South Korea's prison robots in the LAT

I'm beginning to feel a bit like Aaron Altman, a main character in Broadcast News (a 1987 film about its titular topic; yeah, I'm dating myself, but hey, no one else will — rim shot! ... actually I was a teenager in 1987).

You see, late last month, I highlighted South Korean plans to employ robots in South Korean prisons (in South Korea, prison and schools — same-same). Fast-forward a week later and — bam! — there it is in the Los Angeles Times.

T'is not the first time I've noticed this pattern. I could be full of self-importance, though, but in this case, I think I'm one of the very few in the K-blogosphere who wrote about this.

Back to Altman. He was a news producer, writer, and sometime on-air talking head, but he was upstaged by a pretty-boy former sportscaster who, basically, didn't know much of anything but the network needed him to sound intelligent in front of the camera. With the help of microphones and telephones, etc., etc. (this was 1987, pre-Wikipedia), Aaron Altman basically talked the talking head through a breaking news story.

Sitting in his living room watching the fruits of his labor emerge from the telly, he says to himself, "I say it here, it comes out there."

Okay, okay. You had to be there. And no, I'm not likening John Glionna to a pretty-boy talking head who doesn't know anything (to the contrary, I imagine he's very intelligent and quite homely). But I do feel I'm feeding him ideas. Not that there's anything wrong about that, since he does go and do his homework (though I think mine has more of the snark the story is screaming for).

...

Time for a change of space?

Though I have my own domain, the blog itself is powered by Blogger (some of you may remember that until nineteen months ago the URL was kushibo.blogspot.com), and every now and then Blogger (which is now run by Google) comes up with some nifty tools.

New among them are the so-called "dynamic views" which promise to completely change the way one might interact with a blog such as this. To get an idea how Monster Island would look different, Blogger has allowed a preview of sorts. Below are the various dynamic views, roughly in order of my own preference:

• Timeslide

• Flipcard

• Snapshot

• Magazine

• Mosaic

• Sidebar

• Classic

Frankly, I'm one of those "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" kinda bloggers. The Marmot changes his layout more often than his hanbok, but I've only made one major change, when I went from the color scheme found in the template used by Dokdo Is Ours to one that I'd customized to draw in the colors of Korea's Taegŭkki flag (and I wonder if anyone every picked up on that).  

The truth is, I like the format now. This is a text-intestive blog, not a photo-intenstive one, and maybe it's better if the headlines and copy are there for all to see. At the very least, I wouldn't want to change to any of those dynamic views unless I could keep my current color scheme. 

I'm also not sure where ads, links to other blogs, and "about kushibo" stuff are supposed to go. 

Anyway, I'd appreciate readers chiming in. 

... 

Recommend a blog!

One reader noted that I seem to read a lot of what he/she called "kvetchpatry"-promoting blogs, to which I replied I would love to hear about other good blogs.

So that got me thinking that I should put up a post asking for more such suggestions, something that might be worthy of the esteemed honor of being on the "Blog roll of blogs that list me in their blog roll (plus a few other blogs I like or check out)" or the uber honor of making "Our Daily Breadth."

So if you're holed up on the East Coast because of Hurricane Irene flooding, have at it. Everyone else, too.

...

In other blogs: Hello, Dalai!

Stuff I found that you should read. Go.

• Stafford has a good overview of the Apple privacy case in Korea.

• The Korean has a recap of impressions from his recent trip to South Korea (it might not be walk you're thinking).

• Chris Green of Destination Pyongyang reviews Winter Butterfly.

• Roboseyo goes to SlutWalk Seoul 2011 (it might not be what you're thinking).

• An 18-year-old soldier in USFK was sexually assaulted by a twenty-something Korean man (and may get a harsher punishment because the victim is legally a minor). Korea Beat also has the story.

• The Marmot comments on the Dalai Lama's visit with Obama and how that has pissed off the Chinese. 

• At One Free Korea, Joshua discusses opposition leader and possible presidential candidate Sohn Hakkyu's unrealistic idea of North Korea and South Korea co-hosting the 2018 Pyongchang Winter Olympics. 

By the way, if you have something special that you'd really like highlighted among my seven readers or so, email me a link and I'll consider it when I do this again (I plan to make this a regular feature).

Yahae! in the WSJ

In the old days (i.e., 2009 or earlier), yahae (야해) clothing or dress may have been described as slutty, but today the word appears to have become synonymous with a different kind of whore, the media type.

If you read Metropolitician's site, then you know all about his latest venture, Yahae! magazine. And I say "latest" because he really does churn out an awful lot of projects.

I am ambivalent about this one. I have already said my peace about the title of the magazine over at ROK Drop...

“Yahae” seems like the kind of title a non-native Korean speaker would think sounds really edgy but a native Korean speaker would find very grating. At least one native Korean speaker concurred with that opinion, but that person is slightly conservative.

Anyway, nice to see Metro is putting up fashion photos of people who clearly know their picture is being taken. ...

But it’s your magazine to succeed with or fail, and I know I couldn’t convince you one way or the other. I think, however, you’re being a bit careless to dismiss anyone who might caution you against it as conservative and square, as some might enjoy the content but think the title itself may bring unnecessary stigma to your venture. Sometimes listening to critiques is a crucial step in success.

Anyway, I'm putting up a post on this because somehow the Wall Street Journal's ROK(news)hound, Evan Ramstad, found out about the mag and decided to do a piece on it:

The South Korean media almost never miss the story when a Korean, or someone of Korean descent in another country, wins an international competition.

But Han Min-i didn’t get much attention for winning the 2010 Miss International Queen Crown in Pattaya, Thailand, last fall. The beauty contest is for transgender/transsexual contestants, which doesn’t jibe with South Korean cultural conservatism that’s reinforced by its no-risk media.

