Answer to North Korea- South Korea question.

One of my readers here asked me what my South Korean students think about their neighbors to the north. Here's You Tube video that captures the mood and sentiment of many, maybe even most. That's their family. Almost all want reunification. The only ones who don't only don't for pragmatic "it wouldn't work" reasons. Some picture the bloodshed and disturbance of the North's way of life that they are entitled to. Some say that they can't merge with them economically. But they tend to feel this way:


And that's their family, so they can critisize, but be careful what you say.
This video is from You Tube, and I was the first one to comment, if you want to go there and check it out, the poster of the video responded and said that she was just over there and the sentiment there was emotional for reunification (paraphrasing), if you want to see the exact comment, just go to You Tube. I think there's more than one of these videos, though. This one is called DMZ and Korea- A Nation Divided. One of the neat things about actually visiting You Tube is that related videos will come up on the screen, so if North Korea interests you, you can watch other things.

This next one is a "tour" of part of the DMZ zone...the Military guy is obviously American.

Star Wars Korean

Shin Neung-kyun, Korean name...American name Nelson Shin. He's a professor in South Korea, originally from North Korea. He invented the Light Saber in Star Wars. This was reported in the CNN show Eye On South Korea and it's also in Wikipedia. He's a famous animator who's done shows like The Simpsons and X-men...and more. So there you have it. He's handsome in my opinion- he looks like my grandmother.

Sad

This is a Korean actress who's father is American. I guess people in Korea recently found out about this and now her life is bad. I don't know the details because I can't read Korean, but one of my students told me the news story says that sometimes she wants to die. Nice.

Students read my blog now and again, so I won't be completely candid about how I feel. End Entry.

Mad as #$%%!

I've had it!
I just saw a video from the BBC World about a North Korean defector who has commit suicide. I'm so angry with all the tragic stories of these defectors, it's so unjust. What they go through is horrid. To put up this blog entry I searched for photos of "North Korean defectors" and I found this terrible photo of a woman in China trying to make it through the gates of an embassy and the Chinese gestapo, two of them pulling her down, one has her from behind, the other is blocking the gate. On the other side of the fence is her tiny little girl who made it through watching the whole thing. If you type in North Korean Defectors on Yahoo and click images you can see it, but I couldn't steal it for the blog, it didn't work.

That woman in the photo is likely dead now. She was sent back to NK, and usually there is an excecution. Yeah, I'm pissed at China, but they're quite open about their stupidity. I'm mad at South Korea which is where the defectors go to commit suicide after being treated like shit by South Koreans. I'm mad at the USA, but to know why one would have to follow the involvement of the US in the situation. South Korea is like the little brother who can't make a move without the US big brother, and big brother is kind of an ass. The US doesn't even treat South Korea with that much respect, especially when compared to Japan.

HELP these people...anyone...
I mean how much sense does it make to condemn North Korea if we don't Let The People GO!?!

Taegukgi

The students found a way to get this on their notebook computer WITH English subtitles. It's usually an ordeal here in the Philippines to download stuff.
ANYWAY

So I got to see this WOW! What a great movie, this is my first Korean film ever. Taegukgi means flag blowing in the wind...but the movie has a different English title, it's called The Brotherhood of War. One of the students said that this is the South Korean Saving Private Ryan. Um, it's really good.

5.18

The U.S.A. has 9-11, Koreans have 5-18, May 18th, 1980. When the students bring it up, they simply ask, "Do you know 5-18?"

Loads of my students come from Gwanju, South Korea and have told me plenty about it. So, when I heard the massacre story it touched me. Recently, we're sharing information about movies and the subject came up again. There's a movie called- in the English translation "Splendid Vacation". It's a fictional account of a few people's lives who were massacred on that day.

What happened? Well, basically it was a democracy movement. We know how well those go over, even in the USA.

