Korea Focus - October 2014 (English)

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Table of Contents

- Korea Focus - October 2014 - TOC - Politics 1. The Danger of Demonizing North Korea 2. Unification Begins with Empathy Rather than Money 3. Why Is China So Eager to Court Korea?

4. Isolation of the Asahi Shimbun 5. Yi Sun-sin, Japanese Invasions, and Today’s Korea

- Economy 1. Thomas Piketty Asks Korea’s Choice 2. China’s Impact 3. Manufacturing’s Earnings Shock and Deregulation 4. Self-reliance in Energy and Electric Cars 5. Creative Economy is Start-up Economy

- Society 1. [DEBATE] All-Volunteer Military System 2. Outdoor Craze and Quality of Life 3. Young People Confused between the Humanities and Resume Specs 4. Why Don’t We Meet Now?

- Culture 1.The Future of the Asian Games 2. Preserving North Korea-related Documents at the U.S. Library of Congress 3. Controversy over ‘Madame Butterfly’ by Korean National Ballet 4. Multiethnic Families and Mother Tongue Education 5. Korean Universities Don’t Teach Patriotism 6. Provocative Painting Puts a Damper on the Gwangju Biennale

- Essays 1. North Korean Economy in the First Half of 2014 2. Effects of Chinese Tourism Surge on Korean Economy

- Features 1. Neighborhood Baseball Aficionados Build their Own Stadium 2. Evolution of Hanok in Modern and Contemporary Eras

- Book Reviews 1. ‘Memento mori’ ― Conclusion of a Long Recovery from Death of Loved Ones

- Interview 1. Kim Won: “I want to build a peace memorial in Hanoi.”

2. Gu Gyeong-seon: “Being able to instill hope in others, isn’t that grand?”

- COPYRIGHT

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- The Danger of Demonizing North Korea - Unification Begins with Empathy Rather than Money - Why Is China So Eager to Court Korea?

- Isolation of the Asahi Shimbun - Yi Sun-sin, Japanese Invasions, and Today’s Korea

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The Danger of Demonizing North Korea

Bae Myung-bok Editorial Writer The JoongAng Ilbo

I just finished reading the memoirs of Donald Gregg, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea from 1989 to 1993 and before then, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station chief in Seoul. I interviewed Gregg, 86, at his home in New York last April and as soon as his memoirs were published in July, he sent me a copy.

The 330 pages flew by as if I was reading a novel, thanks to Gregg’s revelation of many dark episodes and his keen sense of humor. His reflections on more than 40 years of his service in government positions, which also included National Security Advisor, provide lessons for future generations.

The final chapter, “The Dangers of Demonization,” encapsulates what Gregg wants to convey: “When I look back on the patterns in American foreign policy based on my direct observations and personal involvement, one point is abundantly clear. Whenever there is a leader or organization that we dislike or do not understand, there is a tendency to demonize that party. When we do that, it invariably creates problems for the U.S.” When this ignorance leads to a distorted policy, it usually leads to conflict. In the end, everyone loses, he says.

The CIA dispatched Gregg to Saigon during the Vietnam War. He insists that if the United States had recognized that Ho Chi Minh was a heroic independence fighter, it could have easily avoided the 5

tragedy that ensued. Ho Chi Minh had a highly favorable view of the United States. In particular, he was a fervent admirer of Thomas Jefferson, one of the authors of the U.S. Constitution.

In fact, after World War II, Ho Chi Minh held out his hand in friendship to the United States on several occasions. He wrote to President Harry Truman, offering alliance with the United States if Washington would recognize the independence of Vietnam. However, the letter was ignored and its existence was kept secret until it was declassified in 1972.

The United States’ crucial error in dealing with Vietnam was equating it with North Korea, according to Gregg. The decisive difference was that Chairman Mao Zedong lent his whole-hearted support to Kim Il-sung, but not to Ho Chi Minh. The Vietnamese leader’s sole purpose was to liberate and unify Vietnam, but the United States viewed him as a pawn of China. The United States went to war against communist North Vietnam thinking that if South Vietnam fell into communist hands all of Southeast Asia would be endangered. The fear embodied U.S. policymakers’ “domino theory” at the time.

It is not an overstatement to say that post-World War II American history is a chronology of failed interventions. Through CIA clandestine operations, the United States engineered coups, backed opponents of certain governments and even intervened militarily, but the actions rarely achieved the desired results. In most cases intervention had the opposite effect. Oftentimes an even more violent and oppressive dictatorship would emerge. Instead of dealing with a sitting cat, Washington would end up facing a crouching tiger.

According to his 2006 book “Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq,” former New York Times Latin America correspondent Stephen Kinzer determined that every U.S. intervention to promote regime change has backfired instead of strengthening national security.

When we look carefully at President Barack Obama’s latest headache ― the Sunni Jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) ― we can see yet another example of the misapplied force.

The United States achieved regime change in Iraq after deciding Saddam Hussein was an evil threat.

The U.S. action, based on faulty intelligence, ultimately sowed chaotic conditions that fueled the formation of ISIS. It is widely believed that ISIS, also referred to as the Islamic State, could develop under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi because the misrule of U.S.-installed Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki allowed an Al-Qaida splinter group that had been cornered to flourish.

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President George W. Bush’s intervention in Iraq has repeatedly become a burden to President Obama.

When President Obama decided to expand the current military operations in Iraq to Syria in order to drive out ISIS, it was clear that he was also bequeathing his Middle Eastern war burden to his successor, just as his predecessor had done.

North Korea has the exact requirements for being deemed a demon in the eyes of the United States: a hereditary dictatorship, the continued development of nuclear and missile programs, a dismal human rights record, and array of concentration camps. However, there is a difference between looking like a demon and being a demon in reality. Not understanding your counterpart but demonizing him or her nevertheless is dangerous. The mistakes committed in Vietnam and Iraq can be repeated.

In his memoirs, Gregg writes, “North Korea represents the single greatest intelligence failure in American history.” Gregg acknowledges that this was not just a mistake at the intelligence-gathering level, but also a profound failure at the national level. When you don’t really know your counterparts, the first step is to approach them and have a dialogue. Deciding whether or not your counterpart is the devil comes afterwards.

For a country that holds knowledge in the highest esteem, disliking and ignoring North Korea is an insult to and betrayal of America’s core values. The three Americans currently being detained in North Korea is a good opportunity for Washington and Pyongyang to meet.

[September, 16, 2014]

www.koreafocus.or.kr

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Unification Begins with Empathy Rather than Money

Kim Byung-yeon Professor, Department of Economics Seoul National University

Many Korean people assume that securing funds is the primary issue in preparing for unification with North Korea. But money should not be a major obstacle. Necessary funding can be raised by either borrowing from other countries or issuing government bonds to share the cost with future generations.

Because gains from national reunification will exceed the costs in the long term, paying off the debt would not be a big problem.

However, there is something crucial for unification that cannot be borrowed. It is sympathy. We need to have empathy and consideration for other people and respect them as valuable beings. I recently asked a Japanese scholar on German affairs what he considered was the most important factor in Germany’s unification. The economics professor replied that it was the church. He pointed out that, despite being a socialist country, East Germany had churches that helped maintain civic consciousness. Based on the Christian creed, West Germans also were willing to extend financial assistance to improve the livelihood of East Germans.

I recall when a bag of fruit fell from my bicycle during my student years in Britain. All of the cars stopped and none of the drivers honked their horn. Some pedestrians came onto the road to help me pick up the fruit. One of them approached me to ask if I was hurt. It was a moment when I learned the empathy of the British citizens and the national dignity of their country.

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Unfortunately, Koreans have a very low level of empathy. According to a World Values Survey conducted in 2010, only 40 percent of Korean respondents included tolerance and respect for others on a list of important virtues that should be taught to their children. The rate was in the lowest bracket among 52 countries surveyed, far behind Sweden (87 percent), the United States (72 percent) and Japan (65 percent), and even Egypt, Ukraine and China. On the question of whether they agreed that “working for the common good of society” is important, Koreans ranked second to the last in saying “yes.” In contrast, on an index measuring the extent of materialism, no country with higher per capita income than Korea ranked above it.

On the other hand, a study of North Korean defectors by a research team, of which I was a member, revealed that North Koreans are among those with the most collectivist sense of values in the world.

The study consisted of a game of giving money to the defectors and watching how much they would share with someone anonymously. On average, they gave away half of the money unconditionally, more than double the 20 percent generally seen in most capitalist countries.

Considering the very high level of materialistic and collectivist tendencies among people of the two Koreas, we can hardly expect social integration to follow unification, unless our families, schools and society teach and embrace intrinsic human values.

Recent tragic incidents in Korea, including the Sewol ferry disaster and the beating death of an Army private by superiors, displayed a lamentable lack of respect for humanity in our society. Taking lessons from these incidents, we all need to nurture empathy and learn to live a life of fairness and caring for other people; otherwise, even if unification occurs, it will entail a tremendous amount of pain and true unity will not be realized.

Reunification should not be viewed only in terms of economic gains and losses. Genuine reunification will not be produced by policy-making and money alone. It will be shaped by the moral standing of our society and our ability to recognize reunification as a means to empathize with the reality of North Korea and fundamentally heal its people’s sufferings.

It is natural for young people to have some reservations about unification because of foreseeable increases in their tax burden. However, they should open their minds to look at positive challenges and opportunities that will result from economic integration and systemic unity. Furthermore, they need to have a more dynamic and forthcoming attitude about the meaningful prospects of helping 9

their North Korean brethren live a more humane life. Indeed, empathy is the essential foundation and driving force for national unification.

[JoongAng Ilbo, August 14, 2014]

www.koreafocus.or.kr

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Why Is China So Eager to Court Korea?

You Sang-chul China Specialist Reporter The JoongAng Ilbo

“Fried ice cream.” That is how a Chinese official assessed the Korea-China summit held in early July in Seoul, according to Sungkyunkwan University’s China Institute Director Lee Hee-ok. What did he mean? Fried ice cream is piping hot on the outside and ice cold on the inside. Both governments described the summit as “a success of historic proportions,” but they unofficially expressed disappointment.

Viewed from a Korean perspective, dialogue on managing the North Korean nuclear challenge did not meet our expectations. The joint statement by Presidents Park Geun-hye and Xi Jinping clearly stated that they oppose nuclear weapons development on the Korean peninsula without specifically mentioning North Korea. The words “Dresden Declaration” (President Park’s reunification plan) could not be used in the statement, so Seoul had to be satisfied with having some of its contents included in the statement.

As for China’s summit disappointment? Korea’s inherent caution blocked Beijing’s effort to try to draw Seoul ever closer to its side. China’s courtship of Korea has been extremely aggressive, taking every opportunity to stress how relations are intertwined and “how we are from the same house.”

President Xi said that his visit to Seoul was like “visiting a relative’s house.” That fact that Xi visited Korea with his wife Peng Liyuan lent the visit a family-like atmosphere. In contrast, even though 11

President Barack Obama has visited Korea four times, he has not once brought First Lady Michelle Obama.

How should we interpret China’s aggressive “love calls” aimed at Korea? The most common answer currently being offered is that this is a strategic move by China to break out of America’s containment strategy. Ever since the Obama administration declared America’s “Pivot to Asia,” America has become extremely wary of China and is rushing to curb China’s rise. If a dispute arises between China and one of its neighbors, the United States will automatically support that neighbor.

America’s effort to strengthen its alliance with Japan is an extension of this. Even though Japan suffers from historical amnesia and is moving ever farther to the right, America is providing cover for Tokyo because its usefulness takes priority. Even worse, the United States is trying to promote trilateral security cooperation between Korea, the United States and Japan. Korea sees this kind of cooperation as being aimed at North Korea, but the United States has China in mind. China is doing its best to tear Korea away from the U.S. camp.

A second interpretation is that Beijing is trying to expand its buffer zone. In the past, China has viewed North Korea as a buffer zone to block U.S. influence, but with relations with Seoul becoming stronger and stronger, China would like to have the entire Korean peninsula act as its buffer zone. As a result, China is aggressively trying to woo Seoul.

These interpretations are reasonable, but I feel we have not taken the full measure of China’s interests.

Both of these interpretations paint an image of China in a defensive posture against U.S. aggression.

But we should focus on Beijing’s overtures to Seoul as part of an offensive strategy. Drawing Korea to China’s side has been a long-cherished dream and is closely connected to China’s rise to global prominence.

Accordingly, we need to pay attention to the argument made by the realist scholar Yan Xuetong of Tsinghua University. Yan developed the diplomatic framework being followed by Xi Jinping. According to Yan, by the year 2023, the current international system where the United States is the sole superpower will shift to a bipolar system with China as the other pole. Who will be the winner in this system? We must look at two elements. The first is the national power of each country, and the other is how many allies each country can secure. Combining these two factors will determine the winner, according to Yan.

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Yan suggests that China must give up its policy of nonalignment and actively develop allies. America has 42 military alliances with countries around the world. In contrast, China does not have a single alliance partner. Yan insists that China and Korea need to form an alliance.

Yan is uncertain as to whether Beijing will adopt a policy to attract formal allies, but it is clear that China must expand its fraternal military relations. China must strengthen ties with Russia while at the same time reach out to distant friends in Africa and Latin America. In addition, China is declaring “Asia for Asians.”

Last fall, Xi Jinping hosted a conference on improving diplomatic relations with China’s neighbors.

The conference stressed the importance of friendly ties and mutual support. This is a key element for developing strong alliances. These efforts will determine the outcome of the contest with the United States.

China’s courtship of Korea will only become more persistent. We must hold wide-ranging and indepth discussions because finding the right approach will not be easy.

There is one thing we must bear in mind: it would be a problem not to think carefully about China’s courtship of Korea, but we should neither give in to China’s entreaties nor ignore them. We must carefully read our suitor’s intentions. We are actually the ones that must prepare a plan for going on the diplomatic offensive.

[August 20, 2014]

www.koreafocus.or.kr

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Isolation of the Asahi Shimbun

Sunwoo Jung International News Editor The Chosun Ilbo

On May 3, 1987, two reporters at the Asahi Shimbun's Hanshin Bureau in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture were shot by an intruder. One of them, a 29-year-old reporter, died the next day. Three days later, the gunman sent a letter to two Japanese news agencies in the name of "Sekihotai," a clandestine right-wing group. The letter read in part, "Asahi Shimbun, a newspaper that is fueling anti-Japanese sentiments, is vicious ... We've sentenced all staff of the Asahi Shimbun to death. We'll execute each and every one of them until the last moment."

The gunman was never caught. In 2001, Asahi Shimbun published an editorial titled "Historical Responsibility" on August 15, the day Japan surrendered in World War II. It read, "The emperor cannot evade responsibility for the war, considering that all orders were issued in his name ... Who would reflect on himself when the supreme leader of the country doesn't take responsibility?" Then and now, any talk about the emperor's responsibility for the war has been a taboo in Japan.

On March 27, 2005, Yoshibumi Wakamiya, the chief editorial writer of the Asahi Shimbun, wrote in an article for the daily's "Weather Vane" column, "I sometimes imagine what (would happen) if we gave up the islets...." He suggested that Japan abandon its claim to Korea's Dokdo islets. He merely made an implicit suggestion. But right-wing activists flocked to the daily's headquarters, calling him a "traitor" and threatening him to "commit harakiri." Wakamiya became a "public enemy" of Japanese 14

right-wingers. Six years later, the Asahi Shimbun appointed him its editor-in-chief.

The Asahi Shimbun is a precious resource for Korean students who study the Japanese language. The newspaper not only uses correct grammar, but emits no stench of nationalism. A good example is its attitude towards crimes committed by ethnic Koreans in Japan. In contrast to other Japanese newspapers, the Asahi Shimbun makes it a rule to identify Korean-Japanese criminal suspects by their Japanese names instead of their Korean names. Its policy is not to use a word that could instigate bias against ethnic Koreans. The newspaper, including both of its morning and evening editions, has a readership of 10.27 million.

The Asahi Shimbun shares a "space for intellectual debates" with another leading Japanese newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun, which has a readership of 13.20 million. People usually brand Asahi and Yomiuri as progressive and conservative, respectively. But the Asahi carries unparalleled value that cannot be identified by such a simple yardstick. It rejects nationalism and has high regard for internationalism, even though it knows its stance will hurt sales, and calls for self-reflection on its country's past, even though it knows this makes its readers uncomfortable.

Nonetheless, Asahi has never lost its status as one of the top two newspapers in Japan in the 100 years of history in Japanese journalism. This shows the depth and breadth of Japan’s intellectual community.

A feature story the newspaper carried on August 5-6 this year dragged the Japanese people into a public debate once again. Using as many as five pages for two days, the newspaper stressed the need to "look squarely into the true nature of the comfort women issue." It found fault with the allegation by the Japanese mainstream society that "there was no forced mobilization of the comfort women" by the imperial Japanese Army during World War II, while citing a few false reports on the issue.

The newspaper has since been under fire for its reporting. Now the Japanese government has also cut in on the debate. It has been over 20 years since the Asahi Shimbun began waging a struggle over the comfort women issue. A newspaper in a country of assailants which has always fought on the side of victims, the Asahi Shimbun now looks lonely and frazzled.

