Once a district full of non-citizens and non-voting citizens, Koreatown was shaken awake by the L.A. Riots of 1992, and since then has been galvanized even for minutiae like redistricting of City Council seats.
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Wednesday, August 1, 2012
The C stands for Crazy
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Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Free stuff to do in Hawaii
(and nearly free stuff)
I'm a grad student on a budget, so I'm always on the lookout for things that are free or cheap, which is sadly rare in Hawaii.
This is going to be an ongoing list, but for now, I'll start with a few.
On Oahu:
This is going to be an ongoing list, but for now, I'll start with a few.
On Oahu:
- The hike to the top of Diamond Head (parking costs about $5, but you can walk in for free).
- Pearl Harbor's USS Arizona Memorial (though the nearby submarine USS Bowfin and the USS Missouri cost money).
- Hanauma Bay, go snorkeling with an amazing array of tropical fish and the occasional sea turtle (entrance is $5 but free if you're kama'aina [local resident], and the snorkeling equipment can be rented for $5 or so if you don't have our own).
- The self-guided Oahu tour of Lost (well, I guess this will cost for gas).
- Whale watching (during the winter months) from the paved trail to the lighthouse near Makapuu, the easternmost point of Oahu (from which you can see Molokai and even Maui, and supposedly the Big Island).
- Any state beach, as well as Waikiki.
- Watching tourists along Kalakaua Avenue (both the shopping district and the part that runs along the beach).
- The nightly fireworks display from Waikiki (and the off-shore spectacular every New Year's Eve).
- The Halloween Parade in Waikiki, Honolulu's answer to Mardi Gras (wild costumes that are inappropriate for children).
On Kauai:
- Kauai Coffee Company (free samples and a free tour). I was expecting a bit of a pricey tourist trap — cough! Dole Pineapple Plantation on Oahu cough! cough! — but this was the real deal and all free.
- Waimea Canyon.
- Sprouting Horn blowhole.
- Wailua Falls, the double waterfall shown in the opening of Fantasy Island.
- Any state beach.
- The hike along the Na Pali coast, starting at Haena Beach Park and going west.
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Sunday, July 29, 2012
You'll say I'm crazy now...
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| Screenshot from NBC News story on KJU's new bride. (Used without permission because knowledge yearns to be free!) |
... but I think the North Korean regime is getting ready to declare Kim Jong-un emperor or king, not unlike triumphant "generals" before him in Korean history.
This would accomplish two things. First, it would legitimize and solidify his role in the minds of everyday North Koreans. Second, it would be a powerful tool in Pyongyang's new charm offensive: a new and quirky royal family with a hot(tish) royal bride that would be the subject of occasional gushing portrayals.
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Light blogging...
I'm in Kauai until Sunday (Hawaii time) breaking in my hiking boots. These brand-new shoes, pristine prior to yesterday, took me on an eight-mile hike along the Na Pali coast and up a very rocky trail to a stunning waterfall.
We witnessed the sunset but nearly got stuck in the dark, so we were in a rush to get back. Hence the name, from the original Korean settlers (all 할머니) who hiked the region in the late 1890s, 나... 빨리!
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Friday, July 27, 2012
The Strange Rise and Fall of North Korea's Business Empire in Japan - Atlantic Mobile
The Atlantic has an interesting article on North Korea's under-the-table (and sometimes above-the-table) activities, with a focus on how they're falling apart (and, methinks, giving Kim Jong-un's regime impetus to reform).
A snippet (before I expand on this later):
"In late June, a Japanese court ordered Chongryon, a business, education, and banking organization formally representing pro-North Korean members of Japan's ethnic Korean minority, to auction off its ten-story office building in downtown Tokyo, effectively ending its mission of bringing money into North Korea and pushing propaganda out. The group's problems are essentially financial: Chongryon owes the Japanese government nearly $750 million for a late-90s emergency bailout that rescued the group's network of credit unions, which were rapidly de-capitalized because of remittances to North Korea during the country's devastating mid-90s famine, an economic and humanitarian catastrophe that killed up to 2 million people.
"As with just about anything regarding North Korea, even the surface-level truth belies deeper and darker realities. If it weren't for the chronic economic crisis and resulting famine that gripped North Korea in the 1990s, as well as a rising anti-North Korean strain in Japanese politics, then the criminal enterprises, communal bonds, and official connections that made Chongryon such a formidable political and cultural organization may well have remained intact. It took economic collapse, regional crisis, and domestic political upheaval to bring Chongryon to its knees."
