The Fashion Police of North Korea

In North Korea, music that is not state approved is illegal, international telephone calls are illegal, smiling in public upon the anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s death is illegal, and perhaps most bizarre, leather coats are illegal, with this last law passed in December of 2021 to dissuade North Korean citizens from imitating Kim Jong Un who wore a black cow hide coat in public on numerous occasions. This style of black leather coat became massively popular after Kim wore it in news media coverage in 2019 and because of this, imitation coats have become more readily available in North Korea. Surprisingly, fashion police are employed by the North Korean state to patrol and search for anyone wearing this style of garment as well as to search and help take down companies found manufacturing the coat

The Etymology of American Industrialist Henry Ford’s Model T Automobile and the First Mass Produced Vehicle

Henry Ford named the iconic Model T automobile as he did because of the way he built his company. Ford started with the Model A and continued to improve the design, moving through each letter of the alphabet the way modern software changes numerically with each upgrade (eg. Model A, Model B, Model C alongside software 1.0, software 2.0, software 3.0 etc.). It was Ford’s 20th design that met his stringent personal requirements allowing the Model T to become the first mass produced vehicle in 1908

Chinese Business Practices Designed to Stimulate the Planned Economic Growth of China

The Chinese government have started a policy referred to as “forced technology transfer” which means that “in order to do business in China, foreign business interests must give up some of their technological innovations and protected secrets”. The Chinese government refers to this process as an “indigenous innovation policy”, to ensure that Chinese companies, state owned or otherwise, remain or become the most powerful and influential industry leaders within various world economic sectors. The short version of this policy is that if a foreign company wants to work with a Chinese corporation or do business in China (e.g. selling U.S. made products in China), they must agree to do so through joint ventures with Chinese firms, and allow propitiatory technology to be shared with Chinese corporate interests and the Chinese government to encourage growth within Chinese industry as a whole. The World Trade Organization has laid out rules stating that this practice is inconsistent with what it deems fair and legal business practice, however the Chinese government has repeatedly ignored requests for these practices to halt. The Chinese state has issued statements claiming that there are no official laws in place forcing foreign companies to comply with such practices, however this is evidently untrue as multiple U.S. corporations have provided evidence to the contrary

The Importance of Facial Symmetry and Beauty Within South Korean Culture

Facial structure is incredibly important in South Korea and professionals are available who specialize physiognomy, the practice of reading facial features the same way palm readers read the lines of the palm to determine ones supposed fortune (e.g. the forehead supposedly represents luck, up to the age of 30, as well as a person’s parents luck and the nose represents oneself in their entirety and can also be indicative of wealth). The facial reading process is a pseudoscience similar to phrenology of the 19th century. The practice of facial queue reading is actually quite commonplace with top employers like Samsung, LG, and Kia using facial reading experts to help decide who the company should hire for various positions. The body is also accounted for in this reading, but on a much smaller scale. Facial readers claim to be able to predict and decode a persons fortune, career, and wealth, not only for the person being examined, but also of their parents. This process is referred to in Korean as “gwansang”