Loose links for March 4, 2010: Gay 놈 project

 Economic news 

• Kia has rolled out its new models and the BBC is somewhat impressed. Korean automakers are doing well and "seem to get design."
• CNN uses Kim Yuna's heavily viewed performance as a backdrop for a discussion of mobile TV.
• The KRW is rising in response to Greece getting its fiscal act together.

 North Korea news and stuff 

• American doctors from Stanford University have helped North Korea open a tuberculosis lab.
• The White House is wary of growing military ties between Burma and North Korea.
• China's People's Daily blames South Korean hostility for obstructing the future of the Kaesong Industrial Park.
• The Financial Times warns that "donor fatigue" threatens aid to North Korea.
• North Korea is still forging $100 supernotes. 
• North Korea has designated eight cities as special economic zones.

 Other Korea-related stuff 

• Get your genome mapped for 1 million won. And remember, in Korean it's pronounced "gay 놈." 
• The Korea Times has a roundup of international headlines from 1919 about Korea's independence declaration.
• FedEx is talking up its role in busting an international drug ring. 
• Some Yonsei students are not happy about the university's all-English Underwood International College's move to the new Songdo campus.
• Meanwhile, South Korean dropouts from American schools are headed home.
• As the number of foreigners rises, so does the number of crimes committed (or at least the number caught) by foreigners.
• The Joongang Daily says the anti-abortion movement is having a huge impact. Frankly, I don't mind them trying to discourage people from having an abortion and instead raising their kid (or giving it up for adoption), but I don't like the idea of making abortion inaccessible. 

 Miscellany 

• The color blue is big this year.

This is why you're fat

UPDATE:
This offer has a lot more people complaining than I thought, and for very different reasons.

ORIGINAL POST:
Yeah, I know that's not an original title, but I'm adopting it for what might be an occasional sentiment, especially as I roam the aisles of the supermarket (even after three years, still in awe of the goods available, almost like Le Ly Hayslip in the Heaven & Earth) or spot "specials" at Hawaii's artery-clogging eateries (how the Aloha State tops the life expectancy charts is beyond me... my only guess is that things on the Mainland are just that much worse).

Anyway, my first entry is this advert from Denny's. Now I like me some Denny's breakfast on occasion, and it's nice that they're helping people out in these difficult economic times, but this is negligent homicide. Unlimited pancakes... and fries?! These things don't even go to together, do they?

Seriously, French fries are a blight on Anglo America that I'm convinced is revenge for the Irish potato famine (the Irish, being the Koreans of Europe, don't mind taking out their own when seeking revenge).

Damn! Now I'm hungry.

Seven Orange County Anaheim Ducks win Olympic medals in ice hockey!

And some of them even did it on the American team! I've never been so proud of a Canadian victory in my life.

An independent voice in China?

Thirteen newspapers in China have banded together on Monday to release a simultaneous appeal to the Chinese Communist Party to put an end to the family registration system known as hukou [户口]:

Thirteen Chinese newspapers launched a highly unusual joint appeal for social reforms on Monday. They criticised the country's household registration system, which limits the access of rural migrant workers to basic services in China's cities.

"China has suffered from the 'hukou' system for so long," the appeal said, using the Chinese term for the residency permits that tie government benefits to a person's registered hometown.

"We believe people are born free and should have the right to migrate freely," it added.

The appeal appeared to have been removed from the websites of several of the papers yesterday.

The "hukou" system ties people to their parents' hometown, where their birth has to be registered. Many government services, like schooling and police protection, are tied to people's "hukou".

Despite the rules, hundreds of millions of the rural poor have migrated to cities for work. But they do not have the same rights as local residents and they have difficulty putting their children in schools or getting medical care.

Newspapers, including the Metropolis Times of Kunming, the Southern Metropolis Daily, Chongqing Times and the Economic Observer ran the appeal in a rare co-ordinated action.

They timed their call to coincide with the annual meetings this week of the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, where the "hukou" is likely to be high on the agenda.

