Since it was on the front page, my eyes were attracted to an opening paragraph on a story on child molestation in Korea “Child sex abuse is no longer a foreign idea in Korea, but the legal and cultural ramifications of the change in public sentiment are just beginning to unfold.” What does that opening line mean? “No longer a foreign idea?” suddenly on Febuary 4, 2007? What, pray tell, was that shocking wonjo gyoje case a few years ago about really then?
Anyway a few more sordid things about the whole situation in the original KT piece:
The teacher/alleged molester gives a defense that only a catholic priest can give, “I was a missionary. I would never do something perverted like that.”
And finally the cost of it all, “[the parent of the alleged victim] wanted the equivalent of two years of fees in exchange for not pressing formal charges, the school’s director, Kim Hyun-jun, said. The [cramming] school charged 500,000 won per month for tuition.” So it all goes away for 12 million won? If this is all true, is it just me or doesn’t the victim’s parents bare some sort of social responsibility for getting this guy off the streets?
53 Comments
I’m totally with you on most of your comments, but I don’t see that the parents of the victim have a special responsibility. Why should that burden be added to the stuff they’re dealing with? And besides, it might be that they just want all of this to go away, you know?
That doesn’t mean it’s okay — I just think that it’s unsound policy to give people the choice of whether or not to press charges in a crime like, say, child molestation or rape (where repeat offense seems a risk). You can’t “choose not to press charges” in a murder case, right?
I do wonder if there’s also some unfortunate pragmatism at work. Would they get to collect damages if this went to court? As much as they’re demanding? (And at what cost to themselves?) Would the guy actually be “off the streets” for very long?
I really don’t know much about law, so lots of this probably sounds like ignorant blather, but I am curious to know more.
Well, I guess it was a “foreign idea” — I believe even the word is Japanese, although it’s pronounced enjo kōsai across the East Sea. And at any rate, I wouldn’t consider wonjo gyoje to be child sex abuse. Underage prostitution, yes.
Not to nitpick or anything…
Not to disagree, but there would still be the other complaintants to deal with, no?
Rumor has it that homosexuality is no longer a “foreign idea” in Korea, either.
I think that the meaning behind that phrase in both cases (sexual abuse of children and homosexuality) is quite clear and pretty much accurate — both those things long belonged to the vast group of things that Koreans simply don’t talk about, never in public and actually hardly ever in private either. It is indeed a “foreign (Western) idea” to publicly speak about them, acknowledge their existence, make public policy concerning them, etc.
Traditional Korean culture has a lot of those issues and areas, that are just not talked about, and this is closely related to the by-now-famous concept of the /han/ emotion, which requires that the bitter anger and sorrow be unexpressed — at least, until the person or community can restrain themselves no longer, and then it explodes. Pretty much the opposite from what is going on when African-Americans ’sing the blues’…
I wrote this a few months ago as a reply to your “The Oldest Profession in Choson” post…
“Well, based on the observations of western visitors alone, it appears there was a demand for young male prostitutes in the Choson dynasty. Paul Michaut, a French physician, wrote in 1893, “pederasty is general, it is part of the mores; it is practiced publicly, in the street, without the least reprobation.” He observed that the majority of the participants had syphilis.”
Oh the follow-up stories this could generate:
“Prosecuting child rapists no longer a foreign idea in Korea.”
“Following traffic laws no longer a foreign idea in Korea.”
“Treating the disabled like humans no longer a foreign idea in Korea.”
“Using logic no longer a foreign idea in Korea.”
“Respecting women no longer a foreign idea in Korea.”
“Humility no longer a foreign idea in Korea.”
“Treating domestic violence as a crime no longer foreign idea in Korea.”
“Allowing children to have fun no longer foreign idea in Korea.”
Ah, those crazy foreigners and all their crazy ideas.
False accusations do happen more often than most people would like to believe. I was even witness to one such ‘assaults’ (a student thought it would be funny to ‘playfully’ grab an unsuspecting teacher in a headlock outside of school. The teacher, fearing for his life, naturally defended himself by hitting the kid in the groin. The teacher left it at that, not wanting to cause any more trouble to the kid. The kid turned around and accused the teacher of sexual assault).
Koreans:
I’m sorry for our Western ideas which make you to behave in such terrible ways. Yes, it is Westerners fault that Koreans act this way. Before foreigners set foot on your soil, there was no such thing as sexual crime. We brought it here. These things happan because of Western ideas about sex. We are sorry. Please forgive us Koreans.
