Interview with Dr. Jeong ok Kong, representative of Supporters for the Health And Rights of People in the Semiconductor industry (SHARPS) and the Korean Institute of Labour Safety and Health (KILSH), on the issue of Occupational Health and Safety for workers in Samsung and in South Korea in general.
Korean workers face unhealthy and dangerous workplaces | rabble.ca.

This blog post is all about cats! #catcafe RT @aclipse: Pet Therapy in Korea http://t.co/ueSmrxmC7C

A Commentary on the National Intelligence Service’s Fabricated

‘Conspiracy for Rebellion’ Charge against the Unified Progressive Party

It has been eight months since the public exposure of the National Intelligence Service’s (NIS) illegal intervention in the 2012 presidential election.  The police and the ruling Saenuri Party’s attempts to conceal the truth of the NIS’ systematic interference in last year’s presidential election is now being brought to light.  Based on the revelations so far alone, President Park Geun-hye should be held accountable and the NIS should be dissolved. Events, however, seem to be unfolding in the opposite direction. Leaders of the Unified Progressive Party (UPP) have been summoned or arrested on charges of ‘conspiracy for rebellion’ and the party, which spearheaded anti-war and peace campaigns as well as the movement to dismantle the NIS, is now under serious threat of being dissolved. Today in Korea, a witch hunt is instilling fear and self-censorship across the nation. Members of UPP, nevertheless, stand united with greater resolve than ever to  withstand the terror campaign and emerge victorious in the end.

1. NIS’ Political Maneuver and Interference in the Presidential Election

- After taking office, the former NIS chief Won Sei-hoon reorganized the Psychological Warfare Team in February 2012.  The team was put under the command of the third deputy director and was divided into four teams of about 70 agents. These agents received directives with ‘key issues and talking points’ through the order of the NIS’ third deputy director, the new head of the psychological warfare division, and created online aliases to pose as ordinary netizens and posted comments about the presidential candidates and their political platforms on the internet.

- Contentious issues in the presidential election – such as the creation of Sejong City, the free school lunch program, the ‘four rivers’ project and the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement – were the main subjects of their online posts. The agents unilaterally supported the government’s position and accused all opponents of the government’s position of being “agents of North Korea.” This was clearly illegal political activity in violation of the NIS Act, which prohibits NIS agents from political involvement.

- In the weeks leading up to the presidential election, the NIS, under the guise of eradicating so-called ‘North Korean agents’, openly intervened in the election. NIS agents put up 5,333 online comments on 15 websites. The Prosecutor General’s office identified 1,704 comments posted by NIS agents as political involvement and 73 comments as direct intervention in the presidential election, and indicted the former NIS director as well as the chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency. The Prosecutor General’s investigation was limited to only one section of twelve sections under the Psychological Warfare Division.

- Moreover it was discovered that the NIS agents used an automation program to systemically retweet millions of comments about the presidential election. According to the Prosecutor General, it took less than one second to retweet millions of comments through hundreds of accounts.

- It is also notable that a civilian known as Lee used five of the sixteen online IDs that belonged to NIS agent Kim Ha-young. Approximately 92 million Korean won was wired to Lee’s bank account from the NIS. Lee, during the last general election, was in charge of planning in the campaign of a lawmaker (whose name we only know as Kim, based on court documents) of the Saenuri Party. Lee and Kim are former classmates and alumni of Yonsei University, where they both majored in political science and diplomacy.

- The online comments and tweets posted by the NIS agents exploit and aggravate regional tensions and include unspeakable expressions. For example, an NIS agent who goes by the online alias ‘jwa-ik hyo-su’ posted comments such as “Kill all Cheollado savages,” degrading the Honam region, and distorted the history of the May 18 Gwangju Democratic Movement by calling it a riot.

- Although the truth of the NIS’ interference in the presidential election was uncovered and exposed by former Chief of Investigations Kwon Eun-hee of the Soo-Seo Police Department, a search and seizure warrant was denied by the order of former Chief Kim Yong-pan of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency. The police made an official presentation denying any evidence of illegal NIS online activity before the presidential election, and ignored all digital evidence found by the Soo-Seo Police and Seoul Metropolitan Police.

- Most significantly, the ruling Saenuri Party was involved in covering up the NIS’ interference in the presidential election. Kwon Young-se, then-senior official of Park Geun-hye’s election campaign, was found to have had a conversation with former NIS Chief Won Se-hoon about acquiring the so-called ‘NLL transcript’ (referring to a transcript of the 2007 Inter-Korea Summit in which former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun was alleged to have proposed changing the Northern Limit Line), which was in NIS possession. Furthermore, Kim Moo-sung, then-chief of Park Geun-hye’s election campaign, was found to have cited parts of the NLL transcript verbatim in his stump speech in Busan. The day before, former Chief Kim Yong-pan of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency had had a meeting at a restaurant near the Blue House. All this points to a  connection between the Saenuri Party, the NIS and the police, and President Park Geun-hye should be held accountable. It was only through the power of the people’s candlelight protests, with UPP at the helm, that the truth of NIS’ crimes was finally exposed.

2. Candlelight – Hotter than the Summer Heat Wave

- The candlelight protest against the NIS’ political interference was first held in Sejong-ro, Seoul on June 21. About 500 citizens participated in the protest organized by the 21^st Century Korean Federation of University Student Councils. One week later on June 28, more than 5,000 people gathered to join the protest organized by the Civil Society Emergency Task Force, which consists of 284 civil society organizations. In the next 50 days, participation grew steadily to about 50,000 in Seoul alone.

- Compared to the candlelight protests against U.S. beef import in 2008, the growth rate is relatively slow. In 2008, the first vigil began with 20,000 people on May 2, grew to 50,000 in 30 days and topped one million people across the country by June. But considering the harsh conditions the NIS protests endured – such as the record-long rainy season that lasted 49 days, the extreme heat wave, and the complete indifference of the mainstream media – the candlelight, it seems, will not be easily extinguished.

- In order to divert public attention from its political involvement in the election, the NIS leaked the so-called ‘NLL transcript’ to raise the specter of a national security threat. The ruling power’s strategy, however, has now backfired. The anger of the people is turning against the Park Geun-hye administration for tacitly allowing and sometimes actively leading attacks against democracy.

- At the candlelight protests, the Civil Society Emergency Task Force called for President Park Geun-hye’s apology, a guarantee that the NIS will not interfere in domestic political affairs, the dismissal of NIS Director Nam Jae-jun, and reform of the NIS. Student unions of Seoul National University, Ewha Women’s University, Duksung Women’s University, Pusan National University, Sookmyung Women’s University and Chonnam National University held a demonstration in front of the Saenuri party headquarters and criticized the party for conducting a deceptive parliamentary investigation and evading responsibility for NIS’ involvement in the presidential election. The Network of Professors and Researchers Concerned about the State of Affairs, composed of 1,900 members, including professors in 70 universities, held a demonstration in front of the NIS. 2,124 Catholic priests – 43% of the priests – signed the Declaration on the State of Affairs. Even the Archdiocese of Daegu, which kept silent during the 1987 June Uprising, issued a declaration signed by about 200 priests – the first of such kind in 102 years.

- To mollify the growing candlelight protest, the ruling Saenuri Party reluctantly agreed to a parliamentary investigation of the NIS’ illegal online campaign. However the 50-day investigation was sabotaged by the NIS as its witnesses refused to take oaths or answer questions, and some even used masks to shield their faces.

- The fight against the NIS for its interference in the presidential election is now calling for the appointment of an independent special prosecutor. The movement to dismantle the NIS drew a clear line in the sand between the Park Geun-hye administration and the democratic forces, and neither side is willing to yield. The demand to dissolve the NIS is no longer just a call for political reform, but has now become an imperative for the entire people’s movement.

- While the candlelight protests against U.S. beef import was limited to criticizing the lack of policies and institutions designed to protect public health, this time, the protest against the NIS targets the reactionary forces themselves, and is gaining momentum despite attempts at sabotage so systemic and consistent that it’s hard not to believe that the administration is behind it. The struggle has now become a death duel between the NIS and the people. More severe persecution will trigger an even bigger reaction.

3. UPP – Guardian of Peace and Democracy

- Not a single day passed in 2013 without the UPP working for the people. Soon after reorganizing the party’s leadership with Representative Lee Jung-hee at its center, UPP faced urgent political and social conditions. From March to May, when the Korean peninsula fell into a crisis of intensifying war threats, UPP organized a wave of anti-war actions calling for peace across the country.  It was in fact the only political party calling for peace. The Party proposed to solve the crisis not through confrontation but dialogue, and insisted “Not another Korean War.” It also proposed signing a Peace Treaty as a fundamental solution.

- UPP Representative Lee Jung-hee issued an urgent appeal on March 6, calling for talks between the relevant states to address the crisis of war threats and encouraging citizens to join the anti-war peace movement. It was UPP that continued to promote a peaceful solution through dialogue amidst the urgent crisis when a military conflict seemed unavoidable after new sanctions against North Korea and the ROK-US joint military drill.

- UPP held an urgent joint meeting of its regional branch chairs on March 23 and organized the ‘5,000 Activists against War and for Peace’ campaign, affirming its determination to make the entire country aspire for peace amidst the crisis of growing war threats. Regional branch chairs insisted on a resolution to resist a war that will “only result in co-destruction” and declare that a peaceful resolution through dialogue and negotiation is the only way to prevent war.  The resolution also called on the U.S., one of the direct parties of the Armistice, to “begin dialogue with North Korea immediately,” and called on the Park Geun-hye admnistration to “dispatch a special envoy to North Korea and launch an inter-Korean dialogue.”

- The 5,000 UPP activists collected 76,888 signatures calling for peace and delivered them to the Blue House on May 2.  ‘Peace trainings,’ organized to raise awareness of party members, was attended by 10,000 members. In July, UPP held the International Peace March and the International Peace Symposium to enhance solidarity with overseas scholars and peace activists.

- On April 25, Legislator Lee Seok-ki presented to the Prime Minister a proposal for a declaration of a permanent ceasefire through four-party talks as a solution to the present crisis. Legislator Lee called on President Park Geun-hye to discuss the proposal in her meeting with President Obama during her state visit to the U.S. in early May. He announced, “If President Park Geun-hye advocates for the declaration of a permanent ceasefire through four-party talks following a trust-building process, UPP will lend our full support.” In this way, whether on the streets or inside the halls of Parliament, UPP was always on the front lines opposing the outbreak of war.

- As soon as the findings of the Prosecutor General’s investigation of the NIS’ illegal interference in the presidential election was released, student members of UPP boldly held the first street march, which became the catalyst for the candlelight protests. UPP Legislator Lee Sang-gyu exposed the NIS’ interference in the presidential election by analyzing CCTV materials during the parliamentary investigation and staged a hunger strike in front of the Blue House to demand accountability from President Park Geun-hye. As a result, UPP gained popular support. Public approval rating for the party increased from 1% in 2012 to 6% in 2013, with more than 10% among people in their 40s.

- The people came to clearly recognize whose side UPP is on and what UPP stands for. Its efforts for peace and leadership in the candlelight struggle against the NIS provided UPP an important opportunity to work with the people and overcome its negative public image of being branded a “pro-North Korean party,” as well as a small opening for forging an alliance of all opposition forces. It was at this precise moment – when UPP was regaining popular support, the frontline of popular struggle was being restored, and opposition forces were beginning to align – that the NIS launched its strike against UPP.

4. Government’s Counterattack for Survival, Resurrection of Yushin and Political Persecution

- The Blue House and the NIS, facing an unprecedented crisis due to the revelation of the NIS’ illegal campaign, launched a massive counterattack on August 28 to turn the table. The NIS issued warrants for search and seizure and the arrest of ten former and current members of UPP’s Gyeonggi Province branch, including Legislator Lee Seok-ki. Three  were arrested. The ‘conspiracy for rebellion’ charge was revived 33 years after former President Kim Dae-jung was arrested on the same charge in 1980.

- Before this, the NIS had tried to use the ‘NLL transcript’ as a wild card to divert criticism over its illegal election campaign. But the plan had backfired and the number of candlelight protest participants had increased from 20,000 to 30,000, then 50,000 and 100,000.  Finally, the NIS fabricated the ‘rebellion conspiracy’ case. This time as well, a manipulated transcript was presented as evidence.

- The NIS leaked the so-called transcript to the media and alleged that Legislator Lee Seok-ki convened a meeting of ‘RO’ (Revolutionary Organization) on May 12 to plot a rebellion. The fact, however, is that the meeting was organized by the Chair of UPP’s Gyeonggi branch in consultation with other executives. Legislator Lee was invited as a lecturer to the party’s membership gathering. After his lecture, the participants had group discussions on ways to prevent a war and realize peace on the Korean Peninsula.

- There is no statement in the so-called transcript that shows that Legislator Lee ordered or conspired a rebellion. On the contrary, it shows that the legislator explicitly told the participants not to carry a gun or a knife. But the NIS and the mainstream media opted not to report on that fact.

- Moreover, some of the participants’ comments in the NIS’ transcript was severely distorted to the point of fabrication. The NIS handling of this case is no different from when it manipulated former President Roh Moo-hyun’s comments in the so-called ‘NLL transcript’ to claim that he gave up the Northern Limit Line (NLL) to North Korea. The NIS and the conservative media produce fabricated and distorted reports to smear UPP in a witch hunt-style trial by media and openly declare their intention to dismantle UPP.

- The ruling Saenuri Party and the opposition Democratic Party passed the arrest motion for Legislator Lee Seok-ki in the National Assembly solely based on the NIS’ unilateral allegation. The next day on September 5, an arrest warrant was issued.

- On September 6, the Saenuri Party submitted a bill, sponsored by all the legislators in its party, to expel Legislator Lee from the National Assembly. The Ministry of Justice established the Task Force on Unconstitutional Political Parties and Organizations to review measures to dissolve UPP and expel its lawmakers from the National Assembly.

- It is clear that the Blue House and the NIS conducted an illegitimate surveillance, bribed an informant, and revived an outdated charge of ‘conspiring a rebellion’ to avert its own crisis. It is trying to intimidate the democratic forces in order to silence and divide the growing national candlelight resistance, which calls on President Park Geun-hye to take responsibility. The smear campaign against UPP is political persecution aimed at destroying the party, which spearheaded the campaign for reform of the NIS, and a warning shot to the progressive and democratic forces. The so-called ‘conspiracy for rebellion’ is a fabricated case by the NIS to exaggerate its own importance amidst growing pressure for its dissolution.

5. NIS – the One that Needs to be Dissolved

- The transcript of the so-called ‘conspiracy for rebellion’ contains comments that are much more damaging and sensational than those in the ‘NLL transcript’. These statements were all fabricated based on the false testimony of an informant who was bribed by the NIS.

- Just as in the so-called ‘Seoul Municipal Government Employee Spy’ case, in which the defendant was found not guilty, the NIS is notorious for having fabricated ‘spy cases’ for the last several decades. This time, the NIS bribed an informant to make false statements about a conspiracy for rebellion that allegedly includes plans to sabotage communication facilities and police stations.

- There is no practical threat of a rebellion nor a specific plan or even physical force capable of usurping national territory or subverting the constitution. Moreover, an individual’s opinion or expression should be protected under the right to freedom of thought and expression. Sadly, the reality of the current situation in Korea is that based solely on what one has said, without any concrete plan or physical action, one can be arrested and punished on charges of plotting a rebellion under the National Security Law.

- The need to prepare for the possibility of war is not just something that’s behind us in the past but reflects the current reality of a divided Korea in its 60th year since the signing of the armistice. The Korean War is not yet over, and without a permanent peace treaty, it can resume at any time. Worrying about a potential collision between North Korea’s nuclear program and the US’ nuclear umbrella with its high-tech stealth bombers flying over our territory is not out of step with today’s reality. It is very much a part of living in a divided country still dominated by anti-communist and anti-North Korea ideology.

- The materialization of anti-communist and anti-North Korea ideology through the National Security Law or a fabricated rebellion conspiracy case serves to strengthen the security state. The present administration exploits inter-Korean conflict to force anti-communism on the people. What we’re witnessing today is how anti-communism manifests as violent authority and becomes a measure of suppression and persecution.

- However, the candlelight protest grows brighter night after night. The 100,000 members of UPP are boldly confronting the persecution and witch hunt launched by the government, the NIS and the conservative media. UPP is regrouping its forces and growing stronger everyday. Civil society organizations are united to fight against government repression and protect democracy. Unless the NIS bribes the judiciary, the fabricated ‘rebellion conspiracy’ case can never win. Rather, it will decide the fate of the NIS and the Park Geun-hye administration. It is the NIS, not the UPP, that will dissolve.

——————————————————————————————————

Q&A: The Truth behind the “Conspiracy for Rebellion” Charge

Q1. Wasn’t the May 12 meeting an RO gathering to conspire a rebellion?

- The meeting was a closed meeting organized by UPP’s Gyeonggi branch for party executives and members. Legislator Lee Seok-ki was invited as a lecturer.

- It is absolutely false that it was a gathering of 130 members of an ‘underground organization’.

Q2. Is RO an actual anti-government organization?

- Only in the imagination of the NIS.  There is not a single piece of evidence to substantiate their mention of guns, bombs or violent actions.

- There is no evidence of the existence of such an organization – not even basic  information on when it was founded or who its founding members are.

Q3. According to media reports, Legislator Lee Seok-ki ordered people to prepare fire arms and use military force. Is this true?

- The legislator did not make such a remark. It is a malicious distortion taken out of context.

- On the contrary, he appealed to people to fulfill their mission as progressives to oppose war and realize peace in the worst case event that a war breaks out.

- What he meant by “Let us counter war” is not to start a war but to build the peace movement to oppose war.

- His comments were in the same vein as when he expressed concerns on increased tensions on the Korean Peninsula in his personal report on March 22 as well as on April 25 in the National Assembly.

- As the participants of the meeting have long experiences of working in progressive movement circles, their jargon may sound unfamiliar or strange to others, but the main thrust of Lee’s lecture was ‘Oppose war and realize peace.’

Q4. Doesn’t the NIS have clear physical evidence, such as the meeting transcript?

- First, the NIS should disclose whether or not the transcript was obtained by due process of law and verify that there is no distortion or fabrication in the leaked transcript.

- In the transcript, a mention of “Jeol-du-san” (the Catholic Martyrs’ Shrine) was changed to “gyeol-jeon” (the final battle) shrine; an explicit appeal not to carry guns was distorted to an order to secure guns.

- There is a significant gap between the transcript and the memory and understanding of the participants who were at the meeting.

- The NIS has already been found to have distorted and illegally leaked the transcript of  the inter-Korea Summit. It purposefully changed one letter in former President Roh  Moo-hyun’s remark to make it seem as though he assumed a submissive posture during the summit.

Q5. Is it true that Legislator Lee sang the ‘Red Flag’ song at the May 12 meeting?

- He did not sing the ‘Red Flag’ song at the meeting. But it is true that some activists sometimes do sing the song.

- Contrary to media reports, ‘Red Flag’ is not a North Korean song. The tune is from a German folk song. In the late 1880s, workers in the UK borrowed the tune and created the ‘Red Flag,’ then made it popular across the world. The song was introduced in Korea in the 1930s and sung as a protest song among the anti-Japanese independence fighters.

- It is incidentally also the theme song of Manchester United, which Korean footballer Park Ji-sung plays for. It is also the original version of the chorus of the song ‘Pine Tree.’

Q6. Did Legislator Lee betray state secrets from the National Assembly to RO ?

- All of his requests for documents were part of regular and official parliamentary activities to prepare for budget reviews or parliamentary inspections of government offices. The materials he received were approved by the relevant government offices.

- Regarding his request for documents related to wartime operational control -

▸ He made the request to the Ministry of Defense for the purpose of verifying an April 2 report entitled “S.Korea, U.S. to Keep Combined Forces Command” in Chosun Ilbo

▸ The Ministry of Defense responded that nothing had been confirmed related to the Combined Forces Command and cast doubt on the newspaper’s report.

- Regarding his request for the list of North Korean defectors featured in a KBS program -

▸ He requested a total of seven materials including the program script in response to allegations that the program, the stated mission of which is to promote the shared heritage of the people of North and South Korea, was fanning north-south tensions by featuring the story of North Korean defectors.

▸ KBS responded that it was difficult to make public North Korean defector-related information. The legislator accepted the explanation and didn’t ask for additional documents.

- Regarding his request for information on contingency plans of broadcasting systems for electrical power outages -

▸ Amidst increased public concern on the possibility of blackouts due to the shortage of power, he requested documents to the Ministry of Science, ICT and the Future Planning and the Korea Communications Commission for the purpose of assessing the present situation and creating appropriate countermeasures.

- Regarding his request for information on the Korea Space Launch Vehicle -

▸ The materials he received were those already reported to the National Assembly for budget

deliberations. He requested them to do a feasibility assessment as well as examine its budget allocation in comparison with other R&D budgets as the development of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle is one of President Park’s national priority agendas. He also wanted to learn more about it as he was scheduled to observe the launching of the Arirang 5.

Q7. Were the Russian rubles and U.S. dollars found in his shoe cupboard operational funds for RO?

- The foreign exchange confiscated by the NIS was 10,000 rubles (about 330,000 won) and 600 U.S. dollars.  The rubles and dollars were currency he had exchanged for his business trip to Russia (for the observation of the launching of Arirang 5) from August 18 to 25.

- The rest of the money (in Korean won) was security deposit he was planning to return for lease of his property. The building is included in his official personal property report.

Q8. Did he try to run away in disguise?

- Immediately after the NIS announced the ‘conspiracy for rebellion’ charge against Lee on August 28, news reporters who couldn’t find him falsely reported that Lee Seok-ki was “on the run in disguise.” At that exact moment, however, he was holding a press conference at the National Assembly.

Q9. Is it true that he received letters of loyalty oath?

- The so-called ’57 letters of loyalty oath to Lee Seok-ki’ don’t exist, although the existence of these letters is mentioned in the arrest motion signed by President Park Geun-hye and submitted to the National Assembly.

- Right after the general election in April 2012, he did receive congratulatory letters from UPP members. The letters read, “Congratulations, please work to represent the working class.” These letters do not contain a single word or phrase swearing ‘loyalty.’

- Distorting information so that congratulatory letters become ‘loyalty letters’ is a classic  tactic of the NIS to mislead the media and the people. It is nothing more than a red scare tactic to intimidate the people.

Q10. Is it true that some of his close friends and aids illegally visited North Korea?

- They visited Mt. Kumgang with the official approval of the Ministry of Reunification during the Roh Moo-hyun Administration. Calling the legitimate trip illicit is malicious. The NIS should provide concrete evidence for the allegation.

Q11. Is it true that a recipe for a homemade bomb was found on a desktop computer?

- The NIS and the conservative pro-government media reported that Kim Hong-yeol, Chair of UPP’s Gyeonggi branch had four recipes for homemade bombs on his computer.

- This is a complete fabrication. Chairman Kim Hong-yeol suffers from high-blood pressure and obesity, and he tries very hard to guard his health by walking for an hour-and-a-half or riding a bicycle whenever possible according to the recommendation of his doctor to lose weight. He also frequently downloads health information from internet websites. He downloaded some health-related materials from a health information website called “Miraero Entertainment. Ltd.”. The NIS extracted items from these materials and deliberately fabricated them as ‘a recipe for a homemade bomb.’

- Nitroglycerin is used medically to prevent heart attacks and cellulose is used for skin protection. Potassium nitrate treats toothache and dry ice is used as folk remedy to freeze and eliminate warts.

Q12. Did Legislator Lee Seok-ki have a framed calligraphy of former North Korean leader Kim Il-sung’s lifetime motto ‘Hold Up the People as Heaven’ in his home?

- This is also malicious reporting by the media trying to link him with North Korea. ‘Hold Up the People as Heaven (以民爲天)’ was first written by Chinese historian Sima Qian who wrote the Shiji (史記).

- King Sejong of Joseon Dynasty, as well as former President Kim Dae-jung and former Grand National Party leader Kang Jae-seop are all known to have appreciated the idiom.

Q13. Did he use words like ‘decisive stage’ or ‘holy war’ in his May 12 speech to encourage people to wage war?

- He only mentioned ‘Jeol-du-san’ referring to the Catholic Martyrs’ Shrine. The NIS distorted his words to mean the ‘final battle’ shrine in the transcript.

The Proper Rimes for the Eastern Country (東國正韻, 동국정운). Published in 1448 at the behest of King Sejong (世宗, 세종, 1397-1450, r. 1418-1450), it was the first Chinese character dictionary that listed Korean pronunciations and the first work using Hangul.

Introduction to Compound Words

Compound words are polysyllabic words, wherein the word can be understood by reading each character at the separately. These words are called either Hapseong’eo (合聲語, 합성어) or Hap’eui Boksa (合意復辭, 합의복사) in Korean. These types of words occur more frequently in later Classical Chinese texts, although there are plenty of examples in earlier texts.

An example of a compound word is 汽車(기차), which literally means “steam car” and refers to “train” in Korean. Each character in this word can be understood without changing the meaning of the word, when broken down into its constituent characters. Separately, the character 汽(기) means “steam” and 車(차) means “car.”

There are three types of compound words:

1. Unitive (聯合式, 연합식);
2. Associative (組合式, 조합식); and
3. Combinative (結合式, 결합식).

These will be covered in the next series of posts.

---

kuiwon.wordpress.com

Copyright Notice This work by Kuiwon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

 

Interview with Author, Essayist, and Travel Writer Rolf Potts

Originally Posted on Bosmosis.wordpress.com

If you’ve heard the term ‘vagabonding,’ there’s a good chance you’ve heard the name Rolf Potts. Though he invented neither the word nor the concept it denotes, he has done more than anyone to promote it as a viable travel ethic, describing it in his 2003 book Vagabonding – An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel as a deliberate way of moving through the world, “an extended time-out from your normal life –six weeks, four months, two years – to travel the world on your own terms.” Now in its 15^th printing, Vagabonding has been hailed by some as a postmodern classic and has inspired thousands of would-be wanderers to reevaluate their priorities and hit the road.

Before launching his globetrotting career, Rolf lived as an expat in Busan, South Korea, teaching English in a hagwon and a college, honing his writing chops, saving his money, and imbibing lessons that would serve him well as the vagabonding columnist for Salon.com in the late 90’s. Since then he has driven a Land Rover across South America, piloted a boat down the Laotian Mekong, and hitched, biked, trained, planed or walked across six continents, once even traveling for 6 weeks and 30,000 miles with no baggage. His work has appeared in magazines like The New Yorker, National Geographic Traveler, The New York Times Magazine, Slate.com and several others, as well as over a dozen travel writing anthologies.

In 2008, Rolf authored a second book, Marco Polo Didn’t Go There, in which he lets readers get under the hood of many of his best stories with extensive endnotes illuminating the construction of each tale. He also teaches non-fiction writing at the Paris American Academy and Yale University. When he’s not on the road, he’s home in Salinas County, Kansas in a farmhouse he renovated, just down the road from his family, enjoying the view of the Kansas prarie from his porch.

I recently heard that Vagabonding was being recorded for audiobook format, so I thought it would be interesting to revisit the book with Rolf and get his thoughts on it ten years – and tens of thousands of miles - down the road. Rolf was kind enough to answer some questions about the book, about travel writing, and offered some reflections on the formative time he spent in Busan.

Ten years down the road, what’s your own opinion of Vagabonding? How does the message hold up? Is it any more or less relevant?

I just reread the whole thing aloud for the audiobook, and listened to it multiple times in postproduction edits, and (while I'm no doubt liable to be biased) it feels as relevant as ever. I took out a few dated references in the audio version, and updated some of the resources online, but the philosophical core of the book still holds true. Before the recording session it had been awhile since I'd read the whole book, so it wound up feeling like a conversation with myself from ten years ago. I was home in Kansas when the first round of edits came in, and as I was listening to the audio I kept thinking to myself, "Man, I've got to get back out and travel some more."

Reading Vagabonding, one comes away with the message that travelling in a deliberate, thoughtful way is virtually synonymous with living deliberately, thoughtfully and openly all the time. Are you good at vagabonding at home? Keeping the traveler mindset alive for a summer in Paris doesn't seem like it would require too much effort, but how are you able to vagabond in rural Kansas? No offense to Kansas, but is that harder to do?

I think it's an ongoing challenge. Even on the road in 2013, with so much technology at our fingertips, it can be easy to slip into the ritual of tapping at your smartphone instead of engaging with your surroundings in some amazing place. So even in Paris or Tasmania (a couple of my recent destinations), mindfulness is an ongoing challenge. 

Kansas is a challenge in a different way. I'm very contemplative here -- I do a ton of reading and writing -- but contemplation itself can take you away from your surroundings. I love aimless Kansas road-trips -- you tend to meet interesting people and see a lot of pretty landscapes -- but I'll admit I don't take them as much as I'd like. 

How did your experience as an expat in Busan prepare you for long-term traveling? How did it prepare you for travel writing?

Expat life in Busan was terrific preparation for both long-term travel and travel writing, since it helped me understand cross-cultural difference at an intuitive level. Often use my time in Korea as an illustrative example of how you can intellectualize cultural difference all you want, but you can't really understand it until you are immersed in that culture, making discoveries and mistakes as you go. Working for a locally administrated institution (like a school) in that culture for months at a time is in effect a crash course on how to operate in a foreign culture. You end up with sharpened instincts for long-term international travel -- and this intensified awareness makes its way into your travel writing.

One reporting skill I picked up in the classrooms and on the streets of Korea was learning how to communicate without fully understanding a language. Academics have different terms for the kinds of communication that underpin travel reportage. "Intralingual" communication happens when, say, an American travels to Australia and communicates in English; "interlingual" communication happens when an American travels to Mexico and communicates in Spanish; and "intersemiotic" communication happens when an American travels to, say, Nepal or Zambia and communicates without the benefit of a common language. My experience in Korea attuned me to the idiosyncrasies of intersemiotic communication, and my ability to navigate these kinds of interactions has proven invaluable, both as a traveler and travel writer 

You’ve said in a 2006 Slate piece that you had mixed feelings about your time as an expat in Busan. Could you elaborate on that a little?

I touch on one aspect of that ambivalence a little bit in the second installment of that Slate piece. When I was in Korea, a lot of the teacher-expats didn't specifically want to be there. They weren't trained in pedagogy, and they had no interest in teaching; they had come to the country mainly hoping to make some money and pay off debts (often college debts). When I first arrived in the country I fell into the reflexive, boozy negativity that seemed to pervade so much of the expat crowd. Every second person at a given expat bar claimed to be a writer or artist, but you never saw much writing or art. It was all very bitter and petty and self-defeating, and I didn't begin to write about Korea in a meaningful away until I learned to keep that expat crowd (friends and coworkers included) at arm's-length and experience the city on quieter, more Korean terms.

But apart from those nihilistic expat vibes, Korea could simply be a tough place to live and work. Koreans can at times be xenophobic, and I suffered my share of culture shock and loneliness. At times I worked crazy hours and didn't get much sleep. Winters could be brutally cold, summers could be witheringly hot, and I often got tired of the noise and crowds (and the occasional filth) of the big city. I'm actually glad I experienced all these things, but they weren't always easy.

What’s next on your personal travel itinerary?

I have a little bit of U.S. travel pegged to the release of the Vagabonding audiobook, and once that's done I hope to hit Indonesia for 4-6 weeks before starting another semester-long teaching gig at Yale.

Though I don't have specific plans right now, I'd love to get back to Busan one of these days. I lived a couple of the most important years of my life there, and it still feels like a kind of home to me.

John is a Busan resident, teacher, and blogger.
You can read the full Rolf Potts interview at his blog bosmosis.wordpress.com

More Rolf Links

• Letters from Pusan: The party's over (one of Rolf's early pieces for Slate in 1998)
• Pusanweb's 1999 Interview with Rolf (complete video)
• Rolf's Thoughts after judging our 2002 Writing Contest
• Rolf's 2007 Google Talk
• Rolf's 'Do Lecture', Time = Wealth

---

​OUTSIDE LOOKING IN http://bosmosis.wordpress.com/

http://twitter.com/bosmosis

 

Now I know this isn’t technically a Busan event… but it’s close enough and the amount of overseas talent onstage is alarming. There will be folk music from all corners of the world, reggae, disco, hip-hop, jazz. Sometimes, the absence of outside culture here gets to me and I yearn for something different to stretch my brain around. This festival seems designed to do just that.

Held in one of Korea’s most economically robust cities, the festival itself is in it’s 46th year. Also, this is the first year there will be a conference held called the Asia Pacific Music Meeting which aims to connect artists, promoters and other industry folk from around the world. It’s an interesting addition that should help the lineup grow even bigger in the future. However, as it sits today, this festival is no joke.

Sadly, my computer doesn’t jive with the music festival website. Oh to be a mac user in Korea. But the details I am able to glean are as follows: There are 4 venues… I’m not sure if some of them are free or what, but I assume the ‘Open Stage’ is. The lineup is nice in that most acts play a couple times throughout the weekend so it’s easy to see every offering without jeopardizing your usual habits of drinking shitty beer in some dive. I found the Korean version of the website is more extensive than than the English one.

If you can help it, don’t miss Tahuna Breaks(NZ reggae/funk) or Che Sudaka(Cumbia/ska). A lot of the Korean acts look like very interesting modern riffs on traditional gugak and pansori (Coreyah,Song-Hee) in addition to old favorites likeYaya and Surisuri Mahasuri. And then there are lots of random musics that I’d probably otherwise never get a chance to see like Skip & Die (hip hop, electro, random coolness),Bajofondo (tango), Breabach (Celtic), and Muzsikas (Hungarian Folk). One act that I am excited to see is a funky homegrown outfit called Sultan of the Disco. The band is spot on and the singers seem to have a choreographed thing going on that it seems only Koreans can pull of these days (although that’s up for debate).

So here’s an English lineup. The festival runs from October 3rd through the 6th. Most of these acts are worth checking out. Don’t miss this opportunity for some full on world culture up in ya face-piece!

I hate to link it, but without source material, you might not know what I am talking about:

Korean mother: A cultural icon

If he would have simply said, “I love my mom”, it might actually not piss so many people off.

Being a person that comes into contact with Korean mothers, on a daily basis, I think I might have something to add.

My first question would be, why are Korean mothers more of a cultural Icon than any other [insert nationality] mother? That pretext alone makes anyone reading this very uncomfortable.

What bothers me most is that this text is simply immersed with misogynistic, nationalistic and cultural insensitive bullcrap. It’s no wonder that woman in Korea feel the way they do. (FYI: I am married to one)

Familial relationships in Korea can be very traumatizing, mostly due to the extreme pressure fellow Koreans force upon themselves.  This article is a prime example of how they do it.  They make people feel guilty and inadequate by proposing that “all Koreans are like that”.  Oh really!  My experience in Korea tells me just the opposite.  That every Korean is different, but that society does not accept the individual to be him/herself.  Do we really have to talk about suicides again?

Koreans are very adequate in making other people feel bad about themselves and about the decisions one makes.  It’s like the Stockholm Syndrome on a national scale.  Look at the following example:

In Korea, the image of a mother is closer to a bird. A mother bird, when raising children, does not eat anything all day; she is busy catching worms and feeding her babies in the nest. Like a mother bird, Korean mothers are willing to sacrifice themselves for their children. In Korea, therefore, the word “mother” always evokes the sweetness of care and affection, mercy and sacrifice, home and nostalgia.

In other words, if a Korean mother DOESN’T do this, she is considered to be a bad mother.  At first, what he says looks really romantic, but the reality is, this is his yardstick.  The yardstick to which ALL mothers should hold themselves dear.  I can honestly tell you, Korean mothers KNOW that everyone thinks this is what a “good” mother should do, and therefore are compelled to live by those words.  Opposite land.

If Korean mothers are so great and grandiose, how come their kids didn’t make a simple top 10 list?  Exactly, because every Korean is hellbent on making everyone else unhappy, by forcing them to follow impossible standards.

1. Fathers are unhappy, because they have to sacrifice every ounce of their freedom to increase the wealth of their family.  Great concept, until the family starts spending outside of their means to impress people they don’t like.
2. Mothers are unhappy, because their only measure of value to society is the Academic success of their offspring.
3. Children are unhappy because they try so hard to meet the expectations of their parents.

What happened to happy family life?  Father never at home, mother always stressing and kids trying to find an escape.  Reality check people!

Another cultural insensitive beauty:

Compared to Korean mothers, for example, American mothers seem to be reluctant to forgo their personal lives for their children.

Another hidden yardstick, telling other people what should be the proper way. This beauty of a sentence shows the lack of his cultural understanding of Western Education models an philosophies.  Please Mr. Kim, take another good look at this list here.  And tell me again that “American mothers” are reluctant to forgo their personal lives.  You haven’t got the foggiest clue.  You are the one that should be ashamed.

Then another yardstick to which he esteems Korean mothers to be better than their Western counterparts:

I have an American friend who, like other American parents, sends her children to their bedroom at 8 o’clock in the evening. I asked, “Why do you send your children upstairs so early?” She answered without hesitation, “I need my own time too.” Of course, she had a point. Nevertheless, it occurred to me that if she were a Korean mother, she would not do that. In the eyes of a Korean mother, it would look too selfish.

Do you know how many hours of sleep a child needs?   Here, I did the work for you : Sleep reqs for kids.  Now tell me who is selfish, the mother that makes sure the kids get enough to sleep, or the mother that neglects the NEEDS of her children, just so she can maximize her prestige with her social peers, by reducing the amount of sleep the kids get and force feeding them “education”.

Prof. Dr. Kim, you are an idiot.  I suggest, before you publish any more articles explaining the wonders of Korean culture, you get yourself educated first.

Throughout modern history, Korean mothers have been not only sacrificial but also exceptionally strong. They survived the harsh days of Japanese colonialism, the devastating Korean War, and the many subsequent political upheavals that tore through the country.

Yes, because only Korean mothers have faced wars.  Really? Follow some history lessons, please.  I am sure you will realize that in every war, mothers have done the impossible to safeguard their children.  Man, stop putting your foot in your mouth.

Each time the college entrance exam policy was altered, creating chaos and confusion, Korean mothers managed to navigate the new system and help their children enter college successfully. We say, “Behind every great man, there is a great woman.” In Korea, the great woman is primarily your mother, and then perhaps your wife.

Maybe instead of paying so much tribute to your mother, you might want to spend some of it on your wife, WHO IS THE MOTHER OF YOUR CHILDREN. Can’t you see the stupidity of all the things you are saying?  Are you really telling this with conviction that what you say is true?  No wonder  divorce rates are so high in Korea.

Don’t you think children would be happier if they could see the love of their parents for each other, rather than having the entire family deal with the social stigma’s other Koreans are throwing in your face?  I would love to have a chat with your wife, to see if she can actually love a man who loves his mother more than his wife. Idiot.

The novel’s status as a New York Times Book Review bestseller shows that the story of a Korean mother appealed to the American mind as well. Indeed, it may be a good idea to promote the image of the “Korean mother” as an icon of Korean culture in the international community. Korean mothers are so unique and exceptional, after all.

Yes, people read books only because the message is so beautiful.  Maybe people want to kill other people because they read crime novels.  Stop making woman feel inadequate.  Life is hard enough for them as it is.  It’s maybe due to the exodus of SO MANY KOREANS out of Korea, that this book has such a great appeal.  They were curious about the place they left behind as children.  I wonder why they left in the first place…. (Adoption)  You don’t deserve your title as a Dr. or as a Prof.  If this is the quality of your dissertation, you should be ashamed of your work.

I don’t even want to say anything about your reference to a comedy show, which you feel is a prime example of “American” culture.  Maybe you should spend some time in America, to understand that America is not a homogeneous culture, and that the diversity of American culture allows for many different people to raise their kids in the way they believe is best for them.  I am not American, and I feel insulted by your comment.

Prof. Dr. Kim; I hereby declare you to be a tool of your own misogynistic, and nationalistic misguided believes.  Next time, you would do well to talk to a few more woman.  You might not reveal anything new, because to talk to a man of your ideals, honesty might not be the best strategy.

(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Hello Again Everyone!!

Introduction to the Temple:

Guinsa Temple (“Salvation and Kindness Temple”) is beautifully located on Mt. Sobaeksan. Unlike most other temples in Korea, Guinsa Temple only dates back to 1945, when the Cheontae Order was re-established by the Grand Patriarch Sangwol-wongak. Originally, Guinsa Temple was nothing more than a thatched hut. After a time, Sangwol-wongak achieved enlightenment, and his followers have continued to grow to this day. Guinsa Temple is the headquarters to the Cheontae Order, which administers over 140 temples and 2 million practitioners. As for the temple itself, it’s on the rather large and ornate side of things. From the smallest of buildings, to the largest, this temple is pretty awe-inspiring.

The Temple Stay Program at Guinsa Temple runs regularly throughout the year. At Guinsa Temple, you can enjoy a lot of interaction with the monks, as well as time to yourself. Additionally, you can enjoy making lotus lanterns or a Nirvana walk. This program has a fair bit to offer a visitor to the temple.

(Courtesy of the Korean Temple Stay website)

Directions:

A: Seoul 
1. Yeongdong Highway (South Wonju) -> Manjong Fork Point -> Central Highway (Daegu Direction)
① -> West Jecheon IC -> Yeongwol (No.38 Road) Direction -> Changwon-ri -> Guinsa Temple
② -> North Danyang IC -> Maepo, Danyang -> Guinsa Temple

2. Bus departs from Dong (East) Seoul Bus Terminal 12 times a day every hour.

B: Busan
Central Highway -> Danyang IC -> Through Danyang City -> Guinsa Temple

General Schedule:

Day 1:
~13:00 Arrival
13:00~13:30: Check-In
13:30~14:00: Orientation
14:00~15:30: Temple Tour
15:30~17:30: Making a Lotus Lantern and Experience Training
18:00~18:30: Evening Ceremony
18:30~19:20: Dinner
19:30~20:30: Free Time
20:30~03:00: Bedtime

Day 2:
03:00~03:15: Wake Up
03:30~04:30: Early Morning Ceremony
04:30~06:30: Free Time
06:50~07:20: Breakfast
07:30~09:00: Walking Meditation (Nirvana Tomb)
09:00~10:30: Conversation over Tea with Monks
10:30~11:00: Survey
11:00~11:30 Room cleaning
12:00~ Ending
*Schedule is subject to change.

(Courtesy of the Korean Temple Stay website)

Guinsa Temple Information:

Address : 73 Guinsagil Yeongchun-myeon Danyang-gun Chungcheongbuk-do

Tel : +82-43-420-7493 / Fax : +82-43-420-7399

homepage : http://temple.cheontae.org/
E-mail : guinsa@templestay.com

Fees:

Adults: 40,000 won; Teens: 20,000 won; Under 13: 20,000 won

Link:

Reservations for the Guinsa Temple Stay program.

(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

One of my favorite Korean blogs on Classical Chinese texts. The blogger named Teolbo (털보) has posted Korean translations of Chinese Classics that I have not been able to find anywhere else on the Korean blogosphere.

Many of my readers acclaim me and my blog, but I think these accolades are a bit excessive. There are tons of Korean blogs that do what I do; mine just happens to be the only one in English. I would like to give where credit is due on this blog post.

Firstly, I get a lot of my source texts from the Korean blogosphere. I can do a simple Google search in Korean on a topic or text that I would like to post about, and can find a post about it on some Korean blog very easily.

Secondly, my blog posts’ formatting are in large part inspired from these Korean blogs — and also in-print books with side-by-side Korean translation and original text. I think this formatting is the most conducive to readers to who not only want to appreciate the meaning of the text, but also learn the Classical Chinese and characters and background history.

Thirdly and lastly, these Korean blogs help me with my translations. My translation method is as follows. I first directly translate from the Classical Chinese text to English. I then double check with the Korean translation, if there is one. Sometimes, the text might be making an allusion to a Chinese Classic or another work that I am unfamiliar with. I can tell whether there is an allusion when the line in question is a non-sequitur. (My personal knowledge of Chinese Classics drops outside the realm of the Four Books (四書, 사서) of Confucianism). Oftentimes, a Korean blog will have a translation and explanation of the work being alluded.

In short, thanks to the Korean blogosphere, my work on my blog is not as difficult as it seems. I can usually translate a heptasyllabic regulated poem (七言律詩, 칠언율시) and write annotations in about 30 minutes.

---

kuiwon.wordpress.com

Copyright Notice This work by Kuiwon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

 

I’m doing really well. Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I’ll try to turn that around in October. Good things are in store!

by Taryn Assaf

A Call to Arms

The people are the root of the nation. If the root withers, the nation will be enfeebled. Heedless of their responsibility for sustaining the state and providing for its people, the officials build lavish residences in the countryside, scheming to ensure their own well-being at the expense of the resources of the nation. How can this be viewed as proper? We are wretched village people far from the capital, yet we feed and clothe ourselves with the bounty from the sovereign’s land. We cannot sit by and watch our nation perish. The whole nation is as one, its multitudes united in their determination to raise the righteous standard of revolt, and to pledge their lives to sustain the state and provide for the livelihood of the people. However startling the action we take today may seem, you must not be troubled by it. For as we felicitously live out the tranquil years ahead, each man secure in his occupation – when all the people can enjoy the blessings of benevolent kingly rule, how immeasurably joyful will we be!

This proclamation was written by the leaders of the Tonghak peasant army, a group that formed out of the Tonghak religion. It was first sent out to Korean peasant farmers in 1894, and it embodies the struggles of farmers at the time and foreshadows the problems to be faced by farmers in the future. It is a call to arms- an ultimatum. It says, we can not allow ourselves to be exploited by the rich any longer. We can not sit idly by while our brothers and sisters are forced deeper and deeper into debt and poverty. We will not allow the rich to diminish our humanly worth by taking advantage of our livelihoods. We must fight this oppression, or die because of it.  Who were these peasants and what led them to the point of rebellion?

The Tonghak religion formed in the 1860’s in opposition to the ideals and exploitative nature of the yangban (the ruling class) and foreign influence in Korea, most notably Western missionaries and Japanese merchants that threatened the Korean peasant’s way of life. It combined aspects of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Shamanism and rejected Western Catholicism. In addition to its religious foundations, Tonghak was a social movement that advocated for the improvement of peasants’ conditions, an end to the exploitation of peasants by the yangban and reform of the corrupt government. The religion and its ideals became very popular among the peasantry, as it strongly advocated equality among all people (the religion stated that even man and God were created equal once man understood the equality of all people). Peasant farmers in central Jeolla province strongly identified with this belief and the religion and movement as a whole. The peasants here were lucky to farm on what was considered to be Korea’s agricultural goldmine, and yet they were concurrently suffocating with debt from especially unsympathetic tax policies enacted by the local government—money which went straight into the pockets of the local Governor. For instance, exploitive miscellaneous taxes were applied to anticipated rice shortages, anticipated rice spillages and anticipated loss of rice during transport; a 10 percent interest was applied to loans for grain at the time of repayment; and Governors falsified records and distorted numerical figures on grain repayments. These abuses were so detrimental that 30-40% of all peasant households in 1893 did not have enough grain to last for 4 months after harvest and 70% of the population was unable to stock food for the entire year. The shared oppressive experience and a vision for a just and democratic future  led to the Tonghak peasant rebellion of 1894. The Tonghak peasant army was initially successful in its mission for change- they temporarily occupied the city of Jeonju and negotiated a truce with the government on the condition that economic and social reforms be implemented.  However, the pause in conflict that came with negotiations eventually worked against the Tonghak army.  The Korean government had called in both the Chinese and Japanese forces to help quell the Tonghak army, the momentary ceasefire giving way to the Sino-Japanese War and the eventual Japanese occupation of Korea.

The Tonghak saw and understood that their way of life as farmers, their right to having a decent livelihood, and their dignity as human beings was being exploited for profit. They understood that the government was not on the side of the people, and was not interested in being a government that the common people supported. They opposed upper-class practices that benefitted the wealthy and strangled those below them. They fought for a future they believed in, one characterized by equality for all people. A future where everyone had the right to a decent living, and where the prerogative of one class was not maintained at the expense of another. The same sentiments can be felt by farmers globally today, who in the face of WTO agreements, IMF and World Bank conditionalities, and multinational agribusiness, are still struggling in much the same way as their Tonghak brothers and sisters. Increasing dependency on foreign food markets, decreasing food self sufficiency and security, decreasing farmer populations, decreasing arable land and fertile soil and increasing debt among small farmers are some of the problems facing the agricultural sector. The human right to farm is under seige, and thus the livelihoods of millions of people in the world today.

Tonghak Today

The agricultural sector in Korea is in crisis. Farmers are being suffocated by debt and have their hands tied by trade agreements. Food sovereignty is defined by Via Campesinaas the “human right for all peoples and nations to grow food in ways that are culturally, ecologically and economically appropriate for them.” Korea’s food sovereignty is being threatened. Farmers are finding it increasingly difficult to make a living from farming alone; as the influx of foreign agricultural imports increases, domestic products fall out of competition and the market becomes increasingly dependent on those imports. As a nation's food sovereignty decreases, its food self-sufficiency (the degree to which a country is self-sufficient in producing its own food) also decreases. For instance, as of 2004, the nation's food self-sufficiency rate was 25.3%. However, taking rice out of the equation, the number drops to an appalling three percent. This is due to the opening of Korea’s markets to global agricultural products. Rice is currently the only product not open to the global market. However, Korea’s rice sector is schedule to open in 2014. Currently, Korea imports 90% of its food products and is the fifth largest importer of U.S agricultural products. The same trends can be found in most countries worldwide that have entered into a WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) or a free trade agreement with the U.S. Once an agreement is ratified, a country must open its economy to foreign products. And with the U.S. and European Union’s markets already completely saturated and heavily subsidized by about $1 billion a day, peasant and family farmers around the world without similar subsidies are simply unable to compete. The AOA has become a new form of imperialism over small farmers worldwide, as it has shifted the control of global food security into the hands of big agribusiness and corporate elites. Since Korea’s opening of its markets in 1995, the state of farming and of farmers has sufficiently declined. For instance, in 1970, Korea’s food self-sufficiency rate was 80.5%; its farming population has decreased from over 14 million in 1970 to just over 3 million in 2004; and debt increased four fold to an average of $30,000 per household in 2003. With the Korean agricultural sector increasingly controlled by foreign powers, the concerns of Tonghak are still clearly visible.

Yet peasants continue to be at the forefront of their own struggles. Korean peasant’s philosophies have remained largely unchanged since the days of Tonghak, even as the methods of exploitation against them continue to evolve. At the WTO conference held in Cancun in 2003, a Korean farmer named Lee Kyung Hae climbed a chain link fence wearing a sign that read “WTO kills farmers” and stabbed himself in the heart. His self-immolation was a call to arms for millions of peasants worldwide who are forced off their land and driven into poverty by free trade policies.

During WTO talks in Hong Kong in 2005, one thousand Korean farmers called for an end to WTO in agriculture. 50 of them jumped into the freezing cold waters of Victoria Harbor in an attempt to reach the conference hall. Again in 2005, hundreds of thousands of farmers and citizens protested Korean imports of U.S beef. Founded in 2009, the Sisters Garden Plot sends locally grown and harvested seasonal produce by women peasant farmers to subscribers year round in an effort to achieve greater food sovereignty in South Korea.

With the imminent opening of Korea’s rice markets next year, the Korean Peasant’s League has stated that they “will struggle and prevent it at the risk of [their] lives because rice is [their] final livelihood and destiny.” It seems imperative at this time to do what is absolutely necessary to maintain what little food sovereignty Korea has left and to support and encourage local organizations in the struggle to challenge the WTO and rebuild Korea as a food sovereign nation. The spirit of Tonghak must be resurrected; we must not allow farmers to perish- both in Korea and around the world- for when a nation’s food security, sovereignty and self-sufficiency are threatened, its people are also threatened. Indeed, the Tonghak peasants knew that the people are the root of the nation. If the root withers, the nation will be enfeebled.

Thank you for waiting out my summer break. I need summers to get some writing done, but inevitably I didn’t get nearly what I needed to wrapped up. Should you ever hear that argument that college professors slack, because we only teach 2/2 or 3/3, you ought to try writing for these journals. Just read this. That is why we don’t teach 30 hours a week. 

But I am still writing for The Diplomat, a gig I really enjoy. Here is my piece from August on the endless soap opera of the transfer of wartime operational control (‘OPCON’) from the US to the Republic of Korea. (The pic is the US SecDef and SK DefMin.) Why the RoK would even want OPCON back, before unification, is beyond me. It’s a perfect opportunity to buckpass to the superpower security guarantor. And in fact, that is sorta the way the Korean debate is going; they increasingly don’t want it back. Also, it seems pretty clear now that the Koreans aren’t really ready. Too many officers have been playing golf or whatever instead of getting ROKA specs and procedures up to snuff. Anyway, my own sense is to just drop it, because the US and RoK are just going to re-build a version of CFC (Combined Forces Command) that does all the same stuff but is just a little less ‘joint.’ I don’t really see the point then in ending OPCON. If you’re a real mil-tech expert, please tell me in the comments why a new ‘CFC light’ is better than the current arrangement? 

The essay starts after the jump.

“The continuing soap opera over the US ‘OPCON’ in South Korea – US operational control of the Southern military in a shooting war (presumably with the North) – rolls on. The South Korean government has recently requested another push-back of the date when the South Korea would re-assume OPCON from the Americans. This is the second such request, raising the obvious question of whether this should go forward at all. Does it make sense to replace a joint structure with something less joint, when it would still need to function as such in a conflict? Especially now that North Korea is a confirmed nuclear power and just provoked the worst war crisis since 1950? (If you have never heard of this issue and do not know the debate, here is a pretty good place to start).

Back in 2006, the South Korean government first insisted on the reversion of OPCON by 2012; the US agreed. As a sovereign state, the Republic of Korea is fully entitled to such choices, and the decision was marketed as such by the South Korea left, which held the presidency at the time. Korea’s sovereignty was being restored; America’s semi-imperial dominance was being curtailed, and so on. The national security ramifications were generally glossed over; instead the government played to the nationalist Korean voters and latent anti-Americanism (the beef protests would break shortly afterwards). And at the time, during the Sunshine Policy, North Korea seemed reasonably well-behaved.

The decision was immediately controversial. The move, by Roh Moo Hyun, the most left-wing (or ‘progressive,’ which is the preferred term in Korea) president in the history of the Republic, provoked conservatives who saw it as a weakening of the US defense commitment. And indeed, Donald Rumsfeld did in fact embrace the deal as a way to manage US commitments at a time when the war on terror was still called the ‘long war’ and the ‘pivot’ to Asia was nowhere in sight. Roh’s successor, Lee Myung Bak, was content to request a delay, and it is not entirely surprising that Korea’s second conservative administration since 2006 requested a second delay.

The current US commitment to South Korean defense includes the wartime operational control (OPCON) of the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA). The military utility is fairly obvious: it provides unified command in wartime. Further, the more the US is vested with command responsibilities, the more likely the US is to say in Korea altogether. Former President Jimmy Carter sought to remove US Forces in Korea (USFK) altogether, and today the military necessity of retaining US forces in Korea is much diminished. One widespread school of thought in Korean studies is that the post-Cold War US presence in Korea is now the strongest ideological prop for the North’s continuing dictatorship, and that a US departure would accelerate unification. In the US, some rising voices, such as Ron Paul and the Cato Institute, have argued for years that a post-Cold War presence in Korea is unnecessary. Post-Iraq, perceptions that America is overstretched have risen, and Korea could clearly spend a great deal more on defense than it does. Hence, holding OPCON has always been a powerful Korean enticement to keep a US military presence despite geopolitical shifts that might encourage withdrawal.

But politically in South Korea, this has always meet with some distaste. It smacks of neocolonialism and external control. The Korean left particularly has been uncomfortable with the US presence for a long time. Like many western European leftist parties during the Cold War, the South Korean left is deeply divided over how to approach the communists. A minority could be fairly described as ‘pro-Pyongyang,’ although not nearly as many as mccarthyite Southern conservatives would have you believe. More generally, there is some confused sympathy for the North’s goals and a strong willingness to blame the Americans for making North Korea so paranoid and awful. Where conservatives tend to see a megalomaniacal, out-of-control monarchy, progressive tend to see North Korea pushed into harshness by US imperialism. Hence a reversion of OPCON could reduce tension by reducing the Northern perception that the US is out to get it.

As was the case in cold war Europe, there is lingering admiration for socialism even if its ‘real existing’ version is awful and corrupted. And there is some pride that North Korea is an independent Korean state, not as globalized and Americanized as the South, standing tall against the Americans, Chinese and the Japanese. In short, the South Korean left is fairly ambiguous on whether the US or NK presents a greater threat to South Korea, and the OPCON reversion plays to both that anti-Americanism and ambiguity in dealing with the North

Previously, during the Cold War, the US retained control of the ROKA in peacetime as well. So long as the USSR existed, it was generally understood that North Korea was a continuing invasion threat. Also, Korea was a military dictatorship until the 1990s. That military was tightly bound in training and socialization to the US presence. So there was little resistance in traditional national security circles. Curiously then, it is the left in Korea that is more nationalist – both anti-American and mildly pro-North – while the right is ‘internationalist’ – pro-alliance and virulently anti-communist.

As these contending political forces ebb and flow in Korean political life, attitudes toward the OPCON transfer have shifted all over the place. In my own experience on the conference circuit and teaching undergraduates in Korea, I have seen little sympathy for the transfer and a fair amount of anxiety. But that concern is more of the free-rider than anti-communist variant. The US presence is a shield that allows Seoul to spend a lot less on defense than it otherwise would and that is widely understood. Similarly, conscription terms in South Korea would almost certainly be longer without USFK. It is well-known that South Korean interest in unification is fading and that there is great fear for the costs. Insofar as the OPCON transfer would force more of the load onto South Korea, that is the primary concern I have seen – not fear of North Korean attack or US imperialism. In this way – to push the Koreans to take their own defense more seriously– the transfer might be a good idea.

On the other hand finally, are the coordination costs. Today, US and Southern commands are integrated into a ‘Combined Forces Command.’ The OPCON transfer would abolish CFC and be replaced by “independent, parallel national commands” acting in close liaison. This works elsewhere, in NATO and Japan, for example, but none of those commands seriously envision a massive ground war in traditional fashion, potentially involving hundreds of thousands of casualties. This does seem a questionable choice on strictly security grounds, regardless of the (rather bogus and manipulative) ‘neocolonial’ claim. Why abolish CFC/OPCON if it will only be replace it with something less organized and less unified?”

---

Robert E Kelly Assistant Professor Department of Political Science & Diplomacy Pusan National University robertkelly260@hotmail.com

About Me About this Blog C.V. Publications Terms and Abbreviations What I am Reading Now Subscribe

As historical cities go, Rome has to be considered as one of the greatest. The centre of an ancient empire that ruled most of Europe and stretched into western Asia and northern Africa. I was good at history at school (A at G.C.S.E.!), but I would definitely say my interest in history was only briefly temporary. As I have matured (cough*), I think I am much more a person interested in the ‘now’ rather than the past. My trip to Rome therefore was one that I was feeling uncertain of. I definitely wanted to go, I had an idea of what I would be presented with, I just wasn’t sure what I would make of it all…

Another swift train journey done and I had arrived in Rome. The train station was quite aged and busy. I tried to look up train times for my next destination in a few days, Pisa, but a persistent and unfriendly beggar motivated me to seek out my hostel instead. I was disappointed with the subway as well. Grotty! Anyway, enough of my public transport reviews. I got to my hostel and upon finding I was sharing a room with a creepy old man and two other yet to be filled beds, I decided to make a hasty exit to the streets of Rome. My first stop was the Colosseum. I braved the subway again and headed out into the slightly stuffy and humid Roman air. The Colosseum is an amazing sight, I found myself at the subway stop several times during my stay in Rome and each time I was easily distracted by its incredible and ancient presence. I didn’t pay to go inside, it seemed a lot just to look at the brick ruins inside when I could look at them from the outside for free. From the Colosseum I decided to walk to an area called Trastevere. On the way I passed more of the city’s open air museum sights, I walked through a Roman ippodromo and past towering columns, ruins and bridges.

Trastevere is on the southern bank of the river Tiber, outside the boundaries of the ancient city, and belonged to the hostile Etruscans. That is of course until Rome inevitably conquered it. Since then it has had a multifunctional history, a home for fishermen and sailors, a Jewish settlement in the middle ages and the home of one of Julius Caesar’s villas. It has been a mish-mash of rich and poor, Roman and non-Roman over the years and this is reflected in its maze of winding cobbled streets that stand across from the Tiber and rise up the Gianicolo hill. It is a popular area with tourists, artists and has been the inspirational home of musicians and film directors. I really enjoyed walking the streets, eating a little lunch in a small cafe and dipping my head inside some of the small art galleries and churches. When I came back the following day in the evening the streets bustled with natives and tourists, music and chatter filled the air and people spilled out onto the cobbled avenues with their beers and paper aperitivo plates in hand.

From the streets of Trastevere I climbed Giancolo hill. At the summit of the steep stepped passageway I was greeted by the very grand Fontana dell’Acqua Paola. I traversed the hill above the park that lay below and was able to enjoy the wonderful vistas of Rome. A prime viewing point is presented  in the shadow of a pompous bronze statue of the famous Italian hero Giuseppe Garibaldi. Domes, churches and bell towers pierced the sky across the city, and you can really appreciate the grandness of ancient Rome due to the lack of highrise modern development. In contrast a squadron of mod-style scooter enthusiasts were continually buzzing around the roundabout at the top of the hill and admiring their shiny bikes.

My rambling continued and the next Roman sight I stumbled into was the Vatican. A continuing theme of my summer travels was repeatedly becoming European landmark restoration. Of course, large parts of the exterior of the Vatican were covered with scaffolding but it was none-the-less an impressive sight. The Vatican was actually quite cheap to visit but unfortunately I had arrived around dusk and the entrance was closed. I planned to come back the next day but never made it and thus I missed out on seeing the frescoed interior of the Sistine Chapel.

I began the long trek home after having dinner at Piazza Navona, a very vibrant city square with street entertainers and lots of bars and restaurants. I walked back to the Colosseum via numerous detours. I had lost my map and was in need of a landmark. I headed for the river Tiber and followed it back to the ippodromo and the Colosseum. The Colosseum was lit up beautifully, although I doubt they would have had powerful spotlights back in Roman times to achieve the same effect. I got the subway back to the hostel and was heartily relieved that the two other beds were occupied and I wouldn’t be alone with the weird old man.

My second day in Rome started with a well deserved sleep-in. I managed to make the last call for breakfast and headed out. My first stop was the train station to sort out a ticket for the following day. I wanted to get a cheap ticket I had seen advertised before it sold out. I managed to get the ticket without being harassed by a homeless man, but I was briefly distracted by a comical, if not slightly painful looking, pile-up on the escalator. It was all very Mr Beanesque as some girls luggage got trapped at the top and everyone behind fell over each other. Even the security guards trying to help made it worse.

If i thought I walked a lot the previous day, my second day in Rome would eclipse that belief. It will be simpler to list the highlights:

1. The Wedding Cake
In a continuing horizon of terracotta roofs and ancient ruins “The Wedding Cake” stands out like a sore thumb.  Altare della Patria is an outlandish, chunky and white monument to Victor Emmanuel the first king of unified Italy. Although it has great cultural significance it is considered a bit of an eyesore considering ts ancient surroundings.

2. The Pantheon

The outside of the Pantheon is quite deceptive. The majority of the building is round in shape with high, undecorated stone walls. A typically Roman columned  entrance with a triangular roof sits at the front of the building and looks almost out-of-place against the simple curved wall behind. Inside however is a different proposition. Not only does the domed interior feel five times bigger than it appears outside, but a powerful ray of light pierces the dullness inside from a circular hole in the roof. Whilst ancient Rome generally lies in ruins around the city the Pantheon has held firm over time. Inside huge archways house icons of the church and if you time your visit correctly you can get a dramatic photo as the beam from the oculus above lights up an archway. By modern standards you would consider the Pantheon breathtaking and I think it was undoubtedly my favourite sight in Rome.

3. The Trevi Fountain

If the Pantheon was my greatest attraction in Rome the Trevi Fountain was my biggest disappointment. The fountain was quite appealing but a lot smaller than I had anticipated, more so it was also an area that was packed with tourists. getting a good view was nigh on impossible. Still, it was another box ticked.

4. Villa Borghese Gardens

The previous day I climbed the ridge above Trastevere, on my second day I went across the valley and climbed the Spanish Steps and worked my around to another ridge to the Villa Borghese Gardens. If you want to escape the streets and the crowds in Rome then this is the place to go. The second biggest park in Rome is full of trees to shade from the sun, open grass areas to worship the sun and small ponds to cool your feet. I spent most of my time relaxing with my book and wondering about Rome’s obsession with building a statue of every famous and semi-famous person from history (Imagine if we still had that attitude now? We would have statues of the most inane people littering the streets of London. Whilst Rome is full of kings, explorers and artists. London would be full of pop-singers, reality TV stars and footballers. A statue of Rick Waller, Jordan and Wayne Rooney anyone?) but the park has some great villas to admire, as well as a rather spooky and half-abandoned underground chopping centre. This was all of course, if you could avoid tripping over amorous couples who littered the grounds of the gardens like dangerous land mines.

I stayed out late and walked back to Trastevere for an aperitivo and met a couple of cool French guys and had a few beers before heading back. The next day I would check out early and head on the slow but cheap train to Pisa. I left Rome satisfied, it had definitely exceeded my expectations and I even feel that I would go back. I’m not sure that two days really does it justice.