Korea, whose students dominate international exams, also is the least satisfied with its educational system within Asia. Only 56 percent of Koreans responded that they were satisfied with their educational system. The approval ratings were similarly low for other high-achieving nations like Japan (61%) or Taiwan (74%). Interestingly, over 95 percent of Singaporeans were satisfied with their educational system.

This says something, but the Korean is not sure what -- at least for now.

AAK! PSA: Things to do at the Incheon Airport

Are you planning to be at the Incheon Airport soon? Do you need to kill some time? The good folks at Incheon Airport sent this blog a schedule of concerts and cultural events to be held throughout the summer.

(Click to enlarge the program.)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Are Vaccinations Safe?

Dear Korean,

My name is Roy, and I am reaching out to you on behalf of the Los Angeles County Dept. of Public Health (LADPH). LADPH just launched a public awareness campaign that urges people to protect themselves and their loved ones from preventable disease through proper vaccination. I work with SAESHE, a marketing agency that handles LA County's Asian American marketing and community outreach.

Los Angeles County is currently experiencing the worst epidemic of whooping cough in 60 years, with more than 870 cases last year alone. Effective of July 1, 2011, a new California school immunization law will require all 7th-12th graders in public and private schools to receive a pertussis booster (Tdap) shot, protecting them from whooping cough.

On behalf of LADPH and Los Angeles County, we are asking The Korean: Are vaccinations safe? Why should we get vaccinated?

Roy Cho
Assistant Account Executive

Dear Roy,

Despite the wishes of the Korean Parents, the Korean is not a doctor. But it does not take a doctor to know that vaccinations have done a tremendous amount of good for humanity. Thanks to vaccination, very serious diseases like polio, diphtheria and tetanus are practically eradicated. Vaccinations are safe, and we should be vaccinated to avoid preventable diseases.

Vaccination should have a more special meaning for Korean Americans, as it is one of the more enduring gifts from America to Korea. A very underrated contribution that America made for Korea is Korea's vast improvement in public health. As a Japanese colony, Korea's public health was miserable. Under the Japanese rule, Koreans had virtually no opportunity to receive medical education and become a doctor. Public health at the time was entirely focused on allowing the Japanese to live safely in Korea. The imperial police was in charge of public health in colonial Korea, and patients were treated as criminals, not people with illnesses. Virtually no attempt was made to treat the patients who were quarantined.

A good example of the brutality of Imperial Japan's "public health" policy is the way it treated Korea's leprosy patients. By the time of independence in 1945, Imperial Japan had built the world's largest leper colony in Korea, holding some 6,000 leprosy patients in an isolated island of Sorok-do. These patients, and their Japanese watchers, did not learn of Japan's defeat in World War II until three days after Japan surrendered. The Japanese in charge of the island heard the news along with some of Korean patients when they visited mainland to receive supply. The Japanese officials then killed 20 Korean patients on the boat to prevent the news from spreading, then returned to the island to embezzle the supplies in the island. The news nonetheless spread among the lepers, and the Japanese officials killed more than 60 patients in the ensuing riot before leaving the island.

The state of public health went from miserable to atrocious following the independence and through Korean War. At its height in the late 1940s, Seoul had 40 new smallpox patients every day; 40 percent of the patients died -- and we are talking about the disease whose vaccine was discovered in 1796. According to the U.S. military reports in 1946, nearly a thousand people died in one small town alone (Seonsan, Gyeongsangbuk-do, a little north of Daegu,) in just one week from at least five different communicable diseases. In 1949, it was estimated that more than 1.4 million Koreans had tuberculosis. In 1951 during the war, the same number was estimated to be 2.8 million.

American presence in Korea since the independence and through Korean War played a huge role in vastly improving such atrocious state of public health. Vaccination played a huge part in this. Of course, the starting point of American military's public health policy in Korea was its concerns about the health of their own soldiers who come in contact with Koreans at the time. During Korean War, one of the first steps to join KATUSA -- Korean soldiers who assisted the U.S. troops -- was to be sent to Japan and be vaccinated for smallpox, typhus, cholera, etc. But it is too cynical a view to think Americans acted out of pure self-interest. Despite being on a lower priority, Korean civilians eventually received regular vaccinations in an organized fashion. Much of humanitarian aid from America also focused on vaccination as well.

(Source: 전우용, 현대인의 탄생 (2011))

Elementary school students in Gaejeong, Jeollabuk-do

line up for BCG vaccination against tuberculosis (circa late 1950s.)

