North Korea always finds ways to grab the world’s attention.  Everyone has been concerned with the failing health of Kim Jong-il.  And of course, one wonders what will happen now that a successor has been named, namely his son.  Currently, South Korea has been facing a number of attacks from North Korea on its internet infrastructure recently.  According to the Chosun Ilbo (朝鮮日報), a virus caused server connection problems with Woori Bank, Hana Bank, and the Industrial Bank of Korea’s websites.  They even managed to hit the National Intelligence Service website and AhnLab, Korea’s leading computer security company.  The Choson Ilbo’s own site was hacked and I can’t even access the Korean pages.  (If you want to try, visit http://www.chosun.com and see if it lets you on.) 

You can read more about these attacks by clicking on the link below.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/07/123_48203.html

Earlier this year, the Republic of China (Taiwan) swore in a new president, veteran Kuomintang (國民黨) leader Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).  The Kuomintang (KMT) was political party of Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai-shek.  Following the victory of the Communists in the Chinese Civil War, many of the leading political leadership of the KMT went to Taiwan.  Chiang Kai-shek was among them.  The Republic of China set itself up again in Taipei.  The idea was that they would bide their time in Taiwan until as such a time as they could take over China again. 

Under President Ma, relations with Mainland China have warmed considerably.  Previously, citizens of Taiwan who wanted to visit the mainland would have to go through Hong Kong or a third country.  They cannot use their passports to gain entry, as the People’s Republic of China does not recognize the Republic of China (Taiwan).  They must obtain a special pass in order to enter.  Likewise, citizens of the People’s Republic of China who wish to visit Taiwan must obtain a special pass in order to visit Taiwan, as People’s Republic of China passports are not accepted as valid in Taiwan.  This extends to the passports of the Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions as well.  (Hong Kong and Macau have their own passports which are distinct from those from the mainland.) 

Renim Ribao (人民日報), the official newspaper of the Communist Party is announcing that the Chinese government is all set to allow for regular flights in between major Chinese cities and Taipei.  I am very curious to know which part of the airport they will use for such flights.  Will they originate from the international terminal or the domestic one?  As China has long insisted that Taiwan is a renegade province, will they operate those flights from the domestic terminal?  Will the arrangements reflect the One China policy? 

Where Taiwan is concerned, such arrangements often reach the levels of the bizarre.  Althletes from Taiwan taking part in the Olympic Games may not march under their country’s flag or its name.  They march under an IOC-designed flag and under the name of “Chinese Taipei”.  There are only a handful of nations around the world which maintain official diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan).  Elsewhere around the world, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Offices serve as de facto embassies and consulates.  (In Hong Kong, Chung  Hwa Travel Service, Ltd. is Taiwan’s de facto consulate.  They provide travel documents for Chinese citizens to visit Taiwan.)  The US government, which officially does not recognize the sovereignity of the Republic of China, has an unofficial representation to Taiwan in the American Institute.  The director of the institute, which is bassically an ambassador, is an employee of the State Department on a leave of absence.  I’ve already mentioned the stuff about passports. 

The Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau were based off of a concept of Deng Xiaoping’s which he hoped to apply to Taiwan.  The response of Taiwan at the time was basically “thanks, but no thanks”.  As the economic ties between Beijing and Taipei become all the more closer, there is a very real concern among many that Taiwan’s sovereignity would be harmed to the point where its de facto independence would be totally and utterly lost and Taiwan would be controlled by Beijing once more. 

Taiwan is a special case.  Unlike Hong Kong and Macau which are partially democratic, Taiwan is a genuine democracy.  It is the only one in the Chinese world.  It would be a shame if it were lost.  There is very real concern of what President Ma’s compromises with Beijing will do.

Here is a shot of the sanctuary of Myeong-dong Cathedral.  Mercifully, it is still pretty much the same as it was in 1961 when this photo was taken.  The occasion is the ordination to the sacred order of priests of the current Archbishop of Seoul, Nicholas Cardinal Cheong Jin-suk.  This comes from the cardinal’s webpage which you may access at http://cardinaljeong.catholic.or.kr. 

At ordinations in the Latin Rite in the Catholic Church, the candidates lie prostrate while the Litany of the Saints is chanted.  I believe that Cardinal Cheong was ordained a priest by Archbishop Paul-Marie Ro Kinam, the first Korean to be ordained a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church.  Archbishop Ro was then the Apostolic Vicar of Seoul.  The Archdiocese of Seoul did not exist at the time.  It was an apostolic vicariate, a quasi-diocesan structure meant to be eventually replaced by a diocese.  Cardinal Cheong has remarked that when he was ordained, there were only about 250 priests in the whole country.  Quite a bit has changed since 1961!