Now, a new online fashion web site in Seoul called Yahae is trying to push the envelope. And in its first “issue,” Yahae over the next few weeks will publish a set of stories about the challenges faced by sexual minorities in Korea. Its cover photo features Ms. Han in shimmering silver.

I'm not so sure I agree with Mr Ramstad. If transgender/transsexual issues "don't jibe with South Korean cultural conservatism" to the point of mainstream media exclusion, then just what the heck was the whole Harisu phenomenon all about starting ten years ago?

Seriously, Harisu (하리수) was inescapable. The media followed her every move, with ubiquitous bikini pics, news stories, gossip columns, etc., etc. Even nudes (NSFW!). Even a tampon commercial (now, come on... that is edgy)! Most of the coverage was quite positive, and she was a hit. All in "conservative" South Korea, even in its most conservative mainstream media outlets.

So if there's anything that "doesn't jibe," it's Mr Ramstad's description of what has been going on. I'm not even sure if what he's saying about Han Mini "not getting much attention" is even true. Her name brings up 210K hits, and if you Google her name in Korean (한민희), 1위 (first place), and transgender (트랜젠더), you still get 18.5K results.

Granted, those aren't Harisu numbers (1.64 million!), but that could just be an indication of a relative lack of interest. I mean, seriously, are people required to be interested in a transgender beauty contest? Maybe, just maybe, the phenomenon is a bit old hat.

But that leads me to another point, and maybe I'll get flak for this, but to some degree, Metropolitician is engaging in something akin to cultural imperialism. He has decided that Korean society is too conservative and square because — in his view — there are few people who share in the envelope-pushing interests he has (e.g., acceptance of transgender people as exemplified by interest in international transgender beauty contests), and so he is going to foist it on them.

Now, to be fair, I may be making a facile judgement about Yahae! magazine based on what Mr Ramstad is writing about it. Mr Ramstad may have cherry-picked the most unrepresentative article in the early bunch and I shouldn't conclude anything from it. In fact, I do like some of the articles (the Korean-language HPV awareness one focuses on an academic interest of mine), and I think it is great that Metropolitician is able to create such a wide venue for his photography and fashion interests.

I do feel compelled to address one other thing. Frankly, as someone working his arse off to concurrently get a PhD and a master's degree while juggling some serious family issues, I would never label myself as a "professor" or effectively talk about my PhD as if I already have it. But Mr Ramstad seems to be elevating Metropolitician to such a level:

The founder and editor is Michael Hurt, an American professor in Seoul who is well known for his photography and advocacy of Korea’s budding fashion industry.

I have utilized my master's degree to teach at two American universities and one Korean university, but I was a lecturer (강사), not a professor (교수), and I would correct people if they called me the latter. My résumé clearly says lecturer. If Metropolitician is teaching at a university that has given him the official title of kyosu, then so be it. But I'm skeptical, and PhDs are hard enough to earn that those who haven't yet done it (and I don't believe Metropolitician has, even though he talks about being "a Ph.D. candidate" from time to time) shouldn't be purloining that honor.

Actually, I do have a point that I wish I'd made some time ago, but if he hasn't completed his degree yet, it's still valid: at some point one is probably going to have to make a decision to pursue either these pet projects or the doctorate itself. Five years ago, Metropolitician wrote of being a PhD candidate, but he still seems to be no closer (I haven't heard or read anything about it). Either finish the doctorate or just admit that you've given up that goal and stop talking about it as if it's a credential you've accomplished. That's what you need to do to claim things like this:

I will be blunt – I am one of the most academically highly qualified and directly experienced foreign educators in Korea. Since I know that Korean society tends to respect credentials, I will begin there.

I don't say this to be mean; I actually mean it as a form of tough love. My ex let herself get sidetracked from her master's degree for what turned out to be a very long sabbatical, and it was my egging her to just hunker down and actually do it or admit you've given up that nudged her back on track. It was tough, but she picked up the pieces again and finished it.

Okay, okay. This is beginning to sound like a Ramstad-Metro bash fest (not that I would ever be critical of Metro), but I don't mean it to be. I would really like to see Metropolitician's magazine succeed. Really. But I also would like him to realize that getting this project to the level of sustainability that others have not reached might require him listening to — and sometimes actually heeding — advice and constructive criticism that he in general is a bit loath to hear and follow.

And HERE, ladies and gentlemen, is the magazine's site itself. Go read.

Updating "Our Daily Breadth" blog roll

It's time for a little bit of housekeeping. Some of my favorite blogs and/or blogs I find most useful are listed in Our Daily Breadth, in the right-hand column, down there beneath World Famous Posts. Go take a look. I'll wait. I've got Raising Hope on Hulu, so I'm not going anywhere.

Among them are the usual suspects I routinely check out — The Marmot's Hole, ROK Drop, One Free Korea, Brian in Chŏllanam-do, and KoreaBeat — but the list also includes a few others of less renown that are still worth paying attention to. One of them, List of the Day, has absolutely nothing to do with Korea except for an occasional entry in "engrish photo of the day."

But nothing is constant except change, and so Our Daily Breadth must keep up with the times.

Out with the old.
They say change is good, but they're full of crap. Tell me how "a change for the worse" is good, unless we're talking about Kim Jong-il's pancreas screening or someone like that. A couple of really good blogs were lost today, and I'm not happy.

I find it a bit sad to be removing DPRK Studies, but the only post up, from eight months ago, is a message that blog owner Richardson is signing off. He didn't even leave up the old posts (please, if you ever stop blogging, leave the legacy for others to enjoy.... mkay?).

Now I can't say that Richardson and I saw eye to eye on everything — perhaps only a bit less than Joshua at One Free Korea and I do — but I liked the insight and the effort. It was a good blog.

