Rogue Trader

When I worked as a financial trader, people used to ask me from time to time about the viability of trading in Korea, and I tried to offer some polite ad-hoc advice elsewhere but I never really brought it onto this blog. This is a pity because the most comprehensive piece I think I ever wrote on the subject was on a forum for foreigners in Korea I later was kicked out of for not posting frequently enough to. The moral of the story – aside from the obvious question of whether you should actually avoid other foreigners and their forums in Korea like the plague – is if you're going to write something useful, put it on your own site.

That said, I'm not promising to make this useful because the first and last thing I'm going to say about trading in Korea is don't, with one caveat – there's a distinction between longer-term investing over a period of years and shorter-term trading.

On a general matter, about half the people I've ever talked to about trading have an idea about the system they will employ to trade. They may even have read books. If you're one of these people and you think you have a system, well, you don't. Sorry to rain on your parade.

It's an oft-quoted statistic that 90% of traders lose money and I've actually read the original research paper - and the figures are as frightening as you might imagine. Worse in fact, because it doesn't follow that the remaining 10% are wildly profitable – some are just treading water. Of course, you can read plenty of books on how to be successful in the world of trading (the real answer is writing books about how to trade).

Anyway, for several years I consider myself to have been a successful trader insofar as I was very much within that 10% to the extent that I paid my bills and funded my lifestyle from trading profits but I wasn't good enough to breeze in and out of the market like one genuinely gifted trader I knew so it all came from very hard work – I put in minimum 57-hour weeks and this is not an exaggeration. You can certainly get yourself over to Birt's EA Review and set your imagination racing but if running forex bots were easy in the long run I think there'd be no need for a site like that in the first place, so if you find yourself beguiled by such things you should also recognise the paradox.

When I was doing my 'Open Mike' segment on Busan e-FM I discussed the issue of Financial Trading in Korea and if you have an interest in this subject you should link off and read the summary for this now.

What's relevant from that particular show is that obviously the first hurdle facing anyone interested in using a Korean broker/trading product provider is the language barrier. The second is that my impression of the Korean market is that it's like the Wild West with rampant ramping of stocks in a broadly long-only product-providing market. That's not to say that you can't make money from it, but you may as well visit a casino. This is just a subjective opinion – although I'm pretty sure I'm right – but what is not subjective is the issue of liquidity and namely the fact that the Korean market doesn't have nearly as much of it as London or New York. Yes, the newspapers here will sometimes claim otherwise and I admire their unceasing efforts at assisting Korea's attempts to continue performing public fallatio on itself, but you probably shouldn't watch or try this at home.

The next problem is that because Korea's laws are fairly hostile to international financial institutions (it only recently allowed hedge funds to operate in Korea) and because international financial providers have a hundred internal and regulatory rules of their own to comply with, it's actually quite hard in my experience to even find reputable forex providers prepared to accept foreign customers based in Korea. After a considerable effort which involved notarised forms of identification (try pulling off that trick with Korean notaries who can't understand English), I eventually opened up an account and discovered it wasn't possible to transfer money into it from Korea. The conclusion is it's better to open accounts while you're living somewhere else and then operate a don't-ask-don't-tell policy with them regarding your location.

But let's assume you have a broker and can trade from Korea. Your next hurdle is the time-zone. Actively trading U.S. stocks is out because New York is open when you are in bed. I suppose you could play fire-and-forget with some trades and set a few limit orders to buy and sell but it's a risky business and inefficient (for which you can read 'unprofessional'). European opening hours are more Asia-friendly up to a point, although London's 1.30am finishes in winter are still endurance-testing.

Of course, forex offers a 24-hour market five days a week but what they don't tell you is that the best liquidity is still during London-New York hours, and strange and mysterious things often happen during the Asian trading hours. If you're looking at a trading bot with form it may well not account for these shenanigans and if you're rolling your own your backtesting will probably represent an ideal you'll probably never attain (I could give you chapter-and-verse on trying to build accurate backtesting results using MetaTrader but the executive summary is forget it).

From what I can tell, shorting is not a tool generally available to Koreans so most people trade the kind of dubious "theme stocks" that are so Wild West they might even put London's AIM market – which actually has been described as a casino – to shame. Many Koreans have traded Equity Linked Warrants (ELWs) but the Financial Services Commission wants to ban short-term trading in them. It may be just as well though because warrants with maturity dates (assuming the ELWs do) generally benefit from a knowledge of the Black-Scholes model and where offered to small investors they are – in my opinion – usually 'designed' (cough) to transfer money from said small investors to the issuers of the warrants (cough cough order book manipulation cough cough). I really must see a doctor. It also seems the market in Korea is imploding because it was more directly manipulated.

And even if I could understand Korea perfectly and had the tools at my disposal to trade Korean stocks, the conclusion I've drawn from my extensive reading of Korean news and personal experience of dealing with people here professionally is Korean business and political life is permeated by a intriguing kind of 'moral pragmatism' which would discourage me from wanting to invest in them.

For what it's worth 'Financial Hub Korea' – which is inexplicably marketed under the obfuscated title 'Fn Hub Korea', is pressing on in its tireless mission "to promote Korea as an international finance market" (or perhaps that should be "an international fn market") so perhaps one day things will get better and I sincerely hope they do, but in my limited experience Korea is hostile to the international movement of capital, I'm convinced from my reading of the news that it's hostile to foreign companies (to be fair like America and Canada also are), and it's hostile to domestic financial speculation of all kinds including the evil 'property speculators' that had the temerity to buy property in Pyeongchang before it won its Winter Olympic bid. How very dare they. (And they still aren't very keen on foreigners owning property – a long personal story for another time).

Ironically due to the hypocrisy around which so much of political life in Korea revolves, property speculation is such an important national pastime here that I'm sure they would actually make it an Olympic event in time for Pyeongchang if they could. Korea might not win gold but they might at least be in with a chance - the earnings-to-price index of salaries to property is eye-watering compared to my own country, where it is considered high.

It's a shame about all this regulation and sniffyness because the idea of Korea being a 'Fn Hub' in this region of the world isn't perhaps quite as utterly absurd as it first seems – nobody really trusts the Chinese financial markets and Japan evidently can't run a stock exchange to save their lives.

So my personal conclusion is – and I did say I'd end on this – is don't trade Korean financial markets.

Busan e-FM Week 36: Love Hotels, Sex and Adultery (Banned)

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Introduction

It took 36 weeks, but I finally had a script refused for broadcast. When I started doing my weekly segment with Busan e-FM, it was with the agreement that I could be honest about my experiences in Korea, but the question is, does Korea want to be honest about itself?

Ostensibly, the problem was that Love Hotels and Adultery – the main thrust of my piece – were “not appropriate subjects” for the radio. TBS eFM – an equivalent English-language radio station in Seoul had covered these subjects before – but that’s Seoul and this is Busan, which is generally much more socially conservative.

Exploring where these newly discovered boundaries lay, and whether they were strictly sexual, I asked - mindful that the 2011 Dog Meat Festival in Gyeonggi Province had recently been cancelled amidst protests – if the subject I was allegedly considering for the next week – that of dog meat in Korea – would be acceptable. I was of course, just screwing with them. I felt I saw a slightly pained look cross the face of my assigned handler. It was not really an acceptable subject either.

And so it was we reached the climax of our conversation. It was probably best to avoid ‘controversial subjects’. That was the spot I’d touched. The two people I knew that regularly listened to my segment – who for all I know were actually the only two people who listened at all - were surprised. Hadn’t the radio station really been listening to what I’d been talking about before now?

I’ve always found the foreigners who only tell Koreans what they want to hear for the sake of a quiet life somewhat soda-masochistic, even if we’ve all done it from time to time. So I escaped my temporary bondage and continued tackling controversial subjects in the weeks that followed, going on to reference attitudes to homosexuality in Korea, monoculture and corporate enslavement, racism and the often enforced dystopian existence of foreigners, consumer nationalism, chaebol media lies and the absence of critical thought, [stay tuned!] but I did it in my usual style – hopefully relatively gently, diplomatically, and with humour.

I’d like to think that if done sufficiently eloquently, it is possible to speak truth to power in Korea, but whether that’s because people here are truly prepared to have a light shone on certain subjects, or simply because they weren’t listening or didn’t understand, is the loaded question.

I include the script below as an example of the realities of Korean life and culture you can’t talk about on the radio in Busan in 2011.