American emphasis on preventive public health is 

very much alive in Korea to this day.

(source)

In this day and age, the Korean does not know a reason why anyone would refuse to be vaccinated. But if you are a Korean American who need more reasons than the good folks at VaccinateLA could give, here is one more: thanks to the vaccination practices that America transplanted in Korea, Korea now has one of the lowest death rates in the world -- ironically, much lower than those of the U.S. Vaccination has proven to be a life-saving gift; it would be terrible manners to reject such a gift.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Ask a Korean! News: How LG Made the World's First 3D SmartPhone

Here is an interesting report on the development of LG's Optimus 3D, the world's first 3D SmartPhone, which provides a nice caricature of how Korean companies not only come up with a new idea, but stick to it until a new product is born.

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March 2010. Another miserable day passed by for LG. The media was saturated with stories about Apple's iPhone. Samsung developed Bada, its own SmartPhone operating system, and was preparing for its own response to iPhone, Galaxy S. But LG Electronics had nothing, as it exclusively focused on regular cellphones based on a flawed strategy. It could not even attend the Mobile World Congress, the world's largest mobile communication device trade show held in February, because it had nothing to show. It was pure humiliation. The first quarter sales for cell phone business dropped by 19.7 percent compared to the same period previous year, and profit fell by 88.9 percent. The company leadership was being questioned.

The employees at Mobile Communications Department of LG Electronics -- the department that created such legends as The Chocolate and Prada Phone -- could not get accustomed to the suddenly new reality created by iPhone 3GS. It became a dead weight for the company. The department hastily conjured up SmartPhone projects. It had to prepare for the period after iPhone 4, considering the development time. It essentially had to give up on 2010. (In fact, the Mobile Communications Department was in the red between second quarter of 2010 through the first quarter of 2011.) Vice President Nam Yong resigned, and in October the owner-CEO Koo Bon-Moo stepped in as an emergency relief pitcher.

"Will it really work?"

Back to March 2010. The head of Roh Hyeon-Woo, executive researcher of the Technology and Strategy Team, was clouded with thoughts. At least by the new year, he needed something to show LG's presence. Technology and Strategy Team and Product Design Team met every day. Then somebody piped up:

"Do you think 3D will be a hit? The television department was all about 3D."
"Oh yeah, 3D! How come no one thought about 3D on cell phones? We shouldn't wait until 3D becomes a hit. We should do it first."

Thus began the 450-day journey of creating a 3D SmartPhone that did not require 3D glasses. For the Projects Team to actually build the product, the idea must be tested to examined whether it can be actualized. The process normally takes two to three months, but not this time -- the team had to battle with the internal skepticism as well. There were concerns that it was too early, because there was not enough contents to view in 3D. When the business was good, such skepticism would not have had much effect; when the business was shaky, the skepticism shook the convictions of the team members as well.

(More after the jump)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Ask a Korean! News: TV & Radio Producers Arrested for Taking Bribes from Singers

Say it ain't so! Translation below:

The police arrested 29 people, including the head of a cable television and a local radio producer who received bribes from emerging pop singers for doctoring the pop song chart, arranging for TV appearances and introducing other producers. On the 21st, Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency arrested four TV producers, including the head of a cable television station who received $150,000 [TK: assuming $1 = KRW 1,000] from one hundred new artists between April and May of last year, on the charge of bribery.

The police also arrested 12 producers of a radio station who received $50,000 from 20 new singers in exchange for playing their songs more than once a week and up to four times a day. Also arrested were six officials from another radio station, who falsified the "Songs Played" chart to include songs that were never played.

The police also arrested the manager of the website that displays the rankings of the number of times a song was played in the national radio stations for receiving $400,000, as well as six singers and managers who offered the money. According to the police investigation, the manager of the website received bribes from seven emerging pop artists since 2007 in exchange for managing the chart rankings and advertisement, which includes have a new artist to stay within the top 10 of the chart for six months in exchange for $38,000. In order to raise the ranks, the manager collected data from local radio stations instead of the radio stations designated by the Korean Music Copyright Association. This way, a song that was never played in a national radio station was shown on the chart to have been played up to eight times a day.

Captain Kim Min-Ho of Second Investigations Team at IMPA said: "The rumors among the emerging artists that they had to pay the producers to have their songs played on air have largely turned out to be true," and added, "we plan to continue our investigation on the corruption surrounding the entertainment industry."