In 1962, the Apostolic Vicariate of Seoul became an archdiocese in its own right.  In 1968, Stephen Cardinal Kim Sou-hwan became the second archbishop and was very soon after named a cardinal by Pope Paul VI.  From 1968 until his retirement in 1998, he served as archbishop. 

Recently, the Catholic Church in Korea celebrated the Solemnity of St. Andrew Kim Taegon, priest and martyr.  The Seoul Archiocese held its ordinations to the priesthood then.  At the Mass, Nicholas Cardinal Cheong Jin-suk ordained the 5,000th Korean priest.  At the ordination, His Eminence remarked on how much the Church has grown since he was ordained a priest.  When he himself was ordained a priest in 1961, there were less than 250 priests in the entire country.  Many of them were foreigners as well.  Currently, there are over three thousand of them serving some five million Catholics.

While the Catholic Church has indeed grown in South Korea, I only hope that they don’t mistake quantity for quality.  If you baptize a great number of people and then most of them end up no longer frequenting the sacraments, then there is a problem.  While the Catholic bishops of Korea did announce recently that there are five million members on the books, they also recognized that many of the Catholics in Korea are not frequenting the sacraments.

One of the things which is endangered in urban China, at least in Beijing, are the old neighbourhoods.  Many of them were demolished to make way for the Olympic Games.  Others of them were demolished for China’s ongoing urban development.  All throughout Beijing, there are a number of apartment buildings going up with no end in sight it seems. 

In Shanghai, China’s most populous city, apartment blocks have likewise been erected at breakneck speed.  However, one of them collapsed intact.  It just pulled off its foundation somehow.  You can see the photos here.  Links to this story were obtained from The Marmot’s Hole blog. 

Back during Korea’s own development, apartment towers, department stores, and much else were constructed at breakneck speed.  One of the worst disasters in the nation’s history involved the Sampoong Department Store (三豊百貨店) collapse in 1995.  The building had a poor foundation, was laid on unstable ground and poor construction was extensively used.  Additionally, some city officials were bribed to look the other way.  Some of the crucial support columns were cut to provide room for fire shields for the escalators.  The concrete used was substandard and when workers moved the air conditioning equipment, they used rollers and dragged the equipment across the roof, weakening it further.  Despite the massive cracks appearing, store management did not close the store.  Rather, they kept it open.  The only thing they did was to move some merchandise in areas where huge cracks were appearing to other parts of the store.  Needless to say, the executives did leave the building as a precaution.  They let their employees stay behind.  In the end, the entire store collapsed.  It was the single biggest peacetime disaster in Korean history.  In all, 502 people were killed and 937 were injured.

The leadership of the Sampoong Group were put on trial.  The father and son who ran the company were found guilty of criminal negligence.  They were sentenced to several years of imprisonment and stripped of all of their possessions and assets to cover some of the costs.  Investigations into officials of the Seoul Metropolitan Government found widespread corruption.  Not a few buildings had to be structurally reinforced if not demolished.

Last week, the Bank of Korea (韓國銀行) released the 50,000 won note.  None of us have seen it yet, but then again my bank will probably be taking their own sweet time about releasing it.  This is the same bank that was, until mid-2008, still using the older currency in one of their ATMs.  Now, unfortunately, the old money has been withdrawn from circulation.  I liked it, as it had a classic look to it. 

Hoija, on his blog, had made mention of some of the problems that people are finding with the new note.  News of it finally has made the English media.  People are complaining that it is difficult to tell the 5,000 and 50,000 won notes apart.  Indeed, in a dark taxi late at night, this can be quite a feat.  Confusing the 1,000 won and 10,000 won notes is easy enough.  And apparently, it is prone to split open.

You can read all about everybody’s frustrations with the new money here.

Koreas notes, coins, passports, ID cards, bank cheques, and much more are printed by KOMSCO, or the Korean Minting and Security Printing Corporation.  They’ve been getting lots of nasty calls in recent days, but the Governors of the Bank of Korea are remaining above the fray saying that they see no problems.

The Shilla Hotel in Seoul has announced that they will be selling Kopi Luwak at The Library, a bar and lounge in the hotel.  Specialty coffees have caught on in Seoul in a huge way.  Starbucks is everywhere now, even in that centre of Korea’s tea culture, Insa-dong.  A number of local coffee shops have joined the competition now, too. 

