Opinion - The Korea Times

Moon and Korea's zeitgeist: a grand narrative needed

By Jason LimA Facebook friend recently posted a 2017 interview Der Spiegel did with French President Emmanuel Macron that deeply resonated with me and resulted in a lingering curiosity. What is Korea's zeitgeist today? I recall a story told by the famous Korean Buddhist monk Ven. Pomnyun when he was asked about the fate of pro-Japanese collaborators in modern Korean history. He told the audience to imagine a bright, hard-working boy who went to school every day and studied assiduously to get into law school and become a judge. As a judge, he tried his best to be impartial and rule according to the law of the land. This meant he found some criminals innocent but had to send many to prison or the noose. So far, he's just a boy who made good. He is what any parent would want in a son ― a credit to his family, hometown and country. Now imagine that this was a Korean boy doing all this during the Japanese occupation. Admirable in his personal qualities, yet he is considered a traitor to his own people. Now imagine that it's Aug. 16, 1945, the day after the Japanese surrender in World War

Nov 1, 2020By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Trembling Tiger, Roaring Dragon

By Jason LimThe Korea Society's Annual Gala Dinner held Oct. 7 was the organization's premier event of the year, held to mark the U.S.-Korea relationship and honor those who work to maintain the alliance. President Moon Jae-in gave the keynote speech, and the Van Fleet Award ― honoring those who made valuable contributions to the Republic of Korea-U.S. relationship ― to U.S. Korean War veterans Charles B. Rangel and Salvatore Scarlato, Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chairman Park Yongmaan and K-pop group BTS. In an acceptance speech, BTS's RM is quoted as mentioning “the history of pain that our two nations shared together and the sacrifices of countless men and women” when referring to the Korean War. China wasn't mentioned, but this seemingly innocuous sentence triggered a fierce backlash in China's social media landscape that supposedly forced Samsung, Hyundai and other Korean companies to remove advertisements that featured BTS from Chinese websites and social media platforms. The Chinese dragon roared, and the Korean tiger trembled. According to Bloomberg, &l

Oct 18, 2020By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Pandenomics for women

By Jason LimKorea's young women are dying during the pandemic. Not from the disease but by their own hands. Suicides among young women were up an alarming 17.9 percent in April when Korea imposed strict social distancing measures. The overall suicide rate for people in their late teens and twenties in the first half of 2020 was up by 7 percent from last year. To note, the statistics only record successful suicides, with the consensus that women attempt far more suicides than men ― they just don't succeed as often. In short, it definitely looks like that there is a parallel pandemic of suicides among young women happening in Korea right now.The Institute for Society and Health's December 2019 report stated that the increase in the suicide rate among millennial women has outpaced that of their male peers by a large margin over the last 20 years. While the mental health diagnosis will likely say depression or anxiety is the cause for attempting suicide, there are structural issues at place that make women ― especially young women ― more vulnerable to such mental diseases. Jang Soong-nan

Oct 5, 2020By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Bradykinin hypothesis

By Jason LimI'll be the first to admit that I had never heard of the term, “the bradykinin hypothesis” before. Then again, I had never heard of “cytokine storms” either before the pandemic made it into a household term.But I recently found a fascinating article recently written by Thomas Smith on Medium titled, “A Supercomputer Analyzed COVID-19 ― and an Interesting New Theory Has Emerged,” that told the story of how a supercomputer named Summit at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee crunched a massive amount of data about COVID cases and came up with an insight about how the virus causes seemingly unrelated and random symptoms from brain damage to blue toes. He writes: “When Summit was done, researchers analyzed the results. It was, in the words of Dr. Daniel Jacobson, lead researcher and chief scientist for computational systems biology at Oak Ridge, a 'eureka moment.' The computer had revealed a new theory about how COVID-19 impacts the body: the bradykinin hypothesis. The hypothesis provides a model that explains many aspects of COVID-19,

Sep 6, 2020By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

To send or not to send to school

By Jason LimAnya Kamenetz and Corey Turner recently published an article in NPR titled, “20 Questions To Help Decide What's Best For Your Kids (And You) This School Year.” As a parent of a rising 3rd grader, I responded to the questions to see where it led me. 1. Are you working? Or do you need time to look for work? Yes, I am working at a steady job, which is something that many millions of Americans don't get to do these days. This also means that I don't have to look for work, which is an all-consuming and exhausting task. 2. Do you work outside of the house and therefore need someone at home with the kids?No, I am allowed to telework fulltime since I am not considered an essential employee. Also, all my colleagues that I usually interact with on an everyday basis also telework fulltime ― this means that the default expectation for communications and collaboration is to be virtual all the time. This is important since teleworking wouldn't be nearly as effective if it was a fallback option for the in-person work environment. Teleworking is effective only when every

Aug 23, 2020By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Shattering self-betrayal

