Page 2 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
ASIA / PACIFIC
August 7, 2017
Hi Bixby: Galaxy S8 voice assistant speaks English
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung Electronics says its Bixby voice
assistant for smartphones will start speaking English, but only in two countries:
South Korea and the U.S. The South Korean tech giant said users of Galaxy S8
smartphones can speak in American English to their phones to turn on the
flashlight, to take a selfie, or to make the phone search the pictures from a
summer vacation and create an album. The service, comparable to Apple’s Siri
or Google Assistant, was previously available only in Korean. Samsung said its
virtual assistant can be activated by saying “Hi Bixby” to the phone or by
clicking the button on the side of S8 phones.
No plans to remove “comfort women” statues in Hong Kong
HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s government says police have no plans to
remove a pair of statues depicting World War II Japanese army sex slaves
known as “comfort women” that were installed in front of Japan’s Consulate in
the Chinese territory. Activist Tsang Kin-shing says the statues are a reminder
to Japan of its culpability in forcing women recruited or captured from Japan,
the Korean peninsula, and elsewhere to serve in frontline brothels. Reached by
phone, a government spokesman said Hong Kong’s police have said the statues
would not be removed. Many Chinese nationalists say Japan has never repented
for its brutal invasion of China and accompanying atrocities, including forcing
women into sexual slavery.
Xi says China will never permit any loss of territory
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping has issued a tough line on
national sovereignty amid multiple disputes with his country’s neighbors,
saying China will never permit any loss of territory. Xi’s declaration came
during a nearly one-hour speech in Beijing marking the 90th anniversary of the
founding of the People’s Liberation Army. China is engaged in a border standoff
with India, disputes over islands with Japan and in the South China Sea, and
has vowed to conquer self-governing Taiwan by force. Xi said the Chinese people
treasure peace but will not permit any national territory to be separated by
anyone under any circumstances. The speech followed a parade during which Xi
declared the military has the “confidence and capability” to ensure China’s
sovereignty, security, and national interests.
Robot finds likely melted fuel heap inside Fukushima plant
TOKYO (AP) — An underwater robot has captured images of massive deposits
believed to be melted nuclear fuel covering the floor of a damaged reactor at
Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power
Co. said solidified lava-like rocks are heaped up from the bottom inside of a main
structure called the pedestal that sits underneath the core inside the primary
containment vessel of Fukushima’s Unit 3 reactor. Experts believe the melted
fuel fell to the chamber’s bottom and is now submerged by radioactive water.
The robot spotted suspected debris of melted fuel for the first time since the 2011
earthquake and tsunami destroyed the plant. Locating the fuel in each of the
three wrecked reactors is crucial for the plant’s decommissioning.
Malaysia bans “Despacito” on state radio, TV due to lyrics
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia has banned “Despacito” on
state radio and television, though it might be hard to slow the song’s
record-breaking popularity. The ban applies only to government-run radio and
TV outlets, not to music streaming services or global entertainment providers
such as YouTube. Communications minister Salleh Said Keruak said the song
was reviewed and banned because of a public complaint that the lyrics are
obscene. Salleh urged private radio stations to censor the song themselves out of
sensitivity to local culture. The Spanish-language song — its title means
“slowly” — was released by Puerto Rican artists Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee
in January. The original and a remix featuring Justin Bieber are the most
streamed tracks of all time with more than 4.6 billion plays.
SMASHING STEREOTYPES. South Korea’s YouTube star, Park Makrye, 70, serves food at her restaurant in
Yongin, South Korea. Park’s videos are all about showing off her wrinkles and her elderly life in the raw. Young South
Koreans find her so funny and adorable that big companies like Samsung Electronics and Lotte are banking on her popu-
larity. But despite her new life as a celebrity, she still gets up before dawn to run her diner. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
70-year-old with YouTube hit
redefining beauty in South Korea
By Youkyung Lee
AP Technology Writer
ONGIN, South Korea — One of South
Korea’s hottest YouTube stars is a
70-year-old grandmother whose cool,
undaunted style and hilarity are a breath of
fresh air in a social-media universe that exalts
youth and perfect looks.
Park Makrye’s videos are all about showing
off her wrinkles and her elderly life in the raw.
