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Monday, December 30, 2002
The government has been trying to push the five-day work week for some time now and many people have wondered as to why this has not yet come to pass. The reason is because I work for government and mysterious deities from around the world have conspired to see that the five-day work week will not come into affect until late next year (2003) ie: after I leave government and it no longer affects me. However, one small mercy bestowed upon us from the heavens above is the five day work week "pilot project" which means that one day in the month we are granted a free Saturday in which we prove our ability to enjoy our leisure time responsibly and importantly, to get all our work done by end of Friday. This happy day for December was last Saturday. I began my two-day weekend full of hope and excitement. First on the agenda o' fun was an evening at the Sejong Cultural Centre to see Gaelforce Irish Dancing Spectacular. It was a nice show with some amazing tap dancing. Saturday was necessarily spent lazing about the house but the evening entailed a drive out to Suwon for a delicious dinner party at a friends house. We all talked late into the night and subsequently I missed the train back to Seoul and stayed the night in Suwon. Sunday aftter making the way back into town I went with some friends into town to catch 취화선 a movie about famous artist Oh Won from the late Chosun period. This movie was really quite good but it dragged on for far too long which meant that in the end I didn't care how it ended I just wanted it to end. And Sunday evening was a relaxing night with nothing to do but read my book. And that pretty much completed my two-day weekend. Its amazing the difference it makes to the weekend and also to your attitude about starting a new week. You feel so rested and relaxed and its as if you have a life outside of the office. On a final note this two day weekend thing would be especially good for weekends where you drink too much on Saturday evening only to waste your one day free by intermittently sleeping and wishing the Grim Reaper would come and lop your head off.
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Friday, December 27, 2002
Dodgy Translations The Disclaimer Again, I have been curious (and free) enough to translate an article from the Chosun Ilbo. Again, the grammar is not great, the meaning fuzzy and the accuracy highly questionable. But its done, it may be mildly interesting to some and more importantly its for practice and its easier to motivate myself to do this activity if I determine to put in on the blog page. If I do it "just for the fun of it" it usually stops being fun and turns into a real burden. If you read Korean you can get the real story (probably no relation to my story) at this spot. North Korea and America confront each other off as North and South hold 34th meeting Red Cross recorded this was most ever since 1971 It has been revealed that, despite criticism over North Korea’s nuclear development program being the central issue and resulting in brinkmanship in the North - US relations, since 1971 when north-south talks began after (a) the drought this has been the most talks held. According to the Ministry of Unification on the 27th there have already been 33 arranged meeting meetings between north and south and since the 25th talks in the 34th meeting has been opened in Pyongyang in the second round of practical discussions over North - South marine cooperation. An official from the Ministry of Unification said “since talks between North and South began in 71 until now there have been some 400 arranged meetings between North and South and so far this year it’s up by 8.5%.” Official North-South spokesmen at talks held in 98 said that two discussions were held by Red Cross regarding the delivery of goods; in 99 two meetings discussed South-North loans; in 2000 there were 26 exchanges and in 2001 8 arranged meetings were held. Under the present government talks have surged. The place for holding talks up until 1997 was China or some other practical third party country though under the present government meetings have been held in Seoul, Pyongyang, Mt Kumkang, Panmunjom, Cheju island and other places. North-south talks in 1971 were to organise for the search of separated family members which started in 1972 with family reunions on July 4, in 1973 on June 23 peaceful unification foreign policy was announced, in 1985 reports on funerals and cultural exchange visits, in 1992 North-South family reunions, etc and in 2000 there was the historic summit in Pyongyang on June 15. Thursday, December 26, 2002
Kim Dae-Jung - The martyr, the duck