I looked it up on the web, and there are some critical voices out there who say the movie overblows the incident, but then one person who said that strangely said that photographs of the incident are more gruesome than the movie. The particular blog that I read sounds really nit-picky if you ask me.
Here's photo from the movie and here's a link to an article in Seoul Times about it. The person who wrote the article was actually there.
Movie Review

I wish I looked this good...

This is one of my student's (Jack's) dog.
Someday I'll make the post about the Boshintang which will be long and gruelling. Yes, Koreans eat dogs, the dish is called Boshintang, but they do not eat their pets, and huge vast amounts of Koreans don't eat any dog at all. It's a long topic. I promise I'll get to it in the future, it's quite interesting.

Anyway, this dog looks better than I do right now, and that sweater is nicer than anything I might own at the moment. Jack tells me that the choker the dog is wearing is silver. Rats! I forgot the dog's name, I'll ask him later and edit this entry.

I came back to work for one day last week then our whole family, on that day, came down with a strange local sickness that I will not explain here. It's not pretty. Now I'm back to work with one consecutive day under my belt, and I feel like posting something fun on my way out.

I hope you all are doing great. I miss everyone.

North Korean Documentary Films

CNN interview with Nicholas Bonner

This is a cool CNN site, the Talk Asia segments are up. This documentary film-maker guy is awesome. He made this movie about two girls in the NK mass games that blew me away. I realized as I watched him answer questions that I know quite a bit about this topic, and I knew how Bonner would answer. I have less experience with North Korea, only through my interviews with South Koreans, but I would have answered the same way. I had more simpatico with the interviewee than the interviewer and that made me realize how much I've taken in on this subject. From the State of Mind website:

Welcome to the a state of mind website: http://www.astateofmind.co.uk/
The story of two North Korean schoolgirls and their families in the lead up to the Mass Games – the biggest and most elaborate human performance on earth. You may be interested in our new documentary on the last of the US defectors still living in North Korea, http://www.crossingthelinefilm.com

I recommend taking a peek at the "crossing the line" movie site also. I guess that film is narrated by Christian Slater.

Anyway, just a warning, this stuff is NOT boring by any stretch of the imagination. I need to see all this guy's work. I found it fascinating that Bonner, the British chap, was involved with film festivals in NK and said they brought in "Bend It Like Beckham" and they loved it, and they also brought in Mr. Bean's disaster movie and they love that humor.

I tell ya what, there's really nothing like watching Mr. Bean with people on the other side of the earth that don't speak your language. There's just nothing like it. Rowan Atkinson should get some kind of award or something. I've already blogged about this, I know.

Anyway Nicholas Bonner- check him out. Go to the link. Now. Thank you, and goodnight.

CNN Beef

CNN is making it a GIVEN that people are going to want to avoid made in China products. They just make it a given.

The real stories are being reported on BBC World and Asia news and the Australian news network. It's a very interesting story about some goings on in China and the fact that some feel they should protect themselves from China as far as trade and money goes.

It's a bit hard for me to articulate this because I might sound like China is perfect, which it's not and I don't care one way or another...my beef is with the news coverage. It's so weird. Just cover the story, don't tell me what to think and create a scare. CNN is actually attempting to create a scare or the appearance of one. The other news outlets are covering China stuff extensively, but CNN is like, "How to avoid Chinese products...oh look it's so hard."

The recent issue in China that was sad had to do with antibiotics, which aren't exported to the US...that's totally an internal issue. There's a pet food crisis. The pet food crisis affected people over seas. Anyway, there's interesting stuff going on...but CNN is just pathetic.

The international version of CNN is better than the US version, but still...

By the way, I should mention that it's very common for countries to go back and forth fighting over imports and exports and protecting their own businesses and whatnot. That's what this is about.

Take South Korea for an example. For years they have been broadcasting that US Beef is not safe. South Korean people were like 'hey, that's a convenient truth', we can stop the imports of US beef, and they did. Was there ever a real scare? My students ask me about mad cow disease sometimes, I'm like yeah, I'm not sure how many people have actually died from that. I didn't change my life at all, I know I was mad when Oprah got sued because she should be able to say whatever she likes. But other countries used that info to ban the import. It's politics. They recently lifted the ban, it was a hot South Korean political issue.

