor at the Korea Times (apparently they do have them though even a drunk monkey will find glaring errors in their articles) felt the need to ’set the record straight’ on the paper’s portrayal of foreigners. He uses the metaphor of the market and how it is fair; some products ideas sell well, others not so well. We’ve seen how well the ‘real’ market works and how ‘fair’ it is already. A place where CEOs of failed companies can expect bonuses and lifelines for their business (Henry Paulson was a CEO of Goldman Sachs prior to being the Treasury Secretary who approved loans to his friends), and lower level employees are layed off due to the “global economic crisis”.

Going back to the ‘editor’ defending the integrity of his newspaper, he tacitly said negative treatment of foreigners sells newspapers. He fails to understand how important this paper, as all foreign language papers run by Korean media, are in representing Korea. Their claims of fact checking are dubious. Simple arithmetic tells you that the vast majority of drug offenses are perpetrated by Koreans, yet this rag consistently omits information like this to focus on the foreigners committing these crimes (post with maths here, article here). Perhaps they have a political agenda? The quote from the police officer also reveals something,

Many of the Thai people arrested sold or took drugs, such as yaba and methamphetamine, around industrial complexes where migrant employees work. They also grew hemp near the factories and smoked it,” a police officer said.

The officer should have said ‘arrested’ to clarify that not all Thais in Korea engage in these activities. However, such gross generalisations seems to be the norm as neither the report or the editor (sic) see anything wrong with this. Is there ever a need to highlight an individual’s race? When describing a person’s appearance perhaps, or when saying where they come from. If anything, this is a lesson on how sloppy editing and loose journalistic ethics can target innocent groups. The editor’s market analogy also implies that his paper writes this way because his target audience wants to read about these stories. Luckily Korea Times’ Korean audience is only 4 people so the harm caused is limited.

On the other hand, maybe this is a systemic problem. When that one crazy went nuts and shot all those students at Virginia Tech, the president of Korea felt a need to apologise to the world. How is he responsible (or any other Korean person) for the actions of someone else? Perhaps because this idea of societal responsibility exists it makes it OK to group all people of one country together as one homogenous mass, like Korea and Koreans. Sadly (luckily?), this stereotype doesn’t work well in the real world. Australia/USA/Canada is more than just white people. All Australians/Americans/Canadians do not have the same accent anymore than people from Jeju and Seoul have the same accent.

For more on Korea Times, go here. I’m not the only one to write them about their credibility. Their reply sums up the paper pretty well.

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In other news, Koreans (and me since I work at a Korean company) will have 112 days off in 2010. 112 days off is huge, except that in Korea weekends count as days off. And a holiday falling on a weekend does not get a corresponding weekday off (my company is somewhat more lenient on this). So excluding weekends nets you 8 days off work (we get 12, plus extras). October, November and December have no days off this year as they’re holidays are on weekends. There is a law up for a vote about substituting days off (the deceptively named substitution holiday law) but it needs national concensus as it will affect the economy and people’s lives. Yeah, they may actually spend more time with their families.

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Advice for drinking at year-end parties? Don’t drink so much. Also, 30% of Koreans lack the enzyme that breaks down alcohol. Same doctor, almost the same article from last year. Talking about drinking, there’s concensus around here that soju is vile, though notthe worst thing you could drink in Korea. The beer is far worse, with the more popular brands being Cass and sHite. Even sojus aren’t created equal. The Ulsan variety is better put to use as boot polish. And don;t even think about having soju when you go back home, or to another country. It will taste far worse there because soju is contextual (at 10m 15sec).

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Last one for today: A Korean baby is officially the youngest ad model, at 5 days old. Word around the onggi is that Japan is planning on breaking this record for the sole reason that it is a Korean that is the current Guinness World Record holder. They say the Japanese baby will be 4 days old which is a double insult as 4 is considered an unlucky number (explains why ‘F’ replaces the number ‘4′ in many buildings).  More news on this as it happens.