Kim Dae-jung was born on December 3, 1925. As a staunch advocate of democracy in Korea he has spent his lifetime fighting for the democratic and human rights of the Korean people. Despite a lifetime of hardship and suffering he never lost sight of his goal and never compromised his principles. But as his tenure as president comes to an end, will he be remembered as a stalwart of the democratic movement in Korea, or as a lame duck who failed to reconcile with labour unions during the recovery from economic crises, or the man who initiated the Sunshine Policy toward north Korea? Kim Dae-Jung left his shipping business in 1954 to enter the political fray. There were tumultuous times in Korean politics. Rhee hung firmly on to power with the backing of the US. At the same time tensions between north and south were always high as each eyed each other across the 38th parallel. Severe unrest in the south led to the resignation of Rhee in 1960 followed by a brief civilian administration before Park Chung-Hee strided into power in 1961. Park Chung-Hee saw in many ways that his role was to maintain an environment of stability and security in order to allow for economic growth and always alleged to follow up with democracy once conditions were favourable to do so. Elections in fact were held during his reign, it’s just that the results may not have been altogether “free and fair”. Kim Dae-jung made his first bid for the presidency in 1971. It was a close election and DJ lost by a small margin. This was too close a call for Park who had him kidnapped and nearly killed. He was saved thanks to US intervention. The 1980s are best known in Korea for riots and demonstrations calling for democracy. The assassination of Park in 1979 left a power vacuum that was difficult to fill. The new military leader, Chun Doo-hwan tried to do this but he was not very popular with the people and riots were taking place all over the country. The most infamous of these was the Kwangju uprising in which hundreds of students and civilians died when the government forces moved in. Kim Dae-jung was subsequently arrested and sentenced to death for allegedly organising the movement. He was pardoned again thanks to US pressure. Kim DJ made his second bid for the presidency in 1987 but lost to Chun’s good friend, Roh Tae-woo. Elections held in 1992 saw DJ again as a candidate, this time losing to Kim Young-sam. Kim YS pushed forward a rigorous anti-corruption campaign during his time in office which eventually also led to the arrest of the two former presidents and his own son. But despite the efforts he made in this area, he is best known for his economic ineptitude which became blatant at the time of the 1997 financial crises. 1997 was also time for the next election and this time, DJ finally got in. As incoming president DJ had two strong mandates. Oversee economic recovery and relations with north Korea. On the economic side, DJ announced December 2nd as National Shame Day; the day Korea had to get help from the IMF. DJ’s popularity with the workers also faltered on this front. Seen as a man on the side of the labourer, DJ soon lost their support as lay offs increased and the economy worsened. In fact, his inability on this side and questions of his ability in the end to ensure the continuity and momentum of reforms on all four sectors (public, corporate, labour, and financial) led many to speculate whether DJ was a lame duck ruler. Initial success with the Sunshine policy resulting in his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize also waned as the north continued to recalcitrant and speculation arose over corruption behind the policy. But now his time in the Blue House is over. He has had moments of success and moments of hardship during his time in office but I believe that the reason to remember DJ should not be his time in office but his role as an activist and believer in human rights and democracy. His greatest contributions and achievement to the development did not occur while he was in the Blue House but throughout his entire life as he selflessly endured torture, arrest and exile for the sake of his country and I believe the democratic development that has occurred in this country in the past decades is a testament to the sacrifice and work of people like DJ. Profile links that I referred to and thought were interesting: BBC and CNN Monday, December 23, 2002
The dominant news stories circulating the peninnsular are the North Korea nukes program and what it all means. And the results and implications of the election result. Within the ministry there is speculation about what the changes will mean for us. Nobody is sure what changes may occur but most people seem certain that big changes are on the way. This is the first time for me to be actually on the spot to see the changes a new president will have on government and ministries.