[Chosun Ilbo, August 9, 2014]

www.koreafocus.or.kr

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Yi Sun-sin, Japanese Invasions, and Today’s Korea

Han Myeong-gi Professor of History Myongji University

In November 1598, when the Japanese Invasions were ending, Admiral Yi Sun-sin deployed his ships in Gwangyang Bay to block the retreat of the Japanese troops under General Konishi Yukinaga stationed at the Waegyo Fortress in Suncheon, Jeolla Province. Yi did not want the enemy forces to have free passage after they recklessly invaded Korea and ruthlessly slaughtered its people.

Konishi, placed in a desperate situation, bribed Liu Ting, the commanding general from Ming China, and Chen Lin, the Ming commanding admiral, into dissuading Yi from cutting off his troops' pullout.

The Chinese military leaders urged Yi to let Konishi's fleet go. Despite Yi's strong opposition, the Ming military leaders who had the operational control over the Korean forces remained stubborn.

Finally, Chen allowed Konishi's fleet to send a messenger boat to Shimazu Yoshihiro, the admiral of the Japanese fleet stationed off Sacheon, Gyeongsang Province, to seek help.

A Japanese fleet of some 500 ships was dispatched to save Konishi's troops. While trying to prevent the rescue, Yi died in the Battle of Noryang. From the Battle of Myeongnyang (1597), which he won, to the Battle of Noryang, Yi was troubled by the Chinese military leaders who lorded over the Korean forces and interfered with his tactical plans.

After failing to repel Japanese invaders at the outset of the war, Korea had no choice but to be under 16

the sway of the Ming commanders. After their defeat in the Battle of Byeokje in January 1593, the Ming troops resorted to peace talks with the Japanese invaders. Chinese generals forced Korean generals "not to attack Japanese troops recklessly" and even "arrested and flogged" Korean commanders who disobeyed their “orders.� A nonsensical situation occurred in which Japanese soldiers carrying passes issued by the Chinese commanders came in and out of Korean villages freely, but there was nothing the Korean troops could do.

The royal court of the Joseon Dynasty had no breakthrough ideas as the Ming military leaders conducted talks behind the closed doors with the Japanese in disregard of the Korean people's sentiments and even protected Japanese troops. The only thing that Joseon could do was to ask the Ming military leaders to hurry up and drive away the Japanese forces as soon as possible, pleading that "there should be no talks with the enemy." What came in reply, however, were a scoffing and derision from the Ming military leaders who said, "You should fight back yourselves if you want to."

Despite being the victim of the invasions, Joseon authorities had to hand over the operational control of its troops to Ming and be mere bystanders. The shameful history repeated itself even after the Japanese Invasions ended. Similar situations recurred during the Manchu Invasions of Joseon (1627 and 1636), the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), as well as the Korean War (1950-53). All of these tragedies occurred because of the strategic importance of the Korean peninsula, over which big powers had competing interests, and our weakness.

Leaders of a country wedged between big powers need to quickly grasp and strategically respond to changing conditions in and around their country. The leaders of Joseon failed to do that before and during the Japanese Invasions. Japan had been rising since the early 16th century, thanks chiefly to the introduction of matchlock muskets, a sharp increase in silver production, and the emergence of a unified national government.

In contrast, the people of Joseon were groaning under reckless politics of influential aristocrats, chaotic personnel management and plundering by corrupt officials. Joseon was drained of its vitality, as the scholar-officials who replaced powerful aristocrats were embroiled in factional conflicts. Amid the chaos, leaders of this country lost the opportunity to comprehend the turmoil occurring outside the country and build a strong nation.

How about today when so many people are going wild about the blockbuster "The Admiral: Roaring

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Currents"? The situation in Northeast Asia, where China's growing self-confidence, America’s anxiety and Japan's impatience dovetail each other, seems ominous again. But as was shown in the April 16 ferry disaster, our leaders seem to be as incompetent and irresponsible as ever. Are they ready for a "crisis" that the nation may encounter sooner or later? We now miss Admiral Yi's leadership; he saved the country and the people with a death-defying sense of responsibility and a noble spirit of self-sacrifice.

[Dong-A Ilbo, August 25, 2014]

www.koreafocus.or.kr

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- Thomas Piketty Asks Korea’s Choice - China’s Impact - Manufacturing’s Earnings Shock and Deregulation - Self-reliance in Energy and Electric Cars - Creative Economy is Start-up Economy

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Thomas Piketty Asks Korea’s Choice

Lee Ha-kyung Chief Editorial Writer The JoongAng Ilbo

“What Korean economists do today is more about mathematics than about economics,” said Professor Lee Joung-woo of Kyungpook National University, who was chief policymaker at the presidential office during the Roh Moo-hyun administration. Indeed, when I majored in economics at college, classes were “math combat.”

Professor Lee’s observation was apparently inspired by Thomas Piketty, a professor at the Paris School of Economics and author of the best-seller “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.”

In writing the book, Piketty not only applied his collection and analysis of data on income and wealth in Western capitalist countries over the last three centuries but also his knowledge of history and politics. Even his literary imagination was tapped as he cited novels by Honoré de Balzac, Jane Austen and Margaret Mitchell, and television dramas. Professor Lee says that Piketty’s book is a warning to economists not to neglect important practical matters as they tackle mathematical and abstract issues.

Piketty concluded that when return on capital is higher than the rate of economic growth, wealthy people will have greater income, worsening income inequality. To correct “patrimonial capitalism,” he proposed an 80 percent progressive income tax on the top 1 percent earners and a global wealth 20

tax as high as 10 percent on the assets of the wealthy. The additional tax revenue should be used to expand welfare and improve the income of the poor, Piketty says. His ideas may sound radical. Yet, Piketty sets himself apart from Karl Marx who opposed capitalism. The French professor advocates preserving capitalism through democratic control.

Francois Hollande of France’s Socialist Party won the 2012 presidential election on a campaign pledge to impose a 75 percent income tax on earners of 1 million euros or more, which Piketty had proposed. When Piketty visited the United States in April, he met with the secretary of the treasury and gave lectures to the White House Council of Economic Advisers and the International Monetary Fund. He proposed income redistribution through tax reform, which President Barack Obama is contemplating.

The 43-year-old economist is as popular among his worldwide followers as the Beatles were in the music world at the height of their popularity. The Economist, a conservative London-based weekly magazine, headlined an article about him “Piketty fever: Bigger than Marx.”

Piketty’s global speaking tours will bring him to Korea. His message of imposing heavy taxes on the wealthy to correct so-called patrimonial capitalism will surely trigger an intense debate on an economy dominated by the select few.

Liberal economists in Korea have issued critiques in advance of his arrival. They stand by the inequality that Piketty considers a problem. They claim that income inequality is unavoidable to a certain extent and that inequality actually boosts the motivation to succeed. They say the problems of patrimonial capitalism don’t apply to Korea. They try to draw attention to the fact that the Roh Moo-hyun administration raised the inheritance tax to 65 percent, recognizing that corporate control is kept in the hands of owner-families. That is twice the average inheritance tax rate of other OECD member countries.

President Hollande’s wealth tax plan was ruled unconstitutional, and rich citizens left France. As such, Piketty is considered an agitator and his proposed solution to inequality is criticized as radical and unrealistic.

Despite the attempts to belittle Piketty’s proposals, they are still very influential. Saenuri Party chairman Kim Moo-sung said, “Piketty’s proposals have pros and cons in the world, and I personally believe he is right.” Bank of Korea Governor Lee Ju-yeol said, “It is desirable to ease inequality to 21

reinforce growth potential.” He is concerned that “aggravated inequality may have a negative impact on the efforts to produce the kind of quality human resources that made Korea’s economic development possible in the past.”

The problem is the Park Geun-hye administration lacks a voice on inequality, even though resolving inequality and higher taxes are now matters of great public concern in Korea and worldwide. The government’s plan to raise local taxes, including the residential, automobile and tobacco taxes, is confusing. They are indirect taxes with uniform rates. As such, the proposed tax hikes hit people in low-income brackets harder.

Korea is in the OECD’s bottom ranks in resolving income inequality through taxation; its portion of direct taxes, including income tax, is small. Yet Korea is increasing regressive taxes, which dilutes efforts to reduce inequality.

President Park already has failed to keep her promise not to raise taxes. Now her administration has to decide who is going to pay for increased welfare. It also has to decide what to do with the tax benefits that conglomerates and wealthy people have so far enjoyed. All it needs to do is to determine the level of welfare and tax payment after sounding out the public opinion through a “national council on grand bargain,” whose creation the president has promised. Here, it is called on to uphold the premise that Korea needs to keep its growth engine running for its recovery.

As inequality threatens to worsen in the 21st century, the moment to decide what kind of state we want to pursue is approaching fast. Whether Piketty is right or not, we must not hesitate to jump into the provocative debate he has ignited.

[September 17, 2014]

www.koreafocus.or.kr

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China’s Impact

Kim Byung-jik Deputy Managing Editor and Business & Industry Editor The Munhwa Ilbo

Samsung Electronics, one of Korea’s leading blue chips, recently had a shock in the Chinese market.

It lost its market leadership to Xiaomi, China’s largest domestic smartphone producer.

According to a report by Canalys, a U.S. market analyst, Xiaomi had a 14 percent share of China’s smartphone market in the second quarter, followed by Samsung Electronics with a 12 percent share.

A year ago, Xiaomi had a mere 5 percent market share.

Korea, which prides itself on being the greatest shipbuilding powerhouse in the world, also is facing a serious challenge from China. According to a report from the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade, China edged out Korea and ranked first in new vessel orders, shipbuilding volume and number of pending orders from 2012 and 2013.

Korea is still ahead of China in the value of pending orders because it has more orders for high-end ships. But as far as volume is concerned, China has surpassed Korea.

In the past, Chinese business enterprises have been disrespected because of their low technological competitiveness and low wages.

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Now they are making great strides in technology, threatening to replace top-notch Korean businesses as market leaders. Chinese corporations can force them out of the market in the blink of an eye. This sense of crisis is spreading throughout Korean industries ― from information-technology to electronics, shipbuilding, steelmaking and petrochemicals.

China is Korea’s largest overseas market, so the rapid rise of the Chinese manufacturing sector poses a tremendous threat. Analysts say made-in-China products are gaining a competitive edge and replacing Korean goods. Indeed, Korean exports to China declined from May through July, on a year-onyear basis, and the total amount of exports during the first seven months this year fell 1.2 percent.

The most notable catalyst for the fast growth of Chinese companies is their government’s supportive industrial policy. China has a plan to help five to eight large ICT (information and communication technologies) corporations boost their annual sales to 100 billion yuan or more by 2015.

Another plan aims to raise the rate of self-reliance in display screens to 80 percent or more by 2015.

It calls for government subsidies and low-interest loans to domestic manufacturers and import tariffs on LCD panels from 3 percent to 5 percent.

Moreover, Chinese manufacturers are already dominating their domestic home appliance market, with their government providing subsidies to rural households purchasing TV sets, washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners and other home appliances.

Huawei, a smartphone maker which has become a global player, reportedly received $10.6 billion in subsidies from the Chinese government when it ventured into global markets.

Another notable development is what is dubbed as the third Kuomintang-Communist alliance ― an agreement on closer economic ties between Taiwan and China. Under this accord, technology is being transferred rapidly from Taiwanese companies to Chinese companies.

What about Korea, on which the transformation of Chinese corporations has the greatest impact? A new team of economic policymakers in Korea says it is committed to accelerating economic recovery.

But what large Korean companies get from their government is undue disparaging and pressure, not encouragement and support.

President Park Geun-hye recent called excess regulations a “cancerous mass” and promised to push 24

hard for wide-ranging deregulation. But businesses have yet to feel the effect.

On the contrary, regulations administered by the central government have increased, not declined, since President Park presided over her first ministerial conference on deregulation in March. In addition, the National Assembly has taken little action on bills submitted by the government to revitalize the sagging economy.

China can thank Korean bureaucrats for regulating business activities and Korean lawmakers for holding up legislation. An executive of a large corporation is quoted as saying, “We look around to find friendly forces in the nation as the global business environment is worsening. There are few.

Instead, we find ourselves tightly surrounded by adversaries.�

[August 25, 2014]

www.koreafocus.or.kr

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Manufacturing’s Earnings Shock and Deregulation

Kim Yung-bong Chair Professor Sejong University

The second-quarter performance of Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor and Hyundai Heavy Industries was nothing short of an earnings shock.

The operating income of Samsung Electronics, which accounted for half of the corporate earnings at the Korea Exchange last year, dropped 24.5 percent to 7.2 trillion won in the second quarter. Hyundai Motor’s operating income fell 13.3 percent.

Even more shocking was the 1.1 trillion won operating loss of Hyundai Heavy Industries. For the first time since its start in 1973, the largest shipbuilder in the world sustained a quarterly operating loss of more than 1 trillion won.

Given the sudden surge in the Korean won’s value, a moderate decline in the sales and earnings of the leading Korean corporations has been expected. It is woefully disappointing to see the corporations wobbling already when the business environment for them, including the exchange rate, is likely to worsen in the months ahead.

If these leading corporations are as weak as they appear, I wonder what will happen to other companies, large or small, if a crisis erupts. Is the collapse of Korea as a manufacturing powerhouse not far 26

away?

Let’s look deeper into their poor performance. The market share of Samsung smartphones, despite a 23 percent increase in the worldwide sales and its release of the Galaxy S5, has dropped by 7.1 percentage points, from 32.3 percent last year to 25.2 percent in the second quarter of this year. On the other hand, Huawei and Lenovo raised their market shares 6.9 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively.

The operating loss of Hyundai Heavy Industries resulted largely from Chinese shipbuilders’ low bids to secure contracts. No wonder the Korean shipbuilding industry is being edged out by Chinese shipbuilders in new vessel orders, shipbuilding volume and the value of orders.

Hyundai cars are fighting an uphill battle against foreign rivals because of the won’s gain against the U.S. dollar. It also is being pushed around by its powerful labor union.

The average yearly wage for Hyundai employees reached 94 million won last year, a 40 percent increase in five years. Yet, the union said it will seek members’ votes for a strike when they return from a nine-day holiday in August. Understandably, Hyundai Motor has virtually stopped expanding its domestic production since 2000. Instead, it has been building its plants in foreign countries.

Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor and other globally renowned Korean companies are manufacturers. As is often mentioned, the foundation for all industries is manufacturing and they can hardly have sustainable growth unless manufacturing is deeply rooted.

Korea is a manufacturing powerhouse, with manufacturing accounting for 31 percent of its gross domestic product in 2012. Manufacturing creates high-quality jobs and helps boost output in other industries.

But Korea is challenged by China and other mid-level countries, which are consolidating their foundations for manufacturing and pushing ahead with technology development. Also challenged are the United States, Germany, Japan and other advanced nations, which are now working on institutional reform and supporting research and development to enhance the viability of their manufacturing sectors and to develop new innovative industries.

If no action is taken, Korea’s manufacturing will probably wither away. Korea should listen to such a warning.

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A new team of economic policymakers, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Choi Kyung-hwan, has drafted a plan to spend more than 40 trillion won on boosting economic recovery by the end of next year. The plan, designed to encourage consumer spending and benefit households in the mid- and lower-income brackets, is being favorably received in the market.

It is necessary to make manufacturers and other corporations willing to make investments if the nation wishes to promote sustainable growth and spend more on welfare. Corporations ultimately are the job creators and new sources of income through investments.

Corporations should invest and push for innovation if new jobs and new sources of earnings are to be created. Regulatory reform is necessary if the government wishes to see manufacturers and other businesses make investments on their own.

The political community, local governments and bureaucrats will have to work together on freeing businesses up from regulatory controls on locations, types and scales of business. But deregulation bills are stuck in the legislation process. If no action is taken on the bills, keeping Korea’s position as a manufacturing powerhouse will prove to be an illusion.

[Munhwa Ilbo, August 4, 2014]

www.koreafocus.or.kr

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Self-reliance in Energy and Electric Cars

Lee Seung-hoon Professor Emeritus of economics, Seoul National University Co-chairman, Green Growth Committee of Korea

A task given to the Korean economy in the era of climate change is reducing carbon emissions. The use of new and renewable energy, which stands at 3 percent of the energy needs, should be raised to 50 percent by 2050.

The target year is not far off. Yet, the business community is vociferous in its opposition to carbon emissions trading.

Self-reliance in energy is a long-held dream for Korea, which has no oil wells. Though it may sound unbelievable, the demand for carbon reduction provides an opportunity for energy self-sufficiency.

Oil reserves are concentrated in certain areas in the world. But unlike oil, sunlight is shed to all countries. Light and heat from the sun produce energy for living.

In Germany, the unsubsidized conversion of sunlight into electricity can now compete with traditional power generation. No less a contributor to solar power’s viability in Germany is its price of electricity; it is twice as expensive as in the United States. In addition, mass production has lowered the price of solar panels, with solar power generation widely distributed in Germany.

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The price of electricity is too low in Korea. The government subsidizes much of the production of solar power. But a ban on selling surplus electricity discourages households from installing solar panels. Mass production of solar panels is impossible if their potential demand is curbed in this manner. Even if German technology were used, the commercial generation of solar power would be impossible in Korea.

Solar power generated during the daytime cannot be saved and used at night because of a lack of proper technology. Backup energy facilities are needed to meet power demand at night but that would mean additional expenditures. Nuclear plants in France and Germany supply electricity to other European countries at night. But that is not an option in Korea, where the power grid is isolated.

