The Korea Times reports that 1 in 10 minors are addicted to mobile phones in korea.

The state-backed Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion found early last year that roughly one third of Korean students send more than 100 phone messages every day.

Up to 35.4 percent of 704 surveyed students aged between 14 and 24 in Seoul and its vicinity said they are members of the 100-messages-per-day club.

original article here

i was once slapped (not literally) for sending too many txts. that was shortly after my return from korea and i didn’t even realise that i was sending a few too many. well, i don’t think i was, number-wise. i did send a few a day to that particular person (the slapper) but the problem, i think, was the content of the messages, not the number. i was sending short perhaps “meaningless” messages like “damn, my car battery’s gone flat while i was away” or “it’s so hot. i’m melting” etc, a practice i had got used to during my stay in korea. seemed everyone was doing it, and i was quickly absorbed into the whole practice of sending multimple meaningless messages (MMMs!). ok, 100 messages a day sounds pretty excessive. my fingers and wrist wouldn’t be fit (or young?) enough for that kind of wild exercise.

what i found amusing - but not in such a positive way - in the Korea Times article was this part:

“The number of young mobile addicts would be much greater than merely 10 percent,” said Sung Yun-sook, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Youth Development.

“In particular, young students tend to use handset messages too much. We learned this often prompts them to lose concentration on their studies,” Sung said.

whatever young people do to “play,” the issue of it being a “negative influence on their studies” always becomes one of the main problems and a main part of some political and social propagandas. i do understand that it’s part of the korean culture in general - confucian influences are still widely evident in many corners of korea - and that it’s a small country with not so great social welfare system, so you need to start early to work hard to give yourself greater competitive edge. what i don’t really appreciate is the enormous perceived value of “studying, the korean way” - which is focused exclusively on scoring high in the university entrance exam. this value system really kills people, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

graduating from a good university gives you a golden (and probably empty) promise that you will get a good job, and your spouse would be equally great (if not better) in various ways: attractive, educated, well-off, and from a good family. let’s not forget that the general practice of getting married in korea involves the groom(’s parents) getting a place for the couple to live in and the bride(’s parents) filling up the house with everything from toothbrushes to a tv. so the general belief is - regardless of how realistic it is - that you graduate from a top university, you’re set for life (although this once solid belief is eroding). no wonder education is such a significant part of korean life. its adult literacy rate is around 98% (as of 2004) and that of youth is appx 100%, according to the human development report.

enthusiasm in education is a good thing. but over enthusiam in a rigid learning process for unwise purposes really defies the meaning of education. having a girl/boyfriend is not ok for students and thus prohibited by their parents and greatly discouraged by adults in general, because it’s a major disruption to their studies. students don’t get to acquire pragmatic knowledge about sex and sexuality at school or anywhere, really. Result?

original data from here

according to the 2001 UNICEF report, korea had the lowest teenage birth-rate at 2.9 percent. So I assume that the number of teenage abortions must be quite high, if counting illegal operations. enjo-kousai is a growing practice amongst young korean girls - although enjo-kousai mainly stems from the material/consumerist culture, another reason why girls get into this is because there is nowhere for them to go apart from suffocating schools (there’s a good book in korean on enjo-kousai amongst korean youth written by yunju kim-go). and this is one of the main reasons why korean youths constantly look for ways to hang out with other youngsters and entertain themselves in the virtual realm, especially the Internet and computer games.

a lot of my friends in korea say that they want to live in another country, expressing concerns for their, and their (some yet-to-be-born) children’s future in this small, complicated country. i’m an australian resident myself, and i understand their desire to leave korea. in fact, korea is losing thier top brainpowers to other countries precisely for the tough lifestyle it offers - i’ve seen stats but i don’t have them here now). what can be done? well, there is no quick fix. the infamous korean PARIPARI (hurry-hurry) mentality is just NEVER going to work in this situation. one most crucial area to look at is definitely education, and providing “space” where young people can feel free to express themselves, and more importantly, encourage them to be there and play. the number of daily text messages may not drop, but at least there’s a hope that their learning will continue and will lead them to make the korean society a better one.

here’s a free hugs video from korea.

i recently met up with two friends of mine in seoul.

we had drinks - koreans are heavy drinkers; you simply must come and experience it yourself to truly understand what i mean.

