Today was the 59th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War.

Good to see that Hawaiians are listening to the Korean.

New York Times: Hawaiians Shrug Off Missile Threat

Someone apparently put AAK! as an external link for "Korean American" entry in Wikipedia. Whoever did that, thanks. Let's see how long this lasts -- the Korean's last foray into Wikipedia did not last very long.

Is It Safe to be in Korea Now?

Dear Korean,

Six months ago I decided to get certified to teach English abroad and have been researching South Korea in plans to go in September of this year. As I progress in my certification I can't help but notice the tension and heightened alert on the activity in North Korea, as it is in the news almost daily. Korean, is this a bad time to be considering a move to Busan to teach English as a foreigner? Do South Koreans feel on edge and threatened by their difficult siblings in the North? Would you consider moving to Korea or would you seriously reconsider with the political climate in the region right now?

LakerDynasty09

Dear Most Excellent Pen Name,

Yes! Lakers! World champions!

Sorry, the Korean had to work off the euphoria he has had since Sunday. Your question is serious and timely, so let us look at it. The question is really two parts: (1) Is Korea more dangerous than usual? (2) Is it safe to be in Korea right now? The short answers to the questions are no and yes. Allow the Korean to explain.

First, the danger of North Korea previous to the nuclear testing has always been underestimated, particularly in the American media. Currently, most of North Korea’s artilleries and short-range missiles are lined up against the Armistice Line – which means North Korea can turn half of Seoul into dust at any time it wants, without using any nuclear weapon or long-range missile.

The Korean had his doubts in the beginning stage of North Korea’s nuclear testing and ICBM development several years ago, but it seems increasingly clear that North Korea’s nuclear weapons and long-range missiles are meant to be used as a bargaining chip against the United States, not against South Korea. Joo Seong-Ha, one of the most legitimate analysts of North Korea called the idea of North Korea's developing ICBM to attack Korea a "sophism", because "it can attack Korea with a cannon at any time."

This situation is not new; this situation has essentially been the same since the 1970s. American media is reacting right now to North Korea’s missiles and nuclear weapon because of they affect the United States – and such reaction is justified. But that does not mean that Korea is a more dangerous place than before.

Then the natural question is – is it (and has it been) safe to be in Korea? Truly, there is only one scenario in which it would be dangerous to be in Korea – a full-scale war in the Korean peninsula. This scenario is extremely unlikely. Again, quoting from Joo, North Korea cannot even handle South Korea even if South Korea voluntarily offered itself to be under Kim Jong-Il’s rule. Therefore, the reenactment of Korean War – in which North Korea genuinely attempted to overtake South Korea under its rule – is completely out of the question.

Even the terrorist attacks that North Korea used to engage up to mid-1980s no longer have a purpose. Until mid-1980s, there was a tiny sliver of possibility that if the South Korean president was assassinated, for example, the ensuing chaos may enable North Korea to overtake South Korea. But that was over 20 years ago. In a race between North Korea and South Korea, South Korea won decisively and definitively. Everyone in the world knows this, including Kim Jong-Il, North Korean leadership and every North Korean person.

In fact, the true measure of danger posed by North Korea is the 48 million canaries in the coalmine – 48 million South Koreans. After all, these are the people who remember the actual invasion, and dealt with North Korea’s threat for the past 60 years. These are the people who would be most directly affected if North Korea’s danger were true. The Korean remembers that during the 1980s, whenever North Korea made a saber-rattling gesture, the canned and dried goods section of the supermarket would empty out for days, as South Koreans prepared for war by hoarding those goods.

[This type of scene was common in 1980s whenever North Korea made a threat.]

But what did South Koreans do when North Korea recently tested the nuclear weapon and long-range missile? Nothing. The Korean media reported it around the clock, as they were obviously big news. But on the ground level, few even blinked. Even for South Koreans, the possibility of North Korea affecting their lives was too remote to care. If South Koreans do not feel any danger, there is no reason anyone else should.

If you don't believe the Korean, here is Korea Beat's excellent compilation of the top 10 most read articles on Naver (Korea's version of Yahoo!) on the week ending on May 31, during which North Korea tested the nuclear weapon:

1. An initial report that police had confirmed the death of former president Roh Moo-hyun.
2. Park Ji-sung.
3. Park Ji-sung.
4. Park Ji-sung.
5. Barcelona defeated Manchester United 2-0 in the Champions League final.
6. Park Ji-sung.
7. More on the Champions League final.
8. An initial report that Roh had left a suicide note.
9. Park Ji-sung.
10. In Japan, Lim Chang-yong recorded his 14th save of the season by striking out three consecutive Nippon Ham Fighters.

If you still don’t believe in the Korean, here is the tally of all deaths caused by North Korea since the fall of Soviet Union in 1991: 17 (13 soldiers/police, 4 civilians) died in the course of capturing the 13 spies who infiltrated South Korea by a submarine on the eastern coast of Korea in 1996; one prominent North Korean defector was assassinated in Seoul in 1997; 5 seamen died in the naval skirmish that occurred in 2002; A North Korean guard shot one South Korean tourist who was touring Geumgang Mountain in North Korea and went outside of the restricted area in 2008. That’s 24 deaths in 18 years, average 1.33 deaths per year. Consider this in contrast: in 2007 alone, lightning strikes killed or injured 22 South Koreans.

If you wish to be extra careful (or make your parents worry less,) you can register yourself with the American embassy in Seoul, which has an evacuation plan ready for all American civilians of which it is aware in case of an emergency. But really, when you are thinking about visiting South Korea, North Korea should really be one of your last worries, ranked right around lightning strikes and Fan Death (which is real).

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Ask a Korean! News: Joo Seong-Ha on Laura Ling and Euna Lee

Here is something for the followers of Laura Ling and Euna Lee. Joo Seong-Ha of Nambuk Story has spoken to the guard who captured the reporters:

I tried to find out the circumstances of the capture. A border patrol officer
who is stationed in Gang'An-Li simply answered, "We saw the women roaming
around in early morning, so we caught them." I asked him, "Did you get
someone to lure them into crossing the border?" "You weren't waiting for them?",
etc., but he replied, "Not at all." ... Also considering that the men
who ran away are keeping quiet, it does seem like it was the reporters' fault.

The Korean would not be surprised if North Korea kidnapped the reporters across the border, but Joo is a reputable journalist with an extremely deep and wide connection within North Korea. Those who doubt him about North Korea do so at their own peril.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Ask a Korean! News: Your World Champion Los Angeles Lakers!!!!

Suck it, haters!!

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Ask a Korean! News: Some Korean Singers Will be in LA

Public service announcement:

Dear Korean,

My name is Tatevik Simonian and I am contacting you on behalf of the Music Center in Los Angeles.

In the second year of the concert series, Global Pop at the Music Center continues to celebrate the performances of popular artists from around the globe at the iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall. On June 19th, Global Pop will feature acclaimed Korean pop superstars Wheesung and Lena Park.

Wheesung became an instant sensation in his native Korea after his first solo album release in 2002. His sophomore album catapulted him into stardom and made him the best selling artist of 2003. He has collaborated with many artists including Se7en, M-Flo and most recently British R&B artist Craig David.

From R&B and Korean /Japanese pop, to gospel, Lena Park is an artist with a wide-range of musical stylings. Best known for her impeccable vocals, Lena was selected to represent Korea in the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2002 FIFA World Cup and is an influential singer-songwriter who has released albums and singles in Korean and Japanese.

Ask a Korean! readers can visit http://www.ticketmaster.com/promo/e4z0dh and enter access code KPOP to receive a 20% discount on seats!

Location:
Walt Disney Concert Hall
135 North Grand Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90012

Tickets:
$30-$85
Visit Ticketmaster.com, the WDCH Box Office or call 213-368-2511 (Korean) or 213-365-3500 (English).

-Tatevik

Dear Tatevik,

While the Korean wishes you well on your event, he has less than zero interest in Wheesung, Lena Park and their ilk. Let the Korean know when real artists like Seo Taiji come to America. The only reason why the Korean bothered to put this up on the blog is because you were offering a discount, which would be of interest to some of AAK!'s readers.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Ask a Korean! Wiki: Oppa! Oppa! Oppa!

After a few serious and gloomy news, back to our regular scheduled program...

Dear Korean,

I recently dated a Korean guy who was impressed with my knowledge of Korea/Korean pronunciation/Korean culture. One day we were talking and he asked me if I knew what I would call him and I responded, "oppa." (He was older than me.) He seemed to really like it, especially because I pronounced it correctly.

