South Korean business newspaper Money Today, quoted [ko] Daily NK’s earlier report on the singing contest. According to the Daily NK, an online newspaper focusing on issues relating to North Korea, the contest is a nation-wide contest open to all North Koreans except people from bad family background, such as political dissidents.

Ordinarily, the winner is awarded a television and second winner gets an accordion, the third a guitar. But the report added that since it takes about four to five months to get to the final round of the competition and the bribe works when it is hard to judge who is a clearly better singer, amateur singers from poor families choose not to apply in the first place.

Animal rights and civil rights groups have strongly protested against staging fur items since early this month. Seoul city government who initially blocked fur items from the show, finally decided to back off. Last Monday, Fendi announced that Seoul has allowed them to feature fur.

Until last week, only several civic groups have accused Fendi of animal cruelty. But as Seoul stepped back from its tough stance, more citizens have joined the anti-fur movement and social sentiment against fur has grown ever-stronger. Spearheaded by animal rights groups, people have started boycotting Fendi products [ko] and few even vowed to disrupt the event.

Seoul’s man-made 2.5 acre island, the ‘Floating Island’ has now been nicknamed; the ‘Tax Floating island’[ko], to suggest a tremendous amount of money injected in building luxurious facilities and the ‘Blood Floating island’ [ko] to indicate the animal blood shed while making fur products. South Korea’s citizen/blogger news, Wiki Tree [ko] said that the island’s facilities which should serve as new cultural space for citizen, is in fact a “playground for the super-rich”.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office reported in a briefing that hackers turned an IBM employee’s laptop into a “zombie PC” on last September and has been managing and controlling it since, gaining full access to the Nonghyup Internet banking service without any restriction. (Nonghyup outsourced Internet security to IBM) The Prosecutor’s Office reported that they have detected similarities between this Nonghyup case and the previous attacks, such as last March’s DDos attack on major South Korean websites. It said the mal codes were distributed and the Internet Protocol (IP) of a server used to control the zombie PC were identical and the crime was committed by the same hacker group who attacked major South Korean websites in 2009 and last March.

Hackers Do NOT Use Real IP Addresses

Mainstream media and IT expert, however, raised a series of questions on the authorities’ explanation, and stressed that it is preposterous to draw a conclusion from poor evidence and unconfirmed precedents. They pointed out that the IP addresses can be manipulated easily and hackers almost always use other IPs. They also added that the malicious software and code planted on the zombie PC are commonly found in the hacking world and do not exclusively belong to North Korea.

IT Expert’s Questionable Behavior

The IBM employee’s behavior also came under fire. IT experts commented that it is weird that a security expert had continued to use the infected laptop for over seven months without noticing that it had turned into a zombie, while even ordinary people clean up their personal computers regularly. This is especially true in Korea, as major sites suffered from several DDos attacks in recent years and public awareness on the zombie PC has been increased.

Media’s Talking Points

South Korea’s progressive news outlet, Presssian coalesced [ko] several major media’s responses and analyzed from which angles they have published their stories.

While one of largest conservative newspapers, the Chosun, sided with the authorities’ theory with a sensational subtitle — ‘North Korea hacker squad almost matching CIA team’. However, the DongA, one major conservative media outlet pointed out major controversial point. DongA commented that since the IP address cannot work as a irrevocably clear evidence and as we are yet not 100 percent sure that last DDos attack were actually carried out by North Korea, jumping to that conclusion would be similar to making “an assumption based on an assumption”.

The Hankook wrote “what kind of hacker uses his own IP address?” and added that in the North, the number of IP addresses is so limited that they barrow internet networks from China. The Kyunghyang wrote, “if it is really the North who did this, would they have used the exact same IP address which they used in last March’s DDos attack?”. An online-based media outlet specializing in IT, ZD Net Korea, after addressing similar points, analyzed that the attack patterns detected from last DDos attack are different from that of the Nonghyup attack, which worked in a more interactive way.

It has been six days the unprecedented breakdown in network systems of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, publicly known as ‘Nonghyup’, occurred. Most of the banking service has been stabilized now, but there are still minor glitches in the online and check-card transactions and the credit card’s cash advance service. Some of the damage will be hard to undo. Several bank transaction histories have been removed from the bank database and there is no major breakthrough in restoring the lost history.

On April 12, Nonghyup’s banking system totally shut down. The bank resumed its service three days later, on April 15, but with lingering failures. Apart from the basic banking services, such as withdrawing and transferring money by visiting offline banks in person, the credit card’s cash advance service and transactions via check card did not function smoothly. Errors also occurred in advance services such as processing and screening loan applications and postponing loan payment.

Customers have filed complaints against the bank. Although the bank promised to make complete compensation for the possible loss caused by the shutdown, experts commented the reimbursement process, though necessary, would create more chaos. In the case of customers losing a contract as they failed to transfer deposits by the due date, it would be hard to prove the bank failure has directly caused the loss, DongA added [ko]. Nonhyup at least exempted their customers from bank transaction fees.

There were two speculations: the systems being hacked by strangers or intentionally erased by insiders. The Prosecutor’s Office, pointing out that the hacker had commanded a ‘remove’ order in a code file form and erased the banking history, suspected insiders and summoned two to three employees who have unrestricted access to the server, reported [ko] Yonhap News. Its forensic team had found out that a suspicious USB had entered a notebook of IBM’s staff several times. IBM is the bank’s subcontracter in internet security and its employee’s laptop carrying a special code is believed to have started the problem.

