Increasing Number of Korean Parents Reborn as Grandchildren

According to figures released by Statistics Korea this week, research shows that an increasing number of Buddhist parents who die before their children give birth are being reincarnated as their own grandchildren in South Korea, possibly due to the difficult economy.

The issue is causing growing unease among prospective parents with deceased mothers or fathers, as it raises awkward questions in Korea's strictly hierarchical society.

50 year-old Professor Kim of Seoul International University's Psychology Department said that such reincarnations led to problems in raising the children, since many Koreans whose parents have been reborn as their children are reluctant to openly admonish them for any of their mistakes. "Even the choice of words is problematic – normally parents would speak to their children in a plain form of the Korean language, but their own parents should be spoken to in a politer form. When a situation arises where those parents have been reborn as a person's children, there just aren't any guidelines on how they should be spoken to or dealt with." The government has said it is looking into drawing up guidelines.

Seoul resident 32 year-old Kim told us of the difficulty of discovering from a Buddhist fortune teller that her baby daughter had in fact the reborn soul of her mother who passed away two years ago. "I really don't know how to deal with her... she often screams, sulks, has temper tantrums and refuses to be reasoned with. In many ways she hasn't changed at all."

Anti-Piracy Drill Held in Busan

ROKS Yi Sun-shin (DDH-975) "Prada Hunter"

The Defense Ministry says that a government-civilian joint anti-piracy drill was held off the coast of Busan on Wednesday and Thursday. The two-day drill involved the navy destroyer 'Yi Sun-shin' and two private vessels. However, no piracy was encountered, and local residents said that the shopping streets in Nampo-dong and Choryang-dong where most counterfeit goods are sold in Busan are not visible from the harbor.

Navy cadet, 19 year-old Kim, admitted that he was slightly disappointed by the lack of action, telling us that on a clear day in calm seas he could often hit a fake Chanel handbag from 500 meters with his Seongsan heavy caliber machine gun, a skill he hopes will prove useful to him once he's completed his national service and left the navy. "I even thought I saw a fake Rolex once, but when I tried to engage my weapon it failed to fire." he lamented. "I quickly phoned Seongsan Customer Service using my mobile phone, but by the time they admitted to making the weapon I no longer had line of sight on the target."

Piracy has long been a major problem in Korea according to international anti-piracy organizations, although in the past the government has often blamed the apparent poor quality of branded goods here on overseas fashion houses not taking the Korean market seriously, dismissing the notion that the products are illegally made by Koreans in a Myeong-dong Seoul backstreet factory where they are illegally made. But figures leaked from the government's statistics office suggest that the counterfeit goods industry actually generates 122% of South Korea's annual GDP, although others say these figures were faked.

According to official figures, software piracy hit a five-year high in 2010 with Microsoft Windows being pirated 20,261 times – a 71% increase from the previous year – although the government has been accused of downplaying the real figure, which independent experts put at approximately 20,261,000.

Under pressure from the international community, local district offices in Seoul have responded to the 'vague concerns' of the government by conducting crackdowns on counterfeit fashion, pirate-software, CD and DVD vendors in the capital. However, the offices warned vendors beforehand, ensuring most of them were closed on the day of the inspections, and those that were caught having ignored the warning were asked to destroy the fake products, although they didn't have to.

Speaking on condition of anonymity one inspector, 46 year-old Kim, told us that "Counterfeit goods are really good for tourism, so while I spent one day a year conducting 'anti-piracy' operations for the sake of international politics, the rest of the time I work with the vendors to ensure we attract more tourists than the next district." Some have also accused the government of turning a blind-eye to the fake goods industry in Korea due to the tax revenues it generates, but all the vendors we spoke to denied the accusation that they were not faking their tax returns to avoid payments.

In Busan, people in Nampo-dong's 'Pirated Goods Street', which the local government promotes on its tourism websites, said they weren't concerned by the navy's anti-piracy drill taking place nearby. "After what happened on Yeonpyeong Island I doubt they can hit us from here." one vendor said, referring to the retaliation towards a North Korean attack last year, in which the South Korean military devastated large areas of water near the enemy coast.

But the Defense Ministry says the 'Yi Sun-shin' will continue patrolling the waters off the coast of Korea's second city from time to time, "highlighting South Korea's commitment to clamping down on piracy".

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Rotte Group Withdraws 'Take Our Place in Japan' Competition

In the wake of the tsunami which devastated Japan, Rotte Department Store, a Korean subsidiary of the Tokyo-based Rotte Group, have canceled a 'Take Our Place in Japan' competition after complaints from the public.

Rotte Group's founder and his family reportedly left Japan for Korea earlier this month at a time when many of Japan's fair-weather foreign residents decided to abandon their so-called Japanese friends to their fates and run away.

In an attempt to portray the move from Japan as unrelated to the threat of radioactivity bearing down on their Shinjuku headquarters, the competition was framed as a form of house swap, where competition winners would exchange their place in Korea for the places the company's management were vacating in Japan. Officially, the unlucky winners were to be sent to see 'cherry blossoms', but critics said that the company was sending its customers to a disaster-stricken country that even its own family members didn't want to stay in.

The bungled competition was doubly bad for the conglomerate, which likes to portray itself as an entirely South Korean company due to the fierce nationalism here. It was feared that the incident would also serve to highlight the group's Japanese base at a time when Koreans are particularly angry with Japan after the infamy of the Dokdo Betrayal.

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