Officials have already pledged changes but the joint editorial urged delegates to step up reforms aimed at ending the system.

The authorities fear a drastic overhaul of the system could lead to an unmanageable influx of migrants into main urban centres such as Beijing and Shanghai.

Given that there have been official pledges to change the system, this may not be all that radical, but it still sounds (to me, at least) like it was a criticism of the powers-that-be in Beijing. And with that, I am impressed. Of course, in non-democratic China, the Party's claim to leadership is that they are doing the right thing for the people, but how do they know what the people need if the the press only plays the role of mouthpiece and not voice of the people?

Dear Leader to visit Big Brother

Um, that would be China. The answer we were looking for was China.

Bloomberg is quoting a Mainichi Shimbun story (which I couldn't find in English, but here it is in Japanese) saying that North Korea's Dear Leader Kim Jong-il will likely be visiting China later this month, in what will be his first "overseas" trip in four years (though he's not actually going over the sea, just overland, and he'll be flyin' in Rail Force One):

Kim will see Chinese President Hu Jintao to discuss aid to North Korea and the Pyongyang government’s nuclear weapons program, the newspaper said, citing unidentified diplomatic officials in Beijing. Kim last visited China in January 2006, his most recent trip abroad.

China, North Korea’s biggest political and economic ally, is the only country for Kim’s communist regime to reach out to for support as the U.S., Japan and South Korea increase pressure on the North to return to nuclear disarmament talks, said Park Joon Young, professor of international relations at Ewha Womans University. North Korea may also need more help from China to prop up an economy hurt by United Nations sanctions on cross- border financial transactions.

“Kim Jong Il would have to show commitment to returning to international dialogue if he wants to get China’s support,” Park said in Seoul. “Kim’s China visit, which is highly likely, heightens the prospects of the disarmament talks resuming.”

Hey, there, all you disgruntled DPRK apparatchiki who have lost your life savings because of this mook: this would be the perfect time for a brown parade! Just sayin'.

Daily Kor for March 3, 2010: See you in Sochi!

Daily Kor is back! The Olympics are over, and we can finally have some real news. And don't write me letters about #12: it's a joke and my own clergy would get a kick out of it.

1. Two F-5 fighter jets crash into Mt Hwabyŏngsan near Kangnŭng during poor visibility, killing three pilots (BBC, Reuters, AFP, Yonhap, Korea Times, Korea Herald, Joongang Daily)
2. Pyongyang presses Washington for direct nuclear talks (Reuters)
• North Korea vow to bolster nuclear deterrent (AP via WaPo)
• Pyongyang says ROK-US war games threaten nuclear disarmament (AFP)
• Beijing and Washington seek to put tensions behind them (AP via WaPo)
• Seoul offers new incentives for disarmament (AP via WaPo, Reuters)
3. Seoul-Pyongyang talks include Kaesong Industrial Park restrictions and ROK attempts to discern identity of four who apparently crossed voluntarily into North Korea (Yonhap, Korea Herald, Korea Times)
4. North Korean heir-apparent Kim Jong-un reportedly directed artillery exercise (Bloomberg, Donga Ilbo)
5. Kim Yuna and a jubilant and triumphant ROK Olympics team receive heroes' welcome in Seoul (AP via WaPo, AFP)
• ROK Olympic medalist and coaches, including Kim Yuna coach Brian Orser, to be financially rewarded for performance in Vancouver (Yonhap)
6. ROK President Lee Myungbak says North Korea must "show sincerity" toward the international community and "change its mindset" toward South Korea (AFP)
7. Hyundai's overseas sales rise 27% on Toyota recall woes (Reuters)
8. South Korea to allow mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) from September (Yonhap)
9. South Korean consumer prices rise 2.7% in February (Bloomberg, Yonhap)
10. North Korean soldier defects by crossing DMZ in Kangwon-do Province (Yonhap)
11. Shin-soo Choo of the Cleveland Indians may have career interrupted because of military commitment (AP via MSNBC)
12. One True God defeats kami spirits in ladies' single figure skating (CBN)

Loose change for March 3, 2009

 Economic news 

• Korea Gas Corp will invest US$543 million in British Columbia gas fields. 
• Samsung Electronics will hold an international app contest for its Internet-based TV (ITV).
• South Korea has a trade surplus again.
• Is China really so "Red Scare" scary?
• The IMF says China's yuan is substantially undervalued.
• Seoul is setting a target of 70 billion won to be earned from 10,000 medical tourists. 
• Toyota's problems provide a critical lesson for South Korean automakers. One lesson is that you shouldn't let a goal of not needing a recall turn into a goal of simply not having a recall.
• The Philippines is reportedly interested in buying two nuclear plants from South Korea.

 North Korea news and stuff 

• China reportedly sent an 81-year-old POW from South Korea back to the North.
• China has suggested some steps for restarting the six-party talks.
• The Chosun Ilbo is interested in a North Korean China expert who is an official interpreter for the Dear Leader (and formerly for his father).

 Other Korea-related stuff 

• Avatar has become the biggest film in South Korea ever. Why? Because South Korean women want big eyes and long legs like the blue chick. 
• Kim Yuna may add a triple axel to her repertoire, according to her coach. This would make her unbeatable (if she can pull it off as gracefully as the other stuff she did). According to Ms Kim herself, she'd like to just enjoy the moment.
• The Donga Ilbo sures likes rubbing it in when it comes to Mao Asada. Give the poor girl a break — she did manage two triple axels, the first ever to do so in the Olympics.
• The Chosun Ilbo is reporting that AP is reporting that South Korea is emerging as a winter Olympics powerhouse.
• South Korea is no longer "immune" to damage from earthquakes and tsunamis. 
• South Korean women's childbearing peak is delayed to their thirties now.
• Scientists at KIST may have discovered a way to treat severe personality disorders.
• The Korea Times asks why (some) elite men in South Korea choose suicide.
• South Korean housing prices have risen for the eleventh straight month.
• Reuters lists the top-five restaurants in Seoul, only one of which is Korean.
• A burglar who got caught stealing laptops from the homes of foreign residents says he could identify their places by the odor. Yeah, something smells all right.

 Miscellany 

• Chile needs massive assistance. Maybe not as much as Haiti, but it still needs help.
• Ezra Klein suggests that a look back at 1982 suggests the Democrats need not be so gloomy about 2010.

Well, some of them are "aliens," after all.

matt of Popular Gusts inspired me to do a Naver.com image search of 영어강사 ("English instructor"), and this is what I got:

Not sure if that's what he was pointing me toward, but I thought it was cute nonetheless.

KCNA on the Samil Movement's 91st anniversary

It's not exactly a hobby, but every now and then I like reading what the KCNA propagandists say about Korean stuff. For example, did you know that the Samil Movement, also known as the March First Movement, started in Pyongyang? Now you do:

Pyongyang, March 1 (KCNA) -- Ninety-one years has elapsed since the March First Popular Uprising took place in Korea.

It was a nationwide patriotic struggle to achieve the liberation of the country from the Japanese imperialists' rule and win the sovereignty of the nation.

After illegally occupying Korea early in the 20th century the Japanese imperialists had infringed upon the Korean nation's dignity and sovereignty with a mediaeval military rule, turning the whole land of Korea into a large prison without bars.

The Korean people's grudge and resentment against their heinous colonial rule finally burst into a nationwide uprising on March 1, Juche 8 (1919).

It started in Pyongyang. Patriotic students of Pyongyang Sungsil Middle School, turned into a strong base of the anti-Japanese independence movement by indomitable revolutionary Kim Hyong Jik, and thousands of people gathered in the playground of Sungdok Girls' School at noon and listened to "Declaration of Independence" before taking to the streets to stage a fierce demonstration, chanting "Long live the independence of Korea!" and "Japanese and their army, out of Korea!"

The number of demonstrators multiplied soon into more than 100,000 in spite of the Japanese imperialists' brutal crackdown.

The demonstration spread over not only the whole country but also Manchuria, Shanghai, Maritime Province, Hawaii, etc.

Korean people who had suffered a miserable lot of an enslaved nation took part in the uprising in all parts of the country irrespective of occupation and religious faith, age and sex.

Within three months since the start of the uprising, more than two million people of all social strata joined the uprising and demonstrations and riots totaled over 3,200 times till the end of the year.

The March First Popular Uprising was a historical event which demonstrated the Korean people's independent and patriotic spirit of not tolerating outsiders' rule.

Hmm... not much mention of Pagoda Park in Seoul, the largely Christian group that declared independence based on the American declaration and Wilson's principles of self-determination, or even that so many people were able to gather in Seoul under the cover of attending the late Emperor Kojong's funeral. Good on them, though, for mentioning Hawaii (which is an inadvertent nod, sort of, to Syngman Rhee) and people of different religious faiths.

Tucson recall

I don't know if this is Hyundai again being overly cautious, but they have announced a recall of five hundred Tucson SUVs in the United States:

South Korea's top automaker Hyundai Motor said Tuesday it is recalling more than 500 Tucson sport utility vehicles in the United States due to potentially defective airbags.

It was the firm's second such announcement in a week, after it said on February 24 it would recall 47,300 of its latest Sonata sedans in the US and the domestic market due to a possible door lock problem.

The firm said the latest action affects 515 "2010 Tucson" units made in South Korea and exported to the US from November 10-30, because their airbags may not work properly for a front-seat passenger.

"Hyundai is voluntarily initiating this action to ensure the safety and quality of vehicles and the continued satisfaction of our customers. Dealers will make the repairs free of charge," it said in a statement.

And seriously is how they should take this. Toyota is taking a beating in the media, with the Congressional hearings on the company focusing on the memo bragging about saving $100 million by not doing an earlier recall, as well as articles like this one in the Los Angeles Times which highlight, one by one, all the people suspected of having died from the acceleration problem.

Hyundai does not need something like that. Stay honest and keep making safe and reliable vehicles. Above all, resist the urge to be penny wise and pound foolish when it comes to safety and recalls.

Taeborŭm, NK-style, Hawaiian-style

[above: This is me at Sandy Beach on Taeborŭm.]

So Saturday was Taeborŭm, the first full moon of the new year on the lunar calendar. If you're not familiar with Taeborŭm (대보름, also spelled Daeboreum), this is how North Korea's KCNA describes it:

The Korean people have celebrated the January 15th of the lunar calendar as a holiday from ancient times.

According to old records, it began to be observed as a holiday in the period of the three kingdoms.

Usually they celebrated the holiday from the January 14th of the lunar calendar.

The holiday's typical amusements are standing poles with grain stalks on the 14th and enjoying the first full moon on the 15th to wish for everything going well that year.

Kite-flying, toy pinwheel, tug of war and other folk games and amusements also give a zest to the holiday.

Holiday dishes are boiled rice admixed with four other staple cereals, sweet rice, dishes made of nine kinds of dried edible herbs and other tasty and nutritive food good for health.

Good to see the DPRK so concerned about North Koreans' good health and nutrition. Other than that, this was about as propaganda-free a piece by the KCNA you'll ever find, so I thought I'd reprint it, just to encourage them to keep at it.

Now Kushibo did not spend his Taeborŭm traipsing around in the freezing cold. This is Hawaii and we have no cold... except for tippy tippy top of a few mountains off to the east. And the library. God, do I hate the library. But we do have a full moon, perfect for Taeborŭm moon-viewing, which is what I set out to do (especially since there was no five-grain ogok rice and we had to settle for white-and-brown hapa rice).