The Daily NK reported [ko] on April 15 that Kim Il-Sung’s mummy has continued to shrink and added that this information is spreading rapidly, but clandestinely among North Korean people. The report quoted one defector’s testimony who had seen the mummy in 2002 and 2003. Kim Il-sung is late father of Kim Jong-il and founder of the communist regime and his body has been embalmed and left on public display in a glass coffin in the Kumsusan Memorial palace:

I have seen Kim’s mummy twice a year and it was noticeable that his head has gotten smaller. [...] And a high government official thought the same. [...] It is clear people have reached an agreement on the shrink-down of Kim’s head. But no body dares to publicly point this out, since admitting it would risk one’s life.

The report explains that a rumor about Lenin’s mummy which is stored in the Kremlin palace in Russia gave birth to such idea. For several years now, words have been circulating among Russians and North Korean students studying aboard that Lenin’s head is getting smaller.

North Korean expert, Andrei Lankov, told in an interview with Daily NK, that although the information on Mummy Lenin’s condition is confidential, so it is hard to verify about the size of his head, it is widely acknowledged that the Mummy Lenin’s condition has gradually deteriorated. A local expert added that it is natural for the embalmed body to shrink down when it loses water.

North Korean regime mummified Kim’s body in 1994 to apotheosize Kim. It is estimated that it costs about US 1 million dollars for the process and an additional US 0.8 million dollars each year just to maintain the body condition.

Already four students at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology(KAIST), one of the nation’s top-tier universities, have committed suicides in less than four months. Local media outlets and KAIST’s students themselves have analyzed the situation and said  the pressure of intense competition and especially KAIST’s unique penalty system, which charges students extra fees for underachievement, may have contributed to the deaths.

The most recent suicide took place on April 7. According to a Korea Herald article [en], a KAIST professor who had consulted Park (the last victim) said Park seemed to be suffering from his unsatisfactory grades.

Penalty tuition

Adding to the already heightened pressure is the school’s unique penalty system under which students pay different amounts of tuition based on their grades. A summarized tweet [ko] read “If the grade point fell below 3.0, the student is forced to pay 63 thousand Korean won for each 0.01 point deficit. For example, if one gets 2.5 grade point, the fine would amount to 3 million Korean Won.”

Apologies not enough

Suh Nam-pyo, president of KAIST held a press conference right after Park’s death and announced the school will scrap its unique tuition system. However, enraged net users are calling for Suh to step down as a way of taking full responsibility for the systematized madness which he had created to boost competition.

Cho Gook , Seoul National University’s law professor and one of the most influential Twitters (@patriamea) tweeted ‘Though Suh announced to scrap off the system, it is about time for Suh to step down. He bears the responsibility on this tragedy which he had made by blackmailing the students with tuition and forcing them to become “study machines”‘. Twitterers and bloggers have also filed an online petition[ko] in Daum Agora site, urging him to resign.

Suh’s apparently misunderstanding of the repetitive suicides as mere personal matters has turned people against him. On April 4, Suh wrote on the school’s homepage a message strongly insinuating (related article[ko]) that the suicide was the result of the individual’s mental weakness, thereby further disappointing KAIST students and the rest of the Korean public.

South Korea’s citizen media, Wikitree, introduced [ko] the German Meteorological report in Korean. On April 4, the German Meteorological Service (DWD) posted on its website that the radioactive substances from the hobbled Fukushima plant will be covering the southern part of the Korean peninsula on April 6 and on the following day they will reach up to the middle region.

April 6: [...] The radioactive release is transported primarily in south-easterly direction to the Pacific. Over the Pacific at the same latitude as Shikoku the flow turns to more and more westerly direction therefore radioactive particles could be transported to southern Japan and furthermore increasingly diluted even to South Korea and China.

April 7: On Thursday with the high pressure moving eastward to the Pacific the wind direction over Japan turns to south west. Therefore the particles will be transported eastward to the Pacific.

South Korean Meteorological Administration admitted the possibility [ko] of the change of wind direction and predicted the radioactive rain could hit Korea on April 7 before adding that even if it did, the radiation level would be too low to be a health threat.

Image of Mt. Baekdu's summit, Owns by Bdpmas. Wikimedia Commons. GNU Free Documentation License.

Yonhap News agency reported[en] today that South Korea agreed to hold talks around March 29 with North Korea on a potential volcanic eruption of Mountain Baekdu, which is the nation’s highest mountain with an active volcanic core. Experts interpreted the North’s suggestion as “putting out feelers for ways to resume dialogue”, the report added.

The possible eruption of Mount Baekdu has become a major public concern in South Korea since it began making the headlines in early 2010. Most reports wrote, quoting Korea scientists and Chinese researchers, that more volcanic activity was detected in 2010, including 300 small seismic activities and protrusion of the mountain adjacent to the area by 3 millimeters each  year. Several media even quoted people’s testimonies, which claimed numerous snakes had fled the mountain.

In North Korea, even its leader Kim Jong-il himself had admitted “since Mt. Baekdu will erupt in 2016” workers must “produce iron ore when it is available”, according to PSCORE repor t(People for Successful COrean REunification). (Korea Times provided a translation[en] of PSCORE report)

The gigantic Baekdu Mountain is located on the border between North Korea and China. Geologists and other experts said that Baekdu’s damage could be 10 to 100 times greater than that caused by the April 2010 eruptions in Iceland – based on its last eruption in 1903. Medical Today report [ko], which coalesced various scenarios, wrote that the volcanic ash from Baekdu would not only cause disruptions in flights, but it will hinder plant growth and hamper the functioning of high-precision devices.

About 1 billion tons of water stored on Baekdu’s peak could cause a massive flood, which could cost several thousands of lives in the impoverished North. Based on recent topographical signs and satellite images, South Korean experts have set the date between 2013 and 2015. It is hard to pinpoint the exact date, especially due to North Korea’s reclusiveness and lack of cooperation from the Chinese side on sharing data.

