On the Nature of Things | Forum

Typhoon wrote:

Endovelico wrote:

Nat Int | Why South Korea Is So Obsessed with Japan

It sounds a bit like the irrational fixation some Japanese have in respect of Russia...

A bit of a problem with your analogy:

Unlike Russia, Japan had not invaded and occupied any other country for over 85 years.

Today, any such foreign post-colonial action would be extremely unpopular with the general population.

Doc wrote:

Typhoon wrote:

Endovelico wrote:

Nat Int | Why South Korea Is So Obsessed with Japan

It sounds a bit like the irrational fixation some Japanese have in respect of Russia...

A bit of a problem with your analogy:

Unlike Russia, Japan had not invaded and occupied any other country for over 85 years.

Today, any such foreign post-colonial action would be extremely unpopular with the general population.

I was reading Russia Today the other day They were saying that it was actually Japan that was sending troops into the Ukraine to take territory.

South Korea's capital, Seoul, has chosen a new slogan to promote the city internationally, but it has left some people confused.

"I.Seoul.U" triumphed in a vote held in the city on Wednesday, beating two other options: "Seoulmate" and "Seouling", the Korea Times reports. A panel of nine experts, including two professors, and more than 1,000 members of the general public took part in the final selection. The slogan will be used to promote the city around the world, and replaces the current "Hi Seoul". According to the paper, the project cost in the region of 500 million won ($436,000; £286,000).

Even before the vote, many people raised concerns that "I.Seoul.U" doesn't make much sense in English, and that none of the finalists inspired interest in the city. Now that the slogan is official the mockery has increased, with social media users posting parodies online, the Korea Herald reports.

On the city government's Facebook page thousands of users have "liked" posts about the new branding, and plenty welcome it as a "great choice". But many aren't happy, with some calling it "Konglish" - the Korean practice of adopting English words in a way that English speakers often cannot understand. "They were all rubbish but at least Seoulmate actually made sense," writes one user. "Terrible choice. I was in Seoul this year and this makes me feel nothing of what I felt when I visited," another person says.

Previous slogans have included "Infinitely yours, Seoul", which apparently expressed the city's "infinite capacity for development", and the potentially risky "Seoul, My...", which left a gap for people to fill as they saw fit.

noddy wrote:'you are seoul'

Simple Minded wrote:

noddy wrote:'you are seoul'

I wonder if "I'm a seoul man!" made the cut. probably too sexist.

. . .

IT WAS A NIGHT OF RACISM AND CLASS SNOBBERY at a private dinner between journalists and a top education policy maker. After one too many drinks in Seoul’s government district, an elite bureaucrat, Na Hyang-wook, lambasted “99 percent” of his countrymen for being “like dogs and pigs” who only need to be fed and kept alive, compared them to “blacks and Hispanics in the United States who don’t even try to enter politics or climb the social ladder,” and called for a caste system on the basis that “people are not all born equal.”

His personal goal, he told the journalists, was to strive to be in the 1 percent. He offered limited sympathy for the death of a 19-year-old subway contract laborer overworked and crushed by an oncoming train, as noted in recent stories about poor conditions for part-time workers. The journalists said that they felt pain for him like he was their own child, but the bureaucrat retorted that while his death was certainly tragic, it would have been silly to pretend the subway worker was his own kid.

Typhoon wrote:President: puppet on a string

‘It’s actually a system where Choi Sun-sil tells the President what to do’

Wikileaks: 2007 SK election

[sound familiar?]

Her approval ratings had plunged to 4 percent, the lowest among South Korean leaders since democracy came in the late 1980s, and even elderly conservatives who once made up her political base have distanced themselves from her. An opinion survey released Thursday showed about 78 percent of respondents supported Park's impeachment.

noddy wrote: . . .

i had a big shock the other day as i added up all the south korean stuff in my house, all i need now is a team of k -pop chickies. cough. sigh.

“new history starts now; age of peace, from the starting point of history”.