Feb 29th

well there's not a lot of first's left for me here in Korea, but this is one, it's my first leap year. During the last one, in 2008, I was still working at Future Shop. I had finished university in December 2007 and was booked to head off to Chiang Mai, Thailand to do my TEFL during the month of May and then head to a job in Ulsan, Korea in August. Truthfully it seems like yesterday, but the leap year is a reminder that it was almost four years ago. From last leap year to this one I've spent 3 years in Korea and about a year split between Vancouver and southeast Asia.

Kim Jong-Un Photo of the Week 28/2/12

Here we see the Dear Successor and the top generals of the DPRK in total awe of this bathwater.

The general behind the Dear Successor seems especially enamored with the Dear Successor's backside, though an ass of that magnitude is apparently quite rare north of the border.

I don't think the Dear Successor will fit in that tub. 

well this certainly won't help Kpop in America

Jenny Hyun, a U.S born Korean (gyopo) and writer of many songs for Korean pop groups had this to say in response to a Floyd Mayweather comment that said that Jeremy Lin was doing what many other guys in the NBA do every night but he is getting so much extra attention because he is Asian. Now I have to admit I find basketball the one sport to make soccer seem interesting and so do not qualify as an expert by any means. However, this hype seems comparable to Kobe Bryant back in the 90's or Michael Jordan back in the 80's. I'm not sure if Lin is as good, and I do personally think the amount of support he gets from Chinese fans is a bit nuts, especially as it's just because of his race, or at least partially so (he's a US citizen born and raised after all).

However, the responses which run the gambit from a pro-slavery stance to pro-genocide to animal comparisons and a whole lotta fun in between has assured that whenever any Korean band who has had a song written by her performs or does an interview it will come up. This is especially sad for Girls Generation (SNSD) who recently played David Letterman and who have had several songs written by Jenny Hyun. While fans of Asian pop, Jeremy Lin and people who just find this sort of stuff scary have come out against it (I'm happy to see so many Koreans here genuinely shocked by it) it will take a while to fade away. Jenny Hyun's career is over, and while I don't think people who have had songs written by her will be associated with it, it certainly doesn't help the move of Kpop or Korean culture in America.

The yearly war "games" with South Korea and the U.S are set begin this week. Kim Jong-un denounces them between mouthfuls of kimchi.

The latest in U.S/ROK war "games" are set to begin tomorrow (March 1st) and last until the end of April. During the last war games in 2010 Kim II decided, as a retaliation to these "provocations" to attack an island off the west coast of Korea which killed four people. This time round, Kim III seems happy to just issue threats "if they step 0.001 mm in to our territory...." but do little else. In reality the last set of drills were suspended due to Chinese concerns, which both the U.S and south Korea take seriously. Not sure why the Chinese have had a change of heart, but maybe after the latest crackdown on Tibetan protesters and vetoing sanctions in Syria they don't want any more bad press. In any event, the drills will begin as scheduled with only north Korea making so much as a whimper.

My guess is that nothing will happen (cause nothing really ever does) with these excercises. But the reactions up north are seen as a bit of a test as to whether Kim III will be any different than Kim II. So far it seems to be more of the same.

The Japanese are at it again

Denying history and making many neighbours mad in the process. The issue of Japanese war crimes is one that you can not escape here. It draws anger and ire in Korea and China and has citizens of both countries, as well as many south east Asian nations, foaming at the mouth. This instance is the mayor of Nagoya telling visiting members of the Nanjing city council (the two cities are sister cities and have a bustling trading relationship) that the Nanjing massacre is overplayed and that it was a conventional battle and any casualities were as a result of that, and not of any massacre. The denial of the Nanjing massacre, much like the denial of Chinese and Korean comfort women (sex slaves), denial of torture and forced labour in their colonial empire, continually claiming land lost in their colonial empire as their own (Dokdo with Korea and Senkaku with Taiwan/China), continued denial of teh mistreatment of allied POW's and the continued honouring of generals who ordered these crimes has soured relations between Japan and its neighbours and allies since the war and has harmed Japan's reputation abroad.