Similarly, I'm a little disappointed to find that Foundatron appears to be having some hiccups. This is a blog that was dedicated to mapping and bicycling by someone in Seoul, and I put it in the Daily Breadth in part to encourage its development. Unfortunately, it appeared for a while that WordPress bots had taken over, and now it seems the owner is in the process of migrating to Google Apps, but for now I have no choice but to remove it — for now.

Also, Korea Pop Wars, by the eminently good guy Mark Russell, will be removed just because it's no longer updated. I will put his new blog, the not-nearly-as-Korea-related Mark Russell's Website, in the lesser blog roll.

Extra! Korea has come back from the grave, so I'm happy to keep that one up there. The Grand Narrative will also remain, even though I don't go there as often as I used to. I like the blog and I think the owner has great insight and everything, but it often tends more toward the salacious than the substantive, and I think it suffers. The "sociological image" series, methinks, has veered away from sociology of the people and is at times more akin to analysis of the advertising industry.

Sure, media images from commercials and pop music do affect what goes on in Korea or any other modern society, but if one were to get most of what they learn from TGN, I think they'd get a skewed picture of what everyday South Koreans are like, perhaps even on matters of dating and sexuality that the owner frequently discusses. Just a gripe, not a criticism; I do like the blog and I'm keeping it in Our Daily Breadth, so that obviously means something.

And Brian in Jeollanam-do stays, even though he's not actually in Chŏllanam-do anymore. He does maintain his blog, and his love of the region (some would say tough love) remains high. He's probably the Honam area's biggest promoter in English, and I say more power to him.

In Canada, this is how we do ddongchim. 
You must understand our culture.

Exposed Waygooks! will also remain, just because it's my blog and I do plan to upgrade it, especially after this summer when I plan to cruise Hongdae and Itaewon looking for oégugin and KoKos acting stupid. Or if someone sends me worthy pics.

In with the new.
But I am happy to add new additions as well. Chris at Destination Pyongyang deserves a spot for his analysis of what's going on in North Korea, a topic dear to me.

I have also recently discovered a blog of sorts that amounts to a robust newsfeed on North Korea where the owner, a peninsula-based gent named Tor, occasionally adds commentary. It's called northkorea.Collected, kinda self-explanatory.

I have also added The Chosun Bimbo, Adam Cathcart's blog, and Eat Your Kimchi to my "Blog roll of blogs that list me in their blog roll." I probably should have done that a long time ago. [UPDATE: I've made a further addition, seoulsuzy's A Seoulful Life, which has a lot of neat little personal tips on things to see and places to go.]

Some have asked me why I don't put such-and-such blog on the list. Well, there are some who go on hysterical rants that make sweeping generalizations about KoKos and their attitudes toward foreign residents while whining over and over again that KoKos make sweeping generalizations about foreign nationals. Sheesh. And then there are some where, owing to past uncalled-for acts that caused personal offense, I don't see myself regularly promoting the blogs of said bloggers, even if I occasionally comment on or even occasionally link to theirs and would share a brew of some kind if the opportunity presented itself.

Room for one more.
If you have a blog and you would like me to consider highlighting it, please drop me a line. Even if it doesn't make the eclectic cut for Our Daily Breadth, there is probably plenty of room in the only-slightly-less-prestigious "Blog roll of blogs that list me in their blog roll."

That is, unless you're doing something illegal, unethical, or overly weird, like koala porn.

There was a time when "BOK" meant Bank of Korea...

... but now everyone in the K-blogosphere knows it stands for Blackout Korea. You know, that site that simultaneously gained praise and infamy for posting pictures of South Koreans who presumably were passed out from excessive alcohol consumption.

When it first came on the scene in late 2009, I chimed in with thunderous ambivalence:

Maybe I'm too jaded, but I find this site more disturbing than amusing. I'm referring to the content of the pictures, not the fact that someone made a blog about it (hell, it's a chronic problem in Seoul's "entertainment districts" and it's worth chronicling — chronicling the chronic heh heh). I see people passed out and I think of the dangers of alcohol poisoning. I see people staggering in or toward the street and I imagine they're about to become roadkill.

At the time, my reservations about the site stemmed in part from my feeling that that the subjects in some of the photo were just one or two bad decisions away from death or a serious maiming, which made it not that funny to me.

But I had no idea at the time that BOK would inadvertently end up creating a race to the bottom of sorts, a competition to provide the most outrageous picture so far, which would eventually get upped by someone else. This brought the posers — meaning people posing with their subjects, not phonies — those who made funny faces or stood near or behind the passed-out subject in what were supposed to be amusing scenes. And then came the assaults. Those who apparently put things on the passed-out subject, who was now a victim.

These were posted and responded to with relish by some, but a lot of others started expressing reservations, including yours truly:

Though I did suggest last year that the site was somewhat amusing, I agree that a few of the posted pictures do cross the line (the Marmite assault, the simulated ass rape, and perhaps this one below). I also hadn't been aware that, despite the supposed sociological justification for the site (see the interview link), the owner had been deliberately avoiding posting pictures of blacked-out foreigners because, "when I was starting it out I wanted to establish the site as a mostly Korean phenomenon." A tad distorting, methinks, but okay, at least now he's got pics like those familiar to anyone whose college life included keggers, except it's outside.

Frankly, it hadn't occurred to me last year that a string of such posts would encourage more and more outrageous behavior on the part of the picture taker. I would have thought that most of the shutterbugs would realize that legal considerations in the ROK over invasion of privacy might make it a tad imprudent to be making the happy face in such photos, much less the randier scenes.

To his credit the BOK site owner has removed the first link just above and removed the most incriminating photos in the second link.

Still, it caused quite an outcry. The Marmot called it one of the most poorly conceived blogs he's seen in his time.

