Really? Japanese Cannibals?

There is such a loaded article I do not even know how to comment on it.  I have heard lots of things from Koreans by way of accusations (rightfully deserved) against the Japanese while under colonial rule, but never have I heard about cannibalism.  This goes to a whole new level...

The Dong-a Ilbo has it:

Koreans who were forced to work by the Japanese military at Mili Lagoon in the Marshall Islands around the end of World War II were massacred for rejecting cannibalism, a Korean government study said Tuesday.

A committee probing Koreans who were forced to work at home and abroad under Japanese colonial rule said it studied survivors` testimonies and Japanese government documents from 2006. This culminated in a report on Korean resistance at the lagoon and the ensuing crackdown by Japanese soldiers.

The report said some 1,000 Koreans were forced to build military facilities for the Japanese, such as an airfield in the lagoon, in early 1945. After supply routes were cut due to a blockade by U.S. submarines, the ensuing food shortage led to the Japanese resorting to cannibalism, and Koreans who refused to eat human flesh were killed.

A survivor testified that Koreans ate what they thought was whale meat brought by Japanese soldiers to the lagoon in early 1945, but that the corpse of a Korean whose flesh was cut on a nearby deserted land was found a few days later. Koreans who found that people went missing learned that Japanese soldiers killed them, ate the meat, and gave it to Koreans.

Some 120 Koreans staying on Chelpong Island at the lagoon tried to lure seven of 12 Japanese supervisors to the woods to kill them and then surrender to U.S. forces. The resistance plan was discovered the following day, however, and Japanese soldiers on nearby Luk Nok Island killed around 100 Koreans with machine guns.

An expert on the committee said, “Though proving that cannibalism occurred at Mili Lagoon is difficult, it can be seen as fact based on situational documents and testimonies.”

I really think that Korea should just let this one go.  Korea does not need a new generation of people believing that the Japanese resorted to cannibalism, then murdered any Koreans who refused to eat other Koreans.  This is nearly impossible to prove for sure and nothing good can come from this sixty years later.  Korea and Japan really need to move on.

.

Stuff Waygooks Like #2 - The Chuseok Holiday (추석)

Chuseok (aka 추석 aka Hangawi aka 한가위) is the major harvest festival and always a three day holiday in Korea celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar.  Like most harvest festivals, it is held around the time of the Autumn Equinox.  Because it is a celebration of the harvest, Koreans usually leave the cities in mass and return to their ancestral hometowns and family farms to share a feast of traditional Korean food.  One of the major foods prepared and eaten during the holiday is songpyeon (송편), a cresent-shaped rice cake which is steamed upon pine needles.  Other foods commonly prepared are japchae (잡채), bulgogi (불고기), and fruits.

Although many waygooks are invited to join Korean families for the holiday and participate in the festivities, this is not the reason why waygooks like it so much.  They like it because it is a guaranteed three day holiday!  If Chuseok falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, most schools and businesses shutdown for a five day weekend.

Now, if Chuseok lands on a Wednesday, like it did in 2010, the holiday is officially Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  But most schools and businesses want to be able to stretch it to the weekend, so the holiday is extended an additional work day and most of the time either the Monday or the Friday is also given off work.  This gives waygooks (and Koreans) a six day holiday from working!  There are even some lucky SOBs who received both the Monday and the Friday off, leading to a nine day holiday!  Many waygooks capitalize on this abundant vacation time and take fun trips either within Korea or abroad to exciting destinations in Japan, China, or SE Asia.

Thank you Korea!

The cities being empty of foreigners is also a lot of fun.  The folks at Eat Your Kimchi took advantage of the holiday to dress up like dragons and dance around Seoul.  A solid idea while in a relatively empty city.

.

Uh-oh... China Looks Pissed

Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo has won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Who is he?  I did not know last week, but now I and everyone else who reads a daily newspaper in the entire world knows.  The Chinese government is also in an unwinnable situation as to how to react to this choice.

Here is some more reflection from an editorial from the New York Times.

China warned the Norwegian Nobel Committee not to honor the democracy activist Liu Xiaobo. The committee didn’t listen. On Friday, Mr. Liu — who is locked in jail on an 11-year sentence for spurious subversion charges — became the first Chinese to win the Peace Prize.

