Korea Thread: Liberal Moon Jae In Elected

[jimmy olsen]

As you may know I was transfered to an elementary school this year from the girl's high school I was working at the last three years,

Did you request this transfer, or some administrator just up and decided to stick you with 7 year olds?

The budget was cut for most high school programs. The word came down from the government in late November, which was fine for most since, most are on a March to March contract. My contract on the other hand goes from Dec. 11-Dec 11, so I had to make an immediate decision and since I'd made plans, including purchasing plane tickets with the assumption that I was employed and had vacation at a certain time, I basically had to accept. Pay is the same and I'm living in the same apartment. Work is easy.

[Tonitrus]

Are you looking at making this a long-term thing in Korea, or are you pondering other options in the near future?

If I get out of the USAF in the next couple years (a real possibility), I am kinda looking at the idea of doing the college/GI Bill thing, and then living the wonderful life of an ESL teacher over there...preferably Japan, but I'd take what I can get.

[jimmy olsen]

Are you looking at making this a long-term thing in Korea, or are you pondering other options in the near future?

If I get out of the USAF in the next couple years (a real possibility), I am kinda looking at the idea of doing the college/GI Bill thing, and then living the wonderful life of an ESL teacher over there...preferably Japan, but I'd take what I can get.

I've already been five years. I'm happy with my life, but I'll go back to America eventually. It'll be a while though, probably.

[jimmy olsen]

Saw this on reddit, for the most part it's harsh but fair.

Korea has no Michelin star restaurants, and nor are they likely to have in the immediate future, for the simple reason that Michelin doesn't produce a Red Guide to Korea. (They produce a Green Guide, but that is just a guide to tourist attractions.) For Michelin to begin producing a Red Guide covering Korea would require that there be some kind of fine dining scene in Korea to make it worth the trouble, and that there most certainly is not. For some kind of fine dining scene to emerge, would require the following:

•a sufficient number of chefs training overseas, rising through every rank of the kitchen brigade, perfecting their art, and then deciding that the best outlet for their skills and training is Korea.

•a group of consumers that are sufficiently knowledgable about cuisine who can properly appreciate the aforementioned chefs' art

•the reliable supply and distribution of high quality ingredients at a reasonable cost

•a steady supply of skilled and semi-skilled workers who can perform kitchen and front-of-house tasks to a reasonable degree

•laws protecting small business from the exploitative practices of landlords and corporate rent-seekers

•an aspiring middle class that actually behaves like a middle class, and has sufficient cultural knowledge to support a healthy food culture on whose pinnacle a fine dining scene could sit

•a food culture that revolves around something other than mindlessly claiming that anything 'traditional' and Korean is automatically 'delicious'

•media support for food culture in the form of cookery shows, recipe books, lifestyle shows and magazines that promote these aspirational middle class values rather than autistically repeating the same Korean recipes and sentimentally celebrating deeply unsophisticated peasant food and sustenance fodder

•the reliable supply and distribution of a wide variety of fresh and high quality ingredients in supermarkets

•a system of agriculture that is not ruled by rent-seeking distribution monopolies and stricken by regulations that actively promote food monoculture

•the death and/or ruination of Hong Seok-cheon and his awful restaurants.

Owing to the massive amount of change required, I would suggest that it would not be especially wise for anyone waiting for Korea's first Michelin star to hold their breath.

[mongers]

Saw this on reddit, for the most part it's harsh but fair.

Korea has no Michelin star restaurants, and nor are they likely to have in the immediate future, for the simple reason that Michelin doesn't produce a Red Guide to Korea. (They produce a Green Guide, but that is just a guide to tourist attractions.) For Michelin to begin producing a Red Guide covering Korea would require that there be some kind of fine dining scene in Korea to make it worth the trouble, and that there most certainly is not. For some kind of fine dining scene to emerge, would require the following:

•a sufficient number of chefs training overseas, rising through every rank of the kitchen brigade, perfecting their art, and then deciding that the best outlet for their skills and training is Korea.

