Daily Kor for Friday, May 25, 2012

Group home: artist rendition of city to be constructed
by Hanwha Group in Besyama, Iraq (story #8)

Only seven more shopping months until Christmas.

1. ROK Supreme Court orders Japanese firms Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel to compensate forced Korean laborers for suffering during colonial era (AP via WaPo, Joongang Daily, Yonhap, Korea Times, Korea Herald, Donga Ilbo, Chosun Ilbo)
2. ROK Unification Minister Yu Wooik (유우익) says inflammatory rhetoric from North Korea is sign of rising instability of Pyongyang regime (WSJ)
• Seoul warns Pyongyang of "new actions" and "grave consequences" if it goes ahead with nuke test (UPI, Yonhap)
3. GM Korea says it has no plans to shift production to Europe (Reuters)
4. Incheon International Airport wins Airports Council International's "Best Airport Worldwide" award for seventh year in a row (Donga Ilbo, Chosun Ilbo)
5. Lee Myungbak calls for "shared growth" and "balanced development" that favors not just individual firms but other sectors and regions in order to prevent social instability (Yonhap)
6. Sluggish real estate market brings growth of household credit to two-and-a-half-year low (Reuters, Yonhap, Korea Times)
7. US to sell $1.1 billion worth of Seahawk choppers and harpoon missiles to ROK military (UPI, Yonhap)
8. Hanwha Group wins $7.75 billion order in Iraq to build entire city for 100K families (Joongang Daily)
9. Riots break out in Pyongyang when rally participants mistakenly believe newly unveiled statues are made of chocolate (AP)

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The Marmot's Pinhole: a view of Inchon Bridge

If you haven't checked out The Marmot's other blog, the one with pictures of all the buildings, both old and new, go do so.

In addition to a new take on old structures, the Marmot likes snapping pictures of Korea's more modern constructions, like Songdo New City in or the freshly iconic Inch'ŏn Bridge that cuts across the bay connecting the northern port city with its highly acclaimed air terminal.

Is it just me or did Samsung, which built the bridge, deliberately set things up so that pictures from this vantage point would inevitably have a giant 'S' in them?

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LAPD takes Jindo K9s off the menu

Do you know Chindo?

From the Los Angeles Times we get word that the Great Chindo K9 Experiment of 2011 has been a bust:

In a canine experiment in better policing, the LAPD recently spent months training a pair of South Korean-bred Jindo puppies as possible new street enforcement partners.

But the Jindos are in the doghouse as a replacement for more traditional European bloodlines, such as German shepherds or Belgian Malinois. The loyal but excitable Jindos, officials said, just didn't take to the exacting work of crowd control, weapons detection and drug sniffing.

"We worked hard with the dogs to develop their skills of sniffing out the odor of guns for detective work," said Sgt. Doug Roller, chief trainer for the K-9 platoon of the Los Angeles Police Department's Metropolitan Division. "They pretty much mastered the task, but once they got out of the training environment, they got distracted in the real world.... A leaf would blow, and they'd go chase it."

The Jindos — named Daehan and Mingook, which together translate as "Republic of Korea" — have been placed in private homes after trainers determined they lacked sufficient focus and consistency.

So the Chindo dogs were essentially canine versions of Korean yuhaksaeng: well disciplined and highly capable, but going hog wild when let loose abroad.

I don't really know what to say about this. I think Chindo dogs (sorry, but I don't like the "Jindo" spelling) are great as watchdogs, but it might take a lot more special breeding and training in Korea for them to be ready for prime time in the wild-and-woolly American police context.

For that matter, are Chindo dogs actually used much in Korean law enforcement? I suppose employing them more in a Korean situation to find out which strains are better equipped for real-world police work would be a good next step.

But the dogs used as drug-sniffers at Incheon International Airport are, famously, cloned canines, but not Chindo: they're Lab retrievers, straight from the lab. I suppose cloning some more of them and successfully getting them out in the field in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, or Peoria would also be a win for national pride.



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Reeper madness

With a hat tip to KoreaBeat, the #10 most read news story at Naver was about some visitors to Korea who decided to upload to YouTube a video of themselves smoking pot (and meth?) in the little enclosed "smoking area" inside Incheon International Airport. Frickin' twenty-one months ago. (I guess it took the netizen bots that long to scour the YouTubes for offensive content related to Korea.)

