Why must we buy China’s food (Korea)

That’s the tagline of one of our young friends from Korea. He is angry over a recently published history that downplays the historic Korean kingdom that included parts of north-east China.

Funnily, he looked me up some months back because he wanted to understand more about Chinese people as he was fond of a girl from there. Also, he seemed not so right-wing. He delivers newspapers in the morning before heading to school. When I asked him about Chosun Ilbo — one of the bigger dailies, he spat out some nasty comments. But when I mentioned I read Ohmynews.com, he became friends instantly. Ohmynews.com, an online news site that sources some of its stories from citizen reporters is one example of citizen’s media that I never tire of mentioning.

That seems to be a common refrain of use in Asia. It takes only a little poke from a neighbouring country to make us mad.