· March, 2008

Stories about South Korea from March, 2008

Korea: Roh Moo Hyun Syndrome

The popularity of the previous President, Roh Moo Hyun, in Korea seems to become a hotter issue on the Internet. A new terminology, Roh-Ganji (Roh, his family name + Ganji,...

30 March 2008

Korea: Independence Movements in Tibet and in Korea

As groups in other countries support Tibetans’ rage and criticize the violence of the Chinese government, Korean netizens are also busy making signature-seeking-campaigns or boycotting the Beijing Olympics. The participants...

20 March 2008

Korea: Part-time Lecturers and Suicide

A series of suicides of part-time college lecturers has been covered in Korean newspapers. Harsh criticisms against universities in Korea are not a few. But some netizens approach this news in other perspectives and it shows how academic jobs can be sometimes viewed.

15 March 2008

Korea: Korean Students in the U.S.

There are more than 100,000 Korean students in the U.S. It was the main news in Korea the last week. The increase of 10 percent every year helped Korea remain...

8 March 2008

Korea: Religious Encounter on the Subway

Religious issues always generate a lot of opinions from Korean netizens. One person's experience on a subway with a Buddhist monk has gained a lot of attention in the last week on a popular Korean website.

5 March 2008

South Korea: Military Service

Michael Solis from Ohmynews interviewed some conscientious objectors who have been imprisoned for refusing to partake in military service.

5 March 2008

Japan: The decline of pachinko

A staple of the modern Japanese cityscape, pachinko parlors employ a third of a million people in Japan, draw in an estimated 30 trillion yen per year, and entice roughly one quarter of the country's entire population to play at least occasionally, 17 million of them on a regular basis. With plans underway to legalize and regulate casinos in Japan, the status of such pachinko parlors has been put into question, sparking a re-assessment, in comments and blog posts, of the place of gambling in modern Japanese society.

4 March 2008