It’s official: Jeju Island has, following international online and telephone polls, been voted one of the world’s “New Seven Wonders of Nature,” by a Swiss-based organization, “New7Wonders.”

My first reaction was not surprise ― given the voting method, I had expected Jeju to be among the winners ― but a slight unease.

Why so? Well, I know this makes me sound curmudgeonly, but it is germane to ask: Does Jeju truly live up to the designation?

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Jeju, and have visited four times. Mt. Halla is a great hike; the coastal waterfalls offer refreshing views; and the island’s rock-hedged fields and jagged coastlines have a definite wild beauty.

So it is certainly appropriate to dub Jeju one of the top attractions in South Korea. But making it one of the wonders of the world puts it in very fast company.

I have dived on the Great Barrier Reef, hiked in the Alps and flown over the Grand Canyon. These locations truly are wonders: Upon first view, your jaw drops, your breath is taken away. Yet none made the final cut; nor did the Galapagos Islands or the Dead Sea. (Mt. Everest, the River Nile and the Serengeti Plain did not even make preliminary lists.)

Meanwhile, Jeju’s lure is so fuzzy that even the island’s top promoter seems unable to coin a memorable phrase to brand it. The dull and un-differentiated, “A good harmony of human and nature is the characteristic of Jeju Island,” is the best that campaign leader Chung Un-chan could come up with following the victory.

And in online photosets of the winners, showing the thundering Iguazu Falls, the landmark Table Mountain, a slavering Komodo Dragon, etc, Jeju looks underwhelming. It may be telling that on MSNBC’s website, the Jeju photo is the only one captioned with: “Results are provisional until independently verified.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest of the article at the link complete with accusations of bribery.

One in four Southeast Asians living in South Korea has experienced discrimination, more than triple the corresponding figure for foreigners from OECD countries, according to a poll released on Tuesday.

According to the survey conducted by the Seoul Development Institute (SDI) on 333 foreign nationals living in the capital, 25.9 percent of Southeast Asian immigrants have faced discrimination, compared to 8.2 percent of foreigners from OECD nations, including the U.S., Japan and countries in Europe.  [Yonhap]

I wonder if this poll includes Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans as part of southeast Asia?

Mr. B is a middle-aged Korean man, born in 1960 to a rural peasant father and housewife. His generation prided themselves as the unsung heroes of the nation’s rapid industrialization between the 1960s and 1980s, dedicating their lives to hard work and creating Korea Inc., often at the expense of their personal lives. Yet many were left unemployed by the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. And now they face the daunting task of supporting their elderly parents and helping their children, who struggle with high unemployment and prohibitively expensive housing.

That is the picture of the average Korean baby boomer that was drawn by Statistics Korea in its recent publication, “The past, present and future of baby boomers as seen through the numbers.”

There were a total of 7.12 million baby boomers, those who were born between 1955 and 1963. They account for 14.6 percent of Korea’s total population.

According to the statistics, Mr. B – the typical baby boomer – was born when the nation’s per-capita GDP was only $79, compared to $17,175 in 2009. B went to elementary and secondary schools with an average class size of 65 students, compared to 28 in 2009. B managed to enter college in 1979 when only 29 percent of male high school graduates went to college, compared to 82 percent now.

After college he got a job at a local manufacturing company in 1986, when 25.9 percent of salaried employees were working in the industrial sector against 23.6 percent in agriculture and 50.5 percent in services. Now the service industry is the biggest employer among local industries, hiring 76 percent of the nation’s paid workers, with only 16.4 percent in manufacturing and 7 percent in agriculture.

B married when he was 28 years old. The average marriage age in 2009 was 31.6 for men and 28.7 for women. B spent his 30s and 40s working hard, building his wealth from scratch and even buying his own house – one of his proudest achievements.

He spent heavily to support his aging parents and growing children, but saved little for his retirement life. B and most of his friends valued property more than any other investment, with real estate accounting for 80 percent of their total wealth on average. The steep increase in property prices over the last few decades helped property to account for a larger share of the asset portfolio.

The 50-year-old B is expected to live almost three more decades (28.89 years for 50-year-old males and 34.82 years for females), but the increasingly lower retirement age (57.14 years on average) is making it difficult for him to sleep at night. Since most of his assets are in real estate, he is short on cash and does not know how to support himself after retirement other than national pension payouts. About 47 percent of Korean males aged 50 to 59 said they will rely on the national pension for financial support in retirement, while 32 percent of the females in that age group said they would rely on bank savings and insurance.

B will soon join Korea’s rapidly aging population. The number of those aged 65 or older accounted for 7.2 percent of the total population in 2000, and the number is expected to expand to 14.3 percent in 2018 and 20.8 percent in 2026. [JoongAng Daily]

I think this article does a good job of painting a picture of the life of a baby boomer in Korea. 

I remember in the 90′s hearing how Koreans saved a big part of their income, but according to this article most baby boomers will have to rely on the Government Pension to survive.

Chinese people seem to regard South Korea as a strong, clean, bright and helpful country, but feel less friendly toward it than the U.S. or Russia.