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Dodgey Translations The Disclaimer The following is an article from the Chosun Ilbo and can be found here. My translation is purely for Korean practice and should not be taken as being accurate in any way whatsoever. Nor is the English perfect. But hopefully you can get the meaning. The motivation behind this activity was twofold 1. its for Korean practice 2. I suspect that the English papers do not give all the news that the Korean papers give which means I am missing out on news. Therefore, I try to read a Korean article most days. However, I rarely have time or inclination to sit down and translate and article. But luckily, today I found this very nicely sized article that seemed to be within the scope of my abilities (ie: I didn't read half way through realise I understood very little, get frustrated and give up) and I have decided to share the result of my efforts for other readers who may also be wondering what all (or in this case ONE of) the articles in the Korean papers are (is) about. Election Commission, requesting investigation of hand phone messages The Central Election Commission on the 18th demanded an investigation into reports of large quantities of hand phone messages being received asking to know which of the promising candidates they support. The Election Commission commented that “’Will you be supporting Lee Hoi-chang’ ‘as candidate for the new Korea lets elect Roh Mu-hyun’ and similar text messages are being sent in unspecified quantities to voters indiscriminately and other statements so that the sender and sending method is difficult to confirm.” Under article 109 of the election rules (law) installation of automatic sending equipment in phones, etc and use of such to send hand phone text or voice messages in large quantities for election purposes is prohibited. Tuesday, December 17, 2002
 Election countdown is on. Just two days to go and the tension is almost palpable with no-one coming into the final leg as a clear winner. Typical of any election there have been myriad issues coming to the fore throughout the campaign and many a twist and turn to keep us interested....as interested as one can get about an election they are not voting in. In these final days the anti-US rallies around the penninsula have gained the most coverage followed closely by the on-going tension between US and North Korea and its implications on the election. However, progress seems to be at an impasse. Despite the hype in some US based media sources over the threat NK poses and the liklihood of escalation in tenstions Japan has called for calm. This is closer to the SK approach which has also been, if not level-headed, resigned. A reaction that is not surprising given the frequency with which "crises" occur in this part of the world. And just briefly, I inquired after a few of my Korean work colleagues re Roh's pledge to shift the administrative capital to Daejon and found that the matter was laughable. And the unpopularity of the mere suggestion of moving the administrative capital has been further discussed here. Friday, December 13, 2002
As of last Wednedsday I determined to write a blog every second day. I would search the newspapers and find interesting stuff about Korea and then write witty reports on select topics for the benefit/interest/bemusement/bewilderment/annoyance of my avid/interested/bored/confused/irate reader(s). Well in truth I did spend a great deal of time today reading news articles from various web sites but since everything about Korea is talking about the election, US sentiment and scud missiles to Yemen all of which have been commented on to DEATH I thought I'd stay off the bandwagon for this post. So then I started to prepare an ambitious blog but wasn't able to finish it in time to put up today. Hopefully by next week I can have it ready. It is part of an idea to put more effort into my blogging in the hopes that it will result in more interesting blogs. But it didn't help me with today's blog. So then I thought I'd write something interesting that I've done lately but that came up a big fat blank and that served only to depress me. So in the end, I have written the requisite blog but not as it was originally intended. Wednesday, December 11, 2002
The race to the Blue House continues. International papers are flattering themselves further into thinking the primary issue is the South-US relations in the face of rising anti-US sentiment. This has some backing as protests continue. The US keeps apologising and the Koreans keep rejecting them as insincere. The whole situation is a lose-lose cycle that probably won’t end, it will simply die down. At best there will be a token revision of the SOFA resulting in picayune or no changes. The recent meeting between US Deputy Secretary of State Mr. Armitage and President DJ highlighted the chasm between the two sides. The Koreans want a scapegoat to point the finger of blame and to take punishment while the US prefer to put it down to a series of factors culminating in an unfortunate accident that is not actually anybody’s fault. I tend to agree with the US, blaming someone won’t prevent it happening again, whereas finding what errors occurred and rectifying systems and processes to ensure that such a sequence of events cannot recur is far more important. Another developing controversy in the pre-election days has been the meeting between candidate Lee Hoi-Chang and US Ambassador Hubbard. I tend to agree with the argument against this meeting. At least, the Ambassador should have displayed objectivity by meeting both candidates or even publicly offering to meet the other candidate given that he had agreed to meet Mr Lee. Perhaps he did, I don’t know the whole story. And finally I’d like to redirect attention to more domestic issues of the election. Colleagues at work informed me that Lee Hoi-Chang had expressed his intention to merge the Ministry