Now to state my bias up front, I do not believe that a man is responsible for the crimes of his father or grandfather. The Japanese TODAY have nothing to apologize for as they have done nothing wrong. I would even argue that a private in the Japanese army of that time is a victim of his government as much as the people he is being ordered to kill. However, by denying this history and teaching your children that it did not happen you are taking responsibility for it, inflicting more hurt and even justifying it. Germans today owe no apology for Hitler because they have already apologized, taken responsibility and offered to make amends. They also make sure young people know what happened so that it won't happen again. I doubt that the European Union would be able to move forward if Germany made holocaust denial a state policy. The Japanese denial of their colonial crimes continues the cycle of hate and violence and passes that anger on to another generation. But these are just my opinions.

It makes even less sense to me when it seems like all the Japanese government would have to say is "yeah sorry, we f*cked up, won't happen again" and then not pretend like it never happened. It would transform regional relationships and remove lingering hatred from any current disputes. The Korea/Japan relationship really requires a blog (or six) of it's own, so I'll just say that it's not always pleasant, and this sort of denial on the part of Japan is a huge part of the reason why.

The Ryugyong is finally set to open

Well after 24 years the Ryungyong hotel in Pyongyang is finally ready to host visitors. You can read about it here. The hotel is a famous landmark in Pyongyang and a symbol to many of the failed state of north Korea (a fact that has not escaped the regime's attention). As the article notes, construction began in 1987 on what was supposed to be the tallest building in the world. Between the collapse of the Soviet Union (or "sugar daddy" as it was known by in north Korea), China's move to trade with south Korea and the norths general economic collapse construction ground to a halt until the building itself became a symbol of the failed northern state often commented on by news officials and government press secretaries as such. Well with Kim III in power I guess they had to shake that image and finish the thing and as of April 2012 visitors will be able to stay in the hotel. Once done it will chime in as the world's 40th tallest (and taller than anything in the south oddly enough). 10 floors are dedicated to hotel rooms and the rest are for businesses, restaurants and shopping. While there are many, MANY other symbols of the failure of north Korea, none are quite as, well symbolic as the Ryugyong and it will be a monkey off of Kim III's back.

I still wonder how many guests the Ryungyong will actually have and how much money it will actually generate. Chinese government officials and the few tour groups aside (who still may be forced to stay on the island in the Taegang for security reasons), who will stay there?

Kim Jong-Un Photo of the week

From kimjongillookingatthings comes a great photo of the new roly poly communist superman:

perhaps the general has just informed him that they are out of complimentary sausages?

Shopping in Busan

Today I went down to Busan to do some much needed spring shopping. I needed new shoes, as with one pair of runners down my other pair have become my defacto gym shoes. I got a good pair at the Nampo market, where knock-offs and a few great buys await those with patience (what do you mean this Rorex watch isn't legit? It came from the same guy who sold me this Chicago Cubes hat). I also managed a Vietnamese lunch and a Japanese dinner.

I love Busan, in fact it's probably my favourite city in Korea to visit so a day out in Nampo is always welcome. Now back to Daegu :P

Crazy Kim's are Killing my Coin

Well with all the misadventures up north the South Korean won has fallen to lows I haven't experienced since the last time the Kims went crazy and hired on an ROK ship back in 2010. 920,000won managed to grab me about $800CAN ($790USD). Not as bad as it could be but when I first showed up to Korea that got me closer to $850CAN. Now I'm sure that Samsung shares taking a plunge didn't help either, but then I would have had to use "Samsung is Sinking my Savings", but that didn't sound as good. Either way between the two I'm making less than I was six months ago :(

So warning to those in the ROK, if you can avoid sending money out of Korea for a few months do so.

What I've been up to

Well most of my blogs of late seem to revolve around events in Korea, news or baseball. This has meant a subsequent lack of blogs as there's just not that much to blog about without getting preachy/ranting. Not that nothing is happening, but it's just not that exciting. To start off with it is winter. I hate winter. Some people love winter. They say "I love the cold brisk air" or "I couldn't live without seasons, I love seasons". The truth is that I love seasons too. Summer, spring and sometimes fall all all wonderful seasons and I enjoy them very much. As to a cold, brisk breeze. Well how about a walk on a windy mountain or an air conditioner? So I'm basically living between home, work, the gym and a few restaurants/pubs in Sangin-dong. It's almost warm enough to travel again but for now that's about it.

