Fighting the Korean Internet Again
Does anyone have an ID/Password at the Korean newspaper Hankyoreh (or the means to create one easily for me?) who might be willing to share their access with me? If so, I would be most grateful if I might use it to access their web page (you can email me via the contact link above).
I don’t know when this happened but I can’t view archived articles anymore without logging in (I assume it is behind a simple registration like NYT instead of paid access). However, as always, I have to fight the twin problems of the Korean internet: 1) I’m not Korean. 2) I don’t use Windows and Internet Explorer.
Being a foreigner and using a Macintosh is pretty much suicidal for internet use in Korea. I had to wait 1 full week for Naver.com to inspect my Norwegian passport photo (which they required me to upload) and make sure that it matches my registration info. I was thrilled that I could register at all as many places require me to have a Korean citizenship/residence number, but having to wait this long is ridiculous.
Now, yet again, I have to go through this horrible process with Hankyoreh, though I had hoped it wouldn’t take a full week for my registration to come through. Today ended in complete failure and frustration though. When I tried to register through the special “foreigner” registration page at Hankyoreh, and after choosing “Other European Country” (since Norway wasn’t important enough to get listed) I gave them my Norwegian passport picture for upload and was all ready to go. Then the 2nd problem arose: Horrible programming. For some reason, no matter what I put in my birth year, either my real date of birth or any other number from 1-2006, it tells me that I haven’t entered my birth year. This is classic Javascript validation gone bad.
I really hate it when lazy programmers do Javascript validation or other web scripting and then only test it on Windows with Internet Explorer…
In this case, they slapped some crap together, as they often do, and wow - it worked in Internet Explorer on Windows - so that means it will work for everyone, right? I will happily spread the word that Korea is a place where the internet and technology is making great strides…as soon as web programmers and designers can master absolutely basic programming skills and create standards-compliant web sites. Like so many other websites I have struggled with around the world, this lack of quality on large scale commercial sites is really unacceptable. It might as well be 1995 all over again.
In this particular case, the Javascript Console in Firefox shows more than 30 errors for the registration page…I’m lucky the year of birth was the only thing that didn’t work…
July 4th, 2006 at 9:13
I just checked the Naver news site. It seems that you can still use it to do full-text searches of back issues of a number of newspapers and other news sources, including Hangyoreh. No login is required. http://news.naver.com/search/powersearch.php
As a fellow Mac user, I really sympathize with the problems you’ve experienced using the Korean internet. I read somewhere that iPods have taken off in Korea too, but I guess that that their popularity hasn’t translated into increased Mac sales. In any case, the lack of Korean software for Mac really seems to be fatal — I don’t think that Area Hangul has yet been ported to OS X, and I pessimistically imagine that it probably never will be. It’s perfectly possible to input Korean text with Word etc., but it doesn’t even have Korean spell-check…
To return to the issue of internet access: does anybody know if there has been any public debate in Korea regarding the effects of the 2001 law requiring the use of resident identification numbers on the use of the Korean internet by non-nationals? In other words, has there been any public recognition of the fact that not everybody who wants to use Korean sites is a citizen of South Korea? When you consider the sheer numbers of non-citizen ethnic Koreans around the world, you’d think that somebody would have already pointed this out …
July 4th, 2006 at 11:50
I’ve often pondered the strange contradiction between the Korea’s clearly advanced position in terms of web usage and the generally poor quality of websites. In my experience it is quite widely recognised by Koreans that there is a problem with design in general in Korea - this is a ‘creative’ area that has not been given much priority in the past and is apparently still much undervalued in the education system. Perhaps that’s part of the problem.
But I’m often amazed at the ‘unusability’ of many big official websites in Korea (such as the academic and history-related ones I look at a lot) which generally have a mindnumbing visual assault of links and sections all up there on the index page. Then of course there’s the whole ‘only works in IE’ thing, which seems ironic to me considering Korea’s previous plucky battles with Microsoft over wordprocessors. And the fact that Korea doesn’t seem to be doing anything on the international stage in terms of web 2.0 services (although perhaps that’s not such a bad thing if the whole bubble comes crashing down sometime soon). Nor have I heard much about the development of Korean open source products, although may be my own ignorance.
Adding all this stuff together the Korean internet seems like a classic case of uneven development: very advanced in some areas, backward in others and riddled with contradictions.
July 4th, 2006 at 11:59
the Korea oops!
In response to Micah, I do think that a lot of Korean websites have attempted to accomodate non-citizen users recently as I notice many of them now have an option to sign up as a non-Korean (some have both a ‘overseas Korean’ option and a ‘foreigner’ option). Whether this has been the result of a public debate I’m not sure - I would guess that they’ve just had loads of people e-mailing them from the US wondering why they can’t use their services.
Btw I saw some Firefox extension the other day from Taiwan that allows you to open an IE tab within Firefox. Perhaps that’s the solution to all FF-hating Korean sites.
August 4th, 2006 at 11:40
I’m not sure how long you’ve been in Korea now, but you may also encounter trouble with support as well. I had trouble with my connections speeds and ultimately was left to fend for myself because 1)the technicians were unfamiliar with the OSX environment, and 2) the online tools the used for measuring speed and assesing your connection break in all browsers except IE.
To their merit, almost all ISPs have an English support hotline if you can read enough Korean to find it. A couple of sites have also noticeably improved their friendliness to Mac as well.
I agree that it’s a classic case of uneven development, but I think it’s indicative of the nation’s growth in general. Perhaps more attached to a collective state of mind than we would normally associate these issues.
September 26th, 2006 at 4:18
I didn’t read all yet, but I’m sorry to hear about that. I didn’t know it is difficult to use korean sites for foriegn people. Also It is true almost all of korean use Microsoft system such as Window, so there are many difficulty for Mac user. One of my friend who used to use Mac, he also was in trouble. Anyway I’ll trying to tell about your Internet system when I go back to Korea and I hope it’s getting better in the future.
October 8th, 2006 at 3:53
Here’s something you might be interested in looking into:
http://www.i972.net/~gen/kr.php
Hope it helps.
October 8th, 2006 at 18:11
Very interesting…