Words Without Borders issue on Korean literature.
Category Archives: not homework
Outside evaluation
Apparently, I’m being a little hard on my students. Do you think so?
For the record, two of you did question 3, two did question 4a and two did question 5.
North Korea in Pictures
Here’s a Foreign Policy photoessay from 2009 (registration required) by a photographer whose speciality is still-Communist societies after the fall of the Soviet Union and most other Communist states. Here’s his latest, on an unabashedly Maoist town in China.
Reparations and Remains
Japan Focus has a round-up of articles about current issues in Japan-Korea historical reconciliation. I’m particularly interested in the Ahn Jung-geung articles: I understand why he’s considered a hero in Korean history, though I do think there’s some oddity in the current push to raise his profile.
North Korean Pavilion at Shanghai Expo
We now have pictures and a brief description of the soon-to-be-open North Korean pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai. I don’t think it’s actually going to change many minds about North Korea….
Heir Apparent Appears
Kim Jong Il’s third son, Kim Jong Un, hasn’t been seen in public by the West in a decade or more, but Japan’s Mainichi Shinbun thinks they spotted him. More importantly, he’s starting to take the positions that Kim Jong Il did before he took over from Kim Il Sung. So, maybe.
South Korea’s Suicide Rate
The Washington Post reports on the relatively recent and dramatic rise. It’s worth noting that ‘stress’ is not usually considered a factor in suicide risk assessment, no matter how easy it would be for journalists if it were. Nor does the internet actually increase suicide risk, though the ‘contagion’ factor of famous cases might have some basis in actual science.
Colonial Ethnography
Sayaka Chatani at Frog In a Well has an interesting post on anthropological and folklore studies in Colonial Korea, particularly about one ethnographer who seems to have taken a surprisingly sympathetic and marxist view of his subject.
Cell Phones in North Korea?
NYTimes reports on new information project: smuggling Chinese-network cell phones into NK to interview locals
Gender Balance
This Economist article is mostly about China and India, but notes South Korea’s retreat from the brink of a gender imbalance disaster.