This is KoreaBeat's clip descript:

A group of criminal mastermind English-speaking foreigners made a video of themselves smoking marijuana and taking pilopon in the smoking room at Incheon International Airport, then uploaded the video to Youtube.

For those who are unaware, philopon [히로뽕, or hiroppong, in Korean] is meth.

Here is a link to the Donga Ilbo news story at Naver, and here is a link to the actual video ("Smokin' weed in Korean Airport").

While I would love to tell everyone clicking on the Naver site, "Don't fear the reeper," the other side of me puts palm to forehead and goes, "Geez, what are they doing?! Come to a country where drug laws are strict, smoke weed in public, make a spectacle videotaping yourself, and then upload it for all the world to see?" I guess these mooks won't feel any heat since they're apparently traveling on to Russia. Not sure what drug penalties are there, but I can just imagine how well pot-smoking Americans go over with the Russians.

What's that they say about pot smoking and impaired judgement?

Anyway, what I found most interesting about this story is that the Donga Ilbo or Naver decided to pixelate their faces, ostensibly to hide their identity, even though these four gentlemen themselves made no effort to hide what they look like.

Oh, and in the process, they made the one in the middle look like Hines Ward.

UPDATE:
Oh, I should have known from the title that the four gentlemen in question are part of some rap group named Onyx. So I should have introduced them by saying, "Here are several fine young men who I'm sure are gonna go far." Also, the Korean-language article refers to them as 유명 연예인 ("famous entertainers") in the first line.

But the truth is, I don't follow hip-hop. Being straight out of Compton myself, I'm keenly aware of the irony that hip-hop and rap are quasi-musical forms engineered by unscrupulous executives and perpetrated by usually talentless "performers," that are voraciously consumed by gangsta-wannabe White and Asian kids from the suburbs who would sh¡t and pee themselves if they'd seen stuff I'd seen back in my old neighborhood.

So pardon me if I didn't know who these role models are. (And now it's even funnier that the their faces were pixelated.)

Actually, I did sorta think that the guy on the right looked like the obnoxious 
gangsta-wannabe boyfriend of Moesha on the late 1990s UPN show Moesha, 
and it turns out I was right. That's actor Frederic Scruggs. 
You may know him as Fredro Starr. Or not.

UPDATE:
Ask A Korean also has a post up about this.

Remembering the Inchon Landing, sixty years later

The Marines are marking the occasion with ceremonies and reenactments, including MacArthur impersonators.

I am marking the occasion with an enthusiastic and heart-felt "thank you."

More thoughts on General MacArthur and his role in modern Korea can be found here.

Tensions "boil over" for European travelers stuck in Inchon

I think it's the fake European food at the airport that has driven them over the edge. Anyway, this snippet from an AP article was in today's USA Today:

Tensions boiled over among frustrated passengers at Incheon International Airport in South Korea, where 30 people blocked a Korean Air ticketing counter and demanded officials arrange travel to anywhere in Europe after hearing about the test flights.

"We need a flight, we need a time," Thierry Loison, who has been stuck at the airport since Friday on the way back to France, told Korean Air officials. "We were like animals this morning."

Frankly, I don't know which side to sympathize with. I mean, it's not like IIA created the volcano or made the decision to postpone the flights. The best they can do is make sure that the non-Korean-speaking transit passengers are able to be housed and fed without being price-gouged, and that shouldn't be too hard with the E-Mart and LotteMart in the business complex near the airport or in Airport Town Square a few kilometers to the east. Right now I'm seeing reports of basic amenities, but I'm not sure that's enough.

And the more freebies they can give, the better. Portable cots (if they even have those), blankets, food vouchers, free showers, free laundry service, etc. If IIA left these transit passengers scrambling on their own (which doesn't seem likely, but nevertheless possible), then they do deserve criticism.

But I wonder how much of this is the irate rantings of people who are lashing out about the gross inconvenience and cost of being stranded for Lord knows how long, perhaps to the point of being unreasonable. These are test flights, not regular flights, and they still don't know who is going to fly from where, and there a new cloud of ash is wafting toward Mainland Europe.

