Ruminations in Korea

I have no motivation for blogging about Korea any more.  After 20 years of experience with Korea, I have seen the birth of a democracy and the development of a vibrant economy.

However, as the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Everyday, it is the same media propaganda, the same political scandals, the same social problems, the same xenophobia, the same nationalistic garbage, the same excuses, the same corporate scandals, the same mass hysteria, the same good things, the same bad things, just a different day and different people.

I barely read the Korean newspapers any more.  I hardly ever watch Korean news.  I make it a point never to discuss politics with anyone anymore, especially if it involves the US.  In a nutshell, I’m weary.  I’m even wearier of blogging about any of it.   Very rarely do I see anything new or original in Korean society to write or comment about.

I’m two weeks away from my first vacation in three years.  It is much needed.  My life batteries were completely depleted a very long time ago.  It’s time to recharge.

Because of my lack of interest in blogging about Korea, I haven’t post very much at all in the past year or so.  Paradoxically, now that I have decided not to blog about “Korea,” i expect that I will be posting more frequently in the future.  However, I expect that my blogs will be more about me and what I’m doing here in Korea.

We’ll see.

From an awesome headline: “South Korean internet geeks trigger panic over US ‘tainted beef’ imports”

To a great opening paragraph:

Tens of thousands of young internet-obsessed South Koreans, whipped into a frenzy by alarmist television programmes, a complex scientific paper on genetics and a hyperactive online rumour-mill, have held candlelit vigils protesting against imports of American beef.

To one of the best news quotes I have ever read:

. “I just want to live and fulfill my career dreams, not die mad like an American cow,”

The following article from the Times Online is a great summation of all of the idiocy surrounding the korean anti-US beef imort firestorm”.

Tens of thousands of young internet-obsessed South Koreans, whipped into a frenzy by alarmist television programmes, a complex scientific paper on genetics and a hyperactive online rumour-mill, have held candlelit vigils protesting against imports of American beef.

Believing that the meat carries a high risk of BSE and that Koreans are genetically predisposed to contracting the linked Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the online masses have taken to the streets, cursing America and demanding that their Government should act to avert catastrophe.

Two features of the protests have caught the authorities, the Government and teachers offguard.

The first is that, unlike the mobs that have contributed to South Korea’s long history of street rallies, more than half of the demonstrators are below university age.
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Some teachers approve of the rallies, others condemn them, but all agree that their students are spending too much time in cyberspace.

The second is the virulence of the xenophobia on and offline: despite sweeping to power on a more foreigner-friendly ticket, Lee Myung Bak, South Korea’s new President, leads a country with substantial anti-American feeling.

Behind the fury and panic is the decision made last month by Mr Lee to allow US-produced beef back into the country after a five-year hiatus.

South Korea, with other Asian nations, suspended imports in 2003 after cattle in the US were found to have BSE: the protesters are convinced that the ban has been lifted too soon and with too many concessions to Washington.

On the many new BSE-related websites that have sprung-up in the last week, the language is little short of hysterical. Pseudo-science, anti-Americanism and teenage angst have produced a staggering volume of web traffic.

“Are we fated to die so young?” wailed a typical post. “I just want to live and fulfill my career dreams, not die mad like an American cow,” wrote another.

Over the past couple of days, virtually every teenager in Seoul has received the same text message on mobile phones, “Schools closed next Thursday”.

The information is bogus, but authorities are steeling themselves for street demonstrations on the grandest scale. By the weekend the protesters’ numbers are expected to rise tenfold.

The BSE scare has already made its practical effects felt. After a two month honeymoon period in power, Mr Lee has approval ratings below 30 per cent.

The name Gary Gygax means nothing to you unless you are a true, old school, uber dork like me.

Gary Gygax is dead at age 69. Who is this man?

MILWAUKEE - Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69.

With all of his hit points gone, Gygax the Great dies, his spirit doomed to roam the dungeons of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin forever as a Level 99 Specter.

I got a chuckle out of this news story from CNN:

(CNN) — Two masked and machete-wielding men who barged into a club in Sydney, Australia, couldn’t have picked a worse night for their robbery — a monthly meeting of bikers.