Introduction – Love Hotels, Sex and Adultery

Last week I talked about ‘bangs’ - such as the ‘DVD bang’ couples go to. This week I’m talking about a related subject, that of ‘love hotels’ or ‘love motels’. I don’t quite know how to translate this because we don’t use the word ‘motel’ in British English, but I’ve seen them called both hotels and motels here.

I think this highlights an issue with the cultural development of language. A motel is described as a ‘hotel for motorists’, and it makes sense this word would emerge from American English because of the long road journeys people have to make in the United States. They don’t have to do this in England because the country is geographically small – so you can normally get to where you want to go in a day. But I understand that many American motels are dropping the word now because it’s seen as being ‘seedy’.

We still have slightly seedy hotels in England – we just call them ‘bed & breakfasts’. But there are no love hotels in England that I'm aware of.

Love Hotels

So I was surprised when I saw the love hotels here, although not totally shocked – Japan is famous for its love hotels and most people outside Japan have probably heard of them. To a Westerner like myself, there seem to be a lot of general cultural similarities between Japan and Korea, so it’s not a complete shock to discover love hotels here, but as I’ve said before, I really didn’t know that much about Korea before coming here, and I certainly didn’t realise how popular they are.

I took them as a sign of social restriction in Korea, in the same way that ‘DVD bang’ represent the same issue. They are both somewhere to go because so many young people live at home. Maybe ‘DVD bang’ are where they go to fool around, and when it gets more serious they graduate to love hotels. I find it funny though how people going there want privacy, but the buildings are usually so very visible and obvious because of their architectural tendency to employ large fake Roman columns, cupid statues, small windows and plenty of neon lighting.

Staying in a Love Hotel

I’ve actually stayed in a love hotel. The first time I went to Seoul it was just for an overnight trip, and my wife and I wanted to save money, so she said “love hotels are cheap... and usually have Internet connections.” I thought ‘why not?’ Anyway, if the word ‘cheap’ didn’t sell it for me, the word ‘Internet’ certainly did.

So we quickly came across a love hotel in some Seoul backstreet near the Blue House, although I’ve learned that in Korea love hotels certainly don’t feel compelled to hide themselves away. That said, they do try to maintain a certain air of privacy, with curtains at the entrance to the drive-in areas to avoid cars and perhaps car licence-plates being seen, which always gave me the impression that a lot of older people might be using the hotels given that younger people generally own fewer cars – and probably don’t care about that kind of privacy as much. This quickly led me to believe that love hotels are frequently the venue for affairs in Korea. But if that didn’t convince me, when we reached the counter it also had a curtain over it, our money went underneath and a hand comes back with a key. No faces are visible and it’s all quite seedy actually, which made me feel vaguely guilty. I felt like trying to look underneath the curtain to say “we’re married”, but then I suppose everyone feeling guilty says that.

Last week I talked about going to DVD bangs with two Korean women, which in retrospect – given the area we were in – looked bad. And in some ways I felt the same way at the love hotel – if the staff had seen my face it wasn’t going to do anything positive for the reputation of foreigners. Then again, love hotels don’t always do much with foreigners for the reputation of the Koreans who run them – last year there wasn’t enough hotel space at the inaugural Korean Grand Prix, so a number of journalists ended up staying in love hotels – perhaps unsuspectingly. Anyway, the main point it that they were charged $310 per night – in other words they were ripped off – which means that evidently the love hotel owners realised they were foreigners early into the transaction – curtains or not.

While it might be cheap – unless you happen to be an unsuspecting foreigner – it’s not necessarily easy to get a good night’s rest there, because my wife was worried about hidden cameras. I don’t know if this is just an urban legend or whether it actually happens – actually I suspect it probably does happen sometimes. So it’s all about undressing in a part of the room where you think the camera won’t see you, then hiding under the covers and sleeping. I don’t want to be famous on the Korean Internet.

So I guess the love hotels are still too much of a risk for some. I was up on Hwangryeong Mountain late one night in Busan taking shots of the city after dark, and there were a few cars parked along the road, spaced apart. There seemed to be some kind of activity in a couple of the cars, and one of them had the stereotypical steamed up windows, and the car was moving around. Given the executive and old fashioned nature of the car concerned, I imagined there had to be an older couple inside.

Adultery is a Criminal Offence in Korea

Of course, adultery is illegal in Korea, so people have to be careful. I was really shocked when I found out about this law, but perhaps it goes some way to explain some of the behaviour I’ve encountered. When my wife and I were at another love hotel, another couple happened to come out of the room at the same time as us, and as soon as they saw us they dashed back inside.

I don’t know what to think about the adultery law. On the one hand, adultery is a bad thing, but on the other hand, in my opinion it seems like the kind of law the Taliban would have, and not something you find in a modern country.

I think the law creates a bad impression of South Korea. Maybe it’s not fair expecting Korea to be socially liberal, but this country is very keen to attract foreign investment and foreign companies, but I imagine business executives in foreign companies look at Korean society as a whole before they decide to come here and think “what kind of country is this?”

What I can’t figure out about this law is that legislators are mainly men, and men are usually willing adulterers – in fact male politicians around the world are known for their affairs – so why did these men create and pass this law? Do they like living dangerously or were they really worried about their lives? [I left this question hanging but I’m convinced that men passed this law to control women in the traditionally misogynistic Korean court system, although more recently judges may have been a little more balanced in their judgements].

It’s also worth making some comparisons between South Korea and other countries. China is not known for being socially liberal, but adultery isn’t a criminal offence there. But then adultery is a criminal offence in the U.S. state of New Hampshire – it isn’t enforced and there are people trying to get it removed from the statute books.

I think the whole issue raises some fundamental questions about freedom and democracy in South Korea. Should the majority be able to dictate to – and criminalise – a minority that don’t meet their moral standards? For that matter, what right does the government have to legislate people’s sex lives?

It’s a dangerous road to go down in my opinion. Some Islamic countries have ‘moral police’ who enforce compliance with Sharia Law – is that really what the police should be doing in Korea? Last year, I read about an incident in Malaysia where the ‘morality police’ were knocking on people’s doors in a hotel, and they ended up arresting 52 unmarried couples. I suppose if the Korean police really wanted to enforce the law here they could just visit love hotels, check people’s marital status, and make arrests. To be fair, they don’t, but the fact that the law exists means that one day they could, or just choose to do it selectively to target certain individuals or groups, which is why bad laws should never be on the statute books. Anyway, as far as Korea is concerned, I think the people should be spending their time arresting motorcyclists who ride on the pavements [sidewalks], rather than getting involved in policing people’s relationships.

Korean Porn Movies

While I don’t worry about getting arrested in a love hotel, I do worry about the perceived issue of hidden cameras and ending up on the Internet, but I haven’t avoided Korea’s love hotels despite this. When we went to a funeral in Namhae we found ourselves in the countryside and it was quite isolated. As you can imagine, there wasn’t a proper hotel for miles, but there was a love hotel just up the road from the the funeral hall. So given that Korean funerals tend to be multi-day events, and given that we didn’t want to sleep in the funeral hall with a heaving mass of older Koreans, we had little choice but to stay in a love hotel once again.

This one was even less subtle because even if the building's fake Roman columns and cupid statues didn’t give the game away to the uninitiated, it had a large collection of pornographic videos outside the elevator on our floor - most appeared to be Korean-made. It also had a great looking Jacuzzi placed centrally within the room, but sadly we daren’t use it because of the potential for hidden cameras.

Korean Culture

Staying in a love hotel is an interesting experience. When it comes down to it, staying in hotels in England is often all the same, but Korean love hotels have character. At the risk of giving Korean newspapers even more reasons to hate us, I think it’s something every foreigner should try at least once. They are part of what Korea is, and part of the cultural experience here.

Planned air date: 2011-06-29 @ ~19:30

Footnote

Five weeks after the planned air date of this piece, South Korea's Constitutional Court overturned the provision in the Criminal Code imposing a maximum two-year prison sentence on adulterers, saying it was 'an infringement on the sphere of sexual life that society should maintain on its own' and that 'the state was excessively restricting a matter of personal decision.'

