Tag: Korea

The Global Post takes a look at the massage parlor culture of Korean business:

Not far from glitzy office towers of Seoul are the frenzied hangouts where business is really done: a cacophony of karaoke joints, shady neon-lit parlors, and cluttered barbecue restaurants full of drunken managers ordering their junior staff to pound shots.

To Koreans, the business districts of American cities appear staid, orderly and a bit dull. A shop-worn joke here has it that North America is a “boring heaven” while their country is an “exciting hell.”

No salesman (and the majority are men) gets far here unless he can sing mean, inebriated karaoke and then slug through negotiations the next morning with a thumping headache. South Koreans slam the world’s largest quantity of hard liquor, imbibing 11.2 shots of soju per week, more than twice the average Russian’s vodka consumption (although soju isn’t always as strong).

What happens when this macho after-hours culture goes too far, littering the company tab with payments to prostitutes and hostess clubs? “That’s the business model we depend on. When the Korean men are doing business together, they hang out at these places,” explained the sex industry consultant.

There’s a dark logic to the debauchery.

“When you’re a man and you do something dirty and sinful with your business partner around, you share your secrets, you share trust like brothers. You can always trust your new business partner.”  [Global Post]

You can read much more at the link about the different levels of clubs, massage parlors, and karaoke bars that serve as fronts for prostitution to include how many aspiring celebrities work in the high end clubs in hopes of landing a wealthy patron to help their careers.

It looks like the Korean government is trying to get the easy tax revenue from smokers on the basis of public health:

South Korea has proposed a tax hike that would nearly double cigarette prices as the government tries to reduce one of the world’s highest smoking rates among adult males.

The proposal on Thursday was immediately criticised by the main opposition party, highlighting the difficulty in implementing anti-smoking regulations in a country where the health risks associated with smoking are not widely publicised.

The proposal calls for a more than 100 percent tax increase on a pack of cigarettes, which would double current prices that range between $1.9-$2.4 – far less than the $12 per pack that smokers pay in Australia, which recently toughened its anti-smoking laws.

The initiative also suggested banning cigarette advertisements in convenience stores and making graphic warning
labels on cigarette packs mandatory.

KT&G, which sells 60 percent of all cigarettes bought in the country, declined to comment on the tax proposal.

South Koreans are among the heaviest smokers in the world: just under half of all adult males smoke, government data shows, compared to an average of 25.4 percent in the 34 countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.  [Al Jazeera]

You can read more at the link, but if this is really about improving public health why isn’t the government also trying to double the price of alcohol as well?  I think a strong argument could be made that the affects of alcohol is worse for public health than smoking.

It looks like a trade barrier has been put in place to protect the Korean gaming industry from competition from Facebook games:

The Game Rating Board (게임물등급위원회 Geimmul Deung-Geub-Wiwonhoe) (GRB) has blocked Facebook games in Korea. While I’m not much of a game player, this seems a heavy handed tactic. A game developer must hop through some pretty demanding, Byzantine hoops in order to get a game evaluated by the reviewers so I wouldn’t anticipate much relief if you live in Korea and enjoy games on Facebook. It is especially vexing as I am not aware of any game apps on Facebook which would be blocked if they were evaluated. What would the rating be for games like Candy Crush? Perhaps Facebook will negotiate to get their games cleared en masse on behalf of the individual developers, or perhaps they will just write Korea off. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

To Facebook’s credit they have been refunding people who live in Korea who spent money in a game, retroactive to 15 July:  [Korea Noodles]

You can read more at the link.

I wonder if they also complained about the display of the Chinese flag who is also responsible for the deaths of many Koreans during the Korean War and the key enabler of North Korea?:

Organizers of the upcoming Asian Games in Incheon pulled down all national flags that lined the streets of the port city after rightwing groups complained about the public display of the North Korean flag.

The flags of the 45 participating nations were hoisted along the streets of Incheon and the city of Goyang north of Seoul last week.

Under Olympic Council of Asia regulations, the flags of the council, host nation and participating countries are displayed around sports stadiums, accommodation and airports.

The North Korean flag was also hoisted during the 2002 Asian Games in Busan and Daegu Universiade in 2003.

But this time rightwing groups in Goyang protested, and the organizers took the drastic step of removing all national flags and replacing them with the OCA flag and Asian Games banner.  [Chosun Ilbo]

The Korean government plans to raise the amount of money spent on Welfare in the country:

South Korea plans to raise its budget for welfare programs by more than 10 percent in 2015 from a year earlier in an effort to establish a better social safety net and revitalize the economy, the government and ruling party said Wednesday.

“The burden for the low-income bracket has been soaring due to the slowed economic recovery,” a Saenuri Party official said. “To ease such agony, we plan to raise the welfare budget by over 10 percent to between 118 trillion won (US$115.12 billion) and 120 trillion won.”

The increased rate for the welfare budget will hover far above the 5 percent rise slated for the combined state expenditure estimated for next year. It will also mark the first time since 2009 that the government has increased the welfare budget at a two-digit rate.

“We plan to push up the economy by lowering the burden for education, living and medical services, and setting up a social safety net, and expand expenditures on health, welfare and employment,” a government official said, adding the finalized plan, including detailed numbers, will be rolled out next week.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

The Korea Herald has an editorial published that attempts to explain racism in Korea:

“We apologize, but due to Ebola virus we are not accepting Africans at the moment.”

This is what a bar in Itaewon, a popular area for expats and tourists in Seoul, publicly posted in front of its property last month.

The statement triggered thousands of angry comments online, both from expats and locals ― especially after the public learned of reports that the bar admitted a white person from South Africa, while banning almost all dark-skinned individuals, regardless of their nationalities.

The incident is likely to get attention from Mutuma Ruteere, the U.N. special rapporteur on racism. Ruteere is scheduled to visit Seoul later this month to monitor the situation of racial discrimination and xenophobia in Korea and will file a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council next year.

The incident is one of the growing number of racism cases in the country ― Asia’s fourth-biggest economy, a key manufacturing powerhouse in the region, as well as the producer of hallyu.

While the nation’s immigrant population continues to rise, Korean racism ― both structural and internalized ― is becoming a growing concern to the international community.

Complex nature of racism in Korea

Korean racism, however, must be understood differently from its Western cousin, experts say.

It is a complex product of the country’s colonial history, postwar American influence and military presence, rapid economic development as well as patriotism that takes a special pride in its “ethnic homogeneity,” according to professor Kim Hyun-mee from Yonsei University.  [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link, but first of all I find it interesting with everything else going on in the world that the UN is going to send someone to investigate racism in Korea and actually issue a human rights report?  Korea definitely has some racism issues, but it has definitely improved over the years as Korea has become more globalized.  If this UN investigator wants to see really bad racism then he should head north of the border to North Korea.

Secondly in my opinion much of the remaining racism in Korea has to do with ignorance and perpetuating stereotypes than true hatred of someone of another race.  Really true hatred of someone of another race is mostly limited to the Japanese, if they can even be considered another race.  But maybe I am wrong and I look forward to other opinions on racism in Korea.

The North Koreans are making an attempt to try and draw a wedge between USFK and the South Korean public by making the claim that peace in our time would come if only the US military would withdraw from South Korea:

North Korea said Sunday that its relations with South Korea won’t improve unless the United States withdraws its troops from South Korea.

It is not unusual for Pyongyang to make such a demand, but the latest one came a day after North Korea fired three short-range missiles into the sea off the country’s east coast in what could be the latest show of force against Seoul.

Saturday’s firing marked the 19th time that North Korea has launched missiles or rockets this year, with the number of projectiles fired totaling 111, according to data of South Korea’s military.

“It is not possible to improve the North-South relations nor is it possible to achieve peace, reunification … as long as the U.S. military presence in South Korea is left intact,” the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in an English-language statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.