Out and about in Shanghai

Nothing puts a city on the map quite so well as a visit by a superhero, super-villain or an anonymous government employee.

In 2008's 'The Dark Knight', Batman unconventionally extradited a Chinese crime boss from a Hong Kong skyscraper to face charges back in Gotham City.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtJFitoUl6M

In 2015 the Avengers wrecked Seoul's traffic in the 'Age of Ultron'.  

Captain America dodging traffic in Seoul

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF1vXonJrNE

Of course not everyone enjoyed the fun; there was some controversy as to whether Seoul's global exposure was worth the cost and disruption caused by the filming.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-south-korean-avengers-age-of-ultron-20150508-story.html

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2015/05/07/2015050701824.html


Meanwhile back in 2012's 'Skyfall' an anonymous Brit with a flair for destruction made a low key, but ultimately late intervention in an assassination in Shanghai

007's only fight scene to date which is choreographed to jellyfish

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFacxpBhXFg

In this case the controversy was about whether Mr Bond was ever actually in Shanghai at all.  Seemingly the filming was done in London and then digitally enhanced to resemble Shanghai.

https://jamesbondlocations.blogspot.kr/2015/06/the-shanghai-skyscraper-broadgate-tower.html

This is perhaps not surprising given the hoops of fire and tedious bureaucracy that one still has to leap through to get a visa to visit mainland China, or, for that matter, for the Chinese to visit abroad. Business visitors to China still require Letters of Invitation from the executive level of the company they want to visit detailing where, when and for how long the visit is needed.  Tourists must not only submit evidence of hotels and flights paid in advance but also a daily itinerary of where they plan to visit and what they will do there. All in all it is not so different from trying to visit Poland before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

However, if you can negotiate the formalities hung over from the communist-era, then there are lots of pleasant surprises waiting once you finally touch down.  Shanghai's Pudong airport is connected to the city by the Shanghai Transrapid, a futuristic magnetic levitation train engineered and built by Siemens and Thyssen Krupp intended as a prototype for a larger project connecting Shanghai to Beijing.  

Blood beside the window confirms that 300 km/hr is sufficient to make puree out of anything which happens to fly by 

The MagLev routinely operates at 300 km/hr (186 mph) increasing to 431 km/hr (268 mph) at peak times, making this the world's fastest train in commercial operation since 2004.  And all the while, this is achieved with no physical contact between the train and the rails which it hovers on.  The only drawback with such high speeds is that the 8 minute journey is too fast to enjoy, so that when you arrive you wish you could go back and do it all over again.

However once in downtown Shanghai there are more than enough distractions to focus on.  Located where the Yangtze River meets the East China Sea, the city has always been a local hub for trade and administration.  However it was in 1845 after the First Opium Wars that Shanghai started to develop rapidly as a hub for the entire Asia Pacific region. Only in 1949 did the pace of growth stall under Mao, until the 1990's when its phenomenal growth resumed.

Shanghai, meaning "Above the sea", at sunset

Shanghai after dark

The rapid changes in Chinese society make for some quite unique dinner conversation. Folks in their 50's will happily recall their childhood; like when they learned for the first time, at the tender age of 15, at high school in the '80's, that there were lands outside of China, where the people were not Chinese, who spoke other languages, and wrote with curious 'letters' such a 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D'. Home life then was basic. There were no comforts or luxuries, not even heating, but nobody knew it was basic. During winter time, people simply added more clothing to keep warm; the notion of heating the apartment was totally unknown. Around the same dining table, people in their 30's, just one generation younger, tell you that they not only heat their homes in winter, but they employ a house cleaner, or baby-sitter, or both. Furthermore they make shopping trips to Seoul and Tokyo to buy strollers, milk bottles and clothes for their baby because tax-free shopping and travel abroad is cheaper than travel and buying within China.

Today Shanghai is quietly and gently dropping much of its baggage from the Mao era in order to fuse new ideas with the best of the past. 

Imposing, austere housing blocks in the commuter belts, gradually being superseded by softer, friendlier versions of the same 

Shanghai: new times overlooking old times

Food for locals largely remains traditional ......

At a local restaurant; more soup and dumplings than you can shake a stick at

.... although foreign fast food is inevitably gaining a foot-hold.

In the tourist zones; KFC and Haagen Daaz doing their best to blend in

Happily the rich cultural heritage of the city ensures that the best of the past is preserved, despite the commercial pressure to give it a cheap face lift occasionally. 

