Korea Thread: Liberal Moon Jae In Elected

[alfred russel]

He knows what the lube is made of.

The worker is reflecting on how it was made, Kim Jong Un is reflecting on the ways he can use it in his personal life.

[garbon]

http://news.yahoo.com/north-korea-sentences-american-man-6-years-092237721.html

US man in North Korea given 6 years of hard labor

North Korea's Supreme Court on Sunday sentenced a 24-year-old American man to six years of hard labor for entering the country illegally to commit espionage.

At a trial that lasted about 90 minutes, the court said Matthew Miller, of Bakersfield, California, tore up his tourist visa at Pyongyang's airport upon arrival on April 10 and admitted to having the "wild ambition" of experiencing prison life so that he could secretly investigate North Korea's human rights situation.

Miller, who looked thin and pale at the trial and was dressed completely in black, is one of three Americans being held in North Korea.

Showing no emotion throughout the proceedings, Miller waived the right to a lawyer and was handcuffed before being led from the courtroom after his sentencing. The court, comprising a chief judge flanked by two "people's assessors," ruled it would not hear any appeals to its decision.

Earlier, it had been believed that Miller had sought asylum when he entered North Korea. During the trial, however, the prosecution argued that was a ruse and that Miller also falsely claimed to have secret information about the U.S. military in South Korea on his iPad and iPod.

Miller was charged under Article 64 of the North Korean criminal code, which is for espionage and can carry a sentence of five to 10 years, though harsher punishments can be given for more serious cases.

The Associated Press was allowed to attend the trial.

A trial is expected soon for one of the other Americans being held, Jeffrey Fowle, who entered the North as a tourist and was arrested in May for leaving a Bible at a sailor's club in the city of Chongjin. The third American, Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae, is serving out a 15-year sentence for alleged "hostile acts."

All three have appealed to the U.S. government to send a senior statesman to Pyongyang to intervene on their behalf.

During a brief interview with The Associated Press in Pyongyang last week, Miller said he had written a letter to President Barack Obama but had not received a reply.

Following Sunday's court verdict, the U.S. State Department urged North Korea to release Miller, as well as Bae and Fowle.

"Now that Mr. Miller has gone through a legal process, we urge the DPRK to grant him amnesty and immediate release," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement, using North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Fowle, a 56-year-old equipment operator for the city of Moraine, Ohio, said his wife, a hairstylist from Russia, made a written appeal on his behalf to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said the Russian government responded that it was watching the situation.

The U.S. has repeatedly offered to send its envoy for North Korean human rights issues, Robert King, to Pyongyang to seek the freedom of the detainees, but without success.

Former President Bill Clinton came in 2009 to free a couple of jailed journalists. Jimmy Carter made the trip in 2010 to secure the release of Aijalon Gomes, who had been sentenced to eight years of hard labor for illegally crossing into the country to do missionary work.

In 2011, the State Department's envoy for North Korean human rights managed to successfully intervene in the case of Korean-American businessman Eddie Yong Su Jun.

The United States has no diplomatic relations with North Korea and strongly warns American citizens against traveling to the country.

Uri Tours, a New Jersey-based travel agency specializing in North Korea tourism that handled the arrangements for Miller, said in an email Sunday that it was working to have Miller returned to his parents in the United States.

"Although we ask a series of tailored questions on our application form designed to get to know a traveler and his/her interests, it's not always possible for us to foresee how a tourist may behave during a DPRK tour," the travel agency said in a statement on Friday. "Unfortunately, there was nothing specific in Mr. Miller's tour application that would have helped us anticipate this unfortunate outcome."

The agency said that as a result of the incident, it now routinely requests a secondary contact and reserves the right to contact those references to confirm facts about a potential tourist. It has also added advice warning tourists not to rip up any officially issued documents and "to refrain from any type of proselytizing."

[Tonitrus]

Tim needs to step it up to the big time...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-education-crazy-south-korea-top-teachers-become-multimillionaires/2014/12/29/1bf7e7ae-849b-11e4-abcf-5a3d7b3b20b8_story.html

In education-crazy South Korea, top teachers become multimillionaires



By Anna Fifield December 30 
SEOUL — Clasping his headphones and closing his eyes as he sang into the studio microphone while performing a peppy duet with one of South Korea's hottest actresses, spiky-haired Cha Kil-yong looked every bit the K-pop star.

But Cha is not a singer or actor. No, he's a unique kind of South Korean celebrity: a teaching star.

And the song he was singing with Clara, a Korean mega celebrity, in a music video that wouldn't be out of place on MTV? It was called "SAT jackpot!"


In this education-obsessed country, Cha is a top-ranked math teacher. But he doesn't teach in a school. He runs an online "hagwon" — or cram school — called SevenEdu that focuses entirely on preparing students to take the college entrance exam in mathematics.

Here, teaching pays: Cha said he earned a cool $8 million last year.

Cha keeps many masks and props in his SevenEdu filming studio. (Shin Woong-jae/for The Washington Post)
"I'm madly in love with math," said Cha, looking the height of trendiness in his crimson shirt and pants and tweed jacket, in his office in Gangnam — a wealthy part of Seoul famous for its conspicuous consumption and featured in the song "Gangnam Style."

It's hard to exaggerate the premium South Korea places on education. This is a society in which you have to get into the right kindergarten, so that you can get into the right elementary school, then into the right middle school and high school, and finally into the right college. Which, of course, gets you the right job and scores you the right spouse.

There's even a phrase to describe the Korean version of a helicopter mother: "chima baram" — literally "skirt wind," to describe the swish as a mother rushes into the classroom to demand a front-row seat for her child or to question grades.

