Arirang gets it ari-wrong on the Japanese rocket

Although I used to work at Arirang back in the day (and went through the grueling "public sector employee" hiring process to get there), I was not a fan of some of their policies that stemmed from their efforts to have a tightly controlled propaganda machine and message.

Thus, it's not all that surprising to me that things like this end up happening, in regards to the launch of a Korean satellite from a Japanese rocket:

It was a great opportunity to show how Japan and Korea can work together. However, the Korean media’s portrayal of the launch has annoyed some Japanese netizens. It seems that Korea’s infamous anti-Japanese sentiment has once again reared its ugly head.

A TV report from South Korea’s Arirang TV proudly states, “it is now 20 years since Korea put its first satellite into orbit, and now, Korea’s third multipurpose satellite, Arirang-3, is ready for launch. ” Their computer animated portrayal of the launch has removed the Japanese flag and “NIPPON” letters from the rocket:

This is just plain childish and petty. Arirang TV owes its viewers — and perhaps the country of Japan — an apology. I can't put it any plainer than that. If they somehow weren't responsible for the graphic, they are still responsible for putting it on the air without "fact-checking" the video.

The Japanese flag and the word "Nippon"
are missing, as is the kanji for Mitsubishi.

Still, I think Japan Probe goes a bit too far with its analysis of the issue. The expressly propaganda-oriented Arirang TV, in Japan Probe's words, morphs into "the Korean media":

It was a great opportunity to show how Japan and Korea can work together. However, the Korean media’s portrayal of the launch has annoyed some Japanese netizens. It seems that Korea’s infamous anti-Japanese sentiment has once again reared its ugly head.

Unless this graphic also showed up in other Korean news outlets (and it may have), then the phrase "the Korean media's portrayal" is distorting the issue.

I also take issue with the characterization of "Korea's infamous anti-Japanese sentiment" or its "ugly head." When Japan Probe can't be bothered to report on something like this...

Two delegations of Japanese officials visited Palisades Park, N.J., this month with a request that took local administrators by surprise: The Japanese wanted a small monument removed from a public park.

The monument, a brass plaque on a block of stone, was dedicated in 2010 to the memory of so-called comfort women, tens of thousands of women and girls, many Korean, who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers during World War II.

But the Japanese lobbying to remove the monument seems to have backfired — and deepened animosity between Japan and South Korea over the issue of comfort women, a longstanding irritant in their relations.

... then they probably shouldn't be lecturing Korea or Koreans on how to react in the face of Japan's six-decade-long fu¢k-up when it comes to dealing with its atrocious past.

Okay. That's another post for another time, but you get the idea: South Koreans wanting satisfaction and closure on recent historical issues (some of the victims and perpetrators of which are still alive) that many in the Japanese government would rather pretend didn't happen does not mean South Korea is the one with the "infamous" nationalist sentiment again "rearing its ugly head." That distinction goes to the history whitewashing descendants of the imperial murderers. But that's another post for another time.

The other characterization Japan Probe makes...

Like the other programs on Arirang TV, it is meant to advertise the greatness of Korea to English-speaking viewers. Having the Arirang-3 launched into space on a Japanese-looking rocket might interfere with the message of the program. ...

Having taken the trouble to copy so many other details of the rocket, it seems highly unlikely that Arirang TV simply forgot to include the Japanese markings. This was probably part of a conscious effort to make viewers think that Korea is not relying on Japanese technology.

... also misses the mark. That the Korean satellite rode into space on a Japanese rocket was repeated over and over and over again in the Korean media, including on the very Arirang program with the offending graphic. While it seems the CG department at Arirang or their outsourcing partners didn't wish to highlight the Japanese flag or country name (i.e., Nippon) the programs themselves are making no effort to hide the crucial Japanese role.

Anyway, this was very foolish on Arirang's part. Rabid right-wing Japanese netizens often go to town on imagined insults to Japan by Korean celebrities, the government, or tourists to Japan, but this is a case where their ire is apt. Do something about it, Arirang. (And I'll apologize for the bad pun in the title.)

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Daily Kor for Tuesday, May 22, 2012

I thought the above snapshot of the Korea Times, juxtaposing the picture of Bill Murray and Girls' Generation with a headline about bullying, was rather amusing. I'm easily amused.

1. Senior diplomats from US, Japan, and South Korea urge North Korea to forgo nuclear tests (UPI, NYT, LAT, AP via NPR, CNN, Yonhap, Korea Herald)
• South Korea's nuclear envoy calls on North Korea to "take a different path" (Yonhap)
2. South Korea poised to stop oil imports from Iran beginning in July (Reuters, WSJ)
• Gasoline prices may soar 300 won per liter (Korea Herald)
3. South Korean climber Song Wonbin among four confirmed dead on Mt Everest (AP via WaPo, AFP, CNN)
4. ROK Defense Ministry says it is trying to forge military pact with China to soften Beijing's anger over similar pact between South Korea and Japan (Yonhap)
5. Leftist environmental group issues report saying a radiation leak at Pusan's Kori-1 reactor, the oldest in South Korea, would kill up to 900,000 people and cause 628 trillion won in damage (Yonhap, Korea Herald)
6. Japanese scientists predict 99% likelihood Mt Paektusan will erupt by 2032 (Chosun Ilbo) 
• Monster Island take on this news
7. ROK government to set up five-year plan to better deal with bioterrorism threat (Yonhap, Korea Times)
8. Confused Catholic cardinal calls for buoyant Buddha's Birthday in unintentionally alliterative announcement (Korea Times)
9. Korean American artist Ahea buys abandoned French hamlet for God only knows why (AP via WaPo)
10. Were al-Qaeda messages hidden in Sunday's solar eclipse? (FoxNews)

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Is Mt Paektusan in North Korea overdue for another "super-colossal" eruption of biblical (and regime-changing) proportions?

