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East Asia
Reality check on NLL
With less than two months before the Dec. 19 presidential election, the controversy over the Northern Limit Line (NLL) persists as a campaign issue in Korea. This controversy was sparked by an allegation from a member of the ruling Saenuri Party that former president Roh Moo-hyun gave up the South’s…
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East Asia
Tales of Korean Treasures ②
• Influences of the Silk Road I may not be wrong when I say that Korea’s ancient kingdoms which rose along the Silk Road made their arts communicate with their neighbours. That’s why their traditional handicrafts, popular habits and even tales were influenced by such proximity. Moreover, such influences went beyond…
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Column
Soft Power, Smart Power Or Public Diplomacy? Australia Fumbles
*Author, Alison Broinowski, formerly an Australian diplomat, was Cultural Attaché in the Australian Embassy in Tokyo, and Director of the Australia-Japan Foundation in the 1980s. She is currently researching soft power and public diplomacy as Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University’s Faculty of Asian Studies. As traditional diplomacy is…
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East Asia
Gulags in North Korea
What are the experts thinking when they talk in learned tones, replete with facts and stats, about issues and conditions for North-South Korean reunification, the pitfalls and problems, but omit passing mention of one of the most awful obstacles? At a conference this week bearing the portentous title, “Unification and…
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World
Football and racism
Football is a harmonious sport. It can potentially transcend the barriers of nationality, race, culture, and religion. But there are physical and psychological altercations that ruin it. And recently, a few disturbances scarred the spirit of the game ― poor sportsmanship, racial insensitivity, and indefensible rudeness. The Federation International de…
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East Asia
What is the context of S. Korea’s Africa policy?
In keeping with its tradition over the last six years, the just-ended Korea Africa Economic Cooperation Forum was yet another opportunity for Seoul to extend a compelling historical narrative that reconciles empathy with brotherhood as the context for establishing an agenda for dialogue with the powerful African delegation that convened…
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East Asia
Benefits of Chaebol-bashing
If there is one thing that Korea’s three presidential candidates can agree on, it’s the need for “economic democratization.” That’s the trendy term for the reform of the country’s family-owned conglomerates, or chaebol. Chaebol-bashing has been around as a popular political issue since at least the early 1990s, but it…
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East Asia
The emperor of Japan
The boy who sat one row behind my desk in our elementary school was called Shimizu. He was born on Dec. 23, Showa 8 (1933), the same day the then Crown Prince Akihito, now the emperor, was born. It was his birthday, a cold December morning. The class teacher, dressed…
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East Asia
Cafe emerges as a favorite spot for Korean students to study
This month, most of Korean University students are facing mid term examinations. Fitting the general image of Asian students being smart and diligent in their studies, Korean students are studying hard to prepare for the exems. In my home country of Indonesia, most of the time, college students are studying at their own…
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East Asia
Tales of Korean Treasures ①
As you go through the country’s National Museum, you feel as if you were passing from one age to another. In this way you leave a face which represents Seoul’s contemporary present to a space which embodies the history of the Korean nation. But in the depths of these ages…
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