Starbucks: never too shy to stand out like a sore thumb

The best of the past surely includes the much praised Yu Gardens, next to the City God Temple in the Old City. Dating from 1559, the gardens were built essentially as a gift from a son to a father to enjoy in his old age.  Sadly, ultimately the father died before the completion of the gardens and the costs ruined the entire family. 

The Tea Rooms in front of the Yu Gardens

A dragon enjoys the last of the day's sunshine in the Yu Gardens, central Shanghai

Across the river from the Yu Gardens stand;

• the Shanghai Tower (632m/2,073 ft)
• the Jin Mao Tower (420m/1,380ft)
• the Shanghai World Financial Centre (492m/1,614ft)

The Shanghai Tower includes the world's highest observation deck at (561m) and the world's fastest elevators (routinely 16m/s ascending).  Together the three buildings form the world's first group of three supertall buildings.

Shanghai Tower: the worlds fastest elevators to the world's highest observation deck 

Looking down onto the Shanghai World Financial Centre from the Shanghai Tower

Whether Shanghai is a gateway to China or a statement to the rest of the world, it is certainly impressive; huge, powerful and moving forward at an unprecedented speed. A must-see on anybody's list if you can bear to complete all the paperwork to get there. Changes introduced in May 2017 require visitors to apply for visas only in their country of citizenship or in their country of legal residence. 

https://youtu.be/dtAeVl8Erhg

The KBS Apocalypse Special

Presenter: Hot on the heels of last week's huge military parades in Pyongyang comes this week's 85th anniversary of the founding of North Korea's People's Army. The burning question amongst the world's top generals and their ladies-who-latte is; just how will the boy-king-turned-Super-Supreme-Leader, Kim JongUn choose to celebrate ? 

Apocalypse Now: make sure your last meal is the Nuclear Bomb Burger
- only USD $4 with a soft drink 

In the last two weeks Kim has launched so many tirades it is difficult to know which is his favourite form of destruction right now. Will he make good on an early promise to wipe the US from the face of the Earth in a sea of fire ? Or will he be content to just sink a passing aircraft carrier with 'a hole in one' ? 

USS Carl Vinson: diverting to make a hot spot even hotter !

Don't forget his ominous threats to annihilate any allies which stand together with the US: - Australia has already irked the young warrior once this week, as has Japan several times over. It's becoming hard to keep track of all of young Kim's enemies and the feast of options on the table before him. One nation not yet in Kim's bad books is the Giant Chinese Panda; but how long will it be before telephone calls from Kim's arch nemesis President T to Kim's neighbour President Xi finally leave the panda with dirty paws ? 

Let's hope the young emperor can handle all this international attention, the pressure of military leadership and this undoubted test of his stamina without an accidental premature ejection of his nuclear weapon.

Keep cool to avoid premature ejection

Come what may, you can rest in peace knowing that the Korea Broadcasting Service will bring you the very best, split-second reportage right through your End of Days and into the aftermath.

KBS' intrepid reporters will be live on location (well, initially at least) to relay updates of the whole shooting match as it happens. Our front line reporters have been dispatched literally to the front line; along the full length of the DMZ from where they will bring you blow by blow accounts of incursions by either side. 

Standard issue South Korean military rucksack
- note the flag and name fixed by velcro so they can be quickly exchanged for North Korean flag and name to facilitate a hasty retreat  

Our favourite K-Pop girl group ME4Uranium235 will be cheering our forces as they race headlong into oblivion. 

Meanwhile high speed coverage will be brought to you in glorious ultra high definition by KBS's sports reporters located on the nation's highest peaks. From there they will capture the full splendour of mushroom-shaped vapour clouds bursting over our mountains and the searing nuclear firestorms as they rage across the peaks and through the valleys incinerating every last trace of vegetation and human activity in their wake. 

Ain't no mountain high enough to keep our reportage from you

Of course, for those of you who are too busy to watch these spectacular events live, KBS shall be screening repeats each night after 9pm with special edited highlights condensed into a 2 hour souvenir spectacular to be shown on Sunday evening.

And now as we wait for the nail-biting escalation to the final countdown, let's see how some foreign visitors are preparing for the inevitable. Earlier today we spoke to two embassy officials Bob and Mable who arrived 3 years ago.

Presenter: So Bob, Mable, both of you obviously decided to stay here in Seoul for the grand finale. Firstly what are your impressions of the infamous Mr Kim ?

Mable: Well frankly we are both very disappointed; he is just a horrid little schoolboy without any class, isn't he ? We have lived under the best dictators of the 20th century and we can tell you honestly, this little Kim barely deserves the title.

