Solo Biker

On 26 March South Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication announced a new crackdown on Internet content (to read the announcement, in Korean, click here, to read a related news story from the JoongAng Daily click here). The focus of the announcement was on pornographic user-generated content posted on popular Korean portal sites - this after a porn clip made it onto Yahoo Korea for a few hours last week.

Clips deemed inappropriate will be ordered off the portals, visitors to banned sites will likely be greeted by messages like the one shown below.

The reason given for the new and strengthened measures was to protect Korean youth from the seedier sides of the Internet. While not in favor of censorship, I can't really fault the Ministry for its goal here.

What I can and do fault the Ministry for, however, is it's restrictions on access to websites it deems pro-North Korean - also announced as part of the crackdown. Recently, while returning to a site I had accessed frequently from Seoul a few years ago while doing research for my MA thesis, I was met with the screen below:

(for more info, and the picture, please head to my website, 1stopKorea.com)
 

After a fantastic three weeks traveling around Iran, it was finally time to turn towards home. As an American, the only way to obtain an Iranian visa had been to book a guided tour, and while the guide had been sage-like in his knowledge and helpfulness, I was looking forward to a little time on my own. Since the visa rules require a guide only inside the country, but not on the way in or out, I’d booked the longest outbound trip I could find, the Tehran-Istanbul train.

Sections below excerpted from other writings:

Everything started out fine. Professor and his taxi-driving brother-in-law met me at the hotel for our short drive to Tehran’s train station. Standing inside the station, I was sad to say goodbye - Professor had become a friend during our intense three weeks together and I was going to miss him. After making sure my seat assignment and baggage were in order, and still somewhat surprised I was leaving by train instead of plane, he held out his hand and we said goodbye. Then, quickly and without another word, he disappeared out the stations doors and I was suddenly alone.

The train was barely half full, with only one other person in my 4-bunk compartment. My roommate for the four-day journey was to be a young Afghani who spoke no Persian and whose only English was ‘ok’. Since that was more Afghani than I speak, we went with his English and a lot of miming. He was going to Istanbul to work and seemed spellbound by my maps of Iran and Turkey. Other than that he turned out to be a very quiet guy - perfect for a long train ride.

For the first few hours everything was easy and relaxing. Then the evening turned into night, and with it came the heat. It was a bitterly cold January night outside, as the train drove through the mountains of northwestern Iran, but the conductor decided to set the heating on thermonuclear. Perhaps in honor of their nuke program.

By 1:00 a.m. I was laying in a pool of my own sweat, barely able to breathe it was so hot. Simply to cool off, I got up to go to the freezing cold, unheated bathroom. Of course, the toilet was a squatter (i.e. a hole in the floor), and on a rapidly moving train everyone’s aim was not what it should have been. Still, I stood there in the stench, soaked in my own sweat and standing in a film of water, piss and shit, for 10 minutes until I started to cool down. Then, when the smell finally started to overcome the pleasant coolness, I fled back into the car.

On the way back to my compartment, I looked around for an empty room. Seeing one, I quickly ducked inside and tested the window, happily finding a small slit at the top that actually opened. So, at 1:30 in the morning, I packed everything up and snuck into the new compartment. The first thing I did was pile clothing over the accursed heater, then opened the window and tried to sleep.

The night soon became an endless series of half-hour stretches of sleep—first woken by the cold from the window, then by the heat after the window was closed. Alternately freezing and sweating, I tossed and turned my way through the early morning.

My struggle lasted until 6:00 a.m., when we arrived at the first immigration stop. Worried about possibly missing a document, and getting kicked out of my ‘private’ compartment, I prepared a welcome for the inspector. When he came to the door I offered him some of the fancy candy I’d bought back in Yazd. He was surprised, and seemingly touched. A quick glance at the room, then my passport (Oh, American?!? Welcome!) and he was gone. Customs problem one, solved.

The next stop wasn’t for a couple of hours so I shut the door and got ready to try sleeping again, only NOW IT WAS MUSIC TIME!! The conductor, may his black heart and evil spirit rest long in hell, decided to crank up some utterly god-awful music at the LOUDEST POSSIBLE VOLUME; fortunately, with the treble on high and the speakers crackling from the current! Yes! Within minutes I was hiding back in the toilet, praying for a crash.

The music in the hallways was so loud it penetrated every inch of the accursed train - meaning nowhere to escape. I went back to my compartment, jammed earplugs into my ears, hid my head under clothes and pillows, but still couldn’t escape the blood-curdling screams of the treble. Hours later, my mind dull from the overwhelming heat and the hours spent staring longingly at the passing mountain cliffs, dreaming of jumping from one, the train finally pulled into the next stop - Iranian Immigration.

The rest of the train trip got both much better, and far worse, but that’s enough blogging for today …

Tehran-Istanbul Train

Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan:
“

Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, denied on Thursday that the country's' military forced women into sexual slavery during World War II, casting doubt on a past government apology. "The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion," Abe told a reporters."

"

Nariaki Nakayama, chairman of a group of ruling party lawmakers that deny a Japanese government role in the forced sexual slavery:
“

Some say it is useful to compare the brothels to college cafeterias run by private companies, who recruit their own staff, procure foodstuffs, and set prices," Nakayama said. "Where there's demand, businesses crop up ... but to say women were forced by the Japanese military into service is off the mark," he said. "This issue must be reconsidered, based on truth ... for the sake of Japanese honor."

"

 Quotes from the International Herald Tribune Website, 1 March 2007

This has got to stop. Japanese government denials of forcing women into military sexual slavery have the same basis in ‘fact’, plus similar levels of dysfunctional morality, as Holocaust denials.

Facts are facts - IT HAPPENED. Japanese government records say so. The former victims, thousands of women from countries around the world, say so. Even former Japanese military members say so. Only politicians could be idiotic, ignorant, and racist enough to deny this.

The U.S. House of Representatives had hearings last month on this issue of Japanese WWII sexual slavery. Now they need to pass the resolution before them calling on the Japanese government to accept responsibility and apologize. No more should Japanese politicians be allowed to hide behind lies and childish historical obfuscation.

For more information, in English, please visit:

• Sharing House - http://www.nanum.org/
• Japan Policy Research Institute, Japan's Responsibility Toward Comfort Women Survivors - http://www.jpri.org/publications/workingpapers/wp77.html
• The Comfort Women Project - http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~soh/comfortwomen.html

or try reading:

• True Stories of the Korean Comfort Women
• The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War
  

Oil for Vacation Time!

Calling this an agreement to denuclearize North Korea, or block any of Pyongyang’s future nuclear options, doesn’t cut it. This agreement is simply the exchange of fuel oil for the temporary freezing, not closure, of the North’s aged nuclear facility at Yongbyon. The most important goals – finding and permanently closing all of the North’s facilities, plus getting rid of any/all existing nuclear fuel and weapons … are left to some dreamy future fantasyland.

The North could freeze Yongbyon for a few months of relaxation and world happiness, collect its fuel oil donations, then restart Yongbyon later in the year and barely miss a beat in its nuke program. Plus, they could repeat the same scenario ad infinitum, irritating the U.S., China, and everyone else along the way, but still skillfully making similar agreements whenever Chinese/international heat gets too high.

The North is basically getting aid for nothing – though many in the U.S. right-wing (i.e. former UN ambassador John Bolton) have come out against the agreement, can you imagine the incredible decibel level had it been Carter or Clinton that signed this thing?

Looking for a secure, long-term job? Become a State Department negotiator!

With so many of the most important issues left up to future negotiations, a better name for this deal would be something like 6-Nations Diplomat Employment Act. Since so much was glossed over in the current deal, it’s going to take years of negotiations, plus tons more fuel and other aid, before anything even close to denuclearization of the North, the ‘Libyan endgame’ everyone is hoping for, actually occurs. So send in your applications now, and you too could spend years in Beijing hotel rooms bargaining with the North!

Good News for Traveling U.S. Citizens

The North was all set to allow in American tourists last August, but backed out at the last minute when its July missile test brought a fresh round of international opprobrium. With this current agreement, especially its call for future U.S. diplomatic recognition of the North (something that Pyongyang has long desired, and originally promised in the 1994 nuclear agreement), the chances are very good that Americans will be allowed into North Korea later this year – the first time since October 2005 (not coincidentally, right after a previous ‘breakthrough’ in the 6-party talks).

Worried that the deal may blow up before the North’s summer travel season? Legitimate, but there’s so much fluff and diplomatic yapping built into this process that, even in the worst case, the summer will hopefully have come and gone before things get too far into the dumper. All you’ve got to do is place your bets on bureaucratic inefficiency!

Japan and Iran

Interestingly, Japan did not agree to provide any of the aid mentioned in the agreement. It stuck to its guns, saying it will only provide aid to the North once a full accounting is made of Japanese citizens abducted to the North in the 1970s and 80s. The aid will instead be provided only by the U.S., South Korea, China, and Russia.

 
Since any fuel oil provided by the bill will need congressional approval, may I humbly suggest that the honorary name for this bill be Iranian Nuclear Weapons Support Act? Because, god/Allah knows, after witnessing the North test a nuke, then get an agreement for aid within four months, the Iranians would be nuts not to speed up their nuclear development!

UPDATE - I was able to get into contact with my guide from Iran and found out that many tours to Iran have been shut down recently. So apparently, it's not just me having a hard time getting in. No one is sure why, but the Iranian Foreign Ministry seems to be further limiting travel to/in Iran. More updates as they become available.

I just found out that the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has rejected my application to spend the summer studying Farsi in Tehran. I've emailed for clarification, but so far (two days), I've yet to get an additional response. All I've heard, this from the University of Tehran's International Students Office, is:

Banned due to my nationality? Or did they Google me and find something they didn't like ... ?

For those wondering why anyone would want to send their summer in Iran learning Farsi/Persian, I actually found the place both interesting and surprisingly friendly when I visited last year. Plus, for someone interested in researching U.S. relations with 'rogue nations', Farsi would seem a useful language to pick up.

Scott

P.S. On a separate and highly unrelated note, I have a couple of good friends who went to the University of Texas. Spending the past couple of months working on this University of Tehran application has made me laugh every time I've heard "UT" referred to as a university in Tehran instead of Texas. Maybe I can get them to send me a t-shirt ...

I just got back to Korea after a month in the States and a question occurs to me – are there any airlines in the world worse than U.S. airlines?

To wit:

2 – the number of bags lost during my trip to/in the States. Nothing like showing up back home for the first time in two years, only to have your bag stuck somewhere in Minneapolis, courtesy Northwest Airlines (hereafter, and for eternity, referred to by the far more common name, 'Northworst'). Then, AGAIN, on my way out of the States, they lost the same bag! How shitty of an airline do you have to be to lose the same bag TWICE in ONE MONTH?!?

It was at least easy to register the lost bag. When they asked for a description I simply said it looks the same as it did when you lost it a few weeks ago.

4 – the numbers of times United Airlines changed my schedule

0 – the number of times United actually contacted me to warn about the change in schedule (something even Northworst did). Had I not gone online to confirm my seats, I'd have missed my flight!

1 out of 4 – the number of my flights canceled by United

9 – the number of hours it took Singapore Airlines to get me from Seoul to San Francisco

12 – the number of hours it took United to get me from Florida to Michigan, with no bad weather, nor any explanation for the six hours of delays

4 out of 9 – the number of late/delayed flights during my U.S. trip

0 – the number of apologies offered by Northworst and United for canceling, rescheduling, and delaying my flights, plus losing my bag(s)

$25 – the amount it cost to change my flight dates on Northworst

$0 – the amount it cost to change my flight dates on Singapore

75% - the percentage of an American airline that must be owned by Americans

0% - my satisfaction with this rule

10000000% - the amount I hope this rule is changed, so some of the worst airlines in the world can be taken over and everyone in charge fired

Bonus List:

Some of the odder airlines I've flown, ALL with better customer service than any major American airline:

• Iran Air
• Air Koryo (the official airline of North Korea)
• Philippine Air
• Vietnam Air
• Emirates Air
• Qatar Airways
• Bangkok Airways

"If they want a future with us, if they want to work with us, if they want to be a member of the international community, they're going to have to get out of this nuclear business," U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said on Sunday.

Ugh, this drives me crazy. I know there are people at State that understand Juche and the North Korean world outlook, so where does this ignorant BS Hill is uttering come from?

Isolation from the world community, in Pyongyang terminology, “self-reliance,” is a goal to be obtained, not a threat to be worried about. If you want to get the North’s attention, and really get them worried and ready to deal, you threaten them with MORE foreign interaction, not less. You threaten radio broadcasts, leaflet drops, satellite phones, defector education and re-training camps along their border, THEN you’ll get the North’s attention. Threatening the North with isolation is like threatening the Middle East with oil, or the French with wine – they have it already, they like it, and they really wouldn’t mind more.

There is a HUGE disconnect somewhere along the line from the people at the State Department who actually know something about the North, up to Hill and the others doing the talking and forming the U.S. negotiating positions. No wonder the North keeps doing whatever it wants – the people running the show on the U.S. side can’t tell a carrot from a damn stick.

I've added a few more photos from the trip to Iran, and hope to add more over the next couple of days. Enjoy, and let me know if you see anything you like or have any questions.

I’ve been hearing and reading these for years, so finally decided to put up a few of my own.

You know you’ve been in a long time (too long?), when:

• you see scissors and toilet paper on a restaurant table and … well, you don’t really think much of it
• you’re driving your motorcycle down the sidewalk and get irritated when people don’t get out of your way
• you have ever owned, or at least know the meaning of, the expression, “bee-bee”
• you hate going all the way out to Incheon Airport because you remember how easy, quick and cheap it was to get to Kimpo (and you remember when “Gimpo” was actually called Kimpo, Busan was Pusan, and Gangnam was Kangnam …)
• you think of dial-up modems as something that went out with leisure suits and 8-tracks
• you’re no longer surprised when your health club’s sound system spends most of its time playing slow love ballads
• you used to visit hidden ‘after-hours bars’ that secretly stayed open past the curfew
• you have seen 1-won coins in use
• even when meeting and shaking hands with non-Koreans you reflexively touch your elbow
• you go home and your friends look at you weird because you keep pouring everyone’s drinks
• you now cut up apples and remove the peel before eating them
• you go to SE Asia and think the Buddhist monks look weird in orange instead of grey