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By Martin Rehder, February 19, 2012 11:35 am

In one of the most WTF political moves ever, the South Korean government is considering changing the way computer games are played. They are considering shutting down a game after two hours of continuous play.  The idea is to have a “Cooling Off” period of 10 minutes so the gamer can rest.  But this law isn’t to prevent gamers from dying due to exhaustion or from sitting long enough to cause circulation issues. It’s to prevent bullying.  So, I’ll say it again. WTF?  Is there ANY scientific data anywhere that says gaming causes bullying? Or causes gamers to be bullied?  But, hey, this is Korea and asking “why” always results in a circular answer.

Last year, the government enacted the “Shutdown” law which prevents 16-year-olds and under from playing internet games late at night.

Gaming companies are worried that attempting to control the Korean population’s behavior by modulating their entertainment will have similar results as to what happened with the comic book industry – that industry went drastically down and the laws didn’t improve the situation.

Maybe it’s the amount of school these kids go to that causes problems.

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By Martin Rehder, February 19, 2012 11:04 am

Korean officials continue to scour the middle east looking for a nation that will sell them enough oil to cover the loss of Iranian oil. So far, there are no sellers. There are lots of countries that have expressed willingness, friendliness, even mutual defense. But so far, none of the countries visited by the Korean delegation have said they would be able to increase the oil they produce  in order to sell more.

The latest country to tell Korea to look elsewhere for oil is Iraq.  Iraq’s Foreign Minister  Hoshyar Zebari

didn’t respond with a specific commitment but said Iraq was producing around 3 million barrels of oil per day.

“Not responding with a specific commitment” is a nice, diplomatic way of saying “no sale.”  That’s  is not surprising since all of Iraqi oil is already being purchased as soon as it’s out of the ground.

So far, according to my notes, the Koreans have asked all their oil partners for additional oil with varying results. Saudi Arabia pledged “a steady supply” of oil, but not an increased supply. They did, however, agree to buy some South Korean weapons, so it wasn’t a wasted trip.  Qatar didn’t give oil, but they signed a deal for Qatari natural gas. While that’s nice, it’s not a replacement for crude. The United Arab Emirates is already selling a big chunk of their oil to Korea, but there isn’t enough to cover an Iranian shortfall, so that meeting was a lot of flowery words of mutual trust, respect and support.

Kuwait is the last of the big five oil exporters that sells to Korean. We’ll see how that meeting transpires later.

Korea is trying very hard to reduce the oil is buys from Iran in order to appease American President Obama’s desire to financially hinder Iran into stop making nuclear weapons. Iran meanwhile says they are using nuclear technology for peaceful purposes only.  But being in a region that is surrounded either by those countries that have nuclear weapons or by those that don’t and have been invaded by the west it’s clear as to why they might want them.

And, just in case anyone is still wondering why, this chart below shows. Oil production  peaked about 5 years ago. We will never produce that much again. We will be producing less and less each year and it will become harder to extract and more expensive.  Try as they might, there just isn’t a place on the planet that has oil to spare so Korea won’t have to buy Iranian oil.

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By Martin Rehder, February 18, 2012 12:03 pm

Sometimes when you buy groceries from the store and don’t consume it until after the printed expiration date it’s fine. No problem. It’s still good. That date is simply a manufacturing company prediction of when the product is likely to go bad, not will go bad.  And sometimes, they are wrong the other way – the product goes bad before that expiration date.   And so what? A little sniff of the product and most folks can immediately tell if the product has soured, molded or spoiled.  Even a visual inspection might tell you if it’s safe to eat or not. And, if looking and sniffing fail, well, you might get a little sick, but you won’t die.

That’s the theory, anyway.

But what happens when the product in question is not some foodstuff that you, your family and friends might consume that might cause a little discomfort. What if the product in question is used by millions of people. What if the sniff  test doesn’t work because it’s odorless? You can’t determine from the smell if it’s still good.  What if the visual test doesn’t work either?  You can’t smell it, see it, taste it, hear it or even touch it.  But if the product has gone bad, you might die.  Your unborn child might be malformed. Your descendants might grow strange appendages where they don’t belong.  They might die.

When the product is a nuclear reactor and the manufacturer has given it an expiration date of November 2012 should you be worried?  When November comes and goes, Wolsong Nuclear Power Plant just north of Ulsan will continue to operate if the Korean government gets it’s way and gets a 10 year extension.  According to The Korea Federation of Environmental Movements

 the Wolseong No. 1 reactor has recorded 51 malfunctions over 30 years due to flaws in machinery and components, including radiation leaks, coolant leaks, and reactor shutdowns.