Bob: Hmm

Gaddaffi: punctual

Mable: We spent 3 years in Tripoli with that Colonel Gaddaffi. Now he was a real professional; military man of course. You could set your watch by his firing squads; his prisoners were always dead on time, 11am, no matter what the charge, the evidence or the verdict. Always small calibre rifles at close range, never any mess and not even enough noise to interrupt your focus when completing the crossword with a croissant in the café across the square .

Bob: Hmm

Saddam: Panache

Mable: Then we spent 5 years in Baghdad under Saddam. He was an executioner's executioner; knew what he enjoyed and how to enjoy it. Pure showmanship, real panache; left everyone in awe. But finally the crucifixions became a bit much. Instead of a slow, quiet process that you could peek in on from day to day, he started to smash their knee joints and leg bones with iron bars to prevent them standing. There was so much howling and bone crunching. You can no longer call it a family event when your children start crying because their squeamish nanny has passed out and dropped their ice creams again. She was such an embarrasment that finally we had to stop going.

Bob: Hmm

Mable: As for this Kim, he has no taste, no style, no finesse. An execution by rocket launcher is hardly statesmanlike is it ? It's just pure gangster. And being set upon by ravenous dogs ? To much 'Game of Thrones' obviously. Nuclear tests and missile launches at 6:20 in the morning ? It is self evident, he has no decorum, All that good education wasted. Very disappointing indeed. As I keep saying to Bob: "Kim JongUn is a wrong 'un".

Bob: Hmm

Presenter: So what can you tell us about your personal countdown to cataclysm ?

Mabel: Well I know what to expect; to be incinerated at some ungodly hour with my hair in a net and my teeth in a glass beside the bed while I sleep. Nothing short of barbaric. Decent folks deserve annihilation some time after 10am. That would give us time for a hearty last breakfast with a few extra bacon rashers since we won't ever have to work them off. Then just an hour or two to feed the fish, shampoo the dog, take out the trash and check the lottery tickets. About 10:30 would be perfect, any later and I'll start feeling peckish before lunch.

Bob: Hmm

Presenter: I am afraid I have to stop you there ... KBS has reports from Seoul where people are desperately waiting the government's decision on the only issue more apocalyptic than the apocalypse. It's an issue which has vexed our rulers since the late 1300's and been the unbearable burden of every govt in modern times; The Egg Conundrums. Which end of the egg is the top and which is the bottom, also which is the correct end to break to eat the contents and  ... 

POOOOOOF !

President Xi: Consider yourself evicted.
There will now be an intermission of 20 years while Chinese language, government, administration, social hieracy and religion are formally re-established on the peninsular.

It's all about the long game innit ?

Mwhooor-hooor-hooor ......

[Menacing laughter and cackling fades to distance]

Bob: Well it was sure nice talking to you guys. 
Armageddon out'ta here !

Star Trek 14: The USS SmallHandSize

Meanwhile The United Federation of Planets continues to look to Starfleet Headquarters for a strategy to deter the warmongering Kimjonguns on the near fringes of the Delta Quadrant. The 'Kimmons' defiantly cling on to the assertions that they have the right to bear arms, develop their own weapons technology and to meet force with force if intimidated. This leaves Starfleet with only one option, to dispatch a heavy cruiser to the sector to show some 'resolve'.

Retired Captain James T Kirk, commented that back in the day, his Constitution class starship Enterprise would have been perfect for such a delicate mixture of strength, tact and diplomacy.

Kirk; Starfleet now has little use for the Constitution

"However these days Starfleet seems to have little use for the Constitution class. Instead they're sending nothing less than the fleet's new Ego class flagship the USS SmallHandSize."

Ego class flagship USS SmallHandSize - fitted with classified NC17 Pussygrabber technology

Starfleet confirmed the flagship has already been dispatched to 'monitor' the Kimjongun homeworld from close orbit and to 'be prepared' for any new weapons tests which might occur. Latest upgrades to the starship include the latest top secret 'NC17 Pussygrabber' technology. Starfleet declined to reveal details of what this does exactly but it is believed to address serious concerns logged by British captains Jagger and Richards who complained that they could get no satisfaction whatsoever from an earlier prototype installed on the HMS Marianne Faithfull.