Busan e-FM Week 33: Humour/Humor, Satire and Ire

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Background

In retrospect, I can’t quite believe I got to make some of these points on the radio. I love humour - I'd much rather be watching an episode of Blackadder, Community, Seinfeld, The Big Bang Theory or Better Off Ted [which inexplicably nobody watched] than Saw 6. In fact I consider my life to be one long extended joke. So I wanted to talk about the subject of humour, but I also thought it would be nice if the next generation of Koreans that largely make up the Busan eFM audience could learn to lighten up. They won't of course, life in Korea is often an extremely serious, depressing and stressful experience, and anything I say on air is a drop in the ocean - an ocean in which everyone has long since drowned. But you know what? Never give up. Never surrender.

Introduction

Last week I talked about how the Expat Internet is hell. But foreigners can be funny too, and not just in a strange way. This week I’m covering expat humour in Korea.

What's so funny anyway?

Humour is a very funny thing. What one person finds amusing, another may not. Between foreigners, there’s a difference between British and American humour for example – even the words are spelt differently. I feel that British humour is more deadpan, darker, sometimes meaner, and more surreal. I think American humour is different, but still funny.

Babopalooza in Busan

I think there’s a huge difference between Korean humour and Western humour though. My first experience of this here came in the form of an expat comedy called ‘Babopalooza’ here in Busan back in 2006. It became quite a big issue in the foreign community.

This is my understanding of it: essentially a group put on a theatre performance which made fun of life in Korea. The targets for the humour were Koreans and Western foreigners. But one of the potential dangers with cultural comedy, especially here I think, is that Koreans only see Koreans being made fun of. In fact one of the co-writers actually said the ‘babo’ in Babopalooza were the foreigners. Anyway, apparently the police or immigration officials came to watch, and allegedly the upshot of it all was that people lost their jobs and had to leave Korea, while others had problems with visa renewals. So really, it was a comedy with a sad ending.

Babopalooza happened six weeks after I came to Korea for the first time. I appreciate that public comedy performances are really tough to pull off, but the reaction to the show made me think that however nicely people were treating me, beneath the surface this country might not be a very friendly place.

I’ve seen Korean performers on TV putting on ‘black faces’ [or masks] and pretending to be black or Africans. I guess that’s – apparently – OK here [it’s not], but you can’t do that in England because it would be racist. By our standards, that’s quite nasty – not funny at all – but it’s acceptable here, whereas Babopalooza was unacceptable.

So these examples made me think that Koreans can make fun of foreigners, but foreigners making fun of Koreans is unacceptable. I’m afraid that doesn’t create a good image of Korea or Koreans [some foreigners also lean towards the view that foreigners in Korea should keep their mouths shut and just do their jobs].

Anyway, while I gather there was a lot of creative energy here in Busan before Babopalooza, after what happened – for a while – foreigners were afraid to do any public performances. Busan wants to have art and culture to create a multicultural city, but it makes me think that what they want is the Korean version of multiculturalism, where everyone thinks like a Korean. [Bazinga!]

The Line

I don’t think Babopalooza went too far, but I’m not going to pretend that other expats haven’t crossed the line. Last year a foreigner started a blog [Blackout Korea] which others perhaps contributed to as well, that consisted of pictures of drunk, unconscious Koreans. I can see how that might seem funny for a couple of moments, but beyond that I don’t find it funny – instead it’s a rather sad reflection on all the pressures in Korean society which causes this.

Some drugs (like alcohol) [Korea likes to think of itself as ‘drug-free’ but that depends on your definition] are OK in moderation, but this kind of drug abuse seems a big problem in Korea, just like it is in my country – and it’s not funny there either. But obviously some foreigners found it funny, and this shows that the problem with humour is that it can easily be one-sided and insensitive, and that ultimately it can easily slip into racism. It doesn’t have to be like that though because I think there are better and genuinely funny blogs written by foreigners in Korea.

Humorous Expat Blogs... Or What Amuses Me

I’ll tell you how I feel about expat blogs here. There are the big name bloggers which everyone reads, and they’re churning out entries for their audience, but some of the lesser known blogs here such as Expat Hell and The Supplanter feature – to my mind – excellent writing which really attracts me, and they contain a lot of self-deprecating humour. I feel I make fun of myself quite often in my blog so I suppose I appreciate that style.

But then some of the expat blogs are written explicitly not as personal experiences of life in Korea, but more for the purpose of satire, which I find especially interesting.

Satire

The satirical blogs are different to the other expat blogs, which tend to cover daily life. Wikipedia defines satire as a format in which “vices, follies, abuses and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon.”

So people can find satire uncomfortable, and that was the problem with Babopalooza. In fact, the Wikipedia page on satire even mentions something that happened here in Korea to the foreign journalist Michael Breen, who wrote a satirical article in The Korea Times, which resulted in him being sued for $1 million by the chaebol he satirised [Samsung]. Mike Breen said the prosecutor in his case didn’t get his satirical article, telling him “It’s not funny if it’s not true.” [comment 24].

I gathered that apparently there’s no tradition of written satire in Korea, so writing satirical material can be a dangerous activity in Korea. And yet I think it’s important in today’s world because so many people are ignorant of the news. In fact, in America surveys show that presenters such as Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert are the only way some people actually know what’s going on – even if it’s dressed up as satire.

The Yangpa, Dokdo Is Ours, and The Dokdo Times

I think the first satirical blog in Korea was The Yangpa, which presumably was inspired by the famous American satire site, The Onion. The Yangpa blog started before I came to Korea, and people talked about it back then but I must admit I rarely read it. The problem for me was highlighted by one early entry about a pop singer/actress who was guilty of plagiarism with her degree. When I first came here I didn’t understand enough about Korea to know who this was or why plagiarism was a good satirical subject, so the humour was lost on me. I think this illustrates why satire requires knowledge.

The Yangpa ended in 2008, then a site started called ‘Dokdo Is Ours’, and when the writer ended that last year, another new site started, this time called ‘The Dokdo Times’, which is essentially written in the style of a fake Korean newspaper. What I like about these sites is that they aren’t just aimed at satirising one group of people – but everyone, including foreigners. For example, the most popular ‘story’ on The Dokdo Times’ site is about a Korean woman who married a foreigner and then realised he’s actually an idiot. I think that’s something both Koreans and foreigners can relate to.

But What Do They Think?

I’m not sure what Koreans really make of this foreign humour. Despite what Mike Breen said about the prosecutor in his case, I believe from what I've read that some Koreans in Korea really find some of these satirical sites funny. [And at least one Korean comedian may be out there pushing the envelope as well]. They are a test of English as well – if you understand humour written in another language then you’ve really done well. Even when I’ve learnt Korean, I think it might still be some time before I understand Korean satire, assuming that exists.

‘Babopalooza’ was judged ‘not funny’ by the authorities, and sometimes Koreans get very angry at some foreign humour – either they don’t get it or the humour wasn’t funny in the first places and it just ended up being offensive. Comedy and satire can be very difficult things to pull off, especially in a foreign country.

Learning About Korea Through Humour

I’d say that I’m learning about Korea through humour. I read the Korean news but it’s easy to miss things or not really think about them deeply. For example, one of these recent satirical ‘news articles’ from The Dokdo Times detailed how people with three or more drunk driving convictions would be banned from working as bus and taxi drivers. It sounds like a joke but it’s actually really true, which to me is a serious issue which people should be thinking about more. Maybe if people did, the society we live in could become a better, more tolerant and less hypocritical place [or it might at least become safer].

Can Satire Change Attitudes in Korea?

I don’t know if satire can change attitudes in Korea though. Can anything change Korea? Recently I read that that Korea is the fifth ‘most socially tight’ country in the world [actually, the fifth among 33 countries surveyed, not that the Chosun Ilbo ever let a detail like that get in the way of a good headline], meaning there is a great deal of conformity here, and pressure to conform. Satire represents the opposite of conformity in many ways, because it points out the inconsistencies and hypocrisies in society. There’s nothing wrong with conforming if that’s what you want to do, but humour and satire are good ways of encouraging you to think for yourself too.

Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2011-06-08 @ ~19:30

Busan e-FM Week 31: The New Address System

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Introduction

The address system in Korea is changing. What does it mean?

Addresses in England... versus Korea

In England addresses are organized into house numbers, street names, areas – which are a bit like a ‘gu’ - city, county and then postcode, or zip code as it’s called in the U.S. Street names are random – more or less – and the house numbers are fairly logical, starting at 1-3-5 on one side of the road and 2-4-6 on the other. Letters are sorted by house number of postcode, so they are easy to find.