The latest shutdown was late last year, just six months after a two-year maintenance period. Is the expiration date (called “design life” by those in the industry) indicative of the safety of the plant?   Will another 10 years of nuclear power generation see more and bigger problems there?

Wolsong is just a hop, skip and a jump from Ulsan.  Will we be having a Fukushima of our own one day soon when one of these small malfunctions at Wolsong turn into a major disaster? Frankly, this has me more worried than anything the North Koreans have said or done in the past few years.

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By Martin Rehder, February 17, 2012 7:34 pm

Living in another country, a hobby is a great way to keep some portion of one’s culture and identity alive. Some people play computer games, some knit, some are active in sports, some write. But not everyone’s hobby turns into a money making opportunity. Fewer still hobbies are transformed into a regular paycheck. But it’s the rare hobby that can bring both a steady paycheck and every man’s fifteen minutes of fame with it. To have a hobby where the end result can become the headlines of newspapers, nightly news shows and… well, someone else’s blog… is the stuff of legends. But for Aaron Tassano, that’s exactly what happened.

Aaron Tassano busy making notes at the baseball stadium. Photo courtesy of indyk@sportschosun.com

Several years ago, Aaron was the co-author of a baseball oriented blog that he and a friend in Taiwan managed. It was a hobby site they called East Windup Chronicle (and has since been hacked by Somali pirates). The two men enjoyed baseball enough that they wrote about baseball: which players were good, how the games went, the rankings, the stats – all the usual things that baseball fans like to talk about, read about and discuss. That’s not so unusual, as there are dozens – no hundreds, perhaps thousands – of websites dedicated to one particular sport or another. Aaron’s partner had wanted to build some sort of business around their Asian baseball blog and the two were delighted when their blogging attracted the attention of some people in one of America’s most famous Major League Baseball clubs – the Chicago Cubs. These days, in addition to his regular job teaching English at Busan Info-Tech College in Busan, Aaron spends his time traveling the length and breadth of the Korean peninsula working for the Chicago Cubs. Aaron is a professional baseball scout.

Aaron has been all over Korea, scoping out players on university and high school baseball teams throughout the nation. In the entire country, there are only 52 schools that have baseball teams. That may sound like a lot, but given the number of high schools and universities in Korea, that’s a relatively small group. Regardless, Aaron travels to games wherever they play and determines who, among all the players, is worthy of his recommendation to the big leagues. And that recommendation could potentially be worth millions. Through his hobby/job, Aaron has the power to lift a player out of the ordinary everyday existence and into the bright lights, big money and stardom of major league baseball.

Over the years Aaron and the team of recruiters he works with have placed several Korean ball players in the hands of the Chicago Cubs teams. They have placed six players in four years. Although none last year, they placed one in 2010, two in 2009, and three in 2008, the year in which Aaron joined the team. These recruits spends their time playing in one of the five levels of minor league teams that each major league team owns. As players hone their skills and older players move on, the new recruits are moved upwards through the farm-league system to eventually make the big leagues. But while they only play in the minor leagues at first, that is not without some serious compensation: a player with potential can expect a signing bonus in the range of US$725K dollars. That’s not so minor.

With the power to turn a Korean ball player into a player with the potential to be a star, Aaron has the Midas Touch. His recommendation can make a player’s entire future rosy, transforming him from just another player on just another school team to star player status. He could recruit another Park Chan Ho (박찬호) who played for multiple American teams and was the first Korean-born player in the US league) or Choo (Choo-Choo) Shin Soo (추신수). now playing with the Cleveland Indians. Both of whom are famous in Korea and America for their baseball skills. And while all that power of a recommendation might form a mental image of Aaron gallantly laying a sword on the shoulder of a kneeling ball player, the details aren’t quite so pretty.

For Aaron to make a recommendation on a player, first he must travel to the games – from Seoul to Ulsan, from Jeju to Sokcho and all points in between – and watch. That’s not so bad, you say. He gets to watch baseball, which is, after all, his hobby. But watching is only the beginning. He must record video of the players, take photos, and must write up his thoughts on their current ability and future potential. Then he must package up his video, photos and writing of each player present that to his boss, the manager of the Chicago Cubs recruiting for all of Asia. And, of course, all that travel means someone has to pay for planes, trains and automobiles as well as meals, hotels and whatever else is required in order to watch these disparate players. Aaron pays his own way, but is reimbursed for all his expenses – provided he painstakingly records and documents all his expenses properly. Aaron’s hobby has now mutated into a full blown job, with weekly requirements and deliverables. Still, he enjoys scouting despite the work-like aspect of it.