In line with the Starfleet's current ethos to promote high profile businessmen and wealthy moguls over experienced politicians, the USS SmallHandSize will be captained by top Boston legal mind Captain Denny Crane; a man whose own extreme views and wandering rhetoric often receives very mixed reactions. When asked about nuking Iraq and Iran, Captain Crane casually replied;

"Sure, Before Breakfast"
"And then what ? North Korea ?"
"Ok"
"Pakistan ?"
"Why not ?"
"Afghanistan ?"
"If there's time"

Captain Crane : "Anybody can grow up to be president, that's what I say.
Except for Hillary.  She wins, I puke" 

Before departing space dock Captain Crane assured the media that he had the full weight of interplanetary law behind him.

"Any keen legal mind will tell you
(and remember, Denny Crane is still the best)

that this is first and foremost a Second Amendment issue.

We had the Second Amendment first, not the Kimjonguns.
Therefore we have the first right to bear arms, which means that they have diddly squat, if we say so.  And we do say so.
Being second to claim a Second Amendment doesn't count.
Either you claim a Second Amendment first or don't bother at all.

Sorry Kimjonguns; no cigar.
You know, mine are imported and rolled on the thighs of young virgins - they give you that firm, supple and vibrant-to-the-touch sensation every time you put one to your lips".

At which point a reporter asked; 

"But just a minute" before Captain Crane quickly cut the interview short declaring; 

"Mad cow, not a second to lose; lock and load - Denny Crane". 

A Starfleet spokeman explained that despite the new president being elected on a platform of 'Federation First' and 'Making The Federation Great Again', the president justified sending an armada to the Kimjongun homeworld;

"To prevent the bad guys from doing something very, very bad".

The spokesman continued;

"This is not only an unprecedented test of an untested president but also an untested test of an unprecedented president, not to mention a presidential test of untested precedents, and, erm, Advisor Rumsfeld, perhaps you can clarify a little ?". 

"Well it's like I said before; we have our basic known knowns; the things we know that we know. Then we have our known unknowns; the things that we know we don't know. But our weakness is our unknown unknowns; the things we don't know that we don't know."

At which point a Martian Chronicles reporter intervened; 

"But Sir, certainly it's good news if those in the know now know previously known or unknown unknowns ? 

Of course if our known or unknown unknowns are pretty much the same now as our known and unknown knowns were then, then that's not only bad news but certainly also bad intelligence, isn't it Sir ?" 

 At which point the spokesperson declared; 

"Eject that man he's a god-damned communist". 

To which security replied; 

"Well who knew ?"

The spokesman then handed over to Colonel Kernel and Space Marshal Martial to continue the briefing;

"The new Ego class USS SmallHandSize is the most advanced ship ever constructed by Starfleet. It uses a next generation Di-lie-thium matrix to convert anti truths, post truths, half truths, fake news and alternative truths into facts. This allows the ship to reach top speeds of Fact Warper 12 - the highest faster-than-truth speeds ever achieved. Basically this guarantees that Captain Crane can reach anywhere in the galaxy faster than the truth can catch up with him."

At this point the briefing descended first into farce and then straight into oblivion. 

"Live long and prosper" - except on the Kimjongun homeworld, obviously.

No lack of 'resolve' on the Korean Peninsula

After the deep chill of winter finally thaws, the sure sign that spring has sprung comes when Korea's famous cherry blossom starts to appear.  Trees bloom in a wave which rolls up the country from south to north, city by city, over a period of about 2 weeks. 

Cherry Blossom : winter finally over

This is not only a sure sign that March is upon us, but perhaps more ominously that the marching season has also returned. With tedious inevitability the North Korean govt is preparing another round of huge military parades to be staged in Pyongyang. April 15th marks the 105th birthday of Kim Il-Sung, founder of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), or perhaps more meaningfully, the start of the Kim dynasty's rise to power. Meanwhile April 25th marks the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People's Army.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/north-korea-hints-massive-military-parade-mark-two-big-anniversaries-amid-nuclear-threats-1615074

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/16/north-korea-kim-jong-il-birthday

Pyongyang's parades feature vast formations of people, arguably surpassing any US presidential inaugurations - and with nobody daring to dispute the official figures given to the media.

If past events are anything to go by, this is when Kim Jong-Un, the salad-dodging sabre-rattler with delusions of deity, will show the world the size of his weapons. Meanwhile intelligence analysts will use the same opportunity to comb through every pixel to see if the missiles on display are The Real Thing or just convincing cardboard models. If they are real, then what could be their likely range and payload capacity ?

"My hands are clean !"

