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:



...

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!

...

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.)

...

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.

...

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?

...

Rodney King riots plus 20

April 29 (which is today in Hawaii and California, but yesterday in Korea) marks the twentieth anniversary of one of the worst outbreaks of domestic violence in modern American history.

Three years ago, I wrote about as thorough a post as I care to about this terrible event, so just go there. It also addresses Cho Seunghui and the Korean-American (and South Korean) reactions to that mass killing:

White cops beat down a Black motorist.

White cops acquitted despite being videotaped.

Angry Blacks riot and target Korean stores.

I'm somewhat simplifying things, of course, but there's a point: Prior to that, the only conceivable connection between Rodney King and anything or anyone Korean was that he was driving a Hyundai Excel (supposedly at 100 mph).

Given how badly the Los Angeles area Korean-American community was blindsided, I'd say it was prudent for kyopo across America (and other Asians, as the JACL said) to be at least a little concerned about a backlash against Koreans following the Seung-hui Cho massacre, though that sentiment was roundly mocked in the K-blogs two years ago.

Some other bloggers also have posts about twentieth anniversary, including the always thought-provoking The Korean. His includes a link to a KoreAm piece on oral histories of "4.29" (culturally and linguistically Koreanized as sa•igu) and a map of "destroyed and looted" businesses (which, methinks, should be two separates maps). 

One of the KoreAm links includes a statement by Angela Oh, whom I'd skewered in that three-year-old link. And while what happened to the Korean-American businesses was a tragedy and a wake-up call (on many different levels), a year or so after the fact they were saying that forty percent of the businesses that were destroyed were Korean-owned businesses, which made up thirty-seven percent of all businesses. 

That represents, statistically, near parity when it comes to destruction of Korean-owned businesses versus businesses owned by others, which calls into question how severe the "targeting" of Korean businesses actually was. (Yeah, yeah, that kind of statement is not going to win me any points with anyone.)

In other words, the angry crowd that was hell-bent on venting their anger and rage was rather indiscriminate in its self-infliction. (And since many of the accounts say that outsiders in various neighborhoods were doing the damage, how would they know which businesses outside of Koreatown were owned by Koreans and which were not?)

Elsewhere in the K-blogosphere, ROK Drop also has an anniversary post that also addresses that damage to the Korean-American community and the role the Latasha Harlins shooting death (at the hands of store owner Soonja Du) played in fueling anger between Blacks and Koreans. [UPDATE: The Marmot's Hole has a short post on 4.29 that actually links to this one.]

The Los Angeles Times has an excellent video interview of staff photographer Kirk McKoy, who was at ground zero (the intersection of Florence and Normandie Avenues) during the riots. The LAT also has an op-ed on the epic failure of the LAPD to protect and serve as the violence started and spread. 

The LAT also has a list of the dozens of dead from the three+ days of rioting, along with a description of what happened. These details belie the claim made by self-appointed Korean-American community leader Angela Oh in the KoreAm piece that "it was very specific to Koreans... Not to Chinese, not to Latinos, not to African Americans... It was just really clear that it was specifically toward Koreans," since the deaths include loads of Hispanics and people like 25-year-old Thanh Lam:

Lam was leaving his family's market in Compton, which had been looted and burned the night before. The traffic signal at Willowbrook Avenue and Alondra Boulevard had turned yellow, and Lam slowed to a stop.

A car bumped him from the rear and pulled up in the next lane. At least two gunmen leaned out with handguns and began firing. One bullet shattered the truck's window; a volley of shots ripped into the cab. Four bullets hit Lam, and within minutes he was dead.

The one Korean-American death was the tragic shooting of Edward Song Lee:

Edward Song Lee, an 18-year-old Asian man, was shot and killed Thursday, April 30, 1992, in Koreatown. Lee, a Korean American, was attempting to protect shops near 3rd Street and Hobart Boulevard when he was apparently shot by fellow Korean Americans who mistook him for a looter.

In fact, Edward Lee was the only Asian person killed in Koreatown. The others were White or Hispanic, people like thirty-year-old Patrick Bettan:

Bettan, a security guard at a Koreatown mini-mall in the 2700 block of West Olympic Boulevard, was accidentally shot by a co-worker during a looting incident.

Don't get me wrong, even though I believe careless gun handling contributed to these people's deaths, Mr Lee and Mr Bettan and the others were exceedingly brave for being where they are and their deaths ultimately fall upon the heads of those who had come to do damage and harm.

The 1993 South Korean film Western Avenue, starring Kang Suyŏn (강수연), later depicted the riots from the South Korean version of the Korean-American point of view.

As a California native with one foot in the Korean-American community and a few toes still in Compton, I still find the whole thing just so depressing. The warning signs were there long before, but people ignored them. All sides have some serious soul-searching to do, but instead we still get a lot of finger-pointing. 

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Korean tacos get T.G.I.F'ed

Remember back in the day, when the phrase "Korean taco" was a naughty euphemism for the land down under?

That was back before the Kogi Taco Truck graced the Big Orange, before the words "Korean" and "fusion" were ever uttered in the same sentence, other than references to Pyongyang's nuclear program.

But with success comes imitative flattery, and eventually things that are hip and cool (and delicious) go mainstream.

For the Korean taco, that day has arrived: T.G.I. Friday's has announced that Korean steak tacos are being added to their fare of flare:

Whether looking for fresh, seasonal dishes, like the Strawberry Fields Salad or Caribbean Spiced Rum Ribs, or to indulge in dishes that follow current flavor trends, like the Korean Steak Tacos or Salted Carmel Cake, T.G.I. Friday's® guests now have 17 more reasons to come in to Friday's and celebrate. The 17 new dishes and mouthwatering menu favorites add value and variety for Friday's guests, including new vegetarian options and more shareable appetizers.

Frankly, I'm shocked. First, I had no idea that T.G.I. Friday's still exists outside of South Korea and Guam (I guess their business model is that if they just stick around long enough, 1990s nostalgia will eventually be all the rage). Second, Korean food really seems to be going mainstream on the Mainland.

Ahh, I don't know why I'm bashing them. In fact, back in Seoul I've long enjoyed going out to the various "family restaurants" with friends and family: T.G.I.F.'s, Outback, Bennigan's, etc. I haven't been to Hooter's, but I did hit the Hard Rock once or twice and even the thankfully defunct Planet Hollywood. Heck, I actually remember when Coco's was the one and only option available (now that is 1990s nostalgia).

So does this mean that Korean food has "arrived" in America? Here in Hawaii, "Korean ribs," "bulgogi" (or some variation of the spelling), etc., are household terms, but the Aloha State is the crossroads of the Pacific, so that doesn't count (the Hallyu trend here predates the Hallyu trend from Korea).

If I end up in a T.G.I.F's anytime soon (my mom likes to go there for the lunch specials when I'm on the Mainland and since she's paying, I'm not complaining), I might try one of the Korean appetizers, but I think I'll stick with chasing around Kogi's naranja truck (naranja means orange, for you Spanish-impaired readers, a nod to the O in OC).

UPDATE:
Writing for NorthJersey.com, Elisa Ung gives a tentative thumbs up to TGIF'd Korean tacos, I think:

The tacos were served nestled in foil, in a wire rack. The chunks of steak were tender; the dominant taste was soy sauce, but it was fairly mild. The meat also had a faintly sweet undertone, and bore some tinges of caramelization.

And that was basically the good news. Everything was wrapped in taut, sandpaper-like corn tortillas. I didn't taste ginger – though that may have been drowned out by the liberal globs of sriracha – and I saw no cilantro or basil, but my tacos were topped with a lettuce mix that included plenty of arugula.

Arugula! On a Korean taco! I could hear grandmothers from many different cultures howling as I ate.

I later tweeted Roy Choi, the acclaimed chef behind the Kogi truck. Was he going to try the T.G.I. Friday's tacos? "Wasn't planning on it," he tweeted back.

Does this dish show that Korean food is so common it now has the honor of being watered down into mediocre fare acceptable to the masses? That's nothing to celebrate. But the general prospect of more people discovering flavors? I'll raise a real bulgogi taco to that.

Yup. For you food purists who think Korean tacos shouldn't be served anywhere except from a truck, this is the price you pay for trying to popularize something you love, enough that it pops up in a neighborhood eatery so you don't have to drive twenty miles to get it: eventually someone tries to make it accessible to the hoi polloi in ways you might not approve. But isn't that phenomenon where Korean tacos come from in the first place?

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On student loans and public health responsibilities (alternate title: It's things like this that make it impossible for me to vote Republican)

Republicans and Democrats both supposedly agree that it would be a bad idea for interest rates on student loans to suddenly double from the three-percent range to 6.8 percent. But it is the Republicans' plans for how to pay for this that has me scratching my head and wondering what planet they live on:

The Obama administration today threatened to veto the GOP-proposed House version of a student loan bill because it would repeal a fund for preventive health services.

“This is a politically-motivated proposal and not the serious response that the problem facing America’s college students deserves,” the White House said in a statement. “If the president is presented with H.R. 4628, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill.”

The $5.9 billion bill, which the House is debating today, would prevent interest rates on student loans from doubling July 1. To pay for it, however, the GOP version would cut the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a program created as part of the president’s health care reform act.

“Women, in particular, will benefit from this Prevention Fund, which would provide for hundreds of thousands of screenings for breast and cervical cancer,” according to the White House.

The veto threat comes after the president spent the week publicly campaigning for Congress to extend a 2007 law that cut student loan rates to 3.4 percent. If Congress does not act, interest rates will double to 6.8 percent this summer.

Seriously, this is wrong on so many levels. First of all, after the trillion-dollar-plus war in Iraq, when did the GOP get so picky about a mere $5.9 billion, hardly a drop in the bucket.

Second, how can it possibly help them in the upcoming election if they're trying to look sinister and out of touch. I mean, really, cutting preventive care? Can you get any more evil?

Third, by cutting a component of Obamacare that helps keep health care costs down and provides maximum benefit not just in terms of expenditures but also in quality of life, you're highlighting the positive elements of this plan that so many Americans are on the fence about precisely because they don't know about stuff like this.

At the same time, you're showing that you are more interested in helping oil companies (the subsidies for whom President Obama would want to eliminate in order to pay for the cheap student loan rates). Forcing the American people to choose between affordable college or preventing breast cancer is about the stupidest thing they can do.

It also makes your crusade against Obamacare look wrongheaded, foolish, and petty.

Do I need to go on?

Anyway, to switch gears, the one thing I would like to say is that to truly reform the whole college cost thing, we may actually need a reduction of student loans in favor of grants, scholarships, and other pay packages (divvied out on the basis of need and/or merit at the neighborhood level).

Student loans drive up the cost of education (even after adjusting for inflation, college costs are three times what they were three decades ago). Universities charge what the market will bear, and it bears more because students (and their parents) are getting free money now that they will have to pay off in some distant future. Of course they'll take the money and pay the tuition that has shot up 10% from the previous year, itself a rise of 8 percent from the year before that, etc., etc.

If it were up to me, I'd create national service universities, or at least national service scholarships, where the students work twenty hours a week (or more) running the university in various capacities in order to cover tuition. Perhaps room and board could be part of that or on a separate track, but offered at a reasonable cost. Alternatively, contracts that put them in teaching jobs or other socially beneficial work after graduation could be a means of paying for college.

Universities would have incentives to keep costs down, since they can't rely on atrocious tuition increases each year, and they could earn money to pay for professor salaries, buildings, overhead, etc., through government or private grants for research and the selling of services (provided by students) or use of facilities.

This is not terribly unlike what happens in some other countries (including Korea, in some universities), and it would put an end to the absurd notion of having fresh college grads in their early twenties saddled with $100,000 of debt (or more) that prevents them from buying a home or doing other economically productive activities, while forcing themselves to lock into a money-paying job early on rather than exploring other opportunities that might benefit themselves or society at large.

Certainly for some, a college education paid for with student loans is a far better choice than not going to college at all. But they would benefit even further if they were able to go to college and get out on the other end debt free.

Yeah, I'm a dreamer.

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