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Opinion

Mon, December 17, 2018 | 14:15

Opinion > Blogs >

The adventures of Captain Patrick Hodnett: An Irishman in 19th Century Asia (part 5)

For nearly a week the Zephyr remained at Jemulpo and, because there was little to see or do, Captain Hodnett soon grew bored and decided to visit Seoul some 26 miles away. Most travelers went by pony or were carried in palanquins but a few, probably those on a strict budget or ...

The adventures of Captain Patrick Hodnett: An Irishman in 19th century Asia (Part 4)

At the beginning of September 1884, the urge to run along “unsurveyed and unexplored” shores took hold of Captain Patrick Hodnett. To satisfy his wanderlust, he decided to sail to Korea from Yokohama aboard his schooner, Zephyr. Korea wasn't exactly unexplored. There were small...

The adventures of Captain Patrick Hodnett: An Irishman in 19th century Asia (part 3)

Sometime in the late 1870s or early 1880, Captain Patrick Hodnett purchased a small schooner he christened Zephyr. It was his pride and joy and he often referred to it as his yacht. We already know that Hodnett found great pleasure in “running along an unsurveyed and unexplored...

Notes from Seoul Fashion Week, October 2018

I have just finished covering Seoul Fashion Week and am now at Vietnam International Fashion Week to look at fashion there and Korean influence on it, which I have seen and been told is considerable. Rather than an extended prose description, I will allow the photos and caption...

Fashion field notes from Danang

As an ethnographer, I'm always thinking about people, the groups they see themselves as part of, and the way they define discrete cultures. As a visual sociologist, I think about our extremely visual culture in which identity and the very important economic acts of consumption ...

Multiculturalism: Korea's most obstinate 'iron cage'

I'm going to do something writers aren't supposed to do - lose the reader immediately. Well, that's not actually my goal, since I'm doing this deliberately with the goal of making a point. And the first line of this piece, along with the gob-stopping opening image, should be en...

Korea without smartphones

Imagine Korea without smartphones. When I make this suggestion, the response I receive from Koreans is one of intense fascination. But the assumption they make is that I am going to describe a futuristic “smart city” in which we no longer will use smart phones because informati...

NK sanctions: Green light for profit seekers and red light for concerned citizens

Although the newspapers give us wall-to-wall reports about the tight economic sanctions that North Korea is subject to, sanctions meant to bring it to its knees and make it give up its nuclear weapons program forever, we also observe a steady flow of articles about meetings bet...

The 'crimes' of BTS and the hidden issues behind reparations

The November tour of Japan planned for rising Korean boy band BTS displayed the potential to become a massive commercial and economic success that would go beyond even Psy's “Gangnam Style” in Japan, and around the world. The popularity of BTS with young Japanese also had the p...

Me Cook? No, You Cook!

Years ago, I saw a birthday party ruined in spectacular fashion. An American friend, an advanced Korean language learner, was chatting with two Korean women who began ridiculing his pronunciation, repeating to each other “Mikuk” (not “Miguk,” which means American) several times...

14-year-old j.knife surprises Korean indie fans with folk-pop album 'Familiar Sounds'

When most Koreans are 14 years old, or 15 Korean age, they're studying hard in preparation for high school, and already readying themselves for the college entrance exam that will decide their entire futures. Jennifer Kim may not be much different, but she also somehow makes th...

Smart factories and forthcoming Personal Video Information Protection Act

One of my clients is a software development start-up that is jumping on the bandwagon of the deep learning Smart Factory system. In the course of developing an automatic system to analyze the progress of shipbuilding for a leading Korean shipbuilder, a system that applies deep-...

The relationship between 'smart contracts' and vending machines

Our lives are closely related to contracts. Let's take my way to work today as an example. I turned on a music streaming app and left home listening to music. I entered the subway station by checking in with my transport card. I was thirsty, so I bought some water from the vend...

We hear music all around us in our everyday lives. There is music, not played directly by us, in all sorts of public places such as shopping malls, cafes, restaurants, clothing stores and gyms, and we recognize it as a normal part of our social environment. However, is this mus...

My life at a Korean law firm (part 41)

In the fall semester of 2006 I was approached by a fellow lecturer at H University with an idea for starting a business. This man, whom I will call Robin, was a member of the Employment English team. He told me the had spoken to some expat executives of foreign corporations in ...

My life at a Korean law firm (part 40)

Teaching at a Korean university was an interesting experience, and I learned a lot. I had not previously taught at a university in Australia, but I had studied at two, so some differences were easily spotted. My memory is not perfect, and things may have changed since then, so ...

My life at a Korean law firm (part 39)

In my second semester at H University, I began teaching two new content-based courses. The first was one that I designed and taught alone, an introduction to Korean-to-English translation. As far as I know it had never been taught at that school before, so I was surprised by ho...

Defectors 'amazed' by South Koreans' positive reactions to Kim's Seoul visit

On December 9, several North Korean refugees visited the Teach North Korean Refugees (TNKR) office at the invitation of a TNKR student studying in the organization. The refugees were in agreement in denouncing South Koreans for welcoming Kim Jung-un to South Korea

Defectors' view of Kim Jong-un's Seoul visit

I'm busy with other things, such as learning English, so I don't really think about Kim Jong-un. Even when I was in North Korea, I didn't really care about him. A wonderful thing about being in freedom is that I am free to ignore North Korea and Kim.

A North Korean defector's account of English speech contest

Saturday November 3 was a regular day for most people in the world, and it started that way for me too. I got up as usual, I got dressed. Then I headed out to be an assistant at the second English speech contest hosted by the Korea Hana Foundation, the government agency that as...

When color can be too much

I love color - sometimes too much. But there are times when color simply gets in the way of a good photograph. Bright colors can enhance, but they can distract. Often the better photograph focuses on tone and patterns. In such cases, monotone (black and white) photographs are t...

Finding your kind of street photography

If you ask serious photographers just what is “street photography,” you are likely to find many definitions. At times, street photography can resemble travel photography. But travel photography tends to be less artistic and more about personal documentation of one's experiences...

Festivals make great photos

Jongro-3ga, Lantern Parade. All photos by Tom CoynerTom CoynerWith the warming temperatures, come festivals and similar events. These colorful events are both challenging and rewarding. They can be confusing as a three-ring circus in determining what to photograph, and it can b...

Santa is everywhere