Work is work. My company is a decent group and after 6 months I'm generally happy with my coworkers, boss and director. The company itself I am less sure of (we are one branch of many and I've heard others are horrible). I'll put it like this: they demand perfection and absolute precision on their (daily) Dairy reports.

Travel plans involve visiting Bobby for his birthday in March in Seoul, visiting Paul in Seochang and/or Ulsan (he's moving in March) and maybe Jeonju or Jikji temple. I applied for an MA program today and am applying for another in March, so I hope that that goes well.

My blog will get interesting again in a few weeks, I promise :P

New Vancouver Tourism video

This promotional video of Vancouver from Tourism Vancouver has been making its way across facebook and other Canadian sites and as someone who has blogged a few times on the lack of quality promo videos in Korea I thought I'd share a good one.

First off this video does a great job of creating that pacific northwest vibe. I've often said that my citizenship is Canadian, but my identity is pacific northwest (if I'm cheering for a crappy ball club it's the Mariners, the Blue Jays can go f*ck themselves) and this video captures that really well. It shows off Vancouver in a great light and makes it an attractive destination year round (I notice the winter shots were all up in the mountains above the rain :P). The video, for lack of a better word, "feels" like the Vancouver.

Of course it skips over some parts that a serious traveller would need to know. Poverty in the downtown eastside is comparable to Cambodia (having seen both I feel it's a fair comparison) and a week doing all those things, even using Vancouver's public transit (on the rare occasions when it will get you where you need to go), will cost you more than a month in SE Asia. So for anyone reading and thinking about visiting do keep that in mind, it's pricing is comparable to London.

However, for sheer beauty (especially in the summer) no where I have been to yet compares to Vancouver and the pacific northwest. There are very few places on earth where you can go skiing, whale watching, eat world class food, go to a Chinese night market one night and a British pub the next or just sit at a coffee shop or the Granville Island brewery and enjoy the ocean views. Also, for a city of over 2 million (if you add Surrey, and to be fair we should) it's remarkably clean. Of all the places I've been only Singapore really matches Vancouver for cleanliness

and in Singapore they don't f**k around

so if you've never been check it out, after a while in Asia the laid back northwest vibe may be exactly what you need.

The value of NETs (Native English Teachers) in Korea.

I found this great though somewhat biased interview of what one recent Korean grad student thinks of NET's and this Korean Times opinion piece on the value of NET's written, or conducted by native English teachers in Korea and I thought that is basically sums up how I feel in a link (or two).

Interesting reading for anyone here. I also think that the amount of protest both have received shows just what a nerve (and how true) they are. While I'd also blame Korean hiring policies (a 24 year old girl will be a "better teacher" because she is more fun, even though her degree is in Theatre Studies and she doesn't know what a verb is) I think the fact is that this is largely true. I summarized my opinions in detail here and so don't need to do it again.

Either way, good reads.

I'm 30

Well I can tick off another decade, yesterday my youth started the back 9 as I turned 30. My actual day was low key. The day before I had chatted with my Mom and had a coworker dinner/makgeolli with Kris amd Mike. I hit midnight at the dear leader Makgeolli jip. I was happy about that. On my actual birthday I got up and chatted to my dad and then headed off to work where there was ddokbokki and cola (they know I can't eat something on cake but couldn't remember what it was so my boss bought that, which I thought was very sweet). I then banged out six classes and came home to Chinese food and home cooked vegetables. I chatted with friends Geoff, Ange and Serena on facebook before we headed off to bed. This weekend I'll meet few friends and eat good food.

As to my 20's. On the whole I'd say they were a blast. I accomplished about 80% of what I wanted to with the BIG failure being not starting my MA. But overall I managed to get a BA, live in three countries and do more travelling than most people will do in a lifetime. I managed to get a solid job and with an MA one with huge upward mobility. I have made friends from many cultures all over the world, many of which I think are life long ones. Finally I feel like I've done stuff few other people will ever do and avoided getting trapped in a mortgage that has me house poor in Vancouver until I'm 65. While I have lots more to do, and I'm not always satisfied with the pace at which I'm doing it, on the whole I'd say my 20's were a huge success for me and what I wanted to do.

