Analysis

Josh Foreman, a married man, has been teaching English in Korea for six years. Because he is a foreign teacher, he has been required to submit HIV/AIDS test results since 2007. That requirement only falls on E-2 visa holders. He describes himself as a “normal guy” who doesn’t use drugs, doesn’t have any sexually transmitted diseases, is without a criminal record and doesn’t frequent Korea’s prostitution neighborhoods. He feels that mandatory HIV/AIDS testing for Western teachers is not only discriminatory, but it’s detrimental to public health. 

It was an autumn dawn, and the spirits of deceased soldiers filled every corner of monk Mukgyegeosa’s mountainside temple grounds. Some among them were crying, demanding and angry. Some had their heads blown off. Others sat with severed limbs. All wore battered North Korean and Chinese military uniforms. The young men were bloodied and destroyed by war. They talked to each other and even engaged Mukgyegeosa. Some complained of the cold, he said, while others complained of hunger. One simply wanted to go home. Another man told Mukgyegeosa he missed his mother. 

Korea’s first female president, Park Geun-hye, will be inaugurated on Feb. 25. The Three Wise Monkeys webzine asked three young Korean women to reflect on the historical event and what they foresee in Park’s five-year term.

Congratulations (now I have to get back to work)

Elena Jang, 21, is a junior double majoring in comparative literature and culture & political science at Yonsei University. Currently she is an exchange student at Dartmouth in the United States.

The longtime patriot and medical doctor Seo Jae-pil — also known as Philip Jaisohn — was one of the most important figures in the fight for Korean independence from Imperial Japan. He was the first Korean to gain American citizenship, and returned to Korea in 1896 with the desire to instill into the Korean mind Western values and set in motion plans for the preservation of Korean sovereignty.