The Korea Times

A unified candidate - Ahn or Oh?

By Park Moo-jong “Unexpected” by-elections in the nation's two largest cities, Seoul and Busan, are expected to serve as a crucial barometer of public opinion ahead of the next presidential poll slated for March 9, 2022.The rare by-elections on April 7 in the capital city of Seoul and the largest port city of Busan are the shameful products of the mayors' sexual harassment scandals. Coincidentally, the two disgraced mayors are from the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK). Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon committed suicide last July just after his alleged sexual harassment of his secretary was made public, while Busan Mayor Oh Keo-don resigned last April after admitting his sexual harassment of a city official and is now standing trial. Now, let's see how the wind blows. In the largest port city of Busan, Park Heong-joon from the opposition People Power Party (PPP) is taking a comfortable lead over the ruling DPK's Kim Young-choon despite the Moon Jae-in administration's apparent pork-barreling decision to build a new Busan international airport on Gadeok Island. Thus, the pub

Mar 17, 2021By Park Moo-jong

Republic of Korea Quo Vadis?

By Park Moo-jongFour years ago in 2017, I wrote a column titled “Quo Vadis Korea” about the then commotion and trouble we Koreans were experiencing following the National Assembly impeachment of then President Park Geun-hye over the corruption and cronyism scandal dubbed “Choi Soon-sil gate.”I wrote, “I am afraid the Republic of Korea may be drifting quickly toward the shameful times of 71 years ago in 1946 when an 'all or nothing' confrontation between the left and right forces split the people in a grave social chaos.”At that time, the rivals confronted each other through respective street protests over whether to accept or reject the trusteeship by the United States and the Soviet Union, thus eventually leading to national division in 1948 and North Korea's invasion of the South provoking the 1951-1953 Korean War, called by South Koreans the “June 25 War.”The embattled President Park finally lost her job after the Constitutional Court approved the impeachment and Moon Jae-in from the left wing won the ensuing presidential election to

Feb 25, 2021By Park Moo-jong

Missing the traditional routine of Seollal

By Park Moo-jongTomorrow is the first “genuine” day of 2021, the Year of the Ox, in the lunar calendar observed in many Asian countries, including China, South Korea and Vietnam. South Koreans celebrate the Lunar New Year holiday or “seollal” with a three-day holiday beginning today.Seollal used to be the season of going home for family reunions, particularly between children working in big cities and their parents living in rural villages, with a traditional exodus of more than 20 million people making trips homeward.With gifts in their hands ― though small ― and some cash in their wallets, people travel to their hometowns to see their parents, relatives and friends, and to pay respects to their ancestors together in a ritual called “charye” on the morning of Lunar New Year's Day.Yet, we are now living in a quite different world that we have never experienced due to the vicious COVID-19 pandemic.What was the traditional landscape of the seollal of bygone years like?Every year there used to be a war to book tickets for buses, trains, boats or plane

Feb 10, 2021By Park Moo-jong

More deaths than births

By Park Moo-jong Fifteen years ago in 2006, David Coleman, a population expert and demographer at the Oxford Centre for Population Research, warned that South Korea could become the first country on the planet to lose its entire population because of its low birthrate. Six years ago in 2015, the National Assembly Research Service released a dreadful report that South Korea will be “empty” by 2750 without any effective efforts to halt its falling birthrate. Though the worst-case scenario predicts the situation after 735 years, it must have given the people the creeps: “Koreans will be extinct by 2750.”The same year, the U.S. CIA World Factbook said that the sound of babies crying is increasingly disappearing in South Korea due to the ever-dropping birthrate, which was only behind Singapore in 2014. Apparently shocked by the 2006 Oxford Centre's warning, the government hurriedly set up the Low Birthrate, Aging Society Committee under the direct control of the president to boost the then shockingly low birthrate of 1.08.Fifteen years later in 2021, a government r

Jan 28, 2021By Park Moo-jong

Shameful political legacy

By Park Moo-jongThe Republic of Korea has a shameful political legacy: All 11 former presidents lived or are living unhappy lives after their forced or legal retirement. In particular, what a disgrace to have two surviving ex-Presidents behind bars, though they were convicted of various corruption charges!The post-White House life of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter who served from 1977 to 1981 makes a good comparison with those of our former presidents. President Jimmy Carter largely failed, but former President Carter seems to have succeeded.As a mediator for international conflicts, an esteemed human rights crusader and a contributor to the Habitat for Humanity movement in his spare time, Carter won the coveted Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Many people acknowledge this Carter with his silvery hair and toothy smile who has devoted himself, armed with a hammer and nails, to helping homeless people around the globe and working for world peace and enhancing human rights. Of course, the case of Donald Trump, who will be an ex-president of the United States, six days from now, will be qu