In Korea addresses have the city and the district which is what you’d expect, but then it gets rather strange. Buildings are given lot numbers in the order the property was built – a system introduced by the occupying Japanese in 1910. So of course, once you’re in an area finding the actual building – given that the numbers are randomly scattered around – is quite difficult.

Each road in the UK has a street name – usually given on a big sign at the start of a road, unless it’s been stolen. I used to drive around London quite a bit back in 1994, which was largely pre-satnav, so I had a book called an ‘A-Z’ with an index of street names in it – which you can quickly look up if you’re lost. So as long as you know what street you’re on, you should be fine. It was quite important back then because if you think the traffic in Busan is bad – try London.

White on Blue

Speaking of driving, I actually didn’t realise Korea had an address problem though until recently, because I don’t drive here, and I didn’t really think about it. Back in the UK, it used to be a habit to look for street name signs, but these days we just rely on our satnav screens. When I learned the address system was changing in Korea, I started thinking about those street signs and the fact that the Korean ones – such as they are – are really quite different. In the UK the street names are big white signs with huge black lettering, whereas here you get quite small white lettering on a blue background – it doesn’t help that they have to put both the Korean and English on the signs. I’d say the letters end up being about a quarter of the size in the UK – so they aren’t easy to read from the road. For that matter, I hardly notice them as a pedestrian.

Given that there seems to be this process going on now of creating new numbers and road names in some cases, I could help but wonder if there were going to end up being 10,000 Dokdo Streets. But however they did it, apparently Busan got the best score for their new system.

It’s all a bit low-tech

I don’t think the new system will help me get around better though, because I don’t recall ever looking for a building based on its number. That’s technology again – I just use Naver’s equivalent of Google Street View. For example, when I was looking for Busan eFM for the first time I ‘walked’ in the ‘street view’ until I found it. Even if you don’t hap the street view option, these days you have smartphone maps as well.

The subway system is my map

I feel like I spend most of my life in Busan down in the subway anyway – emerging at the required stop – and 90% of the time I’m almost there. I suppose the subway system works a kind of map as well – everything relates to where the nearest station is. So basically I’m using the subway as my address system – in fact I organise my life around it.

Sometimes I have to make compromises because I’m only using public transport. For example, there’s a big store I want to go to [Costco], but it’s not really near a subway station – so I just have to find an alternative. It would be different if I had a car. But then the subway is so convenient. The first time I travelled around London I was 14 – the city is very large of course – but I got no sense of its size because I’d go underground, take trains, and pop up where I needed to be. It’s the same with Busan – which is ten times bigger than my home city but it doesn’t necessarily feel bigger because of the subway system. There’s no subway where I’m from and it might take an hour to get from one side of the city to the other – about the same length of time it takes you to do the same thing with Busan’s subway. Imagine what a nightmare Busan would be without its subway system.

Cost-Benefit

I read that the subway system in Seoul is losing money, but I think people have to see the bigger picture. In the UK everything is costed out very carefully, but I think it leads to a lot of short-termism, big projects are hardly ever done, and there’s no long-term vision. This is one of the reasons I like Korea – people still believe in big projects here.

What’s the cost-benefit of the Busan subway system? You will never truly know what the economic impact is, but you know it must be there. I suppose the new address system is an example of a big project – there’s lots of short-term inconvenience with long-term benefits we can’t be certain of.

My address is changing but I’m not moving

Certainly, the new address system has created some inconveniences for me. I have a Korean bank but I’m still heavily using two banks in the UK and I’ll have to tell them my Korean address is changing. This is much harder than it seems because they are useless [one of them has a branch in Busan but to change my address I have to notify my British branch in writing and the other already has the wrong Korean address but we’ve established that to change it I need to do so at my local branch in England... in person(!)].

The other problem is that the Korean immigration authorities are incredibly strict about the notifying of new addresses – if you don’t, it can count against moving you from a temporary visa (such as the F-2 I’m on) to permanent residence (F-5, which I’d like to have just so I don’t have to go through the performance that is the F-2 renewal). But then, if I’m staying in the same place, but my address is changing, do I have to notify them and when The problem is with this, in the experience of foreigners here, each immigration office tends to have their own rules and way of doing things [to put it diplomatically].

Last minute nerves

But maybe now I don’t have to worry about the address changes so much – because of course, the government have decided people aren’t ready for the new system, and have delayed it for two years.

I was surprised about this, because it’s been planned for long enough. People are never really ready for big changes, but you pick a date and get through it. For example, in the UK in 1971 we decimalised our currency. More recently, in 1999 many countries switched over to the euro currency, and that was a huge change.

But recently I read about a guy here that tried to order food with his new address and the takeaway said they didn’t understand it, which meant he’d only get his food if he gave the old one. So that’s the problem – people aren’t motivated to adopt a new system until they have to. There comes a point when you have to do it – but with attitudes like the one with the takeaway, I have a feeling that even after the change people will still use the old system unofficially for some time.

Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2011-05-25 @ ~19:30

Busan e-FM Week 28: National Identity

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Introduction

Well, unless you were hiding in a cave, this week has seen a huge global news event – the culmination of a ten year plan in fact. And someone who has proven difficult to pin down has finally been caught. I am of course, talking about Prince William and the British Royal Wedding. And this got me thinking about the subject of national identity – and what it means to be British in Korea.

Queen Elizabeth

I didn’t watch the royal wedding, but over 24 million British people did. The week before the wedding someone told me they weren’t watching it, and I didn’t even know when it was. Then I found out, because I received an email from one of my brokers covering the week ahead in the financial markets – and of course, the British stock market was closed.

According to a British newspaper survey, 37% of people in the UK were “genuinely interested and excited” by the wedding. That’s actually 23 million people – so presumably another 1 million watched because they were bored. A lot of people said it was a kind of Cinderella story, and I guess that Korean people can relate to that because many K-dramas seem to centre around a plot where a poor woman falls in love with a wealthy man, or a rich man falls in love with a poor woman, if you look at it from a male perspective, which often seems more important in Korea.

But if 37% were interested, it also means 63% were not really interested and didn’t watch, and I was one of them. I think to a lot of us our royal family is like a long running soap opera that refuses to get cancelled. But on the other hand, the queen is like our own version of a halmoni [elderly Korean woman] – stoically going on despite everything. So I accept she’s a national symbol. I guess Korea has it’s own modern-day royalty in a way, because I keep reading about ‘Queen Yuna” in the newspapers.

Queen Yuna

I didn’t watch the royal skating performance either, but I did see her Olympic performance last year, albeit accidentally. When she skated for the gold I was at a hospital having heart tests – but not because I was worried she wouldn’t win.

My wife told a friend that she might not have watched it if we hadn’t been at the hospital. She said her friend gave her an odd look. Maybe it’s not the sort of thing you’re suppose to admit to. I know there was a strong feeling of patriotism surrounding her performance – and I felt sorry for her because of that, because she’s very young and there must have been a lot of pressure on her; she’d become a national symbol but one, like the British royal family, that could easily disappoint. Of course we have had numerous disappointments with our royal family, and more than that, I’ve even had it with my government – and I’ve come to feel less British because of my experience.

The British Anti-Ambassador

I came to Korea to get married and then I was going to go home. Little did I know that by the time I set foot in England again my government would have done its best to prevent me from calling it home ever again, because they wouldn’t give my wife a visa and told me I was “free to live my life in Korea”. Those were the exact words with which I was effectively exiled. We won our legal case but there was no sense of victory after all the money and time we’d spent on the case. You know what the funny thing about governments is? When you break the law as a citizen, they send you to jail, but when they break the law (they did and I’m pretty sure they knew what they were doing as well), nobody goes to jail, and nobody apologises. That’s difficult when people expect you to be some kind of British representative.

Because there are relatively few British people here, I suppose sometimes I feel a sense that my behaviour and views are representing my country in Korea much more than they might be if I were American. So maybe I play this unwilling ambassadorial role. For example, an old Korean guy walked up to me while I was taking photos once, and after he discovered I was British he starts telling me how he owns a company and met the British Ambassador once – and how he gets invited to their parties sometimes.

I don’t get invited to parties at the British Embassy, and it’s a fair bet that there’s more chance of Kim Jong-il getting an invite than me. But this ajeossi tells me how much he likes British culture, and I’m trying to smile and be polite, but at the same time I’m thinking ‘why should I have to play this role after what happened?’ People say you tend to become more patriotic when you leave your country, but I became less.

National Identity Crisis

I might be having some kind of national identity crisis. It’s not like I feel welcome back home. What is it to be British in Korea anyway? Koreans have this notion of being a pure-blooded race ‘민족’, but there’s no British ‘race’ per se. Overseas Koreans are some of the most vocal defenders of Korean culture – even if they’ve never lived here, but I don’t think any British people really feel as strongly as that.

And there are lots of American brands here, with fast food, coffee and clothes retail. And what do the British get? One supermarket chain (Tesco Homeplus aka ‘Homeplus’ aka ‘Home plus’ aka ‘Samsung Tesco Homeplus’ aka ‘I can’t believe we’re not Korean’), and even that kind of hides its British origins. We can get a bit of British food there. There’s this kind of desperate discussion thread on a website for foreigners here (AFEK), where British expats talked in excited tones about being able to get their hands on tins of ‘Value Beans’ which are probably around 180 won in the UK but cost 1,000 won here.

Another problem with countries like Britain and America – wherever you are in the world, is that you also feel responsible for your country’s foreign policy – all the bad things that it does in your name. I think Korea doesn’t have that kind of issue as much.

The 51st State

I think my experience here is different from that of an American in some small ways. There’s always this worry in the background I think that American soldiers are going to get into serious trouble in Seoul – or American language teachers. But then often I get into taxis and the first question the driver will ask my wife is “is he American?” And you know, sometimes I sense this feeling of relief when my wife says no – he’s British. But I feel a bit bad about it as well, because the thing is with Brits and Americans is that we’re are all supposed to be on the same side now. Although you know what the truth of being British here is – we’re all Americans when we’re in trouble.

Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2011-05-04 @ ~19:30

Busan e-FM Week 25: Financial Trading in Korea

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Introduction

This week I’m going to talk about my job. I’m a financial trader, and I work for myself.

Provenance

I read recently that seven out of ten Korean people regretted changing their jobs. Clearly there’s a lot of stress here connected with people’s working lives. It’s the same in England. In fact, there’s a word for it in English – we call it the “rat-race”, and it’s a race many people dream about dropping out of. There’s a book about trading by Alexander Elder, which begins with these words: “You can be free. You can live and work anywhere in the world. You can be independent from routine and not answer to anybody. This is the life of a successful trader.” It’s a good opening because it speaks to the dream of freedom and independence people have.

Job stress and the desire for a better life on fairer terms are big issues in modern society, and it’s part of the reason I quit my job working for a company. I think a lot of Korean people can understand the motivation. And as far as trading is concerned, it seems there’s quite a lot of it happening here.

Ants

I was both surprised and appalled to find out how much some Korean people were trading the financial markets. You know, I found out they call Korean traders ‘ants’, and I guess that sums all of us up. When I came to Korea in 2006 – before the Credit Crisis – everyone was talking about their investments, or their funds (‘pundue’), if they left the job to the bank. The percentage gains were enormous – I heard stories of people making 20-30% per year. This is scary... and unsustainable. They’re the kind of gains you usually see before a crash. But even before people lost so much money in the Credit Crisis – I saw TV stories here, and heard stories from my extended Korean social network, of people losing tens of thousands of dollars (or tens of millions of won) in the stock market.

Korean trading TV channels

You can tell it’s a serious business because of the dedicated Korean TV channels aimed at these ‘ants’. We don’t have those kind of TV channels in England. We have Bloomberg, which is a sorry excuse for a financial channel [In the hour running up to the London market opening, Bloomberg UK runs a heavy mix of adverts and sports/entertainment stories to the detriment of reporting on the morning’s corporate news releases]. The Korean channels feature lots of charts and chat-feeds like Twitter with viewer commentary. It’s intense stuff, it’s what trading is really about [sadly], and I think there might be three Korean channels just like this.

Financial trading in Korea

The market here – and the way people trade – seems to be different to England. There’s a lot of actual real stock buying, which means betting on upwards movements only, although there are also Equity-Linked Warrants (ELW) which are quite popular [if it’s anything like ‘covered warrants’ in Europe the deck is probably, by design, heavily stacked against the trader]. It’s easy to look clever in a bull-market with products like this.

I buy and sell financial contracts. In theory, it’s the difference between the price now and the price at some future point in time [but unlike most warrants, they don’t carry exponentially volatile expiry dates]. Think of it as the theoretical ownership of shares in a company, but you never actually own the stock. I might hold these financial contracts for weeks, minutes or even sometimes seconds. I also bet on downwards movements in the things I trade – which is called ‘short-selling’ or ‘shorting’. Overall, it’s not a term I’m fond of, but I suppose you could class me as a ‘daytrader’.

Trade what you know

I don’t trade any Korean companies. When I lived in England, I used to trade the UK and the US primarily, but I can’t really trade the US any more because of the time difference.

The problem with trading Korean companies is mostly the language barrier [although I suspect market liquidity isn’t as great either]. If I used a Korean securities company (or ‘broker’), even if I can overcome the Korean language interface – or they offer one in English – I can’t understand the news. I have to understand what’s happening with what I’m trading [another school of thought in the community differs on this point]. Anyway, as things stand, with my brokers and trading systems, I have no access to the Korean market. I’m not exactly sure why this is – I have access to many other global markets including Japan – but historically I think there have been lots of restrictive laws in Korea which make the whole business rather difficult.

The fn Hub

Of course, Korea has its ‘Financial Hub’ project – or ‘fn Hub’ as they [bizarrely] call it [or as I call it, ‘another fn hub’]. The fn Hub wants to create an environment where “domestic and foreign companies can compete freely (and thrive together)”.

One of the reasons London has been successful as a financial centre is that there is little regulation there. But here there are barriers – for example in foreign banks taking over domestic ones. The Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act 2009 broke down some of the regulatory barriers, but the government is still talking about whether to allow hedge funds to operate here – hedge funds [rightly or wrongly] are a fundamental part of the modern system in London and New York.

So some companies can’t operate here, even if they want to. Of the contracts I trade, which include stocks, commodities and currencies, none of my currency brokers will let me have an account in Korea, because of the Korean financial and banking rules. And I understand the difficulties, because my bank – [fn] HSBC – which is a global bank advertising a ‘global account’, doesn’t allow online UK to Korea money transfers. It all has to be done by phone. [I found this important fact out after they’d convinced me to open an account on the basis I could do my global banking over the Internet – which given I specified I wanted it for Korea, they should have known was impossible].

So with HSBC – and other banks I suppose – I can’t bring money into Korea electronically, or move it out. So, no electronic movement of money. I think I understand why this is – it’s probably a legacy of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, which created a fear that money moving in and out quickly could lead to a rapid economic collapse. But restrictions are the enemy of capitalism. I’m not ethically justifying this kind of global capitalism – it’s responsible for lots of problems in the world like the Credit Crisis. But it’s the way things are. Modern global capitalism means the free movement of capital, money in other words.

Korea as an ‘Asian Financial Hub’

I think the government here is trying to head in the right direction, and working sincerely towards their goal of making South Korea an ‘Asian Financial Hub’. But clearly it’s slow progress, and I think people have to be realistic about this idea. Look at what you’ve got right now – Singapore and Hong Kong are financial centres of sorts because they use English [for business at least]. Japan is a major financial market because of its financial power and the financial infrastructure it built up as part of that. You get the impression with the ‘fn Hub’ that it’s being talked about as some kind of replacement for these other financial centres. But what’s Korea’s unique selling point?

I don’t see that Korea will ever be the kind of Asian Financial Hub they are dreaming of. First of all, politics is a problem I’m afraid. Can you persuade companies to come here when this country is regularly threatened by an aggressive neighbour? Then there’s the language barrier and the anti-foreign rhetoric which private hate groups and the government regularly engage in [the latest is that apparently Ulleung Island could be 'militarily threatened' by Japan, in addition to the 'foreigners are spreading AIDS' political issue which I've previously mentioned. It's not that Japan is necessarily any less xenophobic of course - but they already have a financial hub whereas the government in Korea is trying to attract foreigners in to build one up].

