FAN DEATH! It’s What’s for Dinner…
by WANGKONG936
As reported in two Chosun Ilbo articles, Koreans may be “going overboard” with mad cow disease. “PD Diary”, the famous MBC current affairs program, has claimed that 94 percent of Koreans have a “special” gene that makes them more susceptible to getting Mad Cow Disease vs. regular Americans or Britons (Canucks, Kiwis and Aussies were, unfortunately, not mentioned in the report). Per the article:
“A tepid and delayed response from the government is only fueling fears. The personal blog of President Lee Myung-bak, who promised that resuming import of U.S. beef will bring high-quality and low-priced beef to the table, has been virtually shut down by Internet users who bombarded it with messages protesting against the decision.”
Interesting bit of “scientific” exposé there MBC! It would have reinforced their case if they had interviewed just one gyopo from America who’s had his brains melted from a lifetime of eating American beef. Reminds me of another equally futile piece of pseudoscience that Koreans still hold dear.
Picture from Japanese show “Morning Musume”.
OR ANOTHER COMMENT
I wouldn’t be surprised if these netizens are just proponents of the liberal faction trying to keep the anti-US flame going.
No independent thought = no self esteem
no self-esteem = esteem taken and given to you when needed
These 2 statements pretty much sum up liberals/Confucius thinkers.
-
Brian
My students were all abuzz about this report today. They even said—for some reason—that it won’t be safe to live here (Suncheon), and that they need to move to Gwangju. I have no idea what that means or what that brought about—perhaps getting cows confused with chickens—but they were unanimously against the import of American beef. They were all afraid they were going to die. They’re smart kids, good kids, and they did raise some other good points about the Lee Myung-bak free-trade agreement . . . but man, I was surprised how worked up they were getting and how vocal they were about both this beef issue and the President. They were even talking about signing the online petition to impeach him. (And they were under the impression that we’d be sending lower quality beef to Korea, the beef Americans don’t want to eat). Weird, but people rightly ought to be more afraid of bird flu than mad cow disease down here in the Jeollas.
Even my coteachers were worked up about it, were quite worried about the risk of MCD, and they didn’t believe me when I brought up the articles and told them that they weren’t genetically predisposed to Mad Cow Disease. *sigh*
I haven’t been following the FTA at all or this latest business about beef imports, so somebody else can enlighten me . . . is the issue of Mad Cow Disease of real concern, and one expressed in the Korean-language press, or is it just being trotted out now to complement the knee-jerk anti-foreign sentiment that always accompanies stories of foreign competition?
As an American who eats more than his weight in beef every year, I’m more worried about getting killed by falling suicide jumpers here than getting a bad burger or T-bone. Anyway, judging by that list (#9), it looks like those North Americans were likely infected in the U.K. and not by U.S. beef.
It’s actually quite sad, that for all their time in schools, you would think that the population here could do some basic research on their own. Just today, I had a very intelligent Korean friend tell me that she will never get Lasik eye surgery because her boss said it was a bad idea and too risky. What utter nonsense! I had my surgery 11 years ago and still have the same perfect eyesight. I had to pull out old pictures to prove this to her and then go on the internet to English language medical websites to give her unbiased assessments of the procedure. There is a small risk involved, but her boss had her believing that nearly everyone goes blind from this surgery.
And as for the special “gene”, they might want to name it the “lemming” gene, or maybe it is something special added to the soju and kimchi that foreigners are unable to absorb into our obviously different human physiologies that makes us immune to “fan death” and other Korean maladies.
10,000 Koreans showed up at the Chonggyechon last night to hold a candlelight rally against the importation of US beef.(Image below from the KT)
On a side note, an online movement to gain signatures for the impeachment of LMB has so far gained 600,000 signatures, while his popularity rating has dropped to 35.1 percent.