And then the Korean media discovered it. That's usually where all hell breaks loose, but the response has been surprisingly calm. I mean, it's not like the amateur photogs were making and posting amateur porn or anything (see also here).

Let's face it: if you come to a new country and act like dip$hits, then you're going to piss off some of your guests. Naturally, there were some people among the Korean netizenry who were perturbed, and they responded angrily. A blog called "English teachers out" (ETO) was put up, received an angry response from anglophone K-bloggers, and then disappeared.

BOK's site owner himself responded, and I began to rethink my own public opinion on the matter. In response to BOK's protest that "there are blacked out foreigners on the site... there are less of them...because there are less of them in the country!":

That seems a tad disingenuous, since in the past you had been deliberately avoiding posting pictures of blacked-out foreigners because, "when I was starting it out I wanted to establish the site as a mostly Korean phenomenon."

Still, I sympathized with the guy and his contributors being so viciously attacked. ETO in particular was ill-conceived on so many levels, but one reason in particular was that not all the foreigners in the pictures were English teachers, a group it seemed hell-bent on demonizing. Moreover, many English teachers were outspokenly opposed to the BOK site and (as if this needs clarifying) most English teachers never contributed pictures to the site!

ETO is now gone, but a new site has emerged on the horizon: Blackout Mirror. What is glaringly wrong about BOM is that it attempts to go after the foreigners posing in the pictures. The BOM site owner, a person going by the userid Bintz. It includes some of the more incriminating photos of the picture-taking foreigners, with an appeal for readers to identify the foreigners.

And this is why I was prompted — nay, compelled — to speak out.

Bintz is angry, but I wrote a simple appeal asking him to take down the site (in the comments section of a well-thought letter by regular Monster Island reader Schplook).

I wrote to Bintz to tell him I understand his anger and his annoyance. I myself have railed against the knee-jerk Korea-bashing that goes on in the Korea-related English blogs and in real life. I really hate it, and sometimes I'm tempted to throw up my hands and just say, "God, if you hate the country and the people so much, why do you stay here?!"

BUT, I told him, I think his response may not only be counterproductive, but may also hurt innocent people. The BOK site owner himself is almost certainly not in any of those pictures, so even if the goal is to get revenge, it's almost impossible.

Another very important thing that Bintz and other angry Korean netizens should consider is that some of the foreigners in the pictures may themselves be innocent victims. They may have been with friends who decided to take the picture and they had no idea someone would post the for-private-consumption picture online for all the world to see. Some might not realize how the badly the posing makes them look. This is especially true if the "blacked-out" person is someone they are friends or acquaintances with. To put it simply, we don't know the context of the photos nor the motivation for contributing them.

And just as BOK's pictures may violate photography-related privacy laws, BOM may also be violating Korean law by putting up "information" about someone (in the form of an image) with the intent to defame them. I'm no lawyer, but it seems this is serious business, for much the same reason BOK posting them may be.

More importantly, however, it is wrong to go after someone "in real life" for something they say or do online (especially if it is not illegal or causing harm to someone else, as is the case with some of BOM's reposted pictures). I have been attacked several times "in the real world" by people who simply did not like what I wrote (foreigners and Koreans both), people who tried to get me fired, get me kicked out of school, or otherwise disrupt my personal life.

It is wrong, plain and simple.

Angry netizens like Bintz should also realize that if they really cause damage to these idiots' livelihood, someone might turn around and do the same to them. That's the problem: The cycle of revenge for revenge never ends.

I urge Bintz to take down that site. Be the better man.

Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

The Metropolitician has lashed out at The Marmot for calling him a "crazy Nigga."

The Marmot (Robert/Bob) wrote:

I just hope Mike took his pills before reading that. I would hate for this blog to give a fellow blogger an aneurysm. Or a severe case of carpal tunnel, knowing Mike.

To which Metropolitician (Mike) responded:

Sooooo -- over at The Marmot, it's now not just belligerent commenters, but the founder himself, who suggests that I must be crazy (hence, the pill-taking, I assume) because 1) I report that I am regularly harrassed in places such as the subway in Korea, along with dozens of other instances I can cite, as well as countless other people whom I know and 2) he implies that I either bring it upon myself or, alternatively, must be crazy to report it back to others as a pattern. ...

Remember, Robert, YOU brought this shit up, brought my name into this, and implied in front of thousands of readers that I would have an extremely violent reaction and a specific opinion to this topic (which I don't) -- all completely UNSOLICITED by me, out-of-the-blue. Just like your commenters, I'm not only not even talking about any of this within earshot of you people, I'm not even THERE for the conversation -- YET YA'LL KEEP BRINGING ME UP.

My reaction to something like that isn't unreasonable, nor unexpected. I'm not in your grill, nor on your blog, talking about race, violence, or anything else -- I've been wise enough not to even broach any serious topic on your blog, what with the puerile nature of your commenters. Even with that, I've always either linked to or written on your blog respectfully, and spoken of you in the same way. We don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but I thought there was at least respect as colleagues.

So I don't see the need, or how it's at all appropriate to be talking about me going into histrionics, needing to "take my pills," or some such shit, basically making me the unsolicited whipping boy for all that is liberal, related to race, or blackness in your part of the blogosphere. Like the post about the black dude who filmed himself fucking some Korean chick on secret camera, where some commenter started talking about my MOTHER and something to do with the slime or other bodily fluids that your commenters guffawed about me being the result of. And I know you DO sometimes intervene and police your commenters -- just not for unsolicited, disgustingly racist comments. You tacitly approve them, and probably find them as funny as your peanuts gallery apparently does.

Because now, you're apparently participating in the baiting. Because that's what it is when I'm sitting over here eating my fucking oatmeal only to read about how you apparently think, like your readers, that I'm some fucking comic book character who's lost his marbles, is going to go vitriolic batshit over anything touching the subject of race, or is constantly engaging in self-serving name-dropping when YOU people are the only ones bringing either me, or that shit, UP.