The latest CNN report about a woman who wrote a book detailing her trials of going without made in China for a whole year doesn't mention what her husband or she does for a living. I'd be interested to know.

I know the picture here implies the government controls CNN, but I like this picture. What's going on in this case is not control by government, but CNN supporting a certain ideology of the business community (not the lazzie-faire group).

Excuse Me!

Covered Body in the Pickup.
I hate to interrupt, but one of the South Korean hostages in Afghanistan has been excecuted. It's not on Yahoo news when I log in, and so I went to CNN dot com.
Here's what was there:

Latest News
Vick pleads not guilty to dogfight charges
FBI head, Gonzales differ on hospital showdown
NASA suspects space-bound kit sabotaged
Men framed by FBI for murder to get millions
Family tries avoiding everything 'Made in China' (by the way, CNN, the Corporate News Network, is on a Jihad lately against China, that's another entry...yes I know there are concerns, but the news coverage is laughable. I mean look at this...it's not even about the issues, it's about scaring people- How To Avoid Chinese Products...shame)
Report: Drunk astronauts allowed on shuttle
Gene therapy patient dies; trial shut down
CNNMoney: Dow suffers 2nd worst day of 2007
KPHO: Man accused of Tom Cruise extortion plot
Ticker: Clinton on Obama: This is getting 'silly'
Pilots blamed for Kentucky plane crash
High-speed pursuit ends in a fiery crash
500-pound man told he's too fat to adopt
Big, odd and useless projects that failed
CNN Wire: Latest updates on top stories

OK, this is distressing. So I clicked on the international CNN page:

Here is the international page for CNN
Top Stories
Afghans enter hostage negotiations
Tour rolls on in shadow of scandal
Thousands arrested in Zimbabwe
Men framed by FBI get millions
Blast at desert spaceport kills 2
Pilots blamed in Comair crash
Wires cut in space-bound computer
9/11 rescue dog dies of cancer
Drunk astronauts 'let on shuttle'
Emotions flow after nurses return
CNN Wire: Updates on world's top stories

Excuse me, but what?
The Bush administration promised that they were going to Iraq to fight "them over there". So people said, "How come Iraq? I thought Afghanistan..."
"Shhh" they said, "You don't love America."
"Mr. Bush, are you going after Osama Bin Laden?"
"Saddam Hussein is a bad guy."
"Yes, we knew that when you put him in his regime...any way...Osama.."
"You hate America. We are fighting them over there."

One day back in the Clinton administration, Bill bombed Afghanistan. Remember? Or maybe we don't remember because that was during zippergate. People said, oh, look wag the dog. Well, no Afghanistan was important zippergate was not.

He was bombing Osama Bin Laden's hideout and missed him. He had no support as the country was torn apart by Kenneth Starr's Whitewater rampage that ended in nothing useful whatsoever for anyone. Bill left office, and passed on the documents to Bush about what was up with Bad Boy Bin Laden. We know what happened next. Nothing, and then something...9/11

Now ITS NOT EVEN NEWS that the Taliban in Afghanistan continually kidnap and sometimes excecute people.
So HOW about fighting them OVER THERE?

LIARS

Go get these people, or you're over there for nothing.
Oh yeah, we already knew that.


Why are South Korean troops in Afghanistan? You think SOUTH KOREA has some beef with the Middle East? They're supporting US troops. I see in the news today that there is fighting going on there, and some Taliban have been taken out...and some NATO troops have gone down.

My question is, at the very least, why is this not a big news story in the US?
The US is the one that should be busting those hostages out or negotiating. I know that I don't fully understand the current Afghanistan situation, but I know that it's our beef (US) and others are supporting the cause. Shouldn't they be helped?

LIARS Bush, Cheney and the whole Lot of you.

The 23

I'm waiting for info on the 23 South Korean hostages kept in Afghanistan right now. It's continually no news. I guess in this case, no news is good news.