"My hands are clean !" - obviously Kim Jong-Un's answer to awkward questions about February's assassination of his half brother Kim Jong-Nam with nerve agent VX in Kuala Lumpur airport. This conveniently eliminated any rivalry to the title of Super Supreme Leader, a post held by Kim Jong-Un since late 2011. At the same time, this incident confirmed that as well as wielding absolute power at home, feisty young Kim has a long reach and will not let his guard down, or indeed his hair down, with respect to adversaries at home or abroad. 

Simmer down
The last year saw simmering North-South tensions rise close to boiling point on several occasions with each short-sighted judgment by one side being compounded by another by the other side. Contributing factors (in no specific order) include;

• South Korea's (newly indicted, former) president Park abruptly curtailing all regular dialogue with counterparts in the north. Euphemistically this technique was described as; '...taking a tough line with the leadership in Pyongyang...'

• North Korea's resumption of processing nuclear fuel
  http://m.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160817001026&ntn=0
  
  
• NK openly broadcasting code decryption numbers to secret agents stationed in South Korea
  http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/phone/news/view.jsp?req_newsidx=215656

• NK hacking SK's cyber military command centre
  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38219009

• NK's 5th nuclear detonation in January 2016 - claimed to be its first hydrogen bomb

• NK's 6th nuclear detonation in September 2016 - claimed to be its first nuclear payload which can be delivered by ballistic missile.

• NK's mostly successful launches of short and medium range ballistic missiles in February, March and April 2017

• SK's annual joint military exercises with the US in March 2017 under the guise of the Combined Forces Command to test battle readiness.

War Games

The annual Foal Eagle exercises of the Combined Forces Command
Jeux sans frontiers - "Whistling tunes we hide in the dunes at the seaside "

North Korea's often-cited justification for its nuclear weapons program is the need to be able to stave off an invasion by 'US imperialist forces and their allies' (= South Korea, Japan). NK claims that the evidence for this malicious intent is clear from the south's annual Foal Eagle joint military exercises. These were last held in March 2017 and typically involve 300,000 South Korean combat soldiers coordinating with a further 17,000 US troops to rehearse tactics and manoeuvres to repel an invasion by North Korea.  So while the south annually holds one of the world's largest military rehearsals to show its 'resolve' to deter aggression, the north develops weapons of mass destruction to, er, show its 'resolve' to deter aggression.

Kung Fu Panda
2016 saw the waters muddied further with proposals to install a US-supplied high-altitude missile-interception system (THAAD) in South Korea to destroy missiles fired by North Korea .  

THAAD: officially 'Terminal High Altitude Area Defence
Promoted as a gentlemen's missile interception system

This proposal soon pricked up the ears of the mighty Chinese Panda, which traditionally prefers to snooze through the tiffs and spats of other nations. Rightly or wrongly China believes that the THAAD radar system can see deep into Chinese territory and monitor China's own military operations. This is strongly denied by the US but China seems very certain of its information, suggesting that China may know more details about THAAD than the US thinks China knows.

In any event, the THAAD debacle has spurred the mighty Chinese Panda to demonstrate a little 'resolve' of its own, with a quietly understated reminder to Seoul just how much the South Korean economy depends on Chinese good will. Seoul's decision to accept THAAD was met with an immediate boycott of Korean stores in mainland China, with South Korea's Lotte department stores being forced to close almost all branches due to lack of custom. Simultaneously Chinese tour groups canceled visits to South Korea en mass while Chinese cruise ships decided to either bypass Korean ports or else the Chinese tourists simply declined to disembark after dropping anchor.        

http://shanghaiist.com/2017/03/13/chinese_tourists_refuse_jeju.php

The Chinese cruise ship Costa Serena docked in South Korea's holiday hot spot Jeju Island.
3,400 Chinese passengers on board, not one of which disembarked.
Lesson to South Korean govt: - don't poke The Panda 

What the Korean peninsula requires right now is a finely crafted mix of diplomacy, intelligence, experience and foresight. 
What is coming is an armada.

Parklife

As David Attenborough might observe in cautious, hushed tones; "Somewhere, between the Land of the Rising Sun (Japan) and the Land of the Falling Ballistic Missile (North Korea) the bitterly cold temperatures are gradually nudging higher, the daylight hours are getting longer and all manner of creatures are beginning to wake from their long hibernation".

In South Korea the winter months from November to February are when office workers undergo their winter office hibernation, slipping into a daily after-hours stasis in front of their computers. At 6pm they wolf down a large snack then return to their desk where activity levels rapidly reduce, attention span becomes minimal while communication and productivity fizzle out to absolute zero.  People remain in this waking stupor for up to 4 hours per day, long after all the sane people have already gone home. Its a strange phenomenon which is not apparently obvious at first but it slowly becomes clear after a little investigation.

