“Miraculous” for Whom
by Abhik Pramanik, ETA ’15-’16 Despite Korea’s rapid ascension from economic basket case post Korean War to a global heavyweight referred to as the “Miracle on the Han River,” the Asian Financial Crisis and the years hence have revealed a dark underside to Seoul’s economic might. Indisputably, South Korea is among the richest nations in the global economy. Currently, it is considered the 13th wealthiest country by the World Bank, sandwiched between Australia and Spain with a GDP of approximately $1.4 trillion. However, despite Seoul’s “miraculous” rise to global economic prominence, it is still the most parsimonious public spender among the so-called developed nations. According toOECD Stat, public expenditure in the Republic of Korea only matched 10.4% of GDP in 2014 – comfortably the lowest among all Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The second stingiest nation is Iceland, whose public expenditure comes in at 16.5% of GDP. However, Iceland’s GDP per capita in 2014 – $52,005 USD – is nearly double South Korea’s measure of $27,970 USD from the same year. This low level of public expenditure also coincides with a decadal increase in inequality in South Korea that was precipitated by the Asian Financial Crisis. From 1990-1995, South Korea’s average Gini coefficient was .258. In 1999, in the dead center of the crisis, Seoul’s coefficient had risen to .298. Eleven years later, in 2010, the ROK’s Gini coefficient had risen even further to .315. This rise in the coefficient reflects changes in the share of income held by the top 10% of Korean income holders from 1990 to 2010. In 1990, the top 10% held 3.30 times more wealth than the bottom 10%; but in 2010, that figure had increased by roughly 50% to 4.90. [1. Koo, Hagen. “Inequality in South Korea,” East Asia Forum, July 1st 2014.] Despite the ROK’s immense GDP, the growing level of inequality throughout Korean society raises the question of societal equity and social responsibility. In an economically prosperous nation, is it the role of government to ensure that no citizen is left materially and/or socially behind? In the event of widespread poverty and economic inequality, is it the government’s responsibility to alleviate said inequality? In the immediate onset of the Asian Financial Crisis, it would appear that Korea’s answer to these questions was a resounding “yes.” In January 1998, then President-elect Kim Dae Jung promised “workers a ‘U.S. style’ social welfare,” in response to the gigantic labor crisis that some scholars argue Dae Jung’s policies “were bound to create”.[2. Crotty, James & Lee, Kang-Kook. “Korea’s Neoliberal Restructuring: Miracle or Disaster?,” Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2001, p. 3.] To understand the current state of the Korea welfare system, it is first necessary to trace the origins of the Asian Financial Crisis and the IMF restructuring of the Korean economy that concurrently took place. It is through this period of deep economic insecurity for Korean workers combined with a growing shift in attitude among younger Koreans about their obligations to the family that the Korean welfare system was first born. The Asian Financial Crisis & Neoliberal Restructuring The Asian Financial Crisis had a drastic impact on the Korean economy. Especially vulnerable to the crisis was the Korean financial sector, which had employed incredibly reckless lending practices upon its opening to foreign markets in the early 90s. In November 1997, Korean banks held $52 billion in non-performing loans it had doled out to cash-hungry chaebols, which constituted roughly 17% of the financial industry’s total debt. As a result, international traders attacked the Korean currency, driving the exchange rate from 844 won to the dollar in January 1997, to a high of 2000 won per dollar in December. That same December, 123 Korean companies failed each day on average. Moreover, the high trade deficit the Korean government had been running the previous three years meant that Seoul lacked the foreign currency to bail its conglomerates out of the growing crisis.[3. Lee, S. Keun. “Financial Crisis in Korea and IMF: Analysis and Perspectives,” Presentation at Hofstra University, 1998.] As a result, the Korean government accepted an IMF bailout of 57 billion USD on the condition of several neoliberal reforms. These included the floating of the Korean currency on the international market, the opening up of Korean companies to foreign ownership, wider allowable daily fluctuations of the Korean stock market, and a massive increase in interest rates to 30%. Unlike most other developing nations, Korea wholeheartedly embraced the IMF’s proposed reforms. For example, though the IMF demanded that Korean listed companies be allowed to have up to 55% foreign ownership, the Dae Jung regime made 100% foreign ownership of Korean firms permissible by the end of 1998. [4. Ibid] Such reforms came at a high cost. From an incredibly low unemployment rate of 2.1% in October 1997, unemployment skyrocketed to 8.6% in February 1999. As others have argued, however, the Dae Jung government foresaw this spike in unemployment from the outset. Kim Dae Jung was an incredibly pro-market politician, who stated in his 1985 book, Mass-Participatory Economy: a Democratic Alternative for Korea, that “maximum reliance on the market is the operating principle of my program” and that “world integration is our historic mission”.[5. Crotty, James & Lee, Kang-Kook. “A Political-Economic Analysis of the Failure of Neoliberal Restructuring in Post-Crisis Korea,” February 2002, p. 4.] Additionally, in the midst of the deep recession, Kim announced that he “believe[d] that the crisis will be remembered as a blessing…because it is forcing essential economic changes”.[6. NYT, February 8th 1999, Online.] Despite the ominous predictions of several prominent economists such as Paul Krugman and Jeffrey Sachs at the time, the IMF and Kim Dae Jung undertook the neoliberalization of the Korean economy at breakneck speed.[7. Crotty, James & Lee, Kang-Kook. “A Political-Economic Analysis of the Failure of Neoliberal Restructuring in Post-Crisis Korea,” February 2002, p. 5.] Many view Kim Dae Jung’s failure to heed such admonitions as explicitly political, as the extent of the free-market reforms he demanded would have been met with fierce resistance in