My question is, what would be your/an average reaction to a white girl calling you "oppa"? (Sparingly, of course. I do not plan on running up to all older Korean men with a greeting of, "oppa~!" just because I can, haha.) Would you like it? Would you think it's weird? Would it upset you? Catch you off guard?

Megan, She Who Loves the Oppas.

Dear Megan,

The Korean has previously written that Korean men are men before they are Korean, and there is no super-secret way of seducing them. But you just might have something that disproves the Korean. For some Korean men, the term oppa is known to act like a kryptonite.

Oppa means "(a woman's) older brother", but now it has evolved into a term of familiarity used by a woman for men who are older than the woman. Because the majority of relationships involve older men and younger women, the woman in the relationship frequently calls the man oppa. Such term has carried over even after marriage, eliciting frowns from traditionalists/purists (such as the Korean). Passionate girl fans for a male celebrity are often referred to as oppa budae ("oppa troopers"), because whenever a celebrity appears, a horde of girls run after him screaming "Oppa! Oppa!! Oppa!!!!!"

Personally, oppa totally works on the Korean, perhaps because being called by that term is a rare occurrence for the Korean since he has no younger sister. (Knowing this, however, the Korean's non-Korean dude friends sometimes call the Korean oppa, stirring up murderous rage.) So far, it has not made a difference if the term came from a Korean or a non-Korean. However, the Korean has also heard from other Korean American men that hearing oppa from a non-Korean is actually a turn-off.

This probably just means that the Korean is easy, but Korean men readers, have your say at it. Does oppa work on you?

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Lakers woooooot

Ask a Korean! News: Nuclear Weapon and Two Prescriptions

The Korean does not know a better place to read about North Korea than Nambuk Story by Mr. Joo Seong-Ha, whom the Korean has pimped several times already. Here is Mr. Joo's reaction to the most recent nuclear testing by North Korea, translated by the Korean.

North Korea Had a Stroke: Nuclear Weapon and Two Prescriptions

All kinds of analyses are available since North Korea has tested nuclear weapon, and I will offer my opinion. This is my personal view with respect to this nuclear test.

Effectless Sanctions against North Korea

UN Security Council is abuzz with the talks of sanctions against North Korea. Tomorrow's paper will offer more detail [the Korean's note: this post is dated 5/26/09], but it will be a merely symbolic action that will not offer any tangible result. In fact, the subject of the sanctions is not afraid of such sanctions, as North Korea has lived through several decades of sanctions.

Like the way South Korea's stock market has learned enough not to waiver in the face of North Korea's nuclear testing, North Korea would have anticipated the sanctions regime after the nuclear testing. The learning effect applies equally to North Korea, which has experienced the blockade of Banco Delta Asia. It would have already prepared sufficient measures against various possible situations.

United Nations or the United States are taking action so as not to appear to be doing nothing and also in order to prevent other countries from copying North Korea's action, but from North Korea's perspective such actions are laughable as they do not produce any tangible result.

North Korea's Rotting Core

The greatest danger to North Korea comes from inside. To compare to a person, the North Korean regime is like an intensive care patient. North Korea of yesteryear demonstrated the scary uniformity geared toward a singular goal, created as a result of nationwide brainwashing.

Such uniformity is no more. After the serious economic troubles since 1995, the people began to distrust the regime to the extent that now even the middle-ranking officials do not trust the regime. Those officials now think, "This regime will be gone sooner or later, so the most important thing is to look out for myself and earn as much as I can." The North Korean people living inside the regime most clearly know that the talks of Strong Nation by 2012 are no more than an impossible hot air.

Nowadays the orders from the central government have stopped working. Just from this year, there was an order prohibiting marketplaces in April and individually owned farming plots in May, but neither has been implemented to any degree. Order from the central regime is nothing but an excuse for fattening the coffers of officials, as they use them to collect bribes.

Again comparing to a person, previously there was only a paralysis in the extremities (the people), but now there is a paralysis in the central nervous system (the middle-ranked officials). Even in this state, the regime somehow barely chugs along thanks to the inertia of the past 60 years.

But this patient with the paralyzed central nervous system now says it will set up a succession structure. A major operation is scheduled in the time of ill health, so to speak. The patient's life is hanging in balance.

Tension as a Gift to North Korea

A patient with a terminal illness has two paths in front of him: either live or die after a major operation, or stay alive as long as he can while taking painkillers before he eventually dies.

For North Korea, the major operation is making a deal with the nuclear weapon as a bargaining chip. Nuclear weapon is everything that destitute North Korea owns. There is no one who easily gives everything one owns, and that includes North Korea.

If North Korea is to give everything it owns, it will give up expecting something huge. I would imagine something to the tune of guaranteeting the regime survival, economic aid (including around $10 billion from Japan following a normalization of relationship, massive economic aid from South Korea, international food aid, etc.) Making this type of exchange and rejuvenating the economy under the China-style reform policy would be equivalent to a major surgery.

North Korea is not worry-free in this exchange. Even if the exchange were successful, there is no guarantee that the regime would survive that major operation.

But even for the other side's perspective, that exchange may prove too costly. Nuclear weapon is not exactly something that can never be tolerated - if that were the case, Kim Jong-Il would have been taken care of. But the situation has come thus far because a decision was made that Kim Jong-Il with nuclear weapon is better than dealing with the subsequent friction with China or the chaos in the Korean Peninsula.

We have to forget about the naive idea that we can exchange something small like light-water reactor with nuclear armament. Something like light-water reactor is but a pill or an injection, not the major operation that North Korea needs. There is no one who spends one's entire fortune to take a pill or receive an injection.

In other words, one side does not want to give up the nuclear weapon for too little, and the other side does not want to pay too much. This is not an easy environment for a deal. Then the patient North Korea, whose central nervous system is becoming paralyzed, must trudge along while taking painkillers.

Problem is that, obviously, even the painkillers are not free. While North Korea of course provides the reason for it, but the United States, Japan and Korea are the providers of the painkillers. U.S., Japan and Korea do not sit tight when North Korea raises the tension through nuclear testing or missile launch. They give a prescription like UN Security Council yada yada, North Korea sanctions etc. etc.

This is a painkiller prescription for North Korea, as it allows to raise the internal tension and impose stricter control over the people by using the external threat as an excuse. Already such fascist control as "the 150-day battle" is being imposed. This acts as a painkiller to the muscle that refuses to take orders.

Once the painkillers like nuclear weapon or missiles wear off, North Korea will further try to create a reason to receive painkillers such as a naval skirmish in the Yellow Sea. From North Korea's perspective, it's not so bad for it to survive for another 10 years or so like this.

Until North Korea dies, South Korea is the one that needs to go through all that trouble for the next 10 years. Each time North Korea needs a painkiller, South Korea will have to deal with its mess. It is a pity.

Internal Dissension within North Korea

But in my view, there is no small conflict on interest between different generations within North Korea. The top leadership ranks of North Korea are all very old - generally over 70 years old.

Because these old foagies will die at around the same time as Kim Jong-Il, they locked in with Kim Jong-Il's steps. At any rate, Kim Jong-Il would have taken care of those old foagies who did not lock in.

These people prefer to endure on painkillers until they die, since they won't have much longer to live anyway. They are the proponents of the hard-line stance of North Korea.

But the younger generation is different, as they have a different day to die from those of the North Korean leadership. They think it is better to take the major operation if there is only about ten years to live. Right now they are silenced because they do not have the core authority, but internally there is much discontent.

But even this younger generation probably would not help South Korea either. Since they are desperate for the operation, they are just as unpredictable as to what they might do if South Korea told them, "No operation is coming."

Greater Risk in No Pre-Announcement

It must be noted that this nuclear testing was conducted without any pre-announcement unlike the first testing. There was a very long prelude before the first nuclear testing. I am personally thankful that this time, I did not have to stay at work until midnight for a whole week. But the problem is this type of action poses a greater risk.

In 2006, the testing came after several days of screaming, "Let me have the operation and nobody gets hurt!" But this time, there was no such preface, getting right into action without any hollering. It looks almost as if they give up on the operation, although one could interpret it as North Korea running out of patience as its core starts rotting in.

In short, North Korea simply decided to increase its holdings without regards to anything else. They must be thinking: "This is the end game. We need to maximize what we have, and there is no need to think about anyone else."

Previously North Korea's attitude was, "This is all I got, so could I please get something out of it? Please?" But now the attitude has changed to, "After all, only a lot of money (assets) can buy the major operation," or "Even if I die, my children need to be protected with more assets." Alternatively, North Korea may have been thinking "I will earn some time to gather assets" already since it conducted a nuclear test in 2006 and participated in the six-party talk.

It is exceedingly difficult to take away entire assets of someone who is totally dedicated to increasing those assets without heeding anything else. In other words, the price that America must pay to have North Korea give up nuclear weapon is rising by the day.

Why the Bomb during a Funeral?

I believe the date for the nuclear testing was already decided when North Korea announced that it will hold the trial for American reporters on June 4. By their calculation, it would have tested the nuke on May 25, American Memorial Day, then would give about a week for the international society to have their chatter. After that chatter, North Korean would show the trial card, asking "Now that you are done talking, what would you do about this?"

But then the funeral [of ex-president Roh] happened in South Korea. The national funeral ends at the 29th. North Korea does care about South Korea's public opinion, but testing on the 29th means they have to use up the reporter trial card while the angry chatter is going on in the world. In other words, North Korea would waste a useful card within the din of post-nuclear test. But postponing the trial just for that would look bad. From its own perspective, North Korea tries to keep its word, although North Korea's interpretation of its word is often different from anyone else's.

My view is that North Korea thought about South Korea for a second, then went ahead with the testing because its plans would be ruined. It is not as if North Korea has enough leeway to care what South Korea at any rate.

Furthermore, North Korea right now playing a game with the U.S., not with South Korea. It must have calculated: "Bush looked like he was going to kill us when we tested nuke, but he ended up taking us off the state sponsor of terrorism list anyway. So what would you do, Obama? Wouldn't you eventually extend a hand?"

I meant to write something short but it ended up being long and rambling. I will conclude by wishing wisdom for our government as it responds to the current situation.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

A Retrospective: Former President Roh Moo-Hyun, 1946-2009

Roh Moo-Hyun: an Unlikely Life

I do not believe that humans have a pre-destined path in their lives. I do, however, believe that when humans are born, they all have the most likely path for their lives. If a person is born to loving, happy parents with sufficient financial resources and enough care to educate and nurture, it is most likely that she will live an easy, happy life. That’s not a surprise. Similarly, if a person is born to a hateful, broken family without any money and any desire to provide education, it is most likely that he will live a difficult, unhappy life. That is not a surprise either.

What makes human condition interesting are the turns and deviations from that most likely path. It is even more interesting when those turns are consciously made into a direction that provides the most resistance. In fact, it is those turns that define our lives.

Throughout his life, Roh Moo-Hyun often chose to make the most unlikely and drastic turn away from his likely path of life. And truly, those turns made him what he is.

Roh Moo-Hyun was born on September 1, 1946, at Bong-Ha village near Gimhae, Korea. The only claim to fame that Bong-Ha had was its dreary reputation – “a place where crows turn away because there is nothing to eat.” His parents were mere peasants. Roh almost did not enter middle school because his family could not pay the tuition. Roh would not have gone to high school had he not received a full scholarship at his high school – he was preparing for a civil service exam after graduating middle school. He never went to college.

After graduating high school, after applying for and failing to get a job several times, Roh built a hut made of dirt in a nearby mountain, and began studying for the bar on his own. Apparently it took him around 10 years to make it (seven if you discount the military service,) but he did – he passed the bar in 1975, when he was 29.

Roh’s passing the bar needs to be put in perspective. Korean bar in 1975 was not like Korean bar in 2009, and most definitely not like American bar in 2009. Out of the thousands who take the bar exam, only the top 500 are allowed to pass per year. Because there were so few attorneys, becoming a lawyer was an automatic path to power and prosperity. Back in those days, when you passed the bar, your elders would bow to you and call you yeonggamnim – “old man”, an unthinkable thing to do in a Confucian society like Korean in any other situation. And here is a guy who never went to college, took any prep courses or had any tutoring passing that exam. He nonetheless managed to be one of Korea’s top 500, and forged himself a way out of poverty and into wealth and power. This was the first significant turn in Roh’s life away from its pre-determined course.

But the second turn in Roh’s life would involve willingly throwing away that wealth and power he managed to achieve. Roh was appointed to be a judge, but he quit after only serving 8 months. Then for several years he was in private practice, specializing in tax law. He came to nearly monopolize every major estate tax cases in Busan area, earning plenty of money for a very comfortable life. His hobbies included yachting.

In 1981, twenty-two Busan-area people who were known for their democratization activities were arrested and subjected to tortures such as beating, waterboarding and electrocution for as long as 63 days, in an effort to frame them as communist rebels. Prosecution claimed they plotted to overthrow the government and indicted them with charges of treason that carried sentences as long as 10 years in prison.

Remember, this is only one year removed from May 18 Democratization Movement, when the Chun Doo-Hwan dictatorship killed 151 civilians protesting for democracy and sentenced 7 more to death for insurrection and treason. It was clear to everyone in Korea at that time that torture and death was always a possibility for those who opposed the dictatorship. But that did not stop Roh, who represented the defendants pro bono. Since then, Roh began to be known as a human rights and democratization activist prominent enough that at one point, the National Prosecutor’s Office sought an arrest warrant for him four times over a single night.

[Roh during Burim Incident representation (right)]

Democracy began to take root in Korea, as the dictator Chun Doo-Hwan capitulated to the wave and waves of protest and promised to hold a free election after his term ended in 1987. As a major player in organizing those protests, Roh made his way to National Assembly (= Congress) in 1988. He gained further renown by indignantly throwing his name plaque at former president Chun during a National Assembly hearing concerning the Gwangju massacre in 1987 – Roh was the original shoe thrower before Muntadhar Al-Zaidi. Again, Roh’s star was rising in a way that was unimaginable had he merely stayed as a lawyer in Busan who earned a comfortable living.

[Roh objecting during a National Assembly hearing]

Even after President Chun stepped down, the following president was hardly any better: President Roh Tae-Woo was a right hand man to Chun, and won his election mostly because the democratization forces could not agree upon a single presidential candidate, splitting the anti-dictatorship votes among the three most prominent democratization leaders: Kim Young-Sam, Kim Dae-Jung and Kim Jong-Pil, known as the “three Kims”. Therefore, regardless of the election, Roh Tae-Woo had about as much legitimacy as Chun Doo-Hwan for most democratization activists. However, Kim Young-Sam and Kim Jong-Pil made a deal with the devil in 1990. They agreed to merge their parties with Roh Tae-Woo’s such that they can ensure their own road to the presidency after then-president Roh stepped down.

But once again, Roh Moo-Hyun turned his life away from its most likely course – and this is perhaps the turn that eventually made him the president. Roh belonged to Kim Young-Sam’s party, and Roh’s stature rose as Kim Young-Sam’s did. The three-party merger all but guaranteed Kim Young-Sam’s coming presidency. Roh’s path of least resistance surely was to follow Kim Young-Sam.

But Roh did not, and his political life suffered as a consequence. Roh would lose his seat in 1992. He would run for different elected offices in 1995, 1996 and 2000, only to lose again, again and again. (He did serve as a National Assemblyman in a truncated term between 1998 and 2000, when he took over the seat of an Assemblyman who resigned amidst an investigation for elections law violation. The resigned Assemblyman was none other than the current president Lee Myeong-Bak.) However, Roh’s efforts did not go unnoticed: Roh perhaps is the first Korean politician to have a self-generated fan club, established in 2000.

The Significance of Presidential Election of 2002

Despite all this, it is fair to say that Roh was given a very small chance to win in the presidential election of 2002. To understand why, it is necessary to understand how political parties operated in Korea until that time.

In essence, political parties in Korea have been (and to a degree still are) an organizational vehicle for certain individuals to achieve and maintain political power. An important corollary to this definition is that political parties were not organized along any meaningful ideology or a set of policies. Broadly speaking, one could say there have been two large streams of political ideology in Korea – pro-dictatorship parties and democratization activist parties. However, as exemplified in the three-party merger in 1990, those distinctions did not mean much as long as power was to be had.

In practice, this means that an average Korean did not have a lot of say in an election. The boss of the party tightly controlled the process of who may run under the party slate. And in any election, a candidate without the organizational and financial strength provided by a political always faced nearly certain defeat. This applied to the presidential elections as well. The bosses of the party chose who would be the candidates of the election (usually themselves), and voters were expected to show up and choose one or the other.

This all changed in 2002, when the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), to which Roh belonged, decided that it would hold American-style primaries to choose its presidential candidate. The idea certainly had a gimmicky feel to it – then-president Kim Dae-Jung, the boss of the MDP, was not very popular at the end of his term, and MDP’s repeat appeared to be a long shot. The candidate for the opposing Grand National Party (GNP) was Lee Hoi-Chang, the same guy who lost to Kim Dae-Jung five years previously; each of Kim’s failure served as a reminder that Korean people could have chosen Lee five years ago. MDP needed something to turn the tide that appeared to be heading toward GNP’s way.

On the other hand, however, I submit that first, American-style primary elections are good for Korean democracy, and second, GNP would have never done it first. GNP is a party born out of the three-party merger. At that point it still counted as its members many cronies of the military dictatorship. (In fact, a GNP Assemblyman, a former prosecutor, tortured an MDP Assemblymen, a former democratization activist, before they won their seats.) While GNP had many worthy members at that time, the anti-democratic legacy of the party was still too pervasive for it to take a bold step like primary elections.

Before the primary elections, GNP’s boss was Lee Hoi-Chang, and it was obvious that Lee would run. But because the boss of MDP was the outgoing president, it was not very clear who would run in the presidential election. It was widely presumed that Lee In-Je, a heavyweight politician who had the most control of MDP’s insider politics, would come out to oppose Lee Hoi-Chang. Roh Moo-Hyun, at that point the Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, was not considered to be a serious threat. Although Roh was gaining popularity, he was hardly a national figure; few in MDP considered him to be a leader of the party.

Oh, how Roh proved them wrong. Beginning in March 2001, Roh embarked upon the most magnificent president campaign in Korean history. (Although it must be granted that the history of campaign strategy in Korea is really not very long.) Roh’s campaign was so beautiful that I can’t help but smile whenever I think about it. Recently, Josh Tucker of the blog Silver Screen and Roll described Kobe Bryant this way: “[Kobe] has the most complete, versatile, and polished skill set in the NBA. Pull-up jumper, leaner, runner, floater, fadeaway, fallaway, midrange, long-range, close-range, pump fake, jab step, up-and-under, dunk, layup, left hand, right hand, face-up, post-up, driving, elevating, strength, savvy, power, finesse, balance, body control, footwork. Bryant can do it all.”

Similarly, Roh’s campaign had everything that a good presidential campaign should have. My own list of a successful campaign is not nearly as exhaustive as the list of basketball skills above, but here are some essential things that a successful campaign has: vision, charisma, fundraising, speechmaking, connectability, relentlessness, ground-level organization, trench warfare. (I am certain I am missing a few – I am happy to take suggestions.) Do everything above well, and you win elections.

[Roh during 2002 presidential campaign]

Roh’s campaign was a thing of beauty because it had everything. It offered a grand vision for the people – a “society where rules apply equally and where common sense works”. The image of Roh’s illustrious career provided much more charismatic dynamism compared to Lee, who was older and appeared to be more wooden. Roh’s speechmaking ability was well-renowned before and throughout his presidency. Roh’s campaign television ad, showing him simply playing a guitar and singing, became an instant sensation – here is a guy we can relate to, voters thought, instead of that other guy who does not seem to have anything in common with an average person. Roh had an inspired group of fans who took care of finances and ground battles, as donations though “Piggy Banks of Hope” would generate a large and clean source of campaign finance. And when it came time to get down and dirty, Lee Hoi-Chang was hit with the allegations that his son was a draft-dodger.

The brilliance of Roh’s campaign was in stark contrast to those of his opponents’, who were still stuck in a basketball game without the three-second rule, the shot clock and the three-point line, so to speak. Lee In-Je used the tried-and-true method of accusing Roh as a communist sympathizer by pointing out that Roh’s father-in-law was a known communist. However, Roh’s simple retort – “So you want me to drop my wife to become the president?” – instantly showed the hackneyed state of that tactic, and the hackneyed state of Lee In-Je who dared to use that tactic. GNP belatedly implemented its own primary elections trying to replicate the buzz that Roh created by winning them, but GNP’s primaries only appeared formalistic and feeble when Lee Hoi-Chang won them all with no real opposition.

In explaining Roh’s victory, many focus on the a few events that appeared to give Roh an edge that he perhaps did not deserve, such as the draft-dodging scandal for Lee Hoi-Chang’s son or the strong wave of anti-Americanism in 2002 following the armored vehicle incident. But this is too narrow of a view. In a fairly conducted national election, victory is never achieved by tactics alone. To be sure, well-executed tactics are essential for victory. However, at the end of the day, the winner of a democratic election does so by following the mandate of the democratic system – that is, by delivering what the electorate wants.

Roh did not win the election through deception or trickery, as his opponents are quick to conclude. Roh won because ultimately, he delivered what Korean people wanted. All the items listed above do not mean anything unless they resonate with the electorate. In particular, Roh’s vision was exactly what Koreans have craved – a society in which rules apply equally and common sense worked. Roh also offered many other things that Korean people wanted in their political lives. Korean people wanted more control in the democracy that they won. In the three previous presidential elections before 2002, Korean people have little say in who becomes the candidate – that process was all done behind closed doors among powerful people. But now, Korean people can directly jump into deciding who will run for the president, and can finance that candidate directly. This participation gave much more legitimacy to Roh compared to any other presidential candidate in the history of Korea.

Roh’s election was not simply a success for himself – it was a success for Korean democracy. By electing Kim Dae-Jung in 1997, Korean democracy already proved that it can peacefully transfer power from one side of the politics, which originally had all the power through military dictatorship, to the other side of the politics which originally had no power at all. Now, within nine years since 1992 (or within 14 years since 1987, if Roh Tae-Woo’s legitimacy is to be charitably considered,) the election of Roh Moo-Hyun showed that the power transfer was not an ephemeral event that could be taken away through rigged elections or a military coup. Roh’s election proved that democracy was truly here to stay in Korea.

The Roh Presidency: the Good and the Bad, the What and the How

Popular perception of the Roh presidency prior to Roh’s death was that it was an unmitigated disaster. I don’t believe that is the case. Although the media pendulum has swung too much to the other direction since Roh’s death by glorifying everything about Roh, it was undeniable that Roh did have a few significant achievements during his presidency.

First, it is fair to say that the decks were stacked against Roh from the very beginning. Although Roh was the president, the existing power structure did not favor him. GNP was only slightly weakened during the Kim Dae-Jung presidency, and its organization retained its strength. On the other than, Roh was an outsider even within MDP, lacking the strength of his own organization. In practical terms, this meant that high governmental positions were filled with relatively younger people with no real governance experience, because anyone in Korea who did have such experience gained that experience by surviving in the military dictatorship. Mostly due to this, the Roh administration frequently suffered from severe incompetence on the ministerial level.

In the same vein, it was extremely unlikely that Roh would receive a fair shake from the major newspapers. These newspapers survived the authoritarian era by serving as the bullhorn of the dictatorship. Even after democratization, the three largest newspapers of Korea – Chosun, JoongAng and Dong-A – tended to lean toward the conservative side of Korean politics. Thus, it was difficult for Roh to implement his policies and receive a fair assessment of the success or failure of those policies.

Nonetheless, Roh did have a few significant achievements, and it must be noted that those achievements tended to be against his own interest. Perhaps the most significant was a considerable weakening of the power held by the National Prosecutor’s Office. The Prosecutor’s Office, at its worst, was truly the “dogs of the power” as it was known among Korean people. It was always willing to move at the president’s direction, striking the opposition with arbitrary charges of treason and insurrection. By weakening that office, Roh rid himself a major instrument for silencing his critics.

Roh administration also pushed for and entered into a free trade agreement with the United States in favorable terms, although his major supporters, particularly unions, staunchly opposed the agreement. (This would later come to haunt the succeeding Lee Myeong-Bak administration in a major way through in the form of beef protests.) Despite his reputation as an anti-Americanist, Roh cooperated with the U.S. when it clearly favored Korea’s interest regardless of the opposition from his supporters, e.g. by sending Korean troops to Iraq.

But Roh’s crowning achievement as the president is not what he did do, but what he did not do. Again, Roh reduced his own power by weakening the Prosecutor’s Office. Similarly, Roh never used any governmental body as an instrument of power. Here is what one needs to understand about Korea: it is a society in which every important person is at least a little bit corrupt. That’s what happens if a country spends decades under dictatorships and behind-closed-doors political economy. Therefore, if a person in power really wants to mess with you, all she needs to do is to sic a law enforcement agency and attempt to apply the law in the strictest sense. A Korean adage describes this situation perfectly: “Dust falls from everyone if beaten hard enough.” For those in power in Korea, silencing their critics is easy: pursue anyone hard enough, and sooner or later some illegality will dust up that will land her in jail.

But Roh never did any of this. There was never any dubious prosecution of his political opponents. No midnight raids on the political groups that he did not like. No harassing tax audit by National Tax Service on companies that he did not like. No secret dossier compiled on individuals by the National Intelligence Service. These are all the things that Roh’s predecessors did to varying degrees (not to mention torture and mass murder,) but Roh stayed away from them. The conservative press screamed bloody murder when Roh, enraged by constant negative coverage (some of which, I do agree, he surely deserved,) shut down the pressroom in the Blue House – conveniently forgetting that 20 years ago, they would have faced tax audit, jail time or disbandment of their company under the conservative presidents/dictators with whom they curried favor. Roh could have made his enemies’ lives much more miserable, but he did not. Instead, he trusted that the democratic process would work itself out. He sat tight during his impeachment based on tenuous charges, and he obeyed the judiciary when the Constitutional Court shot down the crown jewel of his domestic policy – the Administrative Capital – in an extremely dubious ruling.

This achievement alone puts Roh away from the harsh assessment of utter failure. In fact, one can argue that Roh was one of the top three among the eight presidents that Republic of Korea has had, excluding the current one. Seriously, who would you take above Roh? Syngman Rhee, the guy who rigged numerous elections and appointed himself to be the lifetime president? Yoon Bo-seon or Choe Gyu-Ha, men who never had the chops to defend Korea’s democracy and their own power against military coups? Chun Doo-Hwan and his right-hand man Roh Tae-Woo, who usurped power with military and were responsible for killing hundreds in Gwangju and many more? Kim Young-Sam, who oversaw the greatest economic calamity in the history of modern Korea?

Weighing against the foregoing positive points, Roh’s presidency contained no major disaster. Economy grew at a reasonable pace. No major physical accidents like a collapsed department store, a crumbled bridge or an exploding gas main that killed hundreds. (These things all happened in Korea previously.) Relationship with North Korea improved, and there was no major militaristic saber rattling from the North as it happened before and after Roh’s presidency. (Although it must be noted that North Korea acquired nuclear weapon during Roh’s presidency.) Transparency in government improved greatly as well.

One may ask, what about the bribery scandal? I readily concede that it was no small affair. Much of Roh’s authority hinged on the moral superiority of his position compared to his opposition. So it is indeed significant when Roh and his family did in fact receive $6 million – certainly no small amount – as a bribe. But this needs to be put in perspective. Roh is not blameless, but his blame must be proportionate to his crime.

If you were the president of a major industrial nation who is bent on corruption, wouldn’t you earn more than $6 million? After all, $6 million buys all of three luxury condos in the posh part of Seoul. That’s the best that a president can do? And surely, the predecessors of Roh outdid him by several degrees of magnitude. Chun Doo-Hwan collected $1 billion in his slush fund (assuming $1 = 1,000 won,) and this was in the 1980s dollar that is worth twice as much as today. Roh Tae-Woo collected $500 million in slush fund during his presidency. Kim Young-Sam’s son collected $20 million. Even as recently as 2002, in Lee Hoi-Chang and the Grand National Party received $80 million in bribes to use in the election.

Why does the amount of bribe matter? It matters because the larger the bribe, the greater is the impact of corruption. Roh’s $6 million came from one owner of one mid-sized company. On its own, that bribery does not pose a systematic risk to Korea. But when the slush fund is $1 billion, the bribe must come from all corners of Korean economy – in other words, the harmful effects of bribery become much more pervasive. Simply put, the damages caused by Roh’s predecessor’s briberies are far greater than the damages caused by Roh’s bribery.

Also, it is important not to overstate the argument that the $6 million was much more damaging because Roh made his moral superiority the hallmark of his administration. Bribery is something that is not supposed to happen, regardless of whether or not a politician stated his intent not to accept bribery. Stating, “Hey, I never said I wouldn’t take bribes!” does not reduce the culpability of a bribe-taker. It is most certainly true that Roh was a liar when he repeated time and again that his administration was squeaky-clean. He deserved all the reputational damage that followed the investigation. But it was more than a little ironic that GNP, a party that received more than 13 times greater amount of bribe in 2002 in the form of literally truckloads of cash boxes, crowed in delight as if to say, “See? See?? You are no better than us!”

Having said that, it would be foolish to be blind to the many failures of the Roh presidency. He was generally a poor diplomat who did not always have a smooth relationship with the U.S., Korea’s most important ally. It is also fair to say that Korea’s economy grew during his term despite his economic policy rather than thanks to it, as Roh’s policies focused more on distribution rather than growth, e.g., the extremely harsh property tax on the homeowners on certain ritzy parts of Seoul.

But the greatest failure of Roh was that he created a toxic partisan environment in which he relied on the small number of ardent supporters push through his agenda while alienating the greater public. In such a situation, successes during Roh’s presidency became discounted, while failures during Roh’s presidency – however attenuated Roh’s involvement is – were magnified. Toward the end of presidency, it was a common half-serious joke that if your toilet backed up, it was Roh Moo-Hyun’s fault.

The creation of this environment is directly attributable to Roh’s faulty governing style. This style came about because of the simple truth – revolutionaries make lousy politicians. Roh Moo-Hyun was a revolutionary, and he failed to make the transition from being a revolutionary to being a mainstream politician.

The skill set required for being a successful revolutionary is completely different from the skill set required for being a successful politician. A revolutionary works outside the system. His power depends on denying any legitimacy of the opposition; indeed, a revolutionary must destroy the opposition, for they do not fit the new world order that the revolutionary seeks to achieve. On the other hand, a politician must begin by recognizing the legitimacy of the opposition – however unpalatable the opposition is – because negotiation with the opponent is essential in order to get anything done in a democracy.

In a sense, Roh was the most successful democratization revolutionary in the history of Korea. As such, Roh had the skill set to become the most successful revolutionary. His eloquent yet lashing style of speech was legendary; he was always happy to bypass the established lines of communication and speak directly to the people; he never compromised with his opposition, be they the military dictators or the former revolutionaries who co-opted with the dictators. These are the traits that made Roh into the president.

Yet what made Roh also unmade him. It was perhaps too much to ask for the most successful revolutionary to abandon the traits that made him successful. Roh never could make that transition, and the traits that once served as a tremendous advantage for Roh now served as a massive detriment. Roh continued to speak in an unrestrained manner, reducing his stature and providing fodder for the opposition. He relentlessly mocked and demonized the opposition, taking away GNP’s last remaining inclination to compromise. Whenever Roh sensed that he was in a pinch, he sought to communicate directly to the people, at one point going so far as to propose a referendum for his presidency. Instead of achieving the desired effect, these antics simply tired out the electorate. People living in democracy are busy – they elect leaders so that they don’t have to think about politics all the time. Roh’s actions ran directly counter to that fundamental (if less recognized) desire in democracy.

In essence, Roh’s governing style combined the worst elements of Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, two of the worst American presidents since World War II. Jimmy Carter ran as an outsider like Roh, railing against the corruption of Richard Nixon presidency. Yet Carter, like Roh, never made the transition from outsider to insider, and his governance was rendered impotent because of that. George W. Bush thought winning an election was enough to push through a highly partisan agenda without consulting the opposition at all. In politics, how you do matters as much as what you do. The things that Roh did (and did not) do are no less significant than the achievements of any other president in Korean history. But it was how Roh did them that set himself up to be a failure.

Death of Roh: Korea’s Tragedy

Perhaps Korea was due for a president like Roh Moo-Hyun. Korea achieved democracy through a series of small revolutions. It would have been strange for Korea to not have a president who made his career as a revolutionary. But like a great individual can change the course of her life away from its most likely path, a great leader can change the course of her nation away from its most likely path as well. While grand historical narratives are always important, one must never lose sight of the fact that individuals matter in history. A great leader can transcend the reflection of the nation upon her, and instead make the nation a reflection of her. Roh Moo-Hyun failed to do this as the president. He was the reflection of Korea that unflinchingly fought for democracy. But during his presidency, he could not transcend that history of Korea.

However, Roh still had one more chance to transcend another aspect of Korea, for simply being who he is. Because of Korea’s checkered history of closed-door politics and corruption, there has never been a single Korean president who had a dignified post-presidency life. Syngman Rhee was exiled; Yoon Bo-Seon and Choi Gyu-Ha lost their presidency in military coup; Park Chung-Hee was assassinated; Chun Doo-Hwan and Roh Tae-Woo were tried and jailed for treason; Kim Young-Sam and Kim Dae-Jung could not escape the corruption scandals of his sons and confidants.

But not Roh Moo-Hyun. Indeed, Roh clearly showed the sign that a happy, dignified post-presidency life was completely within his reach. He simply went back to his native Bong-Ha village and became a village elder. He came out and waved at tourists who came to visit until the crowd became too large and posed a security threat. He still wrote on his website, but did not interfere with the day-to-day politics very much. He led small projects like beautifying the landscape around the village.

Indeed, this is exactly what Korea needed. Korea achieved democracy, but it has yet to have a full democratic narrative in which an ordinary person comes to power, serves his country with that power, and peacefully return to being ordinary after his term is over. Roh was not a very good president because he could not change who he was. But in post-presidency, Roh could have achieved the last leg of the democratic narrative by simply being exactly who he was. As Jimmy Carter exemplifies, while revolutionaries do not make a good president, they make a heck of an ex-president. Ex-presidents are once again outside of the political system, but this time with much dignity and symbolic authority. Because they lack an actual authority, their revolutionary excesses do not become implemented, while their revolutionary idealism serves as an inspiration. Roh was only 63. He had at least 10 good years in him to serve as a symbol of how Korean democracy managed to produce a president who had no political machine to his name, no insider clout and no college education. Over time, people would have forgotten how Roh conducted his business and come to focus on Roh’s achievements themselves. Roh only had to be himself – the revolutionary who steadfastly clung to the principles of transparency and democracy.

[Roh driving around his grandaughter in Bong-Ha village.]

But now we know that Roh was not being himself. He took bribes, however relatively small, just like the opposition that he denounced for being corrupt. For the record, I do not begrudge the investigation. The Roh supporters who blame the Lee administration for vigorously pursuing Roh’s corruption scandal are being shortsighted. Truth is always better than cover-up, and the truth was that Roh did something that he should not have done.

Truth also hurts. The loss of moral authority following the bribery scandal was a mortal wound for Roh not because it recast his achievements in a different light; it was because it eliminated the possibility of Roh achieving anything more in his life. That apparently was enough for Roh to decide that he did not have enough to live for. It was a tragic choice for both himself and for Korea. He lost his life, and Korea lost a valuable chance of having a full and complete democratic narrative.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

While the Korean was away for the long weekend, two huge events happened in Korea.

1. Former President Roh Moo-Hyun committed suicide.
2. North Korea tested another nuclear bomb.

The Korean's thoughts will follow.

Ask a Korean! News: May 18

Today is May 18, the 29th anniversary of the May 18 Democratization Movement.

29 years is not a huge number of years. America in 1980 was not really, truly different from America in 2009. Of course, there definitely have been some major changes, such as end of Cold War, September 11, significant advancement in gay rights, the first black president, etc. But for an average American, the life in 1980 was about the same as the life in 2009.

Not so in Korea. And few things remind that fact as starkly as May 18. On May 18, 1980, several hundred citizens of Gwangju were killed while protesting for democracy. Movie Hwaryeohan Hyuga (literally: The Lush Holiday, English title: May 18) captures the events on May 18 in Gwangju. Hwaryeohan Hyuga was the operation code name for the Korean Special Forces who were sent to kill the Korean citizens who sought to vindicate their rights.

Below is the Korean's translation of an article by Mr. Kim Yong-Gil, a reporter for Dong-A Ilbo. The article discusses the movie May 18, and in the process describes Korea was like mere 29 years ago. Original article in Korean is available here.

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1. Framing the News

The media that conveys news creates and edits news stories through a certain frame. The title of the news story itself is the frame through which the news is viewed. The framing of referring an XX incident as “OO satae” [satae = “incident”, with a slightly negative connotation] is itself an editing process.

The recipients of news naturally take the perspective of the news frame as they experience the stories of the world. They would prick their ears and concentrate on stories that would benefit them as good information. On the other hand, they would furrow their brows at news that are negative, shocking, or harmful to their current situations. In short, it is human nature to react positively at something that goes toward to one’s interests, and negatively at something that goes against one’s interests.

A news frame reflects a society’s mainstream values. It is a projection of popular sentiment, and the standard for measuring the value of a news story. It also reflects a society’s intellectual maturity. A society in which individualistic values are guaranteed while individual human rights and democracy are harmonized and communitarian order is taking root has various types of news frame. A number of small frames function together and communicated well in such a society.

Which member of the society drives the news frame in modern society? It is not difficult to see that the mainstream media initially sets the frame and offers the issues. In other words, journalists – the creator of news stories – takes the initiative in the communication of news stories.

2. “Gwangju Satae”

For a long time, the democratization movement from May 18 to May 27, 1980, in which the citizens of Gwangju, the centre of Honam region, engaged as they demanded rescinding the state of emergency and resignation of Chun Doo-Hwan, was referred to as “Gwangju Satae”. Until a special act concerning the “May 18 Democratization Movement” was passed in 1995, Korean society simply referred to it as Gwangju Satae. Calling an incident a “OO satae” carries a rather negative connotation in Korea – it usually refers to a situation that should not have happened for a social progress.

The National Assembly of the Republic of Korea designated it as “May 18 Democratization Movement” as it passed the Special Act in 1995. In 1997, May 18 Democratization Movement was set as a national memorial day, and history textbooks refer to it as its official name. But until then, the situation of the ten days between May 17 and May 27, 1980 was shrouded in the law of silence. The military junta in power in 1980 set the oppressive frame that “Anyone who speaks of Gwangju is an instigator of treasonous mutiny.”

During that time, even the mainstream media had to shut its mouth. The media repeated like a parrot for those ten days, “The spies receiving orders from the North Korean puppet government infiltrated Gwangju and combined forces with the mob bent on causing social unrest. They have taken over the city and causing anarchy, threatening the citizens.”

3. May 18 Democratization Movement

The new military junta led by Chun Doo-Hwan [“new” as opposed to Park Chung-Hee’s “old” junta], having controlled the military following the December 12 incident, engaged in the strictest control of the media throughout the State of Emergency. During that time, the editors of newspapers around Gwanghwamun had to carry the first cut of the pages of which they are in charge to the City Hall. Only after the Media Censor Officer of the Emergency Forces stamped his seal of approval could the editors actually print the newspaper. The stories censored by the Media Censor Officer had to be lifted away from the print. Any news in relation to Gwangju was completely censored; in their stead, the New Junta’s propaganda took place.

These incredible stories are true events of 1980. Newspaper and television had no choice to follow the “reporting guidelines”, ostensibly set up for national security, in the face of the armed authority of the State of Emergency Forces. The media of that time was wholly parrots of the military regime. At the same time, unimaginable things happened in Gwangju for ten days in May.

Once Gwangju was branded with “Gwangju Satae”, the city was caught in the middle of regional bias and negative images for the next several decades. The former frame of viewing Gwangju’s May 18 Democratization Movement has persisted in the form of extreme prejudice, “a bloody riot caused by Communist mobs” until recently. The backward “armband politics” of the military in power, boasting its political prowess by cutting down a particularly region within this tiny little country, was an unbelievable regression of history.

Through the one-sided propaganda by the usurping New Junta and the conscripted media, “May in Gwangju” became a confusion in which the victim became the aggressor, the citizens’ right of self-protection became the mob’s madness, and an expression of conscience became an incitement of social unrest.



The movie is Hwaryeohan Hyuga, opened in 2007 and directed by Kim Ji-Hoon. The movie revives on the screen the dark period during which truth was buried and only the oppressive news frame was conveyed to the people. This is the story of the ten days that happened in Korea, 29 years ago.

4. Whey They Picked Up Guns

May 18 is a story of the citizen army who stood up against the Emergency Forces’ indiscriminate and bloody oppression. The Emergency Forces soldiers swing merciless clubs at college students who raised issues with the New Junta’s usurpation of the government. Even the regular citizens, protesting such cruel suppression in the wayside, cannot escape the club. The rows of student and citizen protesters grow the next day. Somewhere, the national anthem began to play through the loudspeaker, and the protesting citizens all salute to the flag. Using this as a signal, the M-16 muzzles of the Emergency Forces lined on the Geumnam Road in Gwangju spit fire. This is all real. The Emergency Forces, belonging to the same country and the same people, began firing at will against unarmed civilian protesters. The protesters were someone’s father, uncle, brother, sister, son, nephews and nieces.

The movie, which cost $10 million, does not depict the volatile changes in the political landscape of 1980. Instead, it calmly shows the citizens’ regular peaceful lives, and how those regular lives are utterly destroyed. According to the testimonies of those who experienced firsthand the May in Gwangju, the movie’s level of expression is far below the reality of the day.

May 18 did not aspire to be a documentary. Although it is slightly melodramatic, it solemnly reveals that the state’s violence can instantly destroy the citizens’ lives in that manner. The story line is not very intricate. The camera does not try to untangle the larger historical and political spool, but instead limits itself to the regular lives of ordinary citizens.

When a brother who just finished a conversation comes back as a dead body on a rickshaw, the protesters arm themselves out of the desperation that everyone will die unless they protect Gwangju for themselves. They become a citizen army. Civilian homes send food, and uniformed high school students volunteer to fight.

5. Isolation of Gwangju

The intellectuals and writers throughout the 1980s felt conscious or subconscious guilt toward May in Gwangju. This guilt toward Gwangju originates from the feeling of helplessness, that they remained silent against the state’s violence in that city – that, as they remained silent while recognizing the issue, they kneeled in false comfort and hypocrisy.

Gwangju is not a special city at all. It is no different from any other city in Korea. That Gwangju thirsted for news from outside for those ten days in May. In searing thirst, they waited for the news that said, “The citizens of Gwangju are not alone! Our city also protests against the oppression by the New Junta! Stop killing the citizens of Gwangju! Gwangju citizens are not rioting mobs! Emergency Forces go home!”

But such news never came. The city would never hear a single piece of news that accurately reflected its situation. The entire non-Gwangju Republic of Korea already branded Gwangju as “a city of riots”. Every frame of the media was “riots”.

Gwangju was utterly isolated. The only thing that did come to the city that was cut off from outside while standing up against the powers that usurped the government was the burning red mark that said, “Communist mobs”. “Do you know how it feels to just branded some way… without being able to say anything…”

6. Branding the City of Riots

The scarlet letter of “Communist” is an eternal designation of “the other” in Korean society – they are the sworn enemy who cannot share the same heaven. The seal of Communist, applied by those in power to the resisting citizenry, is the most ultimate weapon.

The beginning of April 19 Revolution was the two protests in Masan. Sparked by the body of young student Kim Ju-Yeol, floating in Masan Central Harbor where the police hid the body after killing him, the Masan protests burned strongly. Immediately, the Syngman Rhee regime called it an incitement by red Communist fifth-columnists. Eventually, President Rhee resigned on April 26, and the family of Vice President Ki-Boong Rhee committed mass suicide.

Raising the specter of red scare was a constant presence in each important phase of Korean political history. The power lacking in legitimacy constantly attempts to find a spot to paint in red. The people and the families of those people who were the only ones who resisted when the military boots were trampling the truth had to live in silence after Gwangju, as if they were sinners of the era. The irony that citizens must submerge in silence the marks of exercising its civic consciousness! The fragile and weak civil society of Korea finally germinates after the June Democratization Protests of 1987.

In the ten days of Gwangju’s May 18 Democratization Movement, 165 died. Their average age was 27. They included 13 college students, 11 high school students, 6 middle school students and 2 elementary school students. 65 people were missing. 376 died later from the injury that they suffered. In 2005, 25 years later, the representative groups of the victims of May 18 announce the first statistics that they formally collected jointly. According to the announcement, the number of May 18-related deaths is 606, including those who died from severe injury sustained during the time. Emergency Forces had 23 casualties, 14 of which died in friendly fire between the Special Forces and the National Guard. 1,394 citizens were arrested, 427 were indicted, 7 were convicted for death penalty and 12 were convicted for life in prison.

7. Please Don’t Forget Us

The last scene of May 18, directed by a Daegu-born director, depicts the last moments of the citizen army, perfectly isolated from the outside world, defending the provincial Capitol while consoling each other over walkie-talkies. The battle between the citizen army and the Emergency Forces is a one-sided game. They wanted to communicate with someone even as they died, but no one could get to them. The lonely walkie-talkie is held in the hands of the dead.

They must have been so lonely.
Shouldn’t we, the people who have survived, be sorry for their crushing loneliness in the face of death?

The commander in chief of this operation of bloody massacre is doing just fine in Yeonhee-dong, holding onto his “290 dollars”. It is still a mystery how the firing order came down, how they terrorized the burgeoning democracy to submission. There are people who still keep their mouths shut.

Lee Yo-Won, playing the heroine nurse of the movie, began broadcasting over the loudspeakers in the heart of the night. “Fellow citizens! The Emergency Forces are invading downtown Gwangju now. Our beloved brothers, our beloved sisters are dying at the guns and knives of the Emergency Forces. Let us all fight against the Emergency Forces to the end. We will defend Gwangju to death. Please don’t forget us. We will fight until the very end. Fellow citizens…”

This is not a movie that warmly moves you.
This is a heartbreaking, terrifying movie.
Your heart becomes heavy.
This movie is but the first step of the staircase that leads to Gwangju that day.

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The reference to "290 dollars" is the stated assets of former president Chun Doo-Hwan. Chun is known to have formed a slush fund of $1 billion through grafts and bribes from Korean companies. But the judge asked Chun how much he had in a court proceeding to disgorge the money in 2003, Chun defiantly said his total asset was $290 in his bank account. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1997, but was pardoned after being in prison for less than 8 months.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Protests in Korea

Dear Korean,

This isn't a strictly Korean question, but whenever there is a protest in another country, they always show the police beating the crap out of the protesters and I swear they always show the same stock footage of a tear gas canister smoking, a kid wearing his scarf as a mask throws it back at the cops. But they always call them student riots – are the journalists just too lazy to ID the specific group?

Dan V.
Albuquerque, NM


Dear Dan,

The Korean is only qualified to speak about Korea, so within the context of Korea -- yes, the protesters are generally students.

Why is it always the students who are involved in these protests? The Korean’s own theory is this: students are always in the heart of a revolutionary change (for better or worse) because they are educated enough to know the general state of the world, untied enough to dedicate themselves to a cause that does not directly benefit them, and leisurely enough to have the time to spend on those causes. Uneducated people only concerned with their immediate survival cannot dream of anything greater. Regular folks with regular jobs are too busy to plot any revolutionary change, and sacrificing one’s family on top of oneself is too tough a challenge for most people.

Fitting this pattern exactly, student protests in Korea have an illustrious history. Student protests played an integral role in Korea’s independence movement against Imperial Japan. The March 1 Movement, the greatest display of Korean independence movement on the civilian level, would not have been possible without a wide-scale participation from students of Korea. Notably, Yu Gwan-soon, the heroine of March 1 Movement, was a student at Ewha Womans School.

Student protests in Korea also played an indispensable role in democratizing Korea as well. The first South Korean president was Syngman Rhee, a Princeton graduate who led the Korean independence movement in the United States. However, once became the President, he soon began rigging elections and constitutional amendments such that he could be the president for his lifetime. (The Korean has no doubt that similar type of stuff will go down in Afghanistan and Iraq as well – that’s what happens when democracy is externally imposed on a country that has had no democratic tradition.)

After 12 years of dictatorship, Rhee once again rigged the vice presidential election in 1960, which became his last straw. Student protests began sporadically in March 15, 1960, which was brutally put down by the police and hired political goons. Many people were killed or disappeared. On April 11, the body of Kim Ju-Yeol, one of the disappeared student protestors, was discovered floating on the harbors of Masan. Although initially his cause of death was announced to be drowning, when the protestors stormed the hospital, they found Kim’s body with his skull split by a tear gas shell that went from his eye socket to the back of his skull. Massive nationwide protests followed, culminating at April 19, 1960, which led to President Rhee’s resignation.

[Picture on April 19, 1960. Protesters are storming the presidential residence.]

But Korea’s democratization still had a long way to go. Korea would go through at least three more dictators after Rhee, whose rules were equally authoritarian and brutal. Thus, student protests were a fact of life in Korea all the way up to late 1980s/early 1990s. Students also played a vital role in the most massive protest since the April Revolution: the May 18 Movement, in which several hundred died at the hands of paratroopers sent to suppress the protest in Gwangju in 1980.

The fact that those protests occurred is undoubtedly positive. Without those protests, democracy in Korea did not happen. Because the Korean people fought against the illegitimate dictatorships for themselves, the protests endows the current democratic government a certain legitimacy that an externally imposed democracy could never have.

However, whether or not it is a good thing that the tradition of protests has survived to this day is debatable. Although far from perfect, Korea has a fully functional democracy. When groups of people have a dispute, the institutional mechanisms are present and functional to resolve that dispute in an orderly manner within the democratic system – e.g. through the legislature, courts and elections in the long run.

But the sweet, sweet temptation of protests, which would skirt the institutional process, is constantly present in contemporary Korean politics. It does not help that many of Korea’s current politicians cut their political teeth when they were students, protesting against the authoritarian government. After all, going through the institutional process takes too long, and any change from that process is likely to be incremental. On the other hand, the results of protests are achieved quickly – governments often have capitulated in the matter of months. And when protesting did work, the result was sweeping rather than incremental.

For impatient people who want immediate, large-scale social change – and really, Koreans are nothing if not impatient – protesting is much more attractive than counting on the democratic institutions to serve their functions. Furthermore, it is at least arguable that large-scale protests reflect the popular will, and following such popular will is indeed democratic. For these reasons, the protesting culture in Korea is quite alive and well, although the protests themselves have become much more orderly and peaceful compared to their heyday in the 1980s.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

The Korean is so fucking pissed at the Lakers right now.

Ask a Korean! News: Koreans Have Small Hands

But only hands small!



A little old, but a classic -- and classical.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Ask a Korean! News: The Best of the Worst

Dear readers,

The Korean receives a lot of questions. In the 2.5 year history of AAK!, the Korean has answered more than 1,000 questions publicly over the blog and privately over the email.

Among those, there certainly are some questions that are total head-scratchers. The Korean simply deleted them at first, but at some point the Korean began to collect them for entertainment value. Now that the collection is at a good size, the Korean can share an exquisite sample of those questions. These are all real emails from real people.

Um, What do You Need??

Hi, Where can I find older korean sexual tapes? Are there some on the market?

- H. Blash

Hi, My name is Phil, I live in Paris, France. Could you please help me: I 'm looking for some typical korean gay web sites? Could you give me some web sites adresses / URL. I love korean guys. You are so beautilfull all of you korean guys! I'm looking for KOREAN web site with gay porn pics and vids. Thank you very much.

- Phil

Ask a Korean! is NOT Korea Living Assistance!

Hello, I am going to the Incheon airport tomorrow, and I need to ask a bus driver this question: "Does this bus go to Bucheon?".

I think it is this 이 버스는 부천에 갈 수 있습니까? bus I am not sure. Is this correct? Or is it too formal?

- Ian K.

When and where is the queer festival for 2009? Thanks!

- Tiffini B.

Dear Korean, My friend and I are coming to Soeul for a few days around Christmas, from Tokyo, where we live. What should we do? Where should we stay? We are poor, and we want to have random adventures! Can we stay with you? If you come to Tokyo, you can stay with us!

- Yelena

Does the Korean SOUND Like a Treasure Hunter??

Hey the Korean, I find your site incredibly enlightening and although this isn't quite your area I thought you might be able to help. I have been looking forever to find the dojang for the poet Kim Sowol. [Emphasis added by the Korean. Dojang = "stamp"] It is driving me nuts. I have searched in English, getting absolutely nothing relevant (it doesn't help that it is some kind of popular martial arts). My searches in Korean also have not been great (I learned Korean to do research on the DPRK, but my skills with google are pretty useless). I feel like I should just give up because it isn't all that important, but I have spent so much time that I feel like it was a waste. If you don't know where I could look can you give me an idea of whether this is publicly available, I assumed as in the west that signatures of writers and artists would be well known, but maybe I misunderstood. Thanks for all the hilarious and serious answers you give.

- Kate

Right, Because the Korean Knows Every Single Korean on Earth, Past and Present...

Dear Friend,

I am trying to contact my friend Mesuk Ahn that once lived in Gaithersburg, Maryland and worked in Waldorf, Maryland in the USA. In January 2003 she returned to Korea and I lost contact with her. She was born October 17, 1977 and she is from Seoul, Korea.

- Jim H.

Hello there, My name is Jimmy and I need to know if Korean women keep their last names( as do the Vietnamese) when marrying an american. Also, if I were looking for a friend from 1965, any idea how to begin. Thanks.

- Jimmy L.

WAAAAY Too Much Information, Thanks

Hiya,

I would like to know if Korean guys find it a turn-on or are just generally cool with their women vomitting on them. The reason I ask is because I've watched a view Kdramas and in almost every one of these the girl always vomits on the guy. I know that whatever comes off TV is not reality and in my experience quite the opposite of reality; does this mean that Korean women wished their men were cool with it because they're actually not?

I hope I made sense.

- Anonymous Coward

Dear Korean,

im 21 and pregnant. i only like korean guys though. if i hunt for an outcasted, fatter, balding, older one, would i yet stand a chance at marriage? or is that taboo to get with a knocked up white girl? im cute.

ahhh korean korean. its not you i really want... its ur moms kimchi.. how can i reach her..?? T T

- Audrey E.

hi, im currently trying to start back up in school, i was in korea for almost 2 years( U.S Airforce) my biological mother is korean, and still lives in korea, she is still ill, i still have my dream of living in korea, work wise of course the only thing i could think of is teaching english in korea if i wanted to live there. Im wondering how difficult it would be to move to korea to live for good. when i was there for my u.s aiforce tour i really enjoyed it there, made lots of friends and got back in contact with my mother. I i figured if i lived there i would be able to see my mother as much as i wanted. (she is currently in a busan hospital, been there for the passed 8 years, so they have said) Another thing is on teaching english in korea alot of my friends say getting my education is not a really big deal (korean american friends), Alot of them have dropped out of college and left to go teach english in korea. i would greatly appreciate any answers on how to maybe get korean citizenship. and how important is my education just to teach english in korea as perhaps a permenant job.

- Danny P.

No, Thanks. The Economy is Not THAT Bad Yet, and the Korean is Waiting on Random House

Hi Korean,

I am a publisher of internet dating websites and I am constantly looking for high quality writers to produce articles. I stumbled upon your blog and enjoyed reading your style of writing. If you are interested in writing dating issues specifically pertaining to Korean dating culture, please drop me a line. Looking forward to your favorable reply.

best regards,

- Tim K.
[Company name redacted]

Hey Korean,

my name is BlueMystery and I'm a dating coach for PickupAsia (www.pickupasia.com).

I want to give you an interview about dating in the country you are currently blogging about, or give you the chance to share your opinion on 'professional dating companies' in Korea (which is something new since you've been here in 2001) or even if they are needed. I want to give your readers some insight on what it takes to meet and date women of Korea so that they can live happier lives, if that's something that is even possible.

Our company has been serving clients since 2007 and have recently been on a T.V interview in Hong Kong (we'll send you a link as soon as we get it in mid-April. We also already have a format for questions which you can refer to if you'd like.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Regards,

- BlueMystery

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com. (But for God's sake, think about it for a few minutes before you send it.)

Ask a Korean! Wiki: Jobs!

AAK! is not just for learning about Korean/Korean American culture -- it is also your one-stop shop for beating the recession! Do you need a job? See the two questions below:

Dear Korean,

I'm looking for a Registered Process Server in Los Angeles County who speaks Korean. I've contacted some Korean Attorneys with no luck. Any ideas?

David

David Elliott
Executive Care Services
7095 Hollywood Blvd. #1270
Hollywood, Ca 90028
Office: 877-829-9813 Mobile: 323-855-2555 FAX: 877-321-3613
davidelliott@executivecareservices.com


Dear Korean,

I am trying to find staff who are either- Koreans who understand/read English (knowledge of English mainly for communication purposes such as instructions/emails)- or people, who understand/knows how to type Koreanto work for me on a part-time/freelance basis to do data entry in Korean. I do not need any translation work done. Thus most translation job sites are not feasible for me. Do you have any ideas where/which sites I can go/visit to look for staff like this? I'll appreciate any help in regards to this. Thanks!

Ling
styleborn@gmail.com

More job postings are welcome in the comments section.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Today is the 17th anniversary of the Los Angeles Riot.

Ask a Korean! Wiki: Korean Hangouts in LA

Dear Korean,

I’m planning an event in L.A. with hip, cool young adult Koreans in mind and was wondering if you can recommend any hot spots/areas that are favorites among them.

Jennifer G.


Dear Jennifer,

While the Korean misses Los Angeles with all his heart, he has been living in New York for the last six years. Therefore, any recommendation by the Korean for Korean hot spots in L.A. would be very dated. And once they are dated, they are no longer hot.

So let's hear it, Koreans in L.A. -- where do you hang out? Give some names of restaurants, bars, clubs, anywhere -- more specific, the better.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.