This Week in Korea December 4 2009

*Pirate stock exchange

*baby terrorists

*Korean Air: making the switch

*Indians in Korea

*English + other language > just English

*Children are the future

*’Sexy children’ is wrong

*Seems pirates are smarting up, using proceeds from ransoms to invest in infrastructure. They’ve even set up a stock exchange. [No, not the banking types you've been hearing about. These are real pirates] Story here. Basically, people invest in the pirates’ operations and are entitled to a cut from the profits. This isn’t anything new as most seafaring nations backed raiding vessels they called privateers though there was very little difference between state-backed pirates and the more common kind.

*A terrorist group has posed toddlers with assault rifles. The girls are wearing the traditional Muslim dress which was co-opted from older traditional dress of the Middle East. Women covering their head with a cloth is not an exclusively Muslim practice as some Orthodox Christian churches have women do the same thing.

*Korean Air seems to support the theft of cultural relics. Nice way to endorse an active crime scene. Story here. Luckily Asiana also flies from Ulsan (their food is better too).

*As I wrote previously, the Korean government is trying to lure Indians to Korea as English teachers. Now, the majority of English teachers in Korea are from the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK. While some are qualified teachers (ie, completing a teaching degree), most are not. That is not to say that those ‘unqualified’ teachers care not for their students. It just means that it is relatively easy to get a teaching job in Korea without the relevant qualification. One simply needs to have graduated from a university in an English-speaking country. And sometimes one just has to be white. The interview for my first teaching job in Korea went something like this:

Me: Hello.

Agent: Hello. Is this Mr George (no-one can pronounce my family name even though it’s read as written)

Me: Yes. This is George speaking.

Agent: I am from Oxford English Institute. (I later found out this school changed name every month) Have you finished university?

Me: Yes. I graduated last March.

Agent: Good! When can you come to Korea?

Seriously, that was it. Was I mentally stable? Did I have experience teaching? What did I teach previously? Doesn’t matter. You look white. You’re hired! Even the question he asked was already answered in the CV I had sent him. Sure, some schools are thorough but they really don’t need to be since there isn’t any oversight in this industry. The hiring director at the last school I worked at, immeasurably better than the first one, would routinely pass photos of prospective teachers to us and ask ‘Is she pretty?’.

In the latest update to this story, a government think tank says the plan will fail because of visa rules [I can think of many other reasons. Photos for one ASAP]. read the last line of that article carefully.

Under the current Immigration Law, most qualified Indian professionals can apply for five-year work visas.

Surely the Korean government doesn’t expect to attract allow only Indian teachers who are qualified to teach English as a second language, when an unqualified blonde haired blue eyed whitey can be hired? Our magazine has yet to publish a cover of an Indian family, even though most people on our monthly trips are Indians. The excuse is that the trips are for ’supervisor level’ employees yet some of these Indians are higher than that level (work for India Steamship so they aren’t the stereotypical factory workers Koreans like to think they are).

Just shows that in some areas the way you look is far more important than whether you are qualified for the job.

*Interesting article here on the spread of English and how it’s bad for English speakers. In a world where everyone speaks English and their own language (and in some cases several more), monolingual English speakers would be at a severe disadvantage. I’m glad someone in Australia has the foresight (and gumption) to promote language learning in schools (blog post here, article here). It still bothers me that many of these quasi-intellectuals that commented on the article regard learning something new as a negative.

*These comments from high schoolers on how awesome Korea is really show how imaginitive Korean students are. (Korea is awesome in many respects, just that looking back is not the best way to move forward). Notice how all the comments sound the same. This is what happens when you have the education cocktail of oversized classrooms (40+ at some Seoul schools), rote learning and heavy handed political influence on the curriculum.

