Month: September 2014

Kim Jinmyung’s novel “THAAD”

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The Korean novelist  Kim Jinmyung 김진명 has published a novel entitled THAAD in which he describes, as part of a murder mystery, an plot behind this pricey missile defense system the Washington is trying to sell to Seoul that will drag Korea into an unnecessary military confrontation with China.

thaad

Specifically, the novel describes the THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense) missile system as a mechanism created by a United States to trigger a military conflict with China as a means of releasing itself from the debts to China that it can no long pay back.    I have only glanced at the book in the bookstore, but I am quite curious as to its contents.

 

 

“Stop commercializing women” (JoongAng Daily September 1, 2014)

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“Stop commercializing women”

Joongang Daily

September 1, 2014

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The presentation of females in the Korean media has taken a turn for the worse over the last five years that deeply worries many women. Advertising in magazines, on billboards, on posters in the subway and on television increasingly feature women in suggestive poses that would have been considered soft pornography 20 years ago. It seems that there is no limit to the use of the physical appearance of women, and occasionally of men, to cloud the thinking of consumers, appeal to the most basic aspects of their psychology and reduce the natural attractiveness of people into a raw and instinctive drive for instant gratification and thoughtless consumption.

The result of this drive to reduce women to products has a terrible impact on women, especially young girls. They are overwhelmed by hidden messages from the media to which they are exposed that suggest that physical attraction is the most critical issue. Young girls assume these messages to be authoritative, thinking that a commercialized sexuality is a necessary condition for self-expression and social acceptance. Increasingly, interviewing for jobs is more about physical appearance than actual ability and the impact of education about this shift is extremely negative.

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