A coworker purchased these weird post cards at Insadong this summer. The URL on the other side is; blueninja.biz, which has a lot of other strange art available.
“Welcome to Seoul, the City of Beauties”
“Wonderful Korea”
[Update 11/19/08] Apparently, Korea is not the only “gun-free” society to experience knife killings. Some demented, resenful criminal in Japan is going around knifing people to death. Where is the anti-knife outrage?
[Original Post] Although Richardson and I do not speak for each other, we generally share similar views about many things, including Korea-related topics […]
South Korea has a “unification observatory” (통일전망대) along the DMZ at either coast. Odusan Observatory is on the west coast, while Goseong Unification Observatory is on the east coast, 60-70 km north of Sokcho. I’ve been to both an Goseong is by far my favorite; I prefer the views as well as the relatively […]
Predicting the future is a chancy business at best and rarely rewards either the prognosticator or the consumers of the fortunetelling. Nonetheless, I offer the following thoughts as a conversation-starter.
With the recent speculation of Kim Jong-Il’s ill health, incapacitation and perhaps death, it might be useful to conceptualize the political shape of the Korean […]
There is the “song room” (노래방), the “video room” (비디오방), and now the “kiss room” (키스방).
Yes, that’s right – you can pay for a young lady to kiss you in a private room (Korean). Apparently, it’s becoming a popular method for female college students to earn some cash for tuition. Additional services […]
In an article at the Asia Times, Riddles and enigmas from North Korea, Andrei Lankov speculates on how governments get intelligence from inside North Korea, and lists some of the other valuable sources of information from the country.
- #From Mainichi and via the Chosun Bimbo, "In his first reported appearance following news of his hospitalization, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il lost his temper while watching a college soccer match, denouncing several players' long hair as "disgusting," according to a source close to the North Korean government. The outburst was followed by a nationwide ban on long hair for men." We'll all be watching the next soccer match to see if it's so.
- #Outward Bound, an international non-profit outdoor education program, is offering fully funded (including transportation to/from sites) outdoor adventure excursions to all OEF/OIF veterans. It doesn't matter what your current military status is (active, inactive, discharged, retired) - you're eligible to attend as long as you deployed in support of OEF/OIF combat operations while in the military.
- #Via AFP: “South Korea has lifted an overseas travel ban on Hwang Jang-Yop, the highest-ranking North Korean defector ever to come here and a harsh critic of the Pyongyang regime. . . Hwang, former secretary of the ruling Workers' Party and an ex-tutor of Kim Jong-Il, defected during a trip to Beijing in 1997.” His travel restriction was due to 10 years of pro-North ROK leadership, now over.
- #