I expect as much from your commenters, but not from you. I was pretty goddamn surprised, actually.

So, a very hearty "fuck you" to you, Bob.

Please bear in mind that Metropolitician guest-blogs from time to time on The Marmot's well-known site.

Mike does bring up some valid points, which I deliberately left out here so you'd have to read his words on his blog. But while I think it's valid to point out that the hanbok-wearing White dude that is The Marmot is not regarded the same or treated the same as the 'fronytail-sporting Metropolitician, I'd also like to point out that Metropolitician's experiences in Korea are full of much more drama than most other Black people I've known in Seoul (a group that includes my tenants, my students, my classmates, and a few co-workers).

CORRECTION:
The Marmot didn't actually call Metropolitician the N-word. That was Metropolitician's interpretation, apparently. Metropolitician often hears people saying "Nigger" when they've actually said something else, a point I addressed here a year ago:

There is something inherently problematic about using a simplistic one-to-one correspondence when explaining in one language what someone said in another. I covered this in my "Do you know Ch'usŏk" piece, but I think a more relevant example comes in, say, the outrage about Koreans saying "Nigger."

I have long felt, and The Marmot seems to agree with me, that 검둥이 (kŏm•dung•i) is better represented as "darkie." The word is still insensitive and inappropriate, but it by no means carries the historical baggage — and violence — of nigger. Koreans have not been lynchers of Blacks, they have not legally or physically barred Blacks from marrying Koreans (or anyone else), nor have they enslaved, segregated, red-lined, or systematically and institutionally tried to keep down Blacks. Nigger comes from that violently supremacist mentality, which is far different from the xenophobic race-infused mentality that produces words like 검둥이 (or 흰둥이 for "whiteys"), and that makes it terribly misleading to use them as equivalents when describing racism or attitudes about race.

[Of course, if you're on the receiving end of it, it may be seen as tah-MAY-toh/toh-MAH-toh, but I submit that the latter is far less damaging and much more amenable to change than the former. I also recognize that a WASP WASP-like entity German-Irish Catholic from Long Island (The Marmot) may be the last one to expound on the comparative hurtful usage of 검둥이 or Nigger being hurled at someone, but I'm straight out of Compton, so maybe I've got a little more cred. Just a little.]

And speaking of my childhood back in Compton, I don't recall anyone at our "playground where black folks go" saying, "Don't start no shit, won't be none." Not that it isn't good advice. (Seriously, I do find it amusing when Metropolitician uses TV versions of Black people in an attempt to wrap himself in street cred; I don't think Metropolitician would have lasted long in my old neighborhood.)

Excuse me, there's something in my craw.

I don't know why this bugs me. Maybe being accused of plagiarism just isn't my thing. But then again, why did I say hardly anything for over a year, but now wish to speak up? Maybe it's because the same person unfairly dissed my online friend, Joshua Stanton, perhaps for no other reason than Mr Stanton getting a lot more props and having a lot more peeps.

Anyway, the facts were these. On July 13, 2009, I posted a piece ("My misanthropic views...") condemning Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were then being held in Pyongyang, along with their colleague Mitch Koss, who was by then safely back in the US. It was clearly described as a "recap" or "rehash" of two posts I'd earlier written, one on March 22 ("Pack your bags, Governor Richardson! ...") and the other on March 26 ("Useless useful idiots...").

Both of the March 2009 posts were very critical of those three, expressing a likelihood that they knowingly and foolishly ventured into North Korean territory, and blaming them for likely causing hardship for North Koreans who would have used that region to cross over but now couldn't because DPRK authorities would likely have plugged up that part of the somewhat porous border. (At the time I was unaware they also had tapes and notes of their interviews on their persons when they were captured, which would only have bolstered my beliefs.) And for good measure, I wrote similar sentiments over at One Free Korea.

But in response to the "recap," one commenter wrote on my blog that GlobalPost North Korea columnist Bradley Martin "beat you to infamy." When The Marmot highlighted my July 13 "Misanthropic Views" post with his own post, commenter sperwer linked to the same Martin article and wrote that TMH readers should "Skip Kushibo and go directly to the opnion-maker whose work he badly cribbed." He added that, compared to mine, Martin's article was "less filling; more (intellectually) nutritious," apparently a reference to a beer commercial from the 1950s.

While the commenter on my blog was simply stating that a prominent writer had beaten me to the punch on my claims about Ms Ling, Ms Lee, and Mr Koss, the TMH commenter was accusing me of plagiarism. Never mind that I had written those same unpopular opinions — in not too different a format — nearly three months earlier than Mr Martin. I wasn't even aware of the Martin article until it was pointed out to me like this.

If anything, I think I could make the case that sperwer might have it backwards: That is, that Mr Martin may have cribbed from me, since I prominently posted links to the March posts and reiterated their contents numerous times at One Free Korea, where they were not exactly well received (many people were incredulous about my claims).

As a North Korea columnist, Mr Martin no doubt has run across OFK, and may even be a regular reader. Now I'm not saying Mr Martin actually did crib from my work; rather, I'm saying that if any plagiarizing or cribbing of ideas was done by Mr Martin or myself, it couldn't have been done by me. Of course, it's entirely possible we both came up with the same idea, me in March 2009 in the days following their capture, and he in June 2009 in the weeks following me plastering my opinion all over One Free Korea.

It wouldn't be the first time a prominent Korea-connected writer had borrowed from my ideas without citation. Wink. And for good measure: Another wink.

And that made me wonder: What gives? Why do people who don't even bother to do their homework (e.g., reading what the July 13 post clearly was described as "recapping") need to go out of their way to bash me and my work? I guess some people just see the name kushibo and go into some sort of derangement. I s'pose the 'roids will do that.

