I am currently sitting in Bangkok airport waiting to board a flight to Guangzhou in 25 minutes.

After 4 days in Bangkok there are many tales to tell and many pictures to show.

That'll have to wait until I get back to Korea when I can sort through the (so far) 300 odd photos.

Although I don't know when that might be. I managed to get a job on Monday before I left so it looks like a short trip to Japan might be in order next weekend...

No words, just pics:

A letter writing campaign has been started by Andrea Vandom, an International Relations PhD. candidate who has not only sent letters to NHN's Korean and American offices, but has enlisted the aid of Korean born, Irvine, CA. Mayor Kang Suk Hee.

Her correspondences with NHN have spelt out how content on the cafe are in breach of Naver's own Terms and Conditions, not to mention International agreements that Korea is a signatory to as well Korean law itself.

Gusts of Popular Feeling can fill you in More on Anti-English Spectrum's past activities here, as well as a look at the messages they've been spreading can be found here, and a closer look at their campaign to link foreign English teachers to AIDS can be found here.

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*On the topic of ATEKs press releases - If you are going to outline something about sending information to someone it might be an idea to include HOW YOU CAN DO IT. This is a press release and I am a lazy mutha f*cker, give me NHN's address and I'm more likely to join the cause.

Secondly What's p with sending a second email saying, "Oh sorry, change the title of the Press release so i actually says what we meant it to say the first time...?

Keep trying.

Things are definitely afoot in the Korean mobile space with SK Telecom coming out yesterday saying they are about to jump on the Android bandwagon - in spite of Apple it would seem:

SK Telecom, South Korea's biggest mobile telephony carrier, plans to release a "smart" phone powered by the Google-backed Android operating system next year.

Korea Times

Like the would-be iPhone this would have some serious ramifications for the Korean Internet sphere as a whole - in particular favouring Google in one of the few markets where it is not the dominant search/cloud player. From the same K-Times article:

"The local smart phone market will gain an additional momentum for expansion as local carriers and handset vendors are strengthening their smart phone-related line-ups and services," Kim Sung-in, an analyst at Kium Securities, said.

The company is currently talking with local phone giants Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics about developing handsets based on Android 2.0, the latest version of the open-source operating system, which it plans to release sometime during the first half of 2010.

Here is what Android on a Samsung headset looks like, the ubiquitous Chaebol having offered up it's first Android phone in The States earlier this month:

(Via Engadget Mobile)

Nice. That cube interface is butter!

Of course the reason for SKT for jumping on the Android bandwagon? Well they say things along the line of uncertainty of popularity. (You're kidding m right?) and profitability. That latter one is a little more believable in that I be SK Telecom doesn't want to enter into the revenue sharing agreement that Apple imposes on it's resellers.

Some SK Telecom insiders told The Korea Times that the company's top decision-makers are seriously considering dropping the company's previous plans to release the iPhone.

Although KT, SK Telecom's bitter industry rival, is betting heavily on Apple's iconic handset, SK Telecom officials claim that Android-powered phones may prove to be better for data processing and securing a wider range of applications.

Apparently, SK Telecom is not crazy about the idea of sharing data revenue with Apple, as the American device maker does with all of its partner carriers around the world.

Well exactly....

The thing that will fuck things up entirely will be SKT's need to meddle in proven markets, in this case the Android App store. They sure as hell aren't happy at not being able to control iPhone apps sold directly through the App Store in iTunes, the openness of the Android platform allows SK Telecom to stick their sticky midget fingers right in there!

The company was also concerned about surrendering its tight control of the content value chain, as the carrier wouldn't get anything from software downloads on Apple's App Store online applications market.

However enormous charges on data, and SK Telecom's poor effort with it's WinMo Application store don't bode too well at all.

Read the rest here.

 

Hey Ju Yeong! Fuck You!

Go and read Gusts of Popular Feeling to find out why.

Starting in the fall semester next year, around 100 teachers from India will be teaching English at elementary, middle and high schools nationwide, a high-ranking official with the Education Ministry said yesterday.

Such is globalisation. From a personal standpoint this news doesn't come as a surprise with it being hinted earlier during FTA negotiations, and a growing acceptance of sending Korean kids to The Philippines to learn English being fairly large signposts along the way.

The ministry will recruit around 100 Indians early next year and if the trial is successful, it could raise the number to 300. The source said there is a high chance that those teachers will be dispatched to regions outside the Seoul metropolitan area where there is a shortage of native English teachers.

