Choe Sang-hun frames the story of the anti-US beef protests for a Western audience in the IHT. Choe’s tale includes a modern version of high schooler Yu Kwan-soon’s leading role in the March 1, 1919 movement:
And the police investigating who organized the country’s biggest antigovernment protests in two decades ended up rummaging in cyberspace. When Lee agreed in April to lift a five-year-old import ban on U.S. beef, despite widespread fears that the meat might not be safe from mad cow disease, it quickly became a hot topic on the Internet, first among teenage girls gathering at fan Web sites for television personalities, and later at Agora, a popular online discussion forum at the Web portal Daum.
There, people suggested that they stop just talking and take to the streets. When a high school student began a petition on Agora calling for Lee’s impeachment, it gathered 1.3 million signatures within a week. The police were caught off-guard on May 2 when thousands of teenagers networking through Agora and coordinating via text messages poured into central Seoul, holding candles and chanting “No to mad cow!”
Did Choe Sang-hun find this fairy tale about high school kids being first to jump the anti-US beef train through Agora ? Does anybody with half a brain and passing awareness of Korea think that it would be teenage girls, rather than the Korean beef industry, unions, and assorted leftist organizations, who would be the first to pounce on the new president for his decision to lift the beef ban after his visit to Camp David?
I spent fifteen minutes searching the archives at demonstrator-friendly Hankyoreh and found pages of stories in which politicians, activists, and experts voiced their opposition to lifting the beef import ban before it was even official. On April 30, prior to the first candlelight vigil, agricultural cooperatives and citizens’ groups were already demonstrating, equipped with banners and colorful signs and costumes. One day later, the Hankyoreh reported that angry citizens were filling 2MB’s Cyworld homepage with angry messages. On May 1, we see in the Hanky a photo of smiling teenagers protesting the possibility of hospitals, army, school cafeterias and fast food outlets using dangerous US beef. (edit:photo was originally taken at a Dec. 2006 demonstration and was used to accompany a May 1 editorial against importing US beef) Finally, on May 2, we have the first mass candlelight vigil, attended by 10,000 citizens of all ages, which, according to Choe, was hardly noticed at first:
The mainstream media and the government ignored them at first. But protesters stepped forward as “citizen reporters,” conducting interviews, taking photographs and, thanks to the country’s high-speed wireless Internet, uploading videos to their blogs and Internet forums.
He’s right that demonstrators effectively used technology - mobile phone cameras, laptops, and other tech toys -to communicate with other demonstrators and citizens in real time. The mainstream media, however, did not miss thousands of people holding candles and descending upon downtown Seoul. The Hankyoreh published its first version at 8 PM that evening while the demonstration was in full swing, and all the other major media outlets wrote long stories with lots of photos of the large crowds that night.
I shouldn’t be too surprised to see Choe Sang-Hun, who collaborated with atrocity-monger Charles Hanley on the Nogun-ri story, retell this legend easily demolished by spending 15 minutes looking over the archives at the Hankyoreh. There was a petition at Agora, but the anti-US beef protests weren’t started by high school students, whose participation was “encouraged” by adults, probably the KTU.
A picture’s worth a thousand words, and story’s accompanying image of a mom and kids holding preprinted placards calling for the explusion of “싸가지” (self-centered) US Ambassador Vershbow and decorated with a cartoonish cow accurately depicts the level of discourse that’s taken place in Korea over the issue of the safety of US beef.
This quote is even more deliciously ironic:
During the Saturday rally, a high school girl took the microphone and said before the crowd: “I drove four hours to join this rally because I don’t want to die.”
I don’t have exact statistics on hand, but with only three documented vCJD cases in the US, all of whom may have been contracted the disease outside the country, I’m pretty sure that spending four hours on a Korean highway is a riskier act than eating a plate of LA galbi.
Buried in Choe’s sympathetic portrayal of the protests is one dissenting view:
But some frown on the mob mentality the Internet can foster. “In the online discussions on beef, you are welcome only if you voice a certain opinion, and you’re attacked if you represent an opposing view,” said Kim, the political scientist. “I doubt the debate is rational.”
That’s quite an understatement.
55 Comments
Sonagi, I felt the same way when I read Choe’s article and what makes it worse he knows better. He is not some random reporter from back in the states writing an article with little understanding of Korea.
He knows full well how the anti-US groups such as the KTU you mentioned were behind the dissemination of propaganda and organizing the protests. Choe usually does pretty good work but this article was extremely disappointing.