@ sanshinseon,
Better be careful or someone will report you to the NAACP. I’m sure African-American blues singers are just as capable of enjoying han as the next guy.
Is asking for 12 million won in free lessons an east-west fusion of sorts?
I’m not usually the one defending Korea Times, but I see no problem with this report by Carli Brosseau. He, as a Westerner in Korea is pointing out that child abuse has been a long time, considered a foreign problem in Korea - out of the consciousness of the Korean public. Is this not true?
If you’re sick of being so sensitive and angry with Korea, then stop reading the papers and watching news. I bet my last dime your mood will improve 100%. That’s all I have to say about this thread.
@ cm,
Any reason you failed to note the Korean who co-wrote the article? Since you emphasize a foreigner writing it (if that really matters) your omission of the Korean seems deliberate.
I reckon this gets some attention from us because of the word foreign. Whilst sexual abuse of children in Korea isn’t unknown perhaps discussing it is “foreign”, i.e. strange. It, the act of sexual abuse, certainly isn’t an “idea”, foreign or not. Sloppy writing. Perhaps something along the lines of “Discussing sexual abuse of children is no longer a taboo topic…” or “Sexual abuse of children is better recognized…” You get the drift?
If I were a Korean I’d be concerned about this:
I think a few too many people are conflating ‘foreign ideas’ and ‘foreign people’ here. The story doesn’t say, “No longer is child sexual abuse only practiced by foreign devils.” A ‘foreign idea’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘coming from foreigners’ - it can also mean unheard of, strange, unfamiliar… as in “Basic road safety seems to be a foreign concept in South Korea.” While I agree that it’s probably untrue to say that this idea is ‘foreign’ (the age of consent is 13, for heaven’s sake), this doesn’t seem to actually be a deliberate jab at foreigners.
Zonath,
I was simply making the point that stating that it is no longer foreign to Koreans implies that it never really occured in the past, which is untrue.
Zonath brought up what I’d noticed too:
However, having sex with minors aged 13 or older, which does not involve financial deals, is not punishable if the minor consents.
I’d always thought it was 19. Or is that something that should be grouped in with “4 distinct seasons” and “5000 years of history”?
Wonjo Gyoje isn’t talked about in the (english language) papers much anymore, but if you search the Times or Chosun’s archives you’ll see that back in 2000 it was the crisis of the day. One of debates that arose after that girl was killed in Yongsan a year ago was whether to put convicted sex criminals’ information online - a debate I didn’t understand, because that policy was already supposed to be in effect for those who targeted children (including child prostitution).
I agree with Zonath.
But, I don’t agree the original writer’s idea.
As the nearest country to Japan, ranking world No.1 변태왕국, sorry to say, Korea has been inevitably the wrold rank No.2 변태국.
See these images, (WARNING: OBSCENE!)
http://www.law4u.net/tech/boar.....amp;no=116 , drawn in 18th century by 김홍도, http://100.naver.com/100.nhn?docid=32860
.
Do you see palm trees?
As you guess, these were drawn in the far southern part of Korea, which is the uttermost near to Japan.
Of course child molestation is not a foreign “idea”. Rather, it is more of a foreign plague. Like the diseases that the conquistadors brought with them to the New World to devastate the indigenous populations, so too do foreign influences wreak havoc upon Korean society.
Child molestation would have been unheard of in traditional Korean society where families were extended, communities were tight-knitted, and everybody minded everybody else’s businesses. One wouldn’t even think of it because the social cost of such behavior would have a stigma too much to bear.
Now, because Western-styled detachment and individualism has changed Korean society and dismantled the built-in mechanisms that checked such behavior, it has become facile to commit such crimes.
To bluejives,
Wow, do you know Hebrew language?
My friend tnym , http://www.law4u.net/tech/board.php?board=tnym , has much interst in Hebrew language.
Oh, no.
This, http://www.law4u.net/tnym .
The person may know Hebrew.
The vague statement in the beginning of the article about child sex abuse being a foreign idea seems to be clarified later:
These procedures are probably what they wanted to refer to as being foreign in origin.
●~*,
“Do you see palm trees?
As you guess, these were drawn in the far southern part of Korea, which is the uttermost near to Japan.”
Oh, please… And what those bright red peaches found in Korean paintings that resemble female genitalia? What about the many old Korean poems filled with sexual innuendos? I guess I must be imagining that too because ancient Koreans couldn’t have possibly have had such impure thoughts.
bluejives,
If there weren’t established procedures for dealing with child sex abuse cases and no records were kept, it just means we don’t know how frequently these things occurred - not that they didn’t occur at all.
