Today is May 18, which, needless to say, marks a very significant day in Korean history. I will write a longer post on this after work (so those in possession of umbrage are advised to save it), but for now, I direct you to Budaechigae’s and Flying Yangban’s posts on the events of May 1980.
UPDATE: The Oranckay has a very solemn tribute.
18 Comments
c’mon, marmot. i would expect nothing less from you. advice heeded. it’s your commentators who provoke such irritation in this case. yeah, i did offer the chosun cheap shot, but it was just the fact that on such an important day, from a former resident of the city himself, we see a lightweight (but informative, don’t get me wrong) post on jeon jiyeon before any mention of 5.18 . . .and then with the ridiculously patronizing and racist crap on the comment boards, i couldn’t hold back. i’m not the confucian gentleman you seem to be, in control of the passions and such.
i await your post and thank you for directing me to the other bloggers who’ve commented, or not as in the poignant case of the “barbarian.”
Chubb, may I comment on Kwangju now???? Thank you Mr. Thought-Policeman
I will be the first to admit that I don’t know all that much about the exact events surrounding Kwangju. I did make a visit to the site of the protests however.
The one thing that I had always assumed was that Kwangju equals Kent State equals Tiananmen.
By this I mean non-violent students protesting their government policies peacefully.
And then in today’s JoongAng, I saw a picture of a student activist carrying a gun, and it didn;t look like a toy.
Comparison over. The students at Kent State and at Tiananmen weren’t carrying guns.
Not sure what that is all about with chubbiebee…???…
Anyway…
SundubuMan,
As far as I know, you could very well have been seeing a picture taken later in the event.
If you watch Korean protests now, you know how non-violent they often are not on both sides. Steal pipes, throwing rocks, and fire bombs happen with little surprise. Pushing, pulling, kicking, grasping, and scrums seem pretty much mandatory.
Around the time of the Kwangju Massacre, the protest and the suppression of them were worse. I forget the details, but there had already been some pretty bad events in several cities around the nation, but nothing…..nothing on the scale of Kwangju.
Anyway, since I can’t remember the details right off hand and don’t have the books I read on the subject handy, I’ll just say this on your point —
At some point in the event, the citizens took over an armory (either police or military or both) and distributed weapons.
I could be wrong, but I believe this happened after the special forces guys came in and started killing people.
This is not to say the actions of the protesters leading up to the sending in of the special forces were peaceful as we would tend to define the term.
And I always believe you have to keep in mind that when things get chaotic, you can’t lay claim to saying what EXACTLY happened.
What is clear to at least me after reading a few books on the incident is that the special forces troops went in and slaughtered people. Criminally did so.
I can’t remember reading anything that said the special forces guys were simply “returning fire,” and I think I would have remembered that. As I remember it, they went into a tense situation and started cleaning house — with bullets and riflebutts. It deserves the name Kwangju Massacre even if the protesters tried to fight back in kind at some point.
Your two other examples are useful to think about. Here are my thoughts -
I would have blamed students at Kent State for taking up arms and shooting back. The scale at Kent State was much smaller and pretty much a different situation.
But, I would not have blamed Chinese citizens if they had gotten some weapons and fought back at Tiananmen.
What happened in Gwangju was a disgrace, pure and simple. Those protests started off peacefully enough — and for very good reasons, BTW — and ended up a blood bath. Yeah, the students had guns, but that was only after the paratroopers called in to put the protests down went absolutely ballistic. According to the accounts I’ve read, the ROK 20th Division handled itself reasonably professionally, but it should never have gotten to that point. And for that matter, the events that led to the initial demonstrations — 12.12 and the declaration of martial law — should never have happened, either.
Coincidentally, having lived in Gwangju, I can tell you it’s a great city that deserves better than its international reputation. Even before I moved there, the Jeolla provinces were one of my favorite regions to travel in. Those who bad-mouth Gwangju should actually try spending some time there — the political anti-Americanism aside, the people are great, the food is out of this world and it’s actually a pretty fun place once you get to know it. And the surrounding province is simply amazing. I wish I had spent my time down there better.