*Speaking of high schoolers, uproar double standard over a high schooler selected as a cover model for a magazine. What what!? She’s 18. Apparently an 18-year-old in a glamour magazine is morally reprehensible but dressing up toddlers in belly dancing gear and having them do the latest sexy dance on national television is OK.

Kpop (and why I love/hate it)

I must have caught the hip-hop bus today. Now that I know real music exists in Korea I need to find it to replace the standard “four cute girls/boys than can easily be replaced/added to”  songs written with the express purpose of selling me a phone. SNSD, 2ne1, f(x), 2pm, Super Junior, 4minute (I really hope there was no sexual connotation when they thought this one up), Browneyed Girls, Kara, M Black. It’s hard to tell how many members are in each group though some members are more expendable than others. For example, you may trade a Suyoung (SNSD) for a Bom (2ne1) but you can’t trade a Yoona (SNSD) for a CL (2ne1).  My usual tactic would be to put the TV on mute and just watch the music video except that I’m likely to have an epileptic fit.

The groups tend to be made up of 18 year olds (sometimes a little younger, sometimes a little older) but there are a few exceptions. Park Gahee from After School is 28, though she worked her way up from being a backup dancer. Most of these groups are formed in a ‘talent factory’ and you will often see groups expanding or members doing solo albums then doing a ‘comeback’ concert. Some of the groups are so big that the group leader needs to count the other members in when they are interviewed, “Hana dul set. Annyeong haseyo! __________ imnida!”

The most striking feature of Korean pop songs is the special dance move each song has. There’s the arm thing for SNSD’s Gee

….the leg thing for Genie (I have no idea why they are dressed like Sailor Moon. I would have expected something more like Barbara Eden but exposed midriffs are too sexual in Korea. Tiny skirts/shorts are OK though. Unusual to see a reference to a Japanese cartoon)

….the hip swinging thing from Browneyed Girls’ Abracadabra (I’ve seen b-boys doing this at competitions, just sad guys)

Kara’s Mister (in Korean it’s called the butt dance)– the chorus is basically saying “Look at me!”

Strangely, it is the female groups’ moves that are mimicked by manboys on talkshows and variety shows.

Current favourite is the SNSD/f(x) song-thinly-veiled advertisement Chocolate Love. Here is the SNSD version (wearing white because they have a ‘good girl’ image). They are also holding LG Cyon’s new phone. The chorus says “I want it”. The girls right at the beginning and the end (in black because they have a ‘bad girl’ image’) are from f(x)

Here is f(x)’s version. The dance moves are stronger and sharper (Mainstream masquerading as edgy? I don’t know) There are also a lot more close ups of butts, legs and girls close enough to kiss. At 1m 44s Victoria looks kinda bored though. The phone also makes many more appearances in this version than in the SNSD one.

Another common feature of Korean girl groups is that they usually have one leader; this girl is also usually the lead singer, one ‘dancing queen’; this girl is usually the one on the TV shows, she is also usually the one that has a signature end pose (something flexible like a split or a back catch) at the end of a performance, one anime-cute girl that is usually seen but not heard, and a rapper/rhymer; when this one sings it will almost always be in English.

Like I said earlier, these groups usually appear on TV shows like Star King스타킹; where being a tall foreigner is almost enough to qualify as a contestant; or Star Golden Bell (Rumour has it the longtime host was sacked for his political views, which he never actually expressed on the TV show anyway. C’est la vie in a government approved media CEO world). Shows like these also feature at least some members from a boy group and many middle-aged men known here as ‘talents’. When I ask people what these  ‘talents’ do; the name suggests they are talented at something but often when I look at the meaning of words I am misled; I am told that they are simply ‘talents’ like it’s a job description and everyone knows what they do so there is no need to elaborate. Think famous for being famous.

