Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Korean Anti-Semitism and a Rat Head in your Shrimp chips!

Rat Head Forces Producer to Recall Popular Snack
The nation's largest snack maker, Nongshim, made a public apology Tuesday for one of its best-selling items containing the head of a small rodent. The company shut down the snack production line, and supermarkets are already removing them from their shelves.

The apology came after gray skin-like material, 1.6 centimeters in length, was found last month inside a jumbo-sized Nongshim snack, ``Saewookkang'' (shrimp snack). The Food and Drug Administration on Monday issued a correctional order to the snack manufacturer.

The ``material'' was very hard and covered in oil and burnt hair, and it also had the remains of eyes and a nose, which led the administration to conclude it to be the head of a rat.

A customer had reportedly called Nongshim asking for a refund and a recall on all of its product made on that day. Initially her requests were denied. However, later the company tried to compensate her and recalled all the products in the market, she said.

The company explained that a factory in China makes the dough and sends it to a factory in Busan to fry, pack and distribute it. ``I doubt the frying process in Busan is unhygienic, but we are looking into the possibility of the material being added during the dough process at our factory in China,'' a Nongshim spokesman said during the public apology.

However, the market has already plummeted over the news. E-Mart, Lotte Mart, Home Plus, Homever and several other large supermarket chains decided on Monday to stop selling the snack indefinitely.

The online world is abuzz over how the matter could have passed the three-step inspection at the Busan factory and how Nongshim should be punished. The FDA has only given a correctional order.

``What gets me angry is that the company tried to play the whole thing low key and I ate several bags of Saewookkang,'' an angry netizen (ID: KTU) said.

The fact that Nongshim has raised the snack price by 100-200 won due to rises in raw materials prices earlier this year is adding to public anger, experts said.
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Why does this not in any way surprise me!
Korean Comic Book Condemned as Anti-Semitic by US Govt

A series of cartoons in the America volume of ‘Far Country, Neighbor Country’ saying the reason Arab terrorists hate the U.S. and carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attack is because ‘Jews use money and public discussion as weapons to make WASPs do what they want!

Recently the South Korean comic book 먼나라 이웃나라 aka ‘Far Country, Neighbor Country’ has been defined as anti-Semitic in a U.S. State Department report. The book is from a series called "Distant Countries and Neighboring Countries" and is about the U.S. And the author Rhie Won-bok has been cited in the anti-semitism department's report as Korea's representative of Contemporary Global Antisemitism.

In a report on contemporary global anti-semitism submitted to the U.S. Congress on Saturday, the State Department said the book "recycles various Jewish conspiracy theories, such as Jewish control of the media, Jews profiting from war, and Jews causing the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks."

The series, written by Rhie Won-bok, a professor at Duksung Women's University, was designed to teach youngsters the history and culture of other countries in comic book format. The "best-selling" children's book series sold more than 10 million Korean-language copies, according to the report.

The report cited two examples of anti-Semitism in the book. One comic strip shows a newspaper, a magazine, a television, and a radio, each with a Star of David, and is captioned, "In a word, American public debate belongs to the Jews, and it's no exaggeration to say that [U.S. media] are the voices of the Jews."

Another strip shows a man climbing a hill and then facing a brick wall inscribed with a Star of David and a STOP sign. The caption reads, "The final obstacle [to success] is always a fortress called Jews."

The author later acknowledged his mistake and pledged to write "in a more responsible way," the report said. In March 2007, the book's publisher agreed to pull the controversial book from stores, the report added.
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What can I say? For those Koreans wishing to isolate Korea from the rest of the world...you're doing a bang-on job!!!!

1 comments:

Jae Yoon said...

Hi, I watched some of your youtube videos on teaching ESL in Korea and decided to check out your blog =)

I just wanted to point out that the black and white comic strip you used for 먼나라 이웃나라 aka ‘Far Country, Neighbor Country, is actually altered by some Korean internet user by replacing certain words to change the subject from anti-Semitism to Japanese Hentai Game makers.... yap.... sigh... lol
That leaf symbol in color is sign which represent certain Hentai Game company uses...

Well, I had fun reading the blog and thx for the video =)