The robbers chose the wrong night to burst into the club where the Southern Cross Cruiser Club have their monthly meeting.

About 50 burly bikers fought back with tables and chairs — pretty much anything that wasn’t bolted down. One would-be robber was tied up; the other in the hospital.

Police arrested both.

“These guys were absolutely dumb as bricks,” Jerry Vancornewal, leader of the bikers, told CNN Thursday. “I can’t believe they saw all the bikes parked up front and they were so stupid that they walked past in.”

Vancornewal and his buddies were at the Regents Park Sporting and Community Club in Sydney when the two men wearing ski masks stormed in Wednesday night. They yelled at patrons to drop to the floor as they emptied cash registers at the bar.

Hearing the commotion from an adjacent room, Vancornewal and his pals with the Southern Cross Cruiser motorcycle club stomped through to the bar area to intervene.

“They (the robbers) thought they had the upper advantage with their knives and their machetes,” Jim Webb, night supervisor of the club, told CNN. “They didn’t expect to run into a bunch of guys carrying chairs and tables.”

One of the would-be robbers crashed through a plate-glass door and jumped off a balcony.

“All he had to do was push the button and it automatically opened,” Webb quipped.

… A third person, who was waiting in a getaway car, took off when the bikers threw pieces of furniture at him, Webb said. Police have not located him.

My fascination with and love for motorcycles began when I was twelve or thirteen years old. No. That’s not entirely accurate. Although I had never actually been near a motorcycle, let alone sat on one or ridden on one, my fascination with bikes began much earlier than that.

I was a child of the 1970s. For a child in my neighborhood, the 1970s meant spending a lot of time riding bicycles, and it meant Evel Knievel. Watching Evel jump cars, buses, and other things was a family event. My older brother, my father, I, and sometimes my mother, would sit in front of the television and watch his jumps when they were broadcast on programs such as ABC’s Wide World of Sports.

The next day, my friends and I would get together and talk about how cool the jump was. Evel was a god. We were only six years old, but we knew that we wanted to be Evel Knievel.

Evel and his marketing people were nothing short of geniuses. He was one of the main forces behind the revitalization of the stagnant 1970s toy industry. Every male child of every age had at least one product with Evel Knievel’s image on it. My brother had an Evel Knievel lunch box. I had an action figure. We both had one of the coolest toys ever made, the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle.

The Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle is a toy that benefited from the days before product liability lawsuits and toy recalls took a lot of the fun out of being a kid. I seriously doubt that the Stunt Cycle could exist today in its original form. It was a plastic motorcycle that carried an Evel Knievel action figure. The bike mounted onto a geared platform with a large crank on the side. To make the bike work, you would turn the crank as quickly as possible to wind the bike up. The motorcycle would emit this high-pitched whine that would increase in pitch and volume as the crank was turned faster and faster. Once you got the crank to maximum speed and volume, you hit the release button and the bike would scream away across the kitchen floor, driveway, or other hard surface. At least that is what was supposed to happen.

The commercials showed the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle racing away, popping wheelies, jumping over other toys, and similar exciting possibilities. However, the reality was that the bike would travel about two feet before making a hard right turn and crashing to the floor. If you are lucky, you could have the pleasure of watching it spin in tight circles on its side as the wound up gears in the rear tire mechanism wound down to a halt.

Another thing that the commercials didn’t show was the blood and chunks of skin that millions of children left across the driveways of America. The crank
on the Stunt Cycle platform was about one inch above the ground at its lowest point. That mean that as you cranked away as fast as your little hand would go, if you didn’t pay close attention, your knuckles would hit the ground and scrape along the pavement leaving bits and pieces of your knuckles behind. A few bloody knuckles were never enough to make you put the toy away. However, I am convinced that the makers of that fine toy were in cahoots with the bandage industry.

My first bike accident, of which I have absolutely no memory, was me riding my tricycle off of the front porch at three or four year of age apparently in an attempt to jump some rose bushes. That accident was the source of a small, still-visible scar below my bottom lip.

From three wheels, I eventually graduated to my first two-wheeler. The first day I rode solo on my brother’s bike without dad holding on to the back was also the day I got my first black eye. I rode out of our driveway and part way down the block before turning around and in a moment of “Gee, look! I’m riding by myself” inattention, I was looking at my parents rather than the road in front of me. I rode straight into the back of our big, pink Pontiac car.

Once I got the hang of riding a bicycle, the first modification I made to the bike was to attach a clothes pin to the bike frame and insert a baseball card into the clothes pin and between the spokes of the bike. Then, whenever I rode my bike, the spokes would make a flap, flap, flap noise against the baseball card, which made it sound like a motorcycle. Just like the one Evel Knievel had.

Over the next couple of years, I watched my brother and his friends make ramps out of wood so that he had his buddies could jump over things…just like Evel Knievel. Well, monkey see, monkey do. Soon my friends and I were jumping over piles of dirt, bricks, cinderblocks, and occasionally someone who was stupid enough to lay on the ground between the take off and landing ramps, when we had landing ramps.

Helmets, pads, and jackets were unheard of when I was growing up. How I and my friends survived our childhood is a mystery to me.

Then came the fateful day when I was twelve or thirteen years old. Out of nowhere, and without warning whatsoever, my quite conservative and straight-laced father rolled up the driveway on a cherry red motorcycle. The bike was a beautiful 1975 Honda CB400. The in-line exhaust pipes and the chrome front fender looked awesome. This was a real motorcycle. There were no baseball cards in the spokes of this baby. To my eyes, it was 400ccs of pure Evel Knievel.

I didn’t even know my dad could ride a motorcycle. The question on the lips of most members of the family was “why did you buy it.” My question was, “when will you take me for a ride.”

Evel Knievel…Coolest Guy Ever!

On the train down from Seoul yesterday:

Conversation 1

“You are in my seat.”

“This is my assigned seat.”

“No. I have a ticket. This is my seat.”

“I have a ticket for this seat. Here. Car 16 seat 15C. See?”

“Oh? [raising voice and drawing attention from other passengers] I don’t know where you got yours, but I just got mine from the ticket window.”

“I reserved mine a long time ago.”

“Well, you will have to move because this is my seat.”

“I’m not going anywhere because I am in the right seat.”

“Well.. what are you going to do?”

“Let me see your ticket.” [inspeting ticket] “You are on the wrong train.

“No I’m not.”

Yes you are. Look. Your ticket says 3:30. This is the 3:00 train.”

[becoming visibly angry] “No. I bought a ticket for the 3:00 train.”

“It doesn’t matter what you thought you did. You have a ticket for the 3:30 train. Look. Right there. See? It says 3:30pm. See the tv monitor? That says this is the 3:00 train to Pusan. You are on the wrong train. The train is leaving in about 2 minutes, so you should get off now before it’s too late.”

“Oh. I’m so angry.” [Stomps off of train]

Conversation 2

[Young military guy in uniform approaches and says, in English] “Excuse me, sir. May I get through.”

“Sure” [stand up so he can get to the inside seat]

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

15 minutes later

“Excuse me, sir.”

“Yes?”

[points apologetically at his Burger King bag] “Do you mind if I eat my lunch?”

“No. Not at all. Please do!”

“I have two hamburgers, sir. Do you want one?”

[Rather surprised and flattered] “Oh. No thank you. I just ate while waiting for the train. But thank you very much.”

“Are you sure? You may have one.”

“No No… Thank you very much. But I couldn’t. Please. You eat them.”

Korea confirmed Today (July 31) a second Korean hostage has been killed in Afghanistan, denouncing Taliban militants for committing the “barbarity.”

“One of our citizens kidnapped in Afghanistan, Shim Sung-min, was confirmed on July 31 to have been killed,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Hee-yong said in a press briefing.

The official confirmation came over 12 hours after a Taliban spokesman said the militants had shot and killed a male hostage because the Afghan government failed to trade the hostages for Taliban prisoners.

“The government cannot hide its anger and strongly denounces the Taliban militants for brutally murdering (Shim) while our government was doing its best and working closely with the Afghan government to win the safe release of our citizens,” the Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

The bullet-riddled body of Shim was found on a road near the city of Ghazni, where 23 Korean aid workers were kidnapped on July 19, according to reports.

The 42-year-old leader of the group, Presbyterian pastor Bae Hyung-kyu, was shot dead last Wednesday after Kabul refused to release jailed Taliban fighters.