But meaning is important. 스타킹 can also mean ’stockings’ in Korean. One link found through Naver (Konglish for ‘neighbour’ as in ‘ask your neighbour’) goes to Hustler Stockings. Now, looking for Hustler on Google leads to something far removed from stockings. My job is to make sure that when we use Korean words in English (or vice versa) that those words do not have a negative or undesirable connotation. One brilliant example is HiMSEN which is a model for a marine engine. In Korean, 힘세 means ’strong, powerful’ which is a perfect fit for an engine powering a 500m long oil tanker. The opposite is the work safety programme, with initials HEMP. No matter how you spin it, there is no way to avoid images of marijuana when you think of that word. But most of the time my function is closer to a living grammar check than someone with a masters in public relations trying to change the image of Korea from ‘that crazy guy with the crappy hair’ to ‘Wow! Korea is where I want to go for cutting edge technology’, among other things.

This Week in Korea Movember 23 2009

*weekend in Seoul

*pro-life = anti-woman

*900kg of kimchi

*Korean food

I went to Seoul this last weekend and it was one of the best weekend trips there since I moved to Ulsan. Mainly because I had way too much champagne, way too many cupcakes (sorry, I forgot the bag in the fridge) and stimulating conversation. As always, it started to rain as I was boarding my plane back to fighting Ulsan. It has rained every single time I have visited Seoul since March.

One reason I was up there this weekend was to check out a car. The car was not priced as previously advertised even though we had talked to the ‘dealer’ several times before I went asking why the price was so attractive. So there you go, used-car salesmen (yes, all men at this place) seem to be cut from the same cloth whether in Australia, Korea or anywhere else. Of course, statistically there must be used-car salemen who don’t repeatedly lie to get you to come to the ’showroom’ then try to flog off another car. Kinda like when you go to a supermarket to buy your favourite brand of ice-cream but have to buy a different brand because your one is sold out. Doesn;t work so well with cars. I have yet to meet these people but I have hope that I will, one day.

 

Now, the news in my order of interest.

 

GYNOB, the Korean Gynecological Physicians’ Association, claims that all abortions should be banned except where there is a danger of the woman dying if she were to give birth. The same old tired argument about the foetus being alive when it is conceived (ie, as soon as sperm reaches egg which could be up to a week after coitus if it happens at all) is again trotted out. These people usually don’t mention that Korea also uses the death penalty but has not done so for over ten years. There are inmates on death row so this may reflect more on Korea’s judicial and prison system rather than on Korea’s fight for human rights. (Korean version of same story here).

George Carlin says it quite succinctly, “These people aren’t pro-life…. they’re anti-women” It’s about 9 minutes long, all worth listening to (he uses rather colouful language).

The Korean Navy is shipping 900kg of kimchi to the naval unit operating off the Somali coast. I think I will try to make some kimchi too.

 

Speaking of Korean food (hansik), I obviously like it since I’ve been here a good three years now. Part of my job is editing the English menu for the cafeteria (think the mess in 1984 but with much much better food) and I try not to translate things directly. For example, doenjang-guk (된장국) is a soybean paste based soup but just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Imagine how unpopular sushi would be if it were marketed as ‘raw fish on rice’. Sure, sushi is healthy and all but is that the only reason it became popular? It was cheap and could be eaten quickly with the hands. Sushi didn’t really take off in the West until Japan became the place to be for technology and electronics in the 1980s.

I guess hansik will become more popular once Korea bec0mes a more popular place to visit, ie people actually say Korea rather than ‘that country between China and Japan’ or worse still, ‘where Kim Jongil lives’.

#prefer doctor to physician.

This Week in Korea Movember 17 2009

*Low birth rates in Korea

*Shipbuilding in China

*Food Fight

*nitpicking the Korea Times (endlessly)

It’s no secret that I love The Economist (they have an excellent style guide) ever since a friend gave me a month’s subscription as a present. Now I get paid to read it. Reading the October 31st-November 6th issue about fertility confirmed some of my ideas on population growth/decline and I also learnt a few things. We all read things/associate with people who/watch things that already agree with our attitudes on any given subject. Why hang out with pro-lifers when you are anti-war, for example.