Here's to the next 10.

A reason Asia is doing so well that isn't being talked about

I was talking to family back home for my birthday and the inevitable questions on how long I was going to stay in Korea came up. Not that I mind, but the truth is I don't know. I was reading that of the 22000 new jobs that were supposed to be created in Canada, only around 1500 were. With most of these being low end retail the urge to stay in Asia, where I can get an MA, make good cash and have a great lifestyle at the same time all make sense. But why is Asia doing so well when the west is tanking?

Answers range from "bailouts for billionnaires" to "the incredible sense of entitlement westerners have" to "overseas colonialism" to "unsustainable social spending" to "destruction of middle class jobs in globalization" and all are huge factors for sure, but there's a huge one that seems left out.

Demographics.

I don't just mean because there are 1.3 billion Chinese or 45 million South Koreans or 23 million Taiwanese but it's their age. There are 1.3 billion Chinese, but 700,000,000+ are young Chinese (say 18-40). Remember that after WWII westerners had babies, and man did they have them. Between 1945 and 1965 there were so many babies that they were the baby boomer generation. By 1980 the number of people 18-40 outnumber the other by 5-1 (really, when these numbers were first realised back in the 60's the Doors wrote a song about it). You had huge numbers of people paying in to the social system and most people were spending and earning. Fast forward to 2012 and those baby boomers are now between 50-65 (or 47 to 67 to be exact) and are retiring or already retired. You now have one or two people working and spending to five who are retired. You do the math. Remember that Japan is teh one Asian nation in the same boat as the west, and their economy is far worse off than the US.

China, Taiwan and Korea in contrast, didn't START their baby boom until around 1960. In China WWII drove the Japanese out but allowed for five years of constant warfare between the Nationalists and the Communists. After the Nationalists moved to Taiwan they initiated a decade of terror and combined with the huge flood of people coming in and no way to house/feed them all Taiwanese weren't having babies. After Mao won the war the cleanup began which then hit his creative agricultural programmes which ensured most babies born before 1956 starved to death. Then in the early 60's he told everyone to start having babies, lots and lots of babies. Those 1965-1985 boomers are what, 27-47? Korea had WWII followed by the Korean war and the rebuilding so that the Koreans didn't start having babies again until around 1955. Now there was no boom in Korea as there was in other places, but there really isn't much of an older generation to speak of, at least demographically.

I think the west has some VERY tough times ahead, and so for me I'll anchor here in Korea and start my MA program this fall but for all of the growth here, I wonder what it will look like 30 years down the line when all the young people here decide to retire. Korea is demographically stable enough that it may transition. Japan's population is estimated to go from 135 million to 65 million by 2050 just because no one is having babies and emigration to Japan long term is virtually impossible unless you are married to a Japanese national. China will be the interesting one, as 5-1 are enviable numbers for them and in 30 years when there boomers are the age ours are now they will face massive problems supporting them. Add to that the fact that the boom ended with the (albeit somewhat ineffective) one child policy and you have a situation where a small number of people are caring for a LOT of older people.

I will be interesting to live through.

Saturday

On Saturday I got up to head out early to the gym... well early being 11. I was supposed to meet Jay but he opted to sleep in so I hit the gym til around 1 and then met Jay for lunch. We talked about grad schools and options for studying and living in Korea. I decided that I need an EPIK (public school) job and he seemed very keen for grad school. We ate pork and drank amkgeolli until around 4.

I then went home and crashed a bit/had a short nap (afternoon drinks will do that). Sunday was my shopping, coffee and general chore day.

I'm still putting all my applications together and at least two should be done by the end of the week. Busy but necessary I guess.

Why Kpop will not sweep America (and it's not why you think)

"he sings a bunch of manufactured crap designed to be catchy to teenagers, and he looks like a girl"

Does that describe G Dragon or Justin Bieber? (I don't know either).