Lastly, my Gwangju post will have to wait till the morning — I got caught up writing some material for a piece to be run by a certain Korean news agency shortly, and now my wife is demanding quality time. Blogging is important, but so is maintaining Home Land Security.
marmot, your comment alone speaks volumes. in my time perusing the blogworld of expats in korea, it has really amazed me how little ideological diversity there is. from the far right to the center - that’s about it. but one thing i’ve come to appreciate is that the passion it takes to blog is generally conducive to creating a passion to be sincere in one’s concern for their topic of blogging choice. thus, i was rather eagerly waiting to see the the rightist world of expatkoreabloggers would address the issue of gwangju, an event that is certainly sacred to the left, but more importantly, sacred to the cause of democracy in korea in general. your comment doesn’t disappoint at all, and speaks truth not only as a rebuttal to those commentators who sully the memories of those who sacraficed, but perhaps more importantly, to the truth of the inspiring passion and beauty that can be found in the land, culture and people of gwangju and cholla-do.
in 7 and 8 weol, i’ll finally be getting back to gwangju after a long absence. all my climbing buddies have moved on to seoul or abroad. . . mudeung-san, as beautiful as she may be, is a lonely traverse by one’s self. there’s a great little boribap and ddongddongju jib halfway up on the chungshim-sa side of the mountain…. if chosun ever sees fit to free you for a vacation and you find yourself down cholla way, i’ll treat.
jtb, thanks for the link to connor.
as for your challenge, give me a break. considering that even some of the right in europe is to the left of the american center on the major issues of the day (health care, pay, pensions, public transit, etc.), i believe that extreme anti-leftist business attitude is in many cases the (American) exception, not the rule. (and spare me the jibe about Europe sucking at business - their standard of living stats don’t lie).
even in the united states, such rightist domination of the intellectual sphere was unheard of, even only 30 years ago.
one thing i have to wonder. . . does one have to devote one’s life to making a profit in order for his/her views to have validity? perhaps i could say to you, try holding on to your right of center views after teaching for a couple of years in the ‘hood. i know public school teachers aren’t “rugged individualists” forging their way through the fronteir of life to eke out a surplus, but they still might have insight to offer the world.
btw, after being raised as a whitebread middleclass midwestern son of middle middle class manager-father and nurse-mother, i was radicalized by a stint in the U.S. military (USAF)…. go figure.
chubbiebee,
Do try to get over yourself. Just because you are obviously politically obsessed doesn’t mean everybody else is.
I can speak for myself. I go into less than 5% of my blog entries or comments thinking “what does my political score card say I should think about X” or considering whether my position is conservative or liberal.
I have no political purpose.
I think you are going way overboard with the right vs left in the blog sphere stuff. It seems to be based more on what you want to see than what is out there.
The expat community, especially the Americans, who comment on the Kwangju Massacre are usually reacting to the common blame put on the US by most Korean adults I’ve ever taught. It has nothing to do with right or left politics….
“Even before I moved there, the Jeolla provinces were one of my favorite regions to travel in. Those who bad-mouth Gwangju should actually try spending some time there — the political anti-Americanism aside, the people are great, the food is out of this world and it’s actually a pretty fun place once you get to know it.”
I absolutely agree. I have spent the majority of my time in Korea in the Jeolla Provinces (and a few months in Chungnam.) For the first part, by the nature of my visit, I was oblivious to the news and the media. As a result I never knew of the anti-American politics because I never felt one ounce of anti-American sentiment from my interactions with people. They are great and the food is fantastic. If I continue to stay in Korea for an extended period of time it will be in this neck of the woods.
I’d welcome a left-wing Korea expat blog. Why don’t you start one? (Carthartidae’s highly predictable anti-Bush rants and whinging about poor local etiquette doesn’t really count as leftist, IMHO.)
But I hope you’ll stick with pin-up girls a la the Marmot instead of, say, “model workers”.
I found in writing a post on Kwangju and the US role in the events there that Wickham’s book is online. Here is the link to my blog and below that is the link to the pdf version of the book
http://koreasojourner.blog-city.com/
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/books/.....99/KBF.pdf
I also linked to the Shorrock article that made a big impression in Korea and is bascially much of what the Korean adults I taught said was one reason Koreans don’t like the US military and SK-US relationship.
http://www.kimsoft.com/korea/kwangju3.htm
And this
http://www.kimsoft.com/korea/shorrok.htm
Something I haven’t seen regarding Gwangju is the possible role of regionalism in the explosive mix.
