South Korean director Byeon Young-joo is well-known for socially-critical films. Her latest, Helpless, is based on Japanese writer Miyuki Miyabe’s 1996 novel of the same name. The story addresses the “ills of contemporary society,” such as private loans, bankruptcy, and credit ratings – all of which are still relevant issues…
Category: South Korea
SOUTH KOREA: Journalists War on Management Suck-Ups
Journalists from the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), South Korea’s largest television network, are now on strike, joining news reporters from Munhwa Broadcasting System (MBC) who began their strike about a month ago. About 650 KBS staff members, including 250 reporters, joined the strike as part of a widening protest for journalistic reform. KBS…
THE TWO KOREAS: The Reaction to Pyongyang’s Overture (an Update)
The Western news media – and especially The Economist Magazine of London – have been almost incautiously optimistic about recent diplomatic developments coming out of North Korea. But the media in South Korea has been rather cautious about Pyongyang’s latest pitch to suspend parts of its nuclear program, to allow…
NORTH KOREA: A Happier ‘Pen’ for Defected North Korean Writers
Twenty writers claim they are ready to use their “pens, which are mightier than swords, to lead the spread of democracy in North Korea,” reports the Chosun Ilbo, a widely circulated South Korean daily newspaper. These writers, once considered among the elite in North Korea before they defected and continued…
SOUTH KOREA: No End to the Media Advertising Controversy
It took years of contentious debate, but the oft-fractious National Assembly passed the long disputed and controversial Media Representative Bill by a large majority. According to the Korea Herald, a leading English language daily, “The bill calls for designating a single advertising broker for public stations” in response to the…
SOUTH KOREA: Director Locates the Future Hope of North Korea
South Korean director Jung Sung-san’s film, Ryanggang Children, portraying the lives of children in North Korea, is finally being released big-time. The director finished filming in 2006, but it would be nearly six years before the film found a distributor. According to The Chosun Ilbo, a widely circulated newspaper, Jung…
SOUTH KOREA: Reporters Want the Public to Know the True Story
After months of public criticism and a majority vote, news reporters at Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), one of South Korea’s major broadcasting firms, will suspend their work for MBC in a collective action to urge journalistic reform
SOUTH KOREA: Static Blurs the Nation’s TV picture
After months of failed negotiations, Korea’s cable television system operators (SOs) are taking a stand against the three major Korean TV Companies – KBS, MBC, and SBS – for charging high prices to broadcast their programs, according to The Korea Times, an English-language daily newspaper.
SOUTH KOREA: Buddhism Goes Bilingual
The book titled, “Open the Mind, See the Light,” by widely acknowledged Seon Zen master Ven. Jinje has been translated into English, according to The Korea Times, a huge-circulation newspaper based in Seoul. Ven. Jinje is a leading monk of the Joyge Order of Korean Buddhism and one of the…
Remembering Father Daly
How should the worth of a life be weighed? For when a phenomenon like Father John P. Daly, S.J., dies, that’s a question you start asking yourself. What is a life worth? In his own over-intellectualized Harvard way, T.S. Eliot used to tantalize around that question with this unforgettable line…
SOUTH KOREA: Getting Back a Few Pages of Its History
According to Yonhap News Agency, a leading English-language news source, South Korea is celebrating the Japanese return of 1,200 ancient Korean texts that were taken during Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula and kept by the Japanese Imperial Household Agency. Among the books is the “Uigwe,” a collection of…
SOUTH KOREA: Launch of 5 TV Channels to Shake Up Nation’s Media
On December 1st, five television channels will be launched simultaneously, beggining what some hail a new chapter in Korea’s media landscape. Four are general broadcasting networks; JoongAng Ilbo’s JTBC, Dong-A Ilbo’s Channel A, Chosun Ilbo’s TV Chosun and Maeil Business’ MBN. And the fifth is an all-news channel, Yonhap News Agency’s news Y.
SOUTH KOREA: Kim In-suk’s Expat Odyssey The Long Road is Now Available in English
Kim In-Suk’s award winning 1995 novel, The Long Road, is the lone work of Korean expatriate fiction that has been translated into English.
SOUTH KOREA: Where Men Get Treated Like Dogs?
According to Korea JoongAng Daily, a major English-language Korean daily newspaper, two recent complaints against entertainment outlets regarding demeaning representations of men were dismissed by separate arbiters…
NORTH KOREA: Is Its Collapse Imminent?
The Chosun Ilbo obtained a 480-page special report that features five pages dedicated to the Korean Peninsula and included is an estimate that North Korea’s collapse is imminent, perhaps as soon as 2020.