PD가 돈 받고 가요차트 순위 조작 [Dong-A Ilbo]

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Here is Ms. Alyssa Donovan from Maine, second-place winner of Korean Speech Contest held by U.S. National Association of Korean Schools. (The video is from the qualifying regional round in New England.) A high school sophomore, Ms. Donovan is the first-ever award-recipient in the contest history who is not of Korean descent. More about Ms. Donovan here.

Very well done, Ms. Donovan.

(Via KoreAm magazine)

The Korean is finding the blog Circles and Squares, written by Prof. Emanuel Pastreich of Kyung Hee University, to be quite insightful and interesting. Here is a nice bit of advice from Prof. Pastreich about living in Korea as a foreigner:

I find Korea more difficult than Japan on a day to day basis. Things just don’t work the way I want them to. But when I sit down and think about it, in fact I have many, many more Korean friends than Japanese friends, even though I lived in Japan for more than six years and spent almost all my time with Japanese people. You need to think about how to take advantage of your own skills in your work here. For example, I find that as an American, I am better at horizontal networking than Koreans. I use that skill to introduce Koreans to other Koreans. That gives me value for them. Here is a simple thing you can do. Offer to make and English language Facebook entry for a Korean friend you want to work with. It doesn’t take long, but it establishes a relationship. It is symbolic and valuable act. Try to remember the names of the family members of Koreans you meet. And always remember, you may feel as if Koreans are unfeeling to you, but in fact if you were a foreigner living in your own country who spoke little or no English, you might feel pretty alienated too. That last point is important keep in mind to avoid the destructive “everything is done wrong in Korea” syndrome.

Driven by Moore’s Law [Korea: Circles and Squares]

IMF Bailout of Korea During East Asian Financial Crisis (Part II)

[Series Index]

It has been very long -- more than a year in fact. But after much badgering of the guest blogger Wangkon936, the IMF Bailout of Korea series is back. And just in time -- the Financial Times cited Part I of the series as an illustrative example of national bailouts. Below is Part II of the series.

*              *              *

In 1996 South Korea was a nation on the move.  Less than 10 years ago in 1988, South Korean protests and demonstrations helped topple the authoritarian regime of President Chun Doo-hwan, and became a democracy.  That same year they hosted the Summer Olympics.  By 1996 their GDP was growing at an aggressive 7% a year clip and according to the World Bank, it had become the world's 11th largest economy.  

As the nations of Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines were facing devaluations and severe stress to their economies in early and mid-1997, few thought the contagion would spread to South Korea.  Alan Greenspan, the then U.S. Central Banker, said of the Korean economy:

“...A symbol of Asia’s remarkable growth, South Korea was now the world’s eleventh-largest economy, twice the size of Russia…. And while market watchers knew that there had been problems recently, the economy by all indications was still growing solidly and fast.”

Even the IMF board members' country report indicated that South Korea, as of November 1996:

“[The]... Directors praised the authorities on their enviable fiscal record and... welcomed Korea's continued impressive macroeconomics performance.”

Doubtful Foreign Currency Reserves

Why did the contagion spread to Korea?  The simple answer is that Korea had inadequate foreign currency reserves when foreign currency investors tested the Korean currency, the won.  Yet, problems of this extreme nature generally have more complex answers.  If we were to use a medical analogy, the state of Korea's reserves may have been the cholesterol in the blood vessels that caused the heart attack, but there were other factors that caused the overeating and unhealthy lifestyle that got it to the high level of cholesterol in the first place. 

(More after the jump)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

AAK! PSA: Korean Art Show in Santa Monica

Below is the message from Lois Lambert Gallery in Santa Monica, CA.

*              *               *

Dear Korean,

We will be having two exhibits opening on Saturday July 16th at our gallery located at Bergamot Station. The first is a solo show by Sik Chang and the other is a three-person exhibit featuring the work of David Jang, Chaa Youn Woo, and Tae Ho Kang. The Korean Cultural Center is working with us on the show, and we thought this would be an event you and your readers would be interested in.

Sik Chang’s imagery illustrates a transformational journey between worlds, across cultures (Korea, Africa, and North America), and between the physical and spiritual realms. The theme of ‘transposed images’ has been his guiding motif for the last decade. Sik sees his work as a transfiguration of existing shapes: the ‘primitive’ object is carved, cast, or otherwise changed in material while still retaining its original form. The meaning of the object is then changed by its placement in a new context. Chang is interested in eliminating the everyday use of primitive tools and concentrating on the form.

