Still not muddy in Seoul

I can't believe I skipped this! I was invited to attend--or participate--in the Boryeong Mud Festival. I declined, preferring to stay clean in Seoul for the weekend. I may make the news one day while I'm in Seoul, but I guess this is not what I want to be known for...

The festival runs through July 19 so you still have time to hustle to the event...

I had a relatively quiet weekend, I guess the heavy rain slowed things down. Yesterday I participated in a language exchange group with about 30 people (2 Americans, 1 Chinese, 1 German, about 20 to 25 Koreans). After about 2+ hours, we had dinner, then went drinking for a few hours at a place called 70s Radio. It appeared to be all Beatles, I guess they put on the Best of the Beatles with subtitles in Spanish.

The Long Island Iced Tea was stronger than any I've ever had. I had wanted to try Cherry Soju or Lemon Soju but they didn't sell it there. 8,000 won or about 6 dollars for the Long Island Iced Tea.

I'm not wondering over here!!!

The Korea Times ran a piece from Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee wondering about whether or not Californians are getting paid too much.

I'm not wondering over here! The tax rate in Korea is 3.3%. No sales tax. No tipping.

Koreans Curious about Secret Behind Jewish Education

Listening to Jewish friends talk over the years, they are also curious...

Anyway, there's an article in today's Korea Times featuring the Israeli ambassador to Korea pontificating about why Jews are so great at education.

The most noteworthy items:

"Children are taught to challenge everything, not to take things for granted,'' he said when it comes to education."

"A strict teacher is a bad teacher and a shy student is a bad student,'' which means teachers should not dictate to students, and students should not be shy about making mistakes and asking questions.

East meets West, on an exotic island

There's at least one way Korea reminds me of back home: organizations holding events in really nice places. The Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business on Jeju Island held a forum over the weekend on Jeju Island (which Koreans call the Hawaii of Korea). There's nothing like solving the world's problems after you've been sipping pina colada on the beach the day before.

Ohmae Kenichi gave out some tough love to Koreans and Americans at the event, suggesting that Korea and the U.S. are in for rough times, that Korean companies should focus on their core businesses rather than expanding into other sectors, that the rest of the world should stop relying on the U.S.

They almost got away with it!!!

My favorite section of the Washington Post has always been the Metro section. It is that slice of life not quite worthy of being front page news, but too hilarious to be left out of the paper.

In the Korean equivalent, the National page, we learn that two Korean "businessmen" attempted to buy a company with two forged checks. Checks forged in the amount of about $20 million.

According to the Korea Times: "The two, identified as Kim and Park, both 45, met when they were in prison in May and agreed to 'a big project.'"

Trying to pass a $20 million check is certainly a big project. But why didn't they just try to buy Seoul instead? A $20 trillion check might have at least gotten them in the door to talk with the mayor...

The funny part of the story...they almost got away with it!

According to the article: "They approached another man who was interested in taking over the target company and agreed to jointly invest in it. Providing the deposit certificates as collateral, they succeeded in signing a contract to buy management control of an unidentified Kosdaq firm for 16 billion won. However, at the last minute, the joint investor became suspicious during the process of confirming the validity and asked a legal documentation handling firm to verify the authenticity of the checks."

CJL

Park Chung-hee: Dictator or benevolent autocrat? (The Korea Herald, July 20, 2011)

The Korea Herald published my analysis of Willam Easterly's paper "Benevolent Autocrats." Check it out at the CFE Website . Easterly questions if "benevolent autocrats" really deserve credit for high economic growth. The Idiots' Collective calls it "a must-read" piece. I agree. [Casey Lartigue, Jr.] Park Chung-hee: Dictator or benevolent autocrat? It ain’t necessarily so. That’s what New York University economics professor William Easterly essentially says about crediting “benevolent autocrats” like South Korea’s Park Chung-hee for high growth rates. In “Benevolent Autocrats,” a provocative working paper posted in May, Easterly 1) argues that economists should be skeptical of the “benevolent autocrat” theory; (2) questions whether benevolent autocrats truly deserve credit for growth; (3) and concedes he is making a losing argument because cognitive biases lead many to believe in benevolent autocrats regardless...

Open door to N. Koreans (Korea Times, January 16, 2013) by Casey Lartigue, Jr.

Open door to N. Koreans By Casey Lartigue, Jr. Last Dec. 12, I fired off an opinion piece of about 1,500 words to the Washington Post. It easily could have been 1,600 words, but I deleted all of the curse words. The day before, I had learned that the United States government had rejected visa applications by three of the students at the Mulmangcho School for North Korean refugee adolescents. Mulmangcho (meaning, ``forget-me-not”) is a small alternative school located in Yeoju, more than an hour south of Seoul. It opened last September with 11 former North Korean children who are orphans or are disadvantaged in some other way. It was founded by former national assembly member Park Sun-young and a distinguished board of directors. Why were the youngsters rejected? The explanation I got: 1) The U.S. government is concerned that they might not return to South Korea and 2) there was a question about their refugee status because they didn’t have pr...

2014-02-14 Yeon-Mi Park`s debut

Yeonmi Park, February 14, 2014, making her debut! Yesterday I was one of the speakers at a special session on North Korean refugees at the Canadian Maple International School. Wow, it was a wonderful time! * Yeon-Mi Park delivered her first major speech in English. She was wonderful! She told her story (35 minute speech without notes), discussed different aspects of North Korea, and then handled questions from students for more than an hour. She did seem to be nervous at the beginning-she took a deep breath just as she started, looked at me, then told her story from her heart. * Returning from the speech, I told Yeonmi that she had star potential. She told me that she didn't believe it, but I told her that the way she handled Q&A and told her story, I would be lucky to have her still returning my phone calls within a year. * The students had many questions. They have been learning about North Korea. They are now reading "Escape from Camp 14" featuring Shin Dong-h...

2015-04-25 First-time TNKR speaker

When I hear people say that South Koreans don't care about North Koreans, I have three main responses. 1) North Koreans are one of many groups that South Koreans don't care about. 2) The ones who do care, care a lot! Let's focus on getting them more involved rather focusing on the ones not involved. 3) It may just be that those of us engaged in activism for NK refugees need to try different methods rather than dismissing or denouncing others for not getting involved... http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2015/01/626_155820.html Last night, Saturday April 25, 2015, I met with two South Koreans to help a North Korean refugee get ready for her first public speech. Thanks so much, TNKR co-director Lee Eunkoo and TNKR coach Clare JH Yun! It will be a challenge, will be this particular speaker's first speech in English. She is also a newcomer to English. But her determination, wow! She is studying with a few coaches in the Teach North Korean Refugees project. I wish...

복날

Tomorrow is 복날 ( bok nal ). It seems to mean that it is start of the dog days of summer. So we'll be eating 삼계탕 ( sam gye tang, which is chicken broth with ginseng) to celebrate the day before the rest of Korea does so. Update #1 : You must literally rip the chicken apart with chopsticks and a spoon. It helps to wear a bib so it won't get on your clothes. The food is cooked after you order it or call ahead with reservations . Update #2 : It is pronounced by me as bok nal , but when I say it Koreans around me don't understand until I pronounce it as " bok nallllllll ." This is a common problem with the little Korean that I can say. I'll say it, Koreans will say I speak Korean well, then ask each other in Korean, "What did he say?" Update #3 : James explains that I am probably pronouncing bok nal incorrectly. Instead, it is probably better to pronounce it "bong nahl ." I have the feeling I still won't be understood unless I say ...

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