Recently, one of the top groups in Korea, Girls Generation, debuted on David Letterman. No small feat for a group that has never had to sing in English before. They seemed to impress and Bill Murray, who was the main guest of the night, seemed to be impressed. However, the notion that Girls Generation, or in Korean SNSD will "conquer America" like the Spice Girls is far fetched. But not because they are "crap", because the Spice Girls were also crap, heck the Beatles 1964 stuff was pop crap too (don't say that to anyone over 50, but it's true. "I wanna hold your hand"? Sounds like a Bieber track to me) and it's only because of their 1967 stuff that they have transcended generations. The reason is because no one CAN "conquer America" anymore. Technology has destroyed that.

When the Beatles came to America there were really only two ways to get your music out, radio and TV. Well back then people actually listened to the radio, and they had to listen to what was on it. I imagine lots of fighting over what radio station people would listen to in the car. But either way you HAD to listen to the Beatles. The other option was TV. When the Beatles played Ed Sullivan America was watching, because there were only two other channels and when Sullivan was on they played Cold War update or housewife life or whatever passed for filler TV in 1964. So really, everyone was watching. Our parents were mezmerised by the goofy hair and our grandparents were furious at these British communists on Sullivan but everyone was talking about them and they were on the radio and TV.

Fast forward to 1996. Spice Girls. Spice World. The girl group of all time. By this time people had CD players and cassette decks in their car, but there was no real internet. Music Television actually played music and people still listened to the radio. Sure it wasn't as easy as "play Sullivan" but you COULD release an album and have it on every radio station, then go on MTV and do performances. Also, people still bought CD's, so your record would sell. In short, it was still very possible to "conquer America".

2012 - Kids have laptops and youtube and MP3 players. The radio is dead except for talk radio designed for people over 50 (who still use the radio). MTV plays reality TV. In short, what the 16 year olds are listening to is alien to their parents. Even someone as famous as Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber never "conquered America". They built a core of fans over time and then played Letterman. The fact is that it's very reasonable to expect that many 50 year olds have never heard of Lady Gaga, or at least have never heard any of her songs. This was simply not possible in other era's. Never hearing a Beatles or Stones song in the 60's? A Michael Jackson or Dire Straits song in the 80's? Nirvana or Alanis Morisette in the 90's? Impossible NOT to hear them.

In writing this I did a bit of research (google) and found out that the winner of 2010 MTV Music Awards best album is a band called Arcade Fire. I'll save everyone a bit on embarassement by admitting that I'd never really heard of them either. I mean the name kinda sounds vaguely familiar, like something a 20 year old cousin posted on their Facebook kinda thing, but not really. Certainly there has been no equivalent of what happened with Nirvana or Alanis Morisette or Smashing Pumpkins when I was a teen. But here's the thing. Who over 20 is watching the MTV music awards? Where could someone over 22 be exposed regularly to Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber unless they actively search it out? Remember when you were 20 and going to bars and there'd be that one guy who was like 30-35 and still doing the bands and bars and while you kinda thought it was cool that he was staying young you also had that thought that when he started coming to these shows you were in grade 4? He knew all the bands that the 19 year olds were in to and all his friends were 19-26. That guy is the only guy left who might be able to fill in the generation gap, but lets be honest, wouldn't you rather be out of the loop than be that guy? That 1964 family drive where kids and parents argue over radio is dead because now kid sits in the back seat with their Ipod listening to Arcade Fire and Dad is up front with his Eagles record and maybe younger uncle has Dire Straits or Nirvana on his headphones. At home they plug their headset in and listen to whatever on youtube. Heck at 30 I almost never watch TV on the TV. I have the internet and a bigish monitor. The only time a 20 year old son and his 50 year old Dad are watching TV together is a sporting event.

This is why SNSD will never conquer America. Not because their polished act, catchy songs and sex appeal won't sell them, but because there is no Ed Sullivan or MTV to debut on. If they play long and hard in America they could very well attract a fan base of teens and 20 somethings, but for those in Korea who want a Spice Girls type explosion of Kpop I think they will be disappointed. Those days are long over.