Advert announcing anti-US demonstration

If it seems as if Koreans always have some US offense to demonstrate against, that may be partly because they just do a lot of demonstrating. But if you're reasonably open-minded and can listen more than you talk, it's not likely to be much of a problem for you as a teacher.

I suppose I could stop right here, because that's probably about as much as you really want to know. But I'm going to write some more (OK, a lot more) about this issue, and I hope you'll take the time to read it, because I think it'll help you understand Koreans better.

I want to start with a sort of a disclaimer. Everybody involved in this discussion, myself included, has an opinion. Most of what you'll find on the web is written by people with very strong opinions, those who are close to one side or the other. Quite a few of the English-language webpages that talk about anti-Americanism are written by US military people stationed in Korea. And let me tell you, they have opinions.

They can't understand why Koreans demonstrate against them. They're living in a foreign country, halfway round the world from home, and they're just trying to do their job -- training Korea's own military, guarding the DMZ. For years they've been located in Seoul, close to the border, in part so that they'd be in the thick of things should North Korea ever invade again. When they see kids (and adults) shouting slogans, waving posters, and even (once in a while) burning US flags, it makes their blood boil. They see North Korea as a real and immediate menace -- after all, it maintains one of the world's largest standing armies -- and just shake their heads when they hear that some South Koreans think that the US is more of a threat than North Korea. They believe that South Koreans, especially young people, are greatly underestimating the danger that the North and its leader pose to them and their way of life. And they are probably right. Their websites, though sometimes a little hard to read, are worth a look so you know where they're coming from. And at least they're written in English.

To get the South Korean viewpoint, you really should read something written by Koreans. And I don't mean the mainstream papers, which all toe the government line to one extent or another. Thousands of Koreans have discovered that the reporting at OhMyNews, Voice of People, and more recently Frontier Times, is quite a bit different from what they've been reading, hearing, and seeing in other media. OhMyNews changed the outcome of Korea's presidential election in December of 2002 by mobilizing anti-US voters, quite literally at the last minute. When exit polls showed that Roh Moo-hyun was losing the election, the network sprang into action with emails and cell-phone messages urging his supporters to head for the polls. Roh took the election with a margin of just over 2 percentage points.

What's most striking about the writers at these online news sources is that they are also the readers. This is news reported from the streets, by people with strong opinions who are not bashful about expressing them. Alas, this doesn't help much unless your Korean is very, very good. Frontier Times has no English articles at all. OhMyNews does have an international section, but its content is completely different from that of the Korean pages. Voice of People's English article section is very scant and infrequently updated.

There are probably some people - you may even be one of them - who will think that because I mention these matters, I must be anti-American myself. I'm not, and I really don't mean to sound that way, but if trying to see both sides of the dispute means I get called "anti-American," then so be it. And if this makes you sore at me - well, all I can say is "sorry."

I don't claim to have all the answers. I won't say I fully understand either side. But I hope that what I've written here gives you a slightly better idea of what's going on in Korea. And if you're close enough to the situation to disagree with me (either way), then you probably don't even need to read this -- you already have all the information you need to make your own decision.

Ever know someone who, for years, caused you trouble now and then but mostly ignored you? Suppose this person did one nice thing for you - something really big. Of course it was something that benefitted him too, but at least he did it. Now he wants you to be grateful for the rest of your life - even though he's gone back to mostly ignoring you.

That's how Korea sees the US. Prior to the 20th century, the US mostly ignored Korea. When they paid any attention at all, it usually wasn't all that helpful. For example, in 1910 the US made a deal with Japan, in effect trading Korea for Hawai'i. Japan occupied Korea until 1949, with essentially no argument from the US. Then, at the end of the Second World War, the US deliberately created Korea's North-South division as a way to keep the Communists contained.

The Communists in the North didn't stay contained. They invaded the South in 1950, and the US came to South Korea's aid. No matter what their real motives may have been -- and that's a topic of endless debate -- the US effort during the Korea war is the main reason that South Korea isn't ruled by the North's totalitarian regime right now. If not for them, things would be very different in South Korea. It'd be more like China -- at best. In fact most Koreans agree, particularly the older ones. It's what the US did before and after the Korean war that they take issue with.

What are their grievances since the Korean War? A big one is the 1980 Kwangju Massacre. In May of 1980, the Korean government, then a dictatorship, sent one of its most infamous army divisions to put down pro-democracy demonstrations in Kwangju. By some independent accounts, they killed over 2000 Korean civilians. The exact US role in this disaster still isn't clear, but to this day Koreans believe that the US was partly to blame. The Carter Administration claimed they didn't know that the division, the Seventh Special Warfare Brigade, was being brought in. But documents pried loose under the Freedom of Information Act show that they did know that was the plan, or at least should have, 10 days before the massacre occured. They either couldn't or didn't make any effort to prevent it. Either way, Koreans still consider the US at least partly responsible.

The US also gets most of the blame for the extremely unpopular IMF (International Monetary Fund) "reforms" that, according to some, helped shorten the 1997 Asian fiscal crisis. This attitude is probably justified, because the Clinton administration was behind the IMF one hundred percent. To this day, many adult Koreans hate the IMF.

It seems trivial compared to the massacre of 2000 people, but one thing that really burned Koreans in February of 2002 was the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics incident. American speed skater Anton Ohno was handed a victory after his South Korean opponent was disqualified. Korea flew into a rage, mostly directed at the US (even though the judge involved wasn't American). Singer Yoon Min Suk composed a gut-wrenching anti-American tune, F---ing USA, which blasted the Olympic decision and the US's position on North Korea (sheet music) (translated lyrics) (mp3) (video clip with translation), and the name "Ohno" entered the Korean language as a curse.

That furor was just beginning to die down when the US military was involved in a tragic accident. On 13 June 2002, a US mine clearing vehicle (AVLM) was traveling in a convoy through a small village north of Seoul, Samgu-ri. It struck and crushed two 13 year old Korean schoolgirls, Shin Hyo Sun and Sim Mi Son, who were walking along the side of the road.

The AVLM is a huge and unwieldy machine, literally wider than the lane of the road they were traveling. It requires two people in constant communication, a commander and a driver, to keep it under control. The driver can't see the right side of the vehicle.

A Bradley vehicle coming from the other direction forced the AVLM to drive partly off the right side of the road. The oncoming Bradley's driver apparently saw the girls walking there and, according to testimony given during the US Military inquiry, tried to deliver a visual warning. This should have been visible to the AVLM's driver, but whether he saw it is unknown. The AVLM's commander said he saw the Bradley driver's signals, then shortly afterwards, spotted the girls. He reported that he ordered the driver to stop, but for some reason, perhaps a faulty intercom, the driver didn't respond to the command.

The AVLM's operators were charged with negligent homicide and tried by a US military court. They were acquitted.

Candlelight vigil at one-year anniversary observance, 13 June 2003 (OhMyNews)

Many Koreans thought that the soldiers should have been tried by Korean courts under Korean law. They were outraged. They joined huge demonstrations and candlelight vigils. Signs saying "No Americans" went up in a few Itaewon bars and restaurants near the military installation in Seoul. Soldiers -- and even non-military male foreigners -- started getting more dirty looks. Some were spat on. They got into fights with young Korean men (not that that was anything new). There was even a high-profile incident in which a US soldier was grabbed off the subway by a mob of Korean youths, dragged to an anti-US demonstration, and forced to make a statement and apology for American actions.

Ultimately the anti-US-military attitudes made possible the election of a progressive (by conservative Korean standards) president, Roh Moo-hyun, who promised he'd work toward a more evenly balanced relationship with the US military. By many accounts he didn't keep that promise, by the way.

This case was just the latest in a long string of crimes and accidents by the US military, about 2000 a year on average. But let's be fair here -- when you put 37,000 (now 28,500) mostly young recruits in a foreign country, some of them are bound to get in trouble. In a lot of cases it's minor or victimless crimes -- black market trading and the like. More serious is the environmental damage: for example, in 2000 the US base in Seoul dumped a large quantity of formaldehyde, which ended up in the Han River. Make no mistake, they were breaking Korean law and endangering public health. There's no excusing that, but one might reasonably wonder why Koreans don't get equally enraged over the awful chemical soup that their own industries dump into their air and water.

The real public outcry comes from a relatively small number of very high profile crimes -- theft, assault, rape, even murder. Not that US military personnel commit a majority of the violent crimes in Korea -- of course they don't -- but each incident is widely reported in the Korean media, feeding a general attitude of distrust for the US military. This is amplified by the fact that, under US-Korea agreements, US soldiers are always tried by the US military, not in Korean courts. Every offense (or perceived offense) drives the sides further apart.

Not much is written about it in the newspapers, but there also seems to be a perception among Koreans that the US military looks down on them. After talking with some people on both sides, I think this may be true. US military folks seem to have the idea that Korea is one of the worst (peaceful) places in the world they could be stationed. Not being one of them, I don't know how justified this is, but it certainly makes for a bad attitude right from the start. So we have a situation where Koreans are unhappy about the US bases occupying valuable land, while the American GIs think their housing sucks. Sounds like lose-lose to me.

Now we come to 2003, the US invasion of Iraq (here as elsewhere widely opposed), and the US handling of the nuclear crisis with North Korea. The vast majority of Koreans opposed the Iraq war and occupation (and still do). They opposed sending Korean troops to Iraq, although some did eventually go there. Koreans also believe that the US not only isn't handling North Korea well, they think we caused the current crisis through carelessness and neglect.

Are they right? I'll leave that answer up to you. But it hardly matters, since what we think is not going to change what Koreans believe. Their attitudes are the water you have to swim in when you live and work there. So how do you handle this? Remember what I said -- they're upset with the American military and American policy, not with American teachers. (At least so far. Behave yourself.) So here are some concrete suggestions:

1. Don't dress or act like a military type. Don't wear your hair too short, for example.

2. Develop a nice, innocuous stock reply to use when you're asked what you think of the US-Korea situation. Something like, "Western politicians don't really understand Korea very well. Both sides need to learn more about each other."

3. If asked about Iraq or Afghanistan, don't try to explain or defend the US actions. This is such an emotional issue that I'm really reluctant to suggest an answer. How about something like, Every country believes it needs to act in its own best interests. (Is that neutral enough?)

It's partly because of those strong Korean beliefs, but it's also because of the language barrier. Arguing political or economic fine points in English with most Koreans is an exercise in futility. Many of them just don't have enough English. Instead of convincing them, usually you just leave them puzzled. They walk away thinking of you as rude and (literally) disagreeable. Keep pushing on this, and before long you won't have any Korean friends left. That's not a good situation for someone who needs translators for just about everything.

As I see it, life's too short for that kind of stress. If you can't control your anger and / or hold your tongue for a year or so, if you can't come up with neutral responses that won't make Koreans even more upset, then it's probably better that you to stay home and hang around with friends who agree with you.

On the other hand, if you're a good listener with lots of self-control, you'll probably do fine. You'll discover that while Koreans may be angry at the US and its military, they're plenty friendly toward ordinary US citizens -- especially the ones who teach them English.