Broadsheet blogwatch

ROK Drop

North Korea Threatens to Seize South Korean Real Estate Located at the Kumgang Resort

Posted 3 hours ago: Just like with Roh Jeong-ho, I just don’t feel sorry for any South Korean businessman that did business with North Korea knowing that getting cheated was the likely out come: Victim of the North Korean murder at the Geumgang Resort Park Wang-ja. South Korea on Thursday expressed its “deep regret” to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea ( DPRK) after ... [Link]

Abortion Restrictions Increased In South Korea

Posted 8 hours ago: It will be interesting to see if the abortion issue in Korea will become a hot button issue like it is in the US with the enforcement of these restrictions: Having a third child wasn’t in Mrs. Kim’s plans. She and her husband are already struggling to get by. But getting an abortion, once so routine here that South Korea ... [Link]

US Company Face Huge Fine for Illegal Military Technology Export to South Korea

Posted 13 hours ago: Here is a pretty hefty fine that was leveled on this Colorado based company: A U.S. company is accused of illegally exporting defense technology used by the U.S. military to South Korea, China, Russia and Turkey, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. Rocky Mountain Instrument Co., based in Colorado, said it is working toward a plea agreement with prosecutors and that it ... [Link]

Subsidized Travel Available this Year for Korean War Veterans

Posted 17 hours ago: I have mentioned this before but here is some further details about how the Korean government is subsidizing travel and accommodations for Korean War veterans wanting to visit South Korea this year: The Korean War Veterans Association, a national organization of American veterans of the war in Korea, would like to remind veterans of that war that the Republic of ... [Link]

Picture of the Day: Korea’s Newest Immigrants

Posted 20 hours ago: “Marriage immigrants celebrate yesterday in the Incheon Immigration Office, where they were naturalized as Korean citizens. YONHAP [Link]

Picture of the Day: ROK Army Bridge Crossing

Posted 20 hours ago: “]Korean Army soldiers of the Sixth Engineer Brigade under the Sixth Army Corps conduct a river-crossing exercise over the Hantan River in Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi, yesterday. The exercise is part of the annual Key Resolve/Foal Eagle drills between Korea and the United States. The drills end today. [YONHAP [Link]

No Gun Ri Movie Released In Time to Slime Returning Korean War Veterans

Posted 23 hours ago: After a very long wait considering the No Gun Ri movie was filmed in 2006, it is finally being released and as expected the director Lee Sang-woo is doing everything he can to spread the anti-US mythology surrounding the tragedy that happened at No Gun Ri: The Marmot has the movie trailer posted over at his site for everyone to ... [Link]

MGM, Universal, and Paramount theme parks coming to Korea

Posted 28 hours ago: It looks like Paramount, MGM and Universal Studios will be opening theme parks in Korea. Paramount Park is scheduled to open in 2011 in Songdo International City, MGM Studio Park Korea is scheduled to open in 2012 next to Incheon Airport and Universal Studios Korea is scheduled to open in 2013 in Hwaseong Green City. Paramount Korea location Paramount Korea ... [Link]

Dan Choi Arrested for Disturbance In Front of the White House

Posted 36 hours ago: This guy Dan Choi really annoys me because he outs himself on national television and the Army goes ahead and lets him continue to serve and now here is committing a crime in front of the White House; I wonder if the Army is going to let this slide too?: Lt. Dan Choi, the openly gay Iraq war veteran who ... [Link]

2ID Opens Abandoned Spouses Hotline

Posted 41 hours ago: This is a problem that really pisses me off when soldiers leave not only their wife in Korea, but even their kids as well: U.S. Army officials have started an “Abandoned Spouses Hotline” here in hopes of helping women left stranded — both intentionally and unintentionally — by their soldier-husbands.About 30 women have gotten help courtesy of the year-old outreach ... [Link]

Frog in a Well

Things I don’t know about Korea, part 2

Posted 3 weeks ago: I’m having great fun with this class, but I’m still discovering vast areas of ignorance as we move along: Eunuchs: The Kabo reforms abolish the office of Eunuchs, but how many were there and how important? Seven Day Week? By 1896 there clearly is a seven day week in place, but when was that put in place? Is it part ... [Link]

Now in Firefox: Korean Newspapers at the National Library

Posted 4 weeks ago: I just heard from one of our fellow contributors here at Frog in a Well that the National Library of Korea now offers limited support for a variety of browsers! Up until now anyone trying to use any browser except Internet Explorer in the Windows operating system would not get far beyond the search component of the national library – ... [Link]

Once more, dear friends, into the breach….

Posted 4 weeks ago: In my first post here I said that I was going to be teaching a Korean history course for the first time: I lied. Or rather, I was scheduled to teach it, but the course didn’t make its minimum enrollment. However, the time has come to try again. The last time I did this, I was going to focus it ... [Link]

Tonghak and Taiping

Posted 4 weeks ago: I was struck, preparing for class yesterday, that the Tonghak and Taiping faiths were surprisingly similar and arose nearly simultaneously: Syncretic monotheistic faiths drawing on Confucian, Christian and indigenous magical traditions, with anti-foreign reformist programs and a counter-cultural ethos of equality.1 There are obvious differences, too, in teachings and in the leadership, but the structural similarities raise some interesting possibilities ... [Link]

Generating Power–Electric, hydroelectric, thermal (coal), atomic

Posted 5 weeks ago: I’m back once again to this question of electricity and power in its various forms, as I think the long-term story of generating power in NE Asia (1880’s-present), and specifically on the Korean peninsula, sheds some interesting light on the transnational history of the contested region, this in distinct contrast to the individual national histories of power industries. I would ... [Link]

Things I don’t know about Korea, part 1 of many

Posted 7 weeks ago: Now that I’m teaching my Korean History course I am, of course, running into questions I cannot answer. I’m going to post them here periodically: Though the Choson-era Korean Army (in its various commanderies and provincial forms) was conscripted from peasantry (and officered, it appears, by military Yangban), where did the Navy get its personnel? You can’t just conscript a ... [Link]