Korean Job Discussion Forums

[nautilus]

Maybe next time they'll introduce laws to prevent innacurate and sensationalist media reporting?

_________________________________________________________

The government announced on the 25th that it has invested 4.5 billion won in promoting and advertising US beef through relevant authorities and affiliated organizations.

According to statistics released by National Assembly representative Kim Woo-nam of the Democratic Party, also a member of the National Assembly�s beef committee, from the start of the beef controversy on May 5th through June 27th, when extra negotiations concluded, the government spent a total of 4,578,311,000 won on the promotion and advertising of American beef, not counting the production costs of printed materials or user-created content.

The funds invested in American beef by the various agencies include 1,429,034,000 won by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Ministry of Health and Welfare 914,238,000 won, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism 522,858,000 won, and other agencies contributed 2,866,130,000 won.

Advertisements emphasizing the safety of American beef by sayings things like, �the beef being imported is the same as the beef the American people eat,� and �mad cow disease cannot and is not coming here,� cost 1,895,572,000 won, advertisements saying, �the government will take responsibility for the safety of your dinner table,� cost 447,700,000 won, and others cost 522,858,000 won.
http://koreabeat.com/

[cheeseface]

Where are these adverts? I've never seen any......

I think that is the biggest waste of W4.5 billion ever.

[Bryan]

[spliff]

Saw on the Thai news there was another big protest last night, true?

[Milwaukiedave]

Nautilus,

I'm just wondering if they are actually going to go after the people who put these rumors out there in the first place. MBC should have fired them if they haven't already.

Any updates on that part?

[Captain Corea]

[aka Dave]

This is so embarassing. Just put a big American flag on it, if it doesn't sell the market will resolve the issue.

What a colossal waste of money.

[billybrobby]

Christ, it's damned if you do damned if you don't on this board. Everybody's pro-American beef around here, but god forbid the government supports it by actually putting some money behind it.

I imagine the ministries that spent this money would characterize their efforts as a public awareness campaign and they wouldn't be wrong.

[bassexpander]

[cheeseface]

[nautilus]

[cheeseface]

[Guri Guy]

[Gollywog]

I have to agree with Guri Guy. It wasn't just the protesters. Pretty much the entire nation seems to have swallowed the lies. Why? Because pretty much the entire nation believed them. So everyone .... You see?

Even the most intelligent, English literate, college educated teachers I work with believed these lies. They were afraid to touch anything to do with cows from the U.S., even milk or cheese or chocolate. They really, really believed they would die. Not one of them used their English skills to bother to check a single fact. And even when presented with the facts, they still didn't believe them. It is going to be years before some of them eat American beef, if ever again in their lifetimes.

And needless to say, every student in the schools I work in believed the lies. Except for one who had lived in the U.S. Many of them were in the protest marches, chanting the hate slogans. But it wasn't just the protesters.

So, yes, it was the whole nation, with exceptions that I would estimate amounted to less than 1 percent. And many of these people, maybe two thirds, expressed this as an open hostility to white folks, including people who did and didn't know me. I've got coteachers who still won't talk to me because I tried to explain the facts to them.

The nation of South Korea is a moral and intellectual disgrace.

An ad campaign is not going to solve this just by saying eat American beef, it is safe. They need to show Koreans walking around American farms where they raise the cattle, outdoors, not in fetid pens, and show the fetid pens where Koreans do raise cattle. They need to show Americans eating American beef, without fear. They need to show American supermarkets with American beef, not Australian beef.

Most of all, they need to show interviews with American medical experts explaining BSE and vCJD. And experts from the CDC and NIH who explain that there were only two American cows that tested positive for BSE, and only three people who tested positive for vCJD, all of whom were infected outside the U.S.

And then they should tell the Koreans how nearly 200,000 British cattle were found to have BSE, and hundreds of other European cows. And how something went wrong with the feed they were giving the cattle. Something that might have included putting bodies and skulls from dead, diseased humans from India in the feed that was given to cattle in Britain and Europe.

And then they should explain to Koreans that in America they didn't use this type of feed for cattle. So America never got a BSE outbreak.

And then they should tell Koreans that Koreans lied to them.

Yeah, right.

The real damage is not to the sale of American beef. The real damage is the hate for Americans, and anyone who LOOKS like an American, that has been instilled into both Korean adults and children. In some, this hate of America and Americans will last a lifetime. And they will pass it on to their children.

Many Koreans badly want Americans, all Americans, to leave Korea. And even if you only LOOK like an American, they are going to treat you accordingly.

I think that was the real intent of the protest organizers.

[jkelly80]

Where the hell is the evidence of a nationwide brainwashing?

"It would appear..."
"I would say..."
"Sources indicate..."
"My daddy says..."

don't count.