[nb] jonghyun speaks out on issue of korea’s low birth rate

[byeolbyeol.livejournal.com]

Article: SHINee's Jonghyun speaks out about cutting the school system, "I'm afraid to have kids"

Source: Star News via Nate

1. [+334, -15] The majority would agree with him lately

2. [+303, -15] People can accuse Jonghyun all they want of trying to act educated and enlightened and all but I think he's a great person. He showed genuine interest in the Sewol Ferry accident and other societal issues, which is amazing considering how rare it is for idols to take interest in those sorts of issues. I hope he continues to take an interest in these fields as well.

3. [+262, -15] Call him whatever you want but he's better and more influential than all of you writing comments on this article

4. [+40, -4] I'm a man who has not even an ounce of interest in this boy group named SHINee but I think stuff like this should be praised. He's better than those other stars who are too afraid to utter a word on sensitive issues like this because of what it'll do to their image but sometimes having someone with as much influence as him say something has more impact than a hundred of us leaving comments online will have. Celebrities live off of the public's interest and I have no problem if they want to use that influence to make respectable comments about some of the issues in our society today.

5. [+28, -3] He always says respectable things

6. [+22, -3] An idol is saying what a politician should be saying. This idol has a better understanding of our issues than our politicians. Going even further, these idols are doing so much for our country by getting Korea known to international fans and foreign countries but what have our politicians been doing besides set the country back 20 years? If an idol who is super busy with his own schedule is able to understand the problems in our society and make a comment on it, how big of a mess are we really in? This is so hopeless. Korea is horrible at government and politics.

7. [+18, -1] Jonghyun is a hundred times better than any politician.

8. [+17, -4] Yoo Ah In and Jonghyun usually make the most comments about societal issues out of the younger celebrities lately

9. [+17, -3] It's unfair to accuse Jonghyun of putting up an act of looking educated and tryhardish because he's been saying stuff like this for so long now. I don't think it's a bad thing.

10. [+15, -1] It's hard for idols like him to say this stuff. I don't think Jonghyun's just saying it to present a certain image because it's not the first time he's spoken out.

--

so, netizenbuzz left out that jonghyun also made a point to mention an ongoing issue lately in south korea where they’re considering only having one history approved textbook which may provide an inaccurate presentation of history. his tweet has not been fully translated yet but he basically implied in it that doing so would keep children from being able to come to conclusions about history, ect. for themselves and basically saying that it’s not that he doesn’t want to have a child but he’d be afraid to raise a child under those circumstances. i saw someone in the nb article also summarize that politicians are wanting to do something like decreasing the length of time that schooling is so younger koreans will "have kids in advance" and the birth rate will rise.

this is the tweet in question:

@realjonghyun90: lowering school starting age for the sake of childbirth… reforming textbooks… my confidence that i could have children and help them grow into adults with healthy minds and bodies only disappears with policies like this. i’m not saying i won’t have kids, i’m saying that having kids (here) is terrifying.

i'm gonna throw in an article on the issue so this won't just be a post with netizen comments, lmao.



SEOUL (Yonhap) — President Park Geun-hye renewed her calls Thursday for “correct” history textbooks, condemning the current ones as mostly being authored by left-wing historians.

“Some of the textbooks children are learning from these days state that they shouldn’t have been born in South Korea, and call North Korea a legitimate country,” Park was quoted as saying by chief press secretary Kim Sung-woo after she met with party leaders. “The correct way to raise our future generation is to instill in them pride in our country so they may prepare for Korean unification.”

Park said it’s regrettable that efforts to correct history textbooks have degenerated into a political issue. She also accused “80 percent of textbook authors” of having left-wing connections, Kim said.

The meeting included Kim Moo-sung, head of the ruling Saenuri Party, and Moon Jae-in, leader of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy.

The participants shared the need for correct history education, though they had different views on the government’s move to reintroduce state history textbooks for secondary school students, Kim said, without elaborating.

The opposition party has voiced its opposition to the government’s plan.

“I felt hopeless after seeing how much Park and Kim Moo-sung’s views differed from common sense,” Moon told reporters after the meeting. “Park also snubbed our request to focus on the economy and people’s livelihoods instead of standardizing history textbooks.”