Last night I read up on several very left-wing descriptions of the events and not a one of them mentioned the historical rivalry between Cholla and Kyongnam.
A little story here, back in 1998, right around the time of Kim Dae-Jung’s election, two students of mine at a Kangnam hagwon, both of them S-K-Y educated intelligent young professionals, got into a very intense argument over the issue of Cholla/Kyongnam.
18 years in Korean history is like 5 generations in the west, so I can imagine that feelings were that much more raw in Cholla back in 1980.
Could the events of 1980 be seen more as a regional flare-up….an incipient civil war nipped in the bud by force of arms, and less a “democratic” uprising?????
Imagine if a strong-arm government controlled by Cholla politicians having built up their region over the course of two decades at the expense of Kyungnam had been in power.
Would we had witnessed a violent uprising in Pusan aimed at the Cholla dominated government….cloaked in calls for democracy????
just wondering……
“Even before I moved there, the Jeolla provinces were one of my favorite regions to travel in. Those who bad-mouth Gwangju should actually try spending some time there — the political anti-Americanism aside, the people are great, the food is out of this world and it’s actually a pretty fun place once you get to know it.”
Well, I did live there, in 1997-8, and I feel I’ve earned the right to badmouth Kwangju. The stresses on our tiny xpat community were intense and unrelenting - near-rapes, utterly unprovoked beatings and menaces by strangers on a weekly basis, the most stunningly ignorant, hateful, and (there’s no other word for it) racist opinions expressed by virtually all of the thousands of Koreans I came into contact with, being taunted daily (DAILY!) on the streets….
It’s terrible what happened there. Unfortunately, my impression (from again, thousands of conversations) was that Kwangju citizens have gained the following attitude: Because we suffered the Kwangju Massacre, we have the right to give free rein to our prejudice and racism against foreigners, and even feel self-righteous while doing it.
We were at the end of the first wave of foreigners in Kwangju, so perhaps with the intervening several years the citizens there have gotten used to foreigners being around. I wouldn’t know because I will never set foot in the city again. Expats in Seoul today can never imagine what we faced in that city back then, so save your “He’s exaggerating” to himself.
I am, by the way, a left-winger on the Canadian political spectrum. For this reason, I vehemently am opposed to racism.
“Even before I moved there, the Jeolla provinces were one of my favorite regions to travel in. Those who bad-mouth Gwangju should actually try spending some time there — the political anti-Americanism aside, the people are great, the food is out of this world and it’s actually a pretty fun place once you get to know it.”
Well, I did live there, in 1997-8, and I feel I’ve earned the right to badmouth Kwangju. The stresses on our tiny xpat community were intense and unrelenting - near-rapes, utterly unprovoked beatings and menaces by strangers on a weekly basis, the most stunningly ignorant, hateful, and (there’s no other word for it) racist opinions expressed by virtually all of the thousands of Koreans I came into contact with, being taunted daily (DAILY!) on the streets….
It’s terrible what happened there. Unfortunately, my impression (from again, thousands of conversations) was that Kwangju citizens have gained the following attitude: Because we suffered the Kwangju Massacre, we have the right to give free rein to our prejudice and racism against foreigners, and even feel self-righteous while doing it.
We were at the end of the first wave of foreigners in Kwangju, so perhaps with the intervening several years the citizens there have gotten used to foreigners being around. I wouldn’t know because I will never set foot in the city again. Expats in Seoul today can never imagine what we faced in that city back then, so save your “He’s exaggerating” to yourself.
I am, by the way, a left-winger on the Canadian political spectrum. For this reason, I vehemently am opposed to racism.
Great to see that so many Korea expat blogs are mentioning the Gwangju Uprising. I wrote my undergraduate thesis about it two years ago. Good timing too, because very soon after I finished it two excellent English-language books about the uprising came out. I highly recommend both of them: “Laying Claim to the Memory of May” by Linda Lewis, and “Contentious Kwangju” edited by Gi Wook Shin and Kyung Moon Hwang. If you read only one book about Gwangju, read Linda Lewis’s. She was a Fulbrighter in Gwangju at the time, and her book is a very moving first-hand account coupled with insightful and nuanced discussion on the way the uprising has been commemorated.