Following a sabbatical in Africa, Chang began a new sculptural series in an intimate scale. He made bronze casts of collected utilitarian objects from the continent: bowls with figurative handles, crescent-shaped headrests, and ladles with large counter-balancing carvings are mixed with small figurines. As he turns the form of a bowl into a water scene, the headrest into a forest, or places a small boat in a silicone-filled glass, the sculptures become three-dimensional collages whose disparate elements relate a new story. His primary materials are bronze and wood with the original colors intact.

Chang has been actively expanding and defining the fields of minimalist and conceptual art in Korea for the last thirty years. The artist cites Duchamp as a major influence, though his work can also be seen as an Asian response to the European appropriation of African Art at the turn of last century.

Chaa Youn Woo began making his woven rattan paintings after living with the Tukano Indians of the Amazon forest for over half a year. Chaa mastered the craft of Baniwa and the common patterns and techniques that thread through a network of over 400 tribes of the Amazon despite their disparate languages and cultures. The artist incorporates the skills he learned with modern portraiture and imagery. Chaa gravitates towards images that can be universally understood, such as candles, ripples, faces, or hands using sign language. He also weaves with llama wool, llauhala, and aluminum. Work by Chaa has been exhibited in museums internationally. Most recently he created a 30 by 40 foot aluminum orchid woven mural for the USC Archway Medical Plaza.

David Jang uses the excess left over from the mass-production of our consumer society as the source of material for his sculptural paintings. Aluminum cans, water bottles, and packaging materials are deconstructed and flattened into spiraling growth patterns that describe both the literal and figurative movement of re-cycling. The use of detritus as a medium is both a formal and philosophical choice for the artist. Jang is an active ingredient in the continuum of the object from its original to its ‘developed’ state: grinders, torches, and power tools are used to manipulate the three-dimensional forms into two dimensions. His pieces have been shown throughout Asia and North America.

Tae Ho Kang’s series of sophisticated abstract paintings are made to affect the deep recesses of the subconscious. The artist blends and juxtaposes hues in order to give the viewer a new experience of color. Using paintbrushes, knives and printing, Kang layers the paint and ink upon itself in order to create a depth of field that belies the flat nature of his canvas. Ancient cave paintings and their natural decay are the inspiration for his porous surface. The organized chaos of his strokes creates a visual experience in which one becomes fully immersed in the interplay between color and texture. Kang has exhibited internationally as well as locally at LACMA and the Newport Art Museum.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Quick Recap of the Korean's Visit to the Motherland

It has been about five years between the Korean's last trip to Korea and this one. A quick summary of some of the Korean's impressions are below.

Things about Korea that changed the most since the last visit:

- Coffee is still expensive in Korea, but good coffee is now widely available. At some locations, the coffee was as good as any.

- Golf is no longer a very rich person's sport. Even the Korean Grandmother's tiny little town had a driving range.

- Overall, Korea simply got a lot wealthier, even just five years. You can see it everywhere -- the cars are nicer, the streets are nicer, and people have more things. And there appears to be little effect of the financial crisis that has been decimating North America and Europe.

The changes that the Korean expected to see in Korea, but did not:

- Expected to see a lot more foreigners everywhere. Was not the case -- it was about the same as a few years ago.

- Expected to see a lot more fat Korean children. Did not see them, although there were more than before.

- Expected to see more colors on Korean road. Nope, everyone still drives mostly white or black cars.

- Expected to see a lot of old people spitting everywhere, based on the questions that the Korean received. Did not see them. If anything, spitting has been dramatically reduced compared to even five years ago.

One thing about Korea that the Korean never truly understood until this trip:

- The demands put upon Korean women are much more rigorous compared to those put on Korean men. The Korean always knew this, but never truly understood it until he saw the Korean Wife dealing with them.

The top foods eaten in Korea:

7.  Pisundae (blood sausages) at Nambusijang (Jeonju).
6.  Boshintang (dog meat soup) at Ssarijip (Seoul).
5.  Rice with ge'ujeot (게우젓, very rare sauce made with abalone innards) at Asahi Ilsik (Jeju).
4.  Pyeonyuk (steamed pork) at Sanbang Sikdang (Jeju).
3.  Naengmyeon (cold buckwheat noodles) at Pildong Myeonok (Seoul).
2.  Hanjeongsik (grand course meal) at Pilkyeongjae (Seoul).
1.  Bibimbap at Seongmidang (Jeonju).

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.