Walking through the office at say 7pm on a winter's evening, about 30% of people will still be sitting at their desks ostensibly scrutinising a complex spreadsheet or the intricate 3D layout of some piping system on the huge screen in front of them. The initial assumption is that some important deadline is approaching so some extra hours are needed because, as ever, the last 20% of the task requires 80% of the effort. However surveillance over a few consecutive weeks shows it is invariably the same people working late and this has little or nothing to do with any deadlines because the other 70% of their respective teams regularly go home on time.

  

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/n_feature/2013/04/24/61/4901000000AEN20130424009700315F.HTML

In reality, the complex work so clearly visible was finished weeks ago and is on display as a simple bluff. Meanwhile on their smaller laptop screens, there are a myriad of smaller windows open showing everything ranging from celebrity news through car accessories to cheap holidays and YouTube. The late 'workers' are idly browsing these to kill time, effectively hibernating in the office until going home at 9pm. When asked why they are staying at their desk for up to 4 additional unpaid hours per day, a few may attempt a polite deflection about 'continuous improvement' but most will quietly admit in confidence the stark truth: "It's still to cold to sit in the park". 

Passing time in the park in the summer with a game of Baduk

Some foreigners may be baffled by this answer, but those with experience of Japan probably already guessed the underlying explanation. People who come home too early are judged to hold diminished status or importance in their team. Wives and other adult family members view regular hours with quiet disapproval; therefore there is a need to maintain appearances and come home respectably late. In the warmer months, the time can be filled by unwinding over a few board games with friends and peers in the park. This is a soothing tonic after the stress and formality of a day at the office. No doubt parklife is also a welcome alternative to the chaos unfolding at home as the kids return from Hagwon (evening school) at 9pm to be bathed and put to bed by the mother or grandparents. All things considered office hibernation during the winter is a neat solution for the main breadwinner, allowing him to impress his family with his valued position at work and to simultaneously keep a safe distance from all those tedious domestic chores.

Letter to Westeros

Your Grace

Your humble servant thanks you for your recent falcon and the kind concern mooted for our welfare in these lands which are so often shrouded from both time and reason. By now we are pretty much accustomed to living in the eye of the storm although recent events have admittedly raised more eyebrows than usual. However we persevere through hell and high water with a fixed grin and determined chin. Of course we have to be thankful for small mercies. This winter's temperatures here at Seoulfell only dropped to a slightly fresh -15’C, which compared favourably with last year’s somewhat brisker –19’C. Normally I would not have bothered hauling our furs out of the East Tower but the wifelet does enjoy parading around in her Desigual great coats, which is not unreasonable given how little she loves to wear underneath them. Believe me when I say that our bed chamber practically heats itself through the depths of winter...

The river at Seoulfell Spires - treacherous icesheets in wintertime

Fortunately your concerns for our safety are only partly warranted for the moment. It is true that the Starvelings to the north have been very busy of late, evidently developing some sort of long range trebuchet which enabled them to launch five mid-range missiles as far as the Sea of Nippon for the first time. Their alchemists also continue their mystical research to purify the long-forbidden Nuclear Orefire which they secretly test from time to time in the labyrinthine depths of the caverns inside their mountains. The Assembly of the Seven Continents repeatedly denounces this alchemy and forbids the Starvelings the technology to develop these weapons. However their Super Supreme Leader argues that if the Brothers of Sinai, the worshippers of Guns 'n' Moses can be trusted with this technology then how much more dangerous can it really be in the hands of a tinpot despot with delusions of deiety (and a whimsy for executing relatives with rocket launchers) running an economy based on agriculture and amphetamines ? Of course the Assembly has been slow to provide a credible response to this argument.

Mobile traction trebuchet with molten iron bombs at Kuju, Korea, 1231

These days the North’s ambitions cause so much consternation among the South’s great unwashed that the High Council of Seoulfell now seriously considers developing its own nuclear orefire weapons. Happily, for the moment they seem prepared to settle for a fleet of Dragons of THAAD to continuously search the skies for any missiles which the Starvelings might fire to the south and then to quickly intercept and incinerate these before they make landfall. Although dragons have become a rarity in modern times, it seems that a kind offer to borrow some for a fair market price has been extended by the New King of Orange as part of his incoherent plan to "Make Orange Great Again". 