The Ministry of Education said earlier this month history textbooks for middle and high school students will be authored by the government starting in the 2017 school year to address what the government calls the predominantly left-leaning contents in current books.

Currently, history textbooks are published by eight private publishing companies after being approved by an independent textbook review committee of experts. Schools choose from any of the eight textbooks, while primary schools have a single set of state-authored history textbooks.

She also asked the rival parties to quickly pass a set of bills meant to reform the labor sector as well as other bills designed to revitalize Asia’s fourth-largest economy, Kim said.

“Labor reform is the starting point for a virtuous cycle of the economy as it could create” jobs for young people, Park said.

Labor, management and the government have produced a landmark deal to ease labor restrictions. The deal would allow companies, among other things, to dismiss workers who are either negligent or underperforming.

Park also asked the political leaders to quickly ratify a series of free trade deals South Korea has inked with China, New Zealand and Vietnam to help benefit South Korean companies.

South Korea and China signed a free trade agreement in June, though the deal has yet to be ratified by the respective legislatures of Seoul and Beijing.

South Korea has clinched a series of free trade agreements with major trading partners, including the U.S., in recent years as part of its efforts to boost growth in the country’s export-driven economy.

South Korea’s exports represent around 50 percent of its gross domestic product.

Separately, Park vowed to push to stage reunions for South and North Korean families separated since the 1950-53 Korean War on a regular basis.

On Thursday, hundreds of South Koreans returned home after a three-day trip to North Korea for their first, and perhaps last, reunions with their North Korean relatives they had not seen since the Korean War.

The two Koreas are set to begin another round of temporary family reunions on Saturday at Mount Kumgang, a scenic mountain resort on the North’s east coast.

The latest family reunions are part of a recent deal that defused military tensions between the two Koreas, which are technically still at war.

The family reunions have long been affected by political situations on the Korean Peninsula. The two Koreas last held reunions in February 2014.

source(s): netizenbuzz / nate / the korea times / beyond hallyu (for tweet translation)

pssst. ignore the first post, mods. this one has better sourcing.

Comments

[rennehollic.livejournal.com]

wait what? Netzines comments that make sense and don't hurt anyone?
What's this, twilight zone?

Jonghyun, if you're afraid to have kids, we can work on that. We'll make beautiful children

[byeolbyeol.livejournal.com]

lmao that was my first thought when i saw they'd translated the article too.

[kwikimart.livejournal.com]

I saw this earlier and was really impressed, he's a smart one and he's crazy talented. I like what he had to say and I respect him for speaking up.

4. [+40, -4] I'm a man who has not even an ounce of interest in this boy group named SHINee
lol okay bro
so embarrassing when men use qualifiers like this lol

[gray-fairy.livejournal.com]

lol ikr. I hate when these dudebros have always have to clarify that "they're men and ofc they can't be fans of a boy group" because they're afraid that would make them less "manly" or something.

[leighbee333.livejournal.com]

LOL exactly, stuff like that that and the 'no homo' disclaimers prove what a fragile, itty-bitty thang masculinity is for lots of guys.

[burnbook31.livejournal.com]

lol ikr? i had a convo with my manager about liking kpop and one of the teachers agree with me that its visual works so great for ppl and language barrier isnt a problem. I started talking about boy groups and this manager said smth like 'i can like boy groups, im not gay' i said 'um nobody is accusing your masculinity tho' its so weird they have to make sure to add those things before making a comment lol

[volume1995.livejournal.com]

I think this is more about the fact that he doesn't care about SHINee's music in general but he thinks Jonghyun is a great person. He might not even be interested in kpop at all. It's unnecessary, that's true. But I don't think it's meant to be taken as "Oh shit I have to keep up my masculinity by saying I don't care about Shinee!!! I only like manly music!! Fuck yeah nickelback!!"

[xxhna.livejournal.com]

he really is.

[bunica1990.livejournal.com]

mte

[gray-fairy.livejournal.com]

Totally.

[ababobaby.livejournal.com]

this

[phililen3.livejournal.com]

He has shown willingness for an intellectual conversation and the willingness to learn and remedy his thinking.

