Korea's tag archives
Koreans work the most, the Dutch the least?
I'd recommend to try out Google Public data, it's great! It's the result of Google's partnerships with the World Bank and other statistics gatherers to present an array of data in visual form within Google Labs. You know I am a number freak right, this will entertain me for a while! I was...
Eating bacon in Daejeon
Everytime when I return to Korea, the comic graph by Randall Munroe (displayed above) pops into my head. Who knows if bacon is really that bad, but I have a feeling that I should not eat it too often. I never really liked bacon, until I ate it in Korea. While living there, I had to compensate the...
Korean Institute pushing Hangeul alphabet across Asian tribes
Posted under Korea on Thursday, 27 August 2009 by Joop Dorresteijn
I came across an interesting article on the website of the Korean Embassy in the Netherlands. Apparently, a tribe based in Bauer Indonesia has chosen to use Hangeul (Korean writing) as its official writing system.
The 60.000 people of the tribe, were about to lose their native language due to...
MBC Marathon – the results are in!
Those happy faces are me and my collegues, Frank-Jan, Zdenek, Marten and Arjan from ING - just - before we started running our (half) marathon. Perhaps we were even happier when we finished - it would have been better, or at least more fair to share a before / after picture I suppose.
Together...
Holiday in Jeju
Woman done fishing for today
Traditional Korean seafood soup is enhanced by distinctive shellfish harvested by the famous woman divers of Jeju Island. An age-old tradition, the fisher-woman of Jeju spend long hours in the waters surrounding the island relentlessly diving again and...
North-Korea vs. South-Korea match at Mapo-gu Stadium
The national football teams of North and South Korea have played a World Cup qualifier in Seoul today - which the South won by one goal to nil. Although the game was quite boring, there was a good atmosphere in the stadium, especially after Kim Chi Woo scored the first goal for South Korea. The...
National exams, national precautions
Saleem writes about the measures the South Korean government have set for the national exams:
"Yesterday was a holiday here b/c 3rd grade high school students took the university entrance exam all across the country.
Get this – during the Korean listening and English listening portions of...
The Korean Demilitarized Zone
South Korea's military says it is preparing for the possibility that North Korea may try to provoke a naval skirmish along their disputed sea border. (december 2008, voanews.com) While things look calm for an expat, South and North Korea are officially still at war, because of that military...
Now available: African land for overpopulated countries
I came across a news article about a project that just dazzled me. What can a country do that has little land but a lot of mouths to feed? Right, you can import! But what do you do as a logistics company when your turnover is decreasing because commodity prices are rising? Exactly: You lease your...
5:45 AM, sunrise in Gyeonju
The thermometer slowly declined down to zero degrees over the last week. We headed up to the roof to see the sunset in the clean frosty sky, I realized that this was not the first time we were going up for a view.
5:45 AM, sunrise in Gyeonju. We woke up early to see the sunrise in Gyonju,...
A peek inside the British American Tobacco factory in Korea
Korea is the 10th biggest cigarette market on the planet, not so weird because you see smokers everywhere. I visited the British American Tobacco (BAT) factory in Sacheon together with the DBCK last week. The flight to Jinju was already scheduled at 07.30 AM, took a cab at 5AM. We gained more...
[Pictures] View over Busan city from hotel
We decided to head out to Korea's second largest city – the harbor city Busan. Very moist and clear upon arrival, but dark and foggy when we woke up. I was curious about Busan because I like cities next to the sea, we spend some time on the beach, had an interesting night.
Do you see...
Living abroad? Think about your (future) wife!
Posted under China, Entrepreneurship, Korea, Netherlands on Monday, 6 October 2008 by Joop Dorresteijn
Ask yourself this: What things would you consider if you had an opportunity to work abroad? For many top executives and engineers, its not only the job they are thinking about. The main challenge is usually their free time, wife (or husband) and family. Ask yourself the question: if I will work in...
Video-conference with a former president
Posted under Korea on Tuesday, 30 September 2008 by Joop Dorresteijn
15th Korean president and Nobel peace prize winner Kim Dae-Jung visited us at the Korean Development Institute today. Amazing, what a circus! Our university is already surrounded by a 4 meter wall, and security posts. Today I noticed FBI style security guards on rooftops and...