Mr. Liu and the Chinese should be proud. Beijing should be ashamed. On Friday, it said the choice “desecrates” the prize, compounding that shame.

Beijing is used to throwing its weight around these days — on currency, trade, the South China Sea and many other issues. Too many governments, and companies, are afraid to push back. Maybe someone in China’s leadership will now figure out that bullying is not a strategy for an aspiring world power.

Mr. Liu represents China’s best potential future. The 54-year-old scholar, writer, poet and social commentator is an unfaltering advocate of peaceful political change. During the 1989 pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square, he staged a hunger strike, then negotiated a peaceful retreat of student demonstrators as thousands of soldiers stood by with rifles drawn. He has been harassed and detained repeatedly since then.

His most recent arrest — in December 2008 — came a day before a pro-democracy manifesto he helped author began circulating on the Internet. Charter 08 affirmed the importance of freedom, human rights, equality as “universal values shared by all humankind” and endorsed direct elections, judicial independence and an end to Communist Party dominance. The manifesto was on the Internet only briefly before it was pulled by censors, but it still garnered 10,000 signatures.

The Nobel Committee rightly noted that the Chinese government has lifted millions of Chinese from poverty but political change has not kept up with economic reforms. China’s leaders can continue to repress their people or lead the way into an era of expanded freedoms.

No matter what Beijing says or does, the world will not forget Mr. Liu. It will not forget Gao Zhisheng and Hu Jia and all the other jailed dissidents. We honor their courage and their struggle for freedom.

China is trying to build a middle class.  This growing middle class will be educated and will demand more accountability and access to their government.  It is only a matter of time.  China cannot keep prolonging the inevitable and this Nobel Peace Prize might be the necessary spark to start fresh rounds of protests and riots demanding change.

More analysis from the PBS News Hour:

.

Stuff Waygooks Like #1 - Kimbap (김밥)

Kimbap a.k.a. Gimbap a.k.a. 김밥 might be the most popular Korean food amongst waygooks living in Korea.  I do not mean popular as in "Hey, guys!  Tonight we gotta go out for some kimbap and then hit up the clubs!" but I mean most frequently eaten.  Kimbap is the closest native Korean equivalent of Western fast food and it is everywhere.

Popular franchise chains that specialize in kimbap are Gimbap Heaven (김밥천국), Gimbap Land (김밥나라), Gimgane (김家네), Gimbap and Spaghetti (김밥과 스파게티).  The stores usually look something like this.

Kimbap is steamed rice with various other ingredients rolled in a dried layer of seaweed.  Kimbap is commonly eaten by Koreans as a light lunch or reserved for picnics and outdoor events.  Once rolled, it is wrapped in tinfoil and can stay fresh and good to eat for about a day.  It can be reheated, or eaten at room temperature.

Waygooks love it because it is cheap and portable.  A standard ten inch roll of kimbap can cost less one US dollar and depending on what additional special ingredients you want added, will cost no more than three US dollars for a roll.

The types of kimbap vary greatly and common ingredients in different kinds can include tuna, fish cakes, crab meat, eggs, beef, cucumbers, spinach, carrots, pickled radish, brown rice, sweet rice, black rice, cheese, cooked squid, kimchi, and more.

For waygooks who are picky eaters, kimbap is one of the first things they discover they like to eat in Korea.  This leads them to try and remember a way to find these places usually before they can even read the Korean script.  ROKetship captured perfectly the humor of this commonplace situation:

If you want to see a cute Korea girl explain what kimbap is some more, aeriskitchen made a video to explain how to make some kimbap.

.

Hot Pants Kill Hundreds in Thailand

That might as well be the headline.  This is a funny story... not that people dying is funny, but that a Korean fashion style is being blamed for it.  The Korea Times has this one...

With their popularity increasing all over Asia, Korean girl groups have become fashion icons to young fans. The trendy hot pants these groups often wear on stage have also become popular among fans, but Thai government officials are officially warning people against wearing such garments.

On Tuesday morning, TV channel MBC’s “News Today” reported on the latest fad of copying Korean girl groups in Thailand. Thai teenage girls are especially fond of hot pants that many of these groups wear, calling it the “Korean style.”