[psharp10.livejournal.com]

yes

[punkylana.livejournal.com]

he did not lie

and lowering school starting age for the sake of childbirth doesn't sound like a good idea

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

MTE... like will it even have that affect anyway... plus there are developmental milestones and it's hard to learn certain (abstract) things to kids before they reach those....

[sra-interesante.livejournal.com]

jjong must know what he's talking about after all his mother is a teacher

also thank you op for give us some context for those netizens comments

people commenting how jjong as idol know better than any politician .... they sound really desapointed with their own goverment and their politics in general

[missingmisnomer.livejournal.com]

history textbooks for middle and high school students will be authored by the government starting in the 2017 school year to address what the government calls the predominantly left-leaning contents in current books

Oh great more state control on people's thinking. Whoopdedoo

[audiograms.livejournal.com]

I want to sit down and have a couple glasses of merlot and talk about politics and equality

[donutism.livejournal.com]

birthrates in korea is such a huge issue.

jonghyun lets hang and drink, while talking about politics and life.

[e-bone (from livejournal.com)]

I knew the school system was brutal but they want kids to start EARLIER??? Damn.....

And I feel him on the revisionism bullshit. McGraw Hill (one of the largest textbook publishers in the US) recently got blasted for referring to slaves as 'migrant workers'....

Fuck that shit.

[omgcats.livejournal.com]

our textbooks are embarrassing, tbh. my apush teacher in high school handed us ours with a copy of zinn's a people's history of the united states and said "compare and contrast". cue unwelcome revelations about my entire history education up to that point.

[hipployta.livejournal.com]

Oh they are giving that to APUSH students now? I approve. People shouldn't have to wait until college to get a fuller look at history. It AMAZES me how we push that "Golden Version" of US History on students. When I was in sixth grade the honors class covered Japanese Internment...yet I never saw it covered elsewhere

[omgcats.livejournal.com]

well, this was 12 years ago with a brand new young teacher who was very, very excited about his subject. i'm not certain how things have progressed (or regressed, as shown by mcgraw hill's fuck up). his was the only class we ever covered japanese internment camps, also.

[hipployta.livejournal.com]

Wow so it was covered in 12th grade for you...wild. You're barely younger than me so that sort of progress is good. Textbooks always fuck up

[omgcats.livejournal.com]

mm, yeah, junior yeah was pretty wild for a rural school in upstate ny, lmao. on the plus side, that one experience helped me become a more critical thinker in terms of history (something our primary/secondary schooling doesn't exactly encourage).

[sugakookies.livejournal.com]

such an angel.
i just wanna sit and chat about life with him tbh

[premonitioner.livejournal.com]

am i the only person who thinks history books SHOULD be written by ppl with ties to left wing politics? left wing extremism is just as bad as right wing extremism, but i'd rather read a history book written by a moderate left historian than a moderate right one. they tend to be less 'OUR COUNTRY IS GREAT AND FLAWLESS' and more like 'we did some nasty shit. we're still doing some nasty shit.'

but again, i'm probably biased bc i'm left wing and a history student.

and jonghyun adds one more thing to the list of reasons i want to marry him.

[bluemaid86.livejournal.com]

The most ideal situtation imo would be textbooks written by a bipartisan body made up respected historians on both the moderate right & left maybe then we'd get books with a right balance (ofc this is a pipe dream as ppl on both sides are more interested in pushing there prefered ver of history lol best one can do is encourage their children to get in the habit of checking stuff for themselves independant of their school)

[gray-fairy.livejournal.com]

they tend to be less 'OUR COUNTRY IS GREAT AND FLAWLESS' and more like 'we did some nasty shit. we're still doing some nasty shit.'
+100000

[jannytruant.livejournal.com]

I think the issue here seems to be that they're talking about pro-North Korea/communist influences? I assume left- and right- wing politics & perceptions in Korea run along a whole different spectrum to other western countries, because of the conflict between North & South.

Still, agree that having a single state-mandated history is a terrible idea.

[ponpirot.livejournal.com]

I would actually like nationalized education in the US with electives that put emphasis on the region being taught. However, I don't think history should be impartial. They're events that have already happened. Leave the bias to students' essays.

[hipployta.livejournal.com]

Honestly I worry every time he tweets about society issues but also feel glad.

I'm still mad he managed to oust Key from my heart but what can you do?

I can only imagine what she is going to change the textbooks to say about her Dad

[gray-fairy.livejournal.com]

Honestly I worry every time he tweets about society issues
Me too. Sometimes I really wish he was just the typical robotic idol that gives off safe answers. I get that it's not in his nature to be like that but it'd avoid him plenty of hate :|

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

+everything in this comment, plus if you start kids even earlier so they're spending even LESS time with parents when they are little, when are they gonna learn spatial and motor skills?

[ariellm13.livejournal.com]

The real problem is that they don't even need to go to these hakwons. Korea just has inflated education standards. Kids are either learning more of the same thing in these hakwons or they are learning above their level. These kids would be better off studying moderately with consistency and appropriate amounts of sleep but Korea's competitive. So they tack on all of this math and English and whatever else directs them towards the goal their parents want them to reach. I knew a girl whose parents wanted her to be a polyglot scholar so her hakwons were English, math, Japanese, and Korean. So she has to finish school, do two hours for each hakwon and then homework for all of that PLUS regular school.

Then you will see parents coming to the primary school complaining that the work is to much for their kids when they already do other stuff after. Why? All because they want their kids to be ahead and public school only teaches on level. Then they don't understand why their kids can't grasp concepts taught in their hakwons. What do you expect when you won't even let them learn the basics?

[kawaiisis86.livejournal.com]

+1 I couldn't add any more to make it better. I pretty much had the same education as you and I taught in Gangnam for 2 years and saw all the things you described. It's pretty disheartening.

[gray-fairy.livejournal.com]

People think he's trying to act enlightened and educated? Why is people always searching for every little excuse to shit on him? idgi. If he was one of those idols that gives safe answers they'd say he's just another boring, cookie cutter idol but he also gets hate when he speaks in a very honest (but still polite) way about political/societal issues? doomed when you do and doomed when you don't. Netizens are so nasty lmao.

[tsukiokuhime.livejournal.com]

Best thing to wake up to in the morning, get all the praise and recognition, Jjong!

[slowitdownbaby.livejournal.com]

i’m not saying i won’t have kids, i’m saying that having kids (here) is terrifying.

This really hit home for me.

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Agree with Jjong and most commenters but does netizen #6 realize that the reason idols are able to spread Korean culture abroad, have influence internationally, etc, is a deliberate *government* policy to promote them that way?

[ariellm13.livejournal.com]

As a country, especially one aiming to be higher up on the playing field internationally, doesn't this only hurt them? Like, a lot of Korean people aren't aware that Japan paid Korea a large sum for it's war crimes. They also aren't aware that money given to Korea for people who suffered in the war was used elsewhere. That causes bad country relations and(for the people who know what happened in full) large distrust in their government. People who take the time to look for it will always find it but for the general public, what they learn in school might be it. Then of course you have the rest of the world. How can people in Korea compete without the right knowledge? Also, isn't insulting to the people who were there?

I mean, wasn't Korea outraged when Japan released textbooks wiping the war crimes clean?

[soft-taozi.livejournal.com]

Google 'Treaty of Basic Relations between Japan and South Korea.'

Basically Japan gave around $800 million to South Korea in 1965. About $500 million worth of loans and the rest was compensation. It was unpopular at the time and there was a bunch of demonstrations against it but Korea had no money at the time and the military dictator wanted to push through with his economic plans.

[ariellm13.livejournal.com]

Here's a pretty clear cut article
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2005/01/17/SKorea-discloses-sensitive-documents/UPI-38131105952315/

Also, look up the treaty on basic relations between Japan and Korea. It was signed back in 1965 and the compensation was under the conditions of the treaty.

[atopworld.livejournal.com]

I don't blame him, really. I don't blame him at all.

[queenhinata.livejournal.com]

it's always nice to see jjong comment on social issues.

the gov't is pushing for something the ppl don't even want.

[mercury-sound.livejournal.com]

Love that he continuously puts his own opinions out there, but also doesn't seem to shy away from discussion and/or being educated on topics he doesn't know as much about.

Yoo Ah-In is like this as well? I didn't know that; makes me like him even more. Does someone know what kinds of things re: politics/society he has said?

[heyitsrocky91.livejournal.com]

Good for him!