http://times.hankooki.com/lpag.....2211980.ht m ”

Yeah, what about those two jokers who left statements that basically argue that it’s dangerous to question the Korean side of the argument because no claims have been “proved yet”? How can one argue with that? If their aim was to leave foreign English teachers speechless, well, they certainly succeeded with me.

http://times.hankooki.com/lpag.....211980.htm

Though if a person can be added to a family register in the ROK having been born in the U.S. or wherever (in cases where U.S. citizens show up and get pressed into ROK military service), then a divorce should be no problem for the ROKG.

I sure hope not. I once used a newspaper that had a picture of Kim Jong-il to line my cat’s litterbox.

Gerry Writes: It is hard for me to believe that anywhere could provide a “quickie divorce” any quicker than Korea.

Last Thursday, after 10 years of separation, my wife and I finally went to the Seocho Family Courthouse to get our divorce. At 11:30 a.m., we submitted the three or four necessary documents, including a 1-sentence reason for the divorce, and was told to come back at 3:50 p.m.

My wife and I then went to lunch and coffee to kill the time. At 3:40 p.m., we arrived back at the courthouse, where four other Korean couples were waiting in the hallway we were told to be at 3:50. At exactly 3:50, a man came out, called our names and then walked us up a flight of stairs to the hallway outside the judge’s office. He then led the first couple inside. Less than thirty seconds later, they came out and the next couple when in and the same thing happened.

My wife and I were the last couple to go in to see the judge, who was a pretty young woman who looked to be in her twenties. She asked us if were wanted a divorce, if there were any children, and if there was any property disagreement. After we answered, we put our thumb prints on a piece of paper and that was it. We were told that we would receive documents in the mail in two weeks and that we would have to bring the documents back to the courthouse to get a stamp confirming that we received them.

The judge told my Korean wife that she would have to report the divorce to her District Office and that I would have to report it to the US Embassy, but she was not sure.

I do not know if we will have to pay anything when we get the documents stamped in two weeks, but so far we have paid only 18,000 won for the divorce. (I think it was 4,000 or 5,000 won for revenue stamps and 13,000 or 14,000 won for prepaid delivery of the documents.)

Can Guam beat that?

By the way, after the divorce, I felt strange. Even though my wife and I had not really communicated much over the last ten years, I was sad because it felt like I was losing “a human bond.” It was not like I was losing a wife, but like I was losing a bond to one piece of the human race. It was not a good feeling. Even though I am not really religious, it felt like God was looking down on us and frowning.

Outside the courthouse, my wife and I looked at each other for a few seconds, gave each other a long hug, and then said, “Goodbye.”

. . . by the Constitution of the Republic of Korea — South Korean laws apply to the whole of the territory of the Korean Peninsula.

One must ask just whose party is it, South Korea’s or North Korea’s?

Perhaps this flexible mindset of the political and judicial system in South Korea, in their unwillingness to outright invalidate these marriages, is a foretaste of a more radical change in government, somewhere in the future, if the North and South ever negotiate unification. If that happens, it may mean that the hermit gets new clothes and many vices, once again, become virtues.