Tag: Korea

Condolences to the family of this deceased airman:

A wooden frame encapsulated Kevin Bittinger’s military life — an American flag folded in a triangle, medals, and Air Force pins held his accomplishments, showcasing his dedication to serving his country.

The boxy frame was shown to his mother, Cindy Bittinger, on Monday. She nodded in approval and attempted to hold back tears for her son.

Kevin Bittinger, formerly of Wapakoneta, died at Osan Air Base while serving in South Korea as a member of the U.S. Air Force. Though the circumstances surrounding his death remained under investigation, his family was trying to come to terms with their loss. He was 24 years old.

Bittinger’s remains were brought back to Wapakoneta on Monday from South Korea. Family, friends and strangers gathered and participated in a processional, led by the Ohio Patriot Guard.

“It was awesome to see so many people honor Kevin. But it’s heartbreaking, too. You know, I think every one of these guys deserve that and it’s just … Kevin would have thought that was so neat. It’s awesome to see the support of our county,” Cindy Bittinger said.

Tori Wynn, a friend and a tech sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, also escorted Kevin Bittinger’s remains home to Wapakoneta from South Korea. Wynn is stationed in Japan.

Wynn said of the support shown, “It was amazing.”

At the time of his death a senior airman, Kevin Bittinger joined the Air Force right after he graduated Wapakoneta High School in 2009. He had been on active duty for nearly six years.

After his death, the U.S. Air Force issued a news release about the incident.

Kevin “Bittinger, a Pavements and Construction Equipment Journeyman, was assigned to the 51st Civil Engineer Squadron and arrived at Osan in May 2014,” according to the statement.

“The loss of Kevin is a devastating blow to the team,” said Lt. Col. Jack Wheeldon, 51st CES commander in the statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family during this difficult time. From RED HORSE to Prime BEEF, Kevin has done so much for the Air Force and he will be truly missed.”

The U.S. Air Force declined further comment.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Ever heard of Uljin? Neither have we – http://t.co/Ml6XWtMtnk pic.twitter.com/tz7IKvLYp2

— Hiexpat Korea (@HiExpat) May 12, 2015

Just when you thought you have seen all the stupid incidents a soldier could cause in Korea someone finds a new level of stupid:

Police say a U.S. soldier was detained after rushing onto the field during a professional baseball game in Seoul in what they called a “heroic” attempt to impress his girlfriend.

The soldier, identified by South Korean police as a 30-year-old corporal, rushed onto the field of Jamsil Stadium around 7:30 p.m. Saturday during a nationally televised game between the Doosan Bears and Hanhwa Eagles.

Doosan security guards nabbed the soldier, who was attending the game with friends, as he ran toward second to first base. Officials suspended the game for about five minutes following the incident.

8th Army spokesman Col. Shawn Stroud said the soldier has been released to his unit and is being investigated by South Korean police. A Jamsil police officer said police could smell alcohol on his breath. His name was not released.

The soldier is expected to be charged with obstruction of work, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and a fine up to 15 million won (about $13,700). The officer said the soldier is unlikely to receive the stiffest punishment, and similar disturbances have resulted in fines or suspended sentences.  [Stars & Stripes]

Via the Korea Herald.

The Korea Times has an update on the Lone Star issue which has been quiet for about three years, but is now ready to move towards arbitration:

V.V. Veeder, a British national, has been appointed as the presiding arbitrator for a 5-trillion-won international litigation between the Korean government and Lone Star Funds, sources said Tuesday.

He was one of the three arbitrators who ruled in favor of the U.S. buyout firm in 2011 in its dispute with a Korean government owned company.

According to industry sources, Veeder will arbitrate Lone Star’s Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) case against the government, whose first hearing will be held on May 15 at the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington D.C.

In most cases, investment tribunals are composed of three arbitrators; one is appointed by the investor, one by the state, and the third is usually chosen in agreement between the parties. The presiding arbitrator holds the casting vote when the other two fail to agree.

The Dallas-based firm filed an ISDS suit in 2012 for 5.13 trillion won ($4.7 billion), arguing that the Korean government had caused it serious financial damage by delaying its approval for the firm to sell the Korea Exchange Bank from 2007 to 2012.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but basically the crime Lone Star made was that it made too much money in Korea and then tried to take its profits outside of the country.  Their sale of the Korea Exchange Bank led to large protests which caused the government to try and stop the sale any way it can.