This succinct email was sent from my iPhone.
Korea's underwater gold rush
The article is about two weeks old, but the New York Times had a story (covered in their July 9, 2012 podcast) on the recent surge in underwater mineral exploration, in which South Korea is a major participant:
And with clashing claims over Tokto, the Kurils, and islands in the South China Sea, this new semiprecious and precious mineral rush could lead to maritime territorial fights.
A miscalculation could result in a sort of "reverse alchemy," with the search for gold turning into battles with lead.
...
Mr. Dettweiler has now turned from recovering lost treasures to prospecting for natural ones that litter the seabed: craggy deposits rich in gold and silver, copper and cobalt, lead and zinc. A new understanding of marine geology has led to the discovery of hundreds of these unexpected ore bodies, known as massive sulfides because of their sulfurous nature.On the surface of it (no pun intended), this sounds great: one could easily argue that the oceans, not space, is the last frontier, but environmentalists warn that we really don't know the true effects (and external costs, those not paid by the commercial actors but rather borne by others not sharing the profits) of mining the ocean. We had enough troubles with driftnet fishing, derisively described as "strip-mining the ocean," but this might result in actual strip-mining of the ocean.
These finds are fueling a gold rush as nations, companies and entrepreneurs race to stake claims to the sulfide-rich areas, which dot the volcanic springs of the frigid seabed. The prospectors — motivated by dwindling resources on land as well as record prices for gold and other metals — are busy hauling up samples and assessing deposits valued at trillions of dollars.
''We've had extreme success,'' Mr. Dettweiler said in a recent interview about the deepwater efforts of his company, Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, Fla.
Skeptics once likened mining the deep to looking for riches on the moon. No more. Progress in marine geology, predictions of metal shortages in the decades ahead and improving access to the abyss are combining to make it real.
Environmentalists have expressed growing alarm, saying too little research has been done on the risks of seabed mining. The industry has responded with studies, reassurance and upbeat conferences.
The technological advances center on new robots, sensors and other equipment, some of it derived from the offshore oil and gas industry. Ships lower exploratory gear on long tethers and send down sharp drills that gnaw into the rocky seabed. All of this underwater machinery is making it more and more feasible to find, map and recover seabed riches.
Robotic prospectors are less grizzly
and ultimately cheaper than their human
counterparts, but are also less likely to
inspire Jack London-esque novels.
Industrial powers — including government-supported groups in China, Japan and South Korea — are hunting for sulfides in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. And private companies like Odyssey have made hundreds of deep assessments and claims in the volcanic zones around Pacific island nations: Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.
And with clashing claims over Tokto, the Kurils, and islands in the South China Sea, this new semiprecious and precious mineral rush could lead to maritime territorial fights.
A miscalculation could result in a sort of "reverse alchemy," with the search for gold turning into battles with lead.
...
Thursday, July 26, 2012
I guess all those Koreas look alike
Can the London Olympic organizers get anything right?
After all the flap over security mismanagement, now we get word that they mistakenly displayed the South Korean flag on a jumbo screen instead of North Korea's before a women's soccer match Wednesday.
As you can guess, this didn't elicit smiles and chuckles from the North Koreans. In fact, it prompted them to refuse to take to the field for nearly an hour.
The London organizers have since apologized, but it may be too late: Pyongyang has already threatened to cut off relations with London, said in a signed KCNA editorial that the Queen looked frumpy, and demanded food aid.
...
 |
| The North Koreans reacted the way I might if people think I'm a Canadian. |
As you can guess, this didn't elicit smiles and chuckles from the North Koreans. In fact, it prompted them to refuse to take to the field for nearly an hour.
The London organizers have since apologized, but it may be too late: Pyongyang has already threatened to cut off relations with London, said in a signed KCNA editorial that the Queen looked frumpy, and demanded food aid.
 |
| Son Kwangho: "We are the DPRK, you running dog bootlicker! Not ROK. We are democratic... and people's! Oh, just you wait... someday we will have missiles that reach Shetland Islands. Then all your ponies are belong to us!" |
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Next season on “The Bachelor”...
UPDATE:
Whoops! In my bleary-eyed state, I read "Kim Jong Un Married" as Kim Jong-un unmarried."
So forget the entire rest of the post, although if I changed a few things here and there, it could apply to a North Korean leader looking for a mistress. I mean, just how many mistresses did Kim Jong-un's father have?
Anyway, while I debate removing this post entirely, I would like to point out that my earlier point still stands regarding how woefully inadequate our knowledge of North Korea is compared to how much the South Korean media pretends to know.
Anyway, I'd like to know more about the young woman married to the Young General. Perhaps she is a wise woman who can temper any similarities he might have had to his father, and guide him in a way that actually betters the plight of the people.
ORIGINAL POST:
CNN is reporting that North Korea's Radiant Leader is confirming that an eligible bachelor (as opposed to a married ajoshi on the prowl who cheats on the side).
Now I find this funny, not only because "confirmed bachelor" was code back in the days of Madmen for a closeted Homersexual (autocorrect likes that word), but also because it's amazing how much the South Korean side claims to know about this young man whose name they had for years gotten wrong in Korean (they thought, based on the "un" spelling that he was 김정운 instead of 김정은).
Anyway, if Fox had cojones the size of beach balls, they could really have marriage to The Young General be the prize for a season of The Bachelor.
Holy(sh¡t) matrimony.
And y'know what? I'd bet they would get lots of people willing to be the eligible bachelorette. Yeah, I have that much faith in humanity.
...
Whoops! In my bleary-eyed state, I read "Kim Jong Un Married" as Kim Jong-un unmarried."
 |
| North Side Story... wait, no... A Korus Line! [source] |
So forget the entire rest of the post, although if I changed a few things here and there, it could apply to a North Korean leader looking for a mistress. I mean, just how many mistresses did Kim Jong-un's father have?
Anyway, while I debate removing this post entirely, I would like to point out that my earlier point still stands regarding how woefully inadequate our knowledge of North Korea is compared to how much the South Korean media pretends to know.
Anyway, I'd like to know more about the young woman married to the Young General. Perhaps she is a wise woman who can temper any similarities he might have had to his father, and guide him in a way that actually betters the plight of the people.
ORIGINAL POST:
CNN is reporting that North Korea's Radiant Leader is confirming that an eligible bachelor (as opposed to a married ajoshi on the prowl who cheats on the side).
Now I find this funny, not only because "confirmed bachelor" was code back in the days of Madmen for a closeted Homersexual (autocorrect likes that word), but also because it's amazing how much the South Korean side claims to know about this young man whose name they had for years gotten wrong in Korean (they thought, based on the "un" spelling that he was 김정운 instead of 김정은).
Anyway, if Fox had cojones the size of beach balls, they could really have marriage to The Young General be the prize for a season of The Bachelor.
Holy(sh¡t) matrimony.
And y'know what? I'd bet they would get lots of people willing to be the eligible bachelorette. Yeah, I have that much faith in humanity.
...
(mis)adventures in autocorrect
In my bleary-eyed post-arrival state, my fingers were slightly off when I'd meant to hit the three characters for "job" but inadvertently input their counterparts to the left.
iPhone's autocorrect, however, was most helpful in "correcting" my error:
This succinct email was sent from my iPhone.
...
iPhone's autocorrect, however, was most helpful in "correcting" my error:
hiv --> HIVSo now my mom may be thinking I can't go to California this August because of my new HIV. Let's just hope she reads my lengthy iMessage texts as carefully as I proofread them.
This succinct email was sent from my iPhone.
...
Perhaps it's a stretch, but maybe the Korean state can learn from Penn State
I'm sitting here on an eight-hour plane ride from Fukuoka to Honolulu, too bleary-eyed to read the English subtitles on the distant monitor showing the third or fourth Japanese rogue cop movie in a row (they promised Marigold Hotel \ where the heck is it?!), so I'm looking through the last save my iPad made of the NYT.
Inevitably, the Penn State disgrace comes up. The NCAA has dealt the school and it's famed football program \ which systemically ignored obvious sex abuse of children because it didn't want to derail the money train \ a brutal blow.
Given the punishingly harsh publicity Penn State and the once saintly Paterno have received, it's not all that surprising that the hammer would come down so hard on the program and the university. Nor all that disappointing. While it's inherently unfair to those who had absolutely nothing to do with this case that they are (indirectly) being punished, a message has to be sent that such egregious behavior (and not just the child molester Sandusky's) should never be tolerated, especially when protecting profits is the primary motivation for ignoring or burying the horrendous abuse.
Sex assault, whether child molestation or rape of an adult or some other similar assault, leaves its victims so scarred, and often truly effed-up... there's just no way to overstate the seriousness with which these cases should be taken (and prevented in the first place). If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I pray you never do.
Those were my thoughts since the Sandusky case and the subsequent coverup came to light, a nearly identical reaction as when the systemic abuse within the Catholic clergy was exposed layer by layer. But as I read the NYT piece just hours after leaving Seoul, I couldn't help but think of similar coverups and the general habit of looking the other way when sex abuse occurs in institutions that fear their image will be damaged if those cases become publicly known.
I think it is easy to see loose parallels between Penn State and, say, regional communities in south Korea where serial sexual assault had occurred and the police bullied the victims and their parents into silence. In some cases the parents were chided for ruining the reputation of their towns, a familiar refrain.
But local communities don't have the equivalent of the NCAA. Sadly, there is no real incentive to make sure those cases of systemic abuse are pursued with due diligence, except for the remote possibility of even worse publicity when the coverup itself is exposed.
UPDATE:
If I can track it down, I will write something up on the editorial cartoon that appeared in Wednesday's Korea Herald, which suggested equivalency between what Jerry Sandusky did to his child victims and what Bill Clinton did with Monica Lewinsky.
From The New York Times:
NEWS ANALYSIS: Real N.C.A.A. Penalty for Penn State, but No Cheers Yet
Although the punishment was harsh, the outsize role of money in college sports may be a bigger factor in the degree to which the Penn State scandal will resonate at universities.
http://nyti.ms/OV4Kxx
This succinct email was sent from my iPad.
Inevitably, the Penn State disgrace comes up. The NCAA has dealt the school and it's famed football program \ which systemically ignored obvious sex abuse of children because it didn't want to derail the money train \ a brutal blow.
Given the punishingly harsh publicity Penn State and the once saintly Paterno have received, it's not all that surprising that the hammer would come down so hard on the program and the university. Nor all that disappointing. While it's inherently unfair to those who had absolutely nothing to do with this case that they are (indirectly) being punished, a message has to be sent that such egregious behavior (and not just the child molester Sandusky's) should never be tolerated, especially when protecting profits is the primary motivation for ignoring or burying the horrendous abuse.
Sex assault, whether child molestation or rape of an adult or some other similar assault, leaves its victims so scarred, and often truly effed-up... there's just no way to overstate the seriousness with which these cases should be taken (and prevented in the first place). If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I pray you never do.
Those were my thoughts since the Sandusky case and the subsequent coverup came to light, a nearly identical reaction as when the systemic abuse within the Catholic clergy was exposed layer by layer. But as I read the NYT piece just hours after leaving Seoul, I couldn't help but think of similar coverups and the general habit of looking the other way when sex abuse occurs in institutions that fear their image will be damaged if those cases become publicly known.
I think it is easy to see loose parallels between Penn State and, say, regional communities in south Korea where serial sexual assault had occurred and the police bullied the victims and their parents into silence. In some cases the parents were chided for ruining the reputation of their towns, a familiar refrain.
But local communities don't have the equivalent of the NCAA. Sadly, there is no real incentive to make sure those cases of systemic abuse are pursued with due diligence, except for the remote possibility of even worse publicity when the coverup itself is exposed.
UPDATE:
If I can track it down, I will write something up on the editorial cartoon that appeared in Wednesday's Korea Herald, which suggested equivalency between what Jerry Sandusky did to his child victims and what Bill Clinton did with Monica Lewinsky.
From The New York Times:
NEWS ANALYSIS: Real N.C.A.A. Penalty for Penn State, but No Cheers Yet
Although the punishment was harsh, the outsize role of money in college sports may be a bigger factor in the degree to which the Penn State scandal will resonate at universities.
http://nyti.ms/OV4Kxx
This succinct email was sent from my iPad.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Chillin’ at Fukuoka International Airport...
It's been a great time in Seoul and Pundang, though I didn't get in the rural travel (e.g., Ullung-do) I'd hoped (including the Yosu Expo).
Nor did I get all my research done. But I did verify (sort of) that ROK citizens are regularly tested for HIV (and a few other diseases, including syphilis). But that's another post for another time.
Ooh... I'm being paged. Maybe I'm being upgraded.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Dear Kushibo: What's across the street from the Itaewon McDonald's?
Ah, what's in today's mail bag?
Dear Kushibo,
Tom, Kushibo, and Seoul Guy what’s across the street from McDonald’s in Itaewon? of course you don’t know. None of you actually lives in Korea.
Signed,
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-Dear Dreamboat Annie,
It's funny you should ask that, because almost at exactly the moment you left this comment at ROK Drop, I was actually in the McDonald's in Itaewon, munching on an Egg McMuffin set (Egg McMuffins are better in Korea than Hawaii for some reason).
