Haenyeo of Jeju-do

Jai Ok Shim, Executive Director of Fulbright in Seoul, introduced tonight's research lecturer Grace Ha. Grace has an undergraduate background in marine biology and environmental conservation and became interested in the haenyeo in a short passage in her marine biology textbook that piqued her interest and resulted in her Fulbright project concerning the haenyeo and traditional ecological knowledge, a study which isn't based solidly on science but weaves science and a people's belief systems. The blurb summarizing her research project follows:

"On Jeju Island, fisherwomen, known widely today as haenyeo (해녀), have a long-standing tradition of free-diving into the ocean for seafood such as abalone, kelp, seaweed, sea cucumber, turban shell and octopus. Over the past year, Grace has been researching these women and the Jeju fishing villages, focusing largely on their traditional ecological knowledge and resource management techniques. Grace has been specifically investigating what implications this disappearing way-of-life may have on future marine conservation efforts."

Grace Ha collected her research through literature research and language study prior to going to Jejudo and more while on Jeju. She conducted interviews and had personal communication with the haenyeo, fishing cooperative leaders, and scholars on the topic. And she also participated in the hanyeo school, not really a school but a practice hands-on in-the-water one-day (or more) experience of being a haenyeo. She laughingly said that when she participated and took her dive, without prior training as the training is "in the water", the haenyeo in charge of her just pointed down into the depths of the water and said things like, "Hey, you didn't stay down long enough" or "You'll never collect anything if you don't go deeper" or "What are you doing? Go down again!" And that was her experience at the haenyeo school! While many haenyeo can go down as much as 20 meters and stay down up to 3 minutes, the average is 5-6 meters and underwater 1-2 minutes. There is no way that a beginner could or should attempt such, but by pushing one's self, one can supposedly expand the human limits of diving.

The Haenyeo of Jejudo

The haenyeo (해녀/海女), which means 'woman of the sea', have also been known as jamsu, literally 'entering into the water' but having the traditional meaning of 'divers/diving women'. Jamnyeo is another traditional term and is translated roughly the same. The haenyeo are not mermaids, indomitable Amazons or super-women. They were and still are divers, using no breathing equipment, only a rubber suit, mask, fins and weights. They carry a float (태왁?), a net (마앙사리), a spear (작살) and a curved pick or sickle (비창?). They had a job, low-class and underpaid in Joseon Dynasty, but one which gave them income and therefore independence in the highly regimented Joseon dynasty when women were seen as only homemakers and child breeders. The diving for sea urchins, sea abalone and other sea goods on the ocean floor was a job principally for women, ironic as it may seem. Men's jobs were related to the hazards of fishing (beltfish, squid, etc) in the turbulent waters, both far and near, around the island. Many died fighting the treachery of ocean and a large female population remained.


Whether a large portion of haenyeo are Christians, I don't know, but I do know that there are many shamanistic rituals, an annual shaman festival for the gods of the ocean which includes a gut (exoricism) to appease angry gods and pay tribute to protective ocean and natural element spirits. In Korean communities that have lower education and are living close with the elements, shamanism is still strong and the approximate 100 villages harboring haenyeo maintain rituals and beliefs for their spiritual well-being while in the ocean.

In recent years, the haenyeo have become a tourism symbol of Jejudo, the island known for its 3 Ws — wind, water, women … and of course rocks. This tourist symbol will be just that and nothing more in a few years as the haenyeo discourage their daughters from entering the trade, and a rapidly declining number of elderly haenyeo comprise the majority. Many die - the young, the old, the experienced - in their attempts to stay under the water as long as they can in order to gather the most sea products as possible. The trade is dangerous, not to mention physically demanding and now women, no longer contrained by rigid gender roles, can have other jobs and ones which are both safe and guarantee independence, so haenyeo mothers refuse to teach their secrets to their daughters, as becoming a haenyeo is a trade passed down only from mother to daughter. So, the traditional ecological knowledge is dying with the aging haenyeo.


By definition, traditional ecological knowledge is "A cumulative body of knowledge, practice and belief evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings (including humans) with one another and with their environment" [Berkes, Colding and Folke, 2002, 'Rediscovery of traditional ecological knowledge as adaptive management' Ecological Applications 10:1251-1262.] What the haenyeo pass along to their daughters is a keen understanding of the tides, underwater geography and topography, weather and waves, ecology of marine life according to season, and much more. They have their own specialized folk taxonomy of the ocean and are aware of spatial changes within the ocean and to a large extent aware of the impact their local development has on the marine ecosystem. They also pass along communal cleaning and gardening techniques, that is, they 'weed out' underwater plants that invade or encrouch on the garden territory of the more desireable flora and fauna.

In 1966, there were 23,081 registered haenyeo but those numbers have dropped to 4,995 in 2010 with 43.3% of the diving women 70 years old and older. With the advent of rubber suits for the haenyeo in the 1970s, a drop in the numbers of underwater fisherwomen was appropriate but those numbers are still rapidly declining. Prior to the rubber suits, the women wore cotton smocks and could dive for only 2 hours max per day, taking breaks to warm themselves, but the rubber suits made it possible to dive for 6-7 hours straight, which really taxed the ocean's gardens around the island.


Since the 1970s, overfishing has become a ecological problem, not to mention the pollutions from fish farms that have sprung up around Jejudo. Marine ecology is further damaged by climate change, resulting in the disappearance of algae and key species extending the Korean diet. To try to control the ecological decline, current resource management in Jeju fishing villages has resulted in top-down policies like (1) no diving during breeding season [which last 2-3 months. It seems the haenyeo dive year-round but when certain species are breeding, those species are not to be including in their "catch of the day"]; (2) catch size limits on species have been imposed, and (3) diving is limited to a certain number of days per month as based on neap tides, ex. ~15 days/month; and finally (4) a guard is posted on fishing grounds to prevent poaching [there is a lot of competition between villages ... not just local competition that exists even between mother and daughter].


Grace presented an interesting twist of opinions regarding the future ecology of the ocean around Jejudo if the haenyeo cease to exist as fisherwomen. One opinion is from Youngsoon Go, Sehwa-ri fishing cooperative leader and the contrasting opinion is from Baekyeon Im, Hado-ri fishing cooperative leader. Youngsoon Go says, "Without haenyeo around to keep overfishing, Jeju's oceans will be able to recover" while Baekyeon Im says, "Without haenyeo, who will be here to ensure Jeju has healthy oceans?" Both have a point. While the haenyeo now tend to overfish having the advantage of working longer with the advantage of their rubber suits, they still garden and cultivate the ocean of unwanted flora - three examples of the valuable garden of Jejudo but which other countries see as invasive are two kinds of seaweed and a crab, all much loved by Koreans and encouraged to reproduce and grow in the gardens around Jeju.

A Word on K-Pop

"K-Pop influences Korean society but Korean history and social development have influenced K-Pop" was Emilie Chu's opening line to her lecture entitled "K-pop Mirroring Korea or Korea Mirroring K-pop?" Although I am not personally interested in K-Pop, the write-up was another glimpse into the multi-facted social gem of Korea, and I felt I needed to delve into a new facet of Korea to broaden my own cultural horizons:

"Like the country itself, South Korean popular culture and music has grown to take on an international presence over the past ten to fifteen years. Cultural figures, from Seotaiji [a rapper who retired at the height of his popularity and then shockingly attempted, and did make a comeback, in rock music even though his rapping was not particularly out-of-date] to g.o.d. [still active in ballad style but 2001 saw them at the pinnacle of success] to TVBQ to Big Bang [particularly popular in 2005 with rapping, and with lyrics rather meaningless as their ultimate focus is for rhyme and rhythm] to BoA [who debutted with SM Entertainment, the biggest entertainment industry, and then marketed herself through a Japanese music entertainment company], have been making waves in steadily increasing extents, to the point of becoming a dominant force and current standard throughout Asia. Yet there are a number of lesser known factors behind the words they sing and the images they present, as well as the implications of such works. Thanks to Fulbright, this past year Emilie Chu has been able to study the relationship between Korean pop music and Korean culture through its history, society and industries by examining Korean songs within their local context, and has found some very interesting connections between cultural expression and representation."

To begin, Emilie stated that song and record need to be clearly defined as they are not synonymous and understanding their concepts within the Korean context is crucial to understanding their sociocultural significance. Therefore, a song is 'words + melody' and needs songwriters, lyricists and composers. The lyrics themselves should be more than just cliché, can comprise an element of language play with metaphor, can be "fun" or thought-provoking, or even can be experiential and having subtle biographical influences reflecting culture and social attitudes. Record, on the other hand, is a craft combining the skills of singers, musicians, arrangers, producers, recording engineers, among others, with the purpose of creating a powerful performance, an artist or group with a unique identity or sound, a great arrangement, or possibly even produced for business considerations such as timing or promotion.

K-Pop is not necessarily Hallyu (the Korean wave) although it can be. When Emilie showed the top 10 songs for each of the years in the past decade [except 2008 and 2009 as the music industry was undergoing change resulting in government marketing under the Ministry of Culture in order to standardize and centralize the ratings, sales, etc], rather consistently the top three songs in the list were little known in the room of expats, several of whom were K-Pop fans. According to Emilie, such anonymity of top songs among the K-Pop loving expats just goes to show that though many songs were wildly famous in Hallyu, not all the songs were known outside of Korea, but rather were so popular in Korea and marketed solely for Koreans that they were popularized alone by local sale.

Common Themes and Tropes

At the turn of the century, K-Pop focused on idealized (and rather tragic) love or parting, evoking a romantic concept intermixed with the Korean han (a cultural sorrow for what was and can never be again). Songs were idealistically focused on puppy love and the "cute concept", so evident in "pure and sweet" first date relationships, knick knacks and souvenirs, Hello Kitty popularity, and kitsch culture memorabilia. Songs also were on attraction, suggesting a "sexy concept", rather an ironic twist on the "pure and sweet". And many songs also were a type of confidence anthem, a new genre of song sung primarily by females who, I feel, are being emancipated in Korean society and now challenging, perhaps overturning, the stigma of "femininity" and attitude of being "substandard" to male-dominated society. What Emilie brilliantly pointed out is that the songs in the past decade were mostly about individualism, and rare were the songs about family, friendship or commentaries on life. [In writing this, these twenty-first century K-Pop songs can be likened to someone singing solely about a wedding, but not the marriage itself ... that is, they are a reflection of love but that which is unrequited, not experienced and which therefore has no future.]

K-Pop: The "Good" and the "Bad"

K-Pop, if evaluated for its positive or negative function within the Korean society, can be said to have four positive factors in its favor: (1) identity - it has given Koreans an identity in the international community that they as a collective nation can say is "successful", (2) international doorway - now that it is recognized as an international music genre, Korea hopes to gain more international acclaim, not necessarily through music, (3) community - as a nation grounded in Confucism, collectivism and community still have inherent values and although Korea is rapidly changing, K-Pop success and acceptance furthers confidence and elicits sentiments of comradery and togetherness, and (4)the "fun" factor - the wide variety of K-Pop singers and groups provides on-going entertainment for subway riders, commuters, music circles, beer halls ... and is just a fun form of entertainment, made easily accessible on the ubiquitous digital equipment in public or in pocket.

K-Pop, on the other hand, (1) lacks diversity - the music is all rather homogenous, just as the Korean people have claimed blood homogeniety, and as a result, variation is seriously lacking, (2) creativity/musicianship - singers are rarely composers, they are just that, "singers". One of the original g.o.d. singers invoked a Korean slang "lounge loser" for the type of singer who simply goes on tours, only sings and is a face for the music industry that does the writing, creating, etc. He broke away from g.o.d. to attempt a more creative approach to music. (3) personal identification and expression - related to creativity and musicianship, singers are not allowed any poetic license but must sing what the music industry decrees, and (4) objectification - singers are objectified, become objects to imitate, scorn, gossip abour, and who as a result lose any semblance of a "normal" life but must always be a "face" for the Korean market.

Wrapping Up

The Japanese market is the second biggest market for Korean K-Pop (with of course Korea being number 1). The reason for this is there isn't pirating (not much anyway) in Japan and the Japanese are big purchasers of physical albums rather than downloaders of the digitally available online albums and/or songs.

I gained a lot of insights on the K-Pop industry and although I'm still not an avid listener, at least now I feel slightly more informed on the development of the industry and the quick evolution of the songs in a mere decade. For more information on K-Pop view Emilie Chu's blog at http://songprints.wordpress.com/

Nostalgic Diner in Insa-dong

Just three months ago via a stateside friend I "met" a fellow anthropology graduate, Leah, who ventured to Korea and this past week welcomed her mom for a brief visit to her new country of residence. Somehow I met the mom over the internet too and we three decided to finally meet in person and have an afternoon hiking adventure behind Sungkyunkwan University. After a hike up the hills in the steamy weather and down the other side, we ended up in Insa-dong where we had to decide which Korean food would be most appetizing as an introduction to the mother. We settled on a bi-bim-bop restaurant to treat Josephine to some vegetables and rice prepared with a pungent soybean soup.

To attact foreign clientele, menus in the touristy Insa-dong are posted in both English and Korean on A-frames outside their respective restaurants. It used to be there was no menu except the one hung on the inside wall, but touristy areas post their menus outside their restaurants, and many restaurants in the bigger cities now offer booklet menus to guests seated at tables [the concept borrowed from the West]. Looking at the pictures of the food spreads on an A-frame, I was explaining the bi-bim-bop to Josephine when suddenly a Korean woman interrupted and spouted how she'd like to recommend the bi-bim-bop to us because it's such a traditional food and loved by all Koreans and blah blah blah. Errrrgh, sometimes I get very annoyed with people who interrupt conversations, especially when I'm in a deep in a conversation and am completely devoid of a blank lost look ...

The female passerby probably thought she had really recommended a classy meal to the "poor, uninformed" foreigners because we did go in. Not only did the food look tasty on the A-frame posting, but also the restaurant can easily market itself for ambiance with its rich wooden decor of a hanok-style construction somewhat reminiscent of 50 or more years ago. We sat in a courtyard, with a cheap plastic canopy overhead to keep the air conditioning in and mosquitoes out; I rather think that those two functions were its only functions as the looseness would certainly not hold water in any kind of rain shower. The food was splendid, and Josephine enjoyed her introduction to one of the choice cuisines of Korea. The place was really crowded with more Koreans than "foreigners", which is a good sign of a good restaurant. But at the cash register, the restaurant took on a more historical charm for above the register was a wall hung with old photographs of Korea, pictures of daily social interactions, dress attire, means of making a living and most were representative of the working class, and not the yangban class! When the cashier saw me looking at the wood framed photos, she got excited and volunteered explanations on many of them. I was especially enthusiastic about the pict of a peasant carrying a amount of large baskets on his A-frame carrier; I'd never seen or heard of anything like it!

North Korean 만화

Jacco Zwetsloot gave a powerfully interesting presentation on the genre of 만화 or "comic books" in North Korea. North Korean comic books "have been in publication since at least the early 1980s, despite paper shortages at times. Some of them are barely more than illustrated storybooks for children, others are caricature-filled horror stories, while still others are finely crafted graphic novels - with barely believable plotlines. The content of these "comic books" vary, but many seem to fall into three broad categories:

1. warnings against spies and how to spot them
2. cautionary tales about the evils of the world
3. heroic tales set during the Korean War or pre-1910 Korean history"

The comic books target various ages, even well-educated adults. Unfortunately, they are hard to find outside of the DPRK, but they can be similarly hard to find within it too. An interesting few points of the North Korean comic book are the interminable long sentences, repetitive passages about juche [North Korean "self reliance"] and seongun [North Korea's "military first policy"] and imperious injunctions by the Great and/or Dear Leader. North Korean comic books, therefore, are not for pure entertainment purposes but to be used as propaganda tools and social and/or political weapons.

Comic Book Trends

Some trends that Jacco was able to point out are the shifts in comic book themes over time. In the 1960s to early 1980s, Kim Il Sung was frequently portrayed as the leader of the anti-Japanese struggle. In the early 1980s to early 1990s the emphasis was placed on ideology (with Kim Il Sung dead, of course there would have to be a change in theme). Art remained ossified through the decades as it appears with the closing of the borders to imports, lack of foreign artistic expression limits the creative imagination and results in stagnation. Characters are predictable based on nationality, class, and political position. Bad guys never reflect on their evil ways and the good guys never waver. North Koreans who follow the political viewpoints of juche are "good", and keeping that in mind, the antogonists are quite predictably bad. Primary antagonists are:

spies (anti-regime North Koreans)
US soldiers
feadal landlords
capitalists
lusty women
Koreans who have lived in America or who work for Americans
Japanese who return (to Korea) to help Americans

It must be said that when the North Koreans are writing or talking about Americans, Americans are always labeled as ~놈 (bastard) and ~년 (worse than "bitch"). [Many tourists have reported this strange phenomenon, even the NK children are raised refering to Americans as such and do not recognize such language as vulgar or socially wrong. In fact, such vulgar language is seen as socially correct.