By Jason LimStrangely enough, when I heard that Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon had taken his own life, an obscure passage from one of the Dune books popped into my head. I can't recall the specific text or the even the characters that uttered the words, but the passage featured the Bene Gesserit, an all-female quasi-religious and political society, as they were planning a conspiracy against the “Kwisatz Haderach,” the all-seeing god-king. Ironically, the Bene Gesserit had purposely engaged in a carefully calculated breeding scheme over millennia to produce the Kwisatz Haderach, an individual who would be endowed with the gift of prophesy that they could use to tighten their grip over humanity. But the Kwisatz Haderach had moved beyond their control and, instead, turned into their oppressor as the emperor of the known universe. As you can sympathize, it's difficult to sneak up and kill someone who can prophesy everything about to happen in the future. So, the Bene Gesserit were consulting with Bene Tleilax, another specialized secret society, who had also created their own Kwis

Jul 17, 2020By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Not your dad's North Koreans

By Jason LimNorth Koreans of the “arduous march” generation ― those who starved to death in mid-1990s in quiet desperation while waiting in their homes for the public distribution system to deliver rations that never came ― are forever gone. Today's North Koreans are market-savvy burgeoning capitalists. There is now a moneyed class ― consisting mostly of party and military officials who have profited from the trade between North Korea and China. There is conspicuous wealth, from new high-rises and department stores filled with modern electronics to pricey restaurants and amusement parks. North Koreans have found a taste for money and are not happy that the current sanctions are cramping their style. More importantly, the sanctions are cramping the style of Kim's core power base, the Pyongyang-living, inner-circle bureaucracy that Kim depends on to keep his regime afloat.The bitter rhetoric in recent pronouncements allows us to glimpse into the economic pain that the COVID-19 pandemic and the attendant shutdown of North Korea's border with China has had, and Kim's real con

Jul 3, 2020By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Too comfortably numb

By Jason LimIt's pretty obvious that Lee Yong-soo “halmeoni” (grandmother) feels disrespected and disenfranchised from the very movement for which she has long been one of the most active and visible “comfort women” ambassadors. Sure, she didn't say that in so many words. Instead, she mentioned feeling betrayed, used and lied to, her bitterness apparent and aimed mostly at the person of Yoon Mee-hyang, the longtime leader of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (Korean Council; formerly known as “Jeongdaehyeop” and Justice for the Comfort Women). Right before she started her term as a first-time national assemblywoman, Yoon responded in a press conference, taking pains to avoid direct confrontation with grandmother Lee but nevertheless forceful in her defense of her leadership of Jeongdaehyeop. Stepping back from the current static, however, it's only fair to examine Yoon's Jeongdaehyeop for what it has done in the last 30 years as the most visible NGO driving the public narrative around the comfort women is

Jun 7, 2020By Kim Ji-soo

Jason Lim

Tit for Thae

By Jason LimOne of the most amazing pieces of news coming out of April 15 general election in South Korea wasn't that the ruling party won a super majority. Rather, it was that Thae Yong-ho, the most famous of North Korean defectors, won a seat in Gangnam, the richest district in Seoul. Let that sink in for a bit. A former North Korean official ― North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom ― who came to South Korea in 2016, managed to win a seat in the National Assembly for the opposition party that got decimated in the overall election. In fact, Thae won in a landslide. Once again, a former official from a “communist” country will be representing the richest district in all of Korea for the conservative United Future Party (UFP) that has traditionally been all about fire and brimstone when it comes to North Korea. The poetic irony is too rich not to indulge in for a little while. Well, I say all power to Thae and South Korea's democracy. Thae seems to be an intelligent, well-spoken person with plenty of international experience and policy chops. Working for Nor

Apr 26, 2020By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Immunity passport

By Jason LimIn midst of an unprecedented economic downturn, various governments have been broaching the “immunity passport” idea. The concept is simple. Governments would issue some type of certificate to people who have recovered from Corona and carry enough antibodies to be immune for a certain period of time, like the seasonal flu.These people would be able to go about their regular pursuits and provide a minimum critical threshold of economic activities to keep the system functioning until the world develops a vaccine or anti-viral drugs to mitigate the public health risk enough to usher in a new norm.While the concept is simple, the execution is filled with devilish details. There are many questions that such a system would need to be able to answer. Trust is paramount in such a system. Therefore, the “immunity passport” system has to be designed in such a way that it conveys absolute confidence that the holders are who they say they are and are entitled to this “all clear” status. Worse, since these “passports” now carry economic

Apr 12, 2020By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Read more

Moon and Korea's zeitgeist: a grand narrative needed

Trembling Tiger, Roaring Dragon

Pandenomics for women

Bradykinin hypothesis

To send or not to send to school

Shattering self-betrayal

Not your dad's North Koreans

Too comfortably numb

Tit for Thae

Immunity passport

Top 5 stories