UPDATE:

Until just now I had forgotten that a year and a half ago, in November 2010, I had also written a short post on this topic, in response to a online Wall Street Journal piece on the same topic (I guess when you're at nearly 4200 posts and counting over seven years, you tend to lose track). 

At the time I had also made the prediction that an eruption of Paektusan (aka Baekdusan or Mt Baekdu) could spell the end of the Pyongyang regime. 

Anyway, the sh¡t-your-pants scary post starts right after the giant postage stamp. [UPDATE 2: Thomas at Cha0s Central has a piece on how North Korea's nuke tests beneath the volcano are a bad idea.]

ORIGINAL POST:
The Chosun Ilbo is reporting that Mt Paektusan (also spelled as Baekdusan and known in China as Changbaishan), the iconic volcano that forms the apex of the North Korea-China border, is "99% likely to erupt by 2032":

Taniguchi based his inference on the historical relationship in timing between earthquakes in Japan and eruptions of Mt. Baekdu. Historical documents from Korea and China show that Mt. Baekdu erupted at least six times between the 14th and 20th centuries, Taniguchi said, and every time it followed an earthquake in Japan.

Actually, with or without the Japanese seismic connection, Paektusan is a tad overdue for a major eruption.

What I’m about to write (a condensed version of something I wrote a while ago for offline purposes) may scare the sh¡t out of you. Don’t ask me how I know. I just do.

Imagine a Korean Peninsula (including the south, hundreds of kilometers away), filled with endless days of acid rain. Leaching away life in so many forms and devastating the land. Plumes of fire bursting through the frozen land with a tremendous roar.

The water stored in the Lake of Heaven bursting out, sweeping across North Korea’s Hamgyŏng Province and beyond. Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Research say that we should expect sediment to pile up from a few meters deep to hundreds of meters.

On the day of the eruption, volcanic ash could fill the skies over Seoul. The sun will be blotted out. Ash will fall from the sky like gray snowflakes. Since the ash blocks out the sunlight, it will be as if day had turned into night.

Up north, we should expect massive casualties and untold agricultural damage. Even in the south, people will suffer terrible respiratory problems. All kinds of things will be shut down — schools, airports, government services, corporate offices — as if Korea were undergoing its own vulcan 9/11.

Like Japan with the tsunami, South Korea’s high-tech industry, like semiconductors, might face serious problems. If the eruption happens in the colder months, it could mean a devastatingly long winter. Acid rain, bitter cold, and a lack of sun may mean a year without spring. Food prices will skyrocket as domestic food production virtually shuts down.

The effects won’t be felt just in the Koreas or even their neighbors: globally, the volcanic ash and toxic gases traveling the planet for about a year could lead to a reduction in solar energy hitting the lower atmosphere, and the planet’s average temperature could drop by two degrees Celsius.

This may seem like a worst-case scenario, but it’s based on what happened in Korea a little more than a millennium ago, in 969 AD (or 990 AD). 

From ancient times, early Koreans considered Mt Paektusan to be the setting of the legend of Tan’gun, the semimythical founder of the Korean people. Mt Paektusan has long been considered a spiritual place to Koreans, but its beauty and shape are the result of volcanic activity.

The entire entity is one huge volcano. The ring of peaks that surround the caldera indicate that lava flowed not in toward the Lake of Heaven but outward. There was likely a huge volcanic edifice, but it is no longer present. Geologists believe that about a third of the peaks along the rim were blown away when the volcano erupted in the tenth century AD. Geologists now believe that the summit may have been a thousand meters higher than it is now.

A large portion of the mountaintop was blasted away or caved in (similar to Mt St Helens in Washington State, whose tremendously large top blew away in an instant). At the last stage of Paektusan’s eruption, a large explosion obliterated the main peak, and the rest collapsed into the caldera.

The area is surrounded by black pumice, which results when basaltic magma was forcibly ejected. It’s frequently found in areas of past volcanic eruptions. The layer of pumice found around Paektusan is as much as seventy-five meters thick. It drops to ten meters elsewhere in Hamgyŏng Province, only ten centimeters in the East Sea, and five centimeters near the island of Hokkaidō in Japan.

Archaeologists and geologists doing excavations at Japanese historic sites end up finding clues to volcanic eruptions in Korea, like Mt Paektusan. That’s why they’re issuing reports like the one in the Chosun Ilbo. The pattern of ash found in places like Hokkaido indicate that such particulate matter filled the skies over Japan after an eruption.

Imagine the impact of something like that today. Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano had a violent eruption in April 2010 (picture above). The ash cloud and debris blocked air routes and brought $1.4 billion of economic damage to the far away European mainland.

Human costs are also high. The 2011 eruption of Murapi volcano on Indonesia’s island of Java went down in the record books as the largest in a century. It took the lives of 389 people and left a hundred thousand homeless.

Putting Mt Paektusan in perspective, we should consider the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI), which rates eruptions on a scale of one to eight, depending on eruptive magnitude.

[from Wikipedia]

Fragmental material from the Murapi and Eyjafjallajökull eruptions, called tephra, could fill a volume of one-tenth of a cubic kilometer. That puts these eruptions at magnitude 4. But the eruption of Mt Paektusan a thousand years ago ejected from 115 to 150 cubic kilometers of tephra, giving it a VEI magnitude of 7 (one of only three since the time of Christ). 

Paektusan’s eruption a millennium ago, which is rated as “super-colossal,” was one thousand to fifteen hundred times more severe than the Indonesian or Iceland eruptions. in fact, the eruption of Mt Paektusan may rank as the second most powerful eruption in the past two millennia of human history (more on that here).

