Batting 0.20

Are there any well-known Korean celebrities in America who don't get arrested for DUI?

Our latest (the last one I can actually remember is Daniel Dae Kim, here in Hawaii back when "Lost" was still on the air, so maybe I'm exaggerating the frequency in my head) is Cleveland Indians star Choo Shin-soo.



The newscaster says that Mr Choo was confused about his left and right during the sobriety test but, um, that's not so uncommon for many Korean learners of English. God help us if every Korean tourist to America gets accused of being drunk because they can't follow the directions the cop is giving them (or because their paused English makes them sound inebriated).

Mr Choo apparently also thought an arrest — his blood alcohol level was 0.20, four times what it is in South Korea and 2.5 times what it is in Ohio — would mean deportation.

His arrest is only the latest involving a Big League baseball player, and this has prompted Major League Baseball to look into whether they should be doing something about this:

Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association reportedly have discussed implementing an alcohol policy as part of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement currently being negotiated.

Six Major League players have been arrested for allegedly drinking and driving this calendar year -- including two in recent weeks. While those incidents have brought the issue to the forefront, several reports this week suggest a program to address problems with alcohol abuse has been a discussion point between MLB and the union for some time now.

Currently, there is no specific system of punishment from the league if a player is arrested for driving under the influence one or more times, nor is there a league-operated treatment program for alcohol abuse.

Anyone who knows me knows I have a deep-seated hatred of drunk drivers. It only angers me more when celebrities are let off the hook in part because they are famous. I don't know what will happen, but if Mr Choo somehow gets off with a slap on the wrist for driving with a 0.20% BAL, I hope he realizes he needs rehab and/or a chauffeur.

The new image of Seoul: girls, drinking, and sannakchi

And, um, red-light districts.

This video of Morgan Webb going to seoul for "Attack of the Show" is a year old, but I only just saw it today (while doing a research on live baby octopus):

Kwangju student kills herself after "sexual harassment" during MT

Brian formerly in Chŏllanam-do reports on the suicide of a college student in Kwangju who became distraught after being "sexually harassed" during "MT" (i.e., membership training, a kind of retreat for people in the same major or club or other organization).

In the comments section I wrote that I hope more schools in Korea will take a cue from their American counterparts and use these deaths — and make no mistake, drinking deaths during various forms of hazing are an annual outcome in the US — to crack down on organizational binge drinking.

My assertion is that MTs and other drinking-oriented activities exist, in many circles, as a way for sŏnbae to force their hubae get shit-faced, done tacitly or explicitly with the intent of sexual harassment or worse. Forced binge-drinking is directly putting vulnerable people in harm's way.

While others make the valid point that there are other factors that contribute to such things, the binge drinking situation is a common circumstance in which things like this happen, without which they likely would not happen. These MT situations force people who do not drink, don't want to drink, can't handle themselves or others when they drink, etc., to be placed around people with poor judgement and sexist ulterior motives essentially without choice. They don't risk upsetting the punwigi (atmosphere), the kibun of their club members, and risk ostracism later on.

Schools should provide a way for anonymously offered complaints to be investigated, and if evidence is found of wrongdoing — things like forcing people to drink — then they should lose their funding and/or ability to meet on campus. This group-drink group-think is serious stuff, as I've written before:

A KoKo friend of mine worked as a CPA for a major American firm in Los Angeles that happened to hire a lot of Korean CPAs (those on H-1 visas supposedly worked harder and cheaper than people with green cards or citizenship). Every now and then they would go out drinking, and they would engage in the drink-until-you can't-see-straight behavior common in Korean colleges and corporations.

Well, one other woman began to pass out while they were all at a noraebang in L.A. Koreatown. My friend noticed what seemed like shallow breathing, but she wasn't sure. She asked some of her sŏnbae ('senior') if the passed-out hubae ('junior') seemed all right. She actually got barked at that she was ruining the punwigi (mood/atmosphere) of the party. After a couple minutes, still nagged by concern for the passed-out friend, she decided to call 911.

According to my accountant friend, the call saved the woman's life. She was rushed to a nearby hospital and her stomach was pumped. The E/R doctor told them that if they had waited another twenty minutes, the friend might have died of alcohol poisoning. Her blood alcohol level was stratospheric, having downed all these "one-shot" drinks, egged on (without any real choice without being ostracized) by her supposed friends.

I do contend that the problem is lessening to a significant degree. I've worked for several companies and attended one school where these things went from mandatory to optional, and in some cases (in some departments) disappeared altogether. But there's still a long way to go.

Requiescat in pace, Miss Chŏng.

South Korean research breakthrough

Back in 1953, when South Korea's cities lay in ruins, who knew that five decades or so later, after pumping in billions of dollars in aid and technology transfers, South Korean scientists would be at the forefront of a major breakthrough with repercussions throughout the world?

Well, they are. From bare and phalanxed Fox News:

The dreaded morning-after feeling could be a thing of the past after scientists in South Korea came up with a technique that allows drinkers to avoid a hangover, Sky News reported Thursday.

A team of researchers added extra oxygen to drinks and found that the body was then able to metabolize the booze quicker and eliminate the alcohol quicker — cutting down the after affects.

Healthy humans were given 8 ounce and 12 ounce drinks containing 19.5 percent alcohol by volume — all with different amounts of oxygen added.

The results, documented in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, showed those who consumed the more highly oxygenated drinks recovered more quickly and saw their blood alcohol levels return to normal more speedily.

"Elevated dissolved oxygen concentrations in alcoholic drinks accelerate the metabolism and elimination of alcohol," according to researchers In-hwan Baek, Byung-yo Lee and Kwang-il Kwon of Chungnam National University's College of Pharmacy.

"Thus, enhanced dissolved oxygen concentrations in alcohol may have a role to play in reducing alcohol-related side effects and accidents."

But will it catch on? Maybe not, since the same research indicates that this method reduces the amount of time you're actually drunk. I mean, if you're getting inebriated in order to escape reality, why cut the trip short? (Of course, I say this as a near teetotaler.)

So, get ready for Jinro and other spirits manufacturers to start producing sO2ju™.