Does this guy really want the rest of the world exposed to the retardation of the protests and laugh at Korea, not with it?
Why is it that the non-Koreans and some Kyopos here want desperately to believe that there is a leftist conspiracy organizing the protests?
OK, the leftists are involved in the protests, but as Choe says in the article, they have taken a back seat.
There’s nothing “disappointing” about Choe’s article. IMO, it’s a fairly accurate and balanced view of the protests from the viewpoint of a reporter who is on the ground witnessing the protests and talking to some of the people involved.
Mins,
I updated the entry with links to relevant stories which show that organized opposition was appearing prior to the first candlelight vigil. The early demonstrations drew participants from all walks of life, and most citizens seem sympathetic to the demonstrations. However, there was nothing spontaneous about them, although many demonstrators were probably invited by friends via text messaging. It most certainly wasn’t high school kids who got the ball rolling on organizing opposition to 2MB’s decision to rescind the ban in importing US beef, as implied in Choe Sang-hun’s cute story about fan websites and the Agora petition.
Sonagi,
I’ve read the article about three times and try as I might, I couldn’t find anything in the article that suggested that this whole thing was started by high school students.
The closest I could find was this, and I guess it’s up to the eye of the beholder, but to me it does say that the high school students are involved in the protests but what it doesn’t say is that they suddenly started the whole candlelight protest thing.
And the police investigating who organized the country’s biggest antigovernment protests in two decades ended up rummaging in cyberspace. When Lee agreed in April to lift a five-year-old import ban on U.S. beef, despite widespread fears that the meat might not be safe from mad cow disease, it quickly became a hot topic on the Internet, first among teenage girls gathering at fan Web sites for television personalities, and later at Agora, a popular online discussion forum at the Web portal Daum.
There, people suggested that they stop just talking and take to the streets. When a high school student began a petition on Agora calling for Lee’s impeachment, it gathered 1.3 million signatures within a week. The police were caught off-guard on May 2 when thousands of teenagers networking through Agora and coordinating via text messages poured into central Seoul, holding candles and chanting “No to mad cow!”
I agree with your point that the protests against the importation of US beef have been going on for a long time.
We all remember the dung flinging incident last year when US beef imports were briefly resumed and a protestor somehow got into a Lotte Mart store and threw cow dung onto the packaged US beef on the store shelves.
Nice fisking, Sonagi; way above the usual level.
That passage was quoted in my entry. Look at this sentence:
Do you really believe, Mins, that teenage girls would be the first to chat on the internet about the lifting of the beef ban when adults were already voicing opposition, as clearly documented in numerous media stories published from mid-April?
This sentence implies that the May 2 candlelight vigil was mainly a student effort. Certainly out of the 10,000 attending, many were students, but there were also many adults, and I am dubious that these students acted completely on their own without any adult leadership. Look at the photo of smiling teenagers linked in my original entry. Look at those large identical cow images. Do you really think the kids went to a print shop and had those made? They are too large to have come from an ordinary printer.
I have heard the myth that these demonstrations were started by high school students from other Koreans, and sorry, I’m not buying it. It does not sound plausible in the least.
Do you really believe, Mins, that teenage girls would be the first to chat on the internet about the lifting of the beef ban when adults were already voicing opposition, as clearly documented in numerous media stories published from mid-April?
Actually, no, but there’s no way of knowing for sure, unless of course someone decided to pour through thousands of posts in online bulletin boards.
This sentence implies that the May 2 candlelight vigil was mainly a student effort. Certainly out of the 10,000 attending, many were students, but there were also many adults, and I am dubious that these students acted completely on their own without any adult leadership.
Well maybe they did act without adult leadership. See all those yelling teenagers who show up at Korean boy group concerts? They seem organized but it surely doesn’t look like there is any adult leadership involved. And never underestimate what Korean high school girls can do when they band together.
I’m not buying it
No one’s asking you to buy it.
mins, what is also remembered about that demonstration inside the Kwangju Lotte was that it was so well covered by reporters. So who tipped them off - or was it their dedicated and tireless discovery of a man who ’somehow’ got into the department store and threw cow shit at the meat case?
Yes, gbnjh, the whole thing did look like it was staged.
Choe Sang-hun is. He treated that silly “teenage girls on fan websites” story as a fact without expressing the slightest doubt or using a word like “alleged.”
