At this year's Korean college festivals, students ran out of cups so they made one out of a banana and it became an instant hit.  Their drink of choice: Soju.

Soju
Soju was first introduced to Korea by the Mongolian invaders in the 13th century (since they were nice enough to bring the booze, I forgive their invasion).  Its cheap and got a kick like a mule.  Tastewise, lets just say its memorable and habit forming like a distilled form of hard suffering.  Soju is the People's Drink in Korea.  Proper way to drink it is to gulp in down, cringe like somebody just hit you hard in the stomach, and say "KKkkkkkkkk!"  Do that in front of Koreans and they'll treat you like a brother.

Technical Details: Soju is a distilled hard liquor made from grain or potatoes. It is clear and has a high alcoholic content. Traditionally, soju is made from glutinous rice or regular rice. Rice is washed, cleaned and steamed. Then, it is cooled with cold water. "Nuruk" or mashed and fermented glutinous rice, is added to the steamed rice, stirred well, and kept about one week. When it is fermented, it is put into a cauldron over a fire. When it is boiled, the distilled alcohol forms on the surface of the vessel filled with cold water, which is soju.

Of six elementary school years in Korea, I remember white envelopes.  White envelopes given to teachers by mothers.  Sometimes they were delivered in person, other times kids were told by their mother to give to teacher.  I remember doing that once or twice.

I think every kid eventually figured out, as they got older, what those white envelopes were for: greasing the palms of our teachers for good grades, special care, and protection.  Some of the teachers were noticeably embarassed about receiving those envelopes, others were greedy enough to ask for more by inviting mothers to discuss 'problems' their son or daughter was having at school.

My wife, seven years younger than me, remembers the same.  According to messages posted by an online community of Korean women, of which my wife is a member of, white envelopes are still going around in Korea.  All grown up and mothers to Korean kids, they now recall giving white envelopes.  They all say they did it for their kids' education.

Its more than peer pressure.  Isolation, verbal and physical abuses by teachers and fellow students have been experienced by those who refused to give those white envelopes.  If I do bad things for the sake of my kids, I am not likely to admire those who refuses to do the same.  How dare they shame me.

In Korea, mothers and teachers have been and are continuing to plant the seeds of corruption, wrapped in white envelopes, into their young.  Kids are not stupid and they will remember.  As adults, they will find it easier to accept corruption than to accept their mothers and teachers being corrupt.

I am not saying Korean mothers and teachers are bad, I am saying that they do not know what they are doing and what effects their seemingly benign actions are having on their children.  Knowing and saying what is right does not make doing right.  Lastly, an advice to Korean mothers: get the fathers involved because they know how to start trouble, trouble worth having.

It's been a while since I posted anything related to Korea, so here they are:

Jung Mong-joon – I took my wife and son to a Korean barbeque place (Nool-Bom meaning Forever Spring on Keily Ave.) in San Jose last weekend.  I met Jung Mong-joon there and had a brief talk with him.

Jung Mong-joon is a son of the founder of Hyundai, vice-chairman of FIFA, and ex-candidate for Korean Presidency.  After losing the candidacy to Roh Moo-hyun, current Korean President, he came US to do some 'research' at Stanford.  I thought he was at Hoover Institute, but apparently he is at Asian Institute or something.  Lee Hwae-chang, the Other Loser, is at Hoover Institute now.

My impression of him was a well-mannered, empty man.  Empty in a sense that there is nothing he really truely wants.  He felt like a tumbleweed blowing in the wind of desires blown by his father and those around him.  Strangely enough, he seemed content.  I felt this strange impulse to yell at him, but didn't because I didn't want to 'wake' him.

Smoking on TV – Whenever I watched Korean TV, I saw smoking almost every ten minutes.  Smoking was a generally accepted expression for stress and distress.  Recently, Korean TV companies decided together to ban smoking on TV.  Funny thing is, this was done really quickly and without any public outcry.  Is that strange or what?  Now there are these odd moments when characters would have smoked before, but now doesn't.  Weird.

Our 11th wedding anniversary is tommorrow, so I washed the dishes tonight.  Last time was sometime last year.  Hey, we might be Americans, but our marriage is Korean.  Still, I try my best to knock the hard edges off male chauvinistic behaviors.  So I did the dishes tonight.  Tommorrow, I am cooking and my son is washing the dishes.  I am sure my future daughter-in-law will thank me for this.

Korean chaebol Hyundai secretly wired $500 million to Macao just before Kim Dae-joong, former Korean President, met Kim Jong-Il, North Korean dictator.  While Hyundai claims the money was for ensuring Hyundai business in North Korea for the next 30 years, evidences seem to show that it was a payoff for the meeting.

Funny thing is that Kim Jong Il received only $300 million.  $200 disappeared in route.  This is not surprising because, when you bribe someone in Korea, people in between each take a cut.  40% seems rather steep though.

Opposition party in Korea currently has the majority, so it voted to have a Special Prosecutor investigate.  Roh Moo-hyun, newly elected President, let the veto deadline pass today which means there will be a Special Prosecutor investigating the former President as well as the North Korean diplomatic channels.

While all this was going on, President Roh and his cabinet were trying to protect the North Koreans who too part in the payoff so they won't get embarassed.  Missing $200 million probably went to those folks.  As to why Kim Jong-Il is letting them live, I have no idea.  It is interesting that not even DMZ can stop corruption.

Young Prosecutors vs. President Roh

Moving on to more hopeful news, mid-level Korean prosecutors rebelled when the Minister of Legal Matters announced her plan to reorganize the Justice Department.  Both sides wanted to cleanup the Department, but the prosecutors wanted to do it themselves.  The rebellion itself was amazing, but President Roh's decision to debate the rebelling prosecutors on TV was shocking.  So people watched young prosecutors insult President Roh live on TV.

Nobody really won, but the debate changed Korean politic.  Also, everyone saw open display of distrust against senior prosecutors by both the President and the young prosecutors.  After the debate, most of senior prosecutors either resigned or were exiled to positions that encouraged them to resign.  I am hoping that replacement of the whole top tier of Justice Department will open a new war against corruption in Korea.  Keep on trucking, Roh!  Roll right over those corrupt bastards.

Thesa Online is a new Korean online game that looks like Diablo 2.  It differs from Diablo 2 in that treasures you find are meatspace goods like MP3 players, bicycles, and computers.  There are also cash prizes ranging from $200 to $5000.  According to Lee Gi-chang, President of Thesa Online, they plan to return 20% of profit back to the users as prizes.  Will this work?  Yes in Korea.  Maybe in US.  Hacking and slashing is definitely an interesting way to shop.  "Honey, can you lend me your Avenger?  Macy's is having a Hack'n Slash Sale."

"The job of CEOs is now to regain America?s trust ? and for the country?s sake it?s important that they do so. They will not succeed in this endeavor, however, by way of fatuous ads, meaningless policy statements, or structural changes of boards and committees. Instead, CEOs must embrace stewardship as a way of life and treat their owners as partners, not patsies. It?s time for CEOs to walk the walk."
[Warren Buffett (pdf) via Scott Loftesness]

Korean Chaebols control huge network of mostly public companies without an inkling of consideration for their shareholders.  They routinely bend and break laws to make sure their family retains control.  This is why some of them are being arrested in Korea, first being SK Group's chaebol family members.  Samsung, Hyundae, and LG are no different.  They are all family controlled and these families all have secret funds created from questionable accounting practices and fake transactions with shell companies.  Part of the secret fund goes to politicians and bureacrats.  Korean economy is built on not only sweats of Korean workers, but also on corruption.  It doesn't matter whether its a chaebol or a small startup.  Corruption rules in Korea.

Everyone in Korea knows this, so why are they buying Korean stock?  Greed, pure and simple.  I'll never buy a single share of Korean stock until the day when people are surprised by news of corruption instead of mere nods and shrugs of today.  Frankly, I don't think I'll see that day in my life time.  Korea had a caste system founded on Confucious' philosophy for 500 years (Chosun dynasty) and the caste system still lives on in people's mind.

Just yesterday, I read an article written by a well-educated (went to Berkeley like me ;-) elderly Korean-American.  He seemed to suggest that Korean laws should be changed to allow heads of Korean chaebol families to have many wives.  Why?  With many wives, there will be larger crop of sons to choose the next family leader out of.  His reasoning seems to be that Korea's future prosperity is directly tied to chaebols's prosperity so lets breed good chaebols who will be as good as Samsung's Lee Gun-hee.  Blue blood in shareholders' hands is what I hope to see in my lifetime.