Shim, a native of Goseong in South Gyeongsang Province, had worked at an IT company in Seoul but recently moved to Seongnam, just south of the capital, where he said he wanted to do volunteer work while attending graduate school.

The 30-year-old was remembered by his family as a very dutiful son, while his friends said Shim was always the first in line to offer help to anyone less fortunate, especially the disabled.

Earlier today, Kevin over at Big Hominid stated:

I don’t understand how Lindsay Lohan’s recent arrest … is more newsworthy than the terrifying drama unfolding in Central Asia. What exactly am I missing? A cynic might say this is a reality check for Koreans…

I think it is more of a reality check for the Koreans to look at themselves and whether the hostage situation is more important that a semi-final game of the Asian Cup football/soccer tournament.

During the game, it was announced that 8 of the Korean hostages in Afganistan had been released. Shortly thereafter Al Jazeera reported that one of the Korean hostages had been killed by the Taliban. I noticed the story during a quick check of the news during a lull in the soccer match. The story was then picked up by Reuters.

Did KBS2 break into the soccer match to announce that 8 hostages had been released or that one hostage has been reported killed? No.

Did KBS2’s soccer announcers mention the news? No.

Did KBS2 run a crawler across the bottom of the screen to announce the breaking news? No, but they did run a crawler apologizing for preempting a comedy program because the soccer match went into overtime, and they sent another crawler across the screen assuring viewers that some drama would be shown immediately after the game and gave a brief synopsis of the upcoming episode.

It seems that KBS2 thinks the outcome of a sporting event is more important that the outcome of a hostage crisis and reports of their countrymen being murdered.

Update:

Al Jazeera is now confirming that one Korean has been killed:

The Taliban has killed one of 23 South Korean hostages after negotiations for their release broke down, according to a Taliban spokesman.

James Bays, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Afghanistan, said that he was told by the spokesman that “a male hostage had been killed and his body was left next to the main Kabul-Kandahar highway.”

The Afghan government confirmed the Taliban had killed one of the captives on Wednesday.

“I can confirm that one of the hostages has been killed by the Taliban,” Waheedullah Mujadadi, the head of the Afghan delegation negotiating for the release of the South Koreans, told the AFP news agency.

Taliban set a “final deadline” of 20:30 GMT on Wednesday for their demands for a prisoner swap to be met.

After two weeks with only two or three rain-free days, and despite a forecast of rain, the motorcycle gods smiled and it was a beautiful day.

After meeting at Pusan Train Station and having a quick breakfast of a toasted ham, egg, and cheese sandwich, we hit the road at 9:30 am. We rode south past the train station and turned west at the overpass and rode through the tunnel into Daeshin-dong and then through Daeti tunnel into Kwejeong and Hadan. From there, we took Highway 2 toward Jinhae.

After passing Yongwon and approximately 7 km before Jinhae, we arrived at Angol and turned off of Highway 2. We through Angol along the coast until we arrived at the ferry terminal.

We boarded the 11:00 am ferry to Gadeokdo and secured our bikes for the ride.

We went to the upper deck and took a look at the ocean ahead of us.

The captain of the vessel, who was reportedly enjoying an adult beverage shortly before boarding the vessel, was ready to set sail.

We sailed past the construction of the Pusan to Keoje Island bridge.

After about 30 minutes, we turned toward Gadeokdo Island. The ferry docked at a little pier built out into the ocean.

After getting off of the ferry, we turned right and headed up into the mountains. A short ride up a steep mountain and down the other side, set the pattern for the entire island. a series of mountains, coves, and small villages.

There are no major roads around the island. The roads are little more than concrete paths and sometimes no more than a narrow walkway between buildings. No idea what two cars coming from opposite directions would do.

At any time, the roads can end in a military base, a farm house, or a beautiful outcropping of rocks.

When you come to one of these dead ends, then you can only turn around and enjoy the view on the ride back.

Many of the houses on the island are very old and little more than shacks, but they are someone’s home.

Life on the small island remains very traditional. The only industries appeared to be fishing, farming, a few small stores and a handful of restaurants.