Many Korean families split and live on opposite sides of the world in pursuit of a better education: The mother and children live in the United States or some other English-speaking country, the better to secure entry to a prestigious university (preferably Harvard). The "goose father" continues working in South Korea, flying in to visit when he can.

All of this combines to make South Korea's equivalent of the SAT the most important event in a young person's life.

As such, the vast majority of teenagers here do a double shift at school: They attend normal classes by day but go to hagwons for after-hours study. Increasingly, online hagwons are replacing traditional brick-and-mortar cram schools. The hagwons have become a $20 billion industry.

This devotion to studying is credited with helping South Korea consistently rank at the top of the developed world in reading, math and science, although the latest rankings from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development also show that Korean students come last when asked whether they are happy at school. South Korea also has the highest suicide rate in the developed world, which many suggest is related to a high-stress focus on education.

Some politicians and educators are questioning whether things have gotten out of hand. But even parents opposed to this punishing system find it difficult to opt out — their children complain that they can't keep up if they don't go to a hagwon.

That's good news for instructors like Cha, who started teaching at a hagwon to pay his way through his PhD program.

About 300,000 students take his online class at any given time, paying $39 for a 20-hour course (traditional cram schools charge as much as $600 for a course). He teaches them tricks for taking the timed exams, including shortcuts that students can take to solve a problem faster.

Asked what makes him stand out, Cha said: "Suppose you give the same ingredients to 100 different chefs. They would make different dishes even though they're working with the same ingredients. It's the same with a math class. Even though it's all math and all in Korean, you can use different ingredients to come up with different results."

His studio is set up with a green chalkboard and desks, and behind the camera are piles of props — including hippo and Batman masks and a gold sequined jacket.

"You're not only teaching a subject, you also have to be a multitalented entertainer," said Cha, declining to give his age and offering only that he'd been working for 20 years.

On SAT day, he visits schools to offer encouragement to test takers. He also does television ads, endorsing products such as a red ginseng drink meant to boost brain power.

Kwon Kyu-ho, a top-ranked literature teacher, also appears with K-pop stars and has a lucrative side business in celebrity endorsements, lending his name to a chair meant to help people study better.


Maintaining his position doesn't require just good lessons. Kwon, 33, also gets regular facials and works out, and he said some teachers even have stylists..

"I always wanted to be a teacher, but I feel that regular school teaching has its limits. There is a certain way you have to teach," said Kwon, whose lessons appear on the sites Etoos and VitaEdu. "And, of course, I'm making a lot more money this way."

He wouldn't disclose how much he earned, only that it was "several millions" of dollars a year. The secret of his success, Kwon said, was finding the parts of tests that make most students stumble. He focuses lessons on those problem areas.

This style of education has its upsides, he said.

"I think one of the benefits of private education is that teachers compete with each other and try to develop higher quality content," he said. "We have money. We can invest in ways that normal schoolteachers can not."

As President Park Geun-hye promotes a "creative economy" as the key to taking South Korea to the next level in its development, many analysts say the country would do well to take a more creative approach to education.

Lee Ju-ho, who was minister of education until last year, is among them.

"All this late-night study could lead to problems in enhancing their other skills, like character, creativity and critical thinking," he said. "Hagwon is all about rote learning and memorization."

Lee said all the problems stem from the college admissions procedures, which have been slow in looking beyond test scores to other criteria such as extracurricular activities and personal essays, as is common in many Western countries.

"We really need to change," said Lee, who is now a professor at the Korea Development Institute's School of Public Policy and Management.

[alfred russel]

I don't think Tim can do that math, and I don't think Tim can speak their language. He can wear a stupid hat though. Maybe that is what they pay millions for, but probably not.

[Jacob]

As of a few days ago, my sister is in Korea.

[Admiral Yi]

What a lousy time of year to show up.

[alfred russel]

Is she single? Tim may know a few tricks to help keep her warm.

[CountDeMoney]

$8 million a year.  And he's not even union.

This devotion to studying is credited with helping South Korea consistently rank at the top of the developed world in reading, math and science, although the latest rankings from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development also show that Korean students come last when asked whether they are happy at school. South Korea also has the highest suicide rate in the developed world, which many suggest is related to a high-stress focus on education.

Do math.  Then die.  Hell of a system.

[Jacob]

Is she single? Tim may know a few tricks to help keep her warm.

Tim? If he's found a way to heat a room from typos perhaps, otherwise I doubt it.

[Jacob]

What a lousy time of year to show up.

Yeah. Though she's coming over from Ottawa, so it's not likely to be much worse.

[jimmy olsen]

As of a few days ago, my sister is in Korea.

Business meeting at this time of the year?

[Ed Anger]

Is she single? Tim may know a few tricks to help keep her warm.

Tim? If he's found a way to heat a room from typos perhaps, otherwise I doubt it.

[alfred russel]

Is she single? Tim may know a few tricks to help keep her warm.

Tim? If he's found a way to heat a room from typos perhaps, otherwise I doubt it.

Thus ends my attempt to make Tim your brother-in-law. Don't say I never tried to help you. 

[Jacob]

As of a few days ago, my sister is in Korea.

Business meeting at this time of the year?

Hah, nope. She's doing the fresh-college-grad-teaching-English thing.

[Monoriu]

$8 million a year.  And he's not even union.

This devotion to studying is credited with helping South Korea consistently rank at the top of the developed world in reading, math and science, although the latest rankings from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development also show that Korean students come last when asked whether they are happy at school. South Korea also has the highest suicide rate in the developed world, which many suggest is related to a high-stress focus on education.

Do math.  Then die.  Hell of a system.

We use a similar approach in HK, and it really isn't too bad.