Monthly Archives: September 2011

via The Chosun Ilbo: Pediatricians Over-Prescribing Antibiotics

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The Chosun Ilbo (English Edition): Daily News from Korea – Pediatricians Over-Prescribing Antibiotics.

I’ve seen a few stickers campaigning against this, but man is this pervasive. After trying to fight with pediatricians and pharmacists about not wanting to give my kids antibiotics for a runny nose, I finally gave up and started taking them to an international clinic, where they say they understand that American parents are “sensitive” about prescription drugs. Whatever, as long as you’re not pumping them full of antibiotics and other unnecessary prescription drugs for, seriously, a runny nose.

Which also reminds me… I’ve never figured out what’s in the shot that people get when they say they don’t feel well and have to “go to the hospital for a shot”– anyone? Is it just a placebo? Fluid? Vitamin B?

via Yonhap News: Women to lead S. Korea’s foreign policy in 10 years’ time: FM

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Warning: linkbait headline may lead to rage.

Yonhap fools me with the above headline but the South Korean Foreign Minister during a lecture at Ewha Women’s University said:

“While abroad, I noticed that our country’s competitiveness is in our women,” he said during a lecture in front of dozens of female students at Seoul’s Ewha Womans University. “Wherever I went, the people who gave me the most practical help were all women.”

Oh?  Practical help, you say?

The minister recounted the various ways in which he received help from the South Korean wives of foreign diplomats in Moscow while opening the South Korean embassy there in the early 1990s. He also noted that South Korean female golfers have “taken all the top spots” on the global stage.

I see. So… the great advances in women’s participation involve being wives (revolutionary!)  and being good at golf (stop the presses!).

Grrr…

Korean literature’s rise on the back of “Please Look After Mom” – CSMonitor.com

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Another article proclaiming the rise of Korean literature based on the success of PLAM, this time from the Christian Science Monitor:

Korean literature’s rise on the back of “Please Look After Mom” – CSMonitor.com.

No new information, but it does show how the success of one author doesn’t necessarily herald the rise of a national literature so much as that one author as the one representative author of that country.  The first paragraph is an implicit reminder of that fact:

Brazil has Paolo Coelho, Colombia can boast of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Japan gave the world Haruki Murakami. All are popular writers of fiction who have sold tens of millions of copies between them, a feat giving them – and their countries – worldwide renown.

One country, one author. How many Brazilian, Colombian, or Japanese authors can you name off the top of your head (I kind of want to discount Japan here as it seems the exception to the rule, but maybe that’s just in my East Asian Studies world microcosm)? Not too many, I’m guessing, if you’re not from that country or a reader of those authors’ source languages.

Characteristically, Brother Anthony has a pithy comment at the ready:

“There are in a way far too many [Korean works of literature] being published in English,” says the naturalized Korean, known locally as An Sonjae.

He says one of the fundamental problems in the backing of Korean literature is that it is misdirected. Rather than putting so much focus on the business front and publishers, there is a greater need, he says, for support of authors and their development.

So, again, nothing really knew, but it’s always good to get some press.

Bae Doo-na cast in Cloud Atlas

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I’m very late on this, but I just saw that Bae Doo-na has been cast in the film adaptation of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas as Sonmi-451, the Korean-ish fabricant in the futuristic narrative segment of the novel.  She’ll be part of an impressive cast including Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Tom Hanks, and Ben Whishaw. It’s being made by the Wachowski Brothers (red alert!) and Tom Twyker.

Huzzah! Bae Doo-na is my favorite Korean actress, and Cloud Atlas is one of my favorite novels of the past decade, so yay.  Its expected release date is October 2012.