Basically, poor agrarian countries generally have higher birth rates than middle-income and rich countries. While he was visiting my university, George Aditjondro said that while the rich get richer the poor have children. So naturally as a country moves from an agrarian to industrial society the birth rate will fall as industrialisation gives woman and children access to work and education. Education costs money so you can’t afford to have a gazillion children. Furthermore, the state may also provide a retirement pension now so the burden isn’t totally on your offspring. The big problem is when this process happens in a short period, like in Korea (1965-1985 as opposed to Britain which according to The Economist took 130 years). Attitudes take a long time to catch up to reality. Hence the Spam as a Chuseok gift and the waste basket next to the toilet. In Korea you can (now) flush toilet paper as it is designed to disintegrate in the water unlike the newspaper/sandpaper commonly used years ago.

Falling fertility

Go forth and multiply a lot less

What does the Korean government plan to do to raise the birth rate? Toughen its stance on abortions (on paper abortions are illegal but according to the Ministry of Health there are about 350,000 abortions a year) rather than make having children an attractive, or at least not a Stepford wife, prospect.

                             ***NEWS FLASH: Women no longer baby machines!***

Benefits for childcare, stronger maternity leave laws, ‘baby bonus’ cash payments can all help instead of making criminals of women exercising their rights over their bodies. I suppose if suicide were illegal then we would have posthumous trials and sentencing.

Another solution to low birth rates (ie, less workers and soldiers) is immigration but that too has it’s own set of problems: other peoples’ prejudices.

You may also hear of how the hormones used in contraceptive drugs enter the drinking water and effect male sperm counts. We should therefore ban oral contraceptives. Methinks a sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits have more to do with it but it’s often easier to blame someone else than get up off that comfy chair.

 

Some days I read that Chinese shipyards will have 50% of global orders by 2012 (the end of the world I hear) and some days (and like today on the same day) I read that orders at Chinese shipyards are falling.

 

Here’s a video I found while doing my daily news search. A concise history of Americano-centric warfare from WWII to present. Food version.

See if you can guess which countries are represented. Might have to watch it a ferw times. Here’s the cheat with wars and countries.

Now, some nitpicking. Repeat offender Korea Times has this article about Songpa being the best place to live in. The best of anything is in the Highlander sense of “There can only be One!” best of anything. Four paragraphs in we are told that Songpa is actually the second best place to live in. Then we are told it is the second best place to live in regarding practices of the local environment.

Here is an extract from the article.

Last month, the district – one of 25 self-governing ward offices located in the south-eastern part of the capital – was selected by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) as one of the best places in the world for practices concerning management of the local environment.

So there are 25 self-governing ward in southeast Seoul? And program should be spelt programme as that is what the UN calls it. At work I would love to change center to centre to fit better with words like central but I can’t do that (and I shouldn’t do that) when it is the name of a building, organisation, or anything else that prefers their own spelling.

 

Women paid to listen to Gaddafi. I know I wouldn’t go to a hotel without  being told what was going to happen there. And for only $80??

 

Egypt to apply for the first internet domain name in Arabic! Speak American dammit! Not too surprising actually as I posted before.

This Week in Korea Movember 13 2009 (bonus)

*anti-Pepero Day

*Indian English teachers

Check this article out. Especially the guy on the left. Holding the limp tteok and that expression: priceless. Almost like a low-budget viagra commercial.

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2912393

In other news, the Ministry of Education plans to hire 100 Indians to teach English at schools. One complaint I received from my Korean supervisors was that I didn’t have an American accent and if I could teach in an American accent. I would retort with my best John Wayne accent. Their thinking was that everyone who speaks English has the same American accent, to the point that when I speak it’s like they’ve just seen a ghost (happens when I speak Korean too). I would point out that Koreans have different accents depending on their 고향 even though Korea is a fraction the size of Australia or the US.