Dragons available from The Mother of Dragons

Or alternatively

Dragons available from The King of Orange

Somewhat understandably the prospect of no fly zones enforced by foreign and previously untested dragons has upset our Canton neighbours who fear their national income will be at risk if their much-prized flocks of sheep with golden fleeces are inevitably picked off as snacks by bored and hungry carnivores during long and tedious high-altitude patrols. In protest the number of Canton visitors to Seoulfell has reduced dramatically with many innkeepers and market stalls reporting only one quarter of the usual level of trade for this time of year.

Lamb BBQ dragon snacks - collateral damage

Meanwhile the Super Supreme Leader, the Weird Walker of the North, is increasingly reported hobbling about with a stick these days, suggesting an unknown ailment. Only this month he reportedly engaged a pair of dusky Dornish assassins to caress the face of his half brother with a lethal poison, dispatching him with rude haste for an unscheduled interview with his creator. However given the modern tendency towards surprise resurrections, one wouldn’t be entirely surprised to find it was all just a teaser.

In any case, since the last three moons most of us in Seoulfell have been totally preoccupied with the impeachment proceedings of High Chancellor Park for her extortion of huge bribes from the blue-blooded families of the Merchant Guild. In exchange she granted favourable business mergers to secure tax concessions. She also allowed her bestie to not only meddle but personally direct High Council appointments and decisions of state. The chattering classes are predictably thrilled to see real life imitating their tacky novellas as the downfall of the entire High Council started with something as insignificant as a lover’s spat between the bestie-in-question and her personal toy-boy 'Koh'. In these parts Koh is the envy of all women of a certain age, not only having won gold medals for fencing but also being blessed with a divinely cherubic countenance and buns so tight he can crush walnuts between them.
The following link shows proof of principle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6deNaTPDFDU

Certainly everything came to a head yesterday with the Constitutional Court’s ruling that the High Chancellor shall have hers separated from her shoulders forthwith. 

Evidently the stress and gravity of the Constitutional Court's decision weighed a little too heavily on some of the Chief Justices in recent days 

Just two days earlier the heir apparent of the nation's wealthiest merchant family was hamstrung when offered a royal suite in the dungeons for his alleged and yet-to-be-proven, part in the whole chicanery. No doubt the court has many questions, including the fate of an US$885bn fund promised to the public to appease concern over a previous slush fund scandal in 2008.

http://m.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170228000806&ntn=0


Obviously the serfs have been over-celebrating the impeachment in their usual soju-intoxicated style since the announcement but as always nobody here looks beyond today's sunset. There is no coherent plan beyond choosing a new High Chancellor, for example; how the law should apply to a single merchant family which generates 35% of the nation’s wealth. They remain to all intents and purposes above the law. They are essentially more powerful than the High Council or indeed the Kingdom itself. Similarly there are no ideas how to engage with the Super Supreme Leader of the Starvelings of the North or how to restore Canton tourism or how to negotiate a new trade treaty with the New King of Orange.

There's so much more to tell but to write more would simply overload our poor falcon Boris - who is already plump enough to be mistaken for a pidgeon even by even a keen observer in broad daylight.  

Until next time I remain your humble servant.

Lies, Damned Lies and Sadtistics

As a maturing species we still have some fairly major character flaws to iron out; not least the way we love to revel in scenarios of impending doom and gloom. Usually the doomier and gloomier the news, more we love to wallow in it. 

At the end of the 90's our enthusiasm for the approaching new century and indeed our ambitions to boldly go into a whole new millenium were seriously tempered by dire predictions of global system failures as our technology would fail to roll over smoothly from 1999 to 2000. 

"Fascinating Captain.
Mass hysteria on a scale rarely seen in a cultured society or indeed an intelligent species..."

Boffins unanimously explained that when computing was in its infancy the high cost of data storage led to each year being abbreviated to just its last 2 digits; eg computers stored 1989 as simply 89, meaning the year 2000 would be indistinguishable from the year 1900. 

Not since Noah had such dire warnings of global cataclysm been voiced - although arguably, this time more people were actually listening. Every imaginable disaster was predicted from airliners dropping out of the sky to having to wait a century for your automatic coffee machine to come out of hibernation. 

http://time.com/3645828/y2k-look-back/

When the Y2K bug failed to deliver armageddon, few people expected computers would bring much more than electronic financial transactions, free email and unfettered access to music, movies and porn. Orwell had correctly anticipated the mass surveillance of Big Brother but few foresaw the arguably more ominous impact of Big Data. 