That said, Korean Air and any other airline with its transit passengers stuck in Inchon should try the best they can to take the high road and get these folks as close to home as possible. It's just good business, and the kind of thing you'd expect from a place trying to be recognized as the world's best airport.

Here's an idea: Maybe anglophone foreigners and KoKos alike could organize as volunteers to take the stranded travelers on day trips into the city, to give them something to do and hopefully see this delay as an extension of their vacation. Could someone back in Korea right now alert Seoul City Hall and Incheon International Airport to this idea? I'll even let you take credit for it.

UPDATE:
I forgot Brian did a lengthy post on this.

John Glionna of the LAT really likes Incheon International Airport

I mean really:

Passengers slumbered on comfy loungers. Others enjoyed free public computers and Internet access, no-charge showers and luggage carts. Some watched a performance of traditional music at a cultural center, or placed bets at a casino.

Wandering the gates were Wal-Mart-style greeters assisting lost souls who didn't speak Korean. There were numerous computer kiosks that, with a swipe of a plane ticket, displayed an easy-to-read map showing a passenger the path and transit time to the gate.

"These are the things that make a traveler feel welcome in a strange land," Kreiser, 44, said. "It's an airport that's extending a hand to say, 'Thanks for coming. We're glad you're here.' "

Located on an island of reclaimed wetlands not far from the site of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's first allied assault in the Korean War, Incheon is the scene of a new offensive: Opened in 2001, the airport has set its sights on becoming Asia's premier air hub, overtaking competitors in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

And by 2020, officials here want to redefine airport services to match those of an average city. On land the size of Manhattan, there are plans to construct a theme park, a yacht marina, designer studios, a fashion runway, a convention center and a hospital complex to capitalize on medical tourism.

I'd live there.

MacArthur

ADDED LINK:
The English-language Chosun Ilbo ran this piece by Myongji University professor Kang Kyu-hyung, which seems to dovetail nicely with some of my points below.


UPDATE (August 2010):
It seems the chinboistas I referred to below may really have been directed by Pyongyang to launch the effort five years ago to remove the MacArthur statue.

ORIGINAL POST:
Today marks the fifty-fifth anniversary of General Douglas MacArthur's brilliantly strategized Inchon landing, which eventually cut the invading North Korean forces in half, opened up a road to Seoul, and turned the tide of the war.

For decades, MacArthur the Savior has been revered as a national hero in the Republic of Korea, a country that, it is no exaggeration, still exists because of his military genius.

To many, he is still a great hero, especially those who were around during the Korean War or who grew up in Korea's ruins during the aftermath. For most of the rest, he is still a great man, some might even say flawed, but still a person who helped save Korea.

Of course, there are others, the chinbo ("progressive") groups, who are now using the MacArthur statue in Inchon's Freedom Park [자유공원] as a focal point of their anti-American protests. If they had their way, the statue would be toppled in the same way that Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled when Baghdad was "liberated."

The conservative opposition Hannara Party (GNP, or Grand National Party) is seething with anger over this effort. They make no bones about labeling the chinbo groups as pro-Pyongyang agitators who must not be allowed to succeed. President Roh Moohyun, who is usually found left of center, has said the statue should not be removed, especially because it would upset the sensibilities of the US government and Americans at a time of already strained relations (he is silent on other reasons).

In contrast, the extreme left-wing Democratic Labor Party [민주노동당], which touts a pro-Pyongyang line to go along with their communist-sounding Korean name, is reportedly in favor of removing the statue.

Most people seem to be in favor of leaving the statue there, and it is under 24-hour guard. But one has to wonder how this became an issue in the first place.

A left-of-center newsradio host I do some work with put it this way: the problem is that there has simply been no debate about MacArthur. He was always a great hero to Korea, a view practically shoved down the throats of every Korean schoolkid throughout the military dictatorship period and beyond. Thus, to the leftists, MacArthur is indelibly associated with military rule at a time when Truth Commission-type groups are trying to shed light on whose forebears gained from collaboration with Japanese military authorities prior to 1945 or were in cahoots with home-grown military regimes after that.