BTW, you didn’t answer my question about the cute cow heads on the girls’ posters. Where do you think they got those? Did they pool together their pocketmoney and pay a print shop to make them? Color images, too! They really splurged! Maybe I shouldn’t underestimate what teenage girls can do when they band together.
Actually, I did with my comment that one shouldn’t underestimate teenage girls when they band together.
But anyway, since you ask…. Yes they could get together with their pocket money or they could ask someone they know to Photoshop an image and print if for free or for a discount. The image does look like it could fit onto an A3 paper.
And splurging by the local teenage girl population here ain’t exactly news.
Repeat a lie long and loud enough - people start to believe it.
As for Choe, I didn’t get that impression. IMO, he wasn’t that critical about the protests but he wasn’t that sympathetic either.
Mins, you read the news in Korean every day, don’t you? Doesn’t that crazy drooling cowhead plastered with the Stars and Stripes look vaguely familiar? It’s been used on posters held by adult demonstrators, on anti-US beef websites, and in media stories, including this Hanky photo from last year.
Yes it does look familiar. I got a weird error message when I tried the Hanky link but anyway my point is just because the girls used a familiar image doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy involved.
It’s like this. Suppose one high school student decides to wear a certain skirt. The other girls like the skirt and decide to buy it too. Doesn’t mean that there’s a conspiracy to force those girls into wearing that same type of skirt.
Actually, Mins, that photo’s use in that May 1, 2008 story is misleading. The demo appears to have taken place back in December 2006 and involved “중·고등학생을 포함해 30여명으로 구성된 11개 청소년단체” (30-40 middle and high school students from 11 youth groups).
Personally, I think the main reason the anti-beef demonstrations took a big step up in size was because of the water hoses turned on protesters early on. The anti-beef protectionists are only a minority in Korea (as witnessed by the GNP’s big win in the April and presidential elections). But anti-riot police hurting protesters is something that really stirs up a lot more people in Korea.
Mins, *who* paid for the printing then? That’s a 4-color print job and not some color laser print output.
P.S. Sonagi, please check your last few links; they are broken.
Good question, R. Eglin, who paid for the printing then? OK, I guess you are thinking that the KTU or some leftist group bankrolled these high school students by providing the images of those cows. On the other hand, maybe one of the “concerned” parents of the kids involved runs a printing shop and may have decided to provide them at no extra charge.
“mins” I a only suggesting that the money trail be followed to wherever it leads. I can not guess where it would end up but I would bet money that it was not some concerned parent with money to burn. Such a print job would run closer to 800,000 won.
mins I have to disagree with you that these students just spontaneously ended up in the streets protesting with no outside influence.
If these protests were something that was spontaneous by high school students why didn’t they protest when Roh pushed the FTA and originally opened up the beef market last year?
It is because the anti-US groups looked at Roh as their man in the Blue House and weren’t going to unleash the KTU, PSPD, and the other usual suspects to launch a disinformation campaign against him to rally the masses.
I find it highly unlikely these students just all the sudden now rise up when 2MB is in the Blue House. It is pretty clear the combination of the KTU in the classrooms, disinformation on the internet from the anti-US groups, and sensational media reports are what got people out on the streets.
Without the involvement of the KTU, internet rumors, and reports like from PD Diary these massive protests would have never started. You would still have protests from farmers throwing crap at supermarket employees and from the other usual suspects but not the popular uprising it turned into now.
#22 The “money trail” is where things can get really ironic here when one considers the big scheme of things.
NGO’s in Korea receive government subsidies. Korea pays very little of their GDP to defense, while the US throws billions of dollars a year at this place.
So, in a roundabout way, the US taxpayer is funding the protesters.
Re #3: “Why is it that the non-Koreans and some Kyopos here want desperately to believe that there is a leftist conspiracy organizing the protests?”
Because leftists are often behind disinformation campaigns aimed at undermining any non-leftist action of the government. A conspiracy would be if someone claimed North Korea was behind it.
“OK, the leftists are involved in the protests, but as Choe says in the article, they have taken a back seat.”
Like a 사장 telling his chauffeur where to go.
I guess will be known by historians and political analysts as the “American Mad Cow Diversion of 2008″ has worked: nobody seems to be protesting the Beijing Olympics in Korea anymore.
“mins”, I have noticed some odd coincidences during all of this “mad cow” protesting. The use of a cow to promote a political agenda actually reminded me of older and very recent North Korean propaganda, (more samples here) for example:
Darn, my comment at the end became entangled in the quote. I can not edit that comment so oops . . .