An alternative that is gaining attention lies with an “energy storage system� that taps electric cars.

Even in rush hours, 80 percent of passenger cars reportedly are not used. When proper infrastructure is installed, the batteries of parked electric cars can be used to supply energy.

The idea is to equip all parking places with battery chargers, link them to the local power grid and withdraw power from the batteries to the power grid when electricity is in short supply. This is what is called vehicle-to-grid (V2G) power supply.

Ten million electric cars are capable of supplying 200 gigawatts of electricity, or 2.5 times the amount of electricity all Korean power plants are capable of generating. With 19 million vehicles registered in Korea, the need for backup facilities can be resolved without too much difficulty when an era of electric vehicles begins.

The proposed V2G solution is nothing but an idea at present. But it is the only realistic alternative for Korea.

When enough solar power is harnessed, it will be able to replace conventionally generated electricity and conventional auto fuel, making goals for carbon reduction and energy self-reliance attainable.

Infrastructure, such as battery-charging systems and smart grids, when built nationwide, will boost demand for electric cars, and their mass production will lower their prices.

An era of electric cars will arrive shortly if Korean battery manufacturers, which are industry leaders in the world, attain their goals for improving the quality of batteries and reducing their charging time.

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Korea Electric Power Corp. can be tasked with building nationwide charging infrastructure, and Korean automakers can be encouraged to mass-produce electric cars. Many households will choose to convert sunlight to electricity if they are allowed to sell surplus power, paving the way for the mass production of solar panels. An era of solar power will be advanced if electricity rates are raised.

If Korea ushers in an era of electric cars in the near future, it will have first-mover advantage in new profitable businesses as well as the benefits of carbon reduction and energy self-reliance. If the corporate community remains content with business as usual, however, the Korean economy will lose a golden opportunity to reinvent itself.

[Korea Economic Daily, July 28, 2014]

www.koreafocus.or.kr

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Creative Economy is Start-up Economy

Cho Dong-sung Professor Emeritus Seoul National University

When President Park Geun-hye called for a “creative economy� in her inaugural address, debate ensued about what she meant. To me, a teacher of entrepreneurship at Seoul National University since 2000, a creative economy is an economy that encourages startups. It is an economy in which anyone can start a business with a probability of success as high as 40 percent.

If a creative economy is defined as a startup economy, the roles that need to be played by the government and the private sector are clear.

The government needs to make it easy to start a business and ensure that anyone whose startup has failed be permitted to make another attempt. While easing the terms of starting a business, it needs to ensure that money be easily available to those who are starting their own businesses. It also needs to ensure that those whose businesses have failed not be branded as delinquents. Instead, they should be allowed to make second and third attempts.

We private citizens are the entrepreneurs. If the nation fails to develop a startup economy, we should blame ourselves, not the government. It is private citizens, not the government, who will reap the benefits if the startups succeed.

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But young people are shunning entrepreneurship. They prefer to work at state-owned corporations, large private corporations and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in that order.

In a recent discussion with graduating students, I started by saying that there are safe and risky paths in our lives. Then I asked which is safe and which is risky, getting a job or starting a business. They answered in unison that getting a job is safe and that starting a business is risky.

But I disagreed. I said to them: “The organization you will work for is shaped like a pyramid. As an employee going up a corporate ladder, the odds for your promotion may be 1 to 2 in the initial stage.

Then they will be 1 to 100 and 1 to 1,000. The odds for retiring at 65 may be 1 to 10,000.”

On the other hand, I said, starting a business, once successful, though risky, makes it possible for its owner to work until 65 and, if he wishes, until 80 or the end of his lifetime. To me, I said, getting a job is riskier than starting a business.

I agreed with a student who said 80 percent of startups fail. I said, “That’s true. The first attempt has a 20 percent chance of success. But the person, when making a second attempt, will have a 60 percent chance of success. A third attempt will raise the chance of success to 92 percent. Nine out of 10 entrepreneurs making their third tries will be successful. That is what is good about starting a business. What would be as safe as starting a business?”

Another student said, “If a person fails in his first startup, he is branded a credit delinquent and deprived of an opportunity for a second try.” I did not agree with him totally.

True, I said, banks continue to demand joint or several sureties to people starting businesses though their demand is not so strict when it comes to loans for SMEs. Those borrowing money from banks to start businesses will become delinquents if their businesses fail. The government will have to take action to ban banks from demanding joint or several sureties to those starting businesses.

But students planning to start their own businesses cannot wait indefinitely for such a ban. Instead, I said, they will have to start a business with the minimum amount of money that is needed, possibly with 50 million won.

I said, “You may start with 50 million won, for instance. If the money is exhausted before your startup begins to fly, you will have to scrap it, instead of continuing to fund it with loans from a bank. After 33

taking a break, you may scrape up another 50 million won for a second try. You will have to fold the startup again if you have spent all the money before success is in sight. Again, take a break until you make a third attempt.�

That a balance must be maintained between borrowing and capital is a theory applicable only to large corporations. It cannot be applied to startups and SMEs. They must not rely on loans for their operations.

Those starting a business, not with loans but with their own money, may be given another opportunity to try again if it collapses. Fifty million won is not a small amount. Nor is it too large an amount for a person planning on a startup to come by.

[Hankook Ilbo, August 13, 2014]

www.koreafocus.or.kr

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- [DEBATE] All-Volunteer Military System - Outdoor Craze and Quality of Life - Young People Confused between the Humanities and Resume Specs - Why Don’t We Meet Now?

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[DEBATE] All-Volunteer Military System

[PRO] Baek Kun-ki Member, National Defense Committee, National Assembly Member, New Politics Alliance for Democracy

[CON] Shin In-kyun President, Korea Defense Network

A public debate is under way concerning the introduction of an all-volunteer military system amid strong demand for military reforms in the wake of a recent shooting spree at the Army's 22nd Infantry Division and the brutal death of a conscript at the hands of his superiors at the 28th Infantry Division.

The argument in favor of an all-volunteer system is gaining momentum on the grounds that it is difficult for short-term conscripts to become top-notch combat personnel and to uproot barracks brutality due to the lack of professionalism among conscripts.

But there is a strong rebuttal that more money will be needed to keep a certain number of volunteer servicemen in a situation where the peninsula remains divided and that it is too early to introduce an all-volunteer system, considering that it may be impossible to recruit an appropriate number.

[PRO] Growing Need for Professional Combat Personnel During a nomination process ahead of the last presidential election, a presidential hopeful of the then main opposition Democratic United Party promised an all-volunteer military system. According to a 36

recent survey of 750 adults conducted by poll taker Realmeter, more than 60 percent of respondents disapproved of the campaign promise and only 15.5 percent approved. In short, most of the people thought it would be premature to switch to an all-volunteer military.

This episode threw many questions back at me, a retired Army general. After some deep thought I concluded that we can no longer ignore an all-volunteer military. While serving in the Army for some 40 years, I met many soldiers, most of whom were excellent resources and pillars of a sustainable national security. But regrettably, they were discharged when they were about to become peerless combat personnel.

The compulsory military service has been shortened to 21 months, which I, as a commanding officer, found was somewhat short. Nonetheless, it is currently impossible for the military to extend the conscripts' service period. Police officers are professionals who maintain public safety and firefighters are professionals who rescue people. Likewise, the military is a professional group that specializes in combat.

But it is realistically difficult to expect conscripts to have a sense of professionalism or display professional capabilities. Any person needs a certain period of training before he can do his share of work properly. Any salaried man is expected to play his part after at least three years of experience.

Moreover, soldiers should become combat professionals after undergoing hard training to survive fierce battles. But as I mentioned earlier, it is hard to achieve this level of capability under the current system of recruiting short-term conscripts.

It is hard for soldiers to become combat-savvy unless they become professionals who can handle state-of-the-art military equipment. Unlike ground forces, the Air Force and the Navy are operated chiefly by senior officers because they have been trained for a long time to handle many pieces of complicated equipment. The ground forces' equipment, such as tactical guided weapons and Spike missiles, which are designed to prepare for a futuristic war, has also become state-of-the-art, not unlike the equipment and weapons of the Air Force and the Navy. At the same time, the military intelligence personnel are very important assets, given their accumulated experience and skills.

All this shows that the entire military is in dire need of long-serving personnel. According to the Military Manpower Administration, it is predicted that the military will have to defend the country only with a small number of servicemen, as available military personnel will dwindle. Moreover, the military will face significant restrictions on its main duties, including combat, if unprofessional short37

term conscripts take up a large proportion of servicemen.

Accordingly, each individual soldier should hone his professional expertise and become an unmatchable combatant. After all, professional volunteers should constitute the backbone of the military. That is to say, an all-volunteer military system is the answer.

Of course, it is impossible to introduce such a system anytime soon. It is much more difficult to recruit volunteers than conscripts. A shock absorber will be needed, as the financial resources to introduce the system will increase exponentially. Therefore, it will be necessary to recruit volunteers for techrelated fields first, and then recruit more volunteers for other fields afterwards on a gradual basis. In this process, it will be essential to restructure the military to suit the new system.

Meanwhile, it will also be necessary to improve servicemen's status for the smooth operation of an all-volunteer system. An appropriate environment should be created in which servicemen are considered professional combatants, not soldiers merely subordinate to officers. The government has so far conscripted young men and paid them a minimum wage. It is no exaggeration to say that this has contributed to debasing the soldiers' status and prompting some young men to evade conscription.

Such negative connotations should be removed first in order to recruit an appropriate number of volunteers.

The government needs to conduct research on an all-volunteer system on its own. Civilian, government and military think tanks should join efforts to analyze the potential advantages and disadvantages of introducing such a system and lay the foundation for restructuring the military. There has been considerable research on an all-volunteer system, but never jointly by civilian, government and military experts under the assumption that its introduction is unavoidable. If waves are to roll in from the sea at all, then we'd better be prepared in advance.

[CON] Crucial Budgetary Hurdle Rising voices call for considering introducing an all-volunteer military system in the wake of a recent shootout at the 22nd Infantry Division and the brutal death of a conscript at the 28th Infantry Division, as well as a series of conscript suicides.

History proves that volunteer soldiers are stronger than conscripts. The legionaries of ancient Rome, which dominated the Mediterranean, were volunteers or career soldiers, so are soldiers of the United 38

States, the modern superpower. Career soldiers have skills based on their long-term service and a sense of responsibility for the job that they have chosen themselves.

Most of the countries that have adopted an all-volunteer system have helped their servicemen have a high sense of duty and honor by giving them respectable treatment. Our military, too, will become strong, if we also adopt such a system. Very few career soldiers will complain of their job, and brutalities such as beating will naturally be uprooted.

Then should we introduce an all-volunteer system immediately? If I ignore reality, I would shout "Yes!" But let's think of the reality. Under the circumstances in which we stand face to face with North Korea, which has developed nuclear weapons, it is necessary to maintain an army with more than 300,000 soldiers. From a technical point of view, the Navy, the Air Force and units under the direct supervision of the Defense Ministry need the current number of servicemen.

Overall, we would have to eventually maintain a total of 480,000 all-volunteer servicemen. In the first stage, we would have to recruit about 350,000 volunteers to replace 500,000 current conscripts.

In short, 500,000 conscripts who are paid an average of 1.5 million won (approximately US$1,500) each annually will have to be replaced with 350,000 volunteers, who will be paid an annual salary of 20 million won.

There are two issues. First, can our nation afford it? Currently, all conscripts cost about 700 billion won in total every year, which is equivalent to 7 trillion won for 350,000 volunteers. An additional 6.3 trillion won will be needed at the least every year. In addition, if the number of servicemen drops, the military would have to maintain its capabilities by drastically improving the quality of its equipment.

The nation will have to spend more money on personnel recruitment at a faster pace than on the implementation of the current defense reform programs. The introduction of a volunteer system will require more than 10 trillion won each year. Will it be possible to win national consensus on giving up on various high-demand welfare programs and diverting their budget to defense programs?

Second, it would be difficult to recruit volunteers even if there is a sufficient budget. The United States with a population of 320 million has some 1.42 million troops and Japan with a population of 130 million has 230,000 troops. To solve the troop shortage, the United States is barely managing to

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recruit volunteers even by offering citizenship to illegal immigrants. Japan is having difficulty recruiting volunteer soldiers despite its heavy spending on recruitment ads. These countries are not only carrying out admirable paycheck and welfare policies, but also giving various lifelong benefits to those who have finished even short-term services.

I don't think it is possible for our country with a population of 50 million to recruit 480,000 volunteers for three to five years of services without giving them a guarantee of lifelong career. Are those advocates of a volunteer system willing to let their 20-something sons enlist in the Army for short-term services that provide an annual salary of 20 million won? Are their young sons ready to disrupt their career and look for a new career challenge upon discharge from the military?

There is a clear gap between ideal and reality. Crying for golden ideals is good, but ideals not based on reality will only cause social chaos. I'm concerned about hastily introducing a half-baked volunteer system to face the saber-rattling, nuclear-armed North. Our military strength might be weakened, we might be swayed by North Korea, and we might become more dependent on the United States due to the lack of sustainable budgetary resources

Let's delve into the reality at servicemen's barracks instead of discussing a fancy-sounding new system. The artillery battalion of the 28th Infantry Division, where a conscript was killed brutally by his superiors, has to keep using its current over-40-year-old barracks until 2026 on the grounds that the division will be disbanded under a defense reform program. However, the encampments for the division's self-propelled guns are being renovated, even though the guns will be used only for eight more years.

This suggests that our servicemen are receiving worse treatment than their artillery. To revive the undermined barracks culture, the ever-present adverse environment of our servicemen should be improved before all else.

[JoongAng Ilbo, August 15, 2014]

www.koreafocus.or.kr

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Outdoor Craze and Quality of Life

Ryoo Woong-jae Professor, Department of Media and Communication Hanyang University

“Enjoy leisure!” That was one of Pope Francis’s top 10 recommendations for a happy life. A few years ago, Korea ranked 26th out of 34 countries in the Happiness Index compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which means that Koreans are generally unhappy. Another well-known fact is that Korea has the highest suicide rate among OECD members.

Although Korea has the 14th largest economy in the world, economic difficulties can be pointed out as the primary cause for the widespread unhappiness. The social and cultural environments also are to blame. Pleasure or a sense of stability is missing. Under these circumstances, leisure activities are viewed more and more as a remedy. The government’s policy discussion about the cultural industry and tourism reflects the spreading sentiment.

At the heart of this transition is the outdoor craze, especially mountain climbing. Together with the onset of the five-day workweek system, the craze signals a major shift in lifestyle. Furthermore, the trend can be explained as a consumption culture in the era of neo-liberalism.

Now, on mountains near large cities, you can easily find mountain climbers clad like professional alpinists, with outfits made of high functional materials such as Goretex, waterproof hiking boots, brand-name backpacks, hats, sticks and goggles. Supporting the urge to ascend is Korea’s abundance 41

of small and large mountains and dulegil (hiking trails around mountains) that local governments have created as if competing with each other.

Looking at the trend from a slightly different point of view, it suggests that there is a shortage of choices for leisure in our society. These days, an increasing number of people head to mountains during weekdays as well as on weekends. This is not simply for leisure, passing time or maintaining health. Many of them are early retirees, unemployed or non-regular workers, who paint a gloomy portrait amid tepid economic conditions. Obviously, many Koreans of today are in desperate need of places and activities to help them relieve their daily stress, tension, unrest, and fatigue.

The outdoor industry in Korea, which started from mountain-climbing gear, is now expanding into camping, fitness, golfing and cycling, and they are meshing with overseas tourism and luxury goods consumption. The newly coined word “glamping,” or glamorous camping, and overseas travel by young people without going through travel agencies, exemplifies this trend.

They certainly suggest a fresh and positive outlook on the diversification of leisure activities and preferences as well as the restoration of analog sensibility in the digital era. At the same time, the trend is obviously relevant to the intensification of neo-liberalistic capitalism and the steady increase of individualization, “politics of difference,” or “cultural politics of taste.”

Still, the increase of mountain climbers and the subsequent growth of the outdoor industry cannot be attributed entirely to the deteriorating quality of life, insufficient cultural infrastructure or intense competition in our society.

A more precise analysis of the situation requires a closer look into various factors such as changes in the real estate market, where apartments are a dominant element, rapidly growing non-regular workers, unemployment of young people, and generational discourse. For early retirees or middle-income residents in metropolitan areas, who can’t afford to spend a lot of money on cultural life, there are few pastime options which give as much satisfaction as mountain climbing at such a low cost.

As such, one thing is clear. Our preferences for leisure and pastime are not free from our social and economic conditions.

[Kyunghyang Shinmun, August 6, 2014]

www.koreafocus.or.kr 42

Young People Confused between the Humanities and Resume Specs

Choi Woo-kyu Industry Editor The Kyunghyang Shinmun

The humanities, or humanitas in Latin, refer to the fields of study about humans and human nature.

They include basic liberal arts such as linguistics, literature, history, philosophy and art. The word humanitas appeared in “De Oratore” (On the Orator), written in 55 B.C. by Marcus Tullius Cicero, a Roman politician, orator, philosopher and author. It means an “educational program to develop ideal orators who would be equipped with virtues necessary to work for public good.” The program consisted of bonae literae, or “good letters,” such as classical literature and poetry.