Also, the biggest complaint from my coworkers is that they don’t understand Indian workers’ English accents. They probably fail to realise that the Indian workers here probably feel the same way about the Korean workers’ accents.

Now I wonder how this will work in the schools.

*George does a very poor Aussie accent.

This Week in Korea Movember 10 2009

All Korea update this week!

*Catalogue of pro-Japanese leaders published

*Exams begin

*North-South naval skirmishes.

*Lucky red underpants

A dictionary (should be called an encyclopedia) identifying collaborators during the Japanese occupation between 1910 and 1945 has been published by a group of people with not much else to do think tank. The highest profile person on the list is probably former president Park Chunghee. He is quite a complex character – as real people tend to be - with opponents highlighting his authoritarian rule while supporters point to his leadership in industrialising Korea through export-led growth.

NB: The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea had almost identical systems of government until 1987.

The group claims that the publication of such a dictionary is not politically motivated, referring to Park Geun-hye, the late president’s daughter and a possible presidential candidate.

Apparently Park made a pledge to be a Japanese subject, in blood. At the time he was a soldier. I’m curious on what your opinions may be on his motives. I like to remember the Three Kingdoms period were defeated generals would routinely pledge allegiance to their conquerer. Guan Yu (关羽) is a shining example. In the story he serves his sworn brother’s mortal enemy but leaves Cao Cao’s forces when the opportunity arises. Another example could be Zhang Liao (张辽) . He served with the legendary Lu Bu 吕布 but once defeated by Cao Cao he was allowed to remain in the Wei army and eventually became one of their most successful generals.

The question that needs to be asked is whether Park Chunghee was pro-Japanese in name only. For example, Oskar Schindler did not directly fight against the Nazi regime but did what he could with the time that he had to save as many lives as he could. It seems by the standards set by this think tank that even Schindler would be a Nazi collaborator because he didn’t stand up and say “Hey! This is wrong!” If he had done that, as a member of the Nazi Party, it is likely he would have met the same fate as the White Rose leaders.

Park Chunghee was also the target of two assassination attempts. The first is known as the Blue House Raid where a group of North Korean agents swam up the Han River and were thwarted 800m from the Blue House. Of the 31-man commando team, all but one were killed. South Korean casualties during the assassination attempt were 68 dead and 66 wounded. No one believes me on this story. Or on the Axe Murder Incident.

The second attempt was while he was delivering a speech celebrating the end of Japanese colonisation. While the assassin missed his target, Park’s wife was hit by a starny bullet and later died from her wounds.

Park Chunghee was assassinated by the head of Korea’s intelligence agency (KCIA) on October 26, 1979.

Another person mentioned on that list is the composer of the Korean national anthem, Ahn Eak-tae.

Exam season is upon us again, but this time is shouldn’t really affect me at all since I’m not a teacher these days. Unless I want to fly somewhere. About 96 flights, including two international flights, will be rescheduled so they do not interfere with the listening portion of the exams. The world really does stand still in Korea when it’s exam time.

More naval skirmishes between North and South again. Not sure if they are crab related.

Apparently sales of red underwear are up due to the H1N1 flu. Our monthly trip was cancelled this month due to the flu so I in effect got a free day off. 앗싸!! Red is a lucky colour, unless you write someone’s name in red, as that is the colour used when the person is dead. Apparently the wearing of thermal underwear increases the body’s temperature by three to four degrees and this helps protect against the virus. Last week my coworker was not impressed that I was expressing negative views on the company health announcement about the H1N1 virus. The televisions at my work have the Orwellian knack of turning on at 10am and 3pm for ten minutes, a break time. They are actually on on for seven minutes. In the broadcast the idea was that washing the hands with disinfectant will protect you. That information is not only wrong, it is irresponsible.