I believe it was five to seven times greater than Krakatoa, perhaps the most famous historical eruption to 21st century humanity, yet most people around the world have never heard of the threat. Some in South Korea are taking it seriously, though (see here, here, here, and here). 

Mt Paektusan is not on the edge of a tectonic plate but within it. There’s a theory suggesting that the plate under Japan wasn’t sliding downward but was stuck 700 meters beneath and was blocking energy from being released. In other words, the heat under the mantle was trapped for a great deal of time and had to find an exit to break through. The theory holds that that vent was Mt Paektusan.

A hotspot such as Mt Paektusan is what results. This is believed to be a place where a plume of mantle hotter than regular mantle rises to the surface. Volcanoes located within the interior of a tectonic plate are often called hotspot volcanoes. (The entire Hawaiian Island archipelago is formed in this way, with the hotspot remaining stationary but the plate moving along, allowing a new island to form when the hotspot is under a new part of the plate.) Hotspot volcanoes often wield more eruptive power than other volcanoes, since the condensed energy in their magma chambers erupts at once.

In 1998, a Chinese geological research center announced that there are four magma chambers beneath Mt Paektusan. These four magma chambers have supplied the mountain with energy for thousands of years.

Now where it all gets funky is that the historical record indicates a fairly regular pattern of explosive activity. According to The Annals of Koryŏ History (Koryŏsa), in 946 AD, the first year of King Chŏngjong, there are lines making reference to an eruption of Mt Paektusan.

“In this year, a drumbeat from the sky ordered the Bill of Amnesty.”
— 946 AD, the first year of the reign of King Chŏngjong of Koryŏ, recorded in Koryŏsa (The Annals of Koryŏ History)

A contemporary Japanese history, The Chronicles of Kōfuku-ji Temple, also indicated an eruption from Mt Paektusan eruption in the same year:

“One night, white volcanic ash fell down from the sky like snow.”
— 946 AD, the ninth year of the reign of Emperor Suzaku of Japan, recorded in The Chronicles of Kōfuku-ji Temple.

Later, during Korea’s 600-year Chosŏn era, references to volcanic eruptions were frequently recorded:

“Ash fell down like rain in the northeastern region.”
— 1403 AD, the third year of the reign of King T’aejong of Choson, recorded in T'aejong Shillok (The Annals of King T'aejong)

Time-wise, they were somewhat regular:

“The sound of gunfire could be heard from up high.”
— 1597 AD, the thirtieth year of the reign of King Sŏnjo of Chosŏn, recorded in Sŏnjo Shillok (The Annals of King Sŏnjo)

“Volcanic ash fell like rain in the Myŏngchŏn region of Hamgyŏng Province.”
— 1673 AD, the fourteenth year of the reign of King Hyŏnjong of Chosŏn, recorded in Hyŏnjong Shillok (The Annals of King Hyŏnjong)

Based on such historical records, scientists speculate that Mt Paektusan repeatedly erupted at an interval of approximately once every century or so.

Indeed, after the super-colossal eruption a little over a millennium ago, Mt Paektusan underwent several smaller eruptions about once every century. Historical records indicate that the last eruption took place in 1903, so we’re about overdue since the last eruption.

The really worrisome thing, though, is that based on the thousand-year cycle of a major eruption, those two periodic factors point to the possibility of a major eruption on Mt Paektusan in the near future, which is bolstered by the Japanese prediction of 99% likelihood by 2032.

North Korea is not exactly in a cooperative mood, however, when it comes to geological surveys meant to gauge the actual threat, even though Mt Paektusan’s geological features point to the high possibility that we could see a repeat of past disaster, but now with more people in the path of destruction.

This is some scary sh¡t we need to pay attention to. If a volcanic eruption causes the Lake of Heaven to break apart, two billion tons of water filled with pyroclastic material and other debris would gush forward. That would bring a destructive mudflow called a lahar.

Ground zero for the cataclysm would be the Lake of Heaven. Specialists predict that the two billion tons of water that fill the deep caldera would instantly gush out and flow down the sides of the mountain.

Another major problem is the layers of volcanic deposits surrounding Mt Paektusan. They are so fragile that the slightest force could cause collapse. If water from the Lake of Heaven were to sweep away these deposits, it would cause an unprecedented lahar, an avalanche of rocks and soil.

The slopes of Mt Paektusan are typically at a forty- or fifty degree angle. Scientists have calculated that water could rush down the mountainside at a hundred kilometers per hour. Villages, buildings, and farmland would all be instantly destroyed, much like what we saw in the tsunami that engulfed six prefectures along the northeastern coast of Japan.

This is not some insensitive exaggeration. It’s meant to provide perspective.

How bad things get would depend on which way the wind blows. If the winds are from the north, volcanic ash would cover the entire Korean Peninsula. Several millimeters or even centimeters would coat everything, including houses, buildings, and roads. Think annual “yellow dust” from China, on steroids, for days and days on end.

On the other hand, if the ash were to soar through the atmosphere and stay in the stratosphere, serious problems could result for the rest of the planet. The average temperature around the globe could drop by as much as two degrees Celsius within a year, which could bring about worldwide problems as food supplies decrease, fish and bird migrations are disrupted, and plant growth and agricultural production suffer. Health-wise, we’d see dramatic fluxes in bacteria and viruses.

This is not unprecedented. Laki, a volcanic system in Iceland, erupted in 1783, triggering a long cold spell throughout Europe. Because of the resulting widespread famine, commoners rose up in rebellion against royalty, leading to the French Revolution in 1789.

Indonesia’s Tambora volcano erupted in 1815. Annual average temperatures dropped by four degrees Celsius, making it the so-called “year without summer.”