But off the top of my head, I couldn't recall what was across the street from Mickey D's, except for some nice eatery a little bit up the hill, so I had to go back and snap a picture. It turns out there's a beauty shop that does Brazilian waxes and "manscaping" and has a bear baring a bare bear crotch to drive that point home. Is that what you were looking for? The number's on the photo I snapped (above).
Yours,Kushibo
Although Dreamboat Annie's motivation for that question was probably something else and she doesn't really care what's across the street from the Itaewon McDonald's, here's the picture I took anyway:
In fact, this may have been just a dig from Annie, who has joined that bandwagon of people thinking I don't have any business posting so prolifically on Korea because I don't live in Korea. And indeed, although I am now in Seoul (well, Pundang, actually) and my actual home is here and I think in some way that constitutes living here, it has been three years since I was last in Korea. (She also thinks I'm paid to blog, but that misperception may be my fault.)
This is the longest I've been away since I was a teenager. This was not by design, since I had been coming back every six months or so and spending about two months a year in the Seoul area working (even in Hawaii I work for a Korean corporation), doing doctoral research, hanging out with friends and relatives, etc., etc., but some important personal matters that have been first and foremost (since right after I got to Hawaii in 2006) simply did not allow it in 2010 and 2011.
And indeed, it has been an eye-opening experience being away for this long. I've often said that, in terms of change, five years in Korea is like twenty years in the United States, and this "decade" being away has been eye-opening. The traffic patterns have changed, already ubiquitous coffee shops have spread like cockroaches, there's an obvious effort by city governments to create green open space, things seem more orderly and sophisticated, etc., etc. Things that are the same are the constantly-under-construction nature of Seoul.
Perpetual reinvention is the thing that is the same and makes everything different at the same time.
But even while I'm away, my own academic work keeps me up-to-date on what's going on "back home." And even if it did not, I have professional, social, familial, legal, and financial ties to Korea that keep the bond strong. (Three years of being away has left me with a bunch of fires to put out — from getting my finances reordered to paying three years of property tax to getting my vehicle working again to giving face time with my employers.)
That my point-of-view in my blog is so often against the grain of other English-language blogs has more to do with my personal and experiential background than with having been abroad for three years. Back in 2005 and 2006, before I went to Hawaii, I was just as "contrarian."
When I write things in support of, say, HIV testing for all English teachers (as well as all F-series visa holders and all ROK citizens) and criminal background checks for long-term (i.e., over 90 days) residents, more than a few English teachers tend to think I'm against them (especially when they forget things like this), and some choose to make it personal. The "You don't even live here!" meme is a popular one.
Of course, I'm not the only blogger who gets flak from the English-teaching crowd. The Marmot's name is being dragged through the mud because he had the audacity to agree that some of the bad reputation of English teachers as of late (I remember when English teachers were treated as honorable professionals) has been brought on themselves, at least as a group. And that's why he's being called a moron.
Of course, Marmot has long had his detractors, especially Gerry Bevers, who seems particularly bothered by The Marmot's mockery of Gerry's relentless effort to defend Imperial Japan. From his latest blog aimed at demonstrating that the Japanese are good people because Koreans are bad:
I don't know why people bag on The Marmot for wearing a hanbok. Back in Africa he also wore apŭrikabok (or whatever Africans wear) and, as Zen Kimchi noted, he looks damn sexy in a hanbok. It doesn't make him a sellout.
So I guess the point of this rambling post is that people go after me, people go after other bloggers with whom they disagree, and they justify it by making ad hominem attacks. Gerry has done it with me as well, back in my pre-Hawaii days when I was a way-too-frequent-commenter at The Assa Hole. |
| My finger has a special message for you. |
In fact, this may have been just a dig from Annie, who has joined that bandwagon of people thinking I don't have any business posting so prolifically on Korea because I don't live in Korea. And indeed, although I am now in Seoul (well, Pundang, actually) and my actual home is here and I think in some way that constitutes living here, it has been three years since I was last in Korea. (She also thinks I'm paid to blog, but that misperception may be my fault.)
This is the longest I've been away since I was a teenager. This was not by design, since I had been coming back every six months or so and spending about two months a year in the Seoul area working (even in Hawaii I work for a Korean corporation), doing doctoral research, hanging out with friends and relatives, etc., etc., but some important personal matters that have been first and foremost (since right after I got to Hawaii in 2006) simply did not allow it in 2010 and 2011.