The disastrous aftermath of eruption can be magnified in the North. When the volcanic ash blocks a substantial quantity of the sun’s rays, thereby creating a sudden drop of temperature, it will inflict cold damage on plants, further worsening the already precarious food situation in North Korea. North Korean experts said public uproar and chaos could follow a disaster.

Yesterday’s DDoS attack bears resemblance to the cyber attack in July 2009, South Korea’s major net security firm AhnLab said to local media outlets. Attackers hacked two local peer-to-peer file sharing sites (P2P) on Thursday to inject malicious codes in files. It were downloaded onto the so-called Zombie PCs and prompted the massive Zombie troop to carry cyber assaults. It is estimated between 4,300 and 11,000 computers were infected by malware.

South Korea’s Joongang Daily quoted industry sources that the size of the attack was significantly smaller than the July 2009 attack. After the 2009 attack, South Korea had tried hard to increase public awareness on the issue. For a DDos attack to succeed, hackers need to gather as many as Zombie PCs as possible. Not only the usual government campaigns and education were given to citizens, but even variety shows such as ‘Sponge’ had a special episode on the Zombie PC and DDos attack. As the attack started yesterday, the Korea Internet Security Agency (KISA) shared its special diagnostic test page on social networking sites so the computer users can check whether their computers have yet turned into a Zombie PC. Even the presidential house (@bluehousekorea) retweeted @withkcc’s shared links to free vaccine download sites, such as www.boho.or.kr and www.krcert.or.kr

The Seoul Newspaper, quoting a security personnel from Ahn Lab, explained[ko] that South Korea’s heavy dependence on Microsoft made the country so vulnerable to DDos attack. Most South Korean users use Microsoft and its Active X and they often absentmindedly hit ‘confirm’ button when asked to install/update software. The attackers have injected virus and disguised them as one of these software updateds.

Kukinews quoted Police report [ko] suspecting North Korea of the crime, considering the fact that DC Inside Gallery was newly included on the attack list. The DC site hacked North Korean official website, Uriminzokkiri, and its YouTube and Twitter account two months ago. But more evidence is needed since the latest attack on DC site right after it hacked North Korean websites was done by a teenage South Korean hacker despite most people’s assumption that it was North Korea’s retaliation.

Kim’s physical violence on her pupils includes Kim slapping them in the face, beating them on their stomachs and backs and pulling their hair. She is alleged to have thrown key chains, a mirror and even the flowers after performances.

Another complaint raised by a student and filed to the school authorities claimed that the professor coerced her students to buy tickets to her concerts and Kim even ”mobilized” her students, (yes, that is the word local media used) to perform at her mother-in-law’s 80th birthday party. Another report, citing Kim’s assistant, said Kim appropriated the university building for her daughter’s benefits.

Kim admitted her violent acts, but refused to call it violence. Kim explained during her DongA Ilbo interview (mentioned in Korea Times article), that she did not consider it to be physical violence. On complaints about coercive ticket-selling and mobilizing students for the birthday party, Kim claimed that she merely asked students for a small favor. Many responded that a tiny favor asked by a powerful figure, even if gently suggested, is easily perceived as a coercion.

Kim, SNU and Juilliard graduate, gained popularity by appearing on the popular TV entertainment show ‘Star King’ on SBS. Kim, during the interview, confessed that she ‘tends to have a temper’ and she ‘might have hit students in the stomach and back harder than other professors’, which angered some students. Kim, explaining that ‘Vocal music cannot be taught only using words, and so this is a very obvious method’, defended her method as the way she was taught and she is currently using when teaching her students.

The majority of people seem not to be buying her version of the story. South Korea’s internet users are demanding the popular TV show to suspend her and even some of her fellow SNU professors are urging the school to impose heavy punishment.

The JoongAng Daily, pointing out the uniqueness of the relationship between a teacher and a student in the music community, described Kim as someone who may have gone little over the top while following traditional music custom of intense, one-on-one lessons, which involve some physical contact. Kim asserted that vocal music requires singers to use their bodies and sometimes it is hard to draw the line between advice and abuse.

Many opined that the situation got ugly due to Kim’s prominence in Korean music field. Violence in the music field is an old problem, a dark aspect in the society unaddressed by insiders which was recently raised as a serious issue by bold risk-takers. Since the Korean music field is a well-connected and relatively small community, when student got stigmatized as a ‘rebellious, bad student’ by one accomplished professor, he will be totally cut off from the music world. But if one succeeds in coping with all the nonsense and humiliation for several years under a powerful music figure, he will more likely to become a successful musician.

Silence from the students had created a tradition and more submissions bolstered the system. Luckily, the vicious cycle is now under attack by few courageous aspiring musicians.

South Korea’s major newspaper, Chosun Newpaper, reported, citing an unnamed senior official, that three intruders, two men and one woman, had broken into the suite room at the Lotte Hotel and fled after a delegation member saw them copying computer files onto a USB memory stick. It added that the three intruders were members of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), South Korea’s top intelligence office. The 50-member delegation of Indonesian President Yudhoyono stayed three days in Korea to discuss on expanding bilateral economic and military cooperation between South Korea and Indonesia.

Yonhap news agency gave out an interesting analysis claiming that there are too many rookie mistakes in the case which make it hard to believe that this act was carried by professionals. This report has been distributed to many local media outlets.

Details of the incident: The three spies were caught red-handed while handling two laptops in the delegate’s hotel room. When an Indonesian delegate walked into the room and faced them, one handed him a laptop right away while others walked out of the room, carrying another laptop with him/her to the hallway – only to hand it back to the delegate right away and then fled.