This Week in Korea Movember 5 2009

*Korean-made English ability test

*Fingerprinting of all foreign visitors

*Mr Bolt does a Glenn Beck

*Asian languages in Australian schools (with immigration garnish)

*Saudis to behead and crucify child rapist

*Food

We have an Australian flavour this week. Try to imagine that delicious lamb korma, or thai green curry, or prawn laksa, or Sydney’s Chinatown yumcha, or the souvlaki on the souvla, or the felafel and yeeros. And don’t forget the ever humble shepherd’s pie. My cousin used to run a takeaway shop in Blues Point, North Sydney. He always baked a shepherd’s pie and the same clientele would always buy it and remark how his shepherd’s pie was the best they had tasted. My cousin’s dog wouldn’t even eat that pie.

Why all the food? Because you really are what you eat. Because food is people (not, not in a soylent green kinda way). And because we have all those foods in Australia because we have a large immigrant community in Australia. But first, news from Korea.

Korea is set to abandon the TOEFL/TOEIC and replace them with state approved tests. This isn’t really that current as I previously wrote on another post. From the Minister of Education, Science and Technology, “The new exam surpasses other similar exams in its credibility because of the fact that it is supported and approved by the state.” No facts are given to support this statement. The claim is that the state-authorised tests will improve the level of English education. For those not familiar with the way bureaucrats talk, here is a translation:

Our government only has 5 years in power, at the end of which some current officials may be charged with corruption and bribery offences as is the norm in Korean politics. Because our campaign promises of improving English education seem unlikely to be achieved, we have decided to change the testing rather than the teaching of English.

The Korean government currently sanctions seven English ability tests, all of which are locally produced. TOEFL and TOEIC, both non-Korean produced and by far the most popular tests taken (for reason go back 9 words) are excluded from the list of state-approved tests. According to the newspaper, tens of billions of won are spent on TOEFL and TOEIC. This means that tens of billions of won are leaving Korea every year. Methinks promoting home-grown tests is a mild form of protectionism designed to keep money here and encourage the local “Pass Mr. Kim’s English Test” book market. To see for yourself, go into any bookstore and you will invariably find more books about how to pass an English ability test than books on teaching/learning English. Kudos to Kyobo Gangnam for stocking one ESL teaching theory book, the majority of contributors being Koreans addressing how to better teach English.

Not helping the situation for TOEFL/TOEIC is the US-based English Testing Service not paying any income take on sales worth about $21 million. ETS claims it is a non-profit organisation but according to the paper has not paid anything back into the community. You may think that $21 million is an obscene amount, and you would be right but you would also not be taking into account the TOEIC exams or the other seven major English ability tests in Korea (ETS is one of several organisations that administers TOEFL).

The Korean government is planning to fingerprint and photograph all foreign visitors from 2012. I know some foreigner groups in Korea will be up in arms about this. The United States started doing this is 2001 and Japan in 2007. So I guess hypocrisy of the human rights variety will be rife over the next few weeks. Remember, to be in this country you need to abide by this country’s laws, including laws of entry. All Koreans are obliged to submit fingerprints and mugshots when they turn 17. The only difference being that we get to choose to come here and we get ‘ALIEN’ written on our card. Always a good ice-breaker.

A few days back I stumbled on a writer – don’t think too highly of that profession as the proliferation of ’writers’ is linked to expansion of the internet – who must be running for a Glenn Beck-wannabe contest. He comments on the police raids in Melbourne on suspected terrorists and muses why their religion was not used to identify those taken in. The simple answer is called ‘vilification’. The fact that they are suspected terrorists and Muslims does not mean that all Muslims are suspected terrorists. Besides, unlike Mr Bolt, real news organisations (and real journalists) have a charter which generally forbids including racial or religious information when describing individuals/groups unless it is absolutely relevant. For example, one needs to identify which denomination is referred to when saying ‘church’ (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, etc) but one should not mention religious affiliation when describing a bank robber.

“Was he a bank robber because he was XXXX religion? What does XXXX’s holy text say about theft?” 