This is suggested by a report published by Grand National Party lawmaker Gu Sang-chan of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee. The report was based on a recent survey among 1,322 Beijing and Shanghai residents.

Some 28 percent of respondents said North Korea was the country they feel most friendly toward. Next were Russia (25 percent), the U.S. (22 percent), and South Korea (10.3 percent).

Some 57 percent of respondents were against North Korea’s nuclear weapons, while 38 percent either approved or said they did not care. Some 44 percent considered the South Korea-U.S. alliance “dangerous,” while 33 percent did not. A whopping 70 percent approved of a South Korea-China free trade agreement.

Asked what words came to mind when they thought of South Korea, the Korean pop culture wave, or South Korean goods, 92 percent said “clean,” followed by 83 percent for “superior,” 77 percent for “bright,” 76 percent for “strong,” 71 percent for “quality goods” and 65 percent for “honest.”

But opinions were evenly split over whether South Koreans are arrogant (51 percent) or modest or humble (49 percent). A whopping 91 percent said they believed South Korean enterprises are helpful to China, but only 55 percent said they want to work for them.  [Chosun Ilbo]

I don’t know the Chinese public’s attitudes towards South Korea to really make any judgments if these findings are accurate or not, but judging by how Chinese citizens act within South Korea, they definitely have no respect for the ROK.

Three out of 10 South Koreans do not know when the Korean War broke out, a poll suggests. In a study by Dongseo Research for the Committee for the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War of 1,000 adults over 19 or older, 33 percent of respondents gave the wrong year when asked when the Korean War broke out or said they did not know.

In a similar survey by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security in April, 36.9 percent were ill-informed.

Some 47.9 percent of respondents over 60 were misinformed about the year the Korean War broke out or did not know. They were followed 47.4 percent of those aged between 19 and 29, 24.5 percent of those between 50 and 59, 24.4 percent of those between 30 and 39, and 21.3 percent of those between 40 and 49.

Some 14.6 percent said that it was not North Korea that started the War or did not know who started it. Most, or 94.9 percent, of respondents knew about the UN forces’ participation in the war, but 80.8 percent gave the wrong number of countries that joined the UN forces. The correct answer is 16.  [Chosun Ilbo]

The fact that many Koreans don’t know the start of the Korean War isn’t all that shocking to me because if you ask Americans when World War II started I am willing to bet many of them wouldn’t know, much less the Korean War.  When I first received orders to Korea I can remember a high school friend of mine telling me that he hoped that I enjoyed my stay in the islands.  That is how much Americans know about Korea.

Anyway the only stat I found interesting was that roughly 15% of Koreans do not think North Korea started the war.  That number is actually lower then I thought it would be considering all the North Korea apologists in South Korea.

People in Seoul work longer hours than residents of any other major city in the world except Cairo.

According to a report by the Swiss financial group UBS, people in Seoul worked an average 2,312 hours a year, ranking second among residents of 73 major cities around the world. Cairenes were first with 2,373 hours a year on average.

The people of Lyon, France worked the least at 1,582 hours. The average was 1,902 hours a year.

By region, Asians worked the longest hours with 2,119 followed by Africans with 2,087. People in the Middle East worked 2,063 hours. North Americans worked less than South Americans, with 1,890 hours to 1,950. Western Europeans worked 1,745 hours, the shortest among the regions surveyed.  [Chosun Ilbo]

Now who is the most productive?  I’m sure Korea would not rank high on that list.

Korea has been ranked 13th in the world in terms of national power in a survey seeking to compare countries’ politics, economy, society, culture and defense.

The Hansun Foundation for Freedom & Happiness on Friday published the survey of Korea’s overall national power for the Chosun Ilbo on the occasion of Liberation Day, comparing the Group of 20 advanced and industrial nations. The U.S. and China ranked first and second with 69.15 and 54.73 points out of a possible 100.

Korea ranked 13th with 48.56 points. It was among the 10 most powerful nations in the “hard power” category, including science and technology (seventh) and defense (eighth) but performed poorly in “soft power,” including politics (14th) and social capital (15th).

The U.S. topped the list in seven out of 13 categories, far outdistancing the other nations despite the financial crisis. Based on its large population and huge land mass and resources, China came second overall, topping the list in politics, culture and social capital. Next and scoring more than 50 points were Japan (53.45), the U.K. (53.05), Germany (52.92), and France (52.16).  [Chosun Ilbo]

It is a survey done by a Korean group so take it for what is worth, but South Korea’s ranking sounds about right.

A survey has found that Korean adults drink an average of 110 bottles of beer and 74 bottles of soju annually. The survey also reveled that the export of Korean alcoholic beverages rose 23 percent from last year.

The National Tax Service announced that the total consumption of alcoholic beverages in Korea amounted to 3.39 million kiloliters last year, up 3.2 percent from 3.29 kiloliters in 2007. In terms of the type of beverage consumed, soju and beer consumption increased 4.3 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively. When converted into per-adult consumption, it reveals a Korean adult drank 74.4 bottles (360ml-bottle) of soju and 109.83 bottles (500ml-bottle) of beer.  [Chosun Ilbo]

Basically this survey shows that Koreans drink a bottle of beer nearly every three days with a few bottles of soju in between.