Some of the roads between the small villages are so steep that the switchbacks are immediately below section of road that you are on.

The steepness of roads required riders to go hard on the front and back breaks and to keep a substantial distance from the rider in front of you.

Riding back to the car ferry pier, we had a good look at one of the villages, the road leading over the final hill to the pier, and the mainland off in the distance.

We arrived back at the car ferry pier about 2 hours before the ferry was scheduled to arrive. We traveled every road we could find on the island, took a very slow lunch, and rode back to the ferry pier in approximately 3 hours. We waited for the ferry inside a small store, where we enjoyed snacks, adult beverages, soda pop, and good conversation.

In the biker world, it is common and often expected for male bkers to give other male bikers hugs. Here is a good instructional video on how to give non-threatening, man-to-man hugs that will adequately display camaraderie while simultaneously avoiding a beatdown.

Are Paul Wolfowitz, World Bank Chief, and this Gringotts Bank Chief from Harry Potter twins?

I am amused.

Let the Korean Netizen war machine roll into action.

(Thanks to Marmot)

In order to give the long-haul bike riding season an appropriate kick off, a group of 13 riders on 10 bikes took to the road for a two-day ride to the islands of Namhae last week. It’s not a long ride. It can be done in about three hours if you ride straight through at a good speed. However, that was not the purpose of the ride.

The night before the ride, I did something that I haven’t done in about 8 months. I washed my bike. It looks kind of pretty when it’s all nice and shiny.

The group came together at around 9:00 am on Saturday morning. We met at the McDonalds in Kimhae where the service has a reputation for being less than satisfactory. The group went in for breakfast. I was quite pleased that they managed to get the order right, but I wasn’t too happy that it took almost 30 minutes to get my fast-food order of a sausage egg McMuffin.

After everyone had eaten, maps to the location were distributed and we were off.

This group ride was unlike any other group ride I had ever been on. I am used to organized group rides where there is a pre-ride meeting where we discuss the details of the route to where we are going, ride rules, safety, etc. before mounting up and leaving as a group. This ride had more of a disorganized road race feel to it. The maps were handed out without much discussion, some people immediately jumped on their bikes and fired up their engines while others were still packing. I was still standing next to my bike with my helmet and gloves in my hand when the first riders took off. The other riders scrambled to take off. Eventually, I and another rider were the only two left where there once had been nine bikes. I grumbled something about how that was some pretty sloppy group riding. Luckily, the other rider, Iceman, and I have the largest bikes by far and caught up to the other riders easily.

It soon became clear that my original feelings were correct. This wasn’t really a group ride. It was more of a bunch of individuals heading in the same direction toward the same destination. Riders were passing each other. Riders were riding all over the road. Riders were running read lights. Riders were barely sliding between cars. Riders were not communicating with each other. Basically, it was a recipe for disaster. Not wanting to be part of any such foolishness, Iceman and I hung back quite a distance from the riders in front. There were a few riders in the “group” several kilometers behind us.

Despite several close calls, the group make the 30 minute ride from Kimhae to Changwon to meet up with the final rider.

We then went on another free-for-all ride through downtown Masan and up into the mountains toward our first gas stop. While the smaller bikes and those with bad gas mileage fueled up, the rest of us stood around and got stared at by the local for twenty minutes or so.

Then we were off on the main leg of the trip to Namhae. The road from Masan to Goseong was quite crowded with weekend traffic. However, once we arrived at Goseong and turned off the main road and headed toward the coast, traffic thinned out and the scenery was gorgeous. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of pictures from this trip. When I am riding alone, I will stop about every 5 minutes to take pictures of looking around, but when riding as a group, I don’t do that. The purpose of a group ride is to ride, not stop and take pictures. However, I did take some video of the ride.

The arrival at Namhae is always enjoyable as the road winds over a serious of bridges to the main island. The view was exceptionally spectacular this time as the fields of bright yellow spring flowers contrasted with the bright orange bridges.

After crossing over the bridges, we rode to a rest stop for a pre-lunch snack and a leg stretch.

The nice thing about this particular rest stop is the spectacular view of the ocean across the street (click the picture for a larger view).

We hit the road again for the 30 minute ride to the place where we were supposed to have lunch. On the way to the restaurant, we passed the tulip festival, the garlic festival, and some sort of fish festival.

