Since I like military news and today reported the US military as an “idealized version of America”, I noted the following: Shanghaied kyopos will get a special orientation to service in the Korean Army, reports the execrable Korea Times tomorrow. One can only imagine what’s in store for them. But why are overseas-Koreans having such a bad time in the Army? According to the story:
In a recent survey, about one in five “green card holders” said they had difficulty adapting to the Korean military where a “top-down” hierarchy culture still dominates, [spokesman Lt. Col. Woo Gook-ik] said.
An understatement to be sure. Let’s see: There’s the actual, not-metaphorical shit sandwich, widespread physical and sexual abuse of conscripts, bullying to the point of suicide or shooting rampage, and bribery. Welcome to Korea, boys.
38 Comments
Persons bearing the given name “국” really should consider Romanizing it as “kuk”. Seems better than the alternatives, somehow.
Will that “special orientation’” come with or w/out lubricant?
I hear sock grabbing is a big part of the cirriculum.
Wanna bet this allowance will be withdrawn shortly after a few kyopos go AWOL?
I hate to quibble about small details but what military in the world doesn’t have a “top-down hierarchy”?
Blue makes a decent point there; all militaries are by nature top-down hierarchies (as opposed to bottom up ones ? :p ) but as I see it that’s not really the issue, the real concern (obviously) is the culture of bastardisation and general dehumanisation that seems prevalent in the Korean military.
Abuse of subordinates is an ages old military practice which most modern militaries are moving away from as a means of creating and maintaining discipline. I believe Korea will struggle to move away from this now outdated system of control largely because such attitudes are not so totally divorced from the norms of Korean society as to provoke some sort of concerted public outrage or call for change - I’m speaking particularly about the treatment of subordinates in the ‘Korean hierarchy’, and more saliently the treatment of lowly placed foreigners within that hierarchy.
And just to be clear (because I get the sense some elements are thinking it) teaching English at a shitty hagwon does not make one a lowly placed foreigner - hell if you’re white you don’t know what it’s like to be a genuinely lowly foreigner in Korea (some exceptions made for some soldiers and balkan whores).
Either way, if I read the tone of Brendon’s post correctly I can only agree, a token response like the one outlined in the article is going to do precisely FA for the lot of conscripts (particularly foreign ones) in the Korean armed forces.
my $.02
peace.
Yep, that’s right: the world’s ‘most scientific’ language is now also the easiest to learn. In just five days, you’ll learn all you need for your two-year, 24-7 job. (Note: reinforcement seminars in Nonsan may sometimes be required - bring your appetite!)
Anyone who holds on to their citizenship while living abroad should be willing to return to their country of citizenship and bear arms in its defense. I like Hojuin’s point that most (democratic) militaries are moving away from the abuse of subordinates as a means of instilling discipline, and I certainly believe that the Korean military is seeking to do so. But, not everyone gets the point, and there are always holdouts. So there is a lot left to be acomplished. I have met some Kyopos who were proudly serving in the Korean Army (and Marine Corps in one case). The military is not everyone’s cup of tea. But for Kyopos who intend to fashion careers that leave them with a foothold in both Korea and their country of residence, there are few building blocks better than a stint in the Korean Armed Forces.
The kyopos can also look forward to being shot at, like today:
http://english.yna.co.kr/Engne.....420E2.html
I agree, but Korea adds a couple of wrinkles. First, a lot of kyopo conscripts are surprised to find out that they are Korean citizens thanks to some long-forgotten act by Dad or Grandpa to put their name on the family register. Second, bearing arms is one thing, eating the shit sandwich is another. As a foreign lawyer I get a lot of phone calls from desperate kyopos serving or about to serve — more properly, hoping not to serve — in the Korean Army. This article surprises me that there are only 80 overseas-Koreans in the service today. All of them must have called me this year.
You got that right. Especially since Korean friendships are generally forged through family/institutional ties rather than ad hoc encounters with like-minded folks, kyopos are at a natural disadvantage here. A tour in the Army builds that all-important personal network.
Brendon has clearly identified the problem here. It’s not primarily the status of US “green card” holders. Most (not all) know they are Korean citizens because they have Korean passports. But there are many, many cases of young men who are US citizens, born and raised in the United States, who have no idea that Korea also considers them citizens of Korea because a parent (or a grandparent or other family member back in Korea) has had their name recorded on the family register. I was once in the Embassy and witnessed the pathetic effort of one such to get the Embassy’s help after he had arrived in Korea to attend his grandfather’s funeral and was informed upon arrival by Korean immigration that he was going to be inducted into ROKA and had his passport taken away to ensure that he was around for the event. He had a wife, two children, a mortgage and a business back in the US and spoke no Korean. He was well and truly fucked.