I'm still feeling pretty under the weather, but I wanted to mention this really quickly. It has occurred to me while searching for images on the web of this situation that this MIGHT not be a big news story in the West. I can't find much on the net about it, and it's not even a headline when I log in to Yahoo news, I have to look around for it. If that's true it makes me sick and I already feel sick, in case I haven't mentioned that in the last 30 seconds.

There are photos of the group on the news, but I can't find any on the web.

Another Rain Post!

I know I post about Rain a lot, he could probably have his own label on my blog, but I heard a Rain song today and I loved it. I had really never heard him sing before, but I have a new student, Kate, and she let me hear him on her MP3. I really liked it. She said that I was listening to his first hit. She also said she's going to make me a cd. My students are pretty disgusted with my lack of technology, and probably my wardrobe, lack of make up, hairstyle, attitude...whatever. Anyway, I love Rain. Man, it's hard to find a picture of him where he doesn't look so young. Eeesh.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=71374076

I found his MySpace profile, and actually if you go to my profile you can hear one of his songs. I just added it. Woo Hoo!

Great Korean Movies

I have asked gazillions of South Korean students what their favorite Korean movie is and I get lots of different answers, but there are three movies that get mentioned again and again. Here are two of them. I thought of this post because I just saw Robin Williams on Larry King Live and he was talking about hanging out with Martin Scorsese and he launched into an impression of Martin telling people about good movies to see, and he mentioned a South Korean movie called Old Boy in he middle of his schtick. I got excited to hear the reference, because I know Old Boy!

I don't know exactly what the movie is about, but I guess a guy gets put in jail at a young age and then gets out later, the same mental age as when he went in. The students don't really exaplain movies very well, even the ones who speak English well.

Another movie that's supposed to blow me away is Peppermint Candy.


I don't know what this one is about, but the students really like it. It's supposed to be one of the best Korean movies made.
Here is a still from Peppermint Candy



And here is a still from Old Boy...


I don't know, I'm just here to report.

Good Grade!

This is a universally recognizable symbol by Korean young people. It's a stamp everyone gets on their paper if it was a good one. No matter where the students here came from, they know and love this stamp, just thought I'd share.

Hey Farm Boy

We talked about our childhoods today, and James offered that he did the tradional Korean game with fire, where they make big circles. The way he was explaining it, I said, ew that sounds dangerous for kids, I wouldn't let my kid do that. And James said, "NO! Korean tradition!" like it's the best thing that ever happened. Juri, the girl across the table said, "No, I never done that.", James shot back, "She is not Korean."


Here's a picture of this tradition, looks pretty. The story is, that people in rural areas did this, and Juri is a Seoul city girl. Another student said that when he was a kid he did this and once he saw his friend's jacket set on fire, and sometimes they would accidentlly light a pile of rice that had been painstakingly harvested,"oops! ...and run away!" he said. The actually use big iron rods for this and then throw them in "the sea". I know that not everyone lives next to the sea, so maybe just some body of water.

When the students insisted this is a rural tradition, James argued, "No! All over Korea, people do this." OK James. We all know you're a farm boy, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Is He Handsome? No! Just Good Looking

I've had girls insist that Rain not only isn't handsome, but he's also not good looking, yeah right! This is Rain by the way, in Korea he's called Bi, pronounced Bee. To me, Rain is hot. The girls like him and say, yeah he's talented and has a good body, but he's not cute, or handsome, or good looking, his eyes are too small.

Whatever.


In the past I've blogged about this adjective frenzy that the Koreans get into, having precise yet unexplainable definitions for beauty words. I've got news for them, Rain is handsome AND goodlooking, AND cute, and has a great body. Deal with it. The native speaker has spoken.

Rain is popular in Australia and has toured a bit in the US, he actually sold out at Madison Square Gardens, and venues in Las Vegas.

I know, I know, he's probably a couple years older than my son.