I don’t see why children would be less sexually abused in the kind of community you describe. Stigma against sexually abusing children in such communities and whether it has significantly larger effect than it does in the kind of communities found now in Korea is an interesting subject. But I would trust results of research done on the subject (if there is any) rather than say one way or the other. Without any such information, I would default to the assumption that frequency of child sex abuse cases do not differ significantly.
Really touching that the parents were willing to take some cash in exchange for not pressing formal charges. If my kid was molested, I would want the bastard charged and locked up. Period. Financial compensation would not be a top priority. And, these parents do have a responsibility to see this guy charged, not just to their kid but to other kids this pervert might abuse down the road.
You’re absolutely right. After all, North Korea has been almost entirely devoid of foreign influence for almost 50 years now, and look at how well-adjusted everyone is there. It’s almost as if the Joseon period never ended for North Korea, except for that brief period between the invasion by Japan and Kim Il-sung chasing all those short pricks back to their ugly little island.
Ah, to live back in the good old times, when
only the yangban could afford to buy a child to molestforeigners were few and childrenwere married off at an early agewere allowed to be happy and carefreeafter slaving away in the fields for the day. If only modern society didn’t isolate us so!LOL! Never fails to surprise me…this is Korean logic at its finest. Let me guess…I wonder if there were pine trees drawn, would they blame Russia or China because they are located in the northern most region of Korea?
I seriously wonder whether or not Koreans purposely wish to make themselves look stupid by writing their thoughts. Best advice to them is: “It is better to remain silent and appear to be stupid than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
That’s funny…I heard a very similar argument that as the nearest country to Korea, ranking world No.1 정형수술 왕국, illegal copying and rip off products 왕국, 증회 왕국, and making death threats to opposing nations sports teams 왕국 Japan is slowly rising in the ranks as well too.
But I don’t think Japan could ever catch up to Korea in those areas. No sir…Korea is light years ahead of the rest of the world in what they do best!
Bluejives, et al, there was a long tradition of both “underage” sex and homosexuality in Korea, just look up “wharang” (or “hua lang”), so the notion there was no child molestation is dubious at best, especially since it is unfortunately found in most cultures and times.
I might actually pay to have something done to him…dunno…maybe drawn and quartered? If that was out of the question perhaps I could pay to have his mandatory prison uniform to be a cute little summer dress.
Well, I’d have no problem knowing that some guy who hurt my kid had an unhappy and painful time in jail. I just can’t understand how a parent would consider taking money - any sum of money - in exchange for letting the freak who molested his/her kid go free.
Either way this guy’s life is screwed - whether he did it or not - due to the full name being printed in the paper and all. At least in the field of education that is.
Indeed, Goat. Any Americans remember the infamous McMartin case from the late 80s?
“Well, I’d have no problem knowing that some guy who hurt my kid had an unhappy and painful time in jail. I just can’t understand how a parent would consider taking money - any sum of money - in exchange for letting the freak who molested his/her kid go free.”
I can guess. Because the charges are probably not true. It’s a form of extortion to extract the maximum amount of money out of an exploitable situation.
If anybody is interested, I have been in a MA-Teaching program here in the US for the past year, and the English department is all into touchy-feely “writing from the heart” and the biggest focus we have had as far as education of secondary school students has been on making them “good writers.” (Little is said about literature)
I was only part-time last summer, but I heard what they were doing in the classes - they were writing the kind of stuff we are supposed to be treaching the teens - and I read the main book they were using, and I knew when the fall came, I’d either have to drop the program or dive it completely……some might have noticed over the years I’m not good at the middle-ground thing if I don’t believe in it.
The result was the topic of child molestation and its effects on teens in school (particularly in literature/composition classes) which I then put up on the internet:
http://www.usinkorea.org/child.....use_files/
It is really sad to see the parents doing what they are doing.
I remember one of the first stories I read in the Korean press when I came in 1996 was about the head of an orphanage arrested for allowing a pharmaceutical company test new drugs on the kids. ——it was not a big story….
