nanoomi

As noted at the Marmot’s Hole Monday, another Korean-American wanted for (attempted) murder has been found to have worked as an English teacher in Korea, and in this case even ran an SAT hagwon. Here’s what the Joongang Daily had to say about it:

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I was looking through 1940s-era Stars and Stripes and found some interesting articles from the time of the American military occupation (from 1945 to 1949, which I’ve written about before here and here) which point to concerns – on both sides – about the effects of American influence on Korean women.

First, this article from February 5, 1949:

Army Relaxes Ban
Korean Girls invited to Soldier ‘Shindig’

By WILLIAM MOORE
SEOUL,” Feb. 5 (AP)—If everything works out right there will be 150 Korean girls to dance with American soldiers at their Hourglass Club Feb. 13.

Brig. Gen. William L. Roberts, Redlands, Calif., who took over command here last month said Friday the plan of inviting Koreans to a soldier’s dance was tried successfully last Saturday night at a Quartermaster depot at Ascom City, 20 miles west of here.

The Army had not permitted that sort of thing in Korea since late 1947 when a Korean operated dancehall was put off limits for soldiers.

Girls from Seoul colleges and daughters of good families are being invited, Roberts told the Associated Press.

He said the guests will come and leave in Army buses and during the dance there will be no strolling from the Hourglass Club.[...]

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Leave the car at home on the 11th.

Shakespeare once said that brevity is the Seoul soul of wit. In modern times, nowhere is this more apparent than with Twitter. It is amazing how, with just 140 characters, biting satire and political commentary can now wing its way around the world faster than you can say interfering paternal state propaganda.

The G20 summit is in Seoul next week and in preparation the city and central governments have been preparing Seoulites for the inevitable delays and inconveniences, which is pretty swell as governments go.

But along with warnings about traffic have come some interesting and, some might say, insecure messages along with some totally nonsensical ones.

Reminding that Seoul will have the eyes of the world on it next week, the city’s denizens have been asked to NOT throw away unsightly (and malodorous) food waste, NOT to drive – as noted above, and NOT be afraid to speak to foreigners.

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As we can see from yesterday’s front page, the Maeil Gyeongje (Maeil Business Newspaper) has let its readers in on why the South Korean team won the U-17 Women’s World Cup:

Korean Women’s DNA is Different
Out of only 345 women, 21 were picked, and in the end they did the job.
The splendid achievements by golfers, figure skater Kim Yu-na, and the soccer Taegeuk Girls are connected.

Well now, I guess that may explain why Roboseyo “personally was told “foreign blood and Korean blood together has problems” [by] one of the nurses at a blood clinic[.]” It all makes sense now – Koreans’ DNA is different. What a simple, obvious explanation.

Actually, while the article tells us that “Questions arise each time Korean female athletes accomplish great things on the world stage,” it (sadly) does not follow up on the promise of the headline, instead dwelling on more mundane cultural and social influences. Mind you, the fact that “Korean women’s DNA is different” was a headline on the front page of a newspaper should go to show that the idea of genes and bloodlines was dominating the writer (or editor)’s thinking, and that they figured others would agree.

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Earlier I posted a translation of a February 5, 2010 Dong-A Ilbo interview with Anti-English Spectrum’s Lee Eun-ung. A response to the claims made in the article follows. Here are links to the original foreign media articles (National Post, Vancouver Sun, LA Times (Feb. 2009, Jan. 2010)) referred to in the Dong-A Ilbo article.

At the beginning of the article, it asks “Why are foreign media ‘attacking the citizen’s group?’” and “attacking” is in quotes; not so a few sentences later: “Why are you receiving such attacks?” The reporter decided to turn the debate into “us vs. them” – “malicious foreign press reports are distorting things Korean.” This is amusing when you realize that in reality, one of the most critical statements made about Anti-English Spectrum came from an ROK diplomat, Younggoog Park, Minister-Counsellor of Public Affairs at the Korea Embassy in Ottawa:

“Their reactionary views and opinions do not represent the sentiment of Koreans toward Canadians or other foreign teachers,” Park told the CBC’s The Current.

Lee then takes the chance to once again reiterate the reason for forming AES – the English Spectrum incident: “During this incident, postings like ‘Picking up Korean women is easy… I had sex with a middle school girl’ enraged Koreans.” He fails to mention, as always, that the “How to mollest[sic] your students” post on Korean ESL (from which the “I had sex with a middle school girl” quote came) also enraged the foreign English teachers who read it when it was first posted a year and a half before it was discovered by Koreans. For once, due only to the criticism brought up in foreign media reports, Lee does actually admit something he never has before: “[A]mong the people who first joined our group, some concentrated only on attacking and degrading women who date foreigners.”

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In early February the Dong-A Ilbo published two articles (by the same reporter, Kim Hyeon-jin) about Anti-English Spectrum. A short piece, titled “‘Stalkers’ vs ‘Protection of Korean Students,’” was translated by Korea Beat at the time. The longer interview with Lee Eun-ung, which was never translated, is below. (Many thanks to Coola for help with the translation.) I’ll follow this with a deconstruction of the claims made in the interview tomorrow.

Is the “Movement to Expel Bad English Teachers” stalking?

Stalking? Racial discrimination? The manager of the group to “Expel Bad Native Speaking Teachers,” Lee Eun-ung.

The 'LA Times' January 31 interview with the manager of “Citizens for Upright English Education,” Lee Eun-ung. Last February the newspaper published an article about this group in which foreign teachers living in Korea argued that (certain) Koreans who strongly believe that they are of a single bloodline (danil minjok) were conducting a campaign to spread xenophobia. Capture from site.

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The Joongang Ilbo reports on the unveiling of Gwanghwamun, including this quote from President Lee:

“Gwangwhamun was blocked and neglected, and the flow of our national spirit was choked off,” he said, adding, “We incessantly endeavored and struggled for the country’s independence.”

Obviously he (or his speechwriter) thinks that destroying the old Government General Building was a good idea, as it was the first step in unchoking the geomantic axis of energy flowing between Seoul’s major mountains that determined where Gyeongbokgung was built when the city was founded. It seems a bit much to call the lines of energy on which the capital of the Joseon dynsasty was built the “national spirit,” but then I’m no speechwriter.

An article from a week or so ago looked at some of the controversies surrounding Gwanghwamun’s restoration (such as whether the sign should be in Hangeul or Hanja) but had some errors, such as saying that “it had been destroyed by the Japanese” 300 years ago (actually, most of the palaces were destroyed by angry mobs of Koreans who burned slave registers, among other things, after the royal family fled north before the Japanese troops arrived). It also says that:

During the Japanese colonial era (1910-1945), the Japanese moved Gwanghwamun to the east side of the palace to give the new General Government Building a clear view down Sejongno in 1927. In fact, the Japanese tried to destroy the gate outright, but Korean intellectuals successfully petitioned for its preservation.

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On the 23rd, the New Daily posted a long article by reporter Jeon Gyeong-ung purporting to tell the truth about Itaewon. Robert already posted about it at the Marmot’s Hole today, but as I translated the first third or so of it, I thought I’d post it here.

_____

“The Republic of Korea’s hidden center, Yongsan’s Itaewon”

Itaewon – ‘a loser’s paradise’ where Korean women are ruined?
A pack of black people looking only for sex
Fantastic clubs? Frequent crimes of drugs, fraud, perverted marriage
Government, media glorify ‘multiculturalism’ ahead of purification

Until now, only Itaewon’s spectacular side and its unexposed great power have been closely examined. However tall mountains always have deep valleys. That the national media and government ignore this for reasons such as policy is a serious problem.

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A few weeks ago I posted unification posters done by some of my students. In the comments, Ben Wagner noted the similarities between this poster…

…and this colonial era poster calling for 내선일체 (naisen ittai, or ‘Japan and Korea as one body’), which I posted here:

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