Young South Koreans find her so funny and
adorable that big companies like Samsung
Electronics and Lotte are banking on her
popularity.
Despite her new life as a celebrity, she still
gets up before dawn to run her diner.
Serving kimchi while clad in a dotted pink
top and short skirt with a kitchen hygiene hat
on her head, Park isn’t exactly the most stylish
beauty icon.
Yet, South Koreans love watching her give
make-up tutorials, reunite with an old friend,
or try pasta for the first time in her life in her
“Grandma’s Diary” YouTube videos.
“She’s real. She’s not fake,” said Lee Injae, a
31-year-old living in Seoul. “It’s refreshing to
see the world through the eyes of a grand-
mother.”
Before YouTube, Park says, her life was
“dead like rotten bean sprouts.”
“We used to think, ‘Since I’m over 70, my life
is over,”’ Park said in an interview with The
Associated Press, sitting in the living room
that she turns into her YouTube studio by
taping a broad piece of paper on the wall.
“But as I started doing this, I realized life
starts at 71 years old,” she said, adding an
extra year as is the custom in Korea and many
other Asian countries.
Y
Authorities seize 3 tons of pangolin scales in Ivory Coast
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Authorities in Ivory Coast say they seized
three tons of scales from pangolins, the world’s most heavily trafficked mammal.
The small armored creatures are commonly eaten in West and Central Africa as
bush meat, but they have been brought to the brink of extinction because their
scales are popular in Asian traditional medicine. Environmental group EAGLE
Ivory Coast said the total value of the seizure is close to $100,000 and represents
the remains of about 4,000 pangolins. The group said eight people were arrested.
More than 1 million pangolins have been poached in the past decade worldwide.
Ivory Coast has increasingly become a transit hub for wildlife trafficking.
Asian Currency
Exchange Rates
Albina Community Bank
Part of the Benefi cial State family
Samsung to recover rare metals & more in Galaxy Note 7s
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung Electronics says it will recover gold
and other metals in the recalled Galaxy Note 7 and retrieve components from
the fire-prone phones to reduce waste. The South Korean company said in a
statement it will likely retrieve 157 tons of gold, silver, cobalt, copper, and other
metals from millions of smartphones that were recalled and discontinued last
year after they were found prone to overheating. It didn’t say how it would use
the retrieved metals. The phones’ display modules, memory chips, camera
models, and other components would be separated from the Note 7 for sales or
recycling, it added. In another effort to reduce waste, Samsung has also begun
selling 400,000 units of Galaxy Note FE phones in South Korea made from
unused parts of recalled Note 7 smartphones.
Park’s stardom defies the conventional
expectations of the elderly in South Korea,
often portrayed in mass media as suffering
from poverty or as angry patriots protesting
for conservative values. South Korea has the
highest elderly poverty rate among developed
countries. The country has been struggling to
provide better social safety nets or jobs to
elderly populations while fewer young
generations support their aging parents as
they are getting less and less attached to the
Confucian traditions of revering the aged.
Encouraged by a granddaughter to start
making videos as a way to stave off dementia,
Park is living it up. She’s posed for a women’s
monthly magazine spread, hosted a home
shopping show for retail giant Lotte, and will
be appearing next week as a model in a
YouTube commercial for Samsung’s TV.
Her fans travel from across the country to
eat at her diner where one can get filled up
with a rice and vegetable meal for just $5 in a
remote part of Yongin, a city 21 miles south of
Seoul with no easy public transport access.
Kim Yura, Park’s 27-year-old granddaught-
er, stopped working as an acting instructor to
travel with her grandmother after a doctor told
the family she had a high risk of getting
Alzheimer’s disease like her three elder sis-
ters. Kim took her grandmother to Australia
as a treat after more than 40 years of raising
children and running a restaurant.
A video of the grandmother-granddaughter
duo visiting Cairns, Australia in January
shows Park describing her first time diving in
the ocean and her sprinting to a swimming
pool like a kid. It was a big hit among young
South Koreans; less than six months later,
Park has about 400,000 followers on YouTube
Continued on page 4
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80.784
4130.0
6.7289
2.0083
7.8195
63.583
13316
32551
110.69
8292.3
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1125.0
153.42
30.164
33.29
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