Korea has changed a lot since the early and mid-1990s - but it is stories like this that show just how far behind they are. You get items like this in the press a handful of times a year —– but it has happened enough years in a row now to give me the idea —- from afar —— that Korean society certainly hasn’t gone gung-ho into embracing changing the society rapidly when it comes to abuse of kids, orphans, the situation with the aged who have no family to take care of them, and other groups that have been mentioned but are still not embraced by the society. Sometimes, Korean society seems to change on a dime and at least in the late 1990s, you could see it changing remarkably…..
….but they are behind in some important areas…..
……And somebody please beat the shit out of bluejives……
Gladly! All I ask is just a penny. I mean, isnt’t that what it is worth? Hell, I would even pay to do it.
Typically in the Korean English-language media, when reports of sexual abuse are made, the perpetrator is either a foreigner involved in English-language education, or else is a member of USFK. Far less frequently, and with significantly less follow-up, reports are made in which the victim is non-Korean, and/or the assailant is Korean. This creates a magnified impression in the English-language media that sexually-based crimes are related to the non-Korean community. Either that, or else Korean reporters must think that those who read English-language media do not much care unless the victim or assailant is non-Korean.
Here, however, we find an exceptionto the above: both the victim and the alleged perpetrator are Korean. Despite this apparently fresh approach, readers might still ask why, among the hundreds cases of children brought to the center for counseling after episodes of abuse, the reporters have chosen to highlight this case. They might also ask why the reporters deemed it important to mention that the child was abused in ‘an English-language kindergarten’. Is language somehow related to this case? Or does it merely echo the ‘foreignness’ of the idea?
What connection, if any, does language or race have with the specter of abuse? When will Korean media lay down its bias long enough to see that pain and suffering are not limited to any group? When will it understand that people, regardless of their racial or ethnic origins, can empathize with victims and seek solutions to problems?
Goat #30
I wouldn’t bet on that one. Even the teaching part. Probably not there, but given the society’s indifference —– well, worse than that……..the society’s desire not to face the issue……I can see him living as normal a life as he would have otherwise in about 2 years…..
I’m broke, but I’ll scrape up more than a penny….
Sorry - it should read:
Child molestation would have been unheard of in traditional Korean society where families were extended, communities were tight-knitted, and everybody minded everybody else’s businesses. One wouldn’t even think of it because the social cost of such behavior would have a stigma too much to bear.
Have you not heard of what happened on Pitcairn Island?
dogbertt,
Then what do you make of this…
“Paul Michaut, a French physician, wrote in 1893, “pederasty is general, it is part of the mores; it is practiced publicly, in the street, without the least reprobation.” He observed that the majority of the participants had syphilis.””
…quite simply, the ‘good old days’ is a myth, whether it refers to Victorian England or Choson Korea.
I was talking to Baduk the other day, and he said that any and all stories of child molestation in Korea are fiction. They’re made up by the media to titilate readers and sell papers.
And if by chance the story happens to be true, it wasn’t really molestation because the little boys and girls really wanted it.
#
wiesunja
Posted February 6, 2007 at 8:53 am | Permalink
“Do you see palm trees?
As you guess, these were drawn in the far southern part of Korea, which is the uttermost near to Japan.”
LOL! Never fails to surprise me…this is Korean logic at its finest. Let me guess…I wonder if there were pine trees drawn, would they blame Russia or China because they are located in the northern most region of Korea?
I seriously wonder whether or not Koreans purposely wish to make themselves look stupid by writing their thoughts. Best advice to them is: “It is better to remain silent and appear to be stupid than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
================>
Hey, wiseunsa.
To be wise, you should know much. You must collect factual ground for your judgment, so as not be look stupid.
Palm trees have been found only in the far southern part of Korea, whereas pine trees have been throughout the entire Korea.
So, your logic is a false analogy.
Other than that,
Who found bamboo northward from 충청도? People don’t see bamboo even in Seoul. I heard that grass-like bamboo is found in 함경도. Huh.
●~*,
Keep on blaming Japan for whatever is bad in Korean society ant take credit for what is good in Japanese society if it makes you forget the geopolitical realities.
What I make of that is that either you, Michaut, his translator, or all of the above are unable to distinguish between “pederasty” and “pedophilia”.
Anyhow, to explain, “bluejives” claims that in his imaginary Confucian-idyllic Chosun, people lived interconnected lives, were moral, and were prevented from acting in immoral ways due to the disincentive of shame, which shame was intensified by Koreans’ collective and interwoven society.