An investigation showed on Sept. 13 that South Koreans consumedan average of 4.5 liters of distilled liquor such as whisky and the nation’s most popular alcoholic beverage “Soju” in 2002, ranking fourth after Russia, Latvia and Romania. 
– full article from the Seoul Times here 

this time, though, my friends and i only moved once, which means we only did “2-cha.” cha is a counting suffix for the number of drinking places (be it a pub or a restaurant where you drink) you go in one night - or day, why not. it’s sort of like “rounds” - e.g. “oori uhje 5-cha gasseo” literally means “we went 5-cha yesterday (last night),” which means “we went to five different places to drink last night.” we koreans drink, drink, and drink… then consider moving to a different place for a change of scenery, and type of edible consumables, i suppose, and continue on. drinking is one of the biggest and most important cultures in korea.

anyway, we only did 2-cha and parted because first, it was getting late, and second, i was still hungover from the night before when i lost track of the number of cha’s, and third, we couldn’t afford to miss the last train. and most naturally i gave each of them a hug at the train station. what i got was, of course, eventually a hug in return, but what i got first was an utterance from my shocked friend k:

“what, you’re a westerner now?”

maybe she was just jealous that she wasn’t the first one to get my hug. haha. no, seriouly… compared to australia, i feel that korean culture involves much closer physical proximities in general. friends walk around holding hands, or arm-in-arm (not so much between men though) etc. such physical intimacy is quite evident in the food culture of korea, where almost all dishes are shared amongst the people on the table. you don’t get your own little portions in your own plates apart from your bowl of rice, and sometimes soup - though stews are shared. so basically, an unvited guest at dinner time is not a problem as all you need to provide them with are:

• a spoon
• a pair of chopsticks
• a bowl of rice
• and a bowl of soup, if having a soup, not a stew for that particular meal

yes, you dig in and double-, triple-, and howmanyevertimesyouwant-dip your spoon and chopsticks into various dishes on the table. of course there were gender-based traditions before - for example, women were not allowed to eat with the men in the family - but unless you’re from a really traditional family, you probaby don’t eat separately like that anymore.

now, back to the “hugging” part, i wonder what it is that makes “hugging” a surprisingly foreign practice in korea, especially when physical contacts in other ways and social ties are a lot more intimate and stronger in general. something to think about…

a while ago, i read some articles about google’s emerging relationship with korea. i didn’t archive them anwhere - even on my del.icio.us, which would’ve been so easy and a smart thing to do - so i will need to dig them up again, but here’s one of the articles i read then:

Google recently announced that it would invest at least $10 million on an R&D center in Seoul, Korea, reports the Korea Herald, and hire 130-150 researchers. Alan Eustace, Google senior VP for engineering, told the Korea Times that they want to recruit local computer scientists to “further develop innovative search technologies for Korean users and users around the world.”
– Google, Youtube, and Korean Connections @ GigaOm here

google’s share in the competitive search engine market in korea is only 5%. that’s pretty embarrasing for a company that’s managed to turn its name into a verb. you could never replace google in this sentence “just google it or something” with a different search engine name. all the other search engines fall into the second part of the sentence: “or something”

koreanclick reports that unique search referrals in korea are mostly by naver (appx 80%), followed by daum (48%) and yahoo!korea (32%). google’s only at 10.8%. a recent report also shows that to the question “what’s the site that first comes to your mind when you hear the term ’search engine (검색사이트 gumsek saitu)’?,” 59.4% said naver, 10.5% daum, and 7.3% yahoo. In terms of shopping sites, auction was found to be no 1 at 26.3%, followed by gmarket (18.6%), interpark (4.7%), and d&shop (4.2%). you can read the original article here (in korean). ebay bought auction in 2001, but they didn’t change the name; “ebay” is not mentioned anywhere but right on the bottom, where people wouldn’t really scroll down to see. but when i typed in “www.ebay.co.kr” i was taken to auction.