GI Korea, when Roh opened the beef market last year, there were a lot of conditions attached in that the US beef had to be boneless meat less than 30 months old. Which means with the exception of cattle ranchers and die hard leftists there was nothing to protest about.
Now when LMB opened the market he did it without attaching any conditions and looking more deeply into the matter, which pissed off a lot of Koreans who wouldn’t have taken to the streets had LMB taken a more careful route.
R. Eglin, interesting article, thanks for the heads up.
As for the money trail, do you mean 800,000 won for the single image, of for a bunch of images?
I don’t know but let’s say it took 800,000 won to print 20 images for the particular protests, then the 30 students who took part had to cough up approximately 26,000 won which ain’t exactly big money.
That’s assuming that a “concerned” parent who runs a printing shop didn’t put up his/her own money to print the images for the students.
And by international standards there was no (non hypocritical) reason to protest this time either.
Also, if your concerned parent rubbish actually turns out to be true…go buy a lottery ticket man.
“mins” that is 800,000 won for a run of around 1,200. It could easily be for more, depending upon is they used a die-cut for the signs and a varnish and the cost for a heavier paper stock. They could have ganged two different signs onto one sheet then done three cuts (more money for the cutting).
The point being that I just don’t see this as being a parent-sponsored project, unless daddy had some money to burn and then, if daddy had money, he would not have his daughter out in the street acting the fool.
P.S. the larger the run, the cheaper the unit cost, but still, that is a fair chunk of money, not to mention the distribution of such, which would require organization.
All this was quite deliberate.
Did Yu Kwan-soon bring about the collapse of the Korean economy back then? (because thats whats going to happen here)
That kiddie protest actually took place in December 2006 in front of the Foreign Ministry in downtown Seoul during daylight hours. This was not made clear in May 1, 2008 Hankyoreh story.
What is this national compulsion among Koreans to lie? It just doesn’t make any logical sense.
http://tvpot.daum.net/clip/Cli.....4%ED%82%B4
“In the online discussions on (***), you are welcome only if you voice a certain opinion, and you’re attacked if you represent an opposing view,” said (***). “I doubt the debate is rational.”
Bingo!
That’s what I don’t understand. The people protesting seemed to buy into the whole PD Diary story without question. When MBC was forced to print a retraction did these same people choose not to believe it? How do they select what to believe and what not to believe? Do they only believe what suits their argument?
What kind of annoys me is the photo, and more specifically the caption. Notice how the anti-American sign, with a very personal attack on the US ambassador, was not translated. One has to wonder why that is.
Pretty good discussion above, but my conclusion is that no one party orchestrated these demonstration, though many cynically took advantage of the issue — including our Good Buddies north of the DMZ via their computer center.
But though the issue may have been initially raised by adults, my take is it was the kids who really got this thing rolling via blogs, SMS messaging, ect. — in other words this has been a cyber mob phenomenon. Only later on, helpful NGOs supplied the money for stages, sound systems, etc.
But if you asked the students if their teachers had put them up for to it, you are likely to get an insulted response along the line that had the teachers told them to demonstrate, the students at best would have ignored them if not suggest their teachers to take some kind of unpleasant action.
So, while the KTU has had much to gain from all of this, I no longer believe the KTU was one of the primary instigators. Of course, in time, I could be PROVEN wrong, but right now we are dealing with a great deal of conjecture based on observations.
Anyway, I have several images of the June 10 plus 1 image of the 2nd demo up at http://seoulman.smugmug.com/ga.....5731_nonay
Feel free to check out the photos. I think you will see them to represent more of a giant street fair than the action-packed photos the wire services have been distributing.
Mr. Coyner, I don’t believe symbolically that people in Korea interpret that as a “peace” sign. I was under the impression it started during the world cup and is mostly understood to mean “victory”. At least in the five and a half years I’ve lived and taught here and asked the question, I have yet to get that as a response to the meaning.
Oh, and amazing pictures. They are all good but I particularly like the one without the caption. How did you highten the colors? Really dazzling!
Well, Koreans may not symbolically interpret the gesture as a “peace” sign, but they do say “peace” as they mug the camera.
And, for your information, Maddlew, your age - or lack of it - is showing.
The peace sign started in the 1960’s, during the anti-Vietnam War movement. The Japanese futen, a group something like Japanese hippies, started to copy the Americans and Europeans in making the gesture at various political and cultural events. There in Japan, the whole notion of holding up two fingers and saying “peace” was all so “cute” that the Japanese hung on to the practice generation after generation, without any thought or consideration. And, in due time, the young Koreans who watched the Japanese tourists consistently making these poses decided that the inane gesture made a lot of sense.
