Every Wednesday at Noon ...

... in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, a handful of hal-muh-ni (grandmothers) gather to speak truth to power.

On this day, it was only five. I am told there are only a dozen or so remaining to begin with, but today it was cold, the wind had picked up, so some of them had to stay home. The ones who came stayed in the vans until it was nearly time to begin.

Stooped, wrinkled, drained by years of hard life--what elderly person is not?--but with these women, there is something more: these are the Korean "comfort women," at least those able and willing to come forward.


Some sixty-five years ago or more they were taken from their homes into bondage, sometimes forcibly, sometimes on the promise of factory jobs in China, and pressed into sexual slavery by the official Japanese military. As young as early teenagers, these women were raped multiple times every day, often for years, at so-called "comfort stations" in Japan, China, Burma, Cambodia, the Philippines--wherever there were Japanese soldiers in World War II. If they became pregnant or diseased, murder was a common fate.

These are the facts. Yet to this day, the Japanese government has refused to admit them, and properly apologize--just as it has for so long taught schoolchildren that America attacked first, and that the Nanking Massacre was a "controversial incident." When you write the textbooks, you get to decide what the facts are.

Yet, these women are the facts. A few minutes before noon they don yellow vests and take their places on plastic stools directly across from the gates to the Japanese Embassy in Seoul--and across from twenty Korean riot police, with their shields and paddywagons, there to protect the wrought-iron gate from a handful of eighty-year-old ladies.


While I suppose this makes the Seoul government feel that it's doing its international duty or something, the disproportionate response is but an added humiliation--and even a slap in the face--that should be dispensed with. Didn't these old ladies see quite enough of men in uniform in the 1940s?

Maybe that's part of their point. They come here every Wednesday at noon, these halmoni and their supporters, and it forces both governments to acknowledge them. The Japanese have constructed around their embassy a fortress, just look at the high fence and imposing metal gate--the only indication of its purpose and nationality is a sad little flag on the roof. The only thing more ridiculous is the Japanese history of denying, excusing and minimizing their behavior.



The protest proper begins exactly at noon--it is rather scripted. The video above is a ten-second capture of a song which roughly translates as "Stand Like a Rock" which is sung at every protest. Organizers, particularly the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery, hand out sheets with lyrics and texts so participants can follow along. It helps if you know Korean. They also sing a song to the tune of Abba's "Dancing Queen." Hmmm.

A very nice young Korean woman who speaks excellent English named Hannah gave me contact information and a copy of the latest newsletter. Please do visit http://www.womenandwar.net. I also met a young lady named Krystal--her English was impeccable, but that's probably because she's from Minnesota, an exchange student at Yonsei. Father Korean, her grandmother was a "comfort woman".

On this day, a representative from Amnesty International was present, who announced that the city of Sapporo (in Japan) has adopted a resolution admitting the Japanese military is responsible for this victimization and apologizing for it. What does it mean that the national government can't do the same? Ultimately, that's what these women are looking for. Compensation? Sure, it'd be nice. But recognition, confession and apology, the restoration of the truth to their lives, which have buried in other people's guilt all these years--is it too much to ask?

I say the protest was scripted, but one part of the script involved handing the mic to one of the grandmothers--the one on the end in the purple hat. I am not conversant in Korean, so I hardly recognized a word she said. BUT, I understood exactly what she was saying--insulted, proud, righteous, deeply injured, and searingly angry. Are you listening, Japan?

[UPDATE: June, 2011 photos and blog post, click here: Comfort Women Protest]

Happy Pepero Day!

A week or so ago, I noticed a large chocolate-and-pink-balloons-and-hearts display at E-Mart-uh (see below), and thought to myself, Weird. Valentine's Day isn't for three months yet.


Shows what I know. True, it's not Valentine's Day exactly, which is named after a saint; it's Pepero Day, named after a candy. In fact, some argue the holiday was created by a candy company, Lotte, who makes Pepero. Yes, Pepero is actually a brand of candy. But, so what? Many of the same people would argue that Mother's Day in America was created by the florist industry.


What is Pepero? It's a thin cookie stick coated in mediocre-quality chocolate. The date 11/11 was chosen because it resembles four sticks--Pepero sticks!
NB: Unlike a certain other blogger in my Blog List who ripped his photo for Pepero Day from somewhere on the web, the photos in this post are Certified Tuttle.

Incidentally, 11/11 is also Armistice Day in England, recognizing the end of WWI, and Veterans Day in the US. You may wish to pause a moment to remember the sacrifice of those who have fought and died to preserve our freedoms.

Kim Jong-il Watch

It is pretty well known that evil North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has not been seen in public since late August. Rumors have spread that he is dead, or gravely ill, or suffered a stroke and is recovering nicely.

North Korea has done its share to fuel the speculation by operating an inept public relations campaign to show the "Dear Leader" out-and-about performing Dear Leaderly type stuff.

* First, they released still photos of him at a meeting--whose other attendees included someone who has been dead for two years!
* Then, they sent out pics of him at an outdoor ceremony supposedly from October, but the trees in the background were in lush summer growth.
* Here is a close-up of the latest photo. Pay attention to the shadow of Kim's leg compared to the other shadows, his left foot, and the black line on the concrete. I mean, I've had freshmen in computer class who could do this well after a few weeks' instruction in Photoshop.


An article in Agence France-Presse is headlined 'South Korea dismisses reports of 'faked' Kim Jong-Il photos: "'The possibility of Mr. Kim's photo being forged seems very low,' an NIS spokesman told AFP, refusing to elaborate. He declined to comment on questions raised by the British media about the photograph."

Meanwhile, Korea Times reports that a key director at the Institute for National Reunification, isn't buying it. Choi Jin-wook even goes so far as to name the de facto decision-maker: Chang Sung-taek.

"Chang is now in control and leading North Korea," Choi ... was quoted as saying. "Other important figures consulted him, even before Kim's stroke. He will keep Kim's policy line even if the North Korean leader dies."
Chang, born in Gangwon Province in 1946, married Kim Kyong-hui, the younger sister of Kim, and served as vice director of the ruling Workers' Party.
After an abrupt purge in 2004, he was promoted to the post of first vice director of the party with oversight responsibility for the police, judiciary and other areas of internal security, according to North Korea's state media, the Korean Central News Agency, last year.
"He is very smart, dynamic, with maybe some charisma - that's the image I have of him," Choi said. "He has fewer enemies than other senior cadre because when he purges people, they are not just sent away from Pyongyang, they are killed."

Great. Noth Korea has its own Putin, waiting in the wings.

Finally, an editorial in today's Chosun Ilbo does a little sabre-rattling on behalf of the incoming Obama administration, lest the North think it will get a free pass, just because Obama doesn't swagger and talk all tough. Like a certain someone. The article notes that it was the Democratic Clinton administration that studied the feasibility of bombing the Yongbyon nuclear facilities in 1994. "America now has a time to review its North Korea policy again from first principles. And they are complete abolition of the nuclear program and prevention of nuclear proliferation. The difference between Obama and Bush is merely in methodology in achieving that end."

Kind of heavy reading, I'll admit, but hell, yesterday I posted about a coat rack.

Coat Rack as Metaphor

So it's Sunday. That means after cleaning and tidying my flat I made my weekly trip to E-Mart-uh for a Whopper with cheese. Not that I'm in a rut, you understand, oh no--it's that the rest of my week is such a whirlwind of activity that I need the touchstone of Sunday afternoon to have a burger and write my lesson plan.

(Hang on a mo', my Sunday evening load of clothes has just finished washing and I need to hang them up. Not that I'm in a rut or anything.) My lesson plan is finished: I've mixed up a bunch of Archie comic strips by shuffling panels around in MS Paint; students will put them in order, then act them out with each other.

And then I went down to Cooper Hof for smoked chicken and some beer. So far, nothing out of the ordinary--indeed, kind of rut-ish. I mean, if I were in a rut.

Now for the rut-buster, at least in the theory I am in a rut: I went back to E-Mart-uh (it's just across the street, after all) and got a coat rack. Given the size of the apartment and the lack of storage and hanging-up space, it was definitely helpful. A fact I realized when the weather turned last month.


This is the largest, least transportable thing I've purchased since I've been in Korea--even if you disassemble it. Though it wasn't too expensive (W34,900), it still represents some kind of permanence I am hesitant to embrace.

Do I love it here? Yeah. Do I anticipate staying a while? Yeah. Do I wanna make three trips when I move? No. So, okay, I bought some plates, bowls and silverware, a few pots and pans (three total), a small lamp, ashtrays, recycling (NOT trash) bins, laundry rack and so on. How is this coat rack different? It's not a necessity. It's a convenience, an implicit admission that I am here and might as well get comfortable.

Yanghwajin

I spent today with older Mr Lee and Miss Cho at the Yanghwajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery in Hapjeong-dong and two attached sites--a Catholic Museum and shrine, and an interpretive center. Catholicism in Korea stretches back to 1784, and was quickly followed by the first execution of Catholics in 1801. The Catholic museum is at a site called Chol Tu San, "Hill of Beheading", where unknown thousands of Korean Christians were martyred in the 1866 Byungin Massacre.


The episode began with the murder of nine French missionaries. The French government sent two navy ships up the Hangang to the fortress at Yanghwajin, "Willow Flower Fortress" to get to the bottom of the events. At the time, Korea was ruled by the Regent Tae Won-gun, father of the teenage King Kojong (who would eventually come to be known as the last king of Chosun). The French ships were turned back, and Tae Won-gun cleansed the site with the blood of Christians. The site documents torture and persecution of Korean Christians throughout the 1800s.







In addition to the museum, the catholic shrine has a statuary park which includes a really neat outdoor Stations of the Cross and a big memorial to the martyrs.















The Foreign Missionary Cemetery was first opened in 1885, and is the resting place of several influential foreigners, including newspaperman Ernest Bethell, whose reporting tried to rally the West against the brutal Japanese occupation beginning 1905, and US diplomat Homer Hulbert, whose epitaph reads, "I would rather be buried in Korea than in Westminster Abbey." There is a very nice, media-intensive interpretive center. The first picture below asks visitors to use their hands to hold up the names of Protestant missionaries.







That bottom right photo is of Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots by Horace Underwood, one of the earliest and most influential missionaries. In fact, the Underwood family served in Korea (and many are buried here) for four generations and 119 years, finally leaving in 2004. Underwood, a Presbyterian, founded what became Yonsei University, one of Korea's top three. Another Presbyterian missionary, Mary Scranton, founded Ehwa Women's University.



On this lovely autumn day, the cemetery was beautiful in its setting amid the turning trees and a crisp blue sky. But not too long ago, it had fallen into serious disrepair, and efforts of the Union Church (Protestant non-denominational), to which Mr Lee belongs, took ten years to bring it to its present state. Finally, here is a namesake Scottish missionary:

Suicide Veggies!

A while ago, I wrote in a post titled Martyrdom in the Animal Kingdom, about a website called Suicide Food, wherein an overwrought vegetarian analyses images of livestock animals participating in their own demise on restaurant logos--a pig cooking barbeque, for instance, or a chicken serving up hot wings.

The site rates the depravity of the images with nooses, where one noose is "mildly troubling" and five is "Ye gods! I must go wash out my eyeballs!"

Ever the contrarian (which I gather is a polite way of calling someone a jerk), I have found a couple of logos here in Seoul of Suicide Vegetables! WARNING: The photos below depict vegetable food products in a marginally charming, chlorophyll-insensitive manner unsuitable for viewing by sentient foliage.

Killer Kimbap!
Kimbap is a rice/seaweed roll stuffed with vegetables, sometimes a layer of scrambled egg, and occasionally some crab meat.


People Baking Toast
Sure, it says People, but if you notice who's wearing the chef's hat, it's easy to see what's going on here!


Bonus Photograph
It isn't actually leather, but it may be fish. Hell, it may even be edible, but I'll never find out!


While I had the camera out, I updated the Neighborhood Art post (five headers down) with two new sculptures in one plaza. Worth a look!

What Government is For, Korean Edition

"Adoption of English as Official Language Proposed" for Korea, according to an article today in The Korea Times.

Yeah, good luck with that. Of course, Korea is not alone; about one hundred countries (half of the total) include English as an official or widely spoken tongue. A quick google spotted an article about Madagascar's government's decision to do the same. Madagascar is a large island in the country of Africa country in Africa whose president, Marc Ravalomanana, is sometimes called "Park Myung-bak" at least according to this story in Korea's Dong-A Ilbo, due to his five year plans for improving his country's economy, like Park Chung-hee, and his role as an important business leader, like Lee Myung-bak. Park and Lee both have served as Korea's leader.

Indeed, Ravalomanana called Korea "his role model country for economic development," according to the article. You could do worse, as Korea has changed from a feudal, agrarian society into a thoroughly modern, technological marvel and economic powerhouse in just fifty years. This amazing story was one of my key reasons for wanting to spend some time here. Says the article:

Considering the importance of English on the global stage, the Madagascan president designated the language an official language in additional to the indigenous Malagasy and French.
He directed the public sector to use English in a number of work processes...

Now, the fact that many people in Madagascar already speak more than one language suggests a substantial difference with Korea. The population speaks only Korean, and most can read simplified Chinese characters as they are still widely used, but there has been weak cultural interest in learning foreign languages.

Chinese and Japanese have been the most frequently-learned languages, due to the influence of these cultures in Korea's history and geography. In fact, during the Japanese occupation in the first half of the 20th century, speaking Korean was illegal for a while, and everyone was forced to learn Japanese. Some of those people are still alive.

Cut to the latter part of the century past. As Korea's industrial prowess grew, the lack of English speaking began to be recognised as a hindrance to achieving economic goals. The English Program in Korea (EPIK) was introduced in 1992 to bring native English speakers to teach here. Each year, this program is being expanded as rapidly as the market for native teachers will bear. Which also helps explain why I am here. I'll blog later--and ongoingly--about the impediments to teaching English to Koreans.

The Korea Times article focuses on comments from InvestKorea leader Chung Tong-soo, a Harvard Law graduate and a former Clinton administration staffer:

We should convert our difficulty into an advantage. The key is bringing down exorbitant corporate tax rates and giving foreign firms an atmosphere they can easily work in.
Language barriers make life for foreigners more difficult, so let's remove them. Years from now, we may look back on a lost chance with regret.

Acknowledging the difficulties the government would face in adopting English as an official language, Chung said, "That is what the government is for."

Politics is like ...

Politics is like driving. To go backward, put it in R. To go forward, put it in D. --unattributed

We just changed direction. Hopefully, we were in time.

Prepositions: Language's Little Helpers

Honest to God, if you asked me a few years ago what a preposition was, I would have said, It's some damn part of speech. No idea. I am clueless about the intricacies of direct objects, subjunctive clauses, dangling participles (although that one sounds dirty, if you ask me), impersonal pronouns in the subjective case and similar grammatical minutiae. At least, when one gives them names.

My personal theory is that in moving a great deal as a kid, which I did, I somehow managed to miss all the units on grammar and just arrived in time for literature. Oh, I vaguely remember writing out sentences and underlining nouns once and verbs twice, but I couldn't tell you why. And I've never diagrammed a sentence in my life. Unless you mean, draw a picture.

Still, I speak and write clearly, even beautifully, or so I've been told. That's because I've always read voraciously, and have usually read great writers--maybe it's easier to understand how a fine sentence works when you encounter it in the wild than when you try to reconstruct it in the laboratory. Or maybe it's just that the ear has become more finely tuned due to repetition.

All this is to preface my description of this week's Spoken English lesson at Youngil HS. Which is a review of prepositions. These are words, like in, on, at, under, beside, that lend temporal or spatial specificity to other words. In I'll meet you at 2 o'clock, "at" is a preposition. I hope.

The starter activity has the students draw a map of the route from home to school, then give verbal directions to a classmate. This follows up on what we've done the last two weeks. Next, they read aloud and fill in the blanks on a preposition review exercise I ripped from the internet and refined. Finally, I give them the base diagram below (which I whipped up in MS Paint):


They then add elements to the picture by drawing:
* There is a window opposite the door.
* There is a potted plant in the back right corner.
* There is a small dog under the table. Etc.
Nine things in all. They mostly like to draw. At least, they stay awake, it's less like pulling teeth to have them draw than speak a lot of English, and they've done something tangible at the end of class.

And we're reviewing prepositions, language's little helpers.

Interpellation: What It Means To Me

While the US political system is in the throes of arguably the most important election since 1932, the Korean National Assembly began its five-day Interpellation session today.

Yeah, I never heard of it either.

I realize you didn't ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Interpellation is the constitutive process where individuals acknowledge and respond to ideologies, thereby recognizing themselves as subjects. At least, according to this page at the University of Chicago. Don't bother, I'll summarize: Suppose you are at a busy subway stop. Someone yells really loudly, "Hey! You there!" You assume it's a cop and turn your head. There ya go, you've been interpellated.

This idea was popularized (well, to the extent something no one has ever heard of can be said to be popularized) by a French Marxist philosopher named Louis Althusser.

Althusser emphasizes the ubiquity of ideology and interpellation by noting how subjects are consistently constituted by Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) such as the family, educational institutions, and media such as literature, radio and television. The idea that an individual can be interpellated through various mediums would later be appropriated by theorists from diverse backgrounds such as cinema and media studies and cultural studies.--UChicago website

Hey! You there! No, I wasn't interpellating you, I was just trying to wake you up. In the more parliamentary sense, though, interpellation is the process whereby the legislature asks the executive branch to justify its policies and actions. Rather like what the British call 'Question Time'.

Big issues in this year's interpellation will apparently be pork barrel spending, partisan political investigations and raising moral issues to divert attention from their own missteps. Huh. I thought I wasn't going to be blogging about the US election.

In a nutshell, the Grand National Party, currently in power, is being questioned about "rice subsidies" which were intended to encourage small farms to grow ... rice (okay, call it rice barrel politics). Turns out, many politicos who own land in the countryside have been claiming the subsidy, even though they don't grow a single paddy of rice. Meanwhile, opposition Democratic Party flaks claim that state prosecutors are unfairly targeting their side to divert "public attention from the economic woes by underscoring the moral misdeeds of the past government," according to DP Rep. Kim Dong-cheol.

Sounds more like the US election with each passing paragraph. A GNP committee sent a "confidential" email to party lawmakers asking for budget proposals in their constituencies for "social overhead capital" projects--the textbook definition of an "earmark." According to a legislative aide quoted in a story in Dong-A Ilbo:

At a time when the government plans to speed up SOC projects, it will be in the interest of both the government and the ruling party to fund projects in the ruling party’s constituencies...The economic crisis obliges us to take caution, but such a practice has been customary for quite some time.

Still, the total amount, if granted, adds KRW 10 trillion, only about 2.5%, to the projected total outlay--not exactly a budget-buster. Of course, the Korean government doesn't run a deficit. So it's quite unlike Washington after all.

Neighborhood Art

I took a nice long walk today in the crisp autumn air with my camera, and snapped some photos of public art installations in my neighborhood. For some, I was able to find an inscription, for others, I have just indicated the location. See More Neighborhood Art! Cyber Interlocking Cube In Front of Home Plus In Front of E-Mart Forest Who Has Seen the Wind? A Key That Opens the East In Front of My Building Okay, it may not be Art, but that's a pretty elaborate design for sidewalk pavers! Bi-Won Building Plaza UPDATED (11/05/08): Added new photo and title for "A Key That Opens the East". UPDATED (11/07/08): Added photos of two installations at Bi-Won Building. UPDATE (09/22/21): I now live in Bi-Won Building, the art is still there!

Above My Neighborhood

I have been playing in Google Earth and figured out a way to post a link on the internet that will open your Google Earth and then load up a view of Doosan officetel, where I live, (lat=37.557010608, lon=126.861456017). For some reason, the method I found in a forum wouldn't work until I switched from maps.google.com to maps.google.co.uk--inexplicable, and very annoying. So, enjoy the fruits of my geekiness. My very cool geekiness.

If you do not have Google Earth (well, even if you do), I made an image of my officetel and my school, and mapped the route I take to get to and from. This walk takes 17 to 20 minutes, depending on how long the wait is at the crosswalk. Do click to see the larger version: