There’s a lot of talk about the $700,000,000,000.00 bailout in the U.S. news. Read that number one more time. Seven. Zero. Zero. Comma. Zero. Zero. Zero. Comma. Zero. Zero. Zero. Comma. Zero. Zero. Zero. Dot. Zero. Zero. I don’t even know the numbers in Korean that count that high to translate for my Korean friends and teachers! 700 trillion won is no small number to comprehend, after all.

An editorial from the Korea Times suggests that the U.S. could learn from Korea’s problems with personal credit card debt from 2000. In both cases, the lenders dropped or ‘forgot’ about their traditional lending standards, giving credit to anyone that wanted it without ensuring they could pay it back. According to the article, one of the programs was a ‘personal debt workout plan’, which helped Koreans pay back their debts and restore their credit status. The American banks failing had more to do with the complex systems of packaging the mortgages and reselling them as ’securities’ - and history will likely remember those packaging deals (and failings) as the primary reason for the recession of 2008.

But how does it affect Korea? Go back to that first sentence: the Korean stock market fell more than 6 percent with the failings of the banks. The won also took a beating - dropping to its lowest level against the US dollar in almost 10 years. The stock market rose based on the possible vote of the bailout plan this morning a little, however. The won is still taking a beating - meaning if you’re looking to come teach in Korea, your U.S. dollar will buy more won now than it would’ve 6 months ago. It also means that if you’re, say, an English teacher living in Korea, it costs you more won to convert your money back into U.S. dollars. The average Korean won’t be buying many things in U.S. dollars, but a weaker currency means it costs more money for businesses to buy raw supplies, import things from other countries, etc. There are many financial experts out there that understand how these things work a lot more, so I’ll leave the rest of the explaining job to them. Let’s just end this post by saying that how the U.S. executes its plan to spend more money than you and I can fathom will assist in determining the world economy for some time to come.

“Blind masseurs jump from bridge”:(Photo credit: AP) The story as reported by CNN (first reported by Yonhap, a Korean news agency) is definitely a combination of five words you wouldn’t expect to see together in the news. I could think of a few other unlikely (but wonderful if true) five-word combinations: “Chicago Cubs win World Series”; “North Korea finally declares capitalism”, “U.S. finds Osama Bin Laden”, and so on.
This story has a rather sad tint to it, however. Since 1963, South Korea has allowed blind people - and only blind people - to give medical massages. It became a law in 2006 after a number of protests by blind people; after actually becoming law, the sighted people protested against the new law themselves, filing suit to overturn the new law. According to the CNN report, “the country’s Constitutional Court [similar to the American Supreme Court] is expected to rule soon on an appeal filed by several sighted people who argued that the profession cannot be the exclusive domain of the blind.” According to the New York Times, “they contend that the law violates their right to employment. A ruling could come as soon as next week.”

Recently, the South Korean health ministry granted licenses to sighted masseurs and masseuses to practice certain kinds of massages. Before then, sighted people could not legally be licensed or give medical massages. That hasn’t stopped a much larger number of sighted masseurs working illegally around the country.

This change in policy (and pending court case) led blind masseurs to protest in a most peculiar way - by threatening to jump off a bridge over the Han river. 26 protesters were arrested by police in riot gear, while at least one actually jumped off the bridge to avoid being arrested (see photo below):

While this story has made headlines on CNN and the New York Times (links go straight to the stories), the story has yet to appear (as of this posting date) on the Korea Times or the Korea Herald - two of the largest English-language newspapers in Korea. A little surprising - although I hope it’s simply an issue of translation or posting their version of their story (instead of ignoring the story and hoping it’ll go away).

Why on earth would Korea let only blind people become masseurs? Why, I’m glad you asked. According to the New York Times article, Japanese colonialists introduced the idea in 1913 of reserving masseur jobs for the blind. In 1946, sighted people were no longer prohibited to work in the trade, but the rule was reinstated in 1963. The South Korea constitution guarantees the right for people to choose their jobs, but according to the NYT article, it also “requires the state to protect the disabled”. The problem is a little evident when you consider the supply and demand - and there’s much more demand than licensed supply. From the NYT article:

About 7,100 legally blind people work in about 1,000 massage parlors in South Korea, and they are the only legally registered masseurs in the country. But they can hardly meet the demand, and so tens of thousands of so-called sports massage centers, skin-care salons, barber shops, hotels and public bath houses employ sighted, but illegal, massage workers. Estimates of their number range from 150,000 to 700,000.

Being a miguk (American) and essentially unaware of the Korean culture towards protecting those with disabilities (but having a professionally licensed massause in the family), I suggest the following steps:
Step 1: Enable blind masseurs to better compete with sighted masseurs. Being a former Business major with a Marketing emphasis, I’d be quick to point out the advantages (whether real or perceived) of a blind masseur. Perhaps they have a more sensitive touch, or perhaps some people would choose a blind masseur over a sighted masseur. It’s why some people shop at the corner store rather than the ‘big box’ store even though the prices might be a little higher.
Step 2: Ensure licensing regulations / laws are written to ensure compliance, whether given to a sighted person or a blind person. After allowing a grace period for those already practicing to become licensing, begin to crack anyone unlicensed - blind or sighted.
Step 3: Direct job training / licensing fees from sighted people into programs run by the blind for the blind. I wouldn’t even create a new government agency to oversee the money - simply use the government or private agencies that already exist.Step 4: Encourage blind people to apply themselves in fields beyond massages. Millions of blind people around the world work in fields as diverse as accounting, machine operators, pickers, customer service manager, assistant store manager, barber, piano tuner, bicycle repairman - and that’s from just searching two websites. Blind people are not so disadvantaged that they need a government helping them keep a monopoly in an fast-growing field. The thought is not only ludicrous, but traps the blind population into a mindset that they must rely on others instead of taking their life into their own hands. The loss of one sense does not undo a human’s soul, a personality, or one’s ability to work for a living as most humans have to these days.

So what gives? Multiple sources amongst the previous stories have indicated a stroke, but that he would be recovering; more than likely we’ll be seeing him - and stories of his legendary health, of course - in the very near future. North Korea may well have quite a few starving stories, but I’m sure Kim Jong-Il has some of the best doctors available in the world.

What concerns me is that South Korea seems to have no plans for what could happen after his eventual death. This Korea Times article seems to imply that there is no specific plan (whether security-related or otherwise); while it’s a little scary to imagine millions of North Koreans pouring across the DMZ (demilitarized zone) between North Korea and South Korea, I highly doubt there would be an onslaught of people. While a sudden death would raise the risk of chaos amidst an already starving and broken country, I suspect North Korea’s communist leaders are too smart for that. From dailynk.com:

“Kim Jong Il occupied the position of the Organizing Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party, in which he took the authority to implement personnel management decisions on the entire political elite. Therefore, he was able to exercise his authority, with as much influence as Kim Il Sung [the previous ruler], although he had not taken office as the top Secretary of the Party.

Furthermore, Kim Il Sung had transferred most of his authority to Kim Jong Il and had built supporting foundations and the leadership system for his son by the time he died. Therefore, Kim Jong Il could reign in North Korea even though he was not the secretary of the Party for three years after Kim Il Sung dying.”

The Wikipedia article about “Politics in North Korea” indicate that it’s a complex system, with as many rules and posts as there are ways of wresting control from whomever currently has it. I suspect Kim Jong-Chul (a son born by one of Kim Jong Il’s ‘companions’) would be next to either retain control either given to him by his father, or various political forces would align and enable him to take it.

Whomever retains / takes control of North Korea, I don’t expect much to change in the country - or in South Korea’s relationship with North Korea. It’ll take a lot more than a leader of a communist country getting sick / dying for there to be real change - anybody remember Fidel Castro?

While Koreans celebrate Chuseok by returning home and performing ancestor worship or playing traditional games, they may also visit the tombs of their immediate ancestors to trim plants and clean the area around the tomb. Since harvest crops are attributed to the blessing of ancestors, there’s some traditional belief to these practices. Outside of the typical Chuseok festivities, there is a large population of non-Koreans that... well... we’re just not sure what’s going on or what exactly we’re supposed to do. If there are any Korean ancestors in your past you can honor them on some level... for the other 99.9998% of us Westerners, well...

One interesting shopping note: the stores are full of what could be described as ‘themed gift boxes’ - anything from fruit to ginseng to liquor to Spam may make up these gift boxes. With the Chuseok season nearing, my best guess is that they’re given to the family that the Seoulites are traveling to see.

On the positive side, most Koreans will be leaving Seoul in favor of wherever their families happen to be. This means most everything around Seoul will be dead or much less busy compared to the norm. If there’s anywhere you’ve been putting off visiting because of the crowds, this weekend may well be the time. If you’re looking to travel outside of the city, be prepared to be fighting an especially large crowd looking to get home (or get back to Seoul, depending on your timing).

So what should you do if you’re a foreigner? Copied from korea.net:

The National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts gives you “Dalmajigut,” the Korean dance of welcoming the harvest time of the year under the big, full moon next Sunday on Sept. 14. The performance will take place at the outdoor theater of Byeolmajiteo at 7 p.m. In the audience participation event, audience members will be invited to sample “sindo” wine, made of new grain and “songpyeon” a half-moon shaped rice cake filled with sesame seeds and other sweet pastes. Other participatory events prepared for the visitors include tuho, an arrow-throwing contest, eunggyeongdo nori, a kind of board game played during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) and straw craft. I may try to check this event out, although most of the information I’ve found thus far has yet to indicate a place I could find on a map...

In the end, I suspect most foreigners will enjoy their three (or more) day weekend, travel if they already have plans or relax if they don’t.