But why do the same to Joshua Stanton? Sure, I don't agree with everything he says (I think at times he can be a bit quick to dismiss those who do or did believe engaging with North Korea was worth a try), but his Plan B is a brilliant bit of work and he deserves kudos for that and his painstaking research into North Korea's archipelago of prisons and his dedication to documenting abuse and palace intrigue in North Korea, as well as the reaction to it in South Korea, the US, the UN, and elsewhere. He has a well-researched, timely, and important blog with fresh ideas that policymakers ignore at their peril.

Okay, so the two things — a knee-jerk attack on me and an unwarranted attack on Joshua Stanton — aren't related except for the source, but it just got in my craw. The commenter in question is not the only one who attacks based on name alone, and I guess that makes me all the more curious why people do such things. I certainly try not to; I'll be danged if I can't say I haven't found at least something informative and/or intellectually challenging from nearly all of (what I think are) the worst of the K-bloggers.

Whither Korean Rum Diary?

It might surprise some of you that I enjoyed wandering over to Korean Rum Diary from time to time. Though I never met the man behind KRD, he seemed an alright chap to me, a bit of a diamond in the rough who was putting finger to keyboard to vent his frustrations about Korea.

So it was a bit dismaying to see that KRD decided to pack up the blog when he left South Korea sometime this past month. There were a lot of interesting posts and comments that no one can access now, and that's too bad. There isn't even an email address through which I can contact him to ask these questions.

And this gets into the philosophical problem about what to do when one no longer is able to or wants to continue a blog. Is it right to just delete it, to treat it as if it never existed? Frankly, I think that's a bit unfair to readers, especially those who took the time to leave comments. While they (we) know the risks of leaving a comment on someone else's blog, the blog owner should consider that he/she is eradicating others' words as well.

I've seen this blog shutdown with quite a few that I enjoyed or commented frequently on. Jodi's Asia Pages was one (actually, she shut down her Blogspot blog and then later turned her Wordpress blog into a "protected" blog), while Richardson's DPRK Studies has a "signing off" sign on it.

By contrast, blogs like Plunge Pontificates live on despite years of inactivity (and if you read here, you'll know why I'm glad the blog continues).

I suspect Jodi may have started to feel antsy that some nasty detractors were using some of her less-than-positive posts against her in her professional realm, but I don't see the point in Richardson's case. There were some excellent posts there that will only be accessible if the Wayback Machine gods are aligned just right. As for Korean Rum Diary, I have no idea why he pulled all the pictures off the wall.

So erstwhile K-bloggers, what's up with that? Any chance you'll let us stroll down memory lane again?

Two from the NYT: computer-enhanced dopamine and the post-colonial Koreanization of Estonia

If you get tired of hearing KoKos go on about this thing or that about the four-decade Japanese occupation, you might not want to head for Estonia, where ousting Russian influence in favor of native Estonian has become a battleground in a cultural war:

Estonia, a small former Soviet republic on the Baltic Sea, has been mounting a determined campaign to elevate the status of its native language and to marginalize Russian, the tongue of its former colonizer. That has turned public schools like the Pae Gymnasium, where the children have long been taught in Russian, into linguistic battlegrounds.

Because Pae’s administrators and teachers are state employees, they are now required to have a certain proficiency in Estonian and to use it in more classes. The National Language Inspectorate, a government agency that is not exactly beloved in Russian-speaking pockets of Estonia, is charged with ensuring that the law is followed.

The language inspectorate has the right to fine or discipline public employees who do not speak competent Estonian. While the agency has only 18 inspectors, it is such a provocative symbol of the country’s language regulations that even Amnesty International has criticized its tactics as heavy-handed.

Meanwhile, if refreshing this site — or better yet, a site with a far more robust comments section like Brian's, Marmot's Hole, or ROK Drop — gets you all excited and tingly every time you press COMMAND-R (or whatever it is in Windows), you may be an addict:

Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information.

These play to a primitive impulse to respond to immediate opportunities and threats. The stimulation provokes excitement — a dopamine squirt — that researchers say can be addictive. In its absence, people feel bored.

The resulting distractions can have deadly consequences, as when cellphone-wielding drivers and train engineers cause wrecks. And for millions of people like Mr. Campbell, these urges can inflict nicks and cuts on creativity and deep thought, interrupting work and family life.

While many people say multitasking makes them more productive, research shows otherwise. Heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble focusing and shutting out irrelevant information, scientists say, and they experience more stress.

And scientists are discovering that even after the multitasking ends, fractured thinking and lack of focus persist. In other words, this is also your brain off computers.

I used to be a frequent commenter at The Marmot's Hole, until I got to a point where I realized the thrill of getting caught up in discussions was preventing me from getting real work done. I put myself on a diet of one-comment-per-post, but eventually I realized that was like an alcoholic having just one drink, and I eventually went nearly cold turkey altogether. Not only that, I announced a planned retirement on my own blog that I had to stick to when family and school obligations made it impossible for me to keep blogging.

I guess it's that "dopamine squirt" that's at work, and even now I have to be on guard. I'm careful to blog primarily the fruits of my efforts to maintain a knowledge base for Korea-related issues that I need to be familiar with in my future professional career, and I comment on other blogs only within carefully prescribed limits on a small number of blogs. Commenting on Marmot's Hole again would be the equivalent of going off the wagon for me, and I would set my mind not to do that even if I somehow became a "contributor" there.

My name is Kushibo, and I'm a blogaholic.

The Telegraph plagiarizes Joshua's work at One Free Korea

Go here to see the case laid out. It's pretty clear-cut. Egregious and inexcusable.