of Planning and Budget and the Ministry of Finance and Economy back into a super-sized ministry. The MPB was formed in 1999 after merging the Board of Planning and Budget and the Office of National Budget. The move was motivated by perceptions that the Ministry of Finance and Economy wielded too much power over the economy and that public sector reforms could be better implemented if reformers were given greater budgetary power. Re-merging the two ministries would be a big step back to the past and more so as the MPB in its short existence has managed to increase its size quite significantly especially with the recent addition of the Public Funds Management Bureau. But that is not actually the issue I wished to discuss, although I reserve the right to return to it at a later date. The issue is the transfer of the Administrative Capital to Daejon. I oppose this idea. Firstly, I work for the Administration and have no desire to live in Daejeon (no offence for anyone who lives there, I’m sure it’s a lovely place). Secondly, as the opponents to this move suggest, the cost is prohibitive and any more of the administration is going to have massive repercussions on business, economy and society for the whole country and in particular Seoul and Daejon. Now, it’s true that many countries have administrative capitals that are not necessarily the business hub of the country including US, Canada, and Australia. However, after 600 years of being a capital city, bringing about such a massive change would not be easy. Moving buildings would be the easy part compared to altering/modifying/buidling/changing the infrastructure and more importantly the mind-set of the people. I can’t help but think this is an ill-conceived and shallow vote grabbing propaganda mechanism that that should be quelled immediately. Monday, December 09, 2002
The South Korean presidential election is just over one week away. Who will win and what factors are having the greatest influence is critical at this point in time. According to Time Asia, North Korea and the threat of nuclear weapons is the biggest issue. Conversely, NY Times proffers a different perspective. Sure the North is an issue, but not so much nuclear weapons but how policy to the North, in particular, joint South Korea � US policy should proceed. Recent events have made this matter of prime political importance in the lead up to the election. The recent protests, as the article points out, underlie a long history of protesting and animosity against the US. The death of the schoolgirls has simply been a catalyst bringing to the surface feelings that were already there. While few in political circles would come and say that the US troops should depart, there are clearly points to be scored for being anti-US these days. Both candidates have emerged along a more hardline stance than ever against US presence on the peninsular. Indeed, candidate Roh has got the advantage on this point because he has long been more anti-US than his opponent, Lee Hoi-Chang. Moreover, the well-known zealousness of Koreans and tradition of rioting make them old hands at this sort of activity. I wouldn�t say it is blas� to protest in Korea but it is not as disconcerting to see a protest in Korea with Molotov cocktails and the like as it would be in another country. Its all relative. Therefore, jumping on the bandwagon to, not condone, but ride along with this kind of sentiment for political motives is not a bad idea. The fact that both candidates have done so would attest to this. But is this the issues that will decide the election? Stay tuned� One thing though, despite living in Seoul and seeing all the photos of protests and people wearing bandanas and generally looking pugnacious, and living close to the Yongsan army base and maybe I do live in my own little world, but I haven�t seen any of these anti-US protests for myself. Saturday, December 07, 2002
The Economist has got a couple of articles on North Korea's relations with China and Russia in the face of the recent admission by NK to possessing nuclear weapons. Despite all the hype I fail to see how this recent "admission" is much different to previous comments by the North that failed to clearly state either way whether or not they were producing such weapons. It reeks of 1994, 1995 and there was even hassles of a similar ilk in 1998. The point being that nobody knows for sure and while it is probable they have the technology and the will it is not unlikely that they haven't the finances or energy requirements to carry this out. At the end of the day the "revelation" is exactly what analysts have long suspected and believed to be the case anyway.The US has reneged on sending its oil quota under the now defunt KEDO joint agreement. Oh, well. I hear China might be picking up much of the slack. The FEER has an article about slave camps in North Korea. Disappointingly the FEER has become subscription based. That really irks me because it makes linking inconvenient and fewer people can share the information. But regardless, I shall make a brief comment about the article. Firstly, I think it is absolutely great that these days anyone can get satelittle images to order and not just national security agencies. The pictures provided in article are great and shows how freely available information is. Power to the press (in this case). However, I hesitate to be a cynic, but I'm not sure I trusted the commentary of the sole North Korean who claims to have worked at the slave camps. It might be unfair, but uncorroborated testimony like this is suspect. So while I think the article is good investigative reporting I think that more information and follow up is needed before we blindly believe everything we read and see from this article. If this blog is slightly incoherent, I apologise, I've been off sick for the past couple of days and am not yet returned by my chipper self.
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