as with the global UCC boom, korean portals are pretty much in the same trend, but i’ve noticed that the korean ones have been doing that for quite a while now. and one of the most interesting things i’ve noticed about naver is that it gained popularity through its “naver knowledge search (네이버 지식검색 naver jisik gumsek).” this is a really interesting service, much like a combination of search engine + wikipedia. kind of like google (but naver had started way before google did) but much neater. korean search engines are quite different - i mentioned this after rachel’s presentation at the AoIR7.0’s doctoral colloquium as well, but if you compare how search results are displayed in yahoo (us or australia) and yahoo korea, you can clearly see the differences. yahoo!korea displays things in this categorical order:

1. knowledge (users answer to other users’ questions and gain ponts, too)
2. blogs and message boards
3. yahoo category
4. web results
5. news
6. hub (tag-based search)
7. music
8. videos
9. images
10. shopping

yahoo!korea basically ripped off naver’s knowledge service. well, it is in fact a really useful thing to have, and it’s helped me quite a bit every time i was preparing my trip to japan (but some people simply want to know things like “which instant noodle is hotter?”). of course i also used message boards in my daum cafes (clubs), and daum portal has recenly incorporated cafe message board search as well, which has boosted their lagging popularity. people seem to care about what other “normal people” or “netizens” have to say about thier subjects of curiousity.

anyway, back to google, as the first mentioned article says, korea’s not all that attractive in terms of market size. it’s a small country. but there are a lot of r&d centres over there, it’s pretty ridiculous - there seem to be a lot of magazine and journal articles on this topic anyway, so you can “(please insert your favourite search engine’s name here)” it, if you like - there’s ibm, microsoft, sun, hp, siemens, and google, just to name a few.
the korean government’s agenda to turn korea into the R&D Hub of North East Asia seems to have worked. why korea for r&d? here are some reasons:

1. strategic location
   (between two largest economies of the world, china and japan)
2. cultural proximity
   (to other asian countries: traditional and contemporary. the korean wave phenomenon has hit the whole region and beyond, from japan to uzbekistan)
3. brains, or qualifications
   (oecd’s report, education at a glance 2005, reports that tertiary education attainment rate of koreans between 25-34 is 47%, and the country is one of the highest performing in student performance in problem solving)
4. supportive environment
   (the government wants you there and will offer you subsidies and tax benefits)
5. nice infrastructure
   (transport-wise and more importantly, the broadband. if you want to see the future of broadband, or the future broadband lifestyle, go to korea)
6. sustainability
   (labour’s still cheapter than first-world countries, and cities are becoming more livable for creative class - foreign and local alike)

it all sounds lovely and beneficial for everyone. but i’m also hearing (or reading, more like) a lot of concerned voices coming from korea. they’re saying that those r&d centres are not contributing much to developing korean r&d sector. some main reasons behind this opinion include:

1. most centres function independently to the existing r&d sources in korea; in other words, there’s not much interaction between the KOREAN education and r&d sectors and the foreign-owned.
2. most workers at those centres are actually koreans; it’s just the same r&d power repackaged, rather than dynamic interactions amongst different multi-national sources.
3. and lastly, it appears as though korea is used as a testbed (for its techno-social and geographical advantages) and “development,” rather than “research” centre. after all, r&d includes two aspects: research and development. in the cyclical process of r&d, the egg comes first; from there chicks are “developed” into hens who can lay more super eggs later.

so i’m not quite sure what google wants from korea, other than looking at what’s going with contents and users in this exotic world built upon broadband. i hope that korea continues to shine technologically and culturally, and people - rich and poor - get to benefit from all that’s happening and is going to happen. korea will have to be careful so that they don’t get sucked into “the system” and spat out before they realise that they’ve lost most, if not all, of their eggs. my humble suggestion is that korea should watch out for their “palipali” tendencies - getting things done in a rushed/hurried manner. this charactersitic is seen in every facet of korean society, and has contributed to some amazing phenomena and developments; but after all, you can’t break the egg and pull the chick (or chicken, even) out, or sell off your farm for a quick gain before the eggs hatch (well, you can, but it’ll be a shame). can i just point out that i really hate using metaphors… well, i did it anyway just for a change.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government opened “Seoul Oasis,” a portal Web site (www.seouloasis.net) that allows citizens of Seoul to freely exchange their ideas and suggestions on municipal policies.
full story here

seoul’s been going through some huge changes in many ways - environmentally, culturally, and now socially, it seems. i’d be really interested to see how this thing goes. it kind of reminds me of “shinmoongo,” introduced by King Taejong during Chosun dynasty, which was basically a drum that a commoner could come and hit to directly discuss their grievances with the King if the matter could not be resolved through appropriate processes on a local level/s.
seoul’s very exciting. never liked the city before, but the last time i went - early this year - i was really impressed by all the changes that were going on to make it a better place to live. there are lots of interesting galleries and museums, too. would love to go again soon.