Comparing Korean gas, wine and other prices with Europe
It's cheaper to live in New York, Hong Kong, Copenhagen or Paris then in Seoul. But not everything is expensive, taking a cab here four blocks further costs about 2 Euros, the same distance in Copenhagen or Paris would cost a lot more. Korean food is generally cheap, so are a lot of other things....
Meanwhile, at the blind-Korean-GPS-marketed-witch-doctor’s house
Posted under Korea on Tuesday, 26 August 2008 by Joop Dorresteijn
I visited a very special practitioner on Friday the 22nd. A blind chiropractor called Mr Ahn, with a special approach. – for his diagnose, he touches certain body points, after which he gives lifestyle advice or prescribes natural medicines. The man has gained popularity, and people from all...
If you like the web, I bet you love South Korea too
This is the conclusion of my web series about the internet in South Korea, published on ReadWriteWeb and TheNextWeb.org two weeks ago; I put it on my blog for completeness of the serie.
That is, if you like to be connected to the Internet all day, while enjoying the fastest connections in the...
Conclusion of the South Korean web profile serie
Enter the hyper connected society, Korea has an astounding 90 percent connected to the Internet with 3G and a nation wide coverage of a South Korean version of Wimax. What websites are popular over there, and does Korea have a web 2.0 scene?
To find that out, follow my first...
Search engine Empas.com is ready for a comeback in Korea
Empas.com is a South Korean web portal dating back as far as 1998. They became big with their cocky slogan: “If Yahoo can’t find it, Empas can.” Empas ranks five out of five on our list of (most visited) Korean web companies, However, Empas has lost ground against competitors as Naver...
Daum: boring, but innovative in user generated content
Posted under Entrepreneurship, Internet, Korea, Review on Wednesday, 28 May 2008 by Joop Dorresteijn
Daum communications is huge, they are the biggest operator of Korean websites and they also operate in China with 365ren.com, and in the U.S. with the acquired Lycos portal. The word 'Daum' is Korean for 'next', but at first sight, they might come over as another boring web portal aiming for...
Search engine Naver is best in localized results, example for others?
We see increasing amounts of search engines popping up on the internet, they are using advanced algorithms to come up with better results. Not in Korea, at least not at Naver. Employees analyze, index and produces content for their search engine by hand. Even though this labor intensity, they count...
Social community Cyworld a trendsetter in E-commerce?
Cyworld is a social networking site, not big, and attempts to go abroad have failed in both Europe and Japan. Currently, they don't even have an English interface. However, Cyworld got my attention because of their business model, and the generated revenue they receive from it.
While the...
Why so little Korean web companies get ‘Techcrunched’
Most Koreans are addicted to the web, I wondered; Seoul must be a breeding place for new web ventures? I approached Chang W. Kim, to get an idea of what is going on. Chang is CEO of the biggest blog portal (80%) in Korea. He explains his views on European projects, the Seoul web-scene and funding...
A profile of the connectivity in South Korea
South Korea is the most connected country in the world, their network leaps far beyond that of Europe, the Arabic countries, China or the USA. It's all part of their vision to create an "ubiquitous networked world".
Well, I had to lookup the word ubiquitous, and found out that it means...
Introduction to the South-Korean web serie
Posted under Korea on Tuesday, 13 May 2008 by Joop Dorresteijn
During the next few weeks I will publish a series of posts about the South Korean internet market. I want to raise discussion about the trends, review web 2.0 websites and blogs and interview influential web 2.0 entrepreneurs from South-Korea.
The series will be brought down in three broad...
Flying to asia during the Olympics
Posted under Korea on Monday, 12 May 2008 by Joop Dorresteijn
Flying to South Korea is expensive during the Olympics in Beijing. My friend from Beijing told me that the prices are dramatically increased for every Asian country for that matter. In search of a solution, I asked businessmen/women from different nationalities where they fly with, after...
Who is Joop
I'm Joop. Dutch. Swedish graduate. Korea lover. Project manager @ unitedstyles.com
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