Call Grandma
by Candy Lee, ETA ’15-’16 “If you had the entire day free, how would you spend it?” our Korean language teacher asked us. We go around the room, offering up answers in Korean. When it’s my turn, I say, “If I had the whole day free I would talk to my Grandma all day.” I’ve always longed to have a conversation with my Grandma, but the Korean I learned growing up was only functional. I knew how to ask where the spoons were or how much something cost, but my knowledge wasn’t deep enough to understand the nuances of the traditional Korean my Grandma spoke. During the five weeks of our Korean language course at Jungwon University, I felt that there was so much at stake for me. If I could improve my Korean, I could better communicate with my extended family, including my Grandma. I didn’t know much about her, except for the fact that she was my dad’s mom and she lived alone in Seoul. She has an apartment building filled with beautiful potted plants, a small T.V., and one of those old-fashioned telephones that you have to swirl your finger around to get to the right number. I didn’t know if she owned a cellphone. I wasn’t sure what she did with her day. The more I thought about it, the more I realized my Grandma is a mystery to me. *** “Have you called your grandma yet? She’s wondering how you’re doing.” It’s August, and I’ve just moved to my placement in Naju. The summer weather is unbearably humid. I’m speaking to my mom on the phone. Even though we are fourteen hours apart, she still finds ways to nag me and I still find ways to make excuses. “No…” I trail off, trying to think of an excuse. I can’t think of one. “Well, call her! She must be so sad not hearing from her granddaughter.” “Yeah, okay,” I say, knowing that I probably won’t. And I don’t. I’m too busy. Busy planning lessons for my energetic all-boys middle school, busy meeting other ETAs after school, busy watching Korean dramas with my host family. I entertain myself throughout the day and push Grandma far into the back of my mind, along with other things I keep forgetting to do. *** “Have you called your Grandma yet? She said you haven’t called,” my mom tells me yet again. This time it’s October. The danpung[1. A Korean word for the leaves changing color in autumn] covers the mountains and the weather has turned crisp. It’s been over two months since I’ve settled down in Naju. I am an hour away from Gwangju, where my mom’s side of the family lives and a KTX ride away from Seoul, where my grandma lives. “It’s just hard for me to understand what she’s saying sometimes,” I say. It’s a feeble excuse, and my mom knows it. I think of how lucky I am to be living in Korea and how excited I was to reconnect with my family. Now it doesn’t feel like excitement. It feels like a burden. *** Growing up, I never missed my extended family because I just didn’t know what it was like to live around people related to you. Sometimes, however, I would watch a movie or read a book and marvel at the relationships I saw between girls and their grandmothers, how protective and strong and sweet it was. The picture of unconditional love. I liked to imagine that my own Grandma would be like that when I met her. I didn’t know what I was missing out on, but sometimes I would see our family of four—Mom, Dad, Cindy and me—and feel that we were too small of a family, like a little island that drifted too far away from its continent. When I was eleven, my parents told me and my sister that they decided to fly us to Korea for the summer—without them. I hated the idea. My friends would all have two months of glorious summer vacation doing nothing besides watching TV, while my sister and I had to spend our entire two months in a place I didn’t remember, with family we had never met. With the exception of one of my uncles, none of my extended family knew any English. I’ll never forget what my mom said to me. We were both sitting in my parent’s room, on the floor. I had had another crying fit, screaming that I wouldn’t go. “You know I want to go to Korea,” my mom said. “I haven’t been there since you were born. All my family and friends are there. Of course I want to go, but your dad and I have to work. We want you and Cindy to go instead of us. Is that okay?” I nodded silently, speechless, because this was the first time I saw my mom cry. *** That summer, I saw Korea for the first time. It was strange how out of place I felt, even if I looked like I fit right in. It wouldn’t be until I opened my mouth and English poured out that people realized I was a gyopo[2. Definitions vary; broadly speaking, an ethnic Korean who has lived the majority of his life in another country]. I was confused at how “un-Korean” I felt. In America everyone identified me as Korean, but in Korea I was too American to fully belong. This year, I’ve often wondered what my life would have been like if my parents had never gotten on the plane to California. I would have grown up in Korea, never speaking English as I do now. I would’ve attended hagwon[3. Cram school; many Korean students attend these academies after school for supplementary education] after school and would’ve spent my free time going to the noraebang[4. Karaoke/singing room] or PC bang[5. Computer room] with my friends after school. Maybe I would
Hungry Ghosts: Part 3