The humanities survived the Dark Ages and flourished during the Renaissance. In the modern era, the humanities took root as the “liberal arts.” In Korea, these fields of study have been neglected for a long time but now seem to be gaining popularity. We have seen an upswing in lectures and books on subjects related to the humanities since last year.

The sudden fervor is even reaching the business community. Vice Chairman Chung Yong-jin of Shinsegae, the nation’s 13th largest conglomerate, has taken up the banner of promoting the humanities.

In a lecture to 2,000 students at Yonsei University in Seoul on April 8, he said, “The starting point of the humanities is to try to read other people’s minds instead of just looking at their outer appearances.”

He also said, “When we recruit new employees, we do not just look for people who simply have a lot of knowledge but those who have a taste for the humanities and philosophical insight.”

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During his keynote address at an event on August 11, Lee Sirgoo, co-CEO of Kakao Corp., said, “Leonardo da Vinci, a painter, medical doctor and scientist who invented lots of things, and Michelangelo, who was an artist and architect, are typical examples of fusion talent.” He went on to surmise, “This type of talented people, who led the Renaissance, is what we need in our era of cutting-edge technology.”

Choi Yang-hee, the new minister of science, ICT and future planning, said in a meeting on August 19, “Imagination, which drives the paradigm change in the technical, industrial and economic development, can be derived from history, culture and art.”

This is certainly a remarkable change from the days when businesses and the government singlemindedly emphasized “money-making academic disciplines.” This is a welcome change. But what do students think about this?

Chung of Shinsegae said, “You must be frustrated to hear me talk about the humanities after you have poured whatever money available into adding up your resume specs.” I agree. What about Kakao coCEO Lee Sirgoo’s argument about the “talent of the Renaissance era?” A professor in his Facebook posting refuted, “What’s all this nonsense about Da Vinci in employee recruitment? Nobody like him would ever apply for a job at Kakao Corp.” I agree with that, too. What is the problem, then?

The problem is not a lack of students who are interested in literature, history and philosophy. It is because demand for high entrance exam scores for prestigious high schools and universities pushes them away from these subjects as electives. Once they enter college, they have to focus on earning good grades in their major, acquiring certificates and compiling voluntary service records in order to simply pass the first screenings in their post-graduation job hunting.

We shouldn’t expect our young generation, after driving them into a merciless competition, to read Goethe or Dostoevsky in a battlefield as the Cuban revolutionary hero Che Guevara did. Instead of dragging them to study the humanities, we should have the humanities seep into them. Also, business owners who talk about the importance of the humanities should actually focus on hiring those who are well versed in the humanities. They should not boast about merely employing a few “specialists” in the humanities.

What is the purpose of the humanities? Is it of any use at all? Italian poet Petrarch discovered Cicero’s 44

“Pro Archia,” or “Speech in Defense of Aulus Licinius Archias the Poet,” in 1333 and transcribed it.

The oration has this sentence defending the humanities: “These studies are the food of youth, the delight of old age; the ornament of prosperity, the refuge and comfort of adversity; a delight at home, and no hindrance abroad; they are companions by night, and in travel, and in the country.”

Rather than the business executives’ honeyed words advising students to read the humanities to enrich their resume to land a job, Pope Francis’s tip to “find innovative ways to create dignified jobs for young people” sounds a lot more refreshing. And most of all, the pope’s formula is right.

[August 4, 2014]

www.koreafocus.or.kr

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Why Don’t We Meet Now?

Jung Ji-eun Social Critic; Arts Education Team Manager Incheon Foundation for Arts and Culture

Some time ago, my father asked me, “What do you think about signing up at a matchmaking company before it’s too late?” I burst out laughing. Nevertheless, I scanned the newspaper ads of matchmaking companies. One of them said, “Youth that miss human touch … The value of family and meeting in person needs to be promoted more.” This is right indeed, but the problem is that it is different from reality.

The advertisement reminded me of the summer a couple of years ago, when I traveled to the southern part of Korea with two other 20-something women. Our plan was to look around Suncheon Bay, eat cockles in Beolgyo, stop by a green tea farm in Boseong, and walk along the beach in Yeosu at night.

A few days passed and we noticed that we were being watched wherever we went. After some argument we concluded that it was because there were not enough young women in their neighborhoods.

In a big city there is nothing unusual about three women walking around together. But we realized that we had seldom seen young women of our age, let alone three young women like us, whether in a bus, on the street, or in a restaurant. Except young girls in school uniform or young mothers carrying their babies on their back, there were literally no young single women.

Where are all the young women? The answer is obvious. They have left for big cities. According to 46

the Ministry of Security and Public Administration’s population data as of May 2014, Seoul has the highest ratio of women to men (0.97 men for every woman) and the highest number of women compared to that of men in Korea.

Furthermore, the average hourly pay for part-time workers in Seoul is 5,653 won, which is 205 won higher than the national average of 5,448 won. And the average hourly pay in Gangnam area is 5,794 won, 141 won higher than the average of Seoul and 346 won higher than the national average. Gangnam also has the most job openings, accounting for about 25 percent of the national total.

The basic aim of dating is meeting a partner. Just as the old saying goes, “You should look up the sky before you can catch the star.” For romance to start, a man and a woman should at the least pass by or bump into each other.

It is important to meet and talk in person. In the book “The Little Prince,” the fox is happy to wait for the little prince to come once it knows of his existence. You will feel quite different when you know even a single person in an organization no matter how big it is.

However, it is not easy to make acquaintances these days. It is because more and more people become reluctant to meet other people in person. The interaction of younger generations is mostly through emails or text messages rather than phone calls or face-to-face meetings. They say this is better because it leaves records, which you may need later.

These days, people not only order food with a delivery app, they use a delivery app to make a payment to avoid dealing with the delivery person. This is an efficient and convenient method, but it feels like something is missing.

In a difficult situation, more and more people stop contacting each other or just run away instead of meeting in person to talk. I hear that more and more young lovers break up through text messages instead of meeting in person. When you meet in person for a break up, you may end up changing your mind, but that is impossible when the breakup is done with brief text messages.

They say that in certain types of jobs where dispatched and temporary service work is widespread, it is not surprising at all to receive a notice of termination through a text message. This is truly surprising. All human affairs begin with an encounter with someone. With phone calls or text messages, you cannot see whether there is the right chemistry to develop a relationship.

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[Dong-A Ilbo, August 16, 2014]

www.koreafocus.or.kr

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- The Future of the Asian Games - Preserving North Korea-related Documents at the U.S. Library of Congress - Controversy over ‘Madame Butterfly’ by Korean National Ballet - Multiethnic Families and Mother Tongue Education - Korean Universities Don’t Teach Patriotism - Provocative Painting Puts a Damper on the Gwangju Biennale

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The Future of the Asian Games

Seo Dong-cheol Editorial Writer The Seoul Shinmun

I am enjoying the Incheon Asian Games. Lately, there has been a series of mega events like the Olympic Games, the World Cup football finals, World Baseball Classic, etc., so I have high expectations of what sports events must be like. I have to say I was not interested in the “mere” Asian Games before it began. However, I have realized that the Asian Games is fun in its own way. I actually feel sad that the games will end soon.

I am aware that not everyone would be so generous in their evaluation of the Incheon Asian Games.

There have been a few hiccups in the games’ operations, and it is true that except for the venues that host popular events where Korean athletes compete, many games only have a handful of spectators.

It is also doubtful whether the Incheon Asiad is drawing attention throughout Asia. Watching the games, I concluded that the problem may not rest in the capability of Korea or the host city Incheon.

Maybe, the Asian Games is having an identity crisis.

The fundamental question is whether the Asian Games is “an Asian version of the Olympic Games.”

Even the media seems to regard the Asian Games as a regional Olympiad with its roots in Western culture. Perhaps the harsh criticism of the Incheon Games is due to comparison with successful Olympic Games and the dominant view that all Asian Games, which do not measure up to those Olympic

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Games in terms of facilities and operations, are failures. It is probably no coincidence that these critical voices are especially louder in Asia’s sports powerhouses ― Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan.

I do not believe the Asian Games’ future is all that gloomy. The Incheon Asian Games include a number of sports native to Asian nations, probably as the result of serious thought given to the identity of the Asian Games. Ten out of the 36 sports of the Incheon Games are non-Olympic sports. They are baseball, softball, bowling, cricket, kabaddi, karate, sepak takraw, squash, soft tennis and wushu. In particular, Asian martial arts such as wushu and karate and regional combat sports like sepak takraw and kabaddi distinctly show Asia’s identity.

The Asian Games is called the “festivity of 4.5 billion Asians.” Ironically, it has to be made a “festival of seven billion people of the world” if it is to become a true festivity of Asians. The key lies in sports that are played only in the Asian Games. For example, there may be more events and medals for wushu and karate, which are already popular around the world. When the Asian Games are known to present the most prestigious competitions for these sports, Europeans, Americans and Africans will come rushing to watch them. There may also be more dynamic combat events for taekwondo as well as events for judging the beauty of movements in mid-air board breaking.

Forty-five countries, the largest number ever, are participating in the Incheon Asian Games. They include smaller countries like Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Lebanon, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and East Timor. What about dividing competition in some popular ball games like soccer and baseball, in which Northeast Asian countries are particularly strong, into two leagues and awarding gold, silver and bronze medals in both? Then, fewer countries would feel left out. Wouldn’t this be a manifestation of the Olympic spirit?

The Asian Games may also introduce lesser known sports native to Asian countries. Then these sports could be broadly distributed and promoted so they might grow into official events of the Asian Games.

Downsized Asian Games also should be considered. The Asian Games should no longer be monopolized by a few rich countries. It would be a great idea if two or three lesser developed countries join forces to co-host the games. The effort would deserve applause even if the venues and operations fall short of what we have been accustomed to.

The Asian Games should not remain a regional Olympiad. It has ample potential as Asia’s flagship 51

cultural event that people in other continents would eagerly wait four years to attend. I hope this is the message everyone will take home from the closing ceremony in Incheon.

[October 1, 2014]

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Preserving North Korea-related Documents at the U.S. Library of Congress

Shin Seok-ho Washington Correspondent The Dong-A Ilbo

On July 10 and August 5, I visited the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and Sonya Lee, a Korean-American reference specialist in the Asian Division, showed me rare North Korean publications from before, during, or shortly after the Korean War (1950-53).

My attention was drawn to an article in the “Kulloja” (Workers), an official publication of the North Korean Workers’ Party. The article was published on February 28, 1947, before the foundation of the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea. Titled “Various Tasks for the Party’s Political Projects,” it is a full account of the third plenary meeting of the Central Committee, written by Ho Ka-i (Russian name Alexei Ivanovich Hegai), a political heavyweight and leader of the Soviet Korean faction in North Korea’s early political structure.

“Inmin” (The People), a magazine published on November 20, 1948 right after the foundation of the DPRK, was a special issue entirely devoted to exalting the Soviet Union. “Choson yosong” (Korean Women), a women’s magazine issued in October 1949, eight months before the Korean War erupted, also had articles designed to brainwash ordinary women into thinking that they should be grateful to the Soviet Union.

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“Sondongwon suchop” (An Instigator’s Journal), published by the Ministry of Culture and Propaganda in 1952 during the Korean War, begins with letters exchanged between Kim Il-sung and Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin. The letters note the Soviet Union shipped military provisions to North Korea and North Korea expressed its appreciation. They offer evidence of how Soviet imperialists helped create North Korea, which later harshly denounced the United States as an imperialist aggressor and called South Korea a U.S. colony.

The Library of Congress houses a large stock of more official publications, including the first issue of “Haksup chaeryo” (Study Material) published in 1950, that clearly show the North Korean regime’s thoughts and actions during its early days.

“It is highly possible that these materials do not exist in North Korea today,” said Lee. It is assumed that most of the documents were taken by U.S. troops who had advanced to the northern part of the peninsula during the Korean War. Libraries and archives in Pyongyang and other areas in the North were destroyed during the war.

Now, 60 years after being salvaged, these North Korean publications, printed on course paper, need urgent preservation efforts. Few remain properly bound. Those that are not have loose pages that are tattered and parched like charred newspapers. Their text is partly illegible.

The library is trying to stop further deterioration by covering the documents with thick paper files and storing them in envelopes. However, the effort does not seem to be a fundamental solution. Lee said, “An ultimate solution is to digitize these documents and post them on Internet networks so that North Korea researchers can freely share the data in digital format.”

Digitization would spare North Korea researchers the time and expense of traveling to Washington, D.C. to see the publications and avoid possible damage to the documents when handling them. Funding is delaying the effort.

In 2012, 36 North Korea researchers from five continents petitioned the U.S. government on this matter, but the U.S. Congress, which is under mounting budget constraints, cannot afford to fund the project. Since North Korea has been down on the Obama administration’s foreign policy agenda, there is little chance that money will be directed toward the preservation of North Korea-related materials.

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If the Presidential Committee for Unification Preparation, which held its first meeting on August 8, is determined to conduct practical and concrete projects to facilitate the unification process, it should consider collecting North Korea-related data scattered around the world. When unification occurs, it will be our responsibility to rewrite the history of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

[August 11, 2014]

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Controversy over ‘Madame Butterfly’ by Korean National Ballet

Son Tae-gyu Professor of Journalism Dankook University

Culture and arts are all about tolerance. Culture and arts teach tolerance and blossom in its presence.

What is attractive about culture and arts is that one can transcend boundaries. One can have more chances in life the more he knows about and accepts things that are different. Even if one does not personally like the ideas, feelings and expressions about experience of other individuals and other countries, one can enlarge his own world by patiently watching and listening. Within such tolerance do the people of a nation become creative, and their culture and arts flourish.

In Korea nowadays, anyone who enjoys Japanese culture and arts is no longer regarded as pro-Japan or history revisionist. People’s attitude has become more mature in that they can accept Japanese culture and arts regardless of the past history or the current sentiment toward the Japanese government. Nonetheless, Koreans are still sensitive to anything Japanese and they tend to make emotional, not logical, judgments.

If a certain cultural phenomenon or artistic work is seen to possess Japanese elements, it will most likely lose its value and viability. Classical or modern, anything that reminds Koreans of Japan’s unique colors is fervently resisted by the society at large. Even if the standards of judging the degree of Japanese style are arbitrary and the ways in which an artwork is labeled as “Japanese” are illintended, a “pro-Japan” label is a huge impediment.

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That was evident with a recent incident in the ballet community. Last month, the Korean National Ballet announced that it would stage “Madame Butterfly” starting March next year, but cancelled the performance three weeks later. There has been no explanation so far. Media speculation is that someone felt “Madame Butterfly” was too Japanese and therefore not fit for the national ballet company’s repertoire.

The ballet “Madame Butterfly” was choreographed by the artistic director of Austria’s Innsbruck Dance Company with Kang Sue-jin, director of the Korean National Ballet, in mind. Kang made her name as the prima ballerina of Germany’s Stuttgart Ballet. The photograph of her bruised toes made her even more famous, as it showed how beautiful ballet takes its toll. Kang performed “Madame Butterfly” with the Innsbruck Dance Company last month in Korea, sparking audience criticism that it was too Japanese. The media explained that the audience did not understand why the national ballet company presented a work in which dancers appeared in kimonos.

The ballet is based on the opera of the same title by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. The opera, premiered in 1904, is a sad love story between a U.S. Navy officer stationed in Nagasaki and a Japanese geisha. The 15-year-old geisha falls in love with the officer and has his baby, but she is betrayed and commits suicide. This tragic opera has invited a lot of controversy for the past 110 years. The opera was influenced by Europe’s infatuation with Japan in the 19th century, but has been criticized for its underlying Western superiority, racism, praise for American imperialism, and misrepresentation of Asian women.

“Madame Butterfly” is not about praising or glorifying Japanese sentiment or culture, however. It is a love story set in Japan. Ironically, many Japanese were enraged that the opera belittled Japan and Japanese women. Japanese soprano Tamaki Miura (1884-1946), who performed the heroine ChoCho-san, as many as 2,000 times, said, “The opera depicts Japanese culture and customs as something extremely strange, and the way it is presented made me angry.”

“Madame Butterfly” is the sixth most frequently performed opera in the world. Regardless of all the controversy, the opera enjoys huge popularity for the music of Cho-Cho-san, which has such an overwhelming influence on the audience. The opera has beautiful arias like “One Fine Day” and “Love Duet.” It has been performed in Korea many times, most recently in 2009 by the Korean National Opera and this spring by a private opera company.

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The same goes for the ballet “Madame Butterfly.” Australian dancer and choreographer Stanton Welch, who first adapted the opera into a ballet in 1995, said, “I was attracted to this love story that reminded me of ‘Romeo and Juliet.”

I have not seen it but believe that the ballet “Madame Butterfly” performed by Kang Sue-jin and the Korean National Ballet must be no less beautiful. Why should only the ballet version be condemned for having Japanese elements? If the ballet cannot be performed in Korea because of Japanese costumes, the opera must also be banned. It is difficult to understand its performance had to be called off because of overt Japanese character, not a lack of artistic value. Is there a political reason?

Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet was known to be one of the most political ballet companies in the 20th century, so ballet is often closely connected to politics. Somebody might have scared Kang, who lived abroad for many years, that the National Ballet’s performance of “Madame Butterfly” could provoke the government, citing the soured political relations between Korea and Japan. No matter how hostile the current political situation may be, art is just art. “Madame Butterfly” is not a tool for political propaganda praising the Japanese government or militarism.