Common conflicts are centered on (1) feudal Korea (landlord bastards and the hard-working peasant conflict), (2) North Korea at present (pro vs. anti-regime struggles) (3) South Korea (pro-Korean vs. racial traitors, meaning particularly Koreans who work with Americans), and (4) Korean War (all possible character types as Korea was a mish-mash of terror on multiple levels during that time).

And some common themes for today are (1) kids as spy-hunters to help the nation, (2) kids as agents of violence, (3) re-writing Korean War incidents (North Korea realistically still loses the war, but some battles lost were rewritten as won; real names, places and incidents are referred to, but truth is wildly distorted), (4) evil bastard Americans, (4) the world outside of North Korea is a scary place. (Now is that the reverse ideology of what "we outside of North Korea" say about living IN the North!)

The comics aimed at kids seem pretty standard within North Korea as well as "outside". Those comics are often anthropomorphised with animals, they are morality tales and speak against laziness. They also emphasize loyalty and a following of the rules, which is good, but the North Korean comics books do not allow for deviation of juche principles, the rules are very restrictive and absolute loyalty is demanded. And then perhaps most different is kids are spy hunters - from the time they are young, they are taught (brainwashed, depending on your perspective) to aggressively eradicate the evil of the "foreign". An example of this type is the comic, 총을 쥐소년등 or "Kids with Guns". The story is set during the Korean War, and kids in the village start up their own resistance group to fight occupying South Korean/US forces. They raid an armory, steal guns and uniforms, and kill lots of soldiers.

Consistent to the North Korean comic books is that Americans are capital imperialists and they are evil. Missionaries are not seen favorably in North Korea but one particular comic book even attacked the Underwoods, a most famous missionary family who even in our lecture had a fourth generation Underwood present. The protestant Underwoods were portrayed in the book as dressed like Catholics, translating texts in a picture very reminiscent of John Wycliffe and then the family members were referred to in the most vulgar manner. (Again, perspective on who is speaking determines politically correct language. The follow translation to English cannot give the justice to the vulgarity of the terms used.)


Jacco gave many examples of portrayal, imagery - both visual and linguistic, and theme and plot. The last one I'll give an example from his many examples is the comic book "A Sick and Twisted World", a series of books that teaches life outside of North Korea as evil. In the series are 13 stories of terrible deeds from around the world although many of them take place in South Korea. Book 7 has an exemplary quote from the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il himself, "Capitalist society is, basically a sick and twisted society, one without a sense of what's right, and one that is nearing collapse." And in that section the picture portrayals are of super-obese Americans [well, well more than 50% are in fact overweight], eating prodigious amounts of food [well, truth again], cramming the food and all sorts of unidentifiable garbage in their mouths [hmmm] ... maybe only the quote is incorrect here.

One would think that after reading the above samples of North Korean comic books that they are all political. That would be a very incorrect assumption, but the point emphasized in the lecture is that many of the comic books are for glorifying the juche regime and used as propaganda tools.

Hansen's Disease on the Korean Peninsula

Joji Wilson Kohjima, Fulbright researcher with interests in medical anthropology and medical practice, is the great grandson of Robert Manton Wilson, an American missionary who worked as a doctor for Hansen's disease in Korea from 1907 to 1941. Joji's research is on a topic shunned and of a people ostracized.

"Hansen's disease in Korea historically existed at endemic levels until effective drugs became available in the 1930s to 1950s. [The disease] has been referenced in Korean literature for centuries even including some Chosun era mask dances. In the 20th century, Hansen's disease patients became what professor Jeong Keun-Shik of Seoul National University refers to as 'the most significant social other' in ethnically homogeneous Korean society. They have alternately been used as symbols of national shame, Christian salvation, Japanese imperial benevolence, and finally Korea's national "han" or sorrow.

Joji Kohjima's research deals with the efforts