by Leigh Hellman, ETA This is part 3 of a 3 part series, published here on Infusion’s website. hungry ghosts Historians remain hesitant to conclusively label the assassination of Park Chung-hee as a coup d’état. For the two months following it, Park’s prime minister stepped into the role of acting president and Major General Chun Doo-hwan—Park’s commander of the Defense Security Command—went about ostensibly rooting out political and military traitors. On December 12th, 1979, Chun ordered the arrest of the ROK Army Chief of Staff and—along with his supporters—violently consolidated his control of the Korean military. This, historians agree, was undoubtedly a coup d’état; it would not be Chun’s last. On May 17th, 1980, Chun strong-armed an extension of the nationwide martial law imposed after Park Chung-hee’s assassination—closing universities, banning political activities, ordering mass arrests, and further restricting the press—and dispatched troops to ensure “public order and safety” in the wake of multiple pro-democracy demonstrations around the country. Broadcasts went out assuring citizens that this was a natural transfer of power: Stay inside your homes as we pacify any anti-national insurgencies. Do not congregate. Do not protest. From the barbed wire fences slicing along the Demilitarized Zone to the tropical beaches of Jeju Island, across the sanded-down green mountain ranges that bisect the peninsula five times over, along the craggy coastlines that wind vicious and rocky, in industrializing cities and one-lane villages—everywhere doors closed, shuttered, locked down. Demonstrators reluctantly went home. Lights went out. Everywhere except Gwangju. — The first known fatality was a 29 year-old deaf man named Kim Gyeong-chul. He was clubbed to death by Special Forces paratroopers on May 18th as he passed by a swelling protest that had begun at the gates of Chonnam National University that morning, but had since pushed its way towards the streets of downtown and right up onto the steps of the Provincial Office. Witnesses recount that when Kim didn’t follow the paratroopers’ directive to get out of the way—a directive he couldn’t hear—they struck him to the ground and didn’t stop swinging until he was dead. The people of Gwangju and South Jeolla, infuriated by the surge of violence and simmering after decades of oppression, poured into the demonstrations en masse. On May 20th, the army began firing on civilians (whose numbers now exceeded 10,000). That same day citizens burned down a local news station, enraged by their misreporting of the escalating brutality. By the evening, hundreds of cars-motorcycles-taxis-trucks led a parade of buses toward the Provincial Office. Citizens climbed on the hoods and roofs and waved black-white-red-blue flags that, in their hands, dwarfed them. Over the next seven days, those flags would be used to wrap bodies as they lay in open pine boxes lining the floors of makeshift hospitals and headquarters. Even inside and out of the sunlight, the spring heat still got to them. On May 21st, the army fired into a crowd of protesters on the steps of the Provincial Office. In response, factional militias broke off from the unarmed citizens. They raided armories and police stations for M1 rifles and carbines. Gunfights between soldiers and militia members punctured the blood and sweat-thick air. The army finally began to retreat from the downtown area after the militias obtained two light machine guns. Gwangju was declared by its citizens to be a “liberated” city. — In Washington D.C., President Jimmy Carter and his national security team held an emergency meeting to determine the administration’s response to reports funneling in of a crisis unfolding in the southwestern province of Korea: “We have counseled moderation, but have not ruled out the use of force, should the Koreans need to employ it to restore order.” [1. Carter Administration, Policy Review Committee Meeting Minutes (May 22, 1980)] — It’s strange, but the thing that stays with me is the sound. Relatively few video feeds exist so audio tracks are usually run over grainy still photographs instead. A military stormtrooper—baton raised, black combat boots set, visor shut over his face. A cowering man—torn polyester button-up, arms braced over his head, streaks of something dark tracking down his pants. Unnatural puddles in the street. Flatbed trucks stacked high with arms and legs and skulls blown half-away. And in the background sobs, wails, shrieks like the end of the world is here—is now. Is on these streets. Cacophonies of anger, voices breaking at the pitch. The rat-tat-tat of gunfire, in short bursts rather than sustained, controlled commands. But it’s the singing—the flat, off-pitch, half shout-half melody. It’s the singing that bores into my sense memory and infects my synapses as they crack like club against skull. I don’t know what they’re saying. Between my own pitifully lacking vocabulary and the evolution of regional dialects from then until now, it might as well be a rally of nonsense. I don’t know what they are saying, but I feel it in the sink of my stomach still. Sometimes I watch documentaries in insulated rooms—in ergonomic chairs where I can reign as the always-disconnected, always-distanced, always-safe Other. Sometimes I watch and cry; I cry ugly and personal like a steel fire and crumble in real-time like an active shooter in a classroom like a jagged scar left on a place and on a collective soul from when history stabbed and tore and it healed up but not quite right again. I cry and I feel like a fraud. Like an appropriator, like a common thief. Like this is their pain and their trauma and theirs and how unbelievably white and American of me to remake it as all I mine me. — From May 22nd to May 25th, the repulsed troops hung back on the city fringes and waited for reinforcements. From there, they formed a blockade around the city’s perimeter as sporadic confrontations continued to increase the number of causalities. Within the city, settlement committees were formed to support the citizens and communities. Committee and militia leaders clashed over the former’s call for the latter’s disarmament.