In spite of the prevalent anti-Japanese sentiment, I don’t believe the Korean people have such a low tolerance in culture and arts. It is not fitting for a cultural powerhouse exporting many hallyu products to shun a world-renowned ballet just because the dancers perform in kimonos. What are they afraid of? If insufficient artistic quality is the problem, it can be improved. Let the Korean National Ballet perform “Madame Butterfly” as scheduled so that it will show why we need culture and arts.

[Dong-A Ilbo, August 14, 2014]

www.koreafocus.or.kr

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Multiethnic Families and Mother Tongue Education

Hwang Seong-gyu Editorial Writer The Munhwa Ilbo

Families who visit their ancestors’ graves to tidy them up must feel relieved that they have done their duty. Tending to family graves is a major annual event that has a special meaning to many Koreans.

It is more than just pulling out weeds and cleaning a graveyard. Relatives who live far away get together to pay respects to family elders and reconnect by working together.

It is a time for recalling and sharing memories how they would steal beans, wheat and chicken from neighbors’ fields when they were young and how they would bathe together in the nearby stream.

Also, they get a moment of healing from the helter-skelter of daily life.

There is no need for translation or interpretation in these conversations. It is the power of mother tongue coming in different dialects. Mother tongue is, academically speaking, the “first language” you hear and learn to speak when you are born. “Mother” in “mother tongue” means “native” rather than your mother. But, with the number of multiethnic families ever increasing in Korea, multilingualism within a family is becoming a problem.

Currently, some 790,000 people constitute multiethnic families and the number is estimated to reach one million in 2020. Their nationalities include American, British, Australian, German, French, Jap-

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anese, Chinese, Nepalese, Mongolian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai, and Filipino. One of these languages is spoken alongside Korean in their families. However, if the use of a parent’s mother tongue is disapproved within the family, it may hamper their children’s linguistic development.

This problem can eventually lead to difficulties in national integration. Seven out of every 10 children who have an immigrant parent from an advanced nation learn the parent’s mother tongue. However, the ratio plummets to one or two out of every 10 children who have a parent from Southeast Asia.

This shows bipolarization in language learning. In this regard, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family’s program for “Creating Bilingual Environment in Multicultural Families” is noteworthy, although it is a brief pilot program starting this month and ending in October.

Mother tongue is all about confidence, which is handed down to a child from its mother or father through love. Sometimes the mother tongue works magic: it can turn a brat into a playful cutie singing and dancing. A dialogue in mother tongue can help bridge different cultures. Making a family happier is the least a mother tongue can do. Imagine what more it can do in the future.

[August 25, 2014]

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Korean Universities Don’t Teach Patriotism

Jun Sang-in Professor of Sociology Graduate School of Environmental studies Seoul National University

Sung Nak-in, new president of Seoul National University, visited the April 19th Student Revolution Memorial on campus for his first official activity after taking office. It was an eye-catching move because few of his predecessors took such action. When I first heard the news, I was curious why he chose the memorial tower for the democratic movement led by students of 1960.

Of course, the April 19th Student Revolution Memorial is on the list of potential places for the first visit of a new SNU president. But I believe that a wall-mounted memorial panel honoring SNU students who lost their lives in the Korean War (1950-53) is no less important.

The memorial panel on the wall of the first-floor lobby of the Cultural Center has the names of 27 SNU students who perished as members of the South Korean armed forces during the war. Unfortunately, however, its importance has been seldom highlighted. The panel was belatedly made in 1996, when the university marked the 50th anniversary of its founding. In terms of location, it couldn’t be more inconspicuous with few students passing by the indoor wall panel. It also is highly regrettable that the wall-mounted panel falls far short of meeting the aesthetic standard for such a memorial.

To this day, SNU has yet to verify the exact number and names of its students and graduates who died

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while defending the nation during the Korean War. The panel simply notes that such a reality is “regrettable.” This is in sharp contrast to advanced countries and their prestigious universities.

Currently, there are some 54,000 war monuments across the United Kingdom. It is said that the name of a British man who died in war is usually engraved in more than half a dozen places: the church he attended as well as companies, hospitals, clubs and schools that were related with the man in one way or another, not to mention a memorial tower at the center of his village. Universities are more enthusiastic than any other organization in remembrance of war dead.

One can easily come across a tower, bell, gate or road dedicated to war dead on any university campus in the United States. American universities carefully update their lists of soldiers who died not only in the American Revolutionary War, World War I and II, Korean War and Vietnam War, but also lesser known wars like the Barbary Wars and the Mexican-American War. Many American universities have a so-called “memorial church” to pay tribute to their alumni who dedicated their lives to safeguard their country. In 2007, when she visited Harvard University as head of the ruling Grand National Party, President Park Geun-hye paid her respects at a monument commemorating U.S. participation in the Korean War inside a “memorial church” on the university campus. Korea has many universities founded by Christian organizations, but I have never heard of any of them having a similar church.

In spring 1997, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the pro-democracy uprising of June 1987, Seoul National University announced a plan to build “roads dedicated to modern history” to increase understanding of Korea’s turbulent modern and contemporary history among its students. The plan called for building roads to commemorate the April 19 student revolution of 1960; struggle for democratization of 1987; and the Korean War. Under the plan, the 1.2-km-long “Road of Democratization” was made in November 2009, connecting statues and memorial stones of 18 SNU alumni who lost their lives during the nation’s democratization process. And that was the end. “Road of April 19” was practically integrated into the “Road of Democratization.” There has been no news about the “Road of the Korean War.”

The number of SNU alumni who perished during the Korean War probably was higher than that of the democratization process. The number of war dead will be even higher if those who were dispatched to conflicts in other countries including Vietnam are counted.

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It is hard to say there is any difference in terms of contribution to the country between those who lost their lives in wars and struggles for democratization. However, it is undeniable that the alumni who were sacrificed for democratization are regarded more highly than those who died in war. Moreover, the name “Road of the Korean War” sounds ambiguous. It should have been called “Road of Patriots” or “Road of National Saviors.”

The purpose of Britain’s Remembrance Day or the U.S. Memorial Day is to remember and give thanks to the fallen heroes. As a result, a social environment in which self-sacrifice for one’s community is regarded as an honorable virtue is naturally created.

Universities take the lead in creating such an atmosphere. By ceaselessly remembering, recording and commemorating extraordinary commitment, courage and service of their graduates, universities teach future leaders to carry on the great tradition of noblesse oblige. They are well aware that without teaching love for one’s country there is neither a prestigious university nor a first-rate country.

[Chosun Ilbo, August 2, 2014]

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Provocative Painting Puts a Damper on the Gwangju Biennale

Editorial The Dong-A Ilbo

The 2014 Gwangju Biennale is drifting with the opening of its main exhibition scheduled for September 5. The nation’s best-known international art festival is embroiled in a controversy over a painting created for the biennale’s 20th anniversary exhibition.

The painting, titled “Sewol Owol,” depicts President Park Geun-hye as a scarecrow controlled by her father and former president Park Chung-hee and her chief of staff Kim Ki-choon. It was created by Hong Sung-dam, who caused an uproar during the run-up to the 2012 presidential election with a provocative painting that depicted candidate Park giving birth to a baby resembling her late father.

In response to Gwangju city’s request to alter the painting, Hong replaced the scarecrow with a chicken but the revision was also rejected, aggravating the situation. The city authorities argue that the painting’s explicit political intention beyond satire is contrary to the purpose of the biennale. Hong insists his freedom of expression is being violated. Some artists in support of Hong have withdrawn from the biennale and Lee Yong-woo, president of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation, and its chief curator Yun Beom-mo, professor at Gachon University, have said they will resign.

The dispute is also disgracing the nation. The director of Japan’s Sakima Art Museum, which is loaning some 40 prints by Käthe Kollwitz to the biennale, sent a letter expressing regret to the foundation.

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The biennale organizers brought the uproar upon themselves by inviting Hong to participate in the special exhibition. Considering his political views, a controversial artwork was predictable. Mayor Yoon Jang-hyun and the Gwangju Biennale Foundation said a decision on the controversy will be made on September 16.

The biennale‘s budget is estimated at 8.7 billion won (US$8.37 million). That includes 3 billion won from the central government and 1.5 billion won from the host city. In addition, Gwangju city has offered 2 billion won for the special exhibition to celebrate the biennale’s 20th anniversary.

It is said that the mayor’s decision to withhold Hong’s work has been prompted by the worry that the central government may cut its funding for the art festival. In order for the biennale, now one of Asia’s major art biennales, not to be shunned, its organizers should find a logical solution as quickly as possible. One option would be to display Hong’s work as it is and let viewers judge it.

Editor’s Note: The controversy ended as Hong Sung-dam announced his withdrawal from the exhibition on August 25, asserting that he no longer wanted to display his work in Gwangju “which has lost its value as a city of culture and human rights under the self-censorship by the local autonomous body.”

[August 19, 2014]

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- North Korean Economy in the First Half of 2014 - Effects of Chinese Tourism Surge on Korean Economy

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North Korean Economy in the First Half of 2014 Lee Suk Research Fellow Korea Development Institute

I. Introduction Some international observers believe that the North Korean economy exceeds the consensus of opinion around the world. They even predict future improvement. But some of their peers feel that the North’s economy is still stagnant and various ventures Pyongyang has undertaken to overcome economic adversities will fail, eventually leading to yet another catastrophic phase sooner or later.

This study attempts to clarify the opposing views and assessments to promote objective debate about the North Korean economy, thereby contributing to increased understanding of the situation. The study examines how optimistic and pessimistic views were shaped by various events and conditions that occurred in the first half of 2014. As we review the process, some analysis will be made without excessive interpretations on a few complex issues.

This study especially depends much on the Korea Development Institute’s reports on sectoral developments in the North Korean economy, which will be released together with this paper. While serving as an overall representation of these sector studies, this paper also will employ research reports presented at several seminars and public forums organized by the KDI’s North Korean Economy Division in recent months, but it will not directly quote those that have not been published yet.

II. Observation In the first half of 2014, many signs of macroeconomic changes were seen in North Korea, leading to cautious opinions that the North is undergoing yet another significant transition.

The most conspicuous trend is that private market prices and currency exchange rates showed downward stabilization, an unusual phenomenon in the North. Since the middle of the 2000s, commodity prices and exchange rates have steadily risen. The climb steepened especially after the North’s currency redenomination in 2009, and most international observers concluded that the North Korean economy experienced “super-inflation” in 2013. However, prices and exchange rates have retreated 67

this year from their 2013 peaks. For example, the rice price which had hit 6,600 won per kilogram in early 2013 was hovering at the 4,000-4,300 won level in the middle of this year. The U.S. dollar/won exchange rate was 8,989 won in January 2013, but drifted lower thereafter to reach 8,400 won by the end of 2013 and continued to fall this year, hitting 7,100 won in July.

It is, of course, unclear how long this downward stability will continue, but it is certain that the superinflation spurt has ended.

There are reports that the North Korean authorities’ control on private markets nearly discontinued throughout the country as trading in unofficial markets became increasingly active during the first half of this year, thanks to improvements in urban transportation and roads connecting markets. In the past, the authorities alternated between liberalization and control of private markets. But these days, they appear to be promoting market activities.

One major cause for the stabilization of prices and the vitalization of market economy could be the gradual improvement of food supply across North Korea since 2010. Severe drought struck North Korea during the first half of 2014, but the volume of spring crops affected by the dry spell was not large enough to seriously reduce the North’s overall food supply. The autumn harvest in 2013 was 68

particularly good and it helped offset the impact of the spring drought this year. Reports have it that North Korea’s total food production in 2013 exceeded 5 million metric tons, the largest amount since the middle of the 2000s.

In contrast to the rather bright agricultural and market economy conditions, there has been a lack of self-congratulations about industrial output. In recent years, North Korea has tended to magnify any little economic achievement that resulted from its socialist economic system. Such propaganda became more noticeable in the latter half of the 2000s as the North pursued the so-called “strong and prosperous nation” and in recent years as part of the effort to demonstrate the achievements under the rule of the new leader Kim Jong-un. The absence of self-applause could be a change in the behavioral style of the North Korean authorities but it also could mean there is little to be particularly boastful about. The latter seems more likely.

The assumption that North Korea’s official productions failed to make any significant progress in the first half of 2014 is supported by estimates from South Korea’s central bank. According to the Bank of Korea, the North Korean economy expanded by 1.1 percent in 2013, compared to 1.3 percent in the previous year. Considering the improvements in the agricultural and mining sectors in the year, the unimpressive growth rate in 2013 could mean persistent weakness in manufacturing and construction. The BOK put construction at 3.9 percent growth in 2011, followed by negative growth in 2012 and 2013. It is noteworthy that the decline of construction activities followed the completion of some of the major infrastructure projects that the North vigorously pushed under the “strong and prosperous nation” policy.

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Meanwhile, North Korea’s external trade in the first half of 2014 was stuck between stagnation and contraction. After South Korea adopted economic sanctions against the North on May 24, 2010, following the sinking of the South Korean Navy patrol boat Cheonan near the inter-Korean maritime border, North Korea’s foreign trade was limited to trade with China. Over the past few years, the overall volume of the North’s exports to China has increased sharply due to ballooning sales of strategic resources such as anthracite coal and iron ores. In the first half of 2014, however, growth in the trade with China slowed appreciably. Export volume was $1.3 billion, showing a 4 percent drop yearon-year. The total trade volume (exports and imports) in the first six months of 2014 was 2 percent less than the amount in the first half of 2013, resulting in a $270 million trade deficit.

Our attention is drawn to slower exports of coal and other strategic resources during the first half of this year. This was due partly to a 20 to 30 percent drop in coal prices from their high in early 2013.

To offset the slumping export prices, the North has to increase the volume of the mineral resources shipped to China this year. A turnaround is hard to expect as the biggest and only buyer China is seeing slower economic growth. Besides, China-North Korea relations are not as amicable as before.

International observations on the North’s economy in the first half of this year produced a complex mixture of positive factors in food supply and private markets and negative ones in manufacturing and trade. When we focus on the positive data, the North Korean economy will appear slightly better; when we scrutinize the negative ingredients, external limitations and internal contradictions will be brought to the fore. What indeed was the reality in the North in the first half of the year?

III. Analysis Before answering the above question, we should examine the downward stabilization of market prices 70

and difficulties in exports to China. They are new, unprecedented developments that warrant greater attention.

1. Hypothesis on the Stabilization of North Korean Market Prices and Exchange Rates

It is impossible to feel totally correct in explaining the downward stabilization of market prices and strengthening of the North’s currency because we lack sufficient information and reliable data about the North Korean economy. But a few established factors and some hypothetical propositions can be used to discuss the developments.

The first factor to consider is that food production in the North has steadily increased since the latter half of the 2000s. North Korea’s total output of food grain reached 5.27 metric tons in 2013, a significant increase from about 4 million tons in the middle of the 2000s. The prices of rice and corn serve as the benchmarks in the unofficial markets. Lower rice price leads to lower prices of commodities traded in city markets, which naturally stabilizes the value of the North’s currency.

Next to consider are policy changes toward the unofficial markets and related official economic management. One of the fundamental reasons for the instability of market prices was the occasional control of markets, which eventually raised the operational costs of private merchants. Since the inauguration of Kim Jong-un as the supreme leader nearly three years ago, North Korean authorities have stopped crackdowns or any kind of forceful control of private markets. North Korea simply lacks sufficient resources to control markets anymore. It should utilize the resources available in markets to help secure momentum for official economic management.

It may be assumed that North Korea has gradually and stealthily changed its economic management policies during the past two years. As is well known, North Korea has aggressively mobilized domestic resources for the creation of a “strong and prosperous nation” and early stabilization of the Kim Jong-un rule. Primary targets of the mobilization are the private resources that have been accumulated through years of market activities. Resources already have been collected through corruption and bribery, forced labor, creation of economic zones and their exclusive use, and the plundering of privately-owned assets. These official actions cannot but negatively impact prices and foreign exchange rates. When resources at markets are diverted to be consumed in the official sector, market prices go up and the value of the North Korean currency declines.

For example, rumors circulated in the North in late 2012 that the government was about to recover 71

U.S. dollars through exchanges with newly printed North Korean banknotes. The exchange rate to the dollar and market prices soared. The market resources mobilization policy seems to have been moderated after its peak years of 2013 and 2014. The “strong and prosperous nation� projects targeted for 2012, the centennial of the birth of North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung, have mostly been completed. And the demonstration projects to glorify new leader Kim Jong-un, including the Masikryong Ski Resort, have also been dedicated. No further expansion seems to be on the planning board. Without official mobilization, prices at the unofficial markets should be falling.

The third factor is related to the restoration of the rationing system with a little change in its function.

Data in <Figure 2> and <Table 3> show a steady increase in food rationing since the latter half of the 2000s. More noteworthy is that the most influential people received higher amounts. They would be expected to be the most politically and economically privileged class with the strongest potential purchasing power and thus not rely heavily on private markets for their daily needs, so demand for the staple food falls. Hence, market prices decline.

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Moreover, if food storage for rationing increased while the number of recipients decreased, downward pressure on market prices doubles. North Korean authorities can exercise some leverage in controlling market prices by releasing food grain for rationing. Actually, there were occasional reports that the authorities released military-use rice in unofficial markets in 2013 and 2014.

