Hit by a Sling Shot
Mr. Shin Kee Nam, chairman of the ruling Open Uri Party, seemed invincible at first as commander of the campaign for the 'Liquidation of the Past.' Three-time elect lawyer-turned congressman was a committed theorist and propagandist for the campaign. He was one of the authors who had advocated 'the Bill for the Investigation and Assessment of Pro-Japanese collaborationist activities.'
Targets were mostly evident to everybody's eyes: The degradation of Former President Park Chung Hee as a national traitor and the subsequent portrayal of Park Keun Hae who now serves as party chief of the rightist Opposition Hannara Party and the successor to the ignominious dictator, by which President Roh and his party could make her bid to run for the 2007 Presidential election frustrated.
The next thing he knew, a really incredible incident happened to Mr. Shin, who, standing to his feet to issue an order to launch an attack on enemy forces, was met with a weird misfortune. The combatant commander, hit not by a gun shot but by a sling shot, fell to the ground.
To the rock was bound a message rope which said that the chairman's father Mr. Shin Sahng Mook had lived a traitorous life as MP sergeant of Imperialist Japanese Army. It was the Monthly Donga, the sister magazine of the Donga Il Bo Daily Newspaper that had reported on Mr. Shin's father.
How traitorous? The Shin father had headed a squad in which he had led a torturous investigation of his compatriots. A living witness victim of his harsh torture, in his early nineties, volunteered to testify to reporters. Mr. Shin junior, feeling ashamed and insulted, bowed out of the scene, offering apologies. Round One of History War to the Opposition Party and the Rightists with a least feasible defense.
Seoul Railroad Station and About
Seoul Railroad Station has been a reminder of all things Korean: its identity as a homogenous nation, its national shame as a colony of the Japanese Empire, its grand cohesive power as a big national family and its ceaseless efforts toward human dignity with freedom, democracy and human rights. (Down with the dictator!)
The railroad station has recently made drastic renovations and refurbishments in honor of the grand opening of KTX (Korea Train Express). Floors of lounges are glistening white and spacious enough to lounge about the place. Ceilings of lounges are sky-limit, allowing watchers to feel themselves , even for the moment, dwarfed.
The landscape of the station has made a great shift from the real to the surreal. Hookers in hot pants at the station plaza are no longer in sight. (The plaza is no hot any more. Where are they gone?) Country oldies, with their backs stooped burdened with heavy packs full of all kinds of fruits, grains and rice cakes for their grand kids, have become a rare sight, too.
Narrow sidewalks on the periphery of the station plaza are literally expropriated, from time to time, by down-and-outs. Out of jobs and uprooted from their homes, squatters are found sprawled on the pavement. (Are they dreaming of their wives and offspring back home?) The miasma of urinal odor and filth is in the air.
He Dictates Everything
Democracy would be nothing if the checks and balances were not working. The weirdry of democracy is in action to the extent that the president of a democratic republic cannot help being a misnomer. He has turned out to be a dictator.
An ominous yet evident sign: He is a literal dictator. He dictates everything. He even dictates enactment of a specific law to the Legislature. (Abrogate the National Security Law.) He infringes on the the separation of three branches of law.
Mechanism of party manipulation: Fear is a major factor and crumbs of the power at the present and the future are a minor. All the forces of the majority ruling party rallying behind Mr. Roh Moo Hyun, almost all the politicos with hodgepodge political backgrounds and diverse ideologies, will be subject to prosecution, if they were not in favor or showed any signs of departure.
Mechanism of popular control: Hatred is a major factor and the subsequent 'conflicts' are a minor. He is singling enemies out with unending continuity and ferocity. In due course, the emotion seeps into every social ladder. He plants bias into hearts of his followers.
Accept My Comforting Remarks
Television sets are an anathema in this case. I am tempted to close my eyes. I wish I had my senses anesthetized and that all my capacities to recall were shut out. I think it's a real curse that is inflicted on us that we the people of the global countries have to be pulverized by seasonal terrors.
My heartbeats are on a rapid rise whenever weather forecasters' hands are making a glib gesture of plunging southward to the grayish white whirl of clouds which must be heralding the onrush of storms. Raw nerves are on a stampede as weather reports issue every route of advancing storms.
In time they come at last. Oh, what a force. They make a surreal metamorphosis of everything. Trees are uprooted, cars are upturned and streets are flooded. I see a man on the spot is holding onto a wall, reporting the scene.
I feel the need to send my comforting remarks to those terrorized by hurricanes and typhoons and seek a pardon for my cozy place. I hope that soaked clothing of yours will be dried soon and soiled rooms will be cleaned, furnished and renovated to the original condition. I sincerely hope that electric lights will light your places again.
Korean Ladies with Their Eyes on Cocoons
Could you find the likes of human species here in Korea? In other words, I wonder whether you could discover people who behave just like those on the upper crust of Korean society. I deplore that their legs are at the Right, but that their mouths are at the Left. (I don't think you need me to paraphrase the previous sentence, do you? Wait a minute, then. You'll tell.)
Ms Kim Joo Ha, a prime-time newscaster of MBC TV in Seoul announced a few days ago her wedding plan on the third of October this year. Greetings of congratulations were pouring from her colleague members but the information about her bride-groom to be has riled her friendly and hostile viewers up at the same time.
Her bride-groom to be, Mr. Philip Kang, ages 33, has turned out to be an ideal cocoon (a safety haven) for young Korean women who are nervous about their future family security at the time of national emergencies. Do you need me to enumerate qualifications for the cocoon for young elite Korean ladies?
Sure. A Korean descent with U.S. citizenship is an ideal stuff. A U.S. citizen on the high social ladder is O.K., whichever their ethnicity may be. Academic achievements above master's degree is desirable. A good office worker with a promising future with bulging paychecks is a requisite. (Snobbish?)
It has turned out that the folks from the Right expressed ire toward her and that the viewers from the Left had reservations, but disappointments were evident. What has it been that she got them angry and disappointed at the same time? That's been because her duplicity and the subsequent perfidy got her viewers feeling betrayed. (How come she has out of the blue turned around and showed her back on both of them.)
She has so far voiced anti-U.S. sentiments personally and professionally. She has been inclined to incite street demonstrations against the U.S. military presence here in Korea. She has derided and attacked the Rightist media and politicians. She has strongly defended the media's partial and distortional coverage of events before and after the Presidential Impeachment.