Jan 14, 2021By Park Moo-jong

'Things work out'

By Park Moo-jong A half century ago in 1971, British singer-songwriter Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam since 1978, praised the first morning of the year, Jan. 1, in his Christian hymn-turned-pop song, “Morning Has Broken.” Whatever 2021, the “Year of the Metal Ox,” will be, the start of the year is not that bright due to stubborn difficult circumstances surrounding the peninsula and the raging COVID-19 pandemic. To add insult to injury, the new year, signifying peace and leisure according to the Chinese zodiac related to the lunar calendar, took the first step with the season's coldest wave of around minus 10 degrees Celsius, naturally keeping people indoors (To be precise, the Year of the Ox starts on Feb. 12, New Year's Day in the lunar calendar, but traditionally and for convenience sake, we also regard Jan. 1 as the first day of the new zodiac animal).This January, named after the Latin word for door, “ianua,” meaning the door to the year and an opening to new beginnings, is conventionally thought of as being named after Janus, the god of beginnin

Dec 31, 2020By Park Moo-jong

'You're right, I'm wrong'

By Park Moo-jong The literally turbulent year of 2020 is drawing to a close amid the never-ending fear of the coronavirus pandemic and ever-worsening social divisions, accelerated by deep-rooted political greed, particularly in this part of the world.Asked to define this outgoing year in a word, most of us, quite naturally, would choose the dreadful word COVID-19 that forces us to live in a world we have not experienced before as it goes against our daily routines. The unprecedented global disease in modern society tells us that there is no safety in numbers, ordering us to keep the new rules of social distancing. Namely, “United we fall, divided we stand.” Yet, professors, the very intellectuals of society, had a different idea to best describe the year 2020. They lamented the vicious social and political trend of “never admitting one's own wrongdoings.” The professors chose “我是他非” pronounced “a si ta bi” as a four-letter Chinese idiom to best describe the year of 2020, meaning “I am right, you are wrong.” They have done th

Dec 24, 2020By Park Moo-jong

Moon's dipping popularity rating

By Park Moo-jong When it comes to opinion polls in this part of the planet, a majority of people would come up with some rather unfavorable views of pollsters, particularly the uses to which their work is put. What is noteworthy is the fact that many potential respondents, including me, are used to simply slamming down their phones. Why? They do not trust the pollsters because their way of questioning lacks objectivity and credibility, the basics in conducting a poll. To date, most opinion polls conducted ahead of various elections, including the last April 15 parliamentary election, gave “wrong” predictions about the results, thus losing public trust. One of the most popular words used by youngsters these days is certainly “really?” The Korean term for “really?” is “jinjja?” or “jeongmal?” Of course, this could be a matter of the linguistic habits of the growing generation of today.Many young people even use the term “Real” from the Spanish football club “Real Madrid,” though the Spanish Real means r

Dec 10, 2020By Park Moo-jong

'Hotel beggar'

By Park Moo-jong“Do you know the word, 'hoggar'?" I asked many foreign friends of mine, who asked in return, "Beg your pardon?"When I first encountered the word in the newspaper last week, I looked the term up and found it on Wikipedia: “a rocky desert in the north center of the Sahara, composed of black volcanic necks and of flows rising above a pink granite massif.”But here in Korea, “hoggar” is a newly-coined Konglish term, a compound of “hotel” and “beggar,” which is a heartbreaking product of the Moon Jae-in government's series of miserable housing policies.Now, the foreign friends understood: homeless citizens living in hotels, not deluxe ones for tourists, but something more like motels and inns with cheap walls, though it “literally” is meant to mean a “beggar living in a hotel.”The new word also reminded me of Willie Nelson's 1963 country song, “Home Motel”: “What used to be my home has changed to just a place to stay, a crumbling last resort when day is through.”In short, t

Nov 26, 2020By Park Moo-jong

'Katchi Kapshida'

By Park Moo-jongTo congratulate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on their election as the next president and vice president of the United States, President Moon Jae-in tweeted before an official statement: “I have great expectations of advancing and opening up the future of development of our bilateral relations. Katchi Kapshida.”“Katchi Kapshida” or “같이 갑시다” (in Korean) means “We go together” as a symbolic slogan of the Korea-U.S. alliance, though it is “Let's go together,” if translated literally.President Moon promptly joined other global leaders to congratulate Biden and Harris as new U.S. leaders in writing through his “private” social media.Biden also used the term Katchi Kapshida in a special article contributed exclusively to Yonhap News Agency just days ahead of the election, pledging to strengthen the alliance with South Korea, rather than “extorting Seoul with reckless threats to remove our troops.” But this is not the point of this column. What I intend to discuss is the Romanization of the Kor

Nov 12, 2020By Park Moo-jong

Park Moo-jong