Just how would Mt Paektusan’s eruption “rock the world”? Perhaps the resulting chaos would mean an end to the Pyongyang regime, which would buckle under the catastrophe and resulting human crisis. Unable to provide basic functions, much less evacuate, feed and house people in the path of destruction, the regime would simply collapse as international organizations push their way in (perhaps led by the Chinese, who be dealing with calamity on their side of the mountain). 

Trying to predict when this will happen is the top priority right now. Fortunately, there are some clues. Seventy percent of the water in the Lake of Heaven is from precipitation, while the remaining thirty percent comes from underground. The portion from underground is affected by magmatic activity and would contain magmatic substances that leave isotopic traces. Some geologists argue that if magmatic activities have intensified, the isotopic ratio of hydrogen and oxygen found in the Lake of Heaven would differ from that of normal surface water.

In fact, some believe there may have been an actual decrease in frequency of seismic and volcanic activity around Mt Paektusan over the past few years.

Chinese researchers report that seismic activity in the area peaks about every ten years. Based on this, some have theorized that there could be an eruption in North Korea in 2014 or 2015. The press openly speculated that Mt Paektusan might erupt, which has led to considerable controversy. What is certain is that Paektusan is an active volcano that could erupt at any time.

It almost seems as if volcanoes erupt just as people begin to start ignoring them. How should we welcome a newly rousing Mt Paektusan? What would South Koreans do to help the North? Would the government fall? Would Japan and China also be adversely affected? Is there something we can actually do (e.g., tap into the magma chambers by drilling into them and somehow “lance the boil”)?

Interesting questions all.

Nikon D3100 14 Megapixel Digital SLR Camera - 25472

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Daily Kor for Monday, May 21, 2012

It's a lovely Sunday morning in Honolulu, coming on what has been a relatively slow news day (typical of weekends). In the coming days, expect the Apple-Samsung feud to produce a few more headlines, while Korea Inc prepares for more bad news from Europe. There are a lot of lessons all the players could learn from South Korea's successful recovery back in 1997-98 and beyond (including the benefits of shifting adeptly from credit tightening to ending austerity), but it seems no one is paying much attention.

1. Beijing-Pyongyang dispute over captured Chinese fishermen accused of fishing in North Korean waters appears to be over, though details are scarce (Reuters, WSJ)
2. G-8 leaders issue declaration saying sanctions against North Korea are possible if North Korea threatens the region again (AP via WaPo, Yonhap)
3. Partial eclipse will be visible over South Korea and much of East Asia (LAT)
4. Government report says exports to US rose 11.3 percent from a year earlier in first two months of free-trade agreement's implementation (Yonhap)
5. Korea Development Institute says Bank of Korea should hold rates steady at 3.25 as Europe's debt woes worsen (Bloomberg)
• KDI cuts growth forecast from 3.8 percent to 3.6 percent (Yonhap)
6. Samsung Electronics says it is looking for options, including possibility of cross-licensing, to end international patent war with frenemy Apple (Reuters)
• Apple and Samsung headed for "court-ordered playdate" (CNBC)
7. Medium-sized Sungdong Shipbuilder wins US$556 million in new orders for livestock carriers, a first for any South Korean shipbuilder (Reuters)
8. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un wows Pyongyang crowd with perfect 45° angle (AFP)

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Daily Kor for Sunday, May 20, 2012: Old work starts anew

It's been a long, grueling semester (or two), but I'm hoping to bring back the Daily Kor (or at least the weekly Kor) as part of my evil plan to topple my sworn enemies at The Marmot's Hole and ROK Drop as the go-to sources for up-to-date Korean news my continuing mission to inform readers about what's going on in and around the peninsula.

Meanwhile, it looks like (story #1) I'm not the only one resuming work: Out latest installment of "Norks with Nukes" has the Pyongyang regime restarting work at the Yŏngbyŏn facility, according to analysis at 38 North, a think tank at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University. (Interesting side note: The North Koreans spell the local name 녕변 (Nyŏngbyŏn), not 영변 (Yŏngbyŏn); I don't know why I didn't realize that until now.)

1. US-Korea Institute analysis shows North Korea is resuming work on nuclear reactor at Yongbyon (NYT, Bloomberg, CNN, Donga Ilbo)
• Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev stresses Pyongyang's need to adhere to international norms on nuclear issues, says DPRK would face more isolation if it "continues down the path of provocation"(Reuters)
• US President Barack Hussein Obama says G-8 is united on North Korea (AP via NPR)
• US House of Representatives passes defense authorization bill recommending redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons on Korean Peninsula (Yonhap, Korea Times)
• Tea Party officials ask if renewed work at Yŏngbyŏn is part of Obama's stimulus package gone awry
2. UN diplomats say North Korea continues to violate sanctions, citing possible attempts to ship arms to Syria and Myanmar and illegally import luxury goods (AP via WaPo)
3. China demands information on fishermen detained by North Korea (WSJ)
• Some Chinese reported freed (Korea Herald)
• Monster Island take on this issue here
4. South Korean satellite launched from Japan successfully reaches orbit (Yonhap, AP via NPR)
5. Seoul Metropolitan Government to subsidize two-thirds of cost of electric vehicles (Korea Herald)
6. Over three dozen students injured, some severely, when tour bus in Kangwon-do suffering brake failure plummets over 13-meter precipice (Joongang Daily)
7. Hyundai Engineering & Construction submits bid for $1 billion power plant in western Iraq (Reuters)
8. Nearly two-thirds of South Koreans say Kwangju Incident played vital role in country's democratization (Yonhap, Korea Times)
9. South Korean stocks plunge 3.4 percent on worries about Europe's economic woes (Yonhap, Korea Herald)
• Kushibo's note: This is part of a long-standing situation in Korea where the currency and/or the stock market go up or down (more often down, it seems) based on events that are completely out of South Korea's control but somehow go to concerns about South Korean stability
10. Woori Bank sues Merrill Lynch in Manhattan Federal court, claiming that Merrill defrauded it in a series of transactions in 2005 and 2006, selling interests in seven CDOs designed to move toxic mortgage assets off Merrill’s books (Bloomberg)
11. Prosecutors find tens of millions of dollars in accounts linked to brother of late former President Roh Moohyun (Donga Ilbo)
12. With summer travel season fast approaching, US State Department issues travel tips for Americans to avoid terrorism while overseas (AP) 

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Biting the hand that feeds their fish to someone else

North Korea versus China... Who to root for? Or rather, who to root against?

This week we've had that rarest of situations where the Democratic People's Republic of the Kim Dynasty (DPRK) seems to be biting the proverbial hand that feeds them, the People's Republic of Crony Capitalists (PRC).

It seems that the North Koreans have taken over a Chinese fishing vessel and are holding the twenty-nine-member crew ransom until Beijing hands 1.2 million yuan (US$190K) over to Pyongyang. Much of the Western media are depicting this as a case of piracy, casting the Norks as the new Somalis. From the Associated Press:

A North Korean boat hijacked three boats with 29 Chinese fishermen on board and demanded 1.2 million yuan ($190,000) for their release, Chinese media reported Thursday.

It was unclear if a territorial dispute or piracy was behind the incident involving boats from the two communist-led nations. China is the North’s biggest diplomatic ally and source of economic assistance.

The fishing boats were hijacked in a Chinese section of the Yellow Sea on May 8 and moved to North Korean waters, the Beijing News reported. The paper said the North Korean boat was manned by armed men in blue hats and uniforms but didn’t otherwise identify them.

Border police in northeastern China’s coastal Liaoning province told the state newspaper they were in contact with the North Korean captors but declined to comment further.

One might think the AP is itself trying to show how tough it can be when reporting on North Korea, given the scrutiny it's been getting from those critical of the effusive reports from its freshly minted Pyongyang bureau, but a similar pro-Beijing perspective can be found at the Washington Post, AFP, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, The Guardian, etc. Although they're stating that the news is "according to Chinese reports," they're using terms like kidnapped at sea, ransom, and captors.

But just a doggone minute there. Those of us who pay closer attention to China because it's a quick boat ride away may have a different perspective on things, enough that we know it's unwise to accept Beijing's reports prima facie, even if the other party is Pyongyang, whose utterings should never be accepted prima facie.

See, those of us in the ROK know all about the Chinese fish pirates. We're used to reading about Chinese vessels illegally fishing in South Korea's Exclusive Economic Zone in the Yellow Sea or East China Sea and then attacking or even murdering ROK Coast Guard personnel who try to stop them.

To put it bluntly: If this is what Chinese fishing vessels do to the South Koreans in ROK waters or its EEZ, while Beijing fully denies it, why should we believe the Chinese fishermen are innocents when the North Koreans detain their boat? Angered by Pyongyang's plans for missile and nuke tests, and knowing full well how the rest of the world sees North Korea, it would be perfectly natural for Chinese officials to depict those poor Chinese fishermen as victims rather than thieves. The rest of the world is certainly lapping it up.

But think about something. North Korea may love brinkmanship, but in recent years it also follows a pattern when it detains foreign nationals. I'm probably going to get flak for saying this, but back when everyone assumed CurrentTV journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling were innocent travelers who had been kidnapped from the Chinese border region, I asserted the likelihood that the two Stupogants had actually entered North Korean territory. And I was right. Laura Ling claims that they were nonetheless captured after running back to Chinese territory, but it is highly doubtful that they would have been pursued and captured at all had they not entered North Korea illegally. And all along, the North Korean media was being truthful that the team had violated DPRK borders.

I'm still waiting to see what Pyongyang's Korea Central News Agency says about the Chinese fishing boats. Given the track record of the Chinese fish pirates and the not-so-inscrutible way one can discern fact from fiction in North Korean news media, I will be more inclined to believe that the Chinese had gone into North Korean waters or its EEZ if the North Korean media says they did.

My conclusion also stems in part from the realization that North Korea would have to have cojones the size of beach balls to capture and detain a Chinese fishing boat and then demand restitution unless they had cause.

Nevertheless, one also has to wonder about the Pyongyang regime's end game. As the title here suggests, Beijing is the hand that feeds Pyongyang (to a degree). Maybe this is just a way to let China know that it can never really control North Korea. Despite frequent claims of socialistic brotherhood, the North Koreans aren't particularly fond of the Chinese, regarding them in much the same way as those who made the 19th-century American cartoon below.

Those of us in South Korea are used to the Pyongyang regime b¡tch-slapping its ROK sponsors, so the Norks sticking it to the Chinese really isn't that unsurprising: North Korea's long-term strategy of pitting one economic/military/political power against another has involved begging for alms with one hand and then sucker-punching the benefactor with the other. During the Cold War, when Kim Ilsung was Moscow's and Beijing's headache, it was Russia-versus-China. Now it's a triangulation of Seoul, Beijing, and Washington (and occasionally a rectangulation or that includes Tokyo and/or Moscow).

And maybe China doesn't really have all that much control over North Korea to begin with. It can nudge the DPRK toward reform, it can promote socialism with Chinese characteristics, it can scold North Korea, it can huff and puff, but it's a mistaken calculus if you think that benefits of the PRC-DPRK relationship flow only one way. China wants to maintain its port presence in Rajin/Najin, and if it pisses off the Norks a bit too much, Beijing knows that Pyongyang can kick them out, like they've done or threatened to do to South Korean businesses and developers in Kŭmgangsan National Park or Kaesŏng Industrial Park.

So for now enjoy the show from the sidelines (and wonder just a bit if this is not part of a long-term strategy by Kim Jong-un or his handlers to move away from China and toward South Korea and/or its allies). In the meantime, I'm glad someone is standing up to the Chinese fish pirates. It looks like China is learning they messed with the wrong Korea.

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Coffee zombies will outlive us all

It's shortly before 7 a.m. here in the Aloha State, and I'm parked for a couple hours in the second of two Starbucks at the Ward Centers while I wait for someone I'm ferrying around Honolulu for a series of appointments. I've been here since 6:30, but the throng of coffee zombies (combies?) is just now starting to file in. There are at least ten people in line to order, but the line goes out the door, so I can't count everyone.

No doubt they've all crowded to this ubiquitous coffee mecca hub (there, that makes this post Korea-related) because they've heard the news that, based on a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, coffee drinkers promotes longevity:

A large-scale study of 400,000 people offers good news for coffee-drinkers: you might just live longer.

The study is the largest ever done on the issue, and the results should reassure any coffee lovers who think it's a guilty pleasure that may do harm. And whether it's regular or decaf doesn't even matter.

"There may actually be a modest benefit of coffee drinking," said lead researcher Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute.

The study, published online in the May 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, kicked off in 1995 and involved 402,260 AARP members ages 50 to 71 who lived in California, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Atlanta and Detroit. People who already had heart disease, stroke or cancer weren't included in the study, nor were extreme eaters who ate too many or too few calories per day. The rest gave information on coffee drinking once, at the start of the study.

I've long touted the beneficial effects of coffee. Not only will fare better if I've had my coffee, but those around me will also live longer if I've had my morning cup of joe.

But what these gushing headlines don't tell you is that those extra years you add to your life are all spent (a) waiting in line at Starbucks and Coffee Bean and (b) working more hours in order to pay for your java habit.

(I kid! I kid! I've in fact made the same joke about running: One's three hours spent running half an hour a day six or seven times a week adds up to about the same time all that heart-healthy behavior will increase one's life. This is actually not true, as regular exercise adds quite a few years to one's life, but it takes up only one or two percent of the day.)

The CBS News headline for this story ("Two cups of coffee a day cuts overall risk of dying by 10 percent, research shows") is a tad misleading as well. It reduces the overall risk of dying in a given year. It doesn't reduce your actual risk of dying, since the Good Lord calls us all home eventually.

In the meantime, enjoy a half-caf caffe mocha with a small dollop of whipped cream. On me (in spirit, at least).

More detail after jump, so click HERE.

Honda Uni-Cub brings us one step roll closer to Wall-E's world

Wall-E, in case you haven't seen it, is a brilliant film of the dystopian future genre in which a rag-tag band of humans find themselves fleeing chaos in a post-apocalyptic world in which anthropomorphic computers and robots are hell-bent on their destruction and/or preventing their return to Earth.

If you have seen Wall-E, you're probably wondering what I was on when I watched it.

Yeah, yeah, it's a kids' film, with an i-Robot-you love story to boot, but it really is about a dystopian future, a post-apocalyptic world filled with destruction, loads and loads of chaos, and anthropomorphic computers and robots, some of which are preventing humankind's return to Earth. And one of them really does seem to be trying to kill the captain (or at least incapacitate him).

But the joke's on him: morbid obesity would have done the captain in soon anyway.

And that brings me to my point (yes, I do have one). Honda recently unveiled its answer to the Segway (as if we needed one): a glorified electronic unicycle called the Uni-Cub. They might as well have called it the Uni-Club, because it will figuratively club you to death.

You're probably wondering what I am on now, but bear with me, please. When the Segway was first released, it was hailed for the supposed community-altering aspects it would bring. Instead of jumping in their cars, people would hop on their Segways and zippily go places that were a little too far to walk but too close for the guilt-ridden to drive (yes, there are a few of us).

The idea was that, with more and more people milling about at street level, this would lead to shops, cafés, neighborhood eateries, food kiosks, etc., sprouting like weeds and American cities would become like Seoul, Tōkyō, London, Paris, Roma, Hong Kong, Pusan, Ōsaka, Rio de Janeiro, Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Cairo, Athens, Brussels, Stockholm, Milano, Firenze, Marseilles, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, or just about every other city in the entire world.

Alas, this utopian future world never materialized. The Segway instead resulted in three major trends: Waikiki tourists getting plowed into by uncaring Honolulu motorists, national park rangers looking utterly ridiculous, and two entire generations conditioned to misspell the perfectly usable word segue.

The Segway was too expensive, too bulky, and it caused presidents to fall on their face. But the Honda Uni-Cub aims to resolve at least one of those issues, since it can even be used indoors. Simply put, you can, if you so desired, never walk anywhere.

And that brings us back to Wall-E's world.

This is technology gone horribly wrong. What is the difference between the top photo and this one just above? Holographic computer screens and about 50 kilos per person.

This is the part of the essay where my public health background kicks in: God made us bipedal for a reason. Walking provides us with salubrious functionality that goes way beyond getting from Point A to Point B. It keeps our blood pumping, it provides just enough stress on our skeleton that it encourages healthy bone replacement, and it helps regulate blood sugar. I run three miles a day, but if you can't run or jog then you should walk.

Even just a walk around the block with your dog, your s.o., and/or your kids or parents would do wonders for your health and longevity that you wouldn't get if you were mostly stationary and sedentary. Those of us in public health simply cannot emphasize that enough (seriously, we can't stop, it's like a genetic flaw or something).

And that leads me to what should by now be an obvious conclusion: Honda's Uni-Cub is part of a plot by the Japanese government to once and for all solve its demographic crisis. If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look a the charts on this post (a very high-traffic post for this blog, and one of only two in this blog's top ten that don't include scantily clad women). Japan's "population pyramid" is an inverted pyramid, and South Korea is catching up on this trend.