You Guys March Funny

I know quite a bit about South Korean's viewpoints on North Korea. I know more about North Korea than your average American, and I'm trying to put together a coherent post on something related to that, but I'm still working on the concept. I've found so many interesting pictures, and normally my blog entries don't have a lot of pictures, it makes the entry cumbersome. So do I have a series on North and South? Why not. Anyway, this is all coming soon, I'm saving pictures to the computer here.

My students have talked about this subject extensively. North Koreans are their family, they express. They really want unity. The students that say no to unity do so for pragmatic reasons, they can't see how it could be accomplished, and they don't want anyone getting hurt. Animosity that students have toward the US is often times North Korea related (or free trade-related). The US has been a force that has worked to estrange the two countries even further, I'm told. I have a bit of a fascination with North Korea, there is no other country like it. It's so small and so heavily controlled. It makes Cuba look like Disneyland,sponsored by Coke.

One thing I can say about this picture, I saw an excellent British documentary on North Korea, it was shown on the Discovery Channel a few months back, but here we get Discovery Channel Asia, which is not the same in the US. So, I don't know how many people at home got to see this, it was superb, so fascinating. Their military soldiers march like mad-men, I'm riveted! North Korean families watch on television from their homes (one channel, all government, all the time) and teach their children, "Look there's not another army in the world like ours. No other country has an army like this." They may be right.

Koreans Don't Know Kermit

One of my favorite movies of all time is The Muppet Movie (if you ask "which one" please scratch me off your friends list, there are few questions I hear in life that are more rediculous than that one).

Koreans do not know Muppets. Here in the Philippines there are Sesame Street VCD's and DVD's for sale everywhere, Elmo seems to be well known. I assumed that Jim Henson creations were an export to everywhere just like any other hugely popular culture icons. It surprises me what South Koreans have exposure to and what they don't. It's hit and miss. So any reference I've made to the Muppets is for naught.

Food

This photo was taken by Richard Nowitz and I hope that I can use it here.

These are roasted scorpions on a stick. My student Nike has tried these, and say that they taste like a salty snack. She said that was for novelty, "just experience", they weren't that great.

My student June has eaten monkey brains, he said they were served in the monkey head with the skull opened at the top, like a lid removed. The taste was similar to vomit. He said that the monkey head was very small and "cute". This also falls under the category of novelty and not something that people just eat daily as part of a regular diet. Both these experiences happened in China.

I have another blog entry about bundegi (pupa), but that's not novelty, bundegi is a popular food item in South Korea. I would love to try these scorpions, but here in the Philippines there doesn't seem to be anything exotic like that. They do have balut, but that's disgusting to me, there's blood in it. I'm willing to go for insects and arachnids, but exotic mammals, no. Birds half-formed in their egg, no.

South Koreans also eat small live squids. They say that the sensation is better if the squid is alive. I had one student tell me that he ate a live squid and it came out his nose. It just swam right out the front of his face. He could feel and taste that for a week. Some people have choked to death because the squid opens itself up in the throat and blocks air passage. But again, these are normal foods for Koreans.

South Koreans are not known for being adventurous experimental eaters, some act like they might die if they have to eat non-Korean, so I thought these two students who tried those dishes in China were interesting.

Exams in Asia

Here in Asia, particularly China and Korea, exams are crucial. Now and again I see a story that highlights this. Here's a slice of life from Eastern China from the AP and Yahoo news.

Parents get plane diverted during exam
Thu Jun 7, 6:29 AM ET
Parents in eastern China have pushed to get a plane diverted to avoid disturbing their children taking nationwide university entrance exams that could make or break their futures, state media reported Thursday.
Xinhua News Agency said the students are taking their two-day exams, which started Thursday, at a school close to Huangshan airport in Anhui province.
Their parents, worried noise from an aircraft taking takeoff would mar the English comprehension test on Friday, appealed to the local education department and the airport decided to divert the plane.
Across China, about 9.5 million students are taking the entrance exams, competing for 5.67 million spots. It will be the only chance for most of the students to get into a university.