Besides, we all know there is only one unified all-encompassing (erm, catholic?) Muslim faith right? WRONG! Saying that all Muslims wish to visit divine wrath on Christians is as true as saying the Crusades were fully supported by all Christians. Just ask Alexius III. Artifacts stolen from Christians by Christians in 1204 were returned nearly 800 years later.

In keeping with our racial intolerance theme today, the Rees government in New South Wales has announced that starting from kindergarten children will be required to take up either Mandarin, Korean, Japanese or Indonesian for 90 minutes each day spread across all subjects except English and Mathematics. The article claims in its summary that the push will be for Mandarin as first choice. There is no further mention. Any English teacher will tell you that a summary should contain only information previously mentioned in the body. Summaries are usually at the end so our intrepid reporter might have put Mandarin (surprised they didn’t say Chinese since they speak Chinese right? WRONG) to grab the reader’s attention. China is Australia’s bogeyman, whole Yellow Peril thing. 

I had to learn Italian when I was in primary school for a few hours a week. Not because we were all going to grow up and go to Italy but because they thought we should learn something more. Some also give away their position by suggesting children learn a European language instead of an Asian language. Or even the Americanism “We’re Australian and English is our langaauge!” (misspelling intended).

China, Japan  and Korea are our biggest trade partners, and Indonesia is our closest neighbour so it makes sense that if we are to learn another language (we should learn another language), it should be one of those four. If not for simple business purposes – Tom Richards and Harry Smith both make identical offers to Lee Xiaolong but only Harry makes the offer in Mandarin – then for self-development and for understanding a culture different to your own.

What truly worries me though is the myopia some of these people’s comments betray. For a long time Australia saw itself as an outpost of Europe or as America’s deputy sheriff. Never mind that Indonesia is the fourth most populous and largest Muslim country in the world and is only 100km away. The comments show that while most Australians that come willingly to the country try to integrate there is still a sizeable group of people (that is either getting larger or just louder) that want nothing to do with non Anglo-Saxon migrants. How easy it is to forget the contributions people who arrived in Australia with nothing more than a suitcase have made to Australian society. When my mother came to Australia there was such a shortage of workers that the Australian government paid for her airfare provided that she stayed and worked for two years. She chose to stay permanently even though she was almost certain to start working at the Greek Tax Office had she returned when scheduled (she’s a smart cookie).

The Snowy Mountains River Scheme was the series of dams built in the 1950s and 1960s to supply water to agricultural areas and now produces 10% of New South Wales’ power. 70% of the workers there were migrants (my godfather being one, later working at Cockatoo Island in a shipyard). Most of those workers stayed in Australia after the project finished when their original plan was to work hard, save money and go home. So not only did they stimulate the Australian economy by not sending money back home (though some families did send a portion of their earnings), they chose to continue working hard in Australia.

Taking out those migrants leaves only 30,000 workers on that project over the same time. Methinks we’d still not have electricity in Australia without immigration.

Saudi Arabia is set to behead and crucify a 22-year-old man for abducting and raping five boys aged between 3 and 5 years. He left the 3-year-old in the desert to die after the ordeal. According to Amnesty International there were 102 beheadings last year for crimes like rape, murder and apostasy (rejecting Islam). Story here and here and here. Amnesty International rejects the courts rulings saying the defendant did not have access to a lawyer and could possibly have a mental disorder (sic). With the help of one of his victims, policed found the man who later confessed to the crimes.

I mentioned the food earlier because I often get asked “What is Australian food like?” It is hard for me to describe except for lammingtons and pavlova (though Kiwis claim the latter too). What I usually say is that you can find food from anywhere on this planet in Australia. For those of you in Korea or anywhere with a largely homogenous population, you may find the odd Italian restaurant or sometimes a Chinese restaurant but unless you go to a buffet you will be hard pressed to find a variety of food to rival that available in multicultural countries.

In short, more immigration means more diverse food. And I like food