And indeed, it has been an eye-opening experience being away for this long. I've often said that, in terms of change, five years in Korea is like twenty years in the United States, and this "decade" being away has been eye-opening. The traffic patterns have changed, already ubiquitous coffee shops have spread like cockroaches, there's an obvious effort by city governments to create green open space, things seem more orderly and sophisticated, etc., etc. Things that are the same are the constantly-under-construction nature of Seoul.
Perpetual reinvention is the thing that is the same and makes everything different at the same time.
But even while I'm away, my own academic work keeps me up-to-date on what's going on "back home." And even if it did not, I have professional, social, familial, legal, and financial ties to Korea that keep the bond strong. (Three years of being away has left me with a bunch of fires to put out — from getting my finances reordered to paying three years of property tax to getting my vehicle working again to giving face time with my employers.)
That my point-of-view in my blog is so often against the grain of other English-language blogs has more to do with my personal and experiential background than with having been abroad for three years. Back in 2005 and 2006, before I went to Hawaii, I was just as "contrarian."
When I write things in support of, say, HIV testing for all English teachers (as well as all F-series visa holders and all ROK citizens) and criminal background checks for long-term (i.e., over 90 days) residents, more than a few English teachers tend to think I'm against them (especially when they forget things like this), and some choose to make it personal. The "You don't even live here!" meme is a popular one.
Of course, I'm not the only blogger who gets flak from the English-teaching crowd. The Marmot's name is being dragged through the mud because he had the audacity to agree that some of the bad reputation of English teachers as of late (I remember when English teachers were treated as honorable professionals) has been brought on themselves, at least as a group. And that's why he's being called a moron.
Of course, Marmot has long had his detractors, especially Gerry Bevers, who seems particularly bothered by The Marmot's mockery of Gerry's relentless effort to defend Imperial Japan. From his latest blog aimed at demonstrating that the Japanese are good people because Koreans are bad:
So, is the neutrality of The Marmot's Hole really debatable, especially when the man behind the blog wanders Korea wearing the traditional Korean clothing hanbok and brags about his eating of dogmeat?
 |
| Not the Marmot. Some other guy in apŭrikabok. |
On the plus side, it can be fun and occasionally memorable. After a heated exchange (when is an exchange involving Gerry over Japan with anyone not heated?), Gerry asked if was going to respond to him or "have you already posted your one-comment limit for the day?"
To which I replied:
Sorry, Bevers, unlike you, I receive neither masturbatory joy nor subsidies from right-wing sources for flooding the Internet with a one-sided, historically skewed, Imperial-apologist view every time someone utters the word "Tokto," so I will try to limit my writing to just this one comment.I soon thought better of what I'd written and issued a unilateral apology:
The last paragraph of my post up there was over-the-top. I apologize to Gerry and anyone else who may have been offended by that.With a glimmer of humor (and no small amount of admission), Gerry replied:
No problem, Kushibo. Like Japan, I was taunting you.But I had the last laugh:
Good, then. Like Japan, my apology may be meaningless. ;)Ah, good times.
A less pleasant exchange was when Gerry, as he is wont to do, accused me of taking the Korean side on the Tokto issue (and Comfort Women issue, etc.) because of fear of my "Korean handlers." To which I replied:
[Gerry] Open your eyes, Kushibo, and stop kissing up to your Korean handlers. You have been in Korea long enough to know what is going on. You do have to be afraid. It is possible to live among Koreans without having to kiss their butt.I concur with all who think Gerry is an asshat (and possibly a paid shill like Christine Ahn seems to be for Pyongyang). Even though I actually called his school to defend him and protest his firing when he supposedly got kicked out over his Tokto views (which turns out not to have been true, according to them: they canned a whole bunch of people from that school because of restructuring, including his fellow English teacher, and Gerry was allowed to re-apply).
Fu¢k off, Gerry. Just because I don't believe that "Korea was Japan's greatest ally" and that it's all a big Korea-generalted lie that Korea was butt-fucked by imperial Japan doesn't mean I'm ass-kissing anyone.
I have been critical of Roh for his diplomatic war almost since I started my blog. i have written things that are harshly critical of some of the nationalist sentiments that bubble up in Korea. You, on the other hand, are unable to see anything that would suggest even the slightest bit of culpability on the part of Japan, either past or present.
The Black Dragon Society is sure as hell getting their money's worth from you.
Anyway, I'm really in Korea, Dreamboat Annie. Send me an email through my Blogger profile page and we'll meet up and have a beer. If your userid is gender-appropriate and accurately descriptive, a few more beers.
...
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