1. Copying files from a laptop? In case of classified documents, it is customary to carry it on USB rather than a laptop.

2. Lax security. The hotel room on the 19th floor was an ordinary room open to any customer, rather than a special hotel room with extra security only available to high profile government officials. Some assumed that those spies casually ‘gave it a shot’, thinking ‘even if we fail, no big deal’.

3. The trio wandering around the hotel together.

Three people walking around together in a group is a good way to draw extra attention, easily noticeable not only on security cameras but also by ordinary citizens. Yonhap suggested that it is more than weird that no one from the group kept watch at the door. All three of them were believed to have stayed well inside the room, immersed in their work, a scene only someone “who have not even covered the basics” can create.

Spying, and especially scavenging classified information from foreign delegates during their visits to the country is often treated as an ‘open secret’ in diplomatic world, as mentioned by MBC, South Korea’s major broadcasting station.

Still, the custom does not create goodwill. It has not yet been confirmed whether the Indonesian government has sent a diplomatic complaint over the break-in, but Asia Today predicted that it may adversely affect the collaborative economic projects between two counties.

Image by Twitter @Hyeyounga, Posted on Wiki Tree, Creative Commons License

South Korea’s citizen media, Wiki Tree, posted two gruesome photos this week signaling the start of the environmental meltdown. Twitterer @Hyeyounga on Monday posted a photo of blood exuding from the burial ground where culled animal were dumped and it was running over a frozen land. The blood from culled animals may pollute nearby underground water (or in some cases rivers) and soil.

This photo is a tip of the iceberg. Some of the 4,600 burial sites were diagnosed as ‘prone to collapse during warm weather and rainy season’, revealed South Korea’s Environment Ministry last week.

Twitterer @Photomaker79 posted another image today of a flocks of vultures circling over a burial spot in Kyunggi Province, near the capital city, Seoul. It is possible the vultures carry germs, initiating another vicious cycle of foot-and-mouth disease.

Image by Twitter @Photomaker79, Posted on Wiki Tree, Creative Commons License

The mass culling has ruined many South Korean farms and the burden will fall on Korean customers. Numerous local reports revealed a steep price increase of agricultural products. The Seoul Milk, country’s leading diary product provider, announced up to 65 percent increase of its prices Wednesday, before withdrawing its decision just four hours later. The Donga Newspaper speculated[ko] the government may have dissuaded them.

In today’s Yonhap report, a senior finance ministry official commented the government will ease supply shortages of pigs and cattle by increasing the amount of imported pork and powdered milk in order to stabilize price — a promise not convincing enough to skeptic Koreans who know by practice, when the price is meant to go up, then leaving it soar a bit is the best option in many cases.

The foot-and-mouth virus has spread at an alarming rate in South Korea, as the country see more snow and unprecedentedly cold weather this year. (The virus lose strength in warmer weather.) The government made an inevitable decision to cull not only the affected cattle but also healthy herd within the danger zones in a desperate attempt to slow down the outbreak. Local media revealed at least one farmer committed suicide after his cattle were put down and his farming business met a disastrous end.

Yonhap news agency reported today[ko] that it is the first time the South Korean government department officially acknowledged the environmental group’s worries over the water contamination. The Ministry of Environment released its initial research result today telling that 16 out of 32 herd burial spots were discovered to be ‘problematic’. Eleven spots are dangerously close to the river, even adjacent to the upper stream of Han river which provides water to Seoul. Once contaminated water leaked into the river, it may cause serious degradation of water quality. The report added, the remaining four spots need additional water drainage channels and one location is located on the unstable slope. Luckily, the government research team has yet detected any serious leakage of the contaminated water.

About two weeks ago, NGO groups reported that the North Korea may also hit hard by the disease. More gruesome report from Open Radio for North Korea, a radio station founded and runs by North Korean defectors, claimed that hungry North Koreans are eating the infected cattle. Yesterday, AP, Reuters and major media outlets, quoting KCNA(Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s official state broadcast), reported North Korea confirmed the disease outbreak for the first time in four years and more than 10,000 cattle and pigs have been infected and thousands of them dead in the North.

Whether the 31 North Korean have drifted, defected or were even dispatched from the North, is extremely hard to decipher, for several reasons.

North Korea sees them as traitors, OR someone who unwittingly became traitors, OR at least traitors to-be. The news that 31 North Koreans went to South Korea, itself, poses great threats to the regime as it fears that the news may incite public resistance or, more likely, mass defections. Numerous human rights reports and defectors’ testimonies wrote that even after a defector proves that the (maritime) border-crossing was a mistake, North Korean security never really let them go free. At the very least they are forced to take an ideology test to check whether the brief contact with South Korean culture and people has managed to taint their thoughts. The consequences varies from light reprimands to harsh legal punishments.

On the South Korean side, the arrival of the boat people is nowhere close to being welcome news as it further complicates the already aggravated inter-Korean relationship. The government will not easily repatriate them, knowing that they may face serious threats from the regime, but at the same time, the government could not completely ignore that it happened during a sensitive time period when the North suggested talks on family reunions. And there is pubic opinion. Some hard-liners have claimed 31 people is too much to have simply drifted in on a boat and suggested that there is a possibility that they were dispatched from the North. (Look at the two of three most popular comments below a news article[ko] and the rest of comments which raise suspicions about their ulterior motive).

The defectors have said that they have no will to defect to the South, but no one can be sure whether they really mean it. The South Korean government’s decision to ‘let them go choose their own ways’ seems like a wise move. Still, no one can predict how public response will turn out, as human rights people may criticize the government’s tepid measure, while most net users still throw suspicious looks at them.

