Let's raise questions and offer suggestions about teaching about contemporary Korea in this thread (cell phones, relations across the peninsula, disputes with neighbors, resources, and so on). Please note that we have similar threads for other regions.
South Korea has been an important source of adopted children for American and other foreign families. For years, though, it's been controversial in South Korea as many consider it a mark of national shame.
The NY Times reported this morning that the SK government is moving to reduce and eventually end foreign adoptions. Here's the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/world/asia/09adopt.html?th&emc=th
Hmmm...I haven't read from the link yet, but I wonder why is this a mark of shame in South Korea? Is this also a mark of shame in other Asian countries? We hear so much of children being adopted from China and the Phillipines (and celebrities who adopt from smaller countries as well), but I've always been under the illusion that these were children who were purposefully put up for adoption. I remember that another issue connected to adoption is slavery, in that many children in Asian countries can be at the mercy of child slavery and child pornography rings. Could this be a part of the issue with South Korea as well, or is it more of a "We're ashamed that we can't/don't take care of our own"? Hmmm...I will read on to see if the NY Times article answers any of my questions.
Oh, and what does the issue of adoption bring to the classroom? Americans who adopt Asians (I believe...perhaps not true) tend to be white upper-class? What is it like for an adopted Asian child in a (and I'm stereotyping here) predominantly white community, school, world?
According to a news alert from the New York Times, North Korea has now been taken off the Terrorism blacklist. This may change the way that we teach about Korea. Most of our students know very little about this ancient country, so any information will be welcome. An excellent novel about life in ancient Korea is the Newbery award winner by Linda Sue Park, A Single Shard. It is a very popular book with my students who like adventure stories.
Linda Sue Park also wrote When My Name Was Keokoabout a Korean girl who struggled to keep her identity during the Japanese invasion of Korea.
Susan Dubin
Valley Beth Shalom Day School Library
Hi Folks,
The Korean peninsula remains divided (and the recent shooting of a South Korean tourist by a North Korean soldier suggests that real rapprochement remains a ways off), but just to demonstrate how rivals can come together for the greater good the USC Korean Studies Institute and the UCLA Center for Korean Studies are cooperating to bring Nick Bonner and his film "Crossing the Line" to Los Angeles on November 10. You may have seen part of the film on 60 Minutes. It focuses on U.S. soldiers who defected to North Korea and features an extended interview with one of the soldiers who continues to live in Pyongyang.
http://www.crossingthelinefilm.com
Bonner also made a wonderful film about how two young female athletes in North Korea prepared for the Pyongyang Mass Games. He's currently preparing to shoot -- of all things -- a romantic comedy in North Korea in 2009.
Here are the event details:
The Korean Studies Institute of University of Southern California proudly presents:
CROSSING THE LINE: a feature documentary
film screening followed by Q & A with Producer Nicholas Bonner
Co-Sponsored by UCLA Center for Korean Studies and Korea Society
Monday 4:00 PM
November 10, 2008
At the UCLA Royce Hall 314
Admission: Free
Parking Information can be found at :
http://maps.ucla.edu/campus/
Contact information:
Telephone : 213-740-0005
Email : ksi@usc.edu
Website : http://college.usc.edu/ksi/
http://college.usc.edu/ksi/">http://college.usc.edu/ksi/
Korean cinema is leading East Asia these days. You can see many specific film recommendations (JSA and The Way Home are two of my favorites), but at this nearly decade old site you can learn about the history of Korean film and learn about the current industry. It's well organized and offers background readings that are quite handy.
http://www.koreanfilm.org/
I was involved in the adoption community for many years and Korea was one of the first places overseas that many Americans started adopting from. The big influx began after the Korean War for two reasons: 1) there were a lot of orphans and 2) there were children who were mixed Korean and American or from other troops. Neither were being accepted into Korean society and were being raised in orphanages.
Parents of children adopted from Korea became very big adovocates for their children. Obviously, the adoption could not be hidden and many parents became very interested in the culture their child (ren) came from and included the culture in their family life. In addition, many communities held Korean Camp in the summer. Sometimes for the children, but often for the whole family.
Kathleen Flanagan
On page 43 of the web resources thread, I've posted information about U.S. Department of Education photos of the Korean War that are now available for educational use via Flickr. Here's a link to the web resources thread:
http://uschinaforum.usc.edu/showpost.aspx?PostID=390
Please scroll to the bottom of the page and click on page 43 to see that post. There are more than 500 fairly well captioned photos.
In 2003, we took our NCTA group to Ewha University, one of Korea's top university and certainly the top women's university. This past week, Hillary Clinton visited and spoke about the key role empowering women plays in development. She spoke as a grad of Wellesley, another women's university. A copy of the talk is attached.
Frontline World, one of PBS's signature documentary series includes two Asia segments this week (April 14, 2009 9 pm in most places). The first looks at Afghanistan (Children of the Taliban) and the second looks at South Korea - described as the most wired nation on earth. The website offers the program and a look at "professional videogaming" and "internet rescue camp" (for the addicted.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/
A face matters. Though Americans do worry about the potential of nuclear catastrophe and are concerned that adding North Korea to the nuclear club increases the potential of nuclear conflict, even more Americans pay attention when they hear about Americans being held for trying to shine light on conditions in North Korea. That's the fate of two American journalists who may have violated North Korean territory before they were captured by border guards. They were recently sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp.
One of many articles on the subject:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6453550.ece
Because they are American women, there's more attention to the brutal conditions that are standard in these camps. The Washington Post has put together an excellent set of interactive maps on camps in North Korea, with a detailed map of one particular camp. You can see them at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/19/AR2009071902178.html?wpisrc=newsletter
A colleague of mine just called. He is British and was outraged at the lack of coverage of the August 18, 2009 death of Kim Dae-jung. As he put it, "this man is like Nelson Mandela." Kim was an amazing figure and for forty years fought to build democracy in South Korea and to improve ties with the North. He spent time in prison and in exile (including in Los Angeles) and was sentenced to death in 1980. But in 1998 he was inaugurated as president of the Republic of Korea. In 2000 he went to the North, a bold move that earned him the Nobel Prize that year.
These achievements were not entirely untarnished as the obituaries cited below make clear, but he was a remarkable figure and one that we should definitely be teaching about. His story allows students a sharp view of the battle to bring democracy to Korea and the democratization of South Korea and Taiwan is one of the great stories of the late 20th century.
NY Times obituary (includes a great slide show)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/world/asia/19kim.html
The LA Times initially had only a one paragraph note about his passing, but then published this excellent piece by Barbara Demick: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-korea-kim18-2009aug18,0,787710.story (note his explanation for why the $500 million payment for the Kim/Kim summit in 2000 was no big deal)
After his own story of surviving persecution to become president, Kim Dae-jung is best known for his Sunshine Policy toward the North. By June 2009, though, Donald Kirk concluded that the policy was dead. Read his essay in the Far Eastern Economic Review at:
http://www.feer.com/essays/2009/june/the-death-of-the-sunshine-policy
[originally posted to the film festival thread - but wanted to make sure that those interested in increasing Korea's place in the curriculum know about this resource]
We recently had a great workshop which featured Trinity University's Don Clark talking about South Korean film and television. The latest issue of Education about Asia includes an interesting article by Tom Vick on film and contemporary Korea. Vick plans film screenings for the Smithsonian Institution's Freer and Sackler Galleries.
Vick, Tom. "Cinema as a Window on Contemporary Korea," Education about Asia 14.3 (Winter 2009): 37-41.
There are other articles devoted to particular films and an essay by Mary Connor (Korea Academy for Educators) on using such films in the classroom.
EAA puts some articles online (
http://www.asian-studies.org/EAA/TOC-14-3.htm), but these aren't among them.
If you're not already subscribing to EAA, you should consider doing so. The three issues each year are rich with concrete teaching suggestions, background readings, and more.
I enjoyed and was enlightened on many aspects of modern Korea by the presentation we had not too long ago. I must admit, however, that I am not certain or quite clear about the people's (as opposed to the official State position relative to the) desire to re-unify the country. In fact, I am quite a bit confused, and disappointed if true, when it is stated on one side that the people of South Korea talk about their brothers on the North side of Korea and yet they are not willing to shoulder the heavy costs associated with a possible re-unification which would impinge upon their own continuing socio-economic well being. I regret the continuing assertions of such great economic (and to me materialistic) success and continuing desire to expand further the economic growth (and this comment applies to China as well) with little if any considerations to the destabilization of family and social fiber which has kept Korea (and China) so uniquely culturally cohesive.
Concerning the question of the reunification of Korea, I would like to express another viewpoint. My father is originally from N. Korea and was separated from his family at the end of the Korean War. He hasn’t seen or heard about any of his family members ever since. He married and raised children in S. Korea and then emigrated to the U.S. When it comes to the topic of reunification, he has mixed feelings. He misses his family so very much, but at the same time, he believes that if anyone is still alive, they may have been so communist brainwashed that he wouldn’t be able to recognized them or bring back the family bond… He remembers too much of the viciousness of communism and what it can do to people that he is afraid to find out. Besides the issue of the “economic” burden of reunification, his concern is whether two countries that have been separated over half a century with different political ideologies can really reunite in harmony. If N. Koreans are seen as being held captive, then “freeing” them would make sense, but if they believe their system to be the true system, they may feel they’re freeing the South. If this is the case, unification would not be desirable. Perhaps it is best that the two countries remain separate but become friendly neighbors.