But does MacArthur deserve this treatment? I guess it's wise to call into question a historical assertion that has never been closely analyzed, but this should be done in a fair and honest way. I simply don't believe that the chinbo groups have that in mind. As part of their treatise against MacArthur, some are accusing him of things he had nothing to do with, such as the actual division of the Japan-occupied Korean peninsula (intended to be temporary, though the chinbo groups often don't acknowledge this) at the end of World War II.

My own take on MacArthur has never been a gushing one. I grew up in Orange County, where our airport was named after a movie cowboy/soldier and is located on MacArthur Boulevard, but I quickly learned that even in his own time, he was a controversial man whom President Truman felt he had to remove.

"The Hidden History of the Korean War," by left-wing journalist I.F. Stone, in some way informed my view of MacArthur as a military genius who failed in the end to hold onto the unified Korea he fought for in the autum of 1950 because of his own hubris and passionate despisal of communism, which clouded his otherwise good judgement (Stone made the case that the US-led UN forces unnecessarily retreated in the face of what was, at first, a phantom menace trumped up by MacArthur as a pretext for expanding the war to remove the communists from China as well; I'm not saying I subscribe to that belief, however).

Ultimately, though, he deserved credit for saving South Korea. Then and now, the Chinese, not MacArthur, bear responsibility for the continued existence of the murderous Pyongyang regime.

That's what I told my left-leaning radio journalist friend (along with something about MacArthur being a main figure in defeating the Imperial Japanese during World War II and his efforts to instill modern Japan with democratic institutions helping to keep the Japanese from remilitarizing).

She nodded in agreement. Despite her criticisms of USFK (directed at their behavior here, not their presence) and her disdain toward President George Bush, she agrees that MacArthur deserves a place of honor in Korea.
But therein lies the difference between my left-leaning friend and the true believers on the far left: she values her freedom, and they don't. Or perhaps they have not thought it through: the very freedom to spout an angry opinion about MacArthur that is different from the government's is a freedom they would not possess had MacArthur failed or just never been around.

But many of them don't care. The classical true believer feels that today's South Koreans would have been better off unified but under communist rule than living free but in a divided nation. National unity under communism beats freedom. At least, for those who are thinking about it.

Maybe some of them aren't thinking about it. To me, opposition to MacArthur's actions in Korea is a statement that Korea would be better off red. It's no coincidence that some of the people who say this think that the Great Leader Kim Ilsung or his Dear Leader son Kim Jong-il are heroes. All I can say is "thank goodness that they are a tiny, tiny minority." Loud, well-organized, and somewhat media-savvy, but nonetheless tiny.

The true believers are the people who live to bash the United States, Japan, the government, and corporate Korea. While I don't think that any of those four groups are beyond reproach, the true believers are often driven by a blinding hate that makes them oblivious to anything but the negative.

They go to school and study Marx, Bruce Cumings with his revisionist histories that make them believe that the U.S. and South Korea were the real culprits in the Korean War, and "alternative news" sources that downplay or ignore rampant human rights abuses in North Korea. The only way to ever change their minds would be to send them north to live. But that would be too cruel.

When I worked for a certain Jesuit-run university here in Seoul, I encountered a Catholic monk who was very adamant about how the U.S. was railroading North Korea. Upon questioning him further, I found that he firmly believed that what "we" are told in South Korea about the North is mostly lies, or that the U.S. or South Korea were to blame. I was dumbfounded that anyone could think like that, especially a religious figure.

"You're a Catholic monk," I said to him. "Do you have any idea what they do to people like you up there?" He told me he didn't think those stories were typical of what really happened in North Korea, what the Vatican had to say about it notwithstanding.

I knew students who thought like that, even ten years ago. I became fond of telling them that if they had grown up in North Korea, they would be about fifteen centimeters shorter and have very bad teeth. The famine that killed millions later provided horrific evidence of my point.

I guess it's inevitable that, after years and years of unquestioned fawning over MacArthur, there would be some backlash as the pendulum swings toward greater openness and democratic expression. But we cannot tolerate lies in this discussion.

I am no blindly pro-military cheerleader. But I do see that the role the U.S. military and government have both played in Korea in the post-war period has been overwhelmingly positive (though it can always be improved). MacArthur is front and center where that begins and how it is defined.