Fair enough. There is some serious regional imbalance when it comes to furnishing country schools with Native English Speaking Teachers. The question needs to be asked though - Are jobs for NESTs from "The Big 7" being outsourced to India?

Well if they're hiring 100 probably not. But Brian raises some interesting points. The first is something of a hobby horse for him and directly relates to this comment from the above article from an unnamed Ministry of Education official:

The ministry has spent more than 300 million won a year on hiring and training those teachers but experienced difficulty gaining sufficient “qualified” teachers, given that only 13 percent of them have official teaching certificates.

[emphasis mine]

That's right. Somehow tied to this is the old "qualified" vs "unqualified" argument spouted by any number of Government and education professionals. Brian rightly points out:

I wrote about the misuse of "qualified" and "unqualified" in the Korea Herald in June, and have addressed it many times on this site, to such an extent that I thought we moved beyond that misnomer. I guess it bears repeating, for those who missed it the last few times around, that it is Korea itself that determined a four-year degree and the right passport are the qualifications for teaching English here. It is safe to say that nearly all the teachers in Korea are thus "qualified," and those who aren't slipped by a sleeping immigration.

Brian in Jeollanam-do

Check out Brian here and here for variations on that same theme. Brian does however conclude with the following, somewhat dire, prediction:

I suspect it won't be too long until the NSET experiment is over.

Hmmmmm. To be honest that would probably be the best thing for Korea. But the reality is something completely different. The first thing that comes to mind is about wages. Initially I can see English teacher pay taking a nose dive in the face of South Asian teachers willing to teach for considerably less and who are probably more inclined to live together (In smaller apartments) than there American, Canadian, British, Australian, South African and New Zealander counterparts.

But my prediction is that this will only happen over the short to medium term - 2 to 3 years or 3 generations of (one year contract) South Asian teachers. Why? (You know where I'm going with this right?)

Korean education officials and Hakwon mothers are not going to stand for non-white teachers of English. This racist ignorant viewpoint is pervasive in Korea and will probably lead to a higher paid top tier of NESTs in Hakwon and private homes being used because of the perceived inadequacy of the English being taught by South Asians. As long as GA and to a lesser extent GA remain the (perceived) prestige accents, Indian English (Or Inglish as the Joong Ang calls it) will be on the outer.

As for the societal reception of South Asians in Korea, all I can say is I am glad I don't herald from the Sub Continent and live in Korea.

Armchair pundits like myself have been waiting for the iPhone for who knows how long, and hoping it's introduction on one of the two main Telecom player's networks (SK or KTF) might bring with it an opening up of things.

So far no luck.

But news (via Engadget) brings hope in the form of an Android based phoe being released by 3rd placed player LG Telecom sometime early next year:

t's looking like LG will be offering an Android phone boasting Qualcomm's hot Snapdragon chip -- which has recently squeezed its way into handsets such as the Xperia X10 and Acer's Liquid. The new LG mobile phone is expected for the Korean market in the second quarter of 2010.

Oh Yeah!

While the device is still unnamed and specs are still a mystery, LG is promising that the device will be "more mature" than the GW620 Eve, an Android device announced earlier this week for Rogers in Canada. There's no solid word on what availability of the device will be like, though LG says its considering possibilities outside of Korea.

About time! Usually it's round the other way. Look at some of the awesome Samsung and LG phones available elsewhere in the world that are never found in their home country. It's good to hear things going the other way for a change.

While I continue to want an iPhone (and may pick one up during the upcoming trip to the Thailand and The Chin-A, Android more and more is becoming the platform that I want a piece of. An open framework (As opposed to the closed off and semi-closed off worlds of Apple, and Windows Mobile respectively) Android looks more and more appealing.

In a similar vein I saw Blackberries (Blackberrys?) being sold in Gangnam Station the other day.

Itaewon. If you are a foreigner in Korea you have been here at least once during your time on the peninsula. Some will be there pretty much every week, whether it be for beers at The Wolfhound (and 2 for 1 Fish n' chips on Thursdays) or brunch at Gekos mid-morning on a Saturday. Others, like myself visit infrequently for a specific purpose or item. Something from What the Book at the top of "Hooker Hill" or, and I'll confess that nothing really fits me in Korea, some "big size" clothing. (More on that later).

How Often Do ou Go To Itaewon?

Itaewon has a chequered past. You can do the research yourself on the pre-1990s, but one need only look to the recent summer movie season and the film "Murder in Itaewon", chronicling the murder of a Korean man in the (now moved) Burger King opposite The Hamilton Hotel by two Americans, to be reminded that Itaewon has a seedy side - more than what you might encounter there on an average Friday night.

