Stories about South Korea from March, 2007
Korea and Japan: Sex Trade
Robert Koehler from Marmot's Hole reports that: There are currently an estimated 40,000-60,000 Koreans illegally residing in Japan. Of these, 30,000 are believed to be working in the sex trade. And the number of Korean men in Japanese host-bar is increasing rapidly.
South Korea: FTA
Jamie from Two Koreas has an update about the FTA negotiation and anti FTA protest in South Korea: The march was also able to march into Gwanghwamun unobstructed, which was even more of a surprise.
South Korea: blocking foreign porn sites
Matt from Gusts of popular feeling blogs about the recent government policy in filtering out foreign porn sites in South Korea: We're also told that the government “will block around 180 such foreign sites by the end of May”. Wow. All 180 of them. They really aren't kidding around this...
South Korea: The Value Deflation of Schools
Michael Hurt from Scribblings of the Metropolitician has a lot to complain and criticise about the South Korea education system.
East Asia: History Round up
Jonathan Dresner from Frog in a Well has written a history round up on issues such as comfort woman, Nanjing massarce, textbook, etc.
Korea and Japan: National Flowers
Ampotan has a nice post discussing differences in symbolism of Japan and Korea's national flowers: cherry blossom or sakura (Japan) and the Rose of Sharon or mugunghwa (Korea).
South Korea: what not to post in blog
A blogger posted about his pot-smoking experience in the Netherlands on his blog and got busted for doing drugs overseas – Robert Koehler from Marmot's Hole.
South Korea: street vendors
Matts has a nice post about the Seoul city plan in cracking down street vendors.
South Korea: China town
Asiapages explained why South Korea’s attempt to create a Chinatown near Incheon is seriously missing the point.
Japan: Where are the Japanese comfort women?
Ampontan translates a post written by Kiyotani in response to the recent debate about Abe's claim that there was “no evidence” that the recruitment of “comfort women” had been “forcible in the narrow sense of the word”.: I really wonder why no one is talking about the Japanese comfort women....
South Korea: Daechuri video
Micheal Hurt posted a video done by Bum Lee, which is a tribute to the art of Daechuri. The village has been struggling against forced demolition and the construction of military base.
South Korea: International Woman's Day
Voice of the people has a photo essay on the International Woman's Day.
South Korea: school uniform
The price of uniform becomes a talking point in South Korea, Matt has a summary of the issue at stake.
South Korea: from Yeosu Fire to migrant labour reform
The Yeosu migrant detention centre's fire has developed into a call for legislation to protect the safety and rights of migrant labour in South Korea. Jamies has a very detailed report with background at interlocals.net.
South Korea: reactions on illegal migrant center fire
Matt puts up with a detailed article on the reactions on the illegal migrant center fire broke out in early Feburary which left 9 migrant workers dead and 18 injured.
Ghana: Perspectives of Ghana at 50
Like most Sub-Saharan Africans, Ghanians use the English language—not only as a lingua franca, but also as the official language. They use English on top of many local languages—and dialects—spoken and heard throughout the country. It therefore comes as a little surprise that (young) Ghanaians might just fall a tad...