Joshua's a lawyer, and a couple other lawyers chime in (including Brendon Carr), and they discuss whether Google Maps images that have been interpreted (i.e., painstakingly pored over and analyzed to locate key North Korea structures and facilities previously unknown to the public) and enhanced (e.g., arrows added to show where key items are located) are Joshua's or remain the property of Google.

But clearly the descriptions of the locations and the facilities that are provided by Joshua cannot even remotely be considered the property of Google. They are solely the work of Joshua and they are not on the maps.

Make no mistake, this is serious business. This is the kind of thing that gets undergrads kicked out of college, thank you very much. In the professional world, this is out-and-out theft: The Telegraph passed this off as their own research, and on that basis they sell subscriptions and advertising. They profited from Joshua's efforts. Shame on them.

The Telegraph owes Joshua a public apology, an explanation, and perhaps some cash.

UPDATE (next morning):
According to Joshua, The Telegraph is now crediting One Free Korea for its photos and descriptions. I think they should also issue an apology and explanation, but if Joshua is satisfied, then I'll let it go.

Byodo-in Temple near Kaneohe

Inspired by the comments at this "Lost"-related post at Ask a Korean, I've decided to post a picture I took of Byodo-in Temple, which is a re-creation of a famous temple of the same name (but with mācrōn dīātrīcāls) in Kyōto-ken, Japan. It was used as the backdrop for the wedding of Jin and Sun, the two primary Korean characters on the program.

It begs the question, like the Santa Monica Mountains near Malibu which served as the location for M*A*S*H, does this look anything like something you'd see in Korea? And if not, is it really that big a deal? I can't even begin to count how many times I've seen places in Seoul or Kyŏnggi-do stand in for the US or Canada.

A good read from Metropolitician

I sometimes get on Metropolitician's case for being a drama queen with something of a chip on his shoulder, but he has some very good insights that make his site worth a look every now and then (which, coincidentally, is how often he updates it).

This post in particular is one I would like to direct you all to. It's a very good reminder that we all could use a mental check every so often to ensure we're learning before speaking, and that we may not know as much as we think we do:

Oftentimes, these conversations reek with cultural condescension and outright ethnocentric arrogance. Does some noob fresh off the plane and here less than three months really think that such revelations have never occurred to Korean reformers, government officials, or specialists in education, such as teachers or principals, or to the students themselves? Take, for example, our own screwed up education system in the United States. In the final analysis, the major source of disparities between school districts and individual schools has to do with the division of resources from property taxes. Why don't we just "fix" these things and get on with it? What the hell is America's problem? The solution is "obvious," right? ...

In the end, it's quite arrogant to assume, as a foreigner and a newbie, that after 2 weeks of thinking about the subject, all social problems would be solved if people just thought like you. It's also arrogant to keep stubborn and unwavering opinions without having done much thinking about the subject, nor any background reading, anything. You just sit there at the bar with your beer and have the answer.

Isn't that what we often get on Koreans' case for?

It's something I have said and would say again, but when he does it, no one would accuse him of apologism. (Actually, I encounter Europeans, Japanese, Taiwanese, and Koreans engaging in the same such behavior I see so many anglophones doing back in Korea, which is all the more reason I see the message as very universally apt.)

Book ends of free speech

On one end we have the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression in town speaking at Yonsei University (Go, Eagles!) about official curbs on Internet freedom in South Korea (as well as other ways in which free speech is stifled), and even supposedly being spied on and tailed in the process.

And on the other end we have what some would call "free speech" run amok, the very need to have curbs and checks (at least identity checks) on what speech appears on the Internet, among other places:

Within hours, the student became the target of an Internet-based witch hunt. Photos of a female student and her address on a local social networking site spread on the Web, but the university said the hunters identified the wrong female.

While some find it chilling that the government would try to require real names be used for Internet activities (if not on-screen, at least at registration), particularly when it comes to whistle-blowing or expressing ideas critical of the government or Korea Inc, others point out that such behavior as in the second case are allowed to occur because of the lack of accountability by anonymous users in online forums.

Frankly, I haven't talked too much about these issues because I'm sympathetic to both sides. As a blogger, I don't like feeling that there may be certain topics I cannot broach without offending someone who may try to come down on me, but as someone who has been physically threatened several times* (not weekly like some people), has had his email hacked into repeatedly by online foes, and has had people who don't like what he writes trying to hurt him in the real world with smear campaigns aimed at getting him to lose his funding, academic standing, and even livelihood, I sometimes long for a world where people can't launch such vicious attacks from the comfort of anonymity.

* includes a White uber-Korea apologist named Gary, several first-generation kyopo, and at least one rabid English teacher named Scott

Apparently I'm not as anti-Korean as Korea Beat or Popular Gusts

Truthfully, I'm a little disappointed I didn't end up on this guy's sh¡t list (i.e., list of blogs that sh¡t on Korea). Hasn't he read this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, or this?

I guess Netizen Kim is right: No one pays attention to my blog. Except you. And slim.

Thanks for dropping by.

In other blogs (April 25, 2010 edition)

• The Korean addresses the new Arizona law that allows the police to stop anyone they suspect of being an illegal alien, a law many fear will target primarily Hispanic- and Asian-looking people for racial profiling, with some serious consequences if you don't have ID on hand. 

• And on a roll, The Korean handily deals with the Lousy Korea blog fiasco in the comments section of Korean Rum Diary (here, here, and here). While no one deserves threats of injury or death for what they write (and I'd really like to see some of what was we're talking about before I totally sign off on that, as it appears that some other threats in the NSET universe may not have been genuine), the site itself was an exercise in hate speech masquerading as free speech and there should be no surprise that it attracted equally stupid and hateful response.

• Extra! Korea has written a well thought-out list of possible future scenarios of conflict in Northeast Asia in the context of whether the US military presence should remain in South Korea.