The Young Union, FOEH(For Occupational and Environmental Health) and several labor unions held a press conference today in front of the Domino Pizza’s headquarters in Seoul, urging the company to scrap the 30 minutes delivery system which has cost several young peoples their lives and injured numerous delivery personnel. Several thousand people, including a famous author, an actress and intellectuals have publicly supported the abolition of the tough delivery system which lasted for about 20 years in Korea.

Last December, a 24 year-old pizza delivery guy who worked as a part-timer in a pizza parlor to pay for his education expenses died from a car accident during delivery. Three people from his pizza brand died for similar reasons last year alone. According to Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor department, more than 7000 bike-delivery accidents have occurred.

(PRNewsFoto/Pizza Hut)

A stiff competition between pizza brands has been blamed for the accidents. In the case of Domino, once 30 minutes have passed since the order, customers get a 2000 Won discount for each pizza and when it’s over 45 minutes, they even get a free pizza or free side dish. Similar rules apply to other pizza brands. When they received complaints about slow delivery, they give away a free pizza or a discount and delivery guys, whom are mostly young part-timers, are the one responsible for the failure. Often they got penalties or are even forced to reimburse the loss, which drives them  them to deliver faster even under dangerous circumstances.

And there are nasty customers who abuse the system. Some customers hold the elevator or do not answer the door until 45 minutes passes so they can get a free pizza. Some customers even demand a pizza delivery on snowy days even though many pizza parlors clearly state that deliver service is not available for the day.

Pressian reported, quoting the head of Pizza Hut Labor Union, that the 30 minute delivery schedule is almost impossible to meet. It takes about 15 minutes to make a pizza, which means the delivery has to be completed within 15 minutes. This makes delivery people feel very pressured and bike riders slip and fall on icy roads. In the United States, Domino scrapped the 30 min system in 1995 as accidents involving delivery occurred continuously. In Korea, Pizza Hut is the first one who had stopped the system.

An online petition Korean net users filed on the Daum Agora site has already gathered a thousand signatures and more people are joining the NO 3o Minute delivery Facebook page.

Traffic. As the majority of people started heading back to Seoul yesterday, highways saw heavy traffic with tens of thousands of people returning from their hometowns and cemeteries to pay visits to their ancestors. The route from Seoul to Pusan which usually takes about five hours by car took more than eight to nine hours. Mountains and ski slopes were also crowded with people who preferred to enjoy the longer-than-usual holiday with their close family or friends, rather than with extended family members whose names they hardly recall.

People wait to board the high-way bus to go their hometowns to celebrate the Lunar New Year holidays at the Seoul Express Terminal in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011. Pic: AP.

Strict gender roles. The holiday period is the time of year when gender equality issues are brought up most intensively. South Korea’s citizen media, Wiki Tree quoted[ko] a female novelist complaining about being a woman in this country after pointing out that she is the only woman who can be seen from Twitter timeline. While women cook several meals for extended families, clean dishes afterwards and take care of other chores, men usually watch TV shows, chat lazily with others and take a nap in a corner of the house. The unwritten social notion on the priority of visits aggravates the situation. While members are obligated to visit the husband’s side of the family, the wife’s family is optional. Families pay visits to the wife’s parents only after they spend most of the day at the man’s house, OR in some cases, woman’s parents are totally ignored. Women’s rights activists and organizations, and even the government department, expressed concerns over the inequality issue as the national divorce rate spikes up after big holidays. This time of the year is when the decades-old Korean idea that ‘Men should not enter the kitchen’ resurfaces and roams over capitalistic Korean cities.

Relatives. Relatives. Relatives… Emotional rifts and spats between family members are pretty universal. But in Korea, the disputes between relatives get uglier as religion take its role there. Religious conflicts between Christian members of the family and traditional Koreans has been a serious issue for decades. While Christians refuse to bow down before their ancestral altars, explaining that it is against their religious beliefs, other members accuse them of disrespectful behavior. Nagging inquisitions on your relationship and whereabouts (whether you are married yet, got a good job or entered a prestigious school) are a must in Korean holidays and lots of young members came up with excuses to get exempt from family gatherings as a result. South Korea’s most visited public forum site, Daum’s Agora picked[ko] this issue as the theme of the day and even made a special forum page for the net users to vent their holiday stress online.

There has been a media frenzy surrounding this case. Updates were prominently featured  on all mainstream media, with most reports focusing on the rarity of the case. Chosun Newspaper[ko] wrote an article with every single detail about the captured pirates they could glean from the Coast Guard.

[Rough Translation]Yesterday at 7.25pm the pirates ate rice, cooked-Kimchi (mixed with rice), fried eggs, Doenjang soap, Japchae and etc,.  They ate it all without leaving any leftovers. According to Pusan Coast Guard, they all slept soundly and didn’t wake during the night. The following morning they were served with rice, pollack soap, fried eggs, Kimchi and tofu. One person asked them in English whether the food was okay and one pirate answered “good, good”.

Within less than half an hour after its release, the report became the most read article, reflecting people’s huge interest in the case. Many commented: ‘why did they ask that stupid food question?’ and ‘they are being fed well, too well as if they went on a field trip or something’. The fact that the pirates arrived on a private royal jet lent by the United Arab Emirates has drawn similar responses.

The pirates are being charged with maritime theft and attempted murder. Seoul Newspaper[ko] speculated that once all the charges are confirmed they will potentially face heavy punishment, such as execution or long-term imprisonment in a Korean jail. The captain of the hijacked ship Samho Jewerly wast shot several times during the military raid and is currently in grave condition.

