Foreign Internet Sites Have False Information on Korea

An office worker Kim Ki-Young (26, Donam-dong Seongbuk-Ku, Seoul), who was looking for information on Internet some days ago, burst out laughing.

A foreign private site `www.lonelyplanet.com`, which provides every kinds of information on 120 countries in the world, introduces `bullet taxi` as the standard taxi in Korea. This site explains that bullet taxis, which ignore taximeter, are running in major cities in Korea, without any mention of deluxe taxis.

In the `country information` section in the Internet homepage of the CIA, Constitution Memorial Day of Korea is not `July 17th, 1948` but `February 25th, 1988`. This was the day when the 9th revised constitution outlined with direct election of the President came into force.

The `Tour Information` site of the famous portal site yahoo (www.yahoo.com) introduces Kimpo Airport as a representative international airport of Korea instead of Incheon International Airport that opened over 1 year ago.

`www.nationbynation.com`, which provides information on history, political system, and the economy of about 150 countries, lists policy makers and the President of Korea, and then introduces officers of North Korea along with Kim Jung-Il as politicians of South Korea.

Several sites related with sports like `Sports in Africa (www.sportinafrica.com)` and `Internet Soccer Fans Association (www.isfa.com)` inscribe the title of 2002 World Cup as Japan-Korea World Cup that is false in order of country names.

We can easily access contents that may give bad impressions of Korea.

`www.lonelyplanet.com`, which introduces world countries, says, "consider inoculation against contagious diseases like typhoid, hepatitis, diphtheria, and tetanus before you leave for Korea." On the contrary, about other Asian countries like Singapore along with Japan that is co-host of World Cup, it says, " no danger about health. "

There are many sites that give wrong explanations about the culture and tradition of Korea. `www.culturalkeepsakes.org`, which introduces traditional clothes and culture of Asian countries like Korea, China and Vietnam, says in its Korea Section that Korean traditional clothes or Hanbok has its origin in Mongol dress.

About this actual situation, an official of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said, "We are correcting wrong information on Korea on the Web in cooperation with related departments like the Government Information Agency. But there is a limit to searching all the foreign sites."

Park Ki-Tae, representative of the `Voluntary Agency Network of Korea`, which has campaigned for correct information on Korea through the Internet for 2 years, said, "In addition to the positive measures taken by related institutions, Korean netizens should try to correct mistakes by sending e-mails to the site that has wrong information on Korea."

ysh1005@donga.com