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I was once in the Embassy and witnessed the pathetic effort of one such to get the Embassy’s help after he had arrived in Korea to attend his grandfather’s funeral and was informed upon arrival by Korean immigration that he was going to be inducted into ROKA and had his passport taken away to ensure that he was around for the event. He had a wife, two children, a mortgage and a business back in the US and spoke no Korean.
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This is just bizarre. Also would make a nice comedy/horror film.
Well, the above would read more smoothly if it were written as ‘…Kyopos who intend toward fashion careers…’, but I still don’t see how a stint in the military is going to help with that.
that would indeed make a good comedy/horror film. But the filmmaker would attach some ‘message’ to the film.
I’m surprised that by now Oranckay hasn’t droppped by to give his usual advice about avoiding enlisting in the ROK Army: “Join the Navy”.
What Sperwer notes surprises me that it’s going on still. My born-in-the-US kyopo friend experienced this in 1993. Fortunately his passport wasn’t seized, and through the help of another kyopo’s father he was able to avoid induction.
What intersts me is here: http://travel.state.gov/law/ci.....p_780.html. I love the the first sentence: A U.S. citizen who is a resident or citizen of a foreign country may be subject to compulsory military service in that country. And here’s a gem: …there is little that we the US gov’t–my insert can do to prevent it since each sovereign country has the right to make its own laws on military service and apply them as it sees fit to its citizens and residents.
Be glad it’s the kyopos.
Jesus, I should have been made a guest blogger years before Carr.
What boggles me is how the actual foreign citizens (as opposed to permanent residents) who also hold Korean citizenship on a technicality get ‘caught’. After all, a 2nd or 3rd generation Korean-American travelling on a US passport and tourist visa isn’t going to be readily identifiable as someone who owes military service or not, just from those documents. So how does it happen in most cases?
When Korean immigration sees anyone with a Korean name in their passport they run a check to see if he is in any of the domestic registry data bases. If your name comes up, you’re toast, even (especially?) if you’ve got a foreign passport. Koreans with foreign residence cards also come in for special scrutiny. In the latter case, another interesting factoid is that Korean citizens with residence rights abroad are not entitled to vote in Korea and labor under various other civil disabilities. ROKGOV even issues them a seaparate calss of national ID card, so they can readily be told apart from “true bone” brothers (and sisters) - like the ones who fired a few rounds across the DMZ yesterday at their southern brethern.
Cases of mistaken identities must be a bitch to resolve. After all, there are some pretty common names in Korea. I would think that as long as their passports didn’t actually say that they were born in Korea, they would be able to lie their way out of it quite handily. “Oh, you must be thinking of some other Lee Kum Kee. My parents are Chinese.”
No need to be born in Korea; the test is simply whether your name appears on the family register, regardless of the circumstances of one’s birth.
Which is how so many Korean-Americans discover that Dad or Grandpa, proud enough of their birth to put them in the ancestral family register in the days before hysterical Uri Party goons made it illegal to be foreign, unwittingly enlisted their foreign sons in the Korean Army.
As someone alluded to above, Korean citizens living abroad get a distinct passport. Also, yes, their old registration #’s are cancelled.
So…if someone is 2nd- or 3rd-generation Korean-American, -Canadian, -Australian, whatever, a citizen by birth of the country they reside in—never having set foot in Korea, and possessing neither (I assume) a Korean passport nor even a 국민 등록 번호, he/she might still be considered a Korean citizen, if he/she is registered in the family 적보!?
Wow.
Speaking of 입국/출국 (entering and leaving the country) issues, when did they do away with submitting cards for both? Nowadays, it seems that barbarians like myself only have to submit an 입국 card upon entering the country, and Koreans only have to submit a 출국 card upon leaving the country. I recall that both Korean citizens and non-Korean citizens used to have to fill out and submit cards upon both entering and leaving.
(I always fancifully imagined that there was some lowly bureacrat somewhere in downtown Seoul whose job it was to match up the two halves of each perforated 입국/출국 card to verify that (a) all Koreans had come back to the homeland, and (b) all barbarians had left the country!)
Sewing, the resident registration number is issued at the time of recordation in the family register. The person about whom the number relates may never know about it (until the Army stencils it on his duffel bag), but he will have a number.
Interesting. Wow. By the way, are foreigners who end up being registered—by virtue of marriage, not blood, and not by becoming residents on visas—also assigned numbers that they may never no about?
