Korean government announced that it will be 100Mbps nationwide network by 2010.  While Korea is known as the broadband mecca, not many realizes that broadband distribution in Korea is heavily centered around major cities.  I have not be able to confirm it but I have read that 90% of broadband distribution in Korea is concentrated around Seoul where nearly half of Korean population lives.  What this means is that Seoul is the broadband mecca, not Korea.

Korea went completely nuts over credit cards in recent years and many Koreans have built up unsurmountable debts which greedy card companies are now being weighed down with.  LG Card, Korea's largest credit card issuer, is in deep trouble and seeking emergency loans.  In a culture where the cost of saving face is high, credit card is both a blessing and a curse.

All it takes is one fool, who thinks spending $1000 at a bar is proper or $1500 handbag is essential, to start the domino of mutual destruction.  He treats you and you treat back and so on.  Soon such lavish treatment becomes the norm for good times and the whole country sinks in debt.  Only protection against this is the lost art of Iron Face.  Muhahaha!

To stem mounting credit card debt and fraud problems in Korea, Korean credit card issuers like Kookmin are starting to experiment with restricting transactions by merchant type, time, and amount.  For example, a credit card that can't be used at bars from 8PM til 6AM could save Korean business men a lot of money.  Some day, credit card users will be able to not only program their credit cards like they would a VCR but also issue and manage their own cards.

Thanks to James for reminding me that today is Hangul Day, the day Hangul was invented by Sejong-Daewang (King Sejong) in 1446.  Hangul is an awesome language from an engineer's point of view.  More on the history of Hangul can be found at the Sigma Instutude.

Thanks to the Internet, Hangul is changing today.  Young Koreans are morphing and evolving the language to fit the their needs and taste as they communicate in Hangul online.  Some say they are destroy the language, I think otherwise.  I believe some characters from English and other languages should be added to Hangul so one could write like this:

Otherwise, Hangul version of Very Much end up sounding like Berry Match.

Addition of the new characters to Hangul will start a chain reaction of exciting/frightening changes, starting with the spoken language (Korean), brain that uses the language to think and dream in (Korean mind), and the society that uses it (Korea).

Yes, I am saying that brains of people who speak different languages are wired differently.  What I think and feel in Korean is different from what I think and feel in English.  If this is not true in general, at least it is true with me.

Update #1 – 10/11/2003 10:25AM PST

What I like about Hangul is the neat design.  Each Hangul 'word' has exactly one vowel.  A word consists of starting consonant (), a vowel (), and optional ending/connecting consonants ().  To stress a consonant, double up (i.e. vs. ).   means Flesh and means Rice.  Vowels can also be combined to get the sound made with mouth shaped somewhere between the mouth shapes of the two vowels used in combination like this:.

Hangul keyboard has consonants grouped on the left side and vowels on the right side so that Hangul typing alternates between hands.  It's the end sound complicates things a bit.  End sound of a Hangul word can use up to two consonents to represent a wide variety of sounds.  Since the end sound is followed by the starting sound of the next word, one can get confused about how to divide up the consonants.  I often mess up this part.

Isn't Hangul neat?  King Sejong is my favorite geek.

Yes, it's happening to Korea too.  Kuk-Min, one of the largest banks in Korea, is outsourcing its call center operation to China where there is a large population of Ethnic Koreans willing to work for much less money than those living in Korea.  Cost savings up to 63% is expected.

Eeeks.  I just read that Korea won over Nepal, 16 to zip, in a soccer match.  I can't help thinking that Korean soccer team over did it, shaming a country beyond reason and sportsmanship, beating down on a team from which three players became illegal aliens in Korea before the game even started.

Sheesh.  Don't bother reasoning with me over this one.

Wednesday morning, I crapped in the middle of a public road.  I wasn't embarassed, although there were people walking around me, because I don't get embarassed by stuff like that.  But it was messy and I had the mess all over my hands and clothes.  Then I woke up.  Yeah, it was a dream.

When I told my wife about the dream, my wife said "Wow, a lucky dream.  Let's buy lottery tickets!"  You see, most Koreans believe dreams foretells the future.  Dreams with feces and pigs are considered lucky and are even bought and sold for small amount of money to transfer luck.  We didn't buy the lottery ticket because I was lazy and the California drawing was Wednesday night.

Thursday morning, I was in a bed with some girl when two Italian mobsters broke into the room.  One of the guys came over with a gun and placed the muzzle on my left temple.  I thought he was going to say something like in the movies, but something entered my brain and I died.  Then I woke up.  Yeah, two in a row.

I told my wife again and she consulted my mother.  Their conclusion was that death dreams are also good dreams.  They are not common like dreams involving feces or pigs so I didn't know.  My wife said, we should really buy some lottery tickets.

Koreans take dreams seriously.  If my mother-in-law calls out of the blue, it's because she had a bad dream about my wife.  When a Korean woman conceives a child, she is expected to have a Birth Dream (Tae-Mong) which differ from mundane dreams in intensity and content.  Some dream of birds or fishes jumping into their body.  Others see dragons or deers coming into the house.

Do Koreans really believe in these dreams?  Wrong question.  The right question is Why take unnecessary chances?  Aren't these dreams saying something about mental problems?  Again wrong question.  Why worry about the past when there is the future to worry about?

I am about to go to sleep now with my fingers crossed.  If I get run over by a herd of pigs in my dream, I am going to buy some lottery tickets as my way of saying I got the damn message!  ;-p

Update:

Dang.  I had a dream of something but I couldn't remember what it was.

This summer was pretty nice.  A lot of fresh vegetables from our backyard.  I particularly like the fresh peppers.  Looking outside the office window, I saw that our Boochoo has grown too big.  It even has pretty flowers.  I think Boochoo flowers are a rare sight even for Koreans.

In case you are wondering, Boochoo might look like weeds but it is commonly found in Korean food. In fact, you can even make Kimchee with it called Boochoo Kimchee.  Delicious and, of course, very spicy.