Kopi Luwak is quite a bit different from your estate grown coffee.  While many of those can be quite pricey, Kopi Luwak is one of the priciest there is.  Unlike regular coffee production which involves picking the coffee cherries, removing the beans, drying the beans, and finally roasting them, Kopi Luwak goes through an- ahem- special process all its own.

The Asian Palm Civet, known in Indonesian as the luwak, likes to eat the coffee cherries.  Eventually, the beans get passed through the digestive tract of the luwak, are cleaned and processed, roasted, and then finally are ready to be brewed.   Apparently, a natural fermentation process occurs while the coffee cherries go through the digestive system of the luwak.  It still sounds pretty disgusting all the same.

Starting Wednesday, the Shilla will be offering Kopi Luwak.  At 42,000 won a cup ($32), you can enjoy a cup of something which was pooped out by a relative of the weasel.  Dave Barry, as is his wont, opined on this matter some time ago.  You may read his comments by clicking here.

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization often identifies certain places as World Heritage Sites.  The sites chosen are significant historical or cultural sites.  Often, they are quite unique.  Seoul has a couple of UNESCO World Heritage sites, namely the Jongmyo Royal Ancestral Shrine and Changdeok Palace.  Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, boasts a large number of UNESCO World Heritage sites such as Bulguksa, the Seokguram Grotto, the Shilla Tombs, and so on. 

In and around Seoul are the tombs of the Joseon kings.  My city, Namyangju, has a couple of them as well.  Two of them are unique in that they aren’t the tombs of kings, but the tombs of emperors.  Back in 1897, King Gojong decided to elevate Korea’s standing on the world stage.  Thus, he inaugurated the Great Korean Empire (大韓帝國) and became the first Korean emperor.  He was eventually forced to abdicate and his son, the Emperor Sunjong was put on the throne by the Japanese.  He was eventually forced to cede Korea to Japan.

We took the students to the tombs of the Gwangmu Emperor (King Gojong) and the Yonghui Emperor (Emperor Sunjong) and their wives.  I had long wanted to visit these, but this was a day that I forgot to bring the camera and I didn’t know where we were going.  Anyhow, Robert Koehler took a beatiful photo of the tomb of the Gwangmu Emperor which you can access by clicking here.  The Gwangmu Emperor died in 1919, having lived to see his country turned over to Japanese rule.  His tomb was modelled after the Ming Tombs near Beijing with all sorts of statues of auspicious animals and court officials carved out of granite.  In the hill behind the building is where he is buried.  His wife, the Empress Myeongseong, one of the greatest of Korea’s queens is buried nearby.  

UNSECO has decided to add the Joseon Royal Tombs to the list.  Scattered throughout Seoul and surrounding Gyeonggi Province are the tombs of Korea’s past monarchs.  My city also has the tomb of Crown Prince Imperial Eumin, the man who would have become king had not the Japanese taken over.  Crown Prince Eumin’s wife, Princess Nashimotomiya Masako, known in Korea as Princess Bangja, is also buried there along with their son, Hereditary Prince Imperial Gu.     

There are a number of other things associated with Korea’s royal past which have been similarly honoured by UNESCO.  Among them are the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty.  Written in classical Chinese, professional historiagrophers granted an unusual degree of independence, kept excruciatingly detailed records of the life of the king, national affairs, the weather, daily life in Joseon, and much more.  The king was forbidden from reading these.  Such a degree of independence was unusual for the time.  The records were also very meticulously printed, rather than written out by hand, as in China.

Zhao Zhiyang (趙紫陽) became a figure almost forgotten in Chinese society.  He was once the Premier of the People’s Republic of China, basically the second in command to Deng Xiaoping, the legendary leader who transformed China’s economy and set in on the course it more or less follows today, namely authoritarian capitalism.  Following Zhao’s tenure as premier, he later took the reins as the Secretary General of the Communist Party of China, a role now held by China’s current president, Hu Jintao.

When the protests of 1989 were at their peak, Zhao Zhiyang personally went to Tian’anmen Square to appeal to the students to return to their classes and give up the hunger strike.  He basically had been removed by this point, though no formal announcement had been made.  He knew what was coming.  At that point, discussions were taking place to put all of Beijing under martial law, something which had not been done since the Cultural Revolution.  Zhou ended up spending the remainder of his life, from 1989 until his death in 2005, under house arrest or semi-house arrest.