D’oh! “…may never know about?”
Beware weagooks, they will be coming for us next.
Every foreigner granted the right to “sojourn” in Korea gets a 외국인등록층(Certificate of Alien Registration) w/ a number that is a composite of one’s birthdate and an assigned series of digits. Whether you know about it or not is a function of how attentive you are. The Certificate also contains a record of your imigration status, the length of your permitted stay, your address and your mug shot. Unlike Koreans’ ID numbers, the foreigners’ are generally useless for using the internet in Korea for shopping, banking etc.
“Whether you know about it or not is a function of how attentive you are.”
Well, I think I would have noticed going through the process of obtaining a 외국인등록증! I’ve never actually lived in the country—just visited repeatedly—so I guess I’m numberless. A touring barbarian, rather than a resident barbarian. I guess it doesn’t matter anyhow, if such a number can’t be used for signing up on Korean websites anyhow—the only practical use to which I’d be able to put it!
Wouldn’t the answer to that depend on the foreigner? After all, under the old hojuje system, a wife is added to her husband’s family register, and striken from her own. So, a female foreigner marrying into a Korean family would presumibly be entered into her husband’s register, while a male foreigner marrying into a Korean family would technically add his wife to his register (except for the fact that he has none). Of course, I’m not entirely sure whether or not numbers were issued automatically in the case of a foreigner who’s never set foot in Korea, while I’m fairly certain that for foreigners who get married in Korea, the alien ID number is used.
Of course, all this is pretty much moot now that the system has been more or less abolished (people still register, but don’t have such a Byzantine system). I would guess that nowadays, the parents of a child would have to register them as a Korean citizen, while the ‘head of household’ couldn’t anymore. Might serve to reduce the number of people who unwittingly enlist in the military just by visiting the old fatherland. Don’t quote me on any of this, though.
A foreigner who never set foor in Korea couldn’t be married here, so the question simply doesn’t arise. A foreigner who does marry here gets added to the Korean spouse’s family register. In the case of a foreign bridegroom that means that the Korean woman gets to set up her own family registry - perhaps the only circumstance in which women were permitted to do so? - and the groom is registered on hers. Don’t know how the recent changes to the hojuje system might affect this. I know that I’m on my wife’s family register. And you are correct, you get to keep your foreign denizen number - which means no one who knows the system will ever mistake you for a Korean, even if you change your name and substitute a mug shot of one of the usual suspects.
Yes, I too am registered as the spouse, with my wife as the head of household.
…Under the old system….
I was thinking more of the situation where a non-Korean married a Korean national overseas, and that marriage was reported on the family register (through Grandpa or the embassy — take your pick). Would they get issued a number automatically? I would assume not, but who knows for sure? At any rate, it’s not that important at all.
There are some things I don’t argee with ROKA system like sexual abuse and conscripting kyopos who’ve never set foot on Korea.
However, physical discipline has to go on. Until those KATUSAs (Korean conscripts under US leadership, so they don’t have to go through the horrors of Korean army) prove that they can be just disciplined as the ROKs, than I might just reconsider my opinion.
I can definitely understand why the Korean government views gyopo behavior and attiude as extremely detrimental to the ROK effort. The male gyopos asked for this special attention themselves, with their smart-ass, cavalier attitudes when coming (back) to Korea thinking they are so smart and sneaky by having got around the military service requirement, and openly brag about out-smarting the Korean government. Not only is this smart-ass attitude offensive to the South Koreans, but to all the other nations that sent their men-in-arms here to fight for Korea’s freedom from the sneaky Japanese/North Koreans/Chinese, and Russians.
But folks, we ought to bear in mind that this is a totally different generation that never witnessed first hand the suffering its people endured during Japanese colonization, WWII, or Korean War. I think most gyopos view South Korea as a total joke, and simply came here for a wife that wants to live the American dream back in the States, while escaping from the ever-prying eyes of their parents for a couple years back in America.
I see this dose of reality definitely in order, perhaps it’ll knock some of this smart-ass attitude off their cocky gyopo asses. The “test” ought to be whether or not the Korean government can prove you have Korean ancestory. In which case, the gyopos ought to be forced to either do: 2 or 3 years of military service, or serve as clowns on these English shows on Korean TV for 10 years.
If the Roh administration and the rest of the communists get their way, Korea is ultimately going to have to fend for itself in any future conflicts. The ROK has some serious decisions to make about its immediate future.
–Remort
I heard that there were real-estate related benefits connected to serving in the army, and that this was why some kyopos do it, i.e. to help the family/extended family buy more land. Anyone know more of this?