No economist has yet figured out how to maintain high standards of living with a graying population characteristic of an inverted pyramid like this.

Simply put, what had long been considered a "normal" population distribution was a pyramid like the one at right, where it had a large base of young people and it tapered off at the top where all the old people (i.e., retirees) would be. The idea being that those toward the bottom would work and toil (much like the people who built the actual pyramids) and the fruits of their labor would be enough to support the elderly in their old age, as well as the base (which is made up of children who, thanks to Charles Dickens, can no longer be put to work legally).

But years of declining birth rates have meant loads of old people and not enough young workers. We used to have twenty workers per retiree, and soon we'll have just around two because the top is growing faster than future workers are being replaced and the elderly are living to 100 instead of dying a year or so after retirement due to smoking-related illness, preventable infections, public safety problems, or nagging.


Replacement birth rate is about 2.1 children per adult woman (2.0 to replace the woman and the man who impregnated her, presumably her husband or long-term boyfriend, and 0.1 to replace those who die before reproducing or never marry). But countries like South Korea, for example, implemented birth control programs so successful that its birth rate plummeted from something like seven children per woman (not an exaggeration even though it sounds like one) to just 1.2. That's two people being replaced by 1.2 offspring. That is the very definition of a dying society and the reason why Korea is now embracing immigration and its own brand of "multiculturalism" (다문화주의).

The Japanese have the same problem as Korea, but have chosen (so far) to eschew immigration in favor of technological solutions. And by that, I mean robots. Robots will be trained programmed to take care of the elderly and do all the tedious tasks that now require a fully human health care worker. But denial is, like the aforementioned pyramid, a river in Egypt, and this technological fix can only go part of the way.

Ostensibly, Honda's Uni-Cub will be part of this effort to handle the elderly like glazed donuts on the conveyor belt at Krispy Kreme, but I'm pretty sure that they were really designed as part of some darker final robotic solution (my ominous point from several paragraphs up, in case you were wondering just where the hel1 this tangent was going).

Gin-san and Kin-san:
Public Enemy #1

It's pretty clear: Honda's Uni-Cub is part of the government's effort to trim the top of the inverted pyramid by inducing obesity in the Japanese population. Start 'em young... er, youngerish. Give 'em a Uni-Cub at the age of, say fifty, and by the time they reach seventy or so, when their government pensions are kicking in, about half of them will be just like the scooter-lounging humanity in Wall-E. And that means they will kick off at seventy-five instead of ninety-five, thus relieving pressure on the non-retired population.

You think I'm kidding, but I'm deadly serious.

View Honda's propaganda video, if you dare:



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Mad Kul Disease*

UPDATE (June 4, 2012):
I probably should have included the link to the Washington Post story on the same subject a few days later. I'm doing it now since GI Korea at ROK Drop just added a post on this same topic. I'll add what I wrote there:

Food caught in the Yellow Sea can be nasty. Even as Korea has cleaned up much of its effluent, China has stepped in to fill the void. Anything caught in the Yellow Sea should be heavily scrutinized.

Maybe now my semi-clever catchphrase of the day (the title up above) will finally catch on.

ORIGINAL POST:
Given that some South Korean supermarket chains have stopped selling American beef and the ROK government is eyeing imports with suspicion, I guess it's only fair that the US government would ban imports of shellfish from Korea over contamination issues as well:

The Washington State Department of Health is advising consumers not to eat any fresh or frozen shellfish that comes from Korea.

The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that all fresh and frozen shellfish, and many products made from these shellfish, shipped from Korea to the United States may be contaminated. This includes frozen breaded shellfish products from Korea; canned shellfish are not affected. States have been advised to treat Korean shellfish products as being from an unapproved source.

Effective immediately, FDA has removed all certified dealers in the Korean Shellfish Sanitation Program from its Interstate Certified Shellfish Shippers List. This stops the shipment of fresh/frozen molluscan shellfish from Korea to the U.S. Molluscan shellfish includes oysters, clams, mussels, and scallops, except canned products.

There have been no reported illnesses in Washington associated with Korean products. The state health department is recalling all Korean shellfish as a preventive measure, and is working with distributors and local health agencies. Consumers who have already purchased these products and have them at home should not eat them. For more information, contact FDA (fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/MediaContacts/default.htm).

Shellfish grown and produced in Washington are not affected.

This is the result of November 2011 incident in which frozen oysters from Korea were linked to an outbreak of norovirus in Washington State's King County. Three people were reportedly sickened after eating oysters at a restaurant in the Seattle area.

I'm glad they're taking this seriously. The only bout of food poisoning I've ever had in fifteen+ years living in South Korea (off and on since I was a teenager) was from oysters I bought at a food stand in Pusan, and it wasn't pleasant. That was a long time ago, though. Most seafood I eat is usually thoroughly cooked in a stew, although I do enjoy raw fish from time to time, in reputable eateries. With the advent of Yelp, I imagine such incidents will become even rarer, as careless restaurants see a downturn in traffic.

Oh, wait. I take back the "only time" thing about food poisoning. In 2005, I got food poisoning from the Starbucks at the US Army Garrison in Yongsan. Apparently there had been a power outage on the base, and the refrigerators had been out for hours. The Starbucks employees, thinking that the milk was still safe since it had remained in the unopened fridges and it was "ultra-pasteurized," served it to customers after the power came on again.

Since I'd ordered a beverage with especially high milk content (despite my lactose intolerance), I got a very heavy dose of whatever bug was in that spoiled milk (whose mildly spoiled taste was masked by the tea and sweetener). The food poisoning that suddenly hit me two hours later was the worst I've ever felt. I was so sick I could not drive the two miles back to my house without stopping every 200 yards to keel over until I felt good enough to sit up again. And the weird thing was that I wanted to just go to sleep, but when I closed my eyes I actually got dizzier.

