Yodok Story

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200603/200603150026.html

A controversial musical set in a North Korean gulag has at last been staged, overcoming pressure from powerful circles to bin the production for fear of offending Pyongyang. Wednesday night saw the opening of “Yoduk Story” at the Seoul KyoYuk Munhwa Hoekwan auditorium.

It has been a difficult road for producer Chung Seong-san, himself a North Korean defector, that saw him reportedly exposed to death threats and official pressure. “Yoduk Story” centers on Kang Yeon-hwa, the daughter of a party official and a promising dancer. When her father is falsely accused of being a South Korean spy, she and her family are detained in the notorious Yoduk concentration camp, where she is raped and becomes pregnant.
If you are able to I recommend checking out this musical. Although I have not seen it yet, and most likely I will understand little when I do (it's in Korean), the back story is quite interesting.

Rumor has it the producer put up his rights to his kidney (that's right, his own kidney) to some mobsters to finance the show. Good luck to him, just for guts like that, I'll shell out the dough to check it out.

Plus, ya just might learn someting! ;)

The PM is leaving

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200603/200603140036.html
Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan has resigned because of a "scandal" over his golfing (with some bad guys) during a holiday (that also saw the launch of a nation-wide railway strike). Now, I'm glad to see the guy go. Personally, I've always felt he was a Noh lapdog, but I guess that what the position of Prime Minister is often about.

Leaving because of a golf scandal though, I'm not sure about it. I am the first to say that this administration needs to leav, but all too often nowadays it seems that they bow far too quickly to public opinion. A Super Comment Tribe (http://news.naver.com/news/read.php?mode=LSS2D&office_id=025&article_id=0000599179&section_id=105§ion_id2=226&menu_id=105) Seems to be ruling online opinion (See Marmot for translation - http://www.rjkoehler.com/?p=2541).

I worry about how this will affect politics in the future. It seems far too easy to bend to the eb and flow of internet waves.

*sorry for bad link, I have forgotten how to hot-link
/sigh

Noh is makin' Moh!

That's right, people think that president Noh is your average joe. That he made his money legally and such. Well take a look at this:

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2006/03/01/200603010040.asp

President Roh and his immediate family saw their wealth increase by 12.9 percent or 94.47 million won (about $97,400) with total assets now reaching about 829.3 million won.
The increase mostly came from bank savings and stock investments, according to the government ethics committee.

And then think about how much Noh has been pushing the devaluation of Real Estate. His family is heavily invested in the Stock Market and he is flodding investors into that sector by making Real Estate a bad buy.

maybe his strategy has less to do with the nation's welfare and more to do with his own pocketbook?