Choe Sang-hun has done it again – another article about Korea that few people, even those who have lived here for a long time, are aware of. This time he has chosen to write about the Foreigners’ Cemetery at Yanghwajin. Of course, many of the readers of Marmot’s Hole are familiar with this issue through my own feeble efforts, but Choe has dug up a lot of stuff – some of it printed in his article and other material that he has chosen to leave out.
Some of my favorite quotes from the article:
“We should establish a new order at Yanghwajin by making it clear who is the owner and who is the visitor,” said the Reverend Lee Jae Chul of the Memorial Church, adding that his church was claiming Yanghwajin “not because of nationalism but because this is our land.”
“This is a sacred place for the Korean Protestant church,” he added. “It should not be controlled by a small group of foreigners who are in this country for their own private interests and have nothing to do with those buried here.”
“It’s shameful, humans squabbling over a piece of God’s land,” said Lee Kang Pil, 70, a Union Church member who spent most of his life as cemetery caretaker, like his uncle before him.
Kim Seong Kil, a Memorial Church member, said: “This is embarrassing at a time when non-Christians are criticizing churches for what happened in Afghanistan. I hope the two churches can pray together.”
I will naturally let you read the rest of this excellent article and let you decide the issue for yourself.
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“Reverend Lee Jae Chul of the Memorial Church, adding that his church was claiming Yanghwajin ‘not because of nationalism but because this is our land.’”
The above quote could be considered to be misleading since what I think Rev Lee was saying that the foreign missionary group had effectively quick deeded the property to a Korean Protestant group that was the forerunner of his church. This was done because Park Chung-hee had issued an edict that prohibited non-Koreans holding property.
Unfortunately the missionaries were/are not particularly good business people and, in this case, did nothing to really document why and under what conditions did they turn over the land. With 20/20 hindsight, they should have had some memorandum of understanding or side agreement with the native Christians detailing the reasons and conditions by which they had donated the land.
All of which illustrates the three cardinal principles of doing business in Korea: document, document, document. Even if you risk injuring a bit kibun in the process, there are certainly cultural and language divides to cross; and as we can see in this case, there can be unforeseen political considerations and shifting times from which one needs to protect one’s interests.
Incidentally, I thought it almost cute that the Koreans declared the land grab to be “a historic moment, a strike against foreign domination comparable to Hong Kong’s 1997 transfer from British to Chinese rule.”
They could have suggested that as unfortunate as this may play out, it was ultimately inevitable — as was the land grab by the white Americans from the Native Americans in the 19th century. That analogy could have been of a similar vein of self justification for doing something that one knows is wrong but accepting that “practical considerations” need rule the day.
All of this proves that over time, almost nothing is sacred.
Keep the cemetary and deep-six the church.
From the article….
“And as the larger, and richer, congregation, it says it is in a better position to maintain Yanghwajin. It says the cemetery had turned into a “garbage-strewn, crime-infested urban haunt for juvenile delinquents” under Union Church’s care, a charge the foreign congregation rejects as part of a “smear campaign.”
This is a false charge and very disappointing that it’s coming from the senior pastor. What passes for acceptable ethics in Korean culture would fail in most other societies and it’s really distasteful that a Korean Christian leader would adopt the same standard of “the ends justifies the means” approach.
Pastor Lee is a liar.
Kudos to Bob Neff on the mention.
I have visited the church and cemetery many times over the years and must agree: “Pastor Lee is a liar.” Many of the congregants still have missionaries ties (even the current pastor quoted in the article is a missionary and studied in a Korean seminary), and the grounds are well-kept and lovely.
Christ may have commanded that the gospel be preached to every tribe and tongue and nation, but in Korea at least, the tribe appears to be much more important than the gospel and the nation than any Christian virtues such as gratitude or charity.
The irony is that without foreigners bringing Protestant Christianity to Korea (including some whose descendents still attend the church) Pastor Lee wouldn’t even be in a position to shaft them. If only the foreigner missionaries had any skill at colonial exploitation — then they might still have a legacy.
From today’s JoongAng Daily:
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2880139
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