•a group of consumers that are sufficiently knowledgable about cuisine who can properly appreciate the aforementioned chefs' art

•the reliable supply and distribution of high quality ingredients at a reasonable cost

•a steady supply of skilled and semi-skilled workers who can perform kitchen and front-of-house tasks to a reasonable degree

•laws protecting small business from the exploitative practices of landlords and corporate rent-seekers

•an aspiring middle class that actually behaves like a middle class, and has sufficient cultural knowledge to support a healthy food culture on whose pinnacle a fine dining scene could sit

•a food culture that revolves around something other than mindlessly claiming that anything 'traditional' and Korean is automatically 'delicious'

•media support for food culture in the form of cookery shows, recipe books, lifestyle shows and magazines that promote these aspirational middle class values rather than autistically repeating the same Korean recipes and sentimentally celebrating deeply unsophisticated peasant food and sustenance fodder

•the reliable supply and distribution of a wide variety of fresh and high quality ingredients in supermarkets

•a system of agriculture that is not ruled by rent-seeking distribution monopolies and stricken by regulations that actively promote food monoculture

•the death and/or ruination of Hong Seok-cheon and his awful restaurants.

Owing to the massive amount of change required, I would suggest that it would not be especially wise for anyone waiting for Korea's first Michelin star to hold their breath.

I'll stick with the Korea we know, like their by now fine tradition of building gigantic, technological advanced ships that help to power world commerce.   

[Admiral Yi]

Saw this on reddit, for the most part it's harsh but fair.

Korea has no Michelin star restaurants, and nor are they likely to have in the immediate future, for the simple reason that Michelin doesn't produce a Red Guide to Korea. (They produce a Green Guide, but that is just a guide to tourist attractions.) For Michelin to begin producing a Red Guide covering Korea would require that there be some kind of fine dining scene in Korea to make it worth the trouble, and that there most certainly is not. For some kind of fine dining scene to emerge, would require the following:

•a sufficient number of chefs training overseas, rising through every rank of the kitchen brigade, perfecting their art, and then deciding that the best outlet for their skills and training is Korea.

•a group of consumers that are sufficiently knowledgable about cuisine who can properly appreciate the aforementioned chefs' art

•the reliable supply and distribution of high quality ingredients at a reasonable cost

•a steady supply of skilled and semi-skilled workers who can perform kitchen and front-of-house tasks to a reasonable degree

•laws protecting small business from the exploitative practices of landlords and corporate rent-seekers

•an aspiring middle class that actually behaves like a middle class, and has sufficient cultural knowledge to support a healthy food culture on whose pinnacle a fine dining scene could sit

•a food culture that revolves around something other than mindlessly claiming that anything 'traditional' and Korean is automatically 'delicious'

•media support for food culture in the form of cookery shows, recipe books, lifestyle shows and magazines that promote these aspirational middle class values rather than autistically repeating the same Korean recipes and sentimentally celebrating deeply unsophisticated peasant food and sustenance fodder

•the reliable supply and distribution of a wide variety of fresh and high quality ingredients in supermarkets

•a system of agriculture that is not ruled by rent-seeking distribution monopolies and stricken by regulations that actively promote food monoculture

•the death and/or ruination of Hong Seok-cheon and his awful restaurants.

Owing to the massive amount of change required, I would suggest that it would not be especially wise for anyone waiting for Korea's first Michelin star to hold their breath.

I'll stick with the Korea we know, like their by now fine tradition of building gigantic, technological advanced ships that help to power world commerce.   

[jimmy olsen]

I was hoping for a more in depth comment than that from Yi.

[Monoriu]

Based on my limited experience, both Japan and China are very far ahead of Korea when it comes to food.

[jimmy olsen]

Based on my limited experience, both Japan and China are very far ahead of Korea when it comes to food.

There are a lot of good Korean dishes, but they're often hamstrung by lower quality ingredients. Then there's the simplicity and over reliance on red pepper paste in most dishes that are considered essential and are promoted to foreigners, at the expense of better stuff that you have to be here years to discover. Then there's the fact that you have to cook your own meat, and everyone everwhere washes the meal down with soju (cheap grain alcohol).

[Eddie Teach]

•an aspiring middle class that actually behaves like a middle class, and has sufficient cultural knowledge to support a healthy food culture on whose pinnacle a fine dining scene could sit

Why do you need a middle class to have restaurants for rich people? 

I bet Dubai has plenty of fine dining establishments.

[alfred russel]

Work is easy.

Good to hear you are seeking out professional challenge.

[jimmy olsen]

Work is easy.

Good to hear you are seeking out professional challenge.

I would have prefered to stay where I was but that wasn't an option, was it?

[alfred russel]

Work is easy.

Good to hear you are seeking out professional challenge.

I would have prefered to stay where I was but that wasn't an option, was it?

I apologize if I made a faulty assumption that you aren't actively looking for more professional challenges.

[jimmy olsen]

These remarks and others she has made in the past basically commit her to having to carry out some kind of retaliation the next time the North does something axe crazy, and I think the mood of the country has changed enough since I've been here that the country would largely back her.

http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=3002401&cloc=rss%257Cnews%257Cjoongangdaily

Park remembers Cheonan with warning

On fifth anniversary of attack, president tells Pyongyang to behave

North Korea must abandon the idea that nuclear weapons will protect its regime, President Park Geun-hye said Thursday, urging Pyongyang to stop reckless provocations.

As the country commemorated Thursday the fifth anniversary of the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan, Park issued a stern message that she will never allow a recurrence of a similar incident.

"North Korea must give up reckless provocations now," Park said in a speech at a memorial for the Cheonan and its ill-fated crew at the Daejeon National Cemetery. "It must give up the belief that nuclear weapons will provide protection. When the North moves away from isolation and steps out on the path of true change, we can build a new Korean Peninsula."

"The government will expand its capabilities of national defense and secure a firm deterrence power against war based on a steadfast Korea-U.S. alliance, so that there will never be another attack on the South like the Cheonan's sinking," Park said.

South Korea's Cheonan sank on March 26, 2010, off the country's west coast near the inter-Korean border, killing 46 out of 104 seamen aboard. During the subsequent rescue mission, a Navy diver also died.

An investigation by a team of international experts concluded in May 2010 that the warship had been sunk by a North Korean torpedo fired by a small submarine. The North, however, continues to deny responsibility for the sinking.

"The military must deter any possibility of enemy provocation in advance," Park said. "It must always be fully prepared and have impenetrable defenses so that it can fight and win if there is any surprise attack."

Park also told the North and South Korea's public that her government is preparing for unification.

"Although unification will not come tomorrow, we must believe that it will definitely come in the future and make step-by-step preparations," Park said. "The government is creating the foundation for peaceful unification based on such attitudes."

Park also said she will eradicate all corrupt practices in the defense industry, calling them "unpatriotic acts." She said she was embarrassed to even mention them before the fallen sailors.

The Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs hosted the memorial ceremony and about 5,000 people participated, including 276 survivors and relatives of the fallen sailors, 23 top officials of the administration and judiciary, 21 politicians from the National Assembly and 12 military commanders.

Park attended the 2010 funerals of the dead sailors and three subsequent commemoration events in following years. Last year, the fourth anniversary memorial fell when she was in Europe and the minister of patriots and veterans affairs read a speech on her behalf.

Before the official commemoration ceremony, Park paid tribute at the graves of the 46 fallen sailors and Warrant Officer Han Ju-ho, a diver who died during the rescue mission. She laid flowers and talked to some of the sailors' relatives to provide her condolences.

"I will never forget their sacrifice and dedication," Park said when she met Lee Su-jeong, widow of the late Master Chief Petty Officer Kim Tae-seok. "I will pay special attention to the victims' relatives in the future."

Following the ceremony, Park also shook hands with relatives.

Although the heads of both the conservative ruling Saenuri Party and the liberal opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy attended the memorial, they still politicized the deadly attack.

Earlier in the morning, Saenuri Chairman Kim Moo-sung said 30 out of 69 lawmakers from the opposition party who voted against the National Assembly's resolution to condemn the North for the Cheonan's sinking five years ago are still working as legislators. The opposition party must apologize to the people for that, Kim said.

He said he was grateful that Moon, chairman of the NPAD, acknowledged for the first time that the Cheonan sinking was due to a torpedo attack by a North Korean submarine. Moon made the remarks on Wednesday. After attending the commemoration, Moon said it was disappointing that Kim tried to create a rift by politicizing the Cheonan's sinking.

He also said the North's attack took place during the administration of a Saenuri president, Lee Myung-bak, and the party must be ashamed of its incompetence in terms of national security.

Lee was not invited to the memorial in the morning. He made a separate visit to the national cemetery and paid tribute to the fallen sailors.

Meanwhile, President Park met Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, later in the afternoon and awarded him the Order of National Security Merit, the Tongil Medal.

He was awarded for his contribution to deterring the North's provocations, maintaining stability on the peninsula and improving the Korea-U.S. alliance since he took his post in 2011, the Blue House said.

[The Brain]

On fifth anniversary of attack, president tells Pyongyang to behave

Yeah, baby, yeah!