Thus, we can surmise a number of factors helped stabilize prices and exchange rates in the first half of 2014, although we are not absolutely sure of their decisive effects. What is certain is that the overall economic situation in the North improved during the first six months of this year.

2. Limitations in Trade with China

Trade with China clouded the seemingly bright picture. <Table 4> shows the causality between North Korea’s exports and imports following the May 24, 2010 sanctions South Korea slapped on the North in retaliation for the sinking of the Cheonan. The North’s exports and imports increased with exports in the lead. In other words, North Korea first increased shipments to China and then expanded imports from China with the hard currency it obtained through sales to its neighbor. There was one-way causality from exports to imports in the North’s trade with China.

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The above trend can be easily understood when we observe North Korea’s previous trade structure.

In the latter half of the 1990s, the North Korean economy relied almost exclusively on China for necessary materials. Seoul’s May 24 measures blocked the flow of U.S. dollars from South Korea, which had covered the North’s trade deficits with China. The only way for Pyongyang to cope with the sanctions was to increase exports to China. Imports from China expanded on the basis of increased exports to China.

Anthracite coal and iron ores have accounted for almost 60 percent of North Korea’s increased exports to China since 2010. The new problem, as we observed above, has been the drop in the prices of these strategic materials since 2013. The decline was more conspicuous in the first half of this year. The North had to increase shipments of these strategic resources to counterbalance losses due to their falling export prices.

There is an additional factor behind the slowdown in the economic growth of China, which damps down expectations of a turnaround in the prices of the North’s major export items to China. North Korea may have no other choice but continue to expand its export of strategic materials to China, though it is doubtful that it can do so indefinitely. Export expansion will likely further depress export prices, forcing even more shipments. That would create a piteous scenario of “growth in poverty.”

Overall, the foreign trade structure North Korea has maintained since 2010 is nearing its functional limitation.

North Korean authorities are probably well aware of the trade dilemma. Since last year, they have 74

emphasized the need to diversify trading partners by including Russia and other countries, and tried to promote tourism and other service industries. On the diplomatic front, Pyongyang has stepped back from its long hard-line attitude toward discussing the fate of Japanese captives in the North, an apparent gambit to open economic cooperation with Tokyo.

3. Views and Interpretations

Our observation of the North Korean economy in the first half of 2014 produces two contrasting pictures. If we focus on the stabilization of prices and exchange rates and the vitalization of market activities, our conclusion would be that the North’s economy is experiencing “gradual improvement and stability.” But if we highlight the North’s trade problems, mainly with China, our judgment would be that the North is “confronting limitations and searching for an exit from stagnancy.” In the absence of any agreement among outside observers, the only possible verdict is that negative and positive assessments will coexist for the time being.

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<Figure 3> offers insight into the roots of the conflicting views. Here we have the Bank of Korea’s estimate of the economic growth rate of North Korea during 1990-2013. What’s interesting is that statistically significant long-term trend lines based on these figures produce both linear and nonlinear graphs that have completely different meanings. First, we get a long-term trend line going straight up, from negative growth in the 1990s to meager but positive growth in the 2000s. As of 2014, the North Korean economy rides on a growth line, indicating the possibility that it will improve. If we keep this rising line in mind, we will focus on the aforementioned positive factors. Then we will naturally predict further expansion of the North Korean economy in the latter half of 2014 and beyond.

The Bank of Korea’s North Korea data deal mainly with the official sector, reflecting the activities of the unofficial markets less extensively. Those outside observers who find greater importance in the market functions tend to believe that the North Korean economy in the first half of 2014 is far better than the linear trend based on BOK data.

On the other hand, we can also draw a nonlinear parabolic graph on the basis of the economic growth rate figures provided by the South Korean central bank. This graph shows a line that rises steeply from negative growth in the 1990s to big strides of positive growth in the early to middle part of the 2000s, but the economy again stagnates and then shrinks slightly in the latter half of the decade. It is more probable, some argue, that the growth line could be misleading and that the reality is stagnation or slight deterioration. Whoever feels this position more plausible will be more concerned about the problems involving the North’s trade with China rather than the brisk activity at the unofficial markets.

Whatever their position, most observers agree that the BOK estimates do not correctly grasp the role of the unofficial markets in the North Korean economy. Still, many believe that the growth rate figures, although based on official statistics, must reflect the contributions made by unofficial markets to the overall status of the North Korean economy. Therefore, they believe, the BOK estimate of North Korea’s economic growth does not contain a significant gap from the real, brighter picture in the first half of 2014. If the North Korean economy is truly on a growth path, would Pyongyang still need to take concessional steps regarding Japanese abductees, they ask.

Limitations in the North’s trade with China represent the fundamental problems of the country’s econ-

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omy, which, as depicted in the long-term nonlinear trend in <Figure 3>, must be stagnating or declining, according to the negative school. The division of opinions among outside observers will continue to make the North Korean economy a most interesting subject for academic scrutiny in the future.

IV. Conclusion This paper combines various accounts of the North Korean economy in the first half of 2014 with additional analyses on key findings. Our study concludes:

First, the North Korean economy in the first half of 2014 can be summarized as 1) downward stabilization of market prices and upward stabilization of the exchange value of the won currency, 2) increased agricultural production and stability in food supply, 3) stagnant official economy, and 4) limitations in trade with China.

Second, the sources of the stabilization of prices and currency exchange rates are 1) increased agricultural production and expansion of food supply, 2) positive changes in the government’s attitude on unofficial markets and in overall economic management policies, and 3) restoration of regular rationing of necessities.

Third, worsening conditions (low prices) in North Korea’s export of such strategic materials as anthracite coal and iron ores to China have impaired trade relations between the two neighbors. The North may continue to increase export volume of these items to offset lower prices but this could result in “growth in poverty.”

Fourth, positive and negative views coexist regarding the economic status of North Korea in the first half of 2014. At the moment, one cannot easily choose between “general improvement represented by stable market activities” and “limitations in trade with China and search for an exit from stagnation.”

[KDI Review of the North Korean Economy, July 2014, published by the Korea Development Institute]

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Effects of Chinese Tourism Surge on Korean Economy Park Moon-soo Research Fellow Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade

I. Introduction China’s importance in global tourism has soared since 2000, thanks to rising incomes from the nation’s strong economy and loosened controls and simplified procedures on outbound travel in 2002 and 2004.

From 2001 through 2012, the number of Chinese overseas travelers increased 19.1 percent annually.

That included a strong rebound to 20 percent annual growth after a dip during the global financial crisis in 2008-2009. In 2012, outbound Chinese tourists totaled 83.18 million, accounting for about 8 percent of the international travelers worldwide (Figure 1).

The spending by Chinese tourists is also rising sharply. In fact, they were the biggest shoppers in 2012, spending US$102 billion, an increase of about 40 percent year-on-year, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). The amount accounted for 9.5 percent of all spending in global tourist destinations.

Korea has benefited handsomely from the surge. In 2013, China was the biggest source of visitors to Korea: some 4.32 million Chinese visited Korea, or 35.5 percent of the country’s 12.17 million inbound tourists. That was a more than fourfold increase from 1 million in 2007. In addition to the rising purchasing power of the Chinese, the steady influx can be attributed to Korea’s easier visa procedures for Chinese visitors and territorial disputes between China and Japan, which have prompted many Chinese to choose Korea as an alternative destination (Figure 2).

The primary purpose of Chinese travel in Korea is shopping, so it is very important for Korea to shape a strategy aimed at creating new markets and expanding the existing ones that can satisfy the needs of Chinese tourists.

This paper attempts to identify ways to increase Chinese visitors’ demand for Korean goods and services so the travel and other related industries can further benefit. The consumption patterns of Chinese tourists and economic effects of their spending will be examined first.

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II. Consumption Patterns of Chinese Tourists Nearly 60 percent of the Chinese who visited Korea in 2013 said the purpose of their trip was to shop, relax, entertain, or to have a vacation. In the 2008-2013 period, the number of Chinese who visited Korea for tourist purposes (relaxation, recreation and vacationing) increased 9.9 percent annually on 79

average, but the share of Chinese visitors for business or professional activities declined by 19.3 percent annually on average.

As the number of Chinese visiting Korea purely for tourism and shopping sharply increased, their per capita spending also rose steeply. In order to measure the relative spending level of Chinese tourists, this study compared their spending with that of American and Japanese tourists. It was found that the per capita spending of Chinese visitors increased from $1,262 in 2008 to $2,272 in 2013, about 1.3 times more than the overall average of $1,684 spent by foreign tourists in Korea.

U.S. touristsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; per capita expenditure rose by an annual average of a mere 1.4 percent, from $1,370 in 2008 to $1,470 in 2013, about $802 less than the average spending of Chinese tourists, and $178.20 less than the overall average spending by foreign visitors. The per capita spending of Japanese tourists declined by an annual average of 0.8 percent, from $1,033 to $990, to end up below the overall average spending by foreign visitors.

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A closer look at the per capita spending by Chinese tourists, based on Korea Tourism Organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Survey on Foreign Touristsâ&#x20AC;? in 2013, showed that they spent the largest amount on shopping, followed by lodging, meals and drinks, and transport. Independent Chinese travelers spent an average of $1,431 on shopping, more than group and airport hotel guests who spent $1,221 and $1,307, respectively, on the average.

Members of tour groups spent $624, or 31.4 percent of their total expenditure on lodging, far higher than the comparable shares of 15.3 percent and 22.4 percent, respectively, by independent visitors and airport hotel guests. On the other hand, the shares of most other expenditures, such as those for meals and drinks, transport, entertainment and culture-related spending, were higher among independent and airport hotel visitors than among group travelers.

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In 2013, independent Chinese travelers spent a total of $2,523 on the average, about 1.6 times more than the overall average of $1,610. In Particular, Chinese touristsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; spending on shopping ($1,431) was more than twice that ($707) of the overall average of foreign tourists. Chinese touristsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; average culture-related spending ($101.50) was 2.7 times higher than the overall average of foreign tourists ($36.50), pointing to their greater willingness to consume Korean cultural products. Topping the Chinese visitorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; shopping list in 2013 were perfumes/cosmetics (73.1 percent), followed by clothes (40.8 percent), foodstuff (32.7 percent), ginseng and other medicinal herbs (18.9 percent), leather products (14.8 percent), and footwear (13.5 percent).

The purchase of perfumes/cosmetics by Chinese visitors increased 14.7 percent in the 2008-2013 period, followed by accessories and jewelries (13.3 percent), footwear (5.2 percent) and clothes (4.5 percent). They purchased about 1.5 times more perfumes/cosmetics than the overall average of foreign tourists, suggesting a preference for Korean beauty products.

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A late 2013 survey on Korean services used by Chinese tourists found that their level of spending on beauty services and plastic surgery was relatively lower. While 61.8 percent of Chinese people who have been to Korea expressed intentions to buy beauty products, only 42.9 percent said they would purchase beauty services, and an even smaller share of 31.3 percent said they intended to purchase skin care services. Moreover, those who have already been to Korea were more reluctant to purchase beauty services than those planning to visit, indicating barriers to their use of beauty services in Korea.

The lower spending on service products is attributable to misgivings about services that have yet to be standardized in terms of quality and price, as well as discomfort in communication between service providers and consumers.

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III. Economic Effects of Attracting Chinese Tourists To assess the economic impact of Chinese tourists, the ripple effects of their spending on relevant industries from 2010 to 2013 were analyzed using the input-output analysis table of 2009.

First, the sum of total spending by Chinese tourists in the Korean won was calculated by multiplying the number of Chinese visitors and their per capita spending by the basic exchange rate. Subsequently, in order to examine their effects on tourism and other related industries, reclassification of industries was done according to the system used by Lee Kang-uk and Park Cheong-eun (2011), which employed the formats of Korean Standard Industrial Classification (KSIC) and Standard International Classification of Tourism Activities (SICTA).

The expenditures by Chinese tourists in 2013 totaled 7.67 trillion won, up 4.1 times from 1.88 trillion won in 2010, and accounted for 49 percent of the total spending by foreign tourists. Their effect on production inducement across Koreaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s industries in 2013 amounted to 13.37 trillion won, 2.4 times higher than 5.58 trillion won in 2010, and added-value effect reached 6.54 trillion won in 2013, 1.3

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times higher than 2.74 trillion won in 2010. Meanwhile, the Chinese touristsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; total spending had indirect and direct employment effect on 240,798 and 126,456 people, respectively, about 2.4 times more than the comparable figures of 2010.

An examination of the (direct) ripple effects from the spending found the greatest effects on retail business connected to shopping tours, followed by lodging, and food and beverage industries. Retailing led to 4.48 trillion won worth of production, or 54.1 percent of the total induced by the tourism industry. The retail business also caused indirect employment of 141,862 people, or 68 percent of the industryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s total.

Food and beverage, and lodging businesses caused 1.19 trillion won and 1.18 trillion won worth of production, respectively, accounting for more than 14 percent of the total. They also led to indirect employment of 24,597 and 25,452 people, respectively, about 12 percent of the total. Aside from these top three sectors, the Chinese touristsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; spending had considerable economic ripple effects on culture-related activities, art performances, recreation and entertainment.

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IV. Raising the Economic Benefit from Chinese Tourism Surge China has become the source of the highest number of visitors to Korea, with the share of Chinese tourists rising from 16.6 percent in 2007 to 21.3 percent in 2010 and to 35.5 percent in 2013, surpassing Japanese tourists. This study has confirmed that the subsequent increase of spending by Chinese tourists has had a considerable impact on the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tourism and other related industries.

In order to spread the positive effects of Chinese tourists, the nation needs to consider a three-phase strategy: market creation, market management and market extension.

First, efforts are needed to create new markets by developing promising products for Chinese tourists, diversifying their distribution and enhancing public relations activities for inbound tourists. Surveys of Chinese touristsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; consumption preferences and patterns showed that they have strong intentions to 86

repurchase Korea’s traditional craftworks (clothes and workshop handicrafts) and souvenirs, and recommend their fellow Chinese visitors to do the same. It is therefore necessary to support the development of souvenir products that embody Korea’s unique values as well as provide practical assistance to promote their sales.

Shopping venues for Chinese tourists are currently limited to a small number of duty-free shops, mostly located in Seoul. It will be necessary to diversify the shopping venues and regions to spread the positive effects to traditional markets, small-scale manufacturers and vendors.

Second, better methods of market management should be devised to increase demand. In general, Chinese tourists tend to buy Korean products because of the place-of-origin effect and reasonable prices compared to the quality of products. There are few official channels to convince Chinese tourists to buy products with low name recognition manufactured by small, individual businesses. The government will be able to play a significant role in enhancing the credibility of products and services provided by small, unrecognized manufacturers by invigorating quality accreditation for their products and services as well as introducing a joint brand system.

Third, there must be ways to help Korean businesses make inroads into China. More specifically, it is necessary to diversify the routes for Chinese to purchase Korean products by expanding e-commerce. To this end, Korean businesses should seek realistic alternatives that can enhance convenience for Chinese consumers by, for example, simplifying procedures for e-commerce and introducing “PayPal” accounts for foreigners. Also needed are institutional devices that can heighten confidence in Korean goods, such as “traceability of manufactured goods.”

Given that Chinese consumers buy most Korean products based on their confidence in the place of origin except for some brand name products (such as Samsung cell phones), it is very important to guarantee the origin of Korean manufactured goods.

China’s outbound tourism market is benefiting not just Korea’s tourism industry but also its economy as a whole. In order to sustain the beneficial effects throughout the nation’s industries, it is necessary to reform the current low-priced tourism structure and upgrade tour products to higher value-added programs.

In the long term, there must be more effort to develop products and services that can better appeal to Chinese tourists. Precise analysis of their consumption patterns and preferences will be needed. In 87

order to broaden the positive ripple effects on the economy, the government will have to provide policy support for small and medium-sized enterprises struggling with limited abilities in funding and marketing so they can advance into the Chinese market.

[KIET Industrial Economic Review, August 2014, published by Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade]

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- Neighborhood Baseball Aficionados Build their Own Stadium - Evolution of Hanok in Modern and Contemporary Eras

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Neighborhood Baseball Aficionados Build their Own Stadium

Hong Jun-gi Staff Reporter The Chosun Ilbo

At the foot of Mt. Cheonma in Namyangju City, Gyeonggi Province, the dream of an amateur baseball club will soon be realized. Starting on August 9, the “Dream League Stadium of Baseball Lovers” will be the home field of the Neibos. Costing 700 million won (approximately US$700,000), the stadium will include an artificial turf, light towers, and an electronic scoreboard.

There are some 30,000 adult amateur baseball teams nationwide, but the Neibos have no peers in one aspect. All of the players live in the same apartment complex.

In September 2010, as people started to move into the new apartment complex in the Eastern Ilsan District of Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, a posting on the neighborhood online bulletin board said, “I’m looking for neighbors who are passionate about baseball. If we are more than ten, let’s make a baseball team!”

Seventeen residents responded. They included a former professional baseball player; a former ice hockey player who is now the head of a television production company; the owner of an eyeglasses franchise who was an enthusiastic fan of MBC Cheongryong (Blue Dragons) baseball team; a restaurant owner; and a patent attorney. They shortened “neighbors” for their team name; thus the Neibos were born in May 2011.

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They practiced every weekend for six months and then started to play in an adult amateur league in 2012. The Neibos currently have 30 members. They are divided in major and minor league groups like professional baseball organizations. The average age of the Neibos is 43. Ace pitcher and trade businessman Cha Dong-heon, 44, says, “The families of Neibos members go to summer holidays together and join forces to root for the team whenever there are games.”

But the Neibos had frustrating experiences trying to borrow sports grounds to practice or to play games. That prompted a suggestion from Chang Ki-eon, 44, president of a television production company and the team’s head coach and player, to have their own stadium. But many opposed the idea.

Some questioned whether an amateur team would really need its own stadium. Others said a stadium would be going overboard with a hobby.

Chang persisted, saying that having a baseball stadium could generate income by renting it to other teams and the stadium could also be used for sports activities by other neighbors. Lee Kyu-nam, 41, one of the main hitters and owner of an eyeglasses franchise, and pitcher Cha Dong-heon volunteered to invest in the project along with Chang. The trio pooled 700 million won from their own pockets.

To find a suitable site, they combed through Goyang and other areas in Gyeonggi Province. “For eight months, half of our time was spent searching around,” Chang said. “If the gasoline costs of our cars during that period were combined, we could have easily bought a midsize car,” he said with a smile.

At one point, the threesome did agree on a site, but their plan was rejected by the local government.

Finally, they came upon a hilly area at the foot of Mt. Cheonma in Namyangju City. They consulted books and the Internet to study standard measurements for a baseball stadium and other necessary facilities. Team members who specialize in landscape architecture and design helped produce an initial blueprint covering more than 6,000 square meters. After the construction began, the three key members took turns overseeing the construction.

According to a survey by the Korea Baseball Organization this year, there are 349 baseball stadiums nationwide. It means the Neibos’ Dream League Stadium of Baseball Lovers will be the nation’s 350th baseball stadium. The Neibos is organizing an inter-team game to inaugurate their new stadium on August 9.

[August 1, 2014]

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Evolution of Hanok in Modern and Contemporary Eras

Kim Jong-hun Professor, Pai Chai University Director, Appenzeller/Noble Memorial Museum

Bricks began to be used for construction in Korea in the late 19th century, opening new possibilities for traditional hanok [Korean houses]. Beonsachang, an armory of the Joseon Dynasty completed in 1884, is the oldest of modern-style brick buildings in Korea.

Located inside the Korea Banking Institute in Samcheong-dong, central Seoul, this eclectic brick structure was used to produce and store weapons. Its aesthetic value is expressed in a balanced mixture of dark grey and red bricks. The composition of specially-shaped bricks and granite bricks demonstrates architectural confidence in the skillful use of bricks. The interior has a Western-style truss structure so columns are not needed.

Ganghwa Anglican Church, built in 1900, is another piece of brick-based modern architectural heritage in Korea. Unlike traditional Korean-style buildings with the roof side forming the front façade, the gable was placed atop the main entrance and the plane design of the traditional Western basilica was adopted to help conduct religious ceremonies.

The churchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s side walls were made of red bricks, with wooden columns erected in intervals, while the hip-and-gable roof utilized double-layered eaves. The traditional dancheong paintworks were done in red color for columns, and blue for rafters and upper lintels on the wall surfaces. They all 93

match well with the red brick walls. All in all, the church embodies a perfect harmony between the cultures of the East and West in modern Korea.

Lucius Foote (1826-1913), the first American minister to Korea, purchased the houses of Min Yeonggyo and Min Gye-ho, upon his arrival in Korea in 1883, to use them as U.S. legation buildings. When these houses underwent repair in 1900, their walls were rebuilt with bricks. The Yun Bo-seon House in Anguk-dong, known to have been built in the 1870s by Min Kyu-sik, the son of Min Yeong-ik, a powerful royal in-law, is also a brick building.

Bukchon in central Seoul is an area packed with modern urban-style hanok buildings. The so-called â&#x20AC;&#x153;house sellersâ&#x20AC;? (housing developers) of the 1930s extensively utilized modern construction materials such as glass, galvanized steel sheets, tiles and bricks. The traditional wooden housing structure, characterized by white plastered walls, vertical columns and horizontal lintels, began to be replaced with red brick walls. In spite of such changes, key characteristics of traditional Korean architecture were maintained thanks to the retention of wooden rafters and tiled roofs.

Brick-based hanok have various advantages: it is structurally more stable, and more suitable to apply modern techniques such as insulation. Construction cost can also be reduced significantly as the brick structure allows the use of thinner-than-normal wooden pillars.

The number of brick-based traditional-style buildings continued to grow until the 1960s. The Linton Hall at Hannam University in Daejeon, built in 1956, effectively demonstrates the ways in which Westerners carried out their modern lifestyle inhabiting a brick-based hanok. The moderated aesthetics of brick-based Korean architecture is also found in the convent building of the Seoul Cathedral of 94

the Anglican Church of Korea, located in Jeong-dong, central Seoul. The building was destroyed during the Korean War and rebuilt in 1960.

In fact, bricks were already widely utilized in pre-modern Korea, as evidenced by tombs of Nangnang, or Lelang Commandery (108 B.C.-A.D. 313), the tomb of King Muryeong (462-523) of Baekje, and brick pagodas of Silla (57 B.C.-A.D. 935). Korea’s brick construction technology is well demonstrated in Hwaseong Fortress of Suwon, built in 1794-1796. The halls for meritorious subjects and seven deities on the compound of Jongmyo, the royal shrine of the Joseon Dynasty, further confirm the use of bricks in Korean traditional wooden architecture, on side and rear walls, in the late 18th century.

During the 19th century, palace structures and noblemen’s villas were often built with bricks. Notable examples include the detached wing at Seokpajeong (1863), Seonhyangjae in Changdeok Palace (1828), Jibokjae in Gyeongbok Palace (1868) and Jeonggwanheon in Deoksu Palace (1900).

In the West, the use of bricks opened the Renaissance era in architecture. By that time, the interior of buildings had become too spacious to continue to utilize conventional marble stones, which were increasingly scarce as well. Therefore, bricks became a preferred alternative because of their standardized sizes, mass production and convenience in transportation and construction. Their features were suited for the surging demand for new buildings in Florence amidst its fast economic development. Thanks to the application of terracotta techniques, brick structures could be finished with the feel of marble in a way to revive the Greek and Roman styles.

Hanok is not a fixed construction style of the past, dating back to the Goryeo or Joseon eras, but a housing style that naturally transforms reflecting the changing lifestyles and social demands. The kind of hanok architecture demanded in our era has nothing to do with reversion to the past: it is essentially about houses and public buildings that help enhance happiness of human beings. Therefore, any stubborn insistence on fixed forms and structures in disregard of the diverse needs of contemporary times cannot elicit broad appreciation from today’s Koreans.

[JoongAng Sunday No. 382, July 6, 2014]

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- ‘Memento mori’ ― Conclusion of a Long Recovery from Death of Loved Ones

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‘Memento mori’ ― Conclusion of a Long Recovery from Death of Loved Ones

Choi Hyeon-mi Staff Reporter The Munhwa Ilbo

“Heart”

By Kang Sang-jung, Sakyejul (Four Seasons), 304 pages, 13,000 won “Memento mori [Remember (that you have) to die].” This phrase has pierced the heart of Kang Sangjung, a Zainichi scholar and president of Seigakuin University in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, who is well known for his books “The Power of Disquiet” and “Reasons to Live.” First he lost his son in 2010 and spent his days in tears. Then, a year later, he watched an earthquake and tsunami cause a massive number of deaths in northeastern Japan.

Two weeks after the natural disaster, he went to Minamisoma, the most severely affected area, because he wanted to see the carnage himself. He was reminded of Memento mori amid bodies scattered about like animal carcasses. He felt that one should not forget death. To fulfill his duty, he decided to write his first novel “Heart” (originally in Japanese under the title “Kokoro” and then in Korean “Maeum”).

Amateurish as it may be by his standards, the book that could be classified as “disaster literature” or “healing literature” has sold over 300,000 copies in Japan. The book probably resonated with so many readers because the author who deeply mourned the loss of his son found the meaning of death and the meaning of living upon a massive disaster.

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The novel is a series of conversations between the author and a young man named Nishiyama, who seeks his counsel after he loses his best friend to leukemia. Through email, they exchange intimate thoughts about life and death. Nishiyama is filled with despair, frustration and remorse, feeling he did not properly take care of his friend. He blames himself for being alive and is haunted by the question what is the meaning of life when one has to die anyway. To face death he volunteers to recover bodies after the 2011 earthquake.

The novel, which straddles fiction and non-fiction, is a story of realization depicting Nishiyama’s discovery of the meaning of death through the author’s counsel. At the same time, it also traces the author’s own discovery.

On August 19, Professor Kang met with journalists at a downtown restaurant in Seoul and told them that he wrote the book based on the pain of losing his son and a university student’s volunteer service after the earthquake and tsunami. He explained how he chose to write a novel because he could not bring himself to write about losing his son in any other form.

Professor Kang said that, while the novel was being translated, the Sewol ferry accident occurred in Korea and he felt the disaster mirrored the catastrophe in Japan three years earlier. “The earthquake and tsunami showed how the state, or the public sector, completely ceased to function and how people lost faith in public authorities when they had to face the death of their loved ones helplessly.” He added that families of the victims of the ferry accident are probably not much different from them.

“Death has always been regarded as something that needs to be forgotten quickly, and humanity has always trudged onward,” Kang said. “After the earthquake and tsunami, the Japanese people felt despondent all of a sudden, asking themselves why they had rushed forward, only pursuing growth.

Japan and Korea must both stop to look at death and think about its meaning.”

“The dead will not come back. But death does not mean nothingness. A person dies but it does not mean he no longer exists. Death takes on a new meaning through the living who accepts death for what it is. The dead will live on in the hearts of the living, and the living owes it to the dead to hand to the next generation what the dead left behind.”

Asked if his wounds were healed by writing the novel, Professor Kang said, “Not at all.” Then he went on, “Before he died my son said he hoped everyone who is alive will always be healthy. I told 98

my son’s story through the novel. I want to live until my time is up and, if I can meet my son again, I hope I will be able to tell my son proudly, ‘I did my best to keep your word.”

[August 20, 2014]

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- Kim Won: “I want to build a peace memorial in Hanoi.”

- Gu Gyeong-seon: “Being able to instill hope in others, isn’t that grand?”

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Kim Won: “I want to build a peace memorial in Hanoi.”

Choe Bo-sik Senior Reporter The Chosun Ilbo

I accompanied the architect Kim Won, 71, on a four-day trip to Hanoi, Vietnam. At the time, all that I knew about him was that he is a famous architect from the Seoul National University lineage that began with Kim Swoo-geun and Kim Jung-eop, with Kim Seok-chul in his generation and Seung Hyo-sang in the next. The trip came about when I learned that Kim Won had been chosen to lead an urban design project of Hanoi. I was curious about how a Korean architect ended up with the task.

Recalling his first impressions of Hanoi, Kim said, “I first traveled to Hanoi two years ago. I knew little about it, except that it was the seat of the Viet Minh government in North Vietnam during the war. I had no idea it had been the capital for over a thousand years. I stayed in an old hotel in the old quarter, or the ‘36 Old Streets’ of the city. It’s an area divided into 36 zones for different products such as handicrafts, paper, clothing and shoes. The old-fashioned beauty of the streets came as a shock to me. I felt that, as an architect, I had to do something.”

Hanoi has become a mega-city with a population of more than nine million. In the past Kim Woochoong’s Daewoo Hotel was the highest building in the city, but now it doesn’t even make the rankings. Skyscrapers stand all over the city.

Saving Hanoi from Becoming a Concrete Jungle 101

“It’s changing at an even faster pace than what we experienced,” Kim noted. “The city is under constant development and expansion pressures. The remaining stone buildings from the French colonial period are in danger of disappearing. I wanted to stop the city from being covered in concrete, as happened in Seoul and Beijing. I decided I would make sure it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, even if I had to use my own money to do so.”

Q. What made you think of World Heritage listing?

A. In 1990, when I went to Gochang [in North Jeolla Province, Korea] to build the Midang Literary House, I saw dolmens lying about neglected in the fields. No one seemed to recognize how special they were. So I consulted the Gochang governor and succeeded in having the dolmens inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2000. It was the first Korean prehistoric site to be recognized by UNESCO.

Q. But this is Hanoi, and you are a foreigner here.

A. A Korean company called Panacea has built an agricultural produce center on the outskirts of Hanoi. It is three times the size of Garak Market in Seoul. If a new city center is formed, it is inevitable that the urban design plan for the whole city of Hanoi will change. The Korean firm JINA Architects won the international design competition for “Hanoi Master Plan 2030,” and I am serving as director of this project. Ultimately, you could say that Koreans are designing the future appearance of Hanoi.

Q. What connection does an architect have with urban planning?

A. There are world-famous architects who design coffee cups or furniture. The design of interiors, houses, big buildings, or housing estates is different only in scale — the philosophy is the same.

Conceptually, architecture and urban design are almost identical.

Q. Do you have any actual experience in urban design?

A. When I entered Kim Swoo-geun’s office after graduating from Seoul National University, they were working on the design of the Ulsan Industrial Complex. That was probably the first instance of urban design in Korea. Afterwards, I worked on the Yeouido design project (1967-69).

Q. Yeouido was nothing more than sandy land back then.

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A. The only thing on the island was the Yeouido air strip. First, we built embankments to prevent flooding from the river. Yeouido was meant to relieve the pressure of Seoul’s growth in size and population. But political intervention prevented it from turning out the way we intended.

Q. What do you mean by political intervention?

A. We had completed all the designs when the presidential office, Cheong Wa Dae, having seen the North Korean soldiers’ inspection parade, decided to make a plaza. That’s how the “May 16 Square” [named after the May 16 coup by Park Chung-hee] was made. But the plaza was out of scale with the rest of Yeouido. Later, it was the right decision to turn it into a park.

Q. What do you seek in your work?

A. Architecture is not art but a space in which people live ad carry out their daily lives. Architecture begins with an understanding of life. In the West, architecture has become overblown in the name of art. Their values are different from those of traditional Korean architecture.

Q. What values do you mean? People’s lives are the same all over the world.

A. Western architecture is based on the concept of battling against nature. It is shelter, a sturdy shell to protect people from the wind and rain. But in the East, nature is not something to be conquered or overcome. People are part of nature. Korean architecture is based on the idea of living with and adapting to nature.

Q. It is hard to accept the dichotomy of West equals materialism, East equals spiritualism.

Aren’t we taking Western architecture as the standard and following it?

A. In 1994, the famous American architect Frank Gehry visited Seoul at the invitation of Samsung, which was planning to have Gehry build the Leeum museum. At Samsung’s request, I was Gehry’s guide. I took him to Jongmyo [royal shrine of the Joseon Dynasty]. Gehry stood stiffly in front of the long main shrine building, then he started to inspect it here and there. When I asked what he thought, he answered, “I don’t really know.” It seems he was rather shocked, unable to understand the building

by Western architectural standards.

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Q. I suppose it was rather unusual in his eyes.

A. When he visited Korea again last year, he said, “I came back because I was unable to forget the impact of Jongmyo from 15 years ago.” He told me that his second son’s wife is Korean, and that he was designing a house where he intended to spend the rest of his life based on the concept of Jongmyo.

Q. I understand that you’ve designed around 400 buildings, half of which have actually been built. Which building best reflects your philosophy?

A. My home in Ogin-dong to some extent. I bought the house in 1980 and rebuilt it. When you sit on the toilet on the second floor, you can see Mt. Inwang through the window.

Q. What would you pick as your major work?

A. In terms of architectural beauty, the Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres Museum behind Myeong-dong Cathedral (1982). The Japanese publishing company Kajima put Kim Swoo-geun and me on its list of top 100 architects in the world, citing the Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres Museum as the “most beautiful brick building.” But I have not designed a building that is an urban landmark. I’ve mostly worked on cultural, educational and religious facilities.

Q. Why is that so?

A. I’ve never been comfortable with commissions for commercial buildings.

Q. Aren’t the demands of the client the most important thing?

A. Yes, that’s true. Before erecting the Kyobo building in Gwanghwamun, Shin Yong-ho, the then Kyobo CEO, traveled around the world with a number of Korean architects to find a building that he liked. He couldn’t find one and we were on the way home when he fell in love with the American Embassy building in Tokyo. It was designed by Cesar Pelli, an American architect of Argentine descent. Shin asked him to make the same building.

Q. Do you mean it is exactly the same as the American Embassy in Tokyo?

A. Cesar Pelli tried to persuade Shin to go with a new design but failed. So the Kyobo building as 104

you see it today is an exact copy of the American Embassy building in Tokyo. Cesar Pelli did not include it in his book of works.

Q. You would think the owners of big corporations know how to judge a building.

A. Just a block away, the Jongno Tower was designed by Rafael Vinoly, an American architect from Uruguay. Originally the building had two great columns rising up out of a sunken garden. It was built

by Samsung, and at one word from Chairman Lee Kun-hee the sunken garden disappeared from the design. Rafael Vinoly would have been dumbfounded.

Q. You were in charge of the master plans for the Independence Hall in Cheonan and the Seoul Arts Center.

A. I took charge of site selection, feasibility studies, and the layout of the buildings.

Q. Was everything carried out according to the master plan?

A. Originally, the Independence Hall included a youth training center and other support buildings.

But in the end only the main hall was built. There was a political agenda from the beginning.

Q. What happened during the construction process?

A. The executive committee wanted to build a Chun Doo-hwan exhibition room inside the Independence Hall. I persuaded them against it, citing the problems that would arise with a change of government. Even in such a regime [i.e. the Chun Doo-hwan regime] reason held sway. Once they even wanted to build a guesthouse on the grounds of Changdeok Palace.

Q. Really?

A. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s true that few countries do not have a guesthouse for foreign heads of state. The Ministry of Government Administration had already had the go-ahead from the president and reported the fact to the Ministry of Culture and Information. At the time I was a member of the Cultural Heritage Committee. I talked to the then culture minister, Lee Jin-hui, who agreed that it was a problem and went to meet the president. Few presidents go back on something theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve already decided. But Chun Doohwan repealed the guesthouse plan.

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Kim mentions that in 1984 he went to Iraq to build a war memorial for Saddam Hussein’s government.

“It’s a bit of a legend now,” said Kim. “One day an official from the intelligence service, a complete stranger to me, sought me out and asked me to design a war memorial. That’s how I found myself on a plane to Iraq, which was waging war with Iran at the time. When I got there I found that all of Iraq’s military supplies came from South Korea — army blankets, tents, bandoliers, uniforms, helmets, water bottles, mosquito nets, etc. It was all done behind America’s back. To show Iraq its appreciation, the government had decided to build a war memorial for the country.

Q. Wasn’t Iraq friendly with North Korea back then?

A. The two countries had been brother nations for 13 years. The way they all wore Hussein badges and hung portraits of Hussein in their houses was something they had learned from the North Korean dictatorship. But in the war with Iran, some North Koreans were found to be among Iraq’s prisoners of war. Some North Korean soldiers had been fighting on Iran’s side. Our government moved in when this rift with North Korea occurred.

Q. Did you build the war memorial?

A. Officially, it was to be built with donations from the Iraqi people, but in reality the plan was to have Hyundai Engineering & Construction finance the construction. At the time Hyundai practically had a monopoly on construction projects in Iraq. There were more than 1,000 Korean construction workers in the country. But Hyundai balked at the idea of donating [the building] and the project never got off the ground.

Q. Any regrets?

A. My plan was to build a peace memorial, not a war memorial. I want to build a peace memorial in Hanoi. Vietnam has gone through a lot of wars and we’ve also been involved.

[August 4, 2014]

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Gu Gyeong-seon: “Being able to instill hope in others, isn’t that grand?”

Shin Jeong-seon Staff Reporter The Chosun Ilbo

The young girl who couldn’t hear immersed herself in drawing. She lost her hearing when she was two after suffering from a fever. But she possessed a natural flair for drawing. At school, she was known not as “the girl who could not hear” but “the girl who drew pretty pictures.” That girl grew up to become an artist who created the popular bunny character “Benny.”

Rabbits are known for their keen sense of hearing, hence the rabbit character. It conveys her wish that Benny would do all the hearing for her. Benny became a star on Cyworld, a Korean social networking site, five years ago. The picture of Benny lying splayed out on the grass as if it is too exhausted to even lift a finger became a sensation, being dubbed the “can’t-be-bothered bunny.”

A staggering 160,000 people downloaded the image as their mini-homepage wallpaper. Korean figure skating star Kim Yuna also posted the image on her homepage to show how tired she was from the rigorous training. Thanks to the immense popularity of Benny, Gu Gyeong-seon, 31, became widely known as “artist Gu.”

Gu thought God was fair. Although deaf, she was grateful that she could see so she could draw. She wrote storybooks featuring Benny, and gave lectures sharing with people her story about how she 107

overcame her disability. She participated in volunteer work overseas and planned donations.

But last September, she received life-shattering news. She was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that causes the field of vision to gradually narrow, eventually resulting in blindness. This progressive visual impairment combined with deafness is called Usher syndrome, a genetic disorder for which there is no known cure or effective treatment to delay its progress. All that she knows is that some day she will completely lose her vision. ♦ Should That Dreaded Day Come

We went to visit Gu at her officetel in Seongdong-gu, Seoul on July 21. We rang the doorbell, but there was no response. We waited a little while and then texted her telling her we were waiting outside.

After about a minute, Gu opened the door and welcomed us with a radiant smile. Her workroom was charmingly decorated with cute little ornaments. Gu’s mother and brother, nine years younger, live in Jangan-dong, Dongdaemun-gu, while she has been living on her own with her cat since January.

Q. I heard that your vision is gradually deteriorating. How much can you see?

A. My field of vision has narrowed to around 10 degrees. I am able to read letters, although very difficult. The next stage is when you’re left with a visual field of just five degrees. At that stage, they say I will hardly be able to see anything. By then I won’t be able to draw. But no one knows when my vision will be completely gone. It could remain at this stage without deteriorating any further for many years.

Gu has a grade two hearing disability, which is the most severe in hearing impairment. Grade two means a hearing loss greater than 90 decibels in both ears. In other words, a plane flying overhead cannot be heard. After being diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, she received a multiple disability rating of grade one due to her deteriorating eyesight.

Our interview proceeded slowly due to such handicaps. Communication was difficult, but not impossible. With her limited eyesight, Gu tried to make out what I was saying by reading my lips. When it came to longer questions, writing was more efficient than speaking. I would type my question on the computer and show it to her. She would read it and answer.

It also took longer for me to understand what she was saying because her pronunciation was not 108

precise. Deaf people learn to speak by reading people’s lips, so it is difficult for them to pronounce words accurately. Gu initially replied to my questions verbally, and when I didn’t seem to understand, she typed the answers out.

Q. Are you able to draw in your current condition?

A. Because I have a disability in both my ears and eyes, I have a poor sense of balance. Even something as simple as drawing a straight line is difficult. I go back and look at what I thought was a straight line and it’s crooked. I have to draw it over and over again until it’s straight. I do the same sketch at least five times until I get it right because I don’t want to settle for anything less than perfectly straight.

Q. Your field of vision is gradually narrowing. Aren’t you afraid when you open your eyes in the morning?

A. No, not really. I don’t consciously think about that every time I wake up in the morning. But at times when I see the bright morning rays shine down on my bed, I feel a pang of sadness. Surprisingly, it’s when I’m having a good time with my family or friends that I’m seized by a sudden fear. It’s usually during those happy little moments when a wave of fear washes over me. Because I’m afraid that it will all be gone soon.

Q. With your failing eyesight and hearing loss, wouldn’t it be better to live with your family? Is there a reason that you moved out on your own?

A. I had several things on my wish list that I wanted to do before I became completely blind. One of them was having my own workroom, which is the dream of every artist. But I had abandoned that dream due to financial reasons when miraculously I managed to scrape together enough money from my book contract, proceeds from the sale of Benny postcards and a loan from a friend.

Q. How did you find out there was something wrong with your eyes?

A. Last September, a close friend of mine told me that I should go see a doctor. She thought there was something wrong because I would keep bumping into things when I climbed the stairs or walked along the street. I first thought it was glaucoma. But when I saw my mom’s face grow somber after hearing what the doctor had to say, I knew it was something much more serious.

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Q. You must have been devastated to find out you were going to lose your eyesight when you’ve already lost your hearing.

A. The day the doctor confirmed the diagnosis our whole family wept. My younger brother went outside to cry, and my mom held me in her arms and wept. I was in denial. I thought I had finally realized my long-held dream of becoming an artist through Benny. I didn’t want to let it slip away. ♦ Beacon of Hope

Q. Have you ever resented God? A. You think I haven’t? I was really mad at God at first and cried out at Him. I had been going to church for a few years with a friend, and I argued a lot with the people there because of that. What changed my perspective was participating in the overseas volunteer work organized by the church. It allowed me to break down the wall that I had built around myself. If you turn your eyes to the world, you will find that there are so many children out there who are forced to give up their dreams for various reasons, be it money or a disability. But I saw how these children regained hope just by seeing how I try to live my life to the fullest despite the adversities thrown my way. Being able to instill hope in others, isn’t that grand? As an artist, it is still difficult for me to accept the reality that I will eventually go blind. But I wasn’t born into this world just to do art. Being able to give hope to others in my own small way is meaningful too. That gave me courage.

Gu lost her hearing when she was two years old. Three years later, she enrolled at Seoul National School for the Deaf (then Sun Hee School) and studied there for three years, learning how to write, read other people’s lips and speak. Thereafter, she went to a regular elementary school and high school. It was the sense of isolation that plagued her throughout her school years since communication was difficult.

“Feeling alienated was the greatest distress for me,” said Gu. “Even though I was with other people, I felt that I didn’t really fit in since I couldn’t participate in the conversation, and that made me depressed. Other people would laugh, and I would wonder why. Feeling all alone even in the company of others can be unbearably lonely. It’s the same even when I’m with my mom and friends. The sense of isolation is even greater when I’m with my loved ones.”

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Gu used to be a computer game buff. She was addicted to the online game Lineage and at one point played it for 24 hours straight forgoing sleep. She dropped out of Korea Animation High School and lived in the virtual world until 21. What made her come to her senses was an offline meeting of fellow game fiends. The gamers that she thought were hotshots in the game world turned out to be quite unimpressive in person. Witnessing the huge disparity between the online and offline world was like a wake-up call. She immediately started preparing for the high school equivalency exams and passed after five tries.

Q. How did you come up with the character Benny?

A. I originally dreamed of studying in Germany, the land of fairy tales, and become a fairy tale writer.

Since my family wasn’t that well off, I had to fend for myself. I scoured the want ads looking for a part-time job, willing to do anything, even washing dishes. With the help of my brother, I contacted scores of companies, but was rejected by all of them. Then I found out that you could earn one million won (approximately US$1,000) a month designing and drawing background skin for mini-homepages on Cyworld. So I applied. That’s how I came to draw Benny.

But high hopes of a monthly income of one million won turned into disappointment. She toiled away for nine months, but was only able to earn 200,000 won a month at most. “I don’t have what it takes.

I shouldn’t have even dreamed of going to study abroad,” she reproached herself. Disheartened, Gu didn’t feel like doing anything. But she had to send in something before the deadline. So she drew a picture of Benny lying spread out on the grass as if it couldn’t be bothered to even lift a finger.

That became the famous “can’t-be-bothered bunny.” It gained huge popularity, with many downloads.

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She learned a valuable lesson then. “If you don’t give up, opportunity will come.”

Thanks to Benny, Gu said, “I earned a lot of money.” I asked how much, but she just said “a lot,” and added, “All the money went into paying my father’s debt.” After losing his entire fortune to a series of business failures and debt guarantee, Gu’s father went from one manual labor job to another at various construction sites. When he finally returned home he was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer. He spent the last three months of his life with his family battling cancer. When he passed away, all that was left was a pile of debt.

That was already 10 years ago. Gu’s mother, Yu Mi-sun, 59, had to support her family working as an insurance agent. Gu held an exhibition two years ago, titled “Mom, I Love You,” dedicated to her mother.

“Mom always tells me not to be depressed,” Gu said. “One day I realized that she was saying those words not to me but to herself. Sometimes I snuggle up to mom and say, ‘Mom, I’m your masterpiece.’

Then we burst out laughing. Of course there are times when I cry. But only at night when I’m alone — when mom isn’t home.”

Q. What are your memories of your father?

A. My father was like the wind. He was always off somewhere and never around. We always waited for him to come home, but he never did. Instead, all that came were debt payment reminder letters. I don’t have many memories of my father since he spent so little time at home. I have one fond memory.

He once made us fried rice with pork. The smell and taste is all that I remember of him.

Q. You lost your hearing and your father, and now you’re losing your eyesight. Do you ever feel that fate has dealt you a cruel hand?

A. No, I don’t really think that way. There are many people who are worse off than me. The other day I met with 19 people who had multiple disabilities. They were all living their life to the full. A disability is just an inconvenience. I think of my father’s death in a similar light. We all have to say goodbye to our father someday. That day just happened to come earlier for me. Of course the pain was too much to bear at first. But I believe that everything happens for a reason. I think that there is a purpose to things that you encounter in your life. What seems like a failure can become a valuable asset later in life.

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Q. How did you come to develop such a positive outlook?

A. Shortly after being diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, I went to the Philippines to do volunteer work. I couldn’t back out because the schedule had already been set. I met a young boy there. He said he wanted to become a photographer and travel the world. So I drew him a picture of Benny posing as a photographer. He loved it so much that he held the picture tightly to his chest forgetting to even eat his lunch. I realized then that I could give hope to a little kid who had nothing. That’s when the anger that had been building up inside me began to melt away.

Q. If you were to lose your eyesight in the next five minutes, what is that last thing you want to do?

A. Take a selfie. Since I won’t be able to take a picture of myself once I can’t see. And I want to send a text message to my mom.

Q. What would that text say?

A. I love you, Mom. Please continue to look after me.

She sat quiet for some time before she answered. Her eyes were filled with tears.

Q. What does drawing mean to you?

A. I completely lose myself when I’m drawing. The world becomes quiet and peaceful when I draw.

Not because I can’t hear, but it’s as if I’m in a world where sound doesn’t exist. Then it feels as if I can hear music. I know it’s just my imagination, but I think I can hear the tranquil sound of a murmuring stream. I’ve never heard the music of Mozart, but I think it would be something similar.

Q. Do you still want to go study in Germany if given the chance?

A. There’s something I realized from seeing how much people loved the “can’t-be-bothered bunny.”

You need to express things honestly in your drawings. Before, I was just focused on drawing pretty pictures. I wanted to study in Germany because I had this dream of becoming a great artist. But come to think of it, how many people truly understand the artworks that they see displayed at art exhibits?

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So rather than becoming an artist that lives in his own artistic world, I decided to become an artist who produces artworks, however simple, that people of all ages can relate to.

Q. If you could hear, what do you want to hear the most?

A. I’ve always wondered what a person’s voice over the phone sounds like. I saw a woman at a department store who was picking out clothes while talking on the phone wedged between her ear and shoulder. I really envied her.

Q. Don’t you feel uncomfortable at times receiving attention because of your disability?

A. My disability is a part of who I am. I appreciate people taking an interest in someone like me in what can be a pitiless world. Actually I consider myself lucky. I am grateful that people have shown an interest in my work when there are so many great artists out there. I’m sure people are initially drawn to my pictures, but I guess the fact that I’m an artist with a disability also piqued their interest.

Sometimes my disability can become an opportunity. So in some ways, I think it’s a blessing.

Q. Do you really think it’s a blessing?

A. It is. Although I can’t hear and I won’t be able to see, I still have my lips. So I can speak, and when I get a boyfriend, I can kiss him. I still have use of my hands. So when I go completely blind, I can do ceramic art. I believe that even though I lose my eyesight, it will be the beginning of a new chapter in my life. ♦ Wish List

Gu made a wish list of all the things she wanted to do before completely losing her vision. One was coloring her nails with garden balsam, which she already did early this month. She is also running a marathon on August 23, something which “I hate more than math, which I hate more than anything else in the world.” She doesn’t like running, but decided to take part because she wanted to challenge herself before going completely blind. Also on her wish list is losing weight, which she is still working on.

Q. Why do you want to lose weight? Do you want to look slimmer?

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A. When I can’t see, I’ll have to rely on other people to dress me. To make it easier for them, I want to lose weight so I will look good in anything.

Q. What are your plans for your character Benny?

A. I’m doing all I can to make sure that Benny lives on even after I stop drawing. I want Benny to grow to become like the famous British character Peter Rabbit. I’m pushing myself to the limit and putting everything I’ve got into Benny so I won’t have any regrets later on. I plan to write as many stories as I can, from essays about everyday life to children’s stories with a philosophical meaning. I also want to make character products, such as cups and postcards. I intend to donate half of the profit from the sales proceeds. Benny was chosen as the mascot for the K Culture-People Foundation, an organization that provides support and funding for creative art projects and education for the underprivileged. I’m planning to participate in the volunteer project organized by the foundation to help needy children in 30 countries.

Gu said she has recently acquired a new habit of watching people going to work in the morning. She wants to remember the image of what it feels like to be alive while she can still see. “You see a lot of things when you observe people going to work,” she said. “People in a rush, people who keep checking their cellphones as if they’re bored waiting, women who haven’t had the time to dry their hair, men who seem like they’re still half asleep. By watching the various kinds of people on the street I can have treasured memories of what it feels like to be alive.”

[July 26, 2014]

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COPYRIGHT Korea Focus is a monthly webzine (www.koreafocus.or.kr), featuring commentaries and essays on Korean politics, economy, society and culture, as well as relevant international issues. The articles are selected from leading Korean newspapers, magazines, journals and academic papers from prestigious forums.

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Publisher Yu Hyun-seok Editor Lee Kyong-hee Editorial Board Shim Ji-yeon Professor, Kyungnam University Lee Ha-won Director, TV Chosun Kim Yong-jin Professor, Ajou University Hyun Jung-taik Professor, Inha University Hahm In-hee Professor, Ewha Womans University Sonn Ho-chul Professor, Seogang University Kim Gyun-mi Deputy Editor, The Seoul Shinmun Kim Hoo-ran Senior Journalist, The Korea Herald Peter Beck Korea Represetative, Asia Foundation Jocelyn Clark Professor, Paichai University â&#x201C;&#x2019; The Korea Foundation 2014 All rights reserved.

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