FROM SEOULMILK.........
how could people be so dumb? so gullible? i mean, seriously, do they think the US needs to get of bad beef and the only place they can get rid of them is to korea? korea finally gets a competent president, who in the long run, can restore korea’s image, and what do the citizens do, fucking ruin it.i meant, get “rid” of…
i wish someone from the anti-us beef side can explain why they are so against the importation of US beef. don’t they have a choice to buy “safer” beef? because the US beef will be cheaper doesn’t mean you have to buy US beef if you are concerned about the health of yourself and family. and i would bet at least one person at the rally has been to the US and tried beef without any hesitation.
sorry for rambling but this just pisses me off. sometimes, as childish as it may be, i wish the US would give koreans a taste of its own medicine. i mean, what if people in the states held a rally against a korean product being unsafe? which reminds me, if koreans are so concerned about the health, in essence their lively being, then hold a rally to change the traffic laws.BY globalvillageidiot
10,000 people at a rally in downtown Seoul is nothing special. Many of them are, without a doubt, the same people who show up at all the other anti-American or anti-Japanese rallies. Most regular Koreans will be delighted to once again have the option of buying cheap American beef at EMart.
BY ZONATH
Didn’t online petitions and surveys have Ron Paul winning the Republican primary by 300 million votes or so? 
Anyhow, thank goodness that Korea has people with candles and netizens to protect it from imperialist American cows. After all, the candlelight vigil protesting the foreign students running riot through Korean cities was just a smashing success.
BY ELCANGURODamn, and I was feeling quite upbeat lately . . . (Climbs onto soap box)
What a bunch of gutless fools!
One week ago a mob of foreign protesters in their homeland attack and beat those who oppose their views. Result: Lots of hand-wringing but no huge gathering or candlelight vigils.
US beef back on shelves despite a long, drawn out effort using every measure and tactic under the sun to keep it out using Mad Cow Disease as a convenient excuse. Result: 10,000 attend candlelight vigil opposing poor quality, imperialist Yankee beef!
The reason:
US = Benevolent big brother, who we can sabotage, abuse and create a whole lot of ill-will towards but they’ll still be there to help us out.
China= Belligerent big brother, who we despise but are genuinely fearful of as they are powerful and vindicative, and can use their power to hurt us as they’ve done in the past.
China must be loving this. It seems the old adage is true - ‘Koreans greatest enemy are themselves’.
(Gets off soap box)
BY ROBOSEYO
I like when celebrities get involved in politics. Reminds me of this. http://youtube.com/watch?v=DOM4hTgrF8o
I have a student who’s a dentist. He came into class all upset about US beef and the FTA, ready to head out to the protest. Then I asked him whether this MBC show had a history of fair reporting.
“Well, last year the same show took a hidden camera into a countryside dental clinic, and then used that footage of only one place to make an expose program criticizing dentists’ sanitation practices that was one-sided, totally unfair, frightening to the public, and which damaged dentists’ credibility. We dentists looked carefully at the show and decided the makers of a certain, expensive sanitation tool must have had an influence in having the show made, because every dentist needed to buy one to regain public trust after that show aired.”
“So this show has a history of using one-sided, unfair reports to make the public afraid of things when they don’t need to be afraid of them.”
“Yeah, but you should have seen their hidden camera footage of the American slaughterhouse!”
“Did they show footage from a Korean slaughterhouse to show how Korean slaughterhouses are better? Did they show more than one slaughterhouse? Did they mention how many slaughterhouses they visited to find the disgusting one where they took all this video?”
“. . . ”
By the end of the class, I’d convinced him to ask the question, “Who benefits,” every time he watched that show, and if there’s a clear beneficiary to the scaremongering (especially when there are politics like the FTA at stake), to take the report with a bit of skepticism.
You should have seen the lightbulb go on when I suggested that maybe they gave American beef the same smear-job treatment they gave to dentists last year, in order to benefit Korean beef farmers.
(sigh)
BY tomcoyner
Minor epiphany here:
The so-called Mad Cow Disease demonstrations are not about Mad Cow Disease. The demonstrations should be called the KTU Demonstrations. The desperately leftist Korea Teachers Union is behind this nonsense. That is why Friday night I saw so many high school students in the company of what appeared to be their teachers.
This is a Children’s Crusade.
With a three-holiday and bored children, we may expect the streets being enthusiastically cheering the nonsense spouted off by speakers. The sheep have taken control of the public spaces yet again. At least, this time the crowds are likely to be dominated by lambs and foolish wolves dressed as the “wise” seong-seng nim.
In other words, this has nothing to do with public health and probably not even to do with protectionism. It is simply a ploy by uber nationalist socialists to reassert themselves by manipulating the voters’ children, after having their noses rubbed into reality during the past two national elections.
Those folks really have no shame. And the sooner they are exposed for who they actually are, the better Korea will be in the future.