Recently South Korea’s has unveiled its plan to become the leader of the global mobile industry.

As an integral part of the Mobile Number One (M-1) Project, The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) plans to build the Mobile Special District (MSD). It’s going to be a ”mobile paradise” where, according to Ho-ick Suk, MIC Assistant Minister,  ”all existing and burgeoning mobile technologies in this planet will be used” to create a a free technology zone that will create a new mobile environment. It will play the role of test-bed for up-and-coming wireless platforms” (See Korea Plans to Build `Mobile Paradise’). Different technologies will be fully integrated in MSD in the following order:

2007: GSM
2008: DVB-H
2009: TD-SCDMA
2010: 4G

MIC’s got a budget of 460 million Won (apx. AUS$66,247,000) for this project, which of course means that the actual cost will be a lot more than that. Still suffering from the Asian Crisis (whether the government wants to admit it or not), this is not an insignificant amount of money for Korea; but MIC claims that this investment will secure 50% of global mobile terminal core-parts market, 30% of terminal market, and 15% of 3G system market. I don’t know how ambitious this sounds to others, but I think this is a highly feasible plan, considering the enormous technological developments Korea has achieved in recent years.

Who would’ve thought that this tiny largely unnoticed place sandwiched between two giant powerhouses - namely China and Japan - could achieve the highest broadband penetration rate in the world? I remember back in my high school days, our teacher asked us which country Sony was from. Everyone knew the answer of course. Japan. But when it came to Hyundai, people went silent until someone yelled out “Japan,” to which a few responded with nods in agreement. But now companies like Samsung and LG are changing the scene. Korean mobile phones are recognised and popular for their functional quality and design. One evidence would be the film “Elizabethtown,” in which Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst are seen with a Samsung Anycall and LG Cyon respectively; that wasn’t a product placement (the actors try hard to cover the logos with their fingers etc, but it doesn’t work all the time ;) ).

Korea was the first country in the world to launch DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) services. Korea is also the birth place of WiBro (Wireless Broadband), which is expected to be commercially available within a few months in Korea. These kinds of radical technological developments is one of the main factors that make Korea such an interesting research subject in so many different realms including media, communications, psychology, and sociology. A lot of people are still baffled and stunned as to why and how the Korean Wave came about and remains persistently strong. But when you think about it, the answer is simple: its techno-social development. The virtual reality is no longer a separate imagined reality in Korea; it’s intrinsically inter-related to the reality itself, and the distinction between what is virtual and physical is becoming more and more blurry every moment. People are constantly exposed to media, and virtually become the media itself. When that happens, the cultural productivity and developmental rate naturally increases. Yes, it is a global phenomenon. But in Korea, this socio-cultural shift is a lot more acutely manifest and experienced. It’s unbelievable.

My PhD thesis will be a triangulation study of Japan, Korea, and China. I plan to focus on the role of mobile media and technologies in shaping (youth) culture within each nation and the East Asian region. I’m really excited about what I’m doing and am going to do, but I do feel that I need to have a broader network where I could share information and get help from people who know a lot more than I do. Sometimes it so scary to think how little I know. Just how much can you learn within a three years (and a bit)? I know that I will always be a curious person, so will always be searching and researching. And I hope what I do will somehow benefit the world. Brad Haseman, an associate professor at QUT whom I like and respect very much, always says that PhD is only the starting point - when you need to train and prepare yourself for greater and amazing research that you’re going to do in the future. I do agree but sometimes it does feel pretty scary and ridiculous to be here in Brisbane, so far away from all these unprecedented radical transformations happening everywhere but here.

Anyway, back to the point. MSD. Very exciting. Korea. Very exciting.

My research? Very exciting. Definitely for me. Hopefully for you, too.