Page 16 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
ASIA / PACIFIC
July 18, 2016
Possible glitch sends Pokémon Go players to South Korean city
POKÉMON PROBLEMS. Two South Koreans
play the Pokémon Go game with their mobile phones
in Sokcho, South Korea. The seaside South Korean
city of Sokcho is enjoying a surge of visitors who are
wandering the streets at all hours as they look at their
smartphones. It appears to be the only place in the
country where Pokémon Go players can chase the
mobile game’s virtual monsters. (Lee Jong-hun/
Yonhap via AP)
By Youkyung Lee
AP Technology Writer
S
EOUL, South Korea — The seaside
South Korean city of Sokcho is
enjoying a surge of visitors who are
wandering the streets at all hours as they
look at their smartphones. Why? It
appears to be the only place in the country
where Pokémon Go players can chase the
mobile game’s virtual monsters.
Local restaurants, hotels, and busi-
nesses are trying to capitalize on the
sudden craze by luring tourists with
photos of Pikachu and other monsters in
their backyard and promising free gifts to
the Pokémon “trainers.” The mayor
pledged to increase free Wi-Fi hotspots
and battery-charging stations, and travel
agencies have launched Pokémon-themed
tour packages to Sokcho. Hotels in the east
coast city near the North Korean border
reportedly saw a surge in reservations.
The mobile game has become a block-
buster hit in the U.S., but it has not been
officially launched in South Korea.
Niantic Inc., a San Francisco spinoff of
Google parent Alphabet Inc., overlays cute
Nintendo characters onto the physical
world. Gamers have to find spots in the
real world to capture and train Psyduck,
Meowth, and other virtual monsters.
Speculations went wild among local
media and the public that South Koreans
cannot play the game because the govern-
ment restricts Google Maps service for
security reasons.
But South Korean authorities later
denied that and instead attributed the
monsters’ appearance in Sokcho to map
glitches. By the way Niantic organizes the
region, Sokcho and its neighboring area
bordering North Korea were classified as
North America, the state-run National
Geographic Information Institute said,
denying earlier reports that they were
categorized as North Korea. Neither
Google
nor
Niantic
immediately
responded to e-mails seeking comment.
Whatever the reason, South Korean
Pokémon Go players have been going to
great lengths to take advantage.
It was after midnight when college
student Han Kyeol and three friends drove
out of Seoul, and 4:00am when they
arrived at a Sokcho beach.
“As soon as we got out of the car, four of
us turned on our smartphones and began
playing Pokémon Go,” the 24-year-old said
by phone from Seoul. “It was very dark, but
what was amazing was that there were a
lot of men roaming around the beaches
with smartphones in their hands at
4:00am.”
Han hadn’t visited Sokcho in more than
a decade, and hadn’t considered a return
trip before Pokémon Go came around. He
enjoyed his overnight trip so much that he
plans to return with his girlfriend. “We
went to a 24-hour raw fish place, saw the
sun rise, and stopped by the main tourist
attractions,” he said.
Lee Jung-hwan, a 26-year-old video
producer, has been travelling to Sokcho
and other towns in Gangwon province to
find and capture monsters. When he finds
Pokéstop, a key location where trainers
can find items such as eggs that can hatch
into a full monster, he shares the location
on the Facebook group for Pokémon Go
players in South Korea.
“I met people who took a day off to come
to Sokcho, people who worked in the
morning and left their job in the afternoon,
and people who took a vacation,” he said by
phone from Sokcho.
The city of 80,000 is a popular summer
destination for mountain hikers and
beachgoers. Local businesses are keen on
Ultraconservative lobby backs Japan PM charter change drive
By Mari Yamaguchi
The Associated Press
T
OKYO — An influential political
lobby in Japan will do its utmost to
capitalize on Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe’s election victory and push for
the constitution to be revised to allow a
more active military, according to the
group’s chairman.
Abe’s gains in the upper house in the
recent election mean his party can cobble
together the crucial two-thirds majority in
both houses to propose a revision and put it
to a referendum, if it gets support from
lawmakers in other parties open to the
changes.
Tadae Takubo, chairman of Nippon
Kaigi, or Japan Conference, said the
war-renouncing constitution that makes
Japan’s defense “defective” needs to be
corrected.
It’s time to grow out of Japan’s “silly”
postwar goal of becoming an economic
power with lightweight military, and seek
to restore Japan with more self-respect,
traditional family values, and principles
under the emperor as head of nation, said
Takubo, an international politics professor
at Kyorin University.
“This is a golden opportunity that has
never happened before. If I were in the
prime minister’s position, I will go all out
to accomplish a revision during the current
term,” Takubo said. His organization will
provide full support to push forward the
drive, he said.
For Abe and his ultra-conservative
supporters, like Nippon Kaigi, the 1947
constitution is the legacy of Japan’s defeat
in World War II and an imposition of the
victor’s world order and values. The
charter renounces the use of force in
international conflicts and limits Japan’s
military to self-defense only, although
Japan has a well-equipped modern army,
navy, and air force that work closely with
the United States, its top ally.
Abe’s ruling party proposed revisions to
the constitution in 2012 that intended to
restore traditions similar to prewar-era
family values centered on the emperor,
and to put national interest before individ-
uals’ basic human rights in some cases. It
was never formally submitted to parlia-
ment.
Abe did not make the constitution a
focus of the election, but said he takes the
victory as a public endorsement for a revi-
sion, pledging to launch a parliamentary
committee to discuss which articles to
change and how.
Founded in 1997, Nippon Kaigi has
strived to revise the constitution to restore
traditional gender roles, increase imperial
worshipping, and put public interest
before individuals. The group is believed to
be behind Abe’s comeback in 2012 and has
become increasingly influential.
Their grassroots movement backed by
Shinto shrines and other new religious
groups has a growing membership that
Continued on page 15
adding Pokémon Go players who call the
place “Pallet Town,” the hometown of
Pokémon’s main protagonist.
The city had four times more hotel room
bookings Tuesday and Wednesday than it
did on those days the previous week, the
Yonhap news agency reported, citing
Interpark Tour, a hotel-booking website.
On Auction, the South Korean unit of
eBay, tour agencies began selling round-
trip bus tours to Sokcho, calling the desti-
nation Pallet Town. A local restaurant
hung a banner outside welcoming the
trainers to a glass of cold water and free
smartphone charging. Ramada Hotel in
Sokcho promised three free hotel stay
packages to those who capture three
monsters in Sokcho.
The city, however, was hesitant to fully
embrace the game, given the central
government’s restrictions on Google Maps.
“For the city, it is not easy to promote
what the government restricts,” said Lee
Se-moon, an official at Sokcho city’s
tourism department. “But it is a great help
for the city’s tourism because media
continues to report about Sokcho and
game manias are promoting Sokcho.”
South Korea restricts the use of
mapping data by foreign companies that
do not operate its servers in the domestic
market, citing concerns over disclosing
military locations amid tensions with
North Korea. It is not clear how the
Pokémon Go phenomenon would play out
ahead of a government decision expected
next month on whether to allow Google to
use South Korean mapping data.
Even after the country’s land ministry
said on its official Twitter account that
Google Maps service is not needed to play
Pokémon Go, which uses the phone’s GPS
technology to find animated characters,
South Korean users did not believe the
government, denouncing it as nonsense.
Some express regrets over what the
country is missing due to tensions with
North Korea.
“We can’t play the game because we are
a divided country, but this is what the
global trend is,” said Lee, the Pokémon Go
trainer in Sokcho. “I wish people could play
the game here so it could stimulate the
regional economy. I got to go to new places
and found a beautiful cliff as I was looking
for the spots.”