The investigation has been hampered by the language barrier. The police have hired several translators to interpret(/translate) Somali into English, then again into Korean. Kookmin Newspaper[ko] said that there are four translators now, 1 Somali (Somali-English), two Koreans (English-Korean) and one professor of Pusan University of Foreign Language,  to translate Arabian into Korean. However, the police have failed to get a translator who can make direct interpretation from/to Korean and Somali.

Even to non-football fans, this match was extremely hard to ignore. A silent apartment building shook violently when the first goal was scored by Korean team. In the nation’s famous portals sites, the word ‘Korean VS Japan match’s Umpires’ made into the 10 most-searched words list as numerous net users studied the umpires’ nationalities and their records to gauge whether they would be impartial toward the Korean football players. Twitterers have jokingly enacted the fifth duty of Korean citizens.  Beside the responsibility to protect its country, pay tax, work and educate, the new one read, ‘Watch the Korea VS Japan football match.’

Twitter @Ksoyeonism, pointed out[ko] that all tickets for the match were sold out, which is pretty rare in Qatar and commented this demonstrated the importance of the match not only to Koreans and Japanese, but to Asians overall.

As emotion ran high during the game, one of KBS’s programs (@KBS 24th) tweeted[ko] that it is welcoming comments on the over-concentration and emotional attachment to the match. The old feud Koreans hold against Japan, which colonized Korea in the early 1900s for 35 years, frequently surfaces during sports match against Japanese.

This grudge Koreans have against Japan was well reflected in Ki Sung-young’s goal ceremony. Ki, the Korean team’s midfielder imitated a monkey scratching its chin after scoring the first goal. Some prudent Koreans, such as Mayo_longo warned[ko] players against using offensive racial gestures. Not a few net users defended Ki who tweeted[ko] later that he went emotional after watching Japanese World War 2 flags in the stadium.

To Koreans, beating Japan is a must and players and the coaching staff are under a lot of pressure. When the  Korean team is defeated by huge margins, the manager’s job is in danger. That is why Japan, who rank higher in the FIFA chart, have lost a majority of matches against Korea. The game history shows that the Korean team, in 73 games against Japan, has won 40 matches and lost only 12. Below sports analyst John Duerden’s column[ko] posted on Nate website, Koreans expressed their discomfort in calling Japan their rival.

This match meant something to South Korea’s beloved captain Park Ji-Sung, the Manchester United midfielder. Analysts predicted that Park may well be retire from international competition after this tournament.

Most local reports have praised this hard-line approach with headlines such as ‘Mission Success’, ‘Power of Our Special Forces’, ‘Majestic UDT’ (Underwater Demolition Team), ‘Pirates Kneel Down Before Our UDT’ and so on. Even the South Korean president said in a statement that the rescue mission was ‘perfect’.

Jubilant Korean media played the related images and video of the crew’s family members cheering at the news for more than 20 minutes of its 45 minutes regular news segment, analyzing the government’s military actions will discourage Somali pirates from taking Korean hostages in the future, a result which cannot be achieved by desperately engaging in a negotiation with pirates.

A South Korean watches a TV reporting South Korean navy military operation against Somali pirates in the Arabian Sea, at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 21, 2011. Pic: AP.

But while the majority of the public is savoring a rare taste of triumph (against pirates), some are reminded that there are still Korean hostages held by pirates and worried they may turn sour and retaliate back by harming Koreans.

The hijacked chemical carrier, ‘Samho Jewelry’ is the eighth Korean vessel (or vessel carrying Koreans) to be hijacked.

Korea Herald summarized the Past Hijacking History:

* Apr. 4, 2006: Fishing boat “Dongwon,” carrying 25 crewmembers including eight Koreans, is hijacked near Somali territory. The crew is held for 117 days until July 30.

* May 15, 2007: Twenty-four crewmembers of “Mabuno No. 1” and “No. 2,” including four Koreans, are kidnapped on the seas off Somalia. They are released 174 days later on Nov. 4.

* Oct. 28, 2007: Japanese chemical tanker “Golden Nori,” carrying two Korean crewmembers, is hijacked near Somalia. One of the crew manages to escape the same day and the other is freed 45 days later.

* Sept. 10, 2008: Eight Koreans and 14 Burmese of the bulker “Bright Ruby” are taken on the Gulf of Aden. The hostages are freed 37 days later on Oct. 16.

* Nov. 15, 2008: Five Koreans and 18 Filipinos on board cargo vessel “Chemstar Venus” are kidnapped on the Gulf of Aden. They are held hostage for 88 days until Feb. 11, 2009.

* Apr. 4, 2010: Oil tanker Samho Dream with 24 workers, including five Koreans, is hijacks in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The members were released on Nov. 7. The government dispatches the 4,500-ton Chungmugong Yi Sun-shin destroyer to rescue the crewmembers.

* Oct. 9, 2010: Trawler “Geummi305” with two Koreans, two Chinese and 39 Kenyans was hijacked. The negotiation for their release is still under way.

* Jan. 15, 2011: Freighter Samho Jewelry carrying 21 crewmembers is captured in the Arabian Sea. The military authorities dispatch 4,500-ton destroyer Choi Young to the scene Sunday.

Twitter's Language Setting

Evan Williams (@ev), co-founder of Twitter, yesterday tweeted twice in Korean, his first tweet defining Twitter as a ‘real-time global information service’ and the other message saying ‘Twitter is now available natively in Korean’, introducing Korean as its seventh official language.

Many Korean twitterers who had to use Twtkr and Twit bird instead of Twitter have welcomed the news. People retweeted the news, calling it a historic day. Some even tweeted the King Sejong, inventor of Hangul (Koreans language) would be proud of Twitter’s move. Today, more reports came out on what changes will be made as LG’s U Plus and Daum, one of South Korea’s most visited sites, have joined with Twitter Korean.

