This Week in Korea October 29 2009

This week’s digest

*Korean seafood

*Sino-Chinese relations

*South Korean defects to North

*Korean bear farms in Vietnam

*”The Chineses are COMING!!!”

*Languages other than English on the internet

*Me making tteok

So I lied about when this would go up. On Tuesday night my department went out for 회 (usually spelt ‘hoe’ but sounds more like ‘hwe’ like the first syllable of ‘where’). Korean 회 is almost the same as sashimi except for two things: it is much harder to pronounce and I hope Lee Charm and friends at Korea Tourism Organisation will do something about that, like they did with tteok/toppoki/떡#; and 회 rarely features salmon or tuna. When either one is on the menu they are usually frozen rock solid. Sushi (fish on rice) is called 초밥 (cho bap) in Korean.

The 회 we had was 광어 (gwang oh, with 어 meaning fish or language). In English it would be called flatfish. To those of you in Korea, it’s the weird side-ways fish. This fish is the one sold at the restaurant chain with the Orthodox symbol for Jesus.

The letters mean (in Greek) “Jesus Christ God(’s) Son Saviour”. This was used as a secret marker for early Christians when it was Roman policy to feed believers to the lions. Now you can find it on Korean fish shops. Yet the Koreans that ask me about my religion usually follow up with “Are you Christian?” when I say I’m Greek Orthodox. I tried explaining about the schism and also about the Protestant/Catholic break due to a certain King Henry (most of the people that ask me here are some form of Protestant) but they usually stare at me like I’m a one-eyed purple alien.

Point of that story being that I got a lot more drunk than I thought I was. Plus side was my discovery that chilled soju tastes much better than normal soju.

Recently Secretary Gates met with Xu Caihou (China’s top military man) for a 75 minute talk about China’s increased military spending (previous post here, reference here), Taiwan, cupcakes and Xu’s upcoming visit to the US. The USA spends about 5% of GDP on the military while China spends about 3% of their GDP. The actual difference in military spending is about 10:1. Gates rambled on about China being more transparent about their military spending (‘Come on guys, tell us where your nukes and battle groups are. Please? It will save us all the trouble of looking for them’), while Xu expressed his concern about US ships close to China’s shores (you know there’s a submarine base in Hainan yet you think it’s OK and that the Chinese are “not willing to abide by acceptable standards of behaviour” in letting you send an underwater surveillance ship to ‘you know, look at stuff’). A fruitful 75 minutes indeed.

In other military news, a South Korean man who had served in the army (most South Korean men have served in the armed forces for at least 22 months) defected to North Korea earlier this week. KBS’s re-enactment had a cartoon guy cutting a whole through a fence and making a run for it (presumably he survived crossing the world’s biggest minefield). The North reported that he had been welcomed by their ‘warm’ embrace.

According to Moon Gwang-lip, bear bile tourism could pose a problem for bilateral relations between Korea and Vietnam. Bear bile (like most everything else your local ajuuma will recommend to you) is good for stamina and sexual prowess. According to the article today, a significant number of Korean tourists travel to bear farms run by Koreans in northern Vietnam to purchase bear bile. Bear farming and the sale of bear bile is illegal in Vietnam. Bear farming and the sale of bear bile is legal in Korea. A travel agency director said he stopped taking tourists to bear farms because he learnt that the bile sold could be harmful to humans (being cut with chemicals to increase profits). Presumably if the bear bile was safe for humans the director would continue the tours.

In Korea, moon bears are an endangered species so it is legal to breed them. Those that don’t end up in zoos or shows are slaughtered for meat or harvested for organs and bile. The reporter’s email is joe@joongang.co.kr. Write to him and thank him for bringing this despicable trade to light. (More info here)

This got me thinking: If Koreans are doing something illegal (and not to mention cruel and abhorrent like the bear farmers) in another country then that country should set up an Anti-Foreign Crime Unit to bring these people to justice, swift Communist justice.

In Part Four of my 33-part series “The Chineses Are COMING!!!”, Qatar has decided to sell liquified natural gas (LNG) earmarked for the United States to China. This amounts for about 10% of Qatar’s LNG exports. Why did they do this? Dealing with the Chinese is simply better business. From Ibrahim al-Ibrahim, advisor to Qatar’s ruler: “We will not go to a low price market – there is a lot of demand for our gas elsewhere”. Basically, the Chinese are paying more money for their gas. China’s deep pockets coupled with a long standing policy of non-intervention in political matters (“Business is business after all. Sell to us and run around naked in the woods. We don’t care”) should mean you will see more of these energy and resource deals, especially with African nations the USA and Europe are loth to trade with on human rights grounds.

Part 5 of “The Chineses Are COMING!!!” is the recent meeting of the Chinese, Indian and Russian foreign ministers to discuss energy security (loosely translated as “We don’t want to be held hostage by the Middle East”), terrorism and climate change. Russia is a major oil and gas suplier for China and India. China and Russia have also been meeting with South American countries (notably Brazil and Venezuela) to discuss energy deals. China overtakes the US as Brazil’s largest trading partner China, Brazil Sign Oil Deal and China in huge Venezuela oil deal.

What should be more worrying for the West is China’s deals in Africa.  Though the China-Guinea oil/mineral rights deal is yet to be confirmed by China, Africa is still China’s biggest trade partner after the United States. And it looks like the Chinese are there to stay (see ‘business is business’ above).

Now for some real FEARMONGERING (I hope Andrew ‘Glenn Beck-wannabe’ Bolt catches this): The internet is set to undergo a major change with the expected approval of international names/addresses. Not scary enough? How about “Internet addresses in languages other than ENGLISH” Some statistics here and here. According to the second table, between 2000 and 2008, use of Arabic on the internet increased by over 2000%, Chinese by 755% and English by 203%. This table shows the number of internet users per country. China sits at the top with 338 million, followed by the Eurpoean Union with 309 million and the United States with 228 million. Again, the potential for growth is much bigger in China with only 25% of the population using the internet as opposed to 63% (EU) and 74% (USA). As China continues to get richer and other parts away from the eastern coast begin to develop, the number and therefore percentage of internet users will increase.

So the use of Chinese on the internet will increase too.

Now I have an answer for all those people who asked my “Why are you studying Chinese?” At the time, I was into the poetry and philosophy, but now there is a practical purpose for it too.

#떡 is rice cake in Korean. Here is me making some.

Fun but messy

Anyway, some smart alec/clueless twit decided it would be ‘easier for foreigners’ to change the name from the accepted spelling of 떡볶이 to toppoki, the long rice cakes in red sauce you find in places like Gangnam, Hongdae and Samsan (Ulsan). So now we not only have certain Korean agencies changing their language to accomodate people who by and large have no interest in Korean, but also people running around saying something as Korean as kimchi incorrectly. Could lead to Koreans wondering why foreigners can’t even say 떡 properly. For the record, I think it should be spelt ‘tteok bokk i’.

Come on guys! Have some pride in your language and culture!