Here is an article in the Christian Science Monitor that discusses how South Korean President Park Geun-hye could leave a legacy if she was able to work out a reconciliation with Japan over its World War II past:

Yet the South itself is sharply riven on partisan lines, between right and left. Disagreements are profound on how to interpret most of the past, including the autocratic rule of Park’s father, who served as an officer in the Japanese Army. Not until 2012, for example, could political agreement be gained to open the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History, which sits prominently at the Gwanghwamun Square rotary next to the American embassy. But inside, one subject does garner agreement: Korea’s unhappy occupation by Japan, a time when Koreans were forbidden to learn or speak their language.

“In 1905 Imperial Japan forced the Korean government to sign a treaty depriving it of sovereignty,” reads an opening script. Partway through is a photo display of the so-called “comfort women,” stating: “Women and girls were even victimized as forced laborers at the various places or as the military sexual slaves at the Japanese military camps.”

In fact, comfort women are just the tip of the iceberg for Korea’s outcry. It is Abe’s entire revision of the basic meaning of World War II that bothers Japan’s neighbors, many of whom see the prime minister as also trying to restore the honor of his own family. Abe’s maternal grandfather was Nobusuke Kishi, a minister in Japan’s wartime cabinet who was arrested on war crimes charges and then released.

Indeed, many ideas that purport to restore Japan’s honor and dignity hearken to Meiji era propaganda, which helped form the basis for Japan’s colonial expansion and the war. For example: that Japan in the 1930s was only taking territory to keep it from Americans and other European colonials. That Japan was acting as friend to the nations it invaded. That Japan’s cause was just, and the atom bomb attacks made Japan the war’s victim.

“The problem for us is that Japan’s denial and revisionism is their actual position,” says Choi Jin-wook, president of the Korean Institute for National Unification.  “For them it is truth. They have drifted into believing that they were victims of World War II. For Japan, nothing is remembered. For us, nothing is forgotten.”

Prof. Choi points to another factor: Mounting strains between Japan and China mean that Abe cannot be seen as showing any weakness in northeast Asia.

Today, most historians and a UN investigation argue that some 200,000 women in Asia were forced into sexual slavery during the war. Yet Abe has questioned this, despite previous Japanese official apologies and the payment of compensation starting in 1992. Last November, Abe enabled a commission to “consider concrete measures to restore Japan’s honor with regard to the comfort women.”

The new Japanese position has emerged gradually. But its main points are this: Korean women were not rounded up and forced to service Japanese soldiers, as most history texts outside Japan suggest. Rather, the women were volunteers, willing participants – not coerced by Japan but offered up under Korean management.  [Christian Science Monitor]

In regards to the revisionism the Japanese use to justify the war, the Koreans are absolutely correct.  All one has to do is go to the Yushukan Museum next to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.  The Yasukuni Shrine gets all the attention because it honors all Japanese war dead to include those convicted of war crimes.  Having been there, Yasukuni is nothing compared to the Yushukan Musuem where World War II is called the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere War.  Those who put the museum together believe that the Imperial Japanese were liberating Asian nations that were being colonized by Europeans and Americans.  Much of the history depicted at the museum is laughable.

As far as the colonial occupation of Korea I always recommend that people read Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, 1910-1945
which dispels much of the myths about the occupation, like the one repeated in the article about not being allowed to speak Korean.  Koreans could speak their native language during the colonial period just not in schools or to hold government positions. People who have spent time in Korea know how much Koreans value education.  The Imperial Japanese understood this too and this was how they hoped to assimilate the Koreans into their culture over time.

As far the comfort women issue I always recommend that people read The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture) which provides a lot of facts instead of emotional arguments on this issue.  The facts show that very few Korean women were forcibly conscripted by the Japanese Army to be comfort women.  The vast majority came from Korean brokers who either bought girls from poor families, tricked them, or sometimes kidnapped them to be comfort women.  The fact that after World War II this same system was in place to provide women to be camptown prostitutes for the US military further validates this.  The critics in Japan on the comfort women issue want people to believe they were just prostitutes that the Japanese military did not force into prostitution. With that said the Imperial Japanese would have known that these women were being bought, coerced, or kidnapped making them just as liable for the crime as the Korean brokers.

Considering how repugnant the historical revisionism is in Japan I do not see any way that President Park Geun-hye can reach out to Prime Minister Abe without him first making significant concessions. First of all he should advocate for removing the war criminals names from Yasukuni and come out against the historical revisionism in the Yushukan Musuem.  He cannot force change because they are both private entities, but he can advocate for change which would be positive first step to reconciliation.  If he doesn’t make a significant first step I don’t see how politically President Park can move forward on this issue.

