By Nam Hyun-woo
Multiple errors are on the official English language website of PyeongChang, the host city of the 2018 Winter Olympics, and those of other neighboring cities and counties in Gangwon Province.
On the bottom of Jeongseon County’s home page, its office address includes “Jeongseong country.” Just beneath that, the website’s copyright conditions are stated as: “copyrinmt by Jeongseon, All rinmts reserved.”
These appear to be more than just typos because on the website’s map section, the same error is repeated, with “Country Map” where “County Map” should be.
More spelling and other failures are on a section introducing the county’s council. It describes the county’s council as a congress but refers to the members of it as assemblymen. Again, “country” also appears here.
Some cities in the province did not even write the country’s name properly. On Wonju’s website, it states that its city government is located in “R. O. Korea,” instead of “Republic of Korea,” which is Korea’s official name. However, even worse than Wonju’s website, is that for Samcheok, a city on the north east coast. On this, “South of Korea” is written, prompting concern that this could become a national humiliation.
The websites of other cities and counties in the region also have typos. Donghae’s website used “Tranportation,” missing an “s” from transportation and “Accomodation,” missing an “m” from accommodation.
Most of the websites do not abide by the Korean Romanization rules enforced by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. For example, Korean names should be written as one word or hyphenated when it consists of more than two Korean characters -- such as Jeongseon County Mayor Choi Seung-jun. But the names of mayors on most websites are written as three independent characters such as _ Jeongseon County Mayor Choi Seung Jun.
The names of tourist attractions are also incoherent, prompting additional concern that this could cause confusion and inconvenience to foreigners expected to visit the websites during the Olympic Games.