My point is that bluejives is an ignorant armchair sociologist, which is why I brought out the counter-example of the Pitcairn Islanders, who live in a society even more interrelated and communal than last century’s Korea, yet were rampant child abusers and rapists. It was this very same culture of unchallenged male hegemony and interrelatedness that allowed pedophilia to flourish there. Yet bluejives claims such as society would not permit pedophilia, which is, of course, crap.
●~* (Actually, y’know what? ●~* is kinda hard to type, so I shall henceforth refer to you as Pedro Pendejo, or ‘Pepe’ for short.)
Pepe,
You’ve obviously overlooked the forest for the trees, as it were (no pub intended). Although pine trees may be endemic to the entire peninsula (were they in the 19th Century though? I thought Park Chunghee encouraged the planting of a lot of non-native species…) the point wasn’t what sort of tree appeared in the painting, but that jumping to the particular conclusions you do takes quite a great degree of mental acrobatics, and is generally unsupportable unless you have quite the skewed worldview.
Mr. Zonath,
You know Korean language. Right?
you wrote at somewhere.
아, 거참 답답하시네요.
아니, 도대체 한국에 대한 정보를 어디서 얻는 거에요?
아니 먼저,
제 이름요 copy & paste 로 해결하면 되죠, 뭘.
단툭키 아시죠? ctrl+C, ctrl+v. 그리고 팁 하나.
콕 찍고 shift하는 알라나 모르겠네요.
에효, 컴 기초에다 인터넷이나 네트웍부터 배운 후에
인터넷 하도록 해야 하는데 도대체
개나 소나 인터넷 하게 해놓으니.. -_-;
한국인이나 어느 나라 사람이나 마찬가지더라구요.
외국인이라고 특별히 무시하는 거 없어요.
다만, 영어권 국가 사람이 컴을 못 다루는 건 문제가 있어 보이는데.
자신들의 언어로 되어있어서 엄청 배우기 쉽잖아요. ㅋㅋㅋ
소나무는요,
임진왜란 당시를 보면요,
왜구의 배는 일본 섬에서 흔한 삼나무로 만든 배였구요
조선의 배는 한반도에 흔하던 소나무로 만든 배였답니다.
이 차이로 조선의 해군은 배로 돌진해서 왜구의 배를 깨버렸죠.
소나무와 삼나무에 대한 지식이 필요하겟군요. 이 부분을 이해하시자면.
아무래도 제가 댁에게 설명하는 것은 무리에요.
시간 낭비고.
아, 그리고요 제가요 위에서 ‘have been’이라고 했잖아요. 아, 답답.
귀찮아요.
아, 그리고 당신의 포인트. 흠.
그러니까, wiseinunja씨의 포인트가 뭐다 이거에 대해 말하자면, 아니
그런 틀린 비유를 들어 놓고서 포인트를 내면 뭐하우?
저는 갑네다~
Oh.
Mr Robert Koehler,
Could you kindly delete the above and this comments of mine, plz? Sorry.
Pepe,
Yes, I do know some Korean, but not generally enough to carry on a lengthly conversation with someone who I don’t really care to. I suppose I could copy and paste your name, Pepe, but when I tried to do that last time, I ended up at that horrible law4u site because I accidentally clicked on your name. Sadly, I was quite traumatized by the event.
As for the rest of your comment, I didn’t bother to read it fully, but I can only surmise that you’re still fixating on trees and slandering other countries based on what kind of trees appear in certain Korean paintings. Again, it really doesn’t matter what kind of trees appear in what painting, since it takes a mightily bigoted mind to look at objectionable content in a Korean painting and then to turn around and blame that content (directly or indirectly) upon another country.
Zonath,
I’ll summarize dot-squiggle-asterisk’s post:
P1: Any fool knows how to cut and paste, so your dumb native-English speaking butt should have figured it out.
P2: You should know that Chosun ships made of pine beat Japanese ships made of cedar.
P3: My point is that I was countering Wiesunja’s incorrect comparison.
I think Jonath is too seroius.
I, in my deep heart, do not dislike Shakuhachi, nor Japan. Korea and Japan are good rivals as, you know, world top 변태국들. ^^ The two must cooperate at this field so as not to go behind.
Oh, thank you, 소나기.
Actually, ●~*, I hope that cultural cooperation improves between Korea and Japan…Hopefully, more Korean popsingers/lipsyncers will become popular in Japan and be too busy to appear on Korean TV. We might see more of the real Korean artists that way (jazz, rock, blues, whatever…whatever, just as long as it isn’t some godawful boyband).
correction: I hope that cultural exchanges increase between Japan and Korea.