Asian Tiger or Asian Kitten?
Seoul is hardly the cookie-cutter techno-utopia it has earned a reputation for. Korea's bustling megalopolis does not have Beijing's endless supply of manual labor perpetually migrating from the countryside, but neither does it have Tokyo's autonomous robots strolling the city sidewalks.
To the chagrin of the technorati, it is not the here-and-now futuristic home of Blade Runner or the meatspace equivalent to a William Gibson inspired metaverse. It will probably never amount to anything more than the testing ground for new-age gizmos and gadgets.
At least, not until the government stops trying to run the show. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (3)
finally, the sometimes bizzare but ever-progressing korean economy makes the pages of mises.org. while dismantling the chaebol is a noble and earnest goal, and would be a boon for civil liberty, such a change is about as likely getting ajumma to take the spice out of kimchee.
korea's dmb (digitial multimedia broadcasting - seamless tv streamed to mobile devices) technology is an especially amusing microcosm of the greater economic troubles. despite being unable to make the technology profitable (http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/tech_view.asp?newsIdx=6984&categoryCode=133), the chaebol and korean government are in a "coordinated a drive to push DMB as a major future export revenue source." (http://www.telecomasia.net/article.php?id_article=3900)
sure, making this technology the global standard may have its benefits, but the domestic market clearly doesn't support these systems.
however, there is some hope. korea's industrial, manufacturing, even technology, sectors may be forever bound up in conglomeration, but the sector of the future, financial services, is slowly opening up to competition. the capital markets consolidation act is one example of reregulation that should force the financial services sector to evolve, specialize, and adopt a more liberal market-oriented mentality. but, we should not doubt the alacrity with which the korean government and the chaebol would respond to support domestic commercial banks, asset managers, or securities firms that begin to fail under the pressure from global banks. there is just too much pride on the line.
neil bouhan
editor
korea institute of finance
Published: August 25, 2007 4:09 AM
I just want to say Thanks for the great kitten graphic. Beautiful! I've always loved traditional Chinese/Japanese ink on paper art.
The wife says, "Oh, that's Chinese" and since she's Chinese I believe her. :^)
Published: August 26, 2007 6:39 PM
Korea is the world's 11th largest economy, samsung is the world's largest chip producing company ahead of sony and we will surpass Japan's economy in no time. why do you have to critize korea, why can't you critize japan? Korea is the best and we will eventually become Asia's #1 economic powerhouse. Jealous much? Now go and fuck yourself.
Published: December 27, 2007 8:45 AM