No more hubs

But the bigger issue might be the whole idea of financial hubs and international financial centres in the first place. These days markets are consolidating, becoming increasingly electronic-only and speed of execution is an issue [high-frequency trading]. In the past, financial traders had to be near where the action was, but increasingly you put your computers there (or actually at the geographical mid-point between two markets) and you sit somewhere else. If anything, one day, there might be no financial hubs of any kind.

Don’t try this at home

I wouldn’t recommend trading as a job. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend it to my worst enemy. Longer term investing can be sensible, although nobody knows what the future is going to bring.

Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2011-04-13 @ ~19:30

It's More Expensive to Do Nothing

I'm not writing this to offer any insightful analysis about the attack on South Korea today, this is just an account of how I spent my afternoon and evening.

When my wife came into our office and said something terrible had happened while scrambling to put the news on the TV, a heavy sense of deja vu was already descending on me as she explained that Yeonpyeong Island was being shelled by the North Koreans. It wasn't a surprise; it's long been a potential target and was thought to be under threat recently due to the transition of power in North Korea and in the run-up to the G-20 meeting.

So it was the Cheonan all over again, except this time the attack was immediately more photogenic, and because of the proximity to North Korea's previous attack the thought briefly entered my head that this time, yes - maybe this time - the politicians in Seoul would respond militarily, and hit back against their attackers. Our attackers in fact, because I live here too.

If the North Korean sinking of the Cheonan taught me one thing, it's that you can't rely on the media or the military here to give you accurate information at times like these. And it isn't about media restrictions or secrecy - but rather it's speculation - sometimes wild speculation - dressed up as authoritative fact, seemingly for its own sake. And the media slips into it's Wag the Dog rolling file footage of ships firing their guns and soldiers running around purposefully. You can almost believe you're watching the war live, if a war was really going on.

This time we were told that South Korea had responded militarily, but later this was said to be with the firing of a singular 'K-9 155mm self-propelled howitzer', and the official announcing this declined to say whether North Korean territory had been hit. Which left me rather suspecting that they'd deliberately missed for fear of escalating the situation. Indeed, while the attack was apparently still under-way, President Lee Myung-bak was - truly or falsely - said to be desperately trying to calm the situation.

In the midst of such gravity, the situation tips into apparent farce. The South Korean government have responded to the ongoing attack... with a telegram. And before long the MBC network reported - with a deadly straight face - a South Korean military source complaining "Even though we sent a telegram, they are still firing." Meanwhile we watch South Korean houses burn on TV.

So if you were hoping the still active North Korean artillery positions were going to be targeted, this is the point at which your heart sinks - because you know the script from here on. The South Korean government vow 'stern retaliation' for any further provocations, but South Korea is like a man in a pub who is knocked to the floor by a bully, and gets up waving his finger saying, 'next time you hit me, I'm really going to get mad'. Punch - 'next time' - punch - 'next time' - punch... and so on. The depressing cycle of a country without any idea of what to do about a neighbour that sinks its ships and shells its civilians. Well, not that I do either.

There will be bluster and harsh words spoken by the government in Seoul but just like post-Cheonan they will never amount to much, and the North Koreans will spend tonight laughing at the weakness of their victims. Then they'll blame South Korea for starting it or claim it was an accident. And some in South Korea will even believe them. It's incredibly frustrating to watch, and even more frustrating to live here watching it all unfold.

South Korea is playing a long game, heads-in-the-sand hoping for a North Korean collapse to take the problem away from them. The old-Korea hands brush it off and say they've seen it all before but I believe they're wrong; this is no longer a conventional stand-off, but a nuclear one where only one side has the bombs. South Korea nestles under the U.S. nuclear shield, but if the day comes when North Korean nuclear missiles can reach American cities, or Tea-Party isolationists control Washington, how far can South Korea really rely on its old ally?

The Government in Seoul will try to brush this under the carpet and move on in the name of diplomacy or absurdity. But for tonight at least, the mood in Korea is sombre - and it's enforced - they've cancelled all the light entertainment shows.

And then there's me, and the butterfly effect from North Korea's attack today. I think radio programmes are like sausages. You might like them, but you never want to know how they are made. So you don't want to know how much work I put into preparing for a 10-minute slot I do on Busan e-FM every Wednesday. An hour ago I took a call telling me that tomorrow's topic - which was about festivals - was now predictably inappropriate, leaving me to prepare something entirely new at quite short notice. And it musn't be funny, which makes the task that much harder. So I'll probably talk about Korean apartments, because in my experience, they aren't something to laugh about. But it pains me to go on the air aiming to deliver a bland performance about a subject I will have to make as humourless as possible while not tackling the elephant in the room of what it's like for me to live as a foreigner in Korea at times like these. But I suppose we don't want to depress the listeners either.

It's nobody's fault that these media upheavals happen at times like these (well, apart from North Korea), and my problems are trivial in the scheme of things. Two men are dead, many more people are injured, people have lost their homes, and we can add them to the list of all the other victims of North Korea's unprovoked attacks. We can pretend their deaths will one day be avenged, but they won't. We'll agonise over our collective ineffectiveness for a few days and move on.

Multiplicity

A few weeks ago I ran into problems registering my son's name with the local district office, and I said it wasn't likely to be the last time having a multicultural child was going to cause problems in Korea. Well I didn't have to wait long for the next issue to raise its head – our son's health insurance bills have arrived and because his Irish surname takes up four Korean character spaces (it's four Western syllables), there was only one character space for his first name rather than two – so he's lost the last syllable of his name. I should have seen this coming because – with my middle name - only the first syllable of my surname appears on my health registration – and this is how I get called out in the hospitals.

This can't be good because when it comes to dealing with officialdom in any country – and I know Korea isn't different – it's quite important to maintain a consistent identity across systems otherwise computers and bureaucrats start to insist that you are not the same person. And when computers start thinking you are different people, the complications can just multiply. Since my son is more Korean than I am – and he'll have to grow up here - I see how it could be a particularly irritating problem for him.

My wife was not confident of our ability to get them to add the extra syllable to his first name, and neither was I because I kind of knew deep down – speaking as an ex-software designer myself - that some incompetent Korean software designer (I'm beginning to wonder if there is really any other kind) decided there was going to be a five-character limit in the database. Because, you know, Koreans don't have such long names and who else would ever be registered in the Korean health system except people with Korean names? Right? (For more on the Korean IT mentality - read this).

I found my wife's initial reaction very telling - “I feel bad now about giving him a strange name”. And that is the wrong answer. Your first reaction is supposed to be righteous indignation, otherwise you've fallen into their trap.

Korea keeps saying it welcomes a multicultural society so I think it would be better if they started planning for it rather than mysteriously thinking that Korea's future multicultural society will consist of people from lots of different countries all pretending they are Korean. Or does Korea really think all the foreigners are going to change their surnames to Kim? Don't answer that – they probably do.

The Voice in the Wall

Apparently today was 'no car day'. We heard it in an announcement yesterday evening over the Orwellian-style speaker that can't be turned off which is fixed into our apartment wall.

I don't really understand much of what's said by Big Brother, or at least his local representative - the security guards/janitors who skulk in an office in the basement of the building. But sometimes the rambling and slurred delivery leaves little doubt to how some ajeoshis get through their working day. And as jobs go, I'd rather people like this be working as security guards than bus or taxi drivers, although from the quality of the driving of the aforementioned types of vehicles, I'm rather afraid they actually do both.

It's also not clear who designated today 'no car day'. Of course, you'd like to think it was the local council, but then if I worked as a apartment building security guard I imagine I might have great fun making false announcements. Sunglasses day, no bike day, bike day, wear red day and 5am day would all be my ideas. After all, there's only so much pleasure to be had watching people on security cameras, telling them off for incorrect recycling bin allocations, and reminding them every ten minutes that there's a package waiting to be collected from their office until they come to get it. There's a package waiting for you. I still have your package. You should come and collect your package. Package. Package. Package.

I gather that a growing number of Koreans are seeking help from psychiatrists to relieve stress.

Package. Waiting. For You.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was no discernible lessening of the traffic volume on the road outside this morning. And if, disappointingly, this is some kind of Busan-wide political campaign rather than just being the security guard's late evening solution to boredom, I have to wonder what exactly the politicians expect compliant citizens to do? Is everyone who foregoes the use of their car just expected to pile into the rush hour's (or in Busan, should that be rush hours?) already tightly-packed buses and subway carriages?

