Controversies

If you've been reading the international news lately, maybe you've heard a bit about the Tokdo dispute between Japan and South Korea. Not that the dispute is anything new, but today the Japanese Shimane Prefectural Assembly passed an ordinance declaring Feb. 22 "Takeshima Day." Takeshima is Japan's name for the Tokdo islands. According to Korean sources, Tokdo became Japan's in 1905 and returned to Korea in 1945 when Korea achieved independence from Japan. According to Japanese sources, the ownership of the islet is simply "disputed." The declaration of "Takeshima Day," notably coming on the tail of Korea's Independence Day of March 1st, was considered an insult by many Koreans.

Tokdo isn't the only issue on the table: there's also the continuing anger about Korean 'comfort women' (women enslaved by the Japanese military to sexually serve its soldiers during the Japanese occupation), the middle-school textbook about to be published in Japan that either "white-washes" or "glorifies" Japan's conquering of Korea (depending on whether you are reading this week's newspaper or last week's)--and there's more, mostly controversies over geography or the portrayal of history, all I think, of course linked to Japan's subjugation of Korea during the last century.

In any case, there are numerous news websites you can visit if you want to learn more. The Marmot's Hole is a well-regarded blog by an American living in Korea that features mostly Korean news items. I think his tone is a little too facetious when he discusses Korean politics, but maybe it's a kind of cynicism that comes with living as an expat in Korea for longer than I have. You can find his blog at http://blog.marmot.cc/.

I do admit though that Koreans burning Japanese flags and cutting off their pinkie fingers in protest in front of the Japanese embassy is difficult for me to comprehend. But of course I also realize that it's about more than just a nice fishing area. As I've never been subject to the atrocities of war or occupied by a government that wished to erase my culture and exploit my resources, and who, decades later, refused to acknowledge certain particularly horrifying atrocities or even relinquish a little island that belonged to me before they took it over--it might be hard for me to understand.

I guess I should mention though, that I do find some of the perspectives I hear on the radio in Korea hard to accept. The other day on the drive to school, the radio on, my host mother told me that the commentator, who was discussing North Korea and the six party talks, was saying that the U.S. doesn't actually want North and South Korea to reunite. She said that many Koreans believe the division between North and South Korea is to America's advantage, that it's in America's interest to keep the country divided. I can't quite conceive of why such a thing would benefit the U.S., and so I asked her "Why?" She just sort of laughed and hedged, dropping the subject and saying something to the affect of "You have your opinion and I have mine." I'm willing to admit that the U.S. is making reunification more difficult, complicating it for South Korea since the U.S. is so edgy about North Korea and has a strong military presence here in the South. But as for a motive for keeping North and South apart, I'm at a loss.

During the first week of classes, one of my new first graders asked me what I thought of North Korea. I said I hoped that North and South Korea could reunite but that I thought Kim Jong Il was crazy. They all laughed. I thought what I said was relatively tame. I mean, who doesn't think Kim Jong Il is insane? But when my host mother started talking about North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons as if it were a justifiable defense against the U.S....Well, she didn't quite say that, but what she said implied that N.K. took the U.S.'s war with Iraq as a reason to retain nuclear weapons to protect itself. And that this made sense. Which would imply that she has some kind of faith in the logic of the North Korean government. The divide between North and South Korea saddens me, and I know it is a deep pain in the hearts of many Koreans, young and old. But I can't imagine viewing Kim Jong Il or his government as sane and reasonable. Well, maybe if reunification had been your wish for your entire lifetime, maybe you'd be willing to believe it out of hope.

There I go. I started this discussion of North Korea to show that I do disagree with South Korean politics sometimes. But then I get back on that "attempting to empathize" thing. I hear this is one of the stages of culture shock (culture shock--it actually won't end until months after I'm back home in the States).