However, the Thai government has ruled hot pants as a threat with regards to dengue fever that is currently sweeping the nation. 

“Teenagers that wear the ‘Korean style’ short pants are more likely to be bitten by mosquitoes,” said the Thai Deputy Minister of Public Health Anutarasak. “They should wear long pants instead of shorts.”

As many as 90,000 people have contracted dengue fever this year in Thailand and there have been 100 deaths. The Thai government is warning against short pants with maximum skin exposure because dengue fever is caused by a virus spread by mosquitoes.

Here's a live performance of SNSD's "Oh!".  And as you can see from what they are wearing, they might as well be called "shortests" instead of shorts.

UFOs! 4 Reelz, Yo!

There are UFO sightings everywhere all the time now.  Governments do not even talk about them anymore.  They used to make up BS excuses to explain them... but now they just never give a comment.  They are becoming so frequent that new agencies do not even know what to do with the sheer volume of reports.

It is one thing when a drunk redneck in the back of his pick-up truck claims he was abducted by aliens and then anal-probed.  But these UFOs have been shutting down airports and diverting planes.  They have been hovering over nuclear weapons sites and causing them to either fail or become active with warning.

Just this week the Korea Times reports of a UFO siting in inner Mongolia:

This is the third report of UFO witnessed in China this year. 

British tabloid The Sun reported on Oct. 5 (local time) that the airport in Boutou, Inner Mongolia, was temporarily closed as UFO resembling a flat dish had shown up.

UFO was sighted about 4km east from the airport around 8 at night. According to the eyewitnesses, the UFO suddenly disappeared after circling around in the air. 

The airport received the report about the UFO from the authorities of Huhehaote, the capital of autonomous district, and spotted the UFO by using the radar of the control tower. 

However, they decided to close the airport soon after they had failed the communication with the flying object to avoid the collision of the UFO and other planes.

It was the only choice they could make. The airport was closed for about an hour, and three planes scheduled for Beijing and Shanghai had to be moved to a nearby airport. 

The Shaoshan airport in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, had to be closed for several days last July for the appearance of a strange luminous object. Soon after this, there was another report of UFO in Hong Kong.

The central government of China refused to discuss about the UFO.

Last month 120 retired US military personal came forward and published a report stating that UFOs have been interfering with nuclear launch sites for decades and the United States government has been covering it up.  Click here for the full CBS article:

One of the more out-of-the-ordinary press conferences held in Washington this week consisted of former Air Force personnel testifying to the existence of UFOs and their ability to neutralize American and Russian nuclear missiles. 

UFO researcher Robert Hastings of Albuquerque, N.M., who organized the National Press Club briefing, said more than 120 former service members had told him they'd seen unidentified flying objects near nuclear weapon storage and testing grounds. 

Star & Stripes quoted former Air Force Capt. Robert Salas, who was at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana in 1967 when 10 ICMs he was overseeing suddenly became inoperative - at the same time base security informed him of a mysterious red glowing object in the sky. 

Robert Jamison, a retired USAF nuclear missile targeting officer, told of several occasions having to go out and "re-start" missiles that had been deactivated, after UFOs were sighted nearby. 

Similar sightings at nuclear sites in the former Soviet Union and in Britain were related. 

[...]Several of the ex-servicemembers speaking Monday said when they'd brought their concern of such appearances to superiors, they'd been told it was "top secret" or that it "didn't happen." 

Hastings suggested the presence of such phenomena meant that aliens were monitoring our weapons, and perhaps warning us - "a sign to Washington and Moscow that we are playing with fire," as he was quoted in theTelegraph. 

Hastings predicted a "paradigm shift" in the mindset of humanity owing to the existence of alien life. 

"Traditional institutions such as religions, governments, other social institutions may be threatened by what is coming. That is just the logical consequence of what is about to occur." 

The U.S. Air Force ended its 22-year-long "Project Blue Book" investigation of UFO sightings after investigating 12,618 sightings; all but 701 were explained, and the reminder categorized as "unidentified" due to sketchy reports, a Pentagon spokesman said in 1997. 

"We cannot substantiate the existence of UFOs, and we are not harboring the remains of UFOs," said Pentagon spokesperson Kenneth Bacon in 1997. "I can't be more clear about it than that."

 Here's a video report on the conference from RT:

Book author Leslie Kean was also recently on the August 23rd episode of the Colbert Report and seemed to catch Stephen off guard with the growing consensus of UFO sightings and appearances.  It was an interesting video that will probably lead you to doing some google searching after you watch it.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Leslie Kean
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

Something important to note is that there is no evidence of aliens, just advanced technologies.  These UFOs could be Bill Gates, or the Church of Scientology, or the last remnants of Hitler's Third Reich.  The point is they are real and they are happening everywhere all the time and nobody can explain them.
.

Better Cellphone Porn Coming Soon

South Korea is the world's largest consumer of internet pornography.  The average Korean spends almost four times as much as the average Japanese and nearly twelve times as much as the average American on internet pornography.

Apparently, Korean men cannot go without looking at porn while they are out and about during the day, so they need it on their smart phones.  I saw this article in the Korea Times, and I just keep thinking to myself... isn't all this stuff suppose to be illegal in Korea?  And I just laugh...

The mobile web service for premium adult brand Girls4U (www.girls4u.co.kr) is turning many heads. Girls4U is striving to be Korea’s Playboy and provides cable/wireless live adult broadcasts.

Girls4U’s wireless mobile web service would allow iPhone, Android, and other smartphone users to enjoy the same services previously provided on their homepage. 

While illegal adult content and applications are becoming a big social problem, Girls4U mobile services are only available for those who have successfully provided adult certification. Users pay a certain fee for the service and no other data rates are charged. 

Wherever wireless Internet is available, people can not only watch live shows, but they can also see past shows, watch VOD, and enjoy pictures. The biggest forte of the mobile service is that users can enjoy live chats or post comments on fan pages while watching live shows. 

You can use the Girls4U mobile service by typing in m.girls4u.co.kr on the phone’s web browser. You can sign up as a member and pay for the services through your phone.

“Girls4U’s mobile web service reflects the sudden increase in smartphone users,” said Park Yeong-geol from CMAX Communications, which manages Girls4U. “We will continue to communicate with our clients and try to provide high-quality content.”

Really?  Korean men are going to watch live shows on their cell phones while driving or in the bathroom at work?  These guys have a serious problem.
.

KPOP Korral - [T-ara] Crazy Because of You

The name of this girl group is T-ara (티아라).  The group's membership has been fluctuating it seems on a near monthly basis.  Sometimes I see videos with only five of them, sometimes there is seven.  The picture above is only showing me six, but wikipedia is telling me that there are seven.  It doesn't really matter I guess... they all do the same thing.

The group was formed by Mnet Media in 2009 and has had several number one hits.  They released this song, Crazy About You (너 때문에 미쳐) earlier this year and it was extremely popular.

I like the song.  The dance is good.  I like this group.  However, this music video is a disaster.  The numerous camera zooms and cut shots give it a hectic feel and I honestly feel like my eyeballs are going to explode while watching it.  If the camera just was not so erratic, this would have been a good video.

The live performance is fun.  I think they look great.  Much better than their music video.

T-ara first caught my attention with this performance of Bo Peep.  I laughed my ass off the first time I saw this because I thought it was so absurd... but now I really like it and wish more kpop groups would put on snowman outfits... you, know... it's a fantasy I suppose...

.

On Testing the Limits of Free Speech...

There was a reason why freedom of speech was put at the top in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights guaranteed to citizens of the United States.  No higher value can be placed above it if a free and democratic society hopes to exists.

However... crazy people doing disgusting things really ruins it for everyone sometimes...

The US Supreme Court heard arguments concerning the Phelps family from Topeka, Kansas who have been traveling all over the United States protesting at soldiers funerals (at random) because they believe God is deliberately killing them for America's tolerance of homosexuals.

I absolutely think these people should get locked up or fined... but there really is no constitutional argument that can be made to stop them from protesting.  Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly guarantees them the right to protest anything they want in public areas as long as they are being non-violent.  It will be interesting to see how the conservative and and liberal justices divide themselves on this decision.

Simply, disgusting... LA Times has more details and here is a clip from the PBS News Hour.

.

Funny Moment

The presidential seal fell off Obama's podium while he was giving a speech.  He made some quick jokes about it and made it hard for people not to laugh about it.  Well played, sir.