“It’s fun. I guess the most ‘work’ like aspect of the job is calculating expenses. When I go places I have to save all my receipts so I can get reimbursed. I have to individually tape them each to a piece of paper, being careful to not let any of them overlap, convert the money to dollars, then add them all up on a spreadsheet. Even that’s not terrible because it means I’m getting my money back. Outside of that, even the most mundane aspects of the job are at least fairly interesting to me since they involve baseball.”

And if fun isn’t enough to do it, the pay helps. Aaron makes good money scouting in addition to his regular teaching gig.

Over the five years that Aaron has been scouting, he’s helped recruit some players that bear watching. His first year he helped recruit Ha Jae-hoon (하재훈) from Masan. Early on he seemed like the least likely success story: no MLB teams were interested in him and the local Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) scouts for Lotte even derided the signing publicly, complaining that the Cubs were recklessly signing minor league filler. Aaron was concerned.

“Ha’s first year was pretty so so, and I started to think he might get cut during his next spring camp. But he surprised everyone by getting off to a strong 2010 and he’s kept it going ever since. “

Ha was called up to the Double-A team last year because of an injury and played well there. Recruited at out of high school, Ha is just now 21 years old and this spring he’s going to major league camp.

Another player that Aaron helped to recruit is Lee Hak-ju (이학주). Lee has become a much-hyped prospect for Tampa Bay when he was traded by the Cubs in 2010. Many believe Lee will be the next good, or even great, Korean major league ball player.

Scouting for the American MLB sounds like fun for any fan of baseball. But that’s not to say it isn’t without controversy. This past week, for example, the KBO was upset that the Baltimore Orioles did not discuss with them the signing of 17-year-old pitcher, Kim Seong-Min. Apparently, the KBO feels they should be informed when another country’s ball team become interested in a player that they (the KBO) haven’t already signed themselves. Given the contract requirements as outlined in this story by The Marmot’s Hole, it’s no wonder that Korean ball players would welcome a discussion by any other baseball recruiting organization.

In between traveling to games, editing videos, writing reports and expense statements, Aaron still has time to tend to his “real” job. As a college teacher, he only works three days a week, and only for seven months of the year. That leaves him plenty of time to devote to his hobby. We should all be so lucky to have a hobby that pays a salary. Aaron likes to soft-pedal his role in major league baseball and proclaim that he’s just one part of a team, low man on the totem pole and generally other lots of self-effacing talk. Still, he is a part of Major League Baseball, America’s greatest past time. That’s something a great many of us can only dream of.

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By Martin Rehder, February 10, 2012 8:42 am

Having been on vacation the past couple of weeks, it’s been a little quiet in the news department. Here are few tidbits of interest from around country.

• Korea is still trying desperately to obtain replacement crude oil for the Iranian oil it now imports. The US government is leading the charge to embargo Iran for what it says is making nuclear weapons while Tehran claims only peaceful purposes. The US is attempting to get all nations to stop buying Iranian oil to force Tehran to its wishes. Unfortunately, that’s more pipe dream than reality. Korea gets somewhere around 200,000 barrels of oil (about 10% of its total needs) per day from Iran. This week, Korean officials visited Qatar to try and secure oil. While lots of flowery words of support were published an agreement with Qatar on oil wasn’t forthcoming. Even the Saudis can’t help, although they said they’d try, but even that will fail. This story, from the Korea Herald, has a misleading headline as the Saudi Oil Minister  only said that  ”he will actively consider support.”  The headline says they will try. The quote says otherwise – that they will NOT give it – just think about it.  Why? Because Saudi Arabia doesn’t have spare capacity either.  Qatar does have natural gas available, so the Koreans bought that. But Iran is still sending oil to Korean. That will continue to be the case given that there just isn’t oil enough to go around to replace Iranian crude.  Meanwhile, Seoul is attempting to fix the problem in other ways, such as rounding up all the fat and oil in households to make biofuels.
• In an effort to completely undermine everything that capitalism is and does, the city government in Seoul is forcing some stores to close so that others may make money.  Worried that Mom and Pop shops can’t compete against the big discount stores, the government is set to force the large discount stores to close a certain number of days.  Any predictions on how well that will work?
• Korean baby-boomers, those born between 1955 and 1963 are causing concern for the nations companies. Too many are retiring in the coming years and adequate replacements are not available without causing hiccups.
• Korean pilots are under the microscope for suspicion of (gasp!) drinking while flying and not following safety procedures.