If you're in the Honolulu area on a full moon, Sandy Beach is an idea place to go and see the full moon. It lights up the night sky, and its reflection glistens on the foam of the waves. Because of the geographic features of Pacific islands, clouds often accumulate over land (this is how the Polynesians found them) and the light of a full moon (which is over the ocean) radiates off the clouds (skirting the land), bringing even more light to night sky.

This time we were walking along the beach and, guided only by the moonlight, walked right past some warning signs that usually aren't there. Lo and behold, about five short steps away, the big rock turned out to be a large Hawaiian monk seal.

The HMS is an endangered species, but I suspect if we'd gotten too much closer we might also have become an endangered species. We quickly got back, beyond the perimeter formed by the warning signs, and observed the darkened blob laying out on the white sand of Sandy Beach (which, despite its name, is full of rocks, making me suspect it was named by Vikings).

Lest you think I'm blind or stupid, the warning signs were not lit up by camera flashes as in the photo above.

We stood there for a while, observing the HMS Motionless, wondering if in fact it was dead. That was a thought we all had. Did I forget to mention? This was the day of the tsunami warning (that's right, Kushibo does things like heading for the beach hours after a tsunami was expected), and while the tsunami warning was the H1N1 of tsunami warnings — a whole lot of preparation for a whole lot of nothing — it did cause swells large enough that it could have caused a monk seal just swimming around peacefully looking for a shellfish to bang on a rock (oh, wait, that's otters; I don't know what monk seals do) to end up crashing on the sharp outcrops of the inaptly named Sandy Beach.

But it would seem odd, we thought, for the HMS protection services to cordon off a dead animal; were it to have died, I think they would take it away for study to make sure some pestilence isn't being visited upon these gentle or not gentle creatures.

Cordoning them off is what they do when one of them lands on the beach. These protected behemoths pick a spot, lay themselves out, and someone puts out signs saying don't touch them, don't make loud noises around them, don't disturb them in any way, shape, or form. When I eventually have kids, I'm going to adopt this model for myself: Stay the holy frack away from Dad; don't even think about moving beyond those signs. And for good measure, I will occasionally bark at them in the manner of giant marine mammals.

Eventually, one of us saw the HMS lift its head. Or its tail — it was dark. We were relieved that it wasn't to be carrion, and so we ourselves decided to carry on.

It was 72°F that evening. I hope you also had an enjoyable Taeborŭm, wherever you were.

On the anniversary of the Samil movement, the netizen wars begin

Apparently an army of some 10,000 South Korean netizen hackers have taken down 2CH, a Japanese forum that is not anti-Korean in and of itself, but in which many anti-Korean Japanese prefer to display their handiwork.

It was sparked, the Korea Times says, when some 2CH users began offering praise to Russians for the recent killing of a South Korean student (an incident you can read about at Brian's here and here):

The attacks were triggered by comments praising Russians for the killing of a Korean student in Moscow.

Some postings claimed that the killing was not racially motivated and Russians were doing "good deeds" after the event occurred.

2ch saw postings claiming that Kim Yu-na won the gold medal in the Vancouver Olympics thanks to judges bribed by Korea. Such anti-Yu-na comments increased when Japan's Mao Asada lost to Kim and had to settle for a silver medal.

If I'm right about which South Korean student was killed (and I pray there has been only one), then the murder occurred in Barnaul, near Siberian Russia’s border with Kazakhstan, thousands of miles from Moscow.

I have heard a great deal about the anti-Yuna hate fest that grew among some Japanese, but that in no way would justify anything like this. Indeed, even the hate-mongering and — dare I say — violence-inciting words from 2CH do not warrant this kind of illegal activity (hacking, that is). At the same time, though, I'd hate to see the ROK authorities go after the South Koreans responsible when those at 2CH who posted what may be illegal hate speech go unpunished. Maybe Lee and Hatoyama need to do a sit-down or at least a call-through on this one. [HT to Wangkon via email]

Chlorella outbreak!

Yeah, I'm easily amused.