http://wiki.galbijim.com/Vegetarian

Also the bit about compact flourescents is a great point. I lived for two years in Korea and never, ever noticed a difference between them and incandescents. Definitely slips the lie to that myth.

You might be a Korean environmentalist when…

…you will buy a product made of powdered uranium, filled with dioxin and produced in a big, smoky factory next to a preschool as long as it says, “For Most Green and Joyful Living of the Wellbeing Mind” on one of its 6 layers of indestructible plastic packaging.

…you only eat Korean rice because “Korean rice is better for Korean person” even though it is produced by an old, eczemic farmer using a smoke-belching 2 stroke engine, downhill from a lead recycling yard, downstream from a mercury processing plant and downwind from a pig farm.

…you hate Japan because they transformed Korea from a natural paradise where man lived close to nature into a concrete-covered megalopolis dotted with factories, swarming with luxury cars and webbed with power lines.

…you recognize that fermentation releases incredible quantities of the global-warming greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide… so you refuse to eat kimchee or drink soju… even Green soju.

…because of pollution, it angers you that Korea is the world’s 5th largest producer of car, 3rd largest producer of steel and largest producer of ships in the world… not to mention semiconductors and machinery… and you feel Korea peaked around 1953 when so many of the cities had been returned to a natural state.

…”close to nature” means “climbing” a “mountain” with 700 other people in matching red vest so you can yell “Yaaaahoooo” from the top… scaring the bejesus out of any remaining wildlife not yet displaced by 47,000,000 people covering everything they see in concrete while the government chants, “Have more kids, have more kids”.

…”close to nature” also means standing shoulder to shoulder at the beach with a few tens of thousands of other nature-lovers and proudly eating any critter that wasn’t able to get away… while smiling and saying, “Ahhh, beddy presh!”

…you feel only shame in all the potential marine habitat that Dok-do displaces.

…you shut the fan off every night… to conserve energy… not, of course, because you are deathly afraid of it.

Good to see you’re paying attention. However, I hope the article didn’t paint Korea as an eco-haven. As you say, it’s not. Some reasons why are given above.

At the same time, there is a growing environmental consciousness, especially spurred on by health concerns in the “wellbeing trend.”

A lot of the items listed above show that there are very much two sides to environmentalism in Korea.

As for some specifics, it is true that people eat dog here. However, many don’t. Since the survey was to find out if you’re a Korean and an environmentalist, you get a point if you don’t. ^^ In fact, I’m finding that especially with the younger generations, most think it’s pretty gross. It seems to be a food that remains from when the country was much poorer.

Also, someone else made a good point here: they do eat dog outside of Korea too. In fact, I have a friend in China who tells me they eat quite a lot in her city.

BTW, I don’t live in Itawon, actually, but in a small city called Gangneung.

3 You ride the bus and the train, but you still love Hyundai.

That kind of natioinalism is frowned upon in the west. If you say “I love Ford” in Korea. Koreas would shun you and demand you support only Korean carmakers.

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Dog restaurants are all over Korea. If you read Korean and get out of Itawon, you would see them. They even eat cats and whales.

I give up. Go back to your hogwon and teach 123,abc.

It’s also important to realize that Korea shouldn’t be singled out for dog meat eating. It’s also done with at least as much regularity in Vietnam, Burma, some parts of China and some African nations.

Hopefully dog eating in Korea will die out as the country stays modernized for a longer period of time. I consider it a vestiges of the days when the country was dirt poor, which is still a living memory for older Koreans.

On a more humorous note, I don’t think it’s a good idea to let kimchi leave our planet.