The protesters actually get themselves together a good size crowd of about a thousand people to protest for this huge sum of compensation money:

A citizens group living near the Rodriguez Range live-fire complex in South Korea is calling for 11 trillion won ($10.2 billion) as compensation for training-related incidents during the past six decades, organizers said Monday following a recent protest.

The call by the private Youngpyeong Seungjin Firing Range Task Force for payment from the national government to Pocheon, an area of about 160,000 residents living between Seoul and the Demilitarized Zone, came after the group demonstrated Friday against range accidents. The city of Pocheon has not endorsed the request.

On March 29, a nonexplosive 105mm training round fired by a Stryker armored vehicle exited the sprawling range and damaged a nearby homeowner’s roof.

Senior 8th Army officials drove to the village and compensated the homeowner that day, while South Korea soldiers fixed the damaged roof.

Citizens group officials said they counted more than 1,000 people attending a protest Friday, which had been planned prior to the errant round incident, though the figure could not be independently confirmed. Local police told Stars and Stripes they did not count the crowd but had been told to expect about 500 people.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but there is no way I envision that much money going to the city of Pocheon.  Live fire training has to be conducted somewhere just like their has to be an airport constructed somewhere.  What matters is if all the proper safety precautions are being taken to minimize accidents like what happened with the misfired Stryker training round.

According to the statistics an increasing number of Koreans are divorcing or choosing to remain single:

One in four married men are likely to get divorced. The more the highly-educated people are, the less they will likely they are to divorce.

Among married men who left school before finishing their education the proportion is as high as 48 percent. Among men with a high-school diploma the chances drop to 30 percent, and among university graduates to 20 percent.

According to a report by Statistics Korea’s analysis of census and annual marriage data from 1990 to 2010, the chance of divorce among men rose from 10.4 percent in 1990 to 25.1 percent in 2010, up 2.5 times over the last 20 years.

Kim Soo-young at Statistics Korea said, “Although individual circumstances and social values have a big impact, divorce got more common due to the prolonged slump after the 1997 Asian financial crisis.”

The chances of divorce among married women also rose from 9.9 percent to 24.7 percent over the same period.

The number of remarriages has declined. In 1990, more than seven out of 10 couples who divorced chose to remarry, but that dropped to half by 2010.

The number of men and women who choose to stay single also rose. In 1990, only one in 11 men chose to stay single, but that rose to one in every five by 2010. The ratio for women rose from 5.1 percent to 15.1 percent over the same period.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read the rest a the link, but it is believed that more and more Koreans are seeing little benefits in marriage and want to remain single because of the convenience.

That is what this grandmother writing in the Korea Times believes:

It seems true that 50 percent of marriages end up in divorce. A Korean friend of mine in New York told me that her daughter, 45, is in a divorce suit after 25 years of marriage after having two children who are now in high school. The American husband told his wife that he wanted a divorce because she does not contribute at home while he has to work hard. He thinks it’s not fair.

In Korea too, men are beginning to think that having a wife is quite expensive. And raising children, the product and main purpose of a marriage, is even more expensive. Young men are scared of having a wife and it has pushed many youngsters into marrying later resulting in a low birth rate which Korean and Japanese governments are concerned will mean their countries lose national competitiveness.

Actually it’s not a wife’s responsibility but blame should go to the profit seeking enterprises that first supplied all those kitchen appliances: refrigerator, kimchi fermenting machine, microwave ovens, automatic rice cooker, dishwasher, and so on. Then again there’s the food producers who sell a pantry full of canned foods, instant foods, ramen and instant noodles. The simplified cooking appliances and the factory produced foods have pushed women out of their kitchen.

Now it takes less than 15 minutes to prepare a family dinner and men who were reluctant to lift a finger now can easily do kitchen chores. So too do children who make their lunch or a snack without the help of their mother. Women have lost their status as a housewife.

It wasn’t always like that. When I married 54 years ago, I was the most important member of the family holding full control over the kitchen and laundry affairs. I knew the whole family would starve or wear dirty clothes for a month if I got sick or went on strike. Men didn’t know even know how to fire the hearth, not to mention boil rice without burning it or prepare side dishes.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but I think the biggest reason for a low birth rate is the cost of education in Korea. It is absolutely ridiculous when the costs for hagwons are factored into raising kids.  As far as the divorce rate that has more to do with women not being locked into poor marriage survive anymore.  If their husbands are treating them poorly women now have the option leave and still be able to support themselves without the husband.  I don’t think living without modern appliances is going to do much to lower the divorce rate in Korea, but cooking a home cook meal and having dinner together as a family would definitely help.

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