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By Melanie Burnell, February 7, 2012 12:39 pm

Depending on your digs and your penchant for long underwear, you might find it impossible to shake off that freezing cold feeling all winter, especially since this has apparently been the coldest winter in Ulsan in the past 15 years. 

If you’re finding that with the colder weather, that you just can’t stay warm, a visit to an Enzyme Jjimjil bang 효소찜질방 is the perfect remedy. Located in many places around the city, Hyoso 효소 is the new spa trend. It’s a tub, filled with traditionally prepared, Korean medicinal enzymes. It looks like a mud bath but it feels more like spongy sawdust.

Luckily I found a half price coupon on an internet coupon site, so if you have Korean friends who would be interested in going with you, it would be worth it to search for Ulsan Hyoso 울산효소 on a site like Coupang 쿠팡. A regular one-time visit is usually 35,000 won, but thanks to internet coupons you might be able to find a discount of half price. If you really like the treatment, it’s possible to buy a package of ten visits for a discount. Since 효소 is a popular new trend, with different locations quickly saturating neighborhoods, competing spas sometimes have lower package prices.

Both men and women are welcome to visit the spa, which has separate facilities for both sexes.  The location that I visited only had a total of 5 tubs, 2 for men and 3 for women, so it might be a good idea to make an advanced reservation if you’re planning on going with a group.

The first spa treatment may be one that you wish to cut short, or forgo completely. I had seen this contraption before and was willing to try it once.  I can say for sure that once was enough. The only way I can think of to describe it is as a medicinal barbecue of the lady parts. After disrobing, you will be given a plastic sheet with only an opening for your head. You don the plastic tarp and are then seated on a box with a hole in the middle. You are supposed to centre yourself over the hole in the middle, under which is a very warm machine that emits heat and cooks your most sensitive body parts. When you complain that it is too hot, the attendant will turn it down reluctantly, because in her opinion, it’s not really that hot. You sit naked under your tarp, cooking for 15 minutes, and then a timer will go off indicating that it’s time for you to proceed to the enzyme therapy tub. I’m sure it’s possible to skip this barbecue, repeating bulpyeonhaeyo 불편해요, “It’s uncomfortable”. Supposedly it’s good for your derriere, although I didn’t feel a difference.

You will be given a pair of disposable undies and shower cap before sitting in the enzyme tub.  The attendant will have hollowed out a space for you to lie down in, and you should do so slowly because it’s hot. Once you lie down and have adjusted to the temperature, the attendants will cover your body with more of the enzyme treatment. Let them do the covering because if you move around at all, it gets hotter and hotter. Then you lie still for 15 minutes and soak up the heat and enzyme benefits. The temperature is kept at 35 degrees. If you find it too hot, you are advised to first uncover your arms and then your legs. My feet were absolutely loving it. I don’t think I will have warm feet again until summer, unless I go back for another treatment. The rest of me didn’t mind it either. It was hot, but since I didn’t wiggle around and once I took my arms out, it was definitely bearable and kinda nice. I’m usually always hot and rarely turn the heat up high at home, so I was very surprised to be able to tolerate it so well. My Korean friend felt awful when she got out of the treatment tub. She had to sit down because she felt dizzy. I was very surprised at this because she often goes to jjimjil bangs with her family for fun. The attendant explained that people with lots of stress and/or bad liver conditions can be affected this way. I was worried about myself before we went, so I made sure to drink lots of water and eat fruit beforehand. I don’t think this treatment would be a good idea after a night of drinking because as relaxing as it is, we all know that excessive alcohol consumption leads to dehydration and can be hard on your liver.

After the 15 minutes in the enzyme treatment, we were sent off to shower. We were told to use warm water and to scrub the remaining enzyme mud/흑/soil/stuff into our skin to exfoliate before washing it off completely. Soap, shampoo, conditioner and towels were provided.