Twitter’s growth in South Korea is astronomical. Evan Williams revealed at yesterday’s press conference that last year alone Twitter’s growth rate in South Korea reached 3,400 percent. But several issues held back Twitter from fully functioning in Korea.

1. The Hashtag. It was not working properly in Korean, at least, compared to in English. IT blogger and prolific Twitterer Stocksos pointed out that the hashtag search was giving funny results in Korean and twitterers were forced to hashtag in English. Many have speculated it will somehow be resolved by now, but Evan Williams said in yesterday’s press conference that the hashtag issue remains still unclear.

2. The SMS. Sending SMS tweets via cell phone was not available in South Korea. But starting from yesterday, LG U Plus, formerly known as LG Telecom, made mobile Tweet service available to its users. LG’s UPlus users can tweet via SMS after adding #1234 before their message.

3. Help center. Twitter official website’s help center page is not yet available in Korean. However, new tweet account @dowoomi (‘helper’ in Korean) opened Tuesday and started tweeting from today, signaling the start of the consumer support in native Korean.

4. Web search and more web exposure. Daum has decided to affiliate with Twitter and experts believe it will widen Twitter’s web data in Korea and help Korean tweeters to get more web exposure.

Only a day has passed since yesterday’s press conference, but already a few bad comments came out. Several Twitter users raised complaints on the slowdown of Korean Twitter, claiming that after switching the language setting to Korean, Twitter tends to work slowly, so they had to switch back to English.

There may be several temporary, technical difficulties during the transition, but  as Evan Williams said at the press conference, “it is a new beginning” for Twitter in Korean and Korean tweeters.

(As for Twitter’s affiliation with LG and Daum, I referenced blogger KSG37‘s excellent analysis and South Korea’s IT specialist citizen media, Bloter.com‘s report[ko]. Bloter posted Evan William’s whole speech [ko] on its website.)

Twitter. Pic: AP.

It seems the Twit Korean is not very far away. The Hankyung newspaper’s IT journalist and a prolific Twitterer @kwang82 tweeted today that, “Twitter is about to launch a Korean service” and noticed that Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-founder, is planning to visit Seoul for a press conference tomorrow. His invitation card reads ‘Twitter Loves Korea’.

Twitter is only available in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Japanese, prompting some Korean twitterers touse Twitkr or Twit bird. As Blogger Ajenneja pointed out some of Twitter’s major functions, such as the hashtag, do not work properly in the Korean language and the Twit search gives terrible results when searched in Korean words longer than three syllables.

The exact purpose of the press conference is unknown but considering the recent changes in Twitter’s help desk, it’s more or less certain that Twitter in Korean is about to be realized. @Barunsori6 tweeted under the title [good news for fellow Twitterers not fluent in English] that Tweeter’s help center is now available in Korean, which was roundly welcomed with such comments as ‘Yay, finally! I can complain in Korean.’

As more Koreans join social networking services KCC (Korea Communications Commission) warned net users today to guard their personal information, saying current private information exposure is at ‘dangerous levels’. Korea’s Twitter users have reached over 2 million, according to Korea’s Financial News, and the number of Facebook users have skyrocketed to 3.5 million. HanKyoReh newspaper revealed, quoting a survey of 200 Korean Twitter users that:

some 88 percent of the users revealed their real name, 86 percent gave information about their personal connections, 84 percent gave information about their appearance, and 83 percent revealed their current location[...] Additionally, 64 percent of users exposed information about hobbies, 63 percent about their schedule, 52 percent about their family relationship and members of their family, 50 percent about their workplace and group affiliations, 49 percent about purchasing records and consumption tendencies, 38 percent about academic attainment, 31 percent about their birth date and work address, and 29 percent about medical details such as past medical conditions.

Despite KCC’s request to keep your private information to yourself,  my timeline was busy with people’s tweets babbling how they think and where they are at right now.

The conflict between JYJ (Xiah, Micky and Hero) and SM entertainment, Korea’s top agency, was initially seen as weak individuals resisting an exploitive big corporation. Fans and a majority of orean net users had joined in slandering SM for treating singers as disposable goods. It was a simple logic everyone favored; a good David vs. an evil Goliath.

The word ‘slave contract’ worked like a charm by drawing huge media attention to the conflict. The fact that some power figure blocked JYJ from appearing major music shows was spread around and succeded in evoking public sympathy toward JYJ and hatred for SM.

Even the Korean court ruled in favor of the three left-out singers. A soap opera Micky starred in made a huge hit and JYJ’s album sold millions and three even appeared on the front page of the billboard. It seems ‘David’ was on a winning streak, before none other than their own fans started to turn against them, calling them ‘traitors’.

Revelations that JYJ was no where near a ‘David’ were made by show business sources and TVQX’s most loyal fans who had supported them for years since their debut. Fan bloggers are spreading vast amounts of raw data and information which give another facet to the story.

Last week, a writer of a famous talk show, Radio Star tweeted as[ko] ‘you guys(referring to JYJ) are disgusting. You should fail so the world can run based on the trust and promise. Dont play pity on me, you sociopaths.’ Some fans attacked her until she closed down her Twitter account, while some net users did not treat her comments lightly since the writer was able to make a shocking revelation on the show by having exclusive inside information.

SM entertainment continued from last year to stress that the public focus on “slave contracts”‘ or human rights is actually a breach of confidence caused by the three member’s (actually their parents’) greed regarding a comestic business. Many choose not to listen to SM’s version of the story since the entertainment company, how sucessful and lucrative it is, had a bad image created by its Spartan star-making system. TVQX’s fan bloggers who rarely side with the agency, backed SM this time.