Once we arrived at the designated lunch location, we parked our bikes on the street and looked for the parking attendant to give us our parking slips.
The parking attendant was standing across the street just looking at us. We stood on our side of the street looking expectantly at him. He appeared genuinely frightened to talk to the 13 mostly foreign bikers. There were a few Koreans in the group, so he shouldn’t have had any worries. A group of us stood around waiting for him to come over to us while the others marched off toward the restaurant. After waiting for another minute or so, we figured that if he didn’t want to talk to us, then we didn’t want to talk to him either. So we marched off to join the others.

It turned out that the restaurant was full, so we went to a Korean restaurant that serves up short-order items like noodles, soups, and sushi rolls. We took the restaurant by surprise. We invaded right at lunch time when the restaurant was handling a lot of delivery orders. It took about 45 minutes to get everyone served.

About halfway through the wait, the parking attendant guy had screwed up enough courage to approach us about the parking. A 10 minute conversation ensued wherein it was determined that we would have to pay 2,000 won ( about US$ 1.80) to park there.

After lunch we ran into another major organizational disaster. Again, some people seemed to be in too much of a hurry to wait for others. They had their bikes started and they took off before others were even close to being ready.

The end result was that the people in the “group” were scattered for 10 to 15 kilometers. The people in front were angry at those in the back for not stopping the group from leaving… The people in back were angry because the other people left without waiting. Iceman and I were just about ready to head back to look for the last part of the group, when we were told by others in the group that they had spoken with the people in back by cell phone. If people in the same group are scattered so far apart that you have to communicate by cell phone, then there are problems.

We waited a total of about 20 minutes for everyone to finally get together to begin the final leg of the ride around Namhae to the motel where we would be staying. While waiting, I snapped this picture of some farmland being prepared for Spring planting.

We wound our way around the island through tiny villages and along sheer cliffs to our destination at Songjeong Beach in Namhae. The motel was quite nice and right on the beach.Before dinner, I went to the beach to take some pictures and stretch out my legs.

(Click for larger picture)

After a short rest, we had dinner then went back to the beach to have a meeting and discuss the ride. I expressed my opinion about the poor organization and unsafe riding practices of the group. I hope it did some good. None of the riders in that group were bad riders. They just sucked as a group.

The last thing that was said by the group leader before everyone went to there separate rooms was “no calls before 9:00 am, and we will try to leave around 10:00 am.”

I watched a bit of television before going to sleep. I turned my phone off to get a good night sleep. When I awoke at 8:45 am I saw that the group leader had tried to call me twice. I called him and asked what was going on. He said that he was hungry and wanted to leave early. I asked when he planned on leaving. “In five minutes” was his reply. So much for no calls before 9:00 am…

That was impossible for me. So I told them to go on ahead and I would catch up, if I could. I packed my things and hit the road at around 10:00 am. They had only ridden about 4 kilometers up to road and were eating breakfast. There was one couple that was slower getting out than me. They were going to eat breakfast at a different restaurant and we would meet up with them somewhere up the road.

I took off and joined the others for breakfast. It turned out that some of the riders had left very early in the morning. So, after we met up with the other couple, there were a total of seven bikes heading back together. We rode back across the bridge and back up the road to Pusan. (This video includes the last part of the ride to the hotel as well as the ride off of the island in the morning.)

After about an hour of riding together, most of the people in the group decided that they were busy and needed to get back home as quickly as possible. Iceman and I had nothing to do, so we let the rest of the group take the faster way home. We went our separate way and rode along the coastline up to Gojae Island, around the island for a while before head to Masan, then Chinhae, then back to Pusan.

Although somewhat disorganized and poorly executed at times, it was generally a great bunch of people and a spectacular ride through beautiful country.

The entire world knows by now that the Virginia Tech shooter was Korean. I have purposely avoided any comment about this incident, the largest mass murder on a US school campus in history.

While the nationality of the murder may be relevant to some, it is irrelevant to the tragedy itself. This mass murder was the work of a single, isolated, clearly mentally ill person. His race and nationality are unimportant.

What was in the mind of Cho Seung-Hui? The killer speaks: