Only 1 nobel prize for Korea? Racism I tell you. At the very least Hwang Woo-suk deserves the noblel prize for literature. His science fiction captured the hearts and ovaries of people the world over. Thousands of Koreans still immerse themselves in the fantasy world he created. “Lord of the Rings” eat your heart out!

Sanctions?

Heck — I say let’s put a real albatross around the neck of the NORKS by giving them the South!

Here’s a question: don’t the Koreans realize that these irrational emotional outbursts do more to alienate everyone than create sympathy for their “plight”? The same can be said for the Yasukuni issue and when they protest against US military presence in their country. They come off looking like lunatics. Don’t they get it?

In most countries in the world, children are taught that violent, emotional outbursts are signs of immaturity and that nothing good will come of them. I wonder what Korean kids get taught at home. Do Korean parents actually teach their kids to throw tantrums when things don’t go the way they want or when something “bad” happens? Do Korean kids learn by example, watching their parents and other adults throw tantrums? I think the topic of “raising children the Korean way” would make for fascinating — if shocking — study…

First, we have this website – Japundit complain about Chinese and Korean protests about Yasukuni Shrine Visits and how “irrational” the people are against the dear Japanese. Then they link stuff like Hwang’s incident back to the Japanese when this matter has absolutely nothing to do with Japan or the Japanese?

What can i draw from this? That this website is just trying to generate publicity by coming up provocative postings which has no basis.

Advice to Plunge: We should just save our time and stop posting on this website. The site editors are just trying to generate more traffic for this website so that they can get more advertisement revenue.

And just to be clear about this, while the country was initially supportive of Hwang when news of his illicit activities broke (heck, so was I), once it was demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that Hwang’s action were beyond the pale, support turned to feelings of anger and betrayal, not just because he’s a lier and a fraud who brought disgrace to the nation, but also because he received a lot of tax money while bringing about said disgrace. The nutjobs in the photos are just that-nutjobs-and are recognized as such by most Koreans. Which is not to say that extreme nationalism wasn’t a problem in the Hwang case; when the story first broke, people and media skeptical of Hwang voiced their criticism only at their own risk (ask MBC), but there’s no need to tar an entire nation because a bunch of Hwang Cult wackos decided to make a scene at SNU, especially when there are more fundamental issues in the Hwang case that need to be addressed.

provocative postings which has no basis

And the above image is PhotoShopped?

some chinese who farted in mainland china

I think the theory goes: If everyone in China farts at the same time…

We should just save our time and stop posting on this website.

Don’t let the cyber door hit you in the butt on the way out.

Diamondback: I am not disputing that the protests does not exist nor the fact that the protestors are nuts to support a liar.

My phrase “no basis” is referring to JP’s ‘theory’ that the fury is linked to the fact that Japan has lots of Nobel Prize Winner.

And to set the record straight again. . . My friend told me that I got it wrong the first time. The feeling of national disgrace over Nobel Prizes is something that drives some South Korean scientists in general. Not necessarily a cause for the pro-Hwang demos.

I corrected it in the story above.

‘you know the “Butterfly Effect” in quantum physics? At least, i have some scientific basis for my theory…’

Ah, the appeal to scientific sounding terms. Unfortunately for you, your grasp of science is about as good as your grasp on Japan-Korea relations. The “butterfly” effect has nothing to do with “quantum physics”.

Quantum mechanics, and its successor quantum electrodynamics, describe the physics of the very small (electrons, protons, light (photons), etc) and their interactions.

The “butterfly effect” is basically a bad example to help explain the sensitivity to initial conditions found in chaos/complexity theory to lay people.

I could go on and even touch on the geology of earthquakes, but it’s clear that Jozee’s scientific education is more of the “cargo cult” and psuedoscience variety and not the kind that brought forth the integrated circuit, landed men on the moon, and helps people to live longer lives, ie, the very research that many South Koreans are working hard on today.

Korea’s phone call from Sweden will come, I’m sure, their efforts in biology will bear fruit, and there’s a lot of very talented people working on cutting edge research. It’s unfortunate that Hwang’s gross ethical lapses has brought a cloud over all of it.

The country who’s president is against cloning is trying to steal their cloning technology?

RE: Oh please, you get this type of behavior all over the world. You have massive riots in the middle east over cartoons, you have riots in Europe over soccer games, you have riots in the US over certain trials or sporting events. Trying to make these emotional outbursts a “Korean Thing” is petty. It happens nearly everywhere.

Yes, when Muslims destroy property and create havoc over, ahem, a cartoon, the world thinks “these people are immature and dangerous.” But whether one agrees or disagrees with Muslims who protest in Palestine, Iraq and elsewhere, at least they are reacting to a. events that happened days before the riots, and b. except in the case of the cartoon, events that can conceivably cause immediate political, economic, or physical damage to them.

And yes, people in the US and other countries do, from time to time, stage demonstrations that turn violent.

But I think what people find so troubling with Koreans is that EVERY ISSUE, no matter how slight, no matter how deep in the past, becomes a MAJOR BATTLE GROUND, and therefore seems to justify any base, ugly, behavior. Such as spitting.

I mean, feel strongly about important issues, fine. Express your opinions passionately and forcefully on vital issues, fine. But after awhile, the constant stream of vitriol from Korea and Koreans just gets to be “the same old same old” and people just dismiss them as lunatics.

Sorry, but that’s the way Koreans are perceived. Maybe instead of arguing (yet another argument involving Koreans??) it would be more productive to reflect a bit on this tendency to turn every issue into a violent outburst??

And since I’m on a roll, let me give just one more example:

Some years ago I was having a pleasant conversation with a Korean and we got to talking about Hangul. He was explaining how the Korean alphabet was created and why, and such. Then he said that the Korean alphabet was the “greatest alphabet in the world” for its simplicity and for the (what still seems to me puzzling) “fact” that the letters form the shapes of the mouth when you pronounce the corresponding sound. He demonstrated for me and, sorry, but I couldn’t see much resemblance between the letters he wrote and the shape of his mouth. Then, when I pointed out to him that Japanese hiragana are similarly (not “better” or “more than,” just “similarly”) easy to learn and have a direct 1-to-1 relationship to the sound they indicate (unlike English letters, whose pronounciation changes from time to time), he became at first irate and then red-faced with anger, to the point that I actually felt he had turned, in the blink of an eye, into a raving lunatic.

All I did was point out that Japanese hiragana seem to have some of the same positive characteristics as Korean Hangul. He was intensely insulted that I “couldn’t see” that Hangul were “clearly superior to any alphabet on earth.”

At this point, one simply walks away from the raving lunatic and pities him.

This is why I don’t get into such discussions very much with Koreans or Chinese, but especially Koreans. Being Japanese myself, I do fear that they might actually turn into raving lunatics as you describe, and a lot of the Koreans and Chinese I associate with are colleagues or people I see or work with regularly. Having raving lunatics as your associates, or inadvertantly turning them into one by bringing up Japan in an otherwise innocuous conversation, is generally not a good idea.

Wow, are you a racist with everyone you work with or just Chinese and Koreans? Got some ridiculous generalizations about Jews, Arabs or Blacks that you’d like to throw in next?

Plunge: Time for you to cool it too.
Also time for you to look up the word “racist” in the dictionary. Since when do Koreans equate to Jews, Arabs, or “Blacks”?

I can understand your wanting to defend Koreans, but what you don’t seem to understand is that this is the *international* perception of Koreans, and not just one from the Japanese or a few individuals. (Clive James wrote an interesting article years ago about being in the middle of a Korean demonstration you might look around for.)

I’ve also read articles in the Korean press (in English) about the serious problems that have arisen when Korean companies establish a business presence overseas and the Korean managers “lose it” when dealing with their local subordinates. (Apparently, mostly in Third World countries)

You might also understand how the Japanese would be a little apprehensive even in innocent situations. Take shop clerks, for example. Merchants in Japan think the “customer is king”, and actually act like it. Almost obsequious.

People used to that behavior are bound to be taken aback when going into a Korean shop and deal with clerks that act as if they’re pissed off at the world and are taking it out the first customer they see. (Oddly, in my experience this was younger women who acted that way, though most behaved sweetly with me.) It may not be a majority, but even a few stand out when you’re used to “it never happens”.

He didn’t call anyone a raving lunatic. He just said he was afraid they might turn into one if the subject of Japan was introduced into an innocuous conversation.

Wow, are you a racist with everyone you work with or just Chinese and Koreans? Got some ridiculous generalizations about Jews, Arabs or Blacks that you’d like to throw in next?

Yes, I’m a fat racist pig with everyone I work with. That’s why I go out of my way to try not to potentially piss them off by bringing up sensitive matters like Korean/Japanese relations or politics, even if THEY initiate it.

Somehow, I’m not surprised that this came from someone whose website is titled “Plunge Pontificates”. Judging by your posts here, you likely are one of those “raving lunatics”.

my point? the media and their interests have a strong hand in framing, exaggerating and spinning events and cultures. seek the truth, read between the lines.

Maybe so, but in this case, I fail to see how there is “anything between the lines” of irrational people blindly following a man that has been clearly proven to be a fraud. The emotional attachment is what I fail to see, and is likely also where the rest of the world is still confused. I can understand if they’re upset because they were promised cures by this guy, but I fail to see how hanging on to a lie, and attacking the people who pointed out the lie is productive. I’m not a legal expert, but had this hypothetically happened with an American scientist, he’d likely be looking at countless lawsuits from people he promised to cure. Maybe Korean law doesn’t allow for this kind of recourse, but the anger from these protesters is still grossly misguided. Basically, they would rather live a lie and be recognized as such in the eyes of the world, rather than pick up the pieces and move on. If their dream is to gain the world’s recognition by succeeding at cloning human ES cells, emotional outbursts like these pictured above ain’t the way about it.

Regarding the pronunciation of hiraganas, actually there are dozens of other distinctions (hiragana pronouced differently depending on the context).
However, Japaneese usually don’t hear them.

Exemples include vocalisations or not of isolated consonants, pronunciations of the n hiragana as n or m, open or close pronunciation of vowels etc.

It remains true that it is remarkably straightforward as a whole. But it is very far from being a bijection.

wind: I did not get my impressions of Koreans largely or solely from the media. I gave you a single example of an experience I had conversing with a Korean. I could relate dozens of such personal experiences, since I live in a major US urban area and have had many opportunities to meet Koreans both personally and in business settings. I have been to Korea twice and had many of the same negative experiences at shops that Ampotan related in his post above. I have also been to Japan several times and was shocked at how vastly different my treatment is there vis-a-vis in Korea.

Of course, I have met perfectly rational, level-headed, intelligent Koreans. This is not an issue of unfounded hatred of an entire people. I don’t *hate* anyone, individually or as a group.

I simply pointed out a general perception of Koreans that stems directly from the behavior Koreans tend to exhibit.

And since I’m “on a roll” here once again, I’ll relate to you one last story:

In a suburban town in the US the population of Koreans was steadily rising for many years. This was a good and welcome thing, since the Koreans were buying up real estate, running local businesses, and generally injecting some energy into the local economy.

After awhile, the fire department in the area noticed that the majority of Korean-owned stores and businesses had signs outside that read ONLY in hangul. Fire department officials visited the business-owners and asked them to add English words to the signs so that in case of fire the fire department would at least know if there were chemicals or other things potentially harmful, poisonous, etc if ignited in a fire.

The Korean business-owners refused.

So the fire department went to the town council, explained the situation, and got an ordinance passed requiring all businesses and shops with foreign-language signs to include English words for safety. Not take down foreign-language signs; simply add English words.

The local Korean community went ballistic. They protested, they wrote vitriolic letters to the newspaper, they marched, they called the town council members racists who were trying to “destroy the Korean heritage.”

The local Hispanic business-owners asked for some monetary compensation to help cover the cost of having new signs made. They got it.

Now look, here’s an example that happened near where I live. I witnessed it. And it just shows what I and others have been saying here:

No one “hates” the Koreans as a people. We simply witness what they say and do and throw up our hands in disgust, the way we would if the neighbor’s undisciplined kid threw a tantrum out on the street.

Again, maybe Koreans should spend some of their time and energy reflecting on why they blow everything that happens to them so out of proportion and throw tantrums in public so often, instead of trying to convince the world that there’s nothing wrong with throwing tantrums every time something happens.

Hmm. Wikipedia’s article on Hwang paints him in a decidedly less sympathetic light. I’m eeriely reminded of the “science by press conference” approach taken by the cold fusion researchers when I read about Hwang’s press conferences announcing the cloning of the cows.

According to the article, the SNU panel concluded that Hwang knew about his junior female staffers donating eggs, since he passed out the paperwork and even accompanied one to get the extraction procedure done (the procedure, if it’s anything like egg retrieval done for IVF is painful w/o anesthsia). I find his claim he wasn’t aware of the Helsinki Declaration to stretch credulity. That’s like a US lawyer saying they weren’t aware of the Bill of Rights.

the koreans rock. much better than those poncey murdering paedo wankers in japan

Well, no surprise there…Koreans hate hearing anything negative about their country..which basically means, “I dont want to hear anything true about my people and country and only want to hear about how Koreans are the best looking, smartest, strongest at sports, and most intelligent ingenous people in all of history and in the world”.

Yep..that sums up the typical Korean indoctrination that is breast fed to them from birth.