Back in late 2008, the three members (with their parents taking the lead on almost every business deal) asked SM if they could invest in a cosmetic company one of their parents launched. The company, understanding the cosmetic business as a small beauty store, begrudgingly and tacitly approved under the promise the three members do not accept any royalties from the cosmetics nor use TVXQ’s photos and made them notice the company immediately if things changed.

In 2009, the agency caught the three members actively promoting the cosmetic company in China and in Japan. Some blogger strongly suggested that, given the circumstances, three may even became shareholders. The agency allegedly sent out several warnings to JYJ which they choose to ignore. It is believed that the parents of JYJ have tried to persuade the parents of the other two members to join the business.

The agency and fans’ biggest concern would be a serious deterioration of the hard-earned image of TVXQ by promoting a rather questionable-quality cosmetics, according to bloggers.

(The story is mosly based on what Genesis_v[ko] posted in the blog and some facts were added from fan sites, such as dnbn.org and  TVQX’s Daum Gallery)

If this version of the story is correct, JYJ bringing up a ‘slave contract’ and ‘disproportionate share of profits among members’ would be devious tactics made to divert public attention from the heart of the problem. Two members, U-Know and Max said they have been working under the same contract with SM.

These two are facing a tough battle as TVQX’s fans divided, with some extreme fans even calling a boycott of SM-made albums. To SM, JYJ would be ungrateful traitors, but to JYJ, SM would be a ruthless slave owner who blocks every door to the success. The fans are torn between two of their favorites.

It is evident from the sexy marine outfit characters wear and posture for the routine known as Kara’s butt-dance, that the cartoon points to the Girl’s Generation (SNSD) and Kara, hugely popular K-Pop idol groups. The comic even directly mentioned two girl group’s names later.

Manga Depicting Kara and SNSD, Attribution Unclear, Image Leaked by Local Media, Captured from Korea Times

Girl's Generation with Sexy Marine outfit performing on the stage, Image by Woorissica.com, Required to attribute Woorissica.com, Any change to the images is strictly forbidden.

The manga, using voice of idol-turned-hostess character, claimed that the idol girl groups are forced to sleep with politicians and media/biz moguls to get famous. It repetitively used the words such as “Body-lobbying” and “Sex service”. The cartoonist, claiming the story is based on research, further gave out a conspiracy theory that the Korean government is pouring an astronomical amount of money on these girls to keep the Hallyu (Korean wave) alive.

A conflict has ignited between snobbish film critics and a majority of net users defending Shim, the comedian-turned-filmmaker. Shim is a legendary figure, a true godfather in Korean comedy history (to find US counterpart, I would name Bill Cosby), who appeared in and directed numerous shows and tens of films. His 2007 film ‘D-War’  is one of the most expensive movies in Korean history.

‘The Last Godfather’ is a slapstick comedy (which is Shim’s expertise) set in the 50s with Shim himself starring as Yong-gu, the mentally impaired son of a mafia boss of New York’s biggest gang and also Shim’s decades-old comedy character. ‘The Last Godfather’ has drawn huge public attention due to the fact that it was revised by Joel Cohen (an Oscar-nominated film writer) and a team from both Korea and the United States are collaboratively working on it. The movie is fairly enjoyable to watch but not worth both thumbs up, at least that is the general public opinion. But critics denounced Shim’s movie as ‘not even worth watching’ and calling Shim’s movie lovers ‘Shim’s suckers’.

Shim Young-rae’s old nemesis, Jin Jong-kwon, a well-known, acrimonious critic, said: ‘Since I don’t visit twice a store that sold me defective goods, I don’t think I will ever watch that movie.” The defective goods refer to Shim’s other movies. After Jin made this comment, more attention was given to the movie and on that weekend the number of viewers hit 1 million and Shim thanked Jin for giving him one of the best birthday presents he ever got.

The conflict between movie critics and Shim’s fans goes back several years to the movie ‘D-War’. At the end of the movie, with the Arirang, a Korean traditional music playing as background music, Shim’s monologue appeared. Shim frankly commented on how hard it was to make a movie that can could compete Hollywood films under such hostile situations, where there were nearly no CG experts and financial investment was insufficient. Shim, with a tearful voice, said that he spent countless sleepless nights learning CG skills by himself and later thanked the audience for watching his movie which will contribute to the development of Korean movie industry.

This controversial ending brought a lot of feedback. While the public gave standing ovations at the comedy godfather confession, calling it ‘moving’ and lauding him as “a hero who fought bravely against foreign movies devouring Korean movie market”, movie critics turned icy on him, blaming the movie and its marketing strategy as “selling patriotism with a cheap Hollywood knock-off”. Criticisms of the movie continued for several months and more people had sided with Shim as a reverse mechanism, although even Shim’s fans begrudgingly admitted that the storyline and CG work definitely needed some improvement.

Amid a similar pattern of negative feedback, Shim’s fans have turned quite aggressive and began lashing out at Shim’s opponents, creating an atmosphere in online venues that if you criticize Shim, you are insulting your country. Some argued that the fans’ behavior and their weird logic have aggravated the situation as innocent people who reasonably pointed out that “Shim’s work lacks this and that” and “a part of  Shim’s success is based on the patriotism”, also got attacked.

In the midst of controversy, Shim commented “I don’t make movies for film critics”. Jang Jin-young, a respected actor commented yesterday that “if people are watching it, there must be a reason behind the popularity. Disregarding the film as not worth-watching is a disrespect to the audience who choose to watch it.”