Once showered and dried, you will be provided with a shorts and t-shirt set and led to a room for a facial treatment mask. The room was warm and relaxing and after lying down on the stone floor, I was given a heavy, warm stone-filled cushion to place on my abdomen. According to traditional Korean medicine, keeping the abdomen warm is good for digestion. However, since it is apparently impossible to reap the benefit of anything unless you do it at full tilt, my comfortably warm cushion was soon replaced by a painfully hot one. Ouch. Naturally, my complaints were met with surprise. By that point I was well relaxed to the point of being antsy and looking forward to getting dressed and leaving.

I was happy to try the 효소 Hyoso enzyme treatment once, but unfortunately for my poor cold feet, they will have to make do with extra socks for the remainder of the winter.  Hyoso Jjimjil Bang are located all over the city, you should be able to find one in just about any neighborhood if you look for the sign, written in Korean. 

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By admin, January 24, 2012 4:01 pm

(This is a reprint of an earlier article, with the “How To read Hangeul” part separated out.)

Something that will make your life here easier is to learn to read Hangul (written Korean). It’s surprisingly easy to learn, as it’s phonetically based, unlike Chinese, in which you have to memorize everything. Each letter in Hangul makes a sound, and they are put together to form syllables and words. For example, ㄱ makes a sound similar to “g” or a soft “k”, ㅣ sounds like “ee” and ㅁ sounds like “m”. Put them together, and you have 김, or “kim”.

The easiest way to practice is to write out the Hangul alphabet (or print out the chart below) with the equivalent English sounds, and then go to McDonalds to read the menu. It’s easy to puzzle out the phonetics when you know what the word is supposed to sound like. For example, 함버거 is ham baw gaw (hamburger).

Knowing how to read, even if you don’t know what all the words mean, will be endlessly helpful. You’ll feel more confident getting around, and it will even help you be a better teacher. By knowing how Korean and English sounds don’t match up, you can address your kids’ pronunciation difficulties more easily.

Korean is one of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn (only Chinese and Japanese are harder), but if you put in a little effort, you can learn enough to get by. These days, many Koreans speak a little English, at least in the bigger cities, but as with traveling anywhere, making an effort to speak their language will help people be more receptive to assisting you.

Consonant sounds

ㅂ- a soft “b/p” sound like a cross between “bubble” and “puppy”

ㅃ – “P” pronounced strongly

ㅈ – “j” as in “jump”

ㅉ – “tch” as in “watch”

ㄷ- “d” as in “delicious”

ㄸ – “D” pronounced strongly

ㄱ – a hard“g” or soft “k” as in “gum”

ㄲ – a hard “K” sound

ㅅ – “s” as in “sand”, sometimes “sh” (when next to ㅣ)

ㅆ – “ss” as in “hiss”

ㅁ- “m” as in “mom”

ㄴ- “n” as in “no”

ㅇ- “ng” as in “song”, unless before a vowel (see below). Then it’s silent.

ㄹ – “l/r” – almost impossible to pronounce properly in English. It has more of an “r” or “l” sound depending on where it is in the word, and is the cause of the students’ confusion with “l” and “r” sounds. And it’s kind of rolled in the back of the mouth like with the Spanish or Scottish “r”.

ㅎ – “h” like in “hat”

ㅋ – “K” as in “Kite”

ㅌ – “t” as in “top”

ㅊ – “ch” as in “church”

ㅍ – “p” as in “pop”

Some of the cosonant sounds change if they are placed at the end of a word. As a general rule, certain consonants never end a word, which is why you’ll hear sandwich pronounced “sandwichy” or “nice” pronounced “nice-uh”. But the general pronunciation rules above will give you a sound start.

Vowel sounds

When a vowel starts the word, ㅇ is used as a placeholder. So, you’ll see them written as “어  아  이”, etc. They’re still pronounced as follows.

ㅓ – “aw” as in “awful” (anglicized as eo, like Mugeodong – “moo gaw dong”)

ㅕ- “yaw” as in “yawn” (anglicized as yeo)

ㅏ – “ah” as in “apple” (anglicized as a)

ㅑ- “yah” as in “yah, I like pie!) (anglicized as ya)

ㅐ- “ay” as in “day” (anglicized as ae)

ㅒ – “yay” as in “yay!” (anglicized as yae)

ㅔ- “eh” as in “I know, eh?” (anglicized as e)

ㅖ- “yeh” as in “yet” (anglicized as ye)

ㅣ- between the “ee” and short “i” sound (anglicized as i)

ㅗ – “oh” as in “oh my goodness” (anglicized as o)

