Noticed this in the Dong-A Ilbo a couple of days ago. Meant to post it, but had no time. Anyway, 2ID sent some men to help on the farm of the Shin Hyeon-su, the father of one of the middle school girls who were killed in a tragic accident during a USFK exercise in 2002. Shin had up till now refused offers of assistance and services from USFK, but this time around, he accepted. Not quite ready to forgive yet, he did appreciate the men coming to help in the fields, where recent heavy rains had knocked over rice plants, and even offered them makkeolli, tofu and kimchi for lunch. Anyway, I translated the Dong-A piece below, although a couple of other papers covered the story as well.
He’s not yet made peace, but as he watched the U.S. soldiers stand up the fallen rice plants and help with the harvest, the father who lost his daughter offered makkeolli and tofu.
Some 23 soldiers from the headquarters of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division visited the home of Shin Hyeon-su (51) in Hyochon 2-ri, Gwangjeok-myeon, Yangju, Gyeonggi Province on Oct. 18. Shin is the father of Shin Hyo-sun, one of the two middle school girls killed by a U.S. armored vehicle in June 2002.
He refused to meet the soldiers at first, but in the end, he permitted them to help after continued entreaties.
Watching the example set by about 20 men from the ROK’s Gwanggaeto Unit, who also participated in the harvest, the U.S. soldiers, some of whom were picking up a sickle for the first time in their lives, worked clumsily. But with sweat pouring, they helped cut rice in about 1,500 pyeong of rice paddies.
About lunch time, Shin gave the U.S. soldiers makkeolli, tofu and kimchi, while the soldiers shared with Shin the MREs they had brought with them.
Shin said, “I’m not ready to forgive and reconcile, but I couldn’t reject the hearts of those who came to help in the rice paddies.”
Shim Su-bo (51), the father of Shim Mi-seon, the other girl killed in the incident, came to Shin’s field to help and watched the U.S. soldiers.
He said, “I, too, am not yet at peace, but the sight of [the soldiers] lending a hand cutting rice in a rural village was nice.”
The U.S. Second Infantry Division said, “We sent help after learning from a nearby ROK Army official that there was a shortage of hands in Hyochon-ni.”
12 Comments
Joongang Ilbo’s English site posted a story on this as well.
Bulgasari, the contrast between what the English language article you posted and the translation from the Korean in the other is quite illuminating. I recommend a “compare and contrast” reading of each version to others.
You can be sure these US soldiers are truly volunteers; there’s no quicker way for a commander to gain the attention of the IG than to “lean” on his soldiers to do some non-essential “extra duty”.
And as always, one who is not resident in ROK is curious for more details. For example, how many students of Dongguk University professor Kang Jeong-koo are out in the fields assisting? In Communist countries of course it’s “old tradition” for “volunteers” from the city to be sent to the rural countryside at harvest time.
One imagines that in Mississippi after a hurricane, if the large rice farms have their crops blown over, they just write it off to crop insurance, as the cost of hand labor must be prohibitive. What is the SOP for traditional Korean small plot farmers in these modern times?
This is the difference between Western and Korean culture.
Western culture: forgiveness and reconciliation
Korean culture: unforgiving with long memory.
Read the father’s statements and this typical differences in cultural thinking comes all too clear.
What those US soldiers are doing is very touching. But those ungrateful turds in Korea will piss on it.
I was thinking about the “we sent” phrase too.
I can’t really think of one of these stories where it wasn’t a volunteer effort unless it was major, heavy duty assistance after a typhoon or severe flooding or such that hit a region and USFK was brought in for aid. I think in all the small scale stories like this, just like with the trips to the orphanages and old folks home, it is volunteers who come.
If it isn’t in this one, I’d like to know why the command sent so few…
It is also a small point, but I would have liked the articles to mention that this isn’t the first time soldiers have done such things or that such things are even very rare. The Korean media, at least the English language versions, print news of one about every 3rd or 4th blue moon, but you can find examples there, and the Stars and Stripes runs a story or two every so many months. I seem to remember catching them a little more frequently on AFKN, but I haven’t been in a position to watch that for some time.
The reason I want to see a note of the fact USFK has voluteers who do this kind of thing, or like going to a park and picking up trash, in this articles is
I was thinking about the ?we sent?? phrase too.
Don’t read too much into it — the Korean phrase was:
??Έ2?????¨ ?Έ‘?? ???Έ???? ??????° ?΄?³??????? ??°?‘ ??¨?΄?????? ??Ό????΄ ?Ά?‘±?????€?? ?????€??? ???³? ?§???????² ?????€???³? ?°?????€.
Which means something like, “We learned they were short of hands, so we came to help them.”
Kimbob,
Koreans do appreciate it. They do. People are basically the same.
Baduk I didn’t say “Koreans”.
I said “ungrateful turds in Korea”.
Part of what I meant is that it would do wonders for the ROK-USFK /US relationship if the memories weren’t so short on such matters — and that includes non-Koreans.
These kinds of helping days are not all that unusual, and you can’t get a good sense of how frequently or not they happen, because there isn’t a consistent set of outlets that let you know about them, because in general, we don’t consider them that big a deal.
The website blog by a GI I used to check out who did a pretty good job collected some of them and putting them together is now no more. I guess the guy finally rotated out of Korea, so I’ll see publicized examples even less.
But, there is also a type of willingness to forget about such examples too.
I think it is somewhat natural. Who remembers for a long time when so-in-so does some small scale community service thing?
God bless USFK, the greatest benefactors our nation has ever known. If most have forgotten to thank them lately, it’s because our nation is going through a rebellious adolescence. With age just might come wisdom…
kimbob,
i’m not sure if the whole western and korean culture caricature you presented up there is entirely correct… for example, germany is clearly not about forgiving and reconciliation.. they’re still not allowed to be proud of their own country.
meanwhile, korea’s lovely neighbour japan is clearly the opposite, controversially either justifying or reconciliating with their past..
i dont’ think it’s appropriate to generalize like that, although i cannot agree with you more, “the turds” are definitely pissing all of us off.
Good form-I think this is a great story that despite the fact that there is a motivation on the part of ASFK to get the Koreans to forgive the accident, this is certainly the type of story that happens alot more often than most people are aware of.
I kind of lost track of this story over the years. Did the media ever come out and explain that the girls closed their eyes, plugged their ears, and walked into the middle of the convoy? They did this because the convoy was so noisy it was bothering them. I feel badly for all involved in this accident, but I hope the record gets set straight. I also feel the US military railroaded the soldiers.