Category: Korea-General Topics

The annual traffic chaos during Chuseok has begun:

Heavy traffic began to build on major roads and highways across South Korea on Wednesday as people headed to their hometowns to celebrate the extended Chuseok holiday. 

Chuseok, which falls on Friday this year, is the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving during which people get together with family members and relatives and visit their ancestors’ graves.

The extended Chuseok break this year gives people six days off until next Tuesday, as an extra one-day temporary holiday and National Foundation Day will follow. 

Some 5.85 million vehicles were expected to hit the road on the eve of the rare six-day holiday, with the traffic peaking at around 6-7 p.m. and forecast to continue through the next day, according to the Korea Expressway Corp.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I have always found Chuseok to be a great time of the year to visit Seoul because of the lack of crowds from everyone leaving to go to their home towns.

Long time Korea expert Victor Cha, who now teaches at Georgetown University, is a big advocate of trilateral cooperation between the U.S., South Korea, and Japan:

The three leaders agreed to “inaugurate a new era of trilateral partnership” to counter military threats from North Korea and “aggressive behavior” from China in the South China Sea, according to a joint statement at the time.

“As we embark together in this new era, our shared values will be our guide and a free and open Indo-Pacific, in which our half-billion people are safe and prosperous, will be our collective purpose,” the statement said.

Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force joined warships from the U.S. and South Korea in several military drills this year, including a ballistic missile defense exercise on Aug. 29 near Jeju Island, south of the Korean Peninsula.

The U.S., South Korea and Japan’s “institutionalization in the broader scope of cooperation really is unprecedented,” Cha said.

“It is transforming the U.S.-[South Korea] and U.S.-Japan alliances from being more than just private goods that provide exclusive benefits to allied partners, to also publicly benefit the world,” Cha added.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This is horrible what the mother did, but Korean teachers may not want to hold this case up as a shining example of what they are fighting for if in fact the day care worker was negligent and led to the child’s hospitalization:

A photo provided by a day care center worker shows herself with baby excrement smeared on her face. Screencapture from JTBC

More than 50,000 citizens have called on the legislative body to take action to better protect teachers’ rights following a recent assault of a day care center staff member after a parent threw a diaper with baby excrement.

The alleged assault began to gain attention after the worker’s husband posted a petition on the National Assembly’s website, Sept. 12, to call for public support for legal protections for workers and teachers at day care centers and education facilities.

Earlier this month, the parents in question claimed that their two-year-old child received insufficient care at the center in Sejong, which resulted in an injury after a scuffle with another child. As the injured child was hospitalized for treatment, the worker and the head of the center visited the hospital to apologize for their oversight. The mother then threw the child’s diaper containing excrement at the worker’s face.

The worker’s husband then took the humiliating case to the Assembly’s website, and his petition gained more than 50,000 endorsements from the public in four days, which will oblige the relevant Assembly committee to review the petition.

“I’ve witnessed many unpleasant incidents involving teachers and education workers, but never something like this: a baby’s excrement on a worker’s face. And the worker is my wife,” stated the petition filed by the husband who is also a teacher. “Inadequate teachers can be reprimanded, but how about inadequate parents? Do we have measures to hold them accountable? Teachers and education workers need protections and I seek your help.”

Korea Times

You can read the rest of the article at the link that explains the parent’s side of the story.

It will be interesting to see if South Korea’s farm fields start getting covered in solar panels or not based on this research:

A solar panel array is installed at a green onion farm of Yeungnam University’s agrivoltaics demonstration complex in Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang Province, Wednesday. Courtesy of Hanwha Solutions

Seasoned green onions served at a cafeteria in Yeungnam University last Wednesday were no different from those made with ingredients from ordinary farms. However, these ones did differ in one major way: They were grown under solar panels installed at the university’s agrivoltaics demonstration complex.

Hanwha Solutions Q Cells Division, which hosted a media briefing at the university on dual land use for agriculture and solar power generation, dismissed any safety concerns regarding the crops from the complex.

“Our solar modules use eco-friendly wires that do not contain lead,” said Hong Sung-min, an employee at the solar module manufacturing unit of Hanwha Group.

Yeungnam University professor Jung Jae-hak, who is leading experiments at the complex, told the press that solar panels do not pollute the soil with heavy metals.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.