Korean

More than 400 members of Baltimore's black and Korean communities joined yesterday to "sing a new song" of peace and unity at the church where Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke worships."

A Korean-American Grocers Association meeting yesterday was to offer the media a defense for a grocer whose Park Heights store was closed after the Baltimore Health Department found numerous violations there, making it the first market in four years to have its license permanently revoked.But about a dozen African-American Park Heights' residents and merchants who attended the meeting thought it was to be a forum to enhance dialogue with Korean merchants.They were asked to leave the meeting at the Korean Center at 27 E. North Ave. Then, after some argument, the two dozen Korean grocers decided to let the visitors stay.

Leaders of Maryland's Korean community said yesterday that they will tell Comptroller William Donald Schaefer that he owes them an apology and should undergo sensitivity training. David Han, president of the Korean Society of Maryland, said at a news conference in Wheaton yesterday that he and other local Korean leaders will make these suggestions during a meeting with Schaefer scheduled for tomorrow at the comptroller's office in Annapolis. Their concern follows Schaefer's recent comments about North Korean missile tests and Koreans in America learning English as a second language.

TOKYO -- Add one more name to the list of authors facing persecution: Yu Miri.She is barely known in the United States, but her situation highlights the costs of a certain kind of fame, and the ugliness of a certain brand of racism. Since winning Japan's top literary prize in January, she has become the target of death threats from people who want her to stop writing.Yu is facing a different problem than have Salman Rushdie, accused by Iran of blasphemy against Islam, or Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn, exiled by the Soviet Union for his political views.

At this restaurant, your table is on fire. OK, not quite. It merely sizzles. Not to worry. This is benign combustion at Honey Pig, a new restaurant in Ellicott City featuring Korean barbecue. Think strips of meat, chicken or seafood cooked quickly on a tabletop grill that sits in the center of your table and becomes the focal point of your meal. Think small plates of spicy sides, pickled vegetables — some smooth, some quite fiery . Finally, put all of these elements in a big room crammed with stainless-steel tables, filled with energy and waves of Korean-speaking servers moving to loud music, and you've got the scene at Honey Pig. Igniting the grill and most of the subsequent activities associated with its operation are not your concern.

Though the 15-member delegation representing several provinces in South Korea came to Howard County yesterday to learn more about teachers unions, they also left with impressions about high school life in America. A tour of Centennial High School -- where roughly 25 percent of the student body is Asian-American and a stellar reputation has brought many Korean families to the school -- gave the visitors a glimpse of educational opportunities in Howard County. They tried to understand the details of class scheduling and asked questions about science projects and curriculum.

Ask many of the city's Korean-American merchants and their largely African-American customers if there is tension between them -- tension mirrored in explosive incidents across the country -- and the likely response will be a quick, definitive "No."But such a response may tell only half the truth. In reality, city and neighborhood activists are closely monitoring black-Korean relations, a fact that reveals more concern than some seem willing to acknowledge.City officials have twice sponsored meetings this year to defuse tension between the two communities.

THE JOINT Korean-U.S. investigation into the 1950 No Gun Ri incident at least concluded that it happened. That vindicates the Korean survivors who always said that civilian refugees fleeing toward U.S. lines had been shot and strafed under a bridge by U.S. troops. It reverses years of U.S. denials that such an atrocity had occurred and validates the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1999 Associated Press report supporting survivor accounts. The joint statement said the U.S. troops were undertrained and new to combat, commanded by leaders with limited experience, unprepared for North Korean weapons and tactics, and "legitimately fearful of the possible infiltration of North Korean soldiers who routinely entered American lines in groups disguised as civilians in refugee columns."

Air Force Staff Sgt. Maha Salamah heard the sounds of Arabic from her Palestinian father when she was growing up in the Virgin Islands. She hears them now from her husband, who is also Palestinian. But she never learned to speak the language herself. Salamah was pleasantly surprised when she learned Howard Community College would be offering Arabic for the first time and now plans to spend Tuesday and Thursday evenings at the school learning the language. Expanding beyond more traditional offerings such as Spanish, French and German, HCC started classes in Arabic and Korean last month and quickly discovered that there were many students ready for the more exotic fare.

South Korean attackman Ben Barchey, a rising senior at Friends, finished making adjustments to his lacrosse helmet and noticed one of his teammates reaching for a wrench to do similar maintenance. Barchey's teammate, Alex Hahn, a rising senior at Chapelgate, has had teammates copy the way he strings his stick, and David Park, a May graduate of Loch Raven High School, has fielded all sorts of questions during the International Lacrosse Federation Under-19 World Championships at Towson University this week.