· May, 2007

Stories about East Asia from May, 2007

Japan: Agriculture Minister commits suicide

  28 May 2007

James at Japan Probe writes about news reports indicating that the head of Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Matsuoka Toshikatsu, committed suicide today, noting that the suicide could be in response to news from a few days ago that Minister Matsuoka had received 13 million yen in donations.

Japan: Love Hotels Find a Way

  28 May 2007

With great photos and a lot of background information, Ampontan explains how, despite many obstacles, love manages to “find a way” in Japan: “Love will find a way […] and in Japan that way is usually in a “love hotel”. Since the urge is eternal, the Japanese have no problem...

Korea: Bloggers are not reporters

  27 May 2007

On the 19th of this month, one of the major internet portal sites announced the new period of blog journalism in Korea. Their section, media daum blogger news which opened last November, like other portal sites chose blogger reporters within their portal site, and showed news from their own blogger...

What terms for parents are popular in Korea

  27 May 2007

A blogger discovered what terms for parents are popular in Korea through the search engines of several major portal sites. According to the table and graph that he (she) made, father (a-beo-ji) is used more than dad (a-bba) and, on the other hand, mom (eom-ma) is used more than mother...

Whatever Roh Moo-hyun says is unbearable!

  27 May 2007

Whatever Roh Moo-hyun says is unbearable! A blogger criticized how conservative media distort what he says, showing how major media source interpreted his speech comparing the whole speech of his when he attended the launching ceremony of the destroyer ‘se-jong-dae-wang-ham’ on the 25th.

Love for students and rapper trainee teacher.

  27 May 2007

Love for students and rapper trainee teacher. Finishing his practice teaching at a middle school, a trainee teacher expressed his love for students with a rap song which he composed and made it into a video clip on the internet. It was hit more than 65,000 times so far. Students...

The best strategy to lose weight.

  27 May 2007

The best strategy to lose weight. A year ago, a blogger bought a bicycle and commuted to work on it. He shows a graph of his weight for a year, which makes it clear that bicycling caused his weight to drop (and then to rise again when he stopped temporarily)....

Malaysia: Blog Directory Thoughts

  27 May 2007

Unspun is asking readers to share their thoughts on Malaysia largest newspaper and a legal gambling group joining together to form a bloggers directory.

Lotto Fever strikes BIG in Japan

  26 May 2007

People across Japan turned out in large numbers last week to line up and get their hands on tickets for “BIG”, a variation on the soccer lottery “toto” operated by the National Agency for the Advancement of Sports and Health. The combined sales figure for all soccer lottery tickets was...

Singapore's Myanmarese Go Online for Double Taxation Petition

  26 May 2007

Myanmar residents abroad have to pay an additional tax to the Myanmar government in addition to the tax they pay in their host countries. Failure to pay this this tax results in Myanmar embassy denying them consular services. Myanmarese residents in Singapore are using their blogs and other online means to get support for a petition to avoid this double taxation.

Korea:Is Sexual Harrassment just for Women?

  26 May 2007

While sexual harassment is regarded as the worst scenario that would happen to women and the weak, a male blogger insists that men also run into harassment in their daily lives through his and his friends’ experiences. His post has received a lot of responses especially from young bloggers. It...

Israel: Myths About the Asian Community

Israeli blogger Fily discusses myths about the Asian community in Israel. “Why, I wonder, don’t the Asian students mingle with the locals? Why is it that the Israelis obsessed with Asia don’t make the effort to try to meet the Asian students? You see, I know that some of my...

How the South is financing the North's internet connection

Reseau International de correspondants writes about pricing inequalities in the international telecom system (Fr) that place a disproportionate burden of payment on developing countries to the extent that “the South is financing the North” and it is in effect “three times more expensive to connect to the internet” in developing...

South Korea: Creative Leadership

  25 May 2007

Former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) formally announced his presidential candidacy yesterday. Matt from Gust of Popular Feeling wrote some background about Lee's creative leadership: “creative leadership” mostly means “throw money at construction companies.”

Japan: Cat shooting game

  25 May 2007

Japan Probe introduces a new game, cat shooting game, from the Neko Games team. You can click to play here.

Vietnam: Fibre Optic Cable Looting

  25 May 2007

SaigonNezumi writes about Vietnamese authorities nabbing under sea fiber-optic cable robbers. The bloggers asks “Who are the ones telling these smugglers the exact locations of the fiber-optic lines?”

Japan: Spring swallows

  25 May 2007

Overoften blogs about Japanese spring time with very nice photos of the swallows under his roof.

Thailand: Blogspot Blocked

  25 May 2007

Bangkok Pundit writes about Thai internet service providers blocking blogs hosted on the popular blogspot.com domain. Seems the domain was blocked as there were some blogs hosted on the domain that were deemed offensive by the Thai ministry of communication and information technology.

About our East Asia coverage

Oiwan Lam
Oiwan Lam is the North East Asia editor. Email her story ideas or volunteer to write.

Mong Palatino
Mong Palatino is the South East Asia editor. Email him story ideas or volunteer to write.