ㅛ – “yoh” as in “yo, dawg, wassup!” (anglicized as yo)

ㅜ – “oo” as in a long “u” sound – “fruit” “tune” (anglicized as u)

ㅠ – “yoo” as in “you” (anglicized as yu)

ㅡ – “euh”, more like the short “u” sound, like “under” (anglicized as eu)

When you combine vowels, you get the “w” sound:

ㅘ – “wa” as in “water”

ㅙ – “wae” as in “way”

ㅚ – “we” as in “we”

ㅝ – “wah” as in “wander”

ㅞ – “weh” as in “wet”

ㅟ – “ wi” as in “will”

ㅢ – “ooih” as in “wit” *

Some of the sounds are so similar, that it’s difficult for non-native speakers to hear the difference.

So, can you read this?

울산 언라인

(hint, it’s the website you’re on)

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By admin, January 18, 2012 9:58 am

Here’s a sampling of the latest news in Korea

• Information addicts may have a tough day today. As of this writing there are less than six hours before the English portions of the giant online encyclopedia Wikipedia goes dark.  Te crowd-sourced website that always seems to have all the answers all the time will go dark for 24 hours. This will affect all pages in English in all countries, including Korea. If you’ve got something you need to look up online, do it before 3pm Korea time or you won’t get a chance again until Thursday at 3pm.  Wikipedia found Jimmy Wales says in an interview with CNN that he’s going dark to protest the severe anti-piracy laws, SOPA, now being discussed before the U.S. Congress.  Last month hosting provider GoDaddy lost nearly 30,000 website domains by customers angry with their support of the SOPA regulations. Ulsanonline.com, although a GoDaddy customer, did not jump ship. Not because GoDaddy is cool but because we just don’t have the staff to rehost our site on a moment’s notice.
• And in the Unlikely to Happen department, South Korea will ask North Korea to repay for corn and rice supplies it loaned the country in 2000.  Fat chance that will happen.  I could be wrong, but I’m betting on a polite thumb nosing from across the DMZ on this one.
• A sauna operator in Busan has been “advised” to allow foreigners in.  Advised. Not told. Not demanded. Not threatened with arrest for civil rights violations. Advised.  The sauna does not allow foreigners in because Korean patrons claim that
  

  foreign users “make the water in the bathtub dirty” and “pass on AIDS.”

  There are currently no laws against discrimination of this sort in Korea. Korea sparkling. Korea sparkle-tastic. Korea sparkle-licious.  Dynamic Korea, goddamnit Korea.

• South Korea “accepts” the US’s oil sanctions against Iran.  Despite getting nearly 10% of the country’s petroleum needs from Iran, Seoul says it will help by cutting back to help starve the middle east nation for appearing to try to make nuclear weapons.  However, KBS Global’s headline that “Gov’t Accepts US Request to Cut Imports of Iranian Oil” is more than a bit misleading.  Even cursory reading of the article shows that Seoul will cut back, if and when it can find replacement oil. In other words, another nose-thumbing to be had.  Few Asian nations have jumped on US President Obama’s band wagon to throttle Iran into submission by cutting oil imports. Korea imports over 2M barrels of oil per day (yes, I got that statistic from Wikipedia.) To find another 200,000 barrels per day in a world where oil production has remained flat for the past five years will be difficult at best.  Seoul will likely give more than lip service to Obama’s request for pressure.

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By Martin Rehder, January 15, 2012 9:14 am

Tired of watching Korean TV?  Wore out your playstation and all its games? Spent your entire monthly budget on 맥주 과  소주 and now need something else to fill those long winter nights you’ve got?

Well, look no further for entertainment . The North Koreans are here to help. Until now there was no where to get the real skinny on the happenings in North Korea unless you read and understood Korean well. North Korea’s official newspaper has always been in Korean. Now you can enjoy the Rodong Sinmun, the official news of North Korea, without using a translation program or be concerned about whatever spin your human translator has put on the news. North Korea has launched an English version of the Rodong Sinmun.

Need to know what the Supreme Leader thinks? Read the official news. Can’t wait for the South Korean reunification ministry to tell you the news? Read it yourself.  Need all the latest gossip on Fat Boy Kim? It’s all there, ready for consumption.