I mean, really, what do you do when you to pose for a picture? Well, lots of better things than the peace gesture, but I digress…
And as far as the fingers meaning “victory,” that’s another story that goes back to a WWII press conference when Winston Churchill literally turned the British two-finger equivalent of the solitary middle salute into something quite different. In his exasperation, Winston once gave the sign. When eager reporters challenged him on what he had just signaled, the old fox replied, “Victory!”
And as far as the colors of the photos go, much of the credit goes to Photoshop along with Nik color plug-in Photoshop filters.
#35.
Sonagi, I was talking about the protests that followed the brief opening
of the beef market to US beef last year.
#32.
Yes, R. Eglin, but there’s nothing from stopping the kids from putting
up 26,000 won of their own money. I mean a Korean teenager’s typical
allowance is 100,000 won and if this something these guys and gals really
believe in, well….
#36.
I don’t know. You tell me. You’re also Korean.
I meant nothing by it Mr. Coyner. I have simply done alot of lectures on symbols because I’ve been trying to get them to stop flipping eachother off. I’m trying to make them realize that some symbols mean different things to different people and they should be careful. In almost every class I’ve taught I’ve asked them what they thought the two fingers meant. Most of the time they say, “Kim chi”. But the other guess is “Victory”. I’ve never had a student come up with “Peace”.
Yu Gwan Soon once stood up to her father when he berated a friend of her brother for fighting with his son, although her brother bullied the friend first. She urged her father to ignore the bloodline and approach the matter objectively.
If she were alive today, I am almost certain that she would speak AGAINST the MDC hysteria, especially after listening to her American teachers. Some Koreans might (conveniently?) forget that she was educated under American missionaries at Ewha univesaty and often drew inspiration from the bible and Joan of Arc. She’d be branded as “Pro American sellout” by her fellow Koreans and removed by the police before they can chop up her up and feed her to the dogs, but she’d still try. Other than a vague actvist angle, there is no comparison between a netizen who drives some angry email campaign and female patriots like YGS or Joan of Arc, who paid the ultimate price for their acts.
Maddlew, nothing taken.
You are right that the Koreans have substituted “kim chi” for “Pee-ese” as the Japanese are wont to say.
Also, please note the victory V sign goes over well when your palm faces the other party, but if you turn your hand so the back of your hand faces the other person with the two-finger salute, you may have to prepare for a bit violence.
Also, consider “Mins” that to do the production for the print job requires professional skills and software that not just any high school student can do. Even if they pony up the money, they can not just print out thousands of this junk without professional help.
I will take your word for that.
“I don’t have exact statistics on hand, but with only three documented vCJD cases in the US, all of whom may have been contracted the disease outside the country, I’m pretty sure that spending four hours on a Korean highway is a riskier act than eating a plate of LA galbi.”
Thousands of people die of dementia in the US. It is very hard to identify vCJD out of dementia. How can you be so optimistic about the risk of vCJD?
#52 Koreans drive as though they are chronic dementia sufferers. How can the condition of Korean motor vehicle operators be distinguished from vCJD? How do you know they aren’t getting it from HanWoo beef?
J,
According to one website, mortality statistics for undocumented dementia show a little different picture than you are trying to paint. Finland and Sweden top the list with about 350 cases per one million citizens. The US ranks 10th at approximately 110/million and South Korea 12th at 95/million.
The website does, however, issue a warning that there are dangers in using the figures to compare countries as the reporting methods are varied.
http://www.nationmaster.com/gr.....per-capita
Another website shows a similar picture. Using their numbers, the rate in the US is:
397,644/293,655,405
0.0013541177626204428282190140515207
For Korea:
65,314/48,233,760
0.0013541137991315626233575819094344
Now the second website is very clear that the statistics for the non-US countries are extrapolated.
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/.....ountry.htm
Either way, I do not see your so-called point represented in either of those. Perhaps you could also explain the high rate of Finland, Sweden, and the Netherlands as well as commentating on the very low rate in the UK (23.5/mil).
Throughout the story, Mr. Choe never likened the girls to Yu Kwan-Soon. He never even hinted that’s how he saw them. I have been reading his articles for over a decade. He is a straight shooter. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the writer responsible for the sensational and condescending headline, “A Modern Yu Kwan-soon Is Reborn 1,000 Times.”
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