Flying Yangban

Hammer time in the National Assembly

I get quoted periodically in the MSM but it still happens rarely enough that I get giddy when I am quoted myself in major publications.

A case in this article in the LA Times of last December's fighting in the National Assembly:

"Many fighting politicians really do believe that if they lose their battle, democracy itself will be in danger," said Andy Jackson, a political columnist for the Korea Times.

Most South Korean lawmakers, he said, would rather fight than switch their votes: "The attitude is that if you're not fighting, you're not trying. So you pull off the gloves and you go at it."

July 5 protest pics

Here are a few pictures I took of last Saturday's protests.  The main protest was part of the continuing anti-American beef campaign that has been going on since early last May.

As you will see, I was most interested in the activities of Liberty in North Korea, a group that deserves more support in Korea than it gets.

Access problems to blogs: Is there another ban?

UPDATE 2:  OK, the problem has gone away.

UPDATE:  Access is fine from a PC bang so I guess it is a problem with my computer.

ORIGINAL POST:  (I would normally have posted this over at the Marmot's Hole but I cannot get access to it normally and I cannot sign in through the proxy I used to access it.)

I don't know if this has anything to do with Ban Ki-moon's bitching about a blog criticizing him, but I have had problems accessing several blogs over the past couple of days, including the Marmot's Hole.

I cannot get to through my normal link but I can get to it through a proxy, which is suspiciously similar to what happened to a lot of blogs back in 2004 when the fascists at the Ministry of Information and Communications decided to ban several blogs and other web pages.

I will check it out on another computer before drawing a final conclusion.

Pictures of Korean campaign stuff

I just wanted to share a few things I saw during the recent election (my post on the election itself is over at the Marmot's Hole).

First up, we have pamphlets.  The local government mails election pamphlets in a packet, which means that any candidate who can cover printing cost can get his propaganda to voters in the appropriate district.  That would be a nice addition to American campaigns, IMHO.  Also, I don't recall having seen any ads on TV.  They may be illegal although, with strict campaign finance laws, they would be prohibitively expensive even if they were not illegal.  There were 10-minute public service announcements for candidates for major offices during the two-week campaign period.

Anyway, here are some samples of the pamphlets Lady Yangban got in the mail.

These are from Hannaradang or the Grand National Party (GNP).  As you can see, the GNP's color is blue and its ballot number is 2.  I believe that all the guys you see won as the GNP swept Ansan and Kim Moon-soo got the Gyeonggi-do governor's position.

Here are pamphlets from the Uri Party (#1).  Their traditional color is yellow, but you see very little yellow is these pamphlets.  I suspect the party's low popular explains that.

These are pamphlets from the Democratic Labor Party (#4, orange) and the Democratic party (#3, green).  The two on the left are guys who ran for Mayor.  Mr Kim (#5) ran with the new People First Party while Son Dong-geol (#7) ran as an independent.  As you may expect, Son's pamphlet was the thinnest of the mayoral candidates in the packet.  Whoever was number six on the ballot apparently could not afford to print any pamphlets.

Banners like these were a common sight during the campaign.  The short official campaign period made using billboards impractical.

These posters where put up by the local government.  This group included all the candidates for whom people in the local dong could vote.  Anyone defacing or taking down any of the posters could be fined up to $4,000.  Yard signs are impractical for Korean campaigns since the short campaign period makes timely distribution a problem and (more importantly) most Koreans do not have yards.

Here is Park Myeong-hun.  The mysterious #6 who did not have a pamphlet.  I guess he spent all his money on this supper-cool poster.

And don't forget the tape-blasting campaign trucks.  Here is another truck from the 2004 National Assembly campaign.  The Uri Party was #3 that year, I presume because they have the third-largest delegation in the assembly.

Korean Political Roundup: moved

I don't know if anyone comes here for my political posts, but if you do, my lastest is over at the Marmot's Hole.

My first campaign truck of the election

The official campaign period in Korea (at least for local elections) is only about two weeks, so it makes little sense for candidates to invest in billboards and the like.  Instead you will see banners draped across buildings in high traffic areas.

You will also see trucks decked out with the face and slogan of the local candidate.

I saw this truck yesterday near my place.  It is for Song Se-hyun (at least that is how I think he spells his name), a candidate for Ansan city council.  If you look carefully in the upper left-hand corner, you can see that Song is running under the Uri party banner.

I hope to get a few more campaign pics up next week.

KPR: What election?

This week's Korean political roundup asks, 'what if you had an election and nobody cared?'  That seems to be the prevailing sentiment this week as politicians labor to make themselves heard over the din of crazed soccer fans.

I think this cartoon from the Chosun captures the mood nicely:

Three candidates for the May 31 local elections find themselves ignored as their potential audience is consumed by World Cup fever. The crowds chant "Dae-han-min-gook" -- the traditional slogan cheering the national football team -- as a news bulletin says the final lineup has been announced. “There wasn’t much interest to start with,” one disconsolate candidate says. “But now…”

But I will carry on with this post, even if only a few people care to read it.  If nothing else, it focuses my research.

Let the mud fly

Uri is clearly getting desperate.  With only twenty days to go, they are still far behind the Grand National party (GNP).  So what do you do when you can't been the other side with your ideas?

You throw mud; lots and lots of mud. 

Exhibit A (KTimes): 

For the second consecutive day Thursday, Chin Dae-je, who is running for the Kyonggi governorship on the governing party’s ticket, raised suspicions against Kim Moon-soo, his rival from the GNP, over the latter’s military service exemption due to tympanitis, or inflammation of the middle ear, in 1971.

No you didn't!  There are few things that get as broad a consensus in the IKK as respect for Kim.  So Chin gets the first official Yangban Red Letter Jerk of the Month Award.

Even Kang Kum-sil, considered by many in the IKK to be a class act, is throwing gobs (KTimes again):

Despite her promise not to begin smear campaigns against Oh, Kang's camp issued a statement with 13 thorny questions against the frontrunner in the mayoral race last week, mostly focused not on campaign pledges, but on Oh's personal history.

Well, I guess Kang has to do something.  The latest poll at Realmeter has her down 52-31%.

Getting ready for the 2007 presidential election

Park Guen-hye will step down as leader of the GNP on June 16 in order to run for president in 2007 (JoongAng):

"Taking into account the party's constitution, which stipulates the separation of the party leadership posts and presidential candidates, I will step down from my chairwoman post on June 16, one year and six months before the presidential election," Ms. Park told journalists.
The deadline for potential presidential candidates to quit their elected party leadership posts is June 18, a year and a half before election day. The party revised its constitution in November to that effect, in a stated attempt to make its primary election campaigns for the presidential nomination fairer.

I guess we can now officially count Ms Park's hat as been in the ring. 

You can see Park and Chung Dong-young, the likely Uri party candidate, in action tonight at 10:00 as they and three other party chiefs meet in a debate.  Check your TV listings.

Reforming Korea's financial system

NE Asia expert Bruce Kingner has a piece out on upcoming reforms to Korea's financial sector.  Check it out:

The CMCA [Capital Market Consolidation Act] will liberalize the non-banking financial sector by eliminating the regulations that have restricted Korean financial institutions to a narrowly defined range of services. Existing legislation prevents South Korean firms from providing a variety of products, such as equities and derivatives trading, asset management and investment banking. The CMCA would replace six separate laws governing the financial-services sector as well as remove one-third of 300 existing regulations. The resulting integration of the capital markets will allow local brokers to eventually function as full-service investment banks. South Korea's financial sector would then be divided into three main categories - banks, insurance companies, and all other financial firms, including investment banks.

Seoul's advocacy of the CMCA is driven by four principal objectives: improving the international competitiveness of South Korean financial institutions; liberalizing the financial-services sector to make it a growth engine for the economy; improving the viability of the overall services sector to reduce the country's over-reliance on exports for its economic strength; and fulfilling Roh's vision of making South Korea the financial hub of Northeast Asia.

How will the proposed reforms play out?  Read the rest for yourself and find out.

Seoul mayoral candidates debate

(NOTE:  Kim Moon-soo will face people who are not Kim Moon-soo in a debate tonight in the Gyeonggi Gubernatorial race.  It will be on at 10:00 on KBS (I think).  Lady Yangban and I will be watching.)

Between hang clothes and downloading baby pictures, I saw a little bit of the Seoul mayoral debate last night.   The candidates were Kang Kum-sil of the Uri Party Oh Se-hun from the Grand National Party, Park Ju-sun of the Democratic Party, and Lim Jong-chul from the Democratic Labor Party.

Off course, not knowing Korea, I did not get much from it but I do have a couple of observations.   The part of the debate I saw had two sections.  In the first part, the candidates asked each other questions.  That was followed by questions from the audience.

Kang and Lim spent much of the time I saw them in action going after Oh while Park directed questions towards Kang.  Oh seemed to be trying to place it safe to protect his lead.  The man is suave.

Also, somebody needs to teach Park how to look into the camera during a closing statement.  He came across as having the most gravitas of the group but cannot work his way a television studio.

I'm sure it will be in the news soon and will update this post later when I know more about the substance of the debate.

Now it is the GNP's turn to act like children

GNP members of the Kuk Hoe have proved that they can act just as childish as their Uri counterparts (JoongAng):

Cursing and scuffling lawmakers found the time yesterday to give final approval to six pieces of legislation on the closing day of the National Assembly's special session.
The Uri Party used some legislative and physical prowess to ram through the legislation with the help of the small Democratic Labor Party, to the dismay of the conservative Grand National Party, which had held the Assembly speaker captive in his own home to try to prevent the bills ― especially three measures designed to attack speculation in real estate ― from coming to a vote.

The GNP may have legitimate reasons for opposing the bills, but Uri is the largest party in the Kuk Hoe and they have the right to bring bills up for a vote.  They must do their best they can in their current position to amend bills (or, failing that, shake a few Uri party members from the more extreme ones) until the 2008 legislative elections.