The Chinese government has successfully blocked much of the knowledge of the Tian’anmen Square massacre from the young.  Most Chinese students don’t know anything about it.  The Great Firewall of China, a wall built largely and lamentably with American bricks in the form of support from Google, Yahoo, and Cisco, blocks any mention of it on the Internet.  It does not appear in any Chinese textbook.  Chinese students who study abroad are often quite shocked to learn of it.  It is something which has been withheld from them.  Likewise, Zhao Zhiyang, a figure once very prominent in governmental affairs, faded away almost completely.  When he died, he was given a very low key ceremony at Baobaoshan Cemetery, but after the ashes were returned to the family, nobody knows where, or indeed if they have been buried.  His official obituary made no mention of the fact that he was once Premier of the People’s Republic of China or that he was once Secretary General of the Communist Party of China.  The current Premier, Wen Jiabao, was once an aide to Zhao.  But he’s not talking about his former mentor at all these days.

Unbeknownst to his guards, Zhao had secretly been preserving his memoirs.  He recorded his thoughts on tape and hid them in plain sight among his grandchildren’s toys.  At great risk, the tapes were taken to Hong Kong which still continues to have freedom of speech.  (Indeed, when I first went there, my jaw dropped to see the sorts of things they were offering in the bookstores.  Books which are strictly forbidden in the People’s Republic of China are openly sold.)   Zhao had given copies of the tapes to trusted friends and kept the masters in his office.  Nobody, not even his family, knew what he was up to. 

One of Zhao’s closest aides was Bao Tong.  Unlike Zhao, Bao Tong did end up going to prison and currently under semi-house arrest in Beijing.  He continues to write articles critical of the government.  Bao Tong’s son, Bao Pu, has residency in Hong Kong, luckily enough for him.  Bao Pu was one of the translators of Zhao’s memoirs.  With his name on the book, I rather think that he’s not going to be able to visit his father anytime soon in Beijing.  Chinese citizens who are residents of Hong Kong and bear Hong Kong passports need travel documents issued by the mainland consular authorities just in order to visit the mainland.  The Chinese government often uses these permits to restrict the entry into the mainland of people they deem controversial or even dangerous.  Thus, democracy rights protestors and the like often find themselves barred from entry.  Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kuin, Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong, was once barred from visiting the mainland for six years.  Cardinal Zen is a voice for democracy and social justice in Hong Kong.  That isn’t the sort of voice they would like to have in Beijing or even Shanghai.

I recently bought a copy of Zhao Zhiyang’s book Prisoner of the State here in Korea.  It is a fascinating look inside how the Chinese government really works.  In so many ways, the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China (yes, China still has one of those) resembles nothing so much as a Mafia godfather surrounded by his henchmen.  And this is the same system of government that China has today!  It has sold in massive quantities in Hong Kong.  They are already on a second printing.  Mainland Chinese citizens who have permission to visit Hong Kong have been buying it up.  And pirated versions have been posted on the Internet, though I imagine that the Great Firewall of China is quickly suppressing these. 

In recent days, the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region had to publicly apologise for comments he made on Tian’anmen Square.  While the Chinese government may stifle discussion of it on the Mainland, Hong Kong people still remember it vividly.  A few years before, Margaret Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping had signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration which set out the way in which Hong Kong was to transition into Chinese rule.  The Hong Kong people were already feeling quite uneasy about the whole thing when the Tian’anmen Square Massacre happened.  A series of protests took place in Hong Kong, something which continues to this day.  In a speech, Donald Tsang had said that the massacred happened “a long time ago” and China has changed a lot since then.  Many people were angry and he had to apologise.

SsangYong Motors, the smallest of Korea’s auto manufacturers, has been undergoing bankruptcy.  Their majority shareholders, the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, having grown more and more frustrated with the Korean unions, decided to throw SsangYong Motors to the wolves and let them undergo court-ordered restructuring.  Recently, the company laid off a number of workers.  Currently, 1,200 of those fired have occupied SsangYong’s main assembly plant and won’t leave.  Indeed, they’ve set tires ablaze after being confined to a building with paint thinner stored in it. 

Under Korean bankruptcy law, collective bargaining agreements cannot be touched.  All other contracts may be annulled, but those affecting the agreements worked out between management and the employees may not be modified, as they can be in the USA. 

SsangYong is also the maker of the Rodius, an SUV which won (if that is appropriate), the title of the third ugliest car ever made in The Telegraph’s ranking of the 100 ugliest cars of all time.  The winner was the GM made Pontiac Aztek.  You can read and look at this dreadful catalogue of tastelessness here.