Waygook Weekend Update - March 10th 2012

Hey everyone,

My best friend from high school has taken up comedy as his full time career path and he lives in Austin, Texas right now.  He started a youtube channel and does daily update videos about what's trending on the internet.  I thought I'd pay him some respect and steal the format of his show and give comedy a try while talking about topics related to Korea.

No guarantees this will be a regular thing yet, I had fun making this, but scripting, filming, and editing videos takes a really long time...

Here is the script for the video and the links to the stories...

Anyounghaseyo everyone and welcome to the waygook weekend update. I’m your host Wes Broe and these are your headlines for the weekend of Saturday March 10th.

Veteran actor Hong Seok-Cheon was back in the headlines this week after the Los Angeles Times ran a feature on him. Hong Seok-Cheon has become one of South Korea’s leading gay rights activists after coming out of the closet in 2000.

Mr. Hong claims he made history this week as the first gay man to discuss sex and sexual orientation on-air in Korea while guest appearing on the popular TV show “Star Lecture Series”.

He is most well-known for being the onetime host of a popular 1990s childrens’ citcom, Po Po Po, that was often referred to as South Korea’s version of Sesame Street.

When he came out of the closet in 2000, he was immediately fired from his program and cast out as a pariah in Korean society.

He reflected on his decision to come out then and claims with Korea’s traditional Confucian origins and its modern embracement of Christianity, he should really have seen it coming.

When reached for comment by the old people of Korea, they responded by saying… “who? Oh yeah, that guy. He’s not gay. And even if he is, we assure you, he is the only Korean that is.”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-south-korea-gay-activist-20120306,0,6884637,full.story

On the popular Korean Blog The Marmot’s Hole, photos surfaced of Koreans drinking alcohol on a subway car, being loud, and blocking the subway doors and walking paths for the other passengers.

This is really only news because photos of white English teachers doing the exact same thing surfaced last year and Korean netizens threw a collective hissy fit and claimed waygooks had no respect for Korea.

When asked for comment about the glaring hypocrisy of the situation, Korean netizens responded by saying well, whatever, unlike some foreigners at least Koreans never park their cars on the sidewalks, urinate in the streets, pass out drunk in public places, or cut in line at the grocery stores.

http://www.rjkoehler.com/2012/03/02/booze-parties-on-the-subway-not-just-for-foreign-louts/

http://www.rjkoehler.com/2011/05/10/foreign-louts-drink-play-cards-on-subway-ohmynews/

It was reported this week on Busan Haps, the magazine for what’s happening in Busan, that the program for native English speaking teachers in public schools in Busan will be cut dramatically next year.

The Busan MOE claims that last year 522 teachers were employed in the district and they went more than 4 billion won over budget because they over hired.

Due to cuts last year, and more cuts coming this next year to their English education budgets, the city of Busan said it will have to let go at least 55 and as many as 75 native teachers for next year.

The Busan Office of Education says it is embarrassed by these cuts and is going to have to adjust its recruitment goals for the second semester to compensate.

When reached for comment by some of the adorable children attending an elementary school that is about to lose their native teacher, they said “Hi, how are you. I’m fine, and you Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too.”

http://www.busanhaps.com/article/busan-cut-native-speaking-teachers

The United States announced this week a breakthrough with North Korea in efforts to start a full-fledged bilateral and multilateral talks on denuclearization.

In their high-level meetings in Beijing late last month, the North agreed to freeze its uranium-enrichment program at the Yongbyon nuclear site and refrain from nuclear and long-range missile tests while dialogue is under way.

In return, the United States has promised to the North Korean government 240,000 tons of food aid, and the promise that they would talk to the Harlem Globe Trotters and see if they could be persuaded to play a charity exhibition game in Pyeongyang vs Kim Jong-eun and thirty of his closest body guards.

http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20120307000455

The Dong-a Ilbo reported this week that Radio Free Asia could quote a confidential source from within the North Korea military that more than 10 North Korean soldiers were killed and tens of others injured by South Korean counterattacks after the North shelled Yeonpyeong Island in 2010.

The South Korean military remains confident after their counter response shelling, that North Korean forces are reluctant to fight or engage artillery fire with South Korean forces again.

When asked for comment on these claims, the official response from the North Korean regime was that the counter artillery fire from the South not only missed and failed to harm any of their forces, but it managed open fissures in the earth in which rare and amazing treasures poured forth.

They then added, thanks for the gold and bullet-proof unicorns that we found as a result of your feeble and inept counter-attack.

http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2012030363458

The Chosun Ilbo reported this week that statistics show that a growing number of Koreans are putting off marriage until they are in their 40s.

The gyeonggido Family and Women’s Research Institute surveyed that the number of men in their 40s who are tying the knot for the first time increased by more than 4-fold from a decade ago, while the number for women more than doubled.

The articled commented that the main reason for Koreans waiting so long to be married is that they want to be financially secure and have a fulfilling career before they settle down and marry.

Senior executives at Korea’s largest corporations were shocked by these statistics, claiming that they had no idea their employees by the time they reached their 40s were starting to feel financially secure enough to start a family.

They claimed they were do their part and improve those statistics and make sure their employees never felt financially secure enough to start a family.

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/03/03/2012030300352.html

And now for the weather, me dressed as a ninja.

It’s going to be very cloudy tonight. Good chance of heavy fog… you won’t see me coming…

Thanks me, the payment of 100 pounds of gold will soon be ours.

South Korean K-pop star Ham Eun-jung was back in the headlines this week, as disgusting Korean internet trolls remain unwilling to leave this woman and her body image alone.

Eun-jeong is a popular singer from the K-POP group T-ara, and she was photographed this week in Indonesia while filming a television episode of the MBC variety show “We Got Married.”

Korean netizens kept commenting about how much chubbier she looks in these photos and how her v-line chin was nowhere to be seen.

When asked for comment from some random American guy, he said “why is that skinny, Korean girl wearing high heeled shoes in the jungle?”

http://omonatheydidnt.livejournal.com/8665644.html

The Korean JoongAng Daily reported this week that seven Korean teenage boys allegedly carried out a cyber attack on the web site of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.

Last year the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family enacted numerous unfavorable laws targeting children including the now infamous “Cinderella Policy”.

This policy prohibits any minor from logging onto the internet and playing online games between the hours of midnight and 6am.

The policy aims to reduce the growing trend of computer gaming addiction amongst children in Korea. The teenagers claimed they orchestrated the cyber attack on the ministry’s website because they feel that older people don’t care what they think and they don’t want them to be happy.

To which every Korean in the nation collectively sighed and said, “ahhh, feels the same way for us, too, sometimes”.

That’s all for tonight… be sure to toon in next week!

http://koreajoongangdaily.joinsmsn.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2949498&cloc=joongangdaily|home|newslist1