• Ampontan addresses the lawsuit against President Lee (dismissed, but apparently being appealed), saying that Lee should be impeached for asking Japan's then-PM Fukuda Yasuo to wait a bit for the Ministry of Education to release guidelines for junior high school textbooks saying that Tokto is Japanese territory. 

In other blogs (April 5, 2010 edition)

• At Gusts of Popular Feeling, matt talks about a bridge collapse at Olympic Park. Seriously, when I first saw the heading for this one in the "Our Daily Breadth" column at right, I thought he was doing a flashback post on something from the 1990s. Yikes.

• I'm way late on this one, but at Discovering Korea Matt has a nice piece on Sŏnyudo Island (Seonyudo), the park in the middle of the Han River, near Yanghwa-daegyo Bridge.

• Brian (formerly) in Chŏllanamdo talks frankly about his run-in with Immigration over his earnings while writing for the Korea Times, especially the prospect that a very unethical journalist was behind it.

• Though it's a few days old now, Joshua at One Free Korea gives a good overview of what we know and what is possibly true about the sinking of the Chonan. 

• Robert at The Marmot's Hole introduces "38 North," a new blog-like entity on North Korea by the US-Korea Institute at SAIS.

Big changes on Monster Island

As you may have noticed, this blog is now automatically redirected to its new name domain, monster-island.net. This is one of several major changes coming into effect at the beginning of the 2010-11 fiscal year. Allow me to explain.

As some of you already know, the Ministry of Culture & Information and the Korea Tourism Organization have been jointly subsidizing my blogging efforts for the past five years, part of an effort by the Korean government to offset the generally negative impression generated about South Korea elsewhere in the K-blogosphere.

This has been a wonderful gig: I got paid a decent amount of money to trawl the Internet for happy, fuzzy stories about which to blog while taking my online persona to other blogs and countering false, misleading, or overly negative writings about Korea. This pay — 95만원 per week, hence the handle kushibo — helped pay for my education, my mortgage, and a brand-new Mini Cooper when I arrived in Hawaii.

But now the gig is up. For a variety of reasons, the MoCI and the KTO have decided not to renew my five-year contract, citing three major reasons in particular. First, the weakened economy means less money for experimental projects, and I have lost out to a promotional campaign that brings Nobel Peace laureates and Pulitzer Prize winners to Tokto. Second, there was a growing perception that most of the viewers of K-blogs were English teachers who were going to form negative views of Korea no matter what rosy things were written on blogs like mine, so the effort was "inefficacious."

And finally, it didn't help that my post ridiculing uber-patriots who want to scrap the Korea spelling in favor of Corea — written solely to throw off those people who might suspect a clandestine financial arrangement like the one I had made — has been the second most viewed post in the entire English-language K-blogosphere for the past three years.

So it was abruptly last week, after several emails sent from my end inquiring about contract renewal, that I received the call that the funding wouldn't be there for the coming year. But then they added insult to injury: the KNTO felt that they might be able to find someone else to do my job more quickly and cheaply in the future, so they forced me to relinquish the Kushibo name, a brand I had developed on my own. Indeed, before even telling me I was fired, they'd already posted a job listing on Dave's ESL for a cultural blogger to replace me, and they've threatened a lawsuit if I keep using that handle.

Fortunately I never signed any documents related to the Monster Island name, which was actually added as a joke in 2006, hence the new domain. And since I still control the passwords for the kushibo. blogspot.com address, I've been able to redirect traffic to here, at least for the time being. But in the future if you encounter a blog at kushibo.co.kr or kushibo.go.kr, please realize it's a fake and treat it as such. Anybody posting as "kushibo" will also be fake, as from now on I plan to use my actual name, Spot Miller, in all my blogging.

But now there is the problem of payment. A sudden deficit of W950K per week is a gaping hole to fill in tough times like these, but I have some ideas. There will be more ads, of course, but I'm also planning to make this a by-subscription site. I have an average of about 400 to 420 daily readers, and 950K won works out to W4.1 million won per month, so if each of my regular readers paid 10,000 won per month, then there'll be no loss of income and I can continue to provide information and humor without interruption.

In fact, it would be even better humor because I wouldn't have to kiss anyone's pasty arse by saying nice things about the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (who the fu¢k's drinking binge churned out that name?!). I can promise more posts, more information, more cutting-edge humor, and yes, Tokto porn.

Oh yeah, you read that last one right. I had suggested in 2007 that risqué pictures featuring Tokto as a backdrop or a theme would lead to numerous hits, but I was shot down by Lee Hanu himself, that prudish Moonie who was the real force behind my ouster.

But now I'm free! Free-falling, as it were.

For now the blog will remain subscription-free for the next thirty days, but starting on May 1, it will look a lot like the Wall Street Journal site, where most of the items will have one line only. And it won't be the best line, I'll tell you that.

In the meantime, however, please feel free to donate money to the cause. Here's the link. I don't really buy lattes with it: I buy groceries, gasoline, and plane tickets to see my ailing uncle. I don't even have enough money for beer or gambling. And if it weren't for a steady supply of girls whose low self-esteem is constantly triggered by all the half-naked women running around Oahu, I wouldn't even be able to afford to date.

I'm sorry things have worked out this way, but come on, isn't it worth just 333 won per day — less than the cost of buying a Nigerian orphan a cup of coffee — to keep viewing the Daily Kor, Loose Change, Person on the Street, and the occasional K-pop celebrity soft-core? Wouldn't your life be a miserable hell hole without it? I know mine would.

Do you link to Monster Island?

If you link to this blog, please drop me an email so that I can make sure I include you when I update the cross-linkage portion of the right-hand column.

That is, unless you're doing something illegal, unethical, or overly weird, like koala porn.