I’ll overlook The Star’s lack of technical know-how in regards to Twitter (he either tweeted or retweeted, you can’t do both to one tweet) and pass along the state of current Government take on freedom of speech, in particular towards North Korea.  Not exactly a preety picture when you start to dig deep.

http://www.thestar.com/iphone/news/world/article/1132622–south-korean-security-law-takes-aim-at-pro-north-activists

South Korea still has a way to go but maybe, just maybe a change in leadership will help because a change in leadership has certainly gone the opposite way of a democracy and free speech.

It is interesting to watch these two sides duke it out in not to physical confrontation. The North continually says they are ready to talk on all issues but still they get snubbed by the South.

This means I can’t view any domains registered by North Korea ending with .kp .  That’s ok because for me, I can easily get around it by using browser9.com. (Works for many other uses as well).  If you are curious about some of the happenings in the North, you can check out http://www.naenara.com.kp.  If you are living in South Korea, you have to use a proxy server or a site like browser9.com to be able to view that site.

Something else that is much more common here than back home.  Ordering stuff online.  Unlike us, there are many English Teachers who do not have the luxury of walking to a Lotte Mart or E-Mart (Walmart like stores).  So their only recourse is to order from a site like GMarket.  Now, I warn you first.  The site is reallly annoying.  They all these little images of products that continuously change to show different angles or discount amounts and such, it drives me quite insance.  The upside is that if you are running Internet Explorer or FireFox, you simply hit the Escape Key and the images stop ‘freaking out’.  I hope that get that feature into Chrome soon!  This only stops images from the page you are on.  So if you browse around, you’ll have to hit Esc for each page.  Annoying but welcome to Korea.  Flashing lights and noise are a common thing to grab your attention.

And I thought NORTH Korea was bad….

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/south-korea-must-release-activist-charged-over-kim-jong-il-tweet-2012-02-01

One might think that living in Canada or the US you have the ‘ultimate freedom of expression’. It is true that ‘westerners’ have much more liberty at their fingertips that much of the rest of the world. The problem is the censorship that does happen is simply in the form that you are not aware of. It happens quietly, sneakiliy (hey, that’s my own word, dictionary be damned!) and it is pretty scary once you realize it. For the moment, I won’t be dwelling on it. Here in South Korea, such banning is rather blatant.

There is still a great fear in the upper echelon of Korean Society that they believe there is information out there that will harm their society. Eventually they will realize that people can make up their own minds but that is probably a loooooong way off. Tradition is hard to kill and the Koreans have been around for a very long time.

Want to know what site was banned? A travel site. What? Yeah a British travel site that provides tours to North Korea. Here’s part of the article explaining.

A British-run travel agency which specialises in tours to North Korea disclosed Monday that South Korea was blocking its website because of alleged pro-Pyongyang material.

AFP article via Google

There are actually two sites and they are www.koryogroup.com and www.koryotours.com.  Now, anyone outside of Korea should be able to view them without any hindrance.  I, however, using my regular channel get the above screenshot unless I do some techno-wizardry.

If you want to learn how to get around such bans and censorship, I would highly recommend you learn about Tor from EFF.  Read and become illuminated.

Since this is the topic on everyone’s mind back home let me enlighten you on how it all feels this side of the world.

Everyone is pointing to North Korea as the ones who ‘shot first’.  Maybe the did, maybe they didn’t.  I wasn’t there, I can’t say who’s in the right or wrong.  What I do know is that South Korea planned some ‘air excercises’ of this island (that’s been in debate for ages) and if I were to take a guess, I think that North Korea did fire first but only after South Korea ‘pushed the limits’ of their nerves by being in that area as well as giving North Korea reasons to push back from the corner they’ve put themselves into.

As for the general populace, life goes on.  I’ve not spoken with any locals but the general consensus amung the english teachers is that this is really nothing new.  Maybe more ‘fire exchange’ than in the past but there has always been skirmishes over this island.  Unless there is a drastic change in level of activity, it’s just one more notch in history of  ongoing Korean War. (You did know that it never ended right?)

North Korea’s only ally (China) is even staying somewhat neutral.  They have neither approved nor condemned the incident but at most said ‘the two should work harder at coming to peace’.

I’ve signed up with Canadian Government brach for registered Canadians abroad.  They keep track of such things and email updates on events like this.  Their last email said that neither country has raised any ‘alert levels’, a pointed indication that this is nothing more than two children fighting over one toy for the sake of pride now more than anything else.