But it's not all drunken brawls between Koreans and American servicemen. Indeed there was something of a migration to the environs around Honggik University by USFK members until that was put off limits a couple of years ago essentially for the same reasons. Indeed these days there are a number of interesting and hospitable bars and restaurants catering to an increasingly diverse clientèle composed of both foreigners and Koreans and providing fare from as far away as Turkey and the Middle East  (Sultan Kebab and Petra providing fine examples) and Australia (Tony's, formerly "The Aussie Shop").

However you'd have to be both blind and deaf to not notice that Itaewon is somewhat underdeveloped compared to other parts of Seoul. Compare the main drag of Itaewon with what has gone on in Gangnam over the last 18 months. Gangnam Dae-ro has been subject to a wide-sweeping renovation widening footpaths, expelling street vendors that took up precious roadside space, better traffic management strategies including significantly altering the intersection with Taehaera-no and Gangnam Dae-ro, the provision of green space, trees and huge investment in "Media Poles" serving bus, train and area information (as well as advertising) to pedestrians through giant touch screens on the side.

By contrast in the same period of tie Itaewon has had it's footpaths renovated, the large marble slabs a welcome reprieve from the cobbles that went before them, and....

Well not much else actually. The private sector has done a little more to spruce the place up a bit, the 24 hour pit of grime and Whopper grease that served as the heart of Itaewon in the form of the afore mentioned Burger King has been moved down the road, replaced by a Quiznos and Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf upstairs. The new(~ish) building housing Outback has brought some glass to pedestrian's eye level without it being obscured by racks of shirts and other wares, yet the TomNTom's coffee atrium sticking out halfway into the street is somewhat ill conceived.

Would You Like to See Itaewon Undergo Some Form of Urban Renewal?

Likewise the effort by local government to bring a bit of uniformity to the vendors on the other side of the footpath as you walk towards the Yongsan Garrison from Exit 4 of Itaewon station. While it serves to tidy things up a bit (and probably could have been gotten away with in Gangnam) in Itaewon the uniform little brown carts with faux Korean wood prints on the back actually remove some of the character from Itaewon.
Which is not to say that these vendors aren't peddling the finest in faux Polo, Burberry, Nike and Adidas wares (some literally in front of their bone fide namesakes!) If anything the introduction of "Brand" stores is leading to something of a rejuvenation of Itaewon in and of itself, but there are some serious (and not so serious complaints) about the place that many an expat still has.

For me the lack of ATMs over the last little while has been off putting in the extreme, eased only by the opening of a whole bank of the things in the new KEB branch. Unfortunately it is at the very end of Itaewon and would be better served (or perhaps patronized?) closer to The subway exits / The Hamilton. Unfortunately a further widening of the footpaths will only lead to further traffic congestion. Surely there is one of those architectural drafts / pipe drams for the area that calls for barring all traffic from the Itaewon strip and making it a pedestrian mall. I think that would look quite nice. What is not nice is being harangued by touts.

Walk down Itaewon and you will hear the following almost constantly:

"Big Size? I have Big Size clothes."

or

"Custom suit sir? Tailored suit?"

I put to you that this is the most annoying part of any trip to Itaewon. The touts need to back off a bit if you ask me. I don't think that many tourists are heading to Itaewon these days. It's those expats with a mission (clothes, food, beer, foreign goodies) that are filling Itaewon on any given day, and if your suits are good they'll seek you out. If they want something other than a pink shirt and a shiney grey suit they will find them on their own without being yelled at by groups of young Korean men or old ones too, while they stroll, unsuspecting down the road in Itaewon.

If Yes - What Form Should This Renewal Take?

Like other parts of Seoul Itaewon is probably due for a bit of a do over a la Gangnam, or Yongsan. Especia;ly as it is one of the places touted by the government as being a "Special Tourism Zone", a unique "Foreign Cultural Town" Hub thing and various other designations it has and no doubt will garner along the way.

But over all convenience and ease of use should feature in any plan for Itaewon, the least of reasons for whch being the place it hilds in the memories and hearts of so many expats here in Korea.

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Survey results taken froom a self selecting group of respondants totalling a meagre 67 in number. No claim at scientific-ness is made.

Today I was at Dunkin Dounts and watched a girl pump (quite a lot) of hand sanatizer into her ice americano, thinking it was syrup.

Classic!