Two days later I went to the Starbucks to complain, and they gave me two free coffee coupons. Score!

(In the US, I've gotten food poisoning from eating cheesecake in Yellowstone National Park when I was in middle school, and from eating duck pizza at California Pizza Kitchen a few years ago. There was another time I thought I had food poisoning in Korea, but it turned out to be appendicitis.)

* Kul [굴] is the Korean word for oyster.

Don't try this at home, kids!

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Fine Young Cannibals (alternate title: Y'know, this is how Mad Cow got started)

It's a basic rule of nature that animals should not eat their own kind. Indeed, cows eating feed made from other cows is how prions and other dangerous proteins and what-not spread from individual to individual. (And it's why it's a bad idea to feed cows feed made from the feces of chickens that were themselves fed cow protein, as happens today.)

#1 Google image search pick for
"performance enhancement drug" but
probably irrelevant to this story

But someone in China thinks that human flesh makes for a wonderful "performance enhancement drug," and South Korean authorities are up in arms about it.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Since August, Korean authorities have discovered nearly 17,500 of the human flesh capsules in the luggage of tourists and in international mail, the state-run Korea Customs service said in a statement Monday.

The pills, disguised as performance enhancement drugs, have been smuggled in by ethnic Koreans living in northern Chinese cities and contain so-called super bacteria that is hazardous to human health, the statement said.

South Korea’s crackdown on the drugs began last year after SBS, one of the nation’s major television broadcasters, ran a documentary accusing Chinese pharmaceutical companies of collaborating with abortion clinics to make pills allegedly made of human fetuses and the remains of dead infants.

The documentary claimed that DNA tests verified that the pills were made from powdered humans.

China’s Ministry of Health launched an investigation into the drugs’ origins last August, according to the state-owned China Daily. Representatives from the Ministry of Health did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Demand for the pills has been driven by the belief that the fetus is a “tonic” for disease, the China Daily cited the documentary as saying. Consumption of human placentas is more common in China, where it is believed to help revive blood supply and circulation, according to the China Daily report. A report in the Global Times, a tabloid published by the official People’s Daily, said the human flesh pill were used to enhance sexual performance.

I probably should try to track down this story in Korean, since I'm guessing "performance enhancement" might be, like "stamina" (스태미너), a euphemism for getting it up (and getting it to stay up), which of course is also a euphemism.

Seriously, I thought that the advent of erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra would herald an end to the absurd cottage industry of powdered rhino horns, ground-up tiger penis bones, deer antler steeped in a tea, whole snake in a vat of hard liquor, and, I guess, powdered human fetuses.

"The Chinese do what with our penises?!"

This fetus story is very troubling indeed, in part because, if there is profit to be made in something, it tends to boost the supply. If we get all freakonomics on this particular commodity, that means profits can drive abortions, just as, say, privately run executions could in the long run drive demand for sentences of capital punishment (sorry, I just got done reading Donna Selman and Paul Leighton's Punishment for Sale, a book describing how privately run prisons leads to lobbying for harsher sentencing for more people). In a sick, sad world (i.e., socialism with Chinese characteristics), Korean demand for these pills leads to Chinese fetuses being aborted and possibly even babies being killed.

Is that really such an absurd position I'm taking? I mean, more absurd than consuming powdered Chinese fetuses in the first place?

This is wrong on so many levels, not least for the myriad known and as-yet-unknown health risks of becoming a cannibal. Among them, ROK health authorities believe they contain superbugs.

Is this how the zombie apocalypse starts?

[UPDATE: The Marmot's Hole has a post and lengthy discussion on the same topic here.]

(I once thought I'd be safe on Oahu if there ever were a zombie apocalypse, but I think eventually, out of the millions of zombified [<-- that's a word!] humans, a few of them would, guided by the simple impulses of their brain stem, head out for the water in an an arms flailing type of motion and they'd end up propelling themselves to islands such as this. For all our sakes, please stop consuming the Chinese Fetus Enhancement Pills.)

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Coffee porn

I'm in the middle of an intense week to ten days, so there might not be much posting besides food porn like this venti sized coconut mocha frappucino that is half off at Starbucks every day from 3 to 5 from now until May 13.

My busy weeks have me living in and on Starbucks and/or Coffee Bean.

I would also like to not that my iPhone keeps autocorrecting "porn" as "pork."



This succinct email was sent from my iPhone.

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$4.049 billion, at least

I've never really been able to get behind Lone Star's sob story, about how mean old South Korea was out to get them — clearly because they're furriners — and all they were trying to do was just help out and make an honest buck.

Y'see, they made four billion bucks, and they may not have been of the honest variety. Sure, the sob story goes, Lone Star's man in Korea and the company itself got in legal trouble over stock price manipulation, but that's just part of the xenophobia in the Korean business world.

The take-home message: Stay away from Korea, or else you, too, might end up making $4 billion.

Anyway, those were my thoughts when I read that Lone Star is now suing the Korea Exchange Bank in a Singapore court for $49 million in operating costs of some kind. Greedy.

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Chevy Corvette headed to South Korea

That's the plan, to offset lackluster sales at home in the United States. Sales reportedly begin on May 4.

But would you pay 86.4 million won for a 430-hp car that would mostly be stuck in traffic? (Presumably it will get cheaper as the FTA fully kicks in.)

I pity the pedestrians in the neighborhood of whomever buys these things, since you know that narrow side streets is where they'll be revving this thing up. This should be an especial concern when we are getting news that Korea has by far the highest pedestrian fatality rate in the OECD.

Seriously, do we need the Chevy Corvette?

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