And if a grain of salt is what most people would take when considering the veracity of certain news, reading the Rodong Sinmun requires an industrial-sized drum of salt. A good portion of the articles begin with alarming or astonishing headlines and then delve quickly into either vitriolic hating on the evils of South Korea and America or they pile on the praise in copious quantities for the Kim Dynasty.  One article’s headline states that “U.S. to Pull Its Forces out of S. Korea at Earliest Possible Date“  and instead of mentioning anything of the US’s intentions or plans to pull out simply drones on about how illegal and unjust it is for troops to be here and then calls for the US to withdrawl.  No pull out, no plan, no story. Another article’s headline is “Amnesty to Be Applied to Convicts in DPRK” but it doesn’t say which convicts (all of them? in perpetuity?) and then drools all over the Kims and why they are such glorious leaders.  Fun stuff.

In fact, from the four categories of pages available, Editorial, Article, Commentary and Documents, it was difficult to discern one from the other. What should be a news article was really an editorial. What purports to be an “Information Bulletin” in the documents section is nothing more than a diatribe on the wonders of the various Kims.

English teachers should be consoled by this news. Whenever reunification happens, there will likely be a great need for your services in the north. Although the official newspaper contained mostly correct grammar (there are a few tweaks needed), the biggest errors in English were run-on sentences, particularly when effusing on the Kims,  and failure to understand the difference between nouns such as news  and opinion.

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By admin, January 11, 2012 9:33 am

Here are some of the headlines from our little home away from home:

• First up, in the “what a surprise” category, is the Korea Herald’s article on Multicultural students at risk of being bullied. Given a nation that prides itself on inbreeding purity of blood it’s no wonder things like this happen. Students who have one non-Korean parent have come under fire in several places around the country simply because of their mixed heritage. Many have quit school rather than face the bullying. And unless something is done to change the mindset of Koreans, it’s going to get worse.  Just in  2008 to 2009, the number of multicultural students increased almost 54% to nearly 108,000. Consequently, the Nam-gu Ulsan Police Dept has gotten started and is asking for information on any known cases of bullying or racism.  (Kudos to the Nam-gu cops for getting out there early!) If you have  relevant information to share, please contact Aaron Corn via the facebook group, Ulsan Parents Club.  Another option to help reduce this terrible affliction is to marry a Korean yourself, have plenty of babies (the government would like that and would pay a lot of your costs as the national birth rate is way too low) and breed them out of this silly “purity” crap.
• Also in education news, a “Students Rights” ordinance is back in discussion after being thrown out by a new political appointee. The ordinance would prohibit discrimination based on, among other things, sexual orientation. So rather than deal with humans as they are, the government decided it would be in the best interest of citizens to scrap the ordinance, despite having a good number of people in favor of it.  The Hanky has (yet another) scathing editorial on the students’ rights issue.
• In media news, MBC reporters are trying to oust a few top reporters for biased and substandard reporting. Jeon Yeong-bae, head of the Reporting Headquarters and Mun Cheol-ho, head of the Reporting Department are under attack. For Jeon, its the second time he’s been singled out for bad behavior.
• South Korea is on top again in the business of ship building.  in 2011, Korea signed contracts for more gross tonnage of ships than any other nation on the planet, including China, which has been busy making megatons themselves. The Chinese were the leaders in 2009 and 2010 but Korea is back in the lead with a staggering 13.5 million tons of shipping signed for, most of which is built here in Ulsan and nearby Goeje Island.
• The USA is still working very hard to get South Korea to reduce it’s imports of Iranian oil. America wants to punish Iran economically for trying, what they say, is to build nuclear weapons. Iran, however, says it only wants peaceful nuclear power. The sanctions are meant to hobble Iran into submission, but if they go to far the sanctions will impact South Korea as well. Almost 10% of the petroleum imported into Korea comes from Iran and there just aren’t that many places to buy oil these days. Cutting back on that much oil will be a major problem for Korea unless they can wrangle a waiver from the USA’s heavy-handed politics. Not getting a waiver and not cutting back on Iranian oil will also be a problem for Korea as they will get the stink-eye from the USA for not playing along in their world domination schemes.
• And finally, Korean conglomerate Samsung has been nominated for the Public Eye Award, a prize given to those who damage people and the environment the most.  Public Eye supports
  

  claimed that Samsung caused cancer among its workers by using highly concentrated toxic substances in the process of manufacturing semiconductors in its factories.

  However, with Japan’s Tepco in the running for the award, it’s going to be a tough race to the bottom. Tepco was/is responsible for the massive failure of the Fukushima nuclear power plant after last March’s devastating earthquake and tsunami.