Early examples of big data and what it could reveal came in the form of decades of declassified military bathymetry, hydrophone data and sea surface mapping which laid the basis for the first computerised models of deep ocean currents, most notably the El Nino / La Nina oscillation in the southern Pacific. 

http://www.public.navy.mil/subfor/underseawarfaremagazine/Issues/Archives/issue_25/sosus.htm

So while academics mined historical data for its hidden secrets, big business focussed on the real time collection of new data by connecting every gadget to the net. We can now see how much money people are spending, when, where and on what. Where people are going, by which mode of transport and how often. How many sportos are running, cycling and hiking and how many couch potatoes are watching tv, browsing or XBox-ing. And thanks to twitter we now start to see how many powerful decision makers actually think before they tweet and how deeply they actually understand the issues.

Batrump: arguably not the anti-politician that America deserves
but trying to be the anti-politician that America needs right now

In Korea, big data feeds navel-gazing obsessions such as the impending population implosion, gloomy social and employment demographics and the doom of Korea losing its national identity. These warnings are invariably supported by reams of sad statistics or 'sadtistics' from the latest studies which are hastily digested and committed to memory for quick reference later. Long-running themes include;

• Men to run short of brides soon
  (unless they consider taking foreign wives)
  http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/01/07/2017010700379.html?related_all

• 40% of women do not want a family
  http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2016/08/27/2016082700462.html

• Rapidly aging society
  http://m.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160727000055&ntn=0

• Average debt of newlyweds reaches US$37k
  http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/phone/news/view.jsp?req_newsidx=212846

• South Koreans could be extinct by 2750
  (unless they consider taking foreign wives)
  http://www.businessinsider.com/south-koreans-could-be-extinct-by-2750-2015-6

• 40% of Phd holders are employed on temporary contracts
  http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2016/02/19/2016021900590.html

• Job seekers prefer stability of low paid public sector jobs over uncertain higher paid private sector careers
  http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2016/07/25/2016072501380.html

• Jobseekers spend 3 times more on looks than on improving skills
  http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2016/07/02/2016070200438.html

• People increasingly eating alone
  http://m.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160529000252&ntn=0

If the daily media was the window to the nation, we could be forgiven for thinking that the country was about to slide off a precipice, especially for the single men of a certain age without a well-paying job in a huge conglomerate. Positive news is curiously rare, either in the news media or in personal conversation.  If something good is heard, then it is usually about another country, with Korea being compared unfavorably alongside. 

Partially this is another manifestation of the role of The Eternal Victim - see previous posts. However additional contributing factors include the very little experience that most Koreans have living abroad.  Leaving aside shopping in Hong Kong, gap years in Oz or golfing sojourns in the Philippines, few Koreans have actually lived abroad.  For those which have, it was something of an endurance test, usually on an isolated construction camp, purpose-built where everything is imported from the toothpaste through to the kimchi. Consequently few Koreans appreciate how safe and protected daily life is in Korea compared with other countries. 

One Korean colleague on a business trip to Madrid left his rucksack on his chair while collecting his coffee in Starbucks. When he returned with the coffee the rucksack was gone, complete with passport, money, credit cards etc.  By way of comparison, in Seoul we forgot a shoulder bag on a public bench, went to lunch for an hour and then rode the subway for 6 stops before realising the bag was missing.  We hastily backtracked on the subway to the restaurant and then to the public bench where the last 2 hours of CCTV showed that 3 people had seen the bag, scratched their heads, rubbed their chins and walked on by. Lastly an elderly gent pushing a trolley for collecting waste cardboard from the streets saw the bag and gave it to a lady street vendor for safe keeping. The bag was full of passports, money and cards which were all untouched and the lady absolutely declined any gift for keeping the bag safe.

Regular examples of the same trust and social consideration can be seen on the streets each Friday / Saturday. On Fridays men drink until they can no longer walk and if they could it wouldn't help because by this time they can no longer remember where home is (see previous posts). The solution is to find a bench, step or short wall, remove one's shoes, place them neatly under the bench along with wallet, cellphone, ciggarettes, unfinished bottle, etc, put head down on satchel and fall into self-induced medical coma for at least 16 hours. Late on Saturday afternoon the chap will awake to find all his personal items untouched except that possibly his shoes may have been polished if the chap was lucky enough to fall asleep near a cobbler's kiosk where the cobbler was having a slow day.

There are many such stories which portray an image of Korea which is as real and as powerful as the issues highlighted by Big Data and daily sadtistics. However none of these anecdotes are collectable in huge, automated sweeps of data to be combed through later by boffins looking to report the positive about life as we know it.