Sundubu, your point about regionalism is certainly relevant. The more I read about the uprising, the more I come to believe that it was simply the unbelievable violence of the special forces that provoked the citizenry to fight back. But regionalism was probably an element in both the special forces’ response and the particularly large numbers of (peaceful) protestors in Gwangju (the rest of the country was relatively silent).
Zdunk, sorry to hear about your bad experiences in Gwangju. Of course they might not necessarily have been due to anti-foreign feeling based on the uprising specifically. I hope you go back some time, because Gwangju is a really fun city. Gwangju was my first taste of Korea in 2001 (went there to do thesis research). People were always extremely kind to me, and when I told them I was researching the Gwangju Uprising, some responded that they didn’t know much about it, others were impressed, but I never got even an insinuation of “you as an American must know about this because you bear responsibility”-type talk. My only bad experiences were with a host family who was intensely trying to convert me to Christianity and making borderline offensive comments about my religion.
For foreigners outside of Korea who want to know more about the uprising, read Linda Lewis’s book. For expats, go visit Gwangju and take the long ride on bus #25-2 (it stops at the terminal about every 30-40 minutes, wait on the terminal side of the street) to the National 5.18 Cemetery. Better yet, go during the commemoration events. They’re still going on this weekend (schedule in Korean, http://www.518.org/24/). (But a warning for those of you who take offense at anti-American tone, some of the rallies can be a little intense.)
One note on my thinking reading Zdunk’s comment.
1997-98 was the free fall of the Korean economy and the blaming of the IMF. I was in Wonju, Kangwon-do at the time, and I didn’t experience any direct confrontations in the street based on being foreign alone, but I was taken aback at how virtually all of my nice, friendly, and often long time adult students (age 20 to around 45) blamed Korea’s falling economy and real panic on the United States and the IMF. It was a crisis moment, and anti-Americanism (I stress Displays of long standing anti-Americanism) rose sharply.
In Wonju, on another note, the only times I was directly challenged was when walking with a Korean female student alone in the street which happened often on my way home from school. None of these times was it a “girl friend” or even close to it. Twice it was with a Korean friend I had met in France who came to visit.
It was only when I went to Seoul or was on public transportation or visiting tourist sites that I was ever challenged for looking like I could possibly be a soldier. And I de-soldieriezed my look soon after coming to Korea — upon recommendation by my really wonderful adult students —- who were nonetheless convinced USFK and the US were a cancer on Korean society.
And lastly, several of the American accounts of the Kwangju Massacre mention the regionalism issue and how the Special Forces probably felt like those citizens of Cholla deserved it.
“Well, I did live there, in 1997-8, and I feel I’ve earned the right to badmouth Kwangju. The stresses on our tiny xpat community were intense and unrelenting ”
small world…! i was there at the exact same time. does the short-lived dance club “ghost” ring a bell?
i won’t deny your experiences. but i have to say, the stresses on my even tinier section of that tiny expat community were quite different. some of my friends from the xpat community from that time took root there and still live there to this day.
I live in Jeonnam-do. It rocks. I’m also about as far left as you can get, but my site is only marginally a ‘Korea blog’ these days.
You know, for what it’s worth.
“Those who bad-mouth Gwangju should actually try spending some time there — the political anti-Americanism aside, the people are great, the food is out of this world and it’s actually a pretty fun place once you get to know it.”
Agree on the food, the nature, the sights.
Agree much less on the people. And I have all the required mileage having married into a ??┑??? family, been in ??┑??? more times than I care to remember since 1990, having done business with the fuckers, and having even fought with some ??┑?쩐??gangsters (where else can gangsters come from in Korea?).
Also the warmest, most lovable, most honest people I have ever met in Korea were from ??┑?쩐?? The most corrupt, too. There are a lot of extremes in this country, and the people there are extreme among extremes.
And remember, all Western people are not (North) Americans, the common belief here notwithstanding, and for us Europeans, it’s even more difficult to be accused of something we have 0.00% connection to.
I miss ??짚???챈쨔?, but I really don’t miss having to deal with the people, especially University types…