Recently I became radio active and started travelling to Busan e-FM every week during the busy commuting period, and they certainly don't call it the '지옥철' - jiogcheol - for nothing (a Korean play on words, 'jihacheol' - 지하철 - means subway, jiog - 지옥 - means hell). Trains come every five minutes and you can't really fault the Busan 'Humetro' Authority, but there are just two many people living here all trying to get to the same places at the same times. No wonder people drive in Busan despite the high risk of death involved.

Oh, did I mention there's a package waiting for you in the janitor's office? Right now. Please.

The Battle of Tsushima

Korean Mother went on a two day trip to the Japanese island of Tsushima – which is called Daemado in Korea. You shouldn't read too much into the different naming – it doesn't necessarily make it another Dokdo/Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks situation.

However... in March 2005 the local council in Korean city of Masan designated June 19 as Daemado Day, claiming that this was the date in 1419 the island was annexed by the Korean Joseon Dynasty. Therefore, Daemado is Korean territory. But this isn't necessarily just some Tea Party-style fringe movement; in 2008 50 members of the Korean parliament stated their support for the territorial claim over Tsushima, and an opinion poll at the time showed 50.6% support amongst Koreans for the claim. Read on for a little more plot thickening.

So Korean Mother went to Tsushima – or Daemado - and it was meant as a short holiday, not the advanced recon party for a future invasion. Apparently Korean trips to Tsushima are quite popular. I once read that back in the 1980s the best slogan the Korean tourist authorities could come up with for a Japanese campaign was the rather weak but technically correct “Korea – the closest country to Japan” - which is practically apologetic in its lacking of ideas regarding what was attractive about Korea at the time. Now the roles are reversed, because – to paraphrase - Tsushima is the closest part of Japan to Korea.

Unfortunately Tsushima rather projects the image of being the Japanese version of Namhae. Rural and, what the tourism brochures might describe as 'contemplative'. Perhaps Tsushima isn't like that, but if not, the official Korean tour did little to sell it. The tour itinerary included – and I'm not making this up – a primary school and two banks, in addition to two very small temples. At least the latter is more fitting with a trip to another country, I'm not so sure what a 'cultural visit' to a bank really gives the tourist.

Then there's the Japanese hotel experience. It had no toilet paper or anything else which couldn't be screwed down (to be fair I've stayed in a Japanese hotel and it wasn't like this – but then I wasn't on Tsushima). And the meals were apparently minimalistic – even by the minimalist standards of the Japanese. Hunger became the Koreans' constant travelling companion. It made me wonder whether, given the festering animosity the Korean territorial claims have created on Tsushima, these two facts were entirely disconnected.

So when Korean Mother got back, the first place she and her friends visited was a Korean restaurant near the ferry terminal. The manager saw the terrible hunger writ large across their faces and said “You've just come back from Daemado haven't you?”

Oh, and that plot thickening I promised? While they were being shown around Tsushima the Korean tour guide told the assembled visitors... “Daemado was Korean territory you know, but now Japan claims it is theirs, so we have to get it back...”

Horror Hospital

Recently I wrote about some of the problems my wife and I had experienced with the maternity hospital we were in, but things were going to turn out to be worse for other people in what seemed to me like a perfect storm of Korean cultural issues.

The first aspect of Korean culture which differs from my own country lies in the fundamental nature of the birth experience itself. In Korea, women can – within a period of around four weeks - choose when to give birth; they pick a date and then report to the hospital to be induced or – if this is their preferred option, to have a caesarian section to deliver the baby. Now add to this ability to schedule a birth to the Korean thanksgiving holiday of Chuseok, one of those extremely rare times of the year when family might not be out working 12-hours a day, apparently making it a good time to schedule said birth. Next add in the near total contempt some business owners demonstrate for their customers in Korea, nurtured through a pathological pursuit of profit that might even make a financial trader blush. Add a little of the legendary local construction quality on top, and mix all these things together to achieve predictable results.

So this is what happened. A large number of women checked themselves in to have their babies during the Chuseok holiday, and it was probably double what the hospital could cope with. Normally, the recovery area of the maternity hospital, the 'sanhujoriwon' (산후조리원), takes up three floors – over Chuseok, the hospital expanded it to six by commandeering other floors which were not designed for the purpose. Whereas my wife's room was solely for her with en-suite, a desk, a TV and double bed for the husband to sleep in, the Chuseok mothers ended up in shared rooms with four beds and little else. That makes it no better than a bad British experience, and possibly worse because the already seemingly understaffed Korean hospital had not employed extra personnel for the holiday rush. Crucially for the people here though, this was not what they are accustomed to expecting, and it certainly wasn't what they were sold in the brochure.

And it gets worse. I said the hospital hadn't employed any extra staff, but in fact they'd gone the other way. The cleaning staff had the week off. So you have these new mothers, packed into rooms kept at abnormally high temperatures because of the belief here that this is better for their 'shattered' bodies, there's a lot of sweating and a lot of clothes going in the hospital wash baskets. But now nobody is around to clean them, piles of smelly clothes are building up in the corridors, and mothers are running out of clean clothes to wear. You can imagine the situation with bedding, bearing in mind that many of these women have undergone operations or procedures and were still bleeding.

And then there was the woman in the room next to us. Like my wife, she had been lucky enough to have her baby just before Chuseok, so she had a room to herself as she was supposed to. But the bathroom had a drainage problem. It was fitted incorrectly with the drainage grate too high, so after showering water would just collect creating an indoor pool. The room isn't exactly new so presumably it's been like this since it was built two or three years ago. She complained to the Sanhujoriwon Director - he offered her a small tool to push the water uphill into the pipe. She'd just given birth and could hardly walk, but the Samhujoriwon Director apparently thought nothing of her bending over pushing water around the floor. She protested.

Was he embarrassed? Afraid? His response was “If you don't like it, I have plenty of other women who would gladly have your room.” And sadly he was probably right, because when you're packed into a small room with three other women with no facilities whatsoever, you'd certainly see a single room with an inch of standing water in the bathroom as an upgrade. This is not really a good excuse, and it reminds me of the time I found a long black hair baked into my pizza at an expensive restaurant in Busan, and when we complained, the manager looked at us incredulously and said “well, it's only one.” On the face of it, Korea often seems to have a positive customer service culture – but perhaps only because they want to sell you something – once the transactions is done, attitudes can rapidly change – not always, but often enough to make you feel like you're stepping into a minefield every time.

It must have been bad because the husbands got unionised and all went to see the Hospital Director to complain, and by this time you can probably guess how that went. 'If you don't like my hospital, pick another!' I understand that a private Internet forum for mothers in Busan is now buzzing with anger about it, so word of mouth may at least provide a little karmic retribution.

Given the appalling conditions in the lower decks it almost seems churlish to mention another area in which the experience fell below expectations, but I will for completeness. The 'samhujoriwon' experience is about recovery and education, with mothers attending various classes to help them transition from hospital to coping on their own with their babies. There were no classes during Chuseok which meant that of the ten days of activities promised, many women only got seven. It's understandable that this is just bad luck and while I would expect cleaning to continue during the holiday, educational classes are a bit much to ask for. But there certainly won't be any refunds for the women who were short changed in this and other ways during the holidays. By this time, I couldn't say I was surprised.

Can I name and shame the hospital here? Sadly, probably not. The way things seem to work here is that criticising companies in public can easily lead to lawsuits. And in a nutshell, this tells you a lot about reason why the Hospital Director all but laughed in the faces of his patients and their families.

The problems I detail above effected others far more than they effected my wife. We were lucky – if you can call it luck - to have our own room away from some of the horrors. But I asked my wife, in principle rather than with intention, what could we have done to formally complain about the hospital had we suffered like some others had suffered. I was curious. She really wasn't sure, because often it seems people really don't ask those kind of questions here. I had an idea that ultimately, hospitals had to be licensed, and medical companies that ask new mothers to crawl around the bathroom floors of understaffed hospitals in dirty clothes are probably not what the government have in mind when handing out those licenses. So one imagines there must be some mechanism for calling people who run institutions like this to account. But it's not really my problem and it's a given that the Koreans who suffered won't take action either. Nothing will change. Meanwhile the Korean Government will keep talking about their desire to promote medical tourism to Korea within the Asian region, with discounts for properly qualified plumbers, presumably.

In the Name of the Father

Having chosen a name, my wife and I went to District Office to register our son's birth. And of course, we immediately ran into difficulties.

I believe that the children of some male foreigners in Korea take their father's surnames, so I didn't think we were treading entirely new territory with our decision to give our son a Korean first name and my Western surname. However, the first employee at the District Office said that she didn't know how to enter it into the computer. A supervisor was called, but he didn't know either.

Specifically, the problem related to our desire to register my son's first name in Chinese characters. This would be fine for 'the computer' if his surname had Chinese characters, but it only has the Korean character transliteration of the Western surname. Picking Chinese characters for names is hard, and I don't have a Chinese version of my surname. So 'the computer' said no.

We'd actually gone to the District Office to do two things - register our son as an individual and add him to our family register. The computer allowed his name to be added to the family register, but it wouldn't allow the individual registration. While this might at least seem like some sign of social progress - it probably isn't; when I got married my wife was designated as the head of our household, so I believe the computer allowing the family registration has more to do with her being Korean than any anything else. The staff told us they would have to consult their regional office for guidance, and we left without registering our son's birth.

It's not the first time I've encountered the 'computer says no' problem here due to my being a foreigner, and I'm sure it won't be the last. I used to be a computer programmer and I know that all you do when you write a program is take a snapshot of your own world view and create something which makes the computer behave the same way.

Later came the phone call from the Regional Office. Along with the 'computer says no' syndrome, my patience for Korea's passive-aggressive 'it-would-be-better-if' society is beginning to wear pretty thin as well, so the caller's suggestion that "it would be better if" we dispensed with the Chinese characters for my son's first name - rendering it without meaning - did not go down very well. Neither did the bizarre but apparently legal suggestion that he have a Korean surname on his Korean passport and a Western surname for his British one. The elephant in the room of that conversation seemed to be - thankfully left unspoken - that actually it would be better if my son just had a Korean surname.

When my wife thoroughly rejected this proposal, it was then - and only then - that the unknown official said that it could be done our way by registering the name in Korean characters and adding the Chinese characters for his first name later in some official way. It does nothing to alleviate my sense that the bureaucracy here is continually trying to beat people into homogeneous submission and only gives in to diversity when all else has failed.

That said, I'm not a big fan of multiculturalism as a national policy. In my country it became the equivalent of inviting a homicidal maniac to stay with you in your house, and an incredibly boorish homicidal maniac at that. And while the leaders of my city perpetuated the big lie of multiculturalism, it was never multicultural - it was just increasingly bipolar, like - I suspect - many of its residents. But Korean politicians talk a lot about multiculturalism these days like it's a good thing. I'm not saying it won't be in Korea, but they haven't experienced what I've experienced. However, on a personal level - and this is the unavoidable paradox - my son will grow up in a multicultural environment, and while I think every native-English speaker who expects Korea to bend over backwards for them should be sent back home never to return, I draw the line at my son's name. He is half-Korean, half-English, and as much as a name reflects a more fundamental identity, I want that identity to reflect his twin heritages. I guess that's where I draw the line. This probably isn't going to get any easier.

Body Language

When I returned to this country last September I was given a one year F-2 visa as the spouse of a Korean national. One day I hope to be able to graduate to an F-5 visa - permanent residency - under which I'll no longer have to report to the Immigration Service at regular intervals amongst other benefits.

It's said that if you ask two Korean immigration officers a question you'll get at least three different answers, so when I say that I was once told that I needed to be on two year F-2 visa before I could apply for an F-5, it's important to emphasise that this is not necessarily correct information, it's merely something I was told by an official - so it's a given that it might be inaccurate. In the same vein, I was also told that I might be interviewed the next time I reported in to my local immigration office, and my Korean skills could decide the difference between my getting a one or two year extension. This passive-aggressive language requirement is often also stated in connection with F-5 applications - despite the fact that there seems to be no legal basis for it, though personally I'm not opposed to the principle behind it. Anyway, perhaps in a nod to the highly subjective nature of the possible assessment, the immigration officer's parting words to us were "bring a baby with you next time, and it will be better".

They actually didn't say who the baby had to belong to, but subterfuge didn't appear to be required in the end because as things turned out the next time I entered their office it was with my eight-month pregnant wife, which while not quite the requested entirely separate person, seemed like a considerable down-payment towards that goal.

Baby or not, I was never convinced that I was going to face an inquisition, but I had to assume the worst and tried to study harder in preparation for it, although I can't honestly say that I was pleased with the results of my studies. But after months of it vaguely playing on my mind, there was no interview and the immigration officer told us that she could give me a one or two year extension but considering my wife's condition she'd make it two. And that, along with 20,000 won (around £11/$17) was the end of my visit. A year ago, my wife was preparing to apply for a one year visa extension in the UK, requiring a small mountain of supporting documentation, an interview in another city, and a non-refundable £800 fee. It can be tough getting clear answers from the Korean immigration system, but at least it isn't designed to hate people the way the British system is.

So barring any last-minute hitches, my next mandatory visit to my local immigration office won't be until 2012, by which time if I can't hold a fluent conversation with the officers there I'd probably be better off leaving Korea anyway.

Biker Boyz

Anyone who's lived here for more than a couple of weeks will probably have become used to the blatant use of pedestrian areas such as sidewalks/pavements as a more convenient off-road route. That is, as far as it's possible to learn to live with suddenly finding a large and sometimes previously unheard machine whizzing by your arm at 20mph. But lately, I've noticed that the major road outside our apartment seemed to be doubling up as a racetrack for bikers after midnight. At least, that was my theory - the enormous apparent speeds involved prevented me from getting up from my chair and reaching the window in time to actually see the physical evidence for this, even if the noise from engines and customised horns told its own story. They've also woken me up just after dawn, apparently doing racing laps of the local district, judging from the fading and crescendoing engine sounds echoing around the valley we live in.

Curious, I stopped to watch a group who I noticed were pulled into a petrol station nearby recently. It was impossible to see what kind of people they were (very young, I suspect) or what kind of bikes they had because it was too far away and too dark, but the numerous coloured LED lights on the back of their machines were unmistakable. I came back to the window a couple of minutes later as they headed off down the road with engines roaring. That's when I saw one of the rear lights wave around wildly and unmistakably crash to the floor. There was now a bike sliding along the road in a small shower of sparks, while nearby the dark shape of its former rider tumbled along next to it. I lost track of him in the darkness, but saw him again when he hit the back of a stationary car in a small cloud of smoke. I don't know what speed he was doing when he came off, but rider and machine had perhaps slid around 40 feet by the time it ended.

The ambulance came about three minutes later, and not long after that, the police arrived. I expect I'll never find out whether the rider was seriously injured. Back in England, I had a biker friend who once told me in excruciating detail of the perils of not wearing protective leathers in a similar type of accident, but here in Korea, with the temperature outside at midnight 21 degrees Celsius, what kind of clothes do these biker youths wear? Probably not the the proper gear, I expect. Laceration injuries may not be the rider's biggest problem though, given what I've since seen of other late night bikers, it's very unlikely he was wearing a helmet.



It's getting bad during the daytime as well, in a way I never really remember occurring before. It was always the case that the sensible pedestrian lets a couple of people venture out onto a crossing when the lights change to provide a target for the drivers who regularly race the lights or simply don't notice them change. But recently a couple of motorcyclists have blasted through crossings I've been at long after lights have changed and people have been mid-way across the road. A couple of days ago, I realised how deliberate this was when one rider revved his bike and speeded up as he shot through a gap in a group of rather surprised people at about 50mph. It was close enough that I could feel the rush of wind as he disappeared up the road at great pace. Sooner or later someone will, of course, get killed and then there will be some blood money to pay and maybe a bit of prison time if they're unlucky.

What seems really intended to stick two fingers up at 'the man' is ignoring the civil defence drill. I often watch these unfold below me - there's something slightly comedic about the idea that during a real attack elderly women will take to the streets and blow their whistles at both vehicles and pedestrians which don't come to a halt. Usually I see drivers try to reach the safety of side streets where they can continue their journey, or at least position themselves a few more feet down the street to cut their post-alert journey just that little bit shorter. Pedestrians meanwhile, are sometimes harangued, apparently depending on the mood of the official.

So during the last drill, for the first time, I saw someone who'd openly decided to flout it. It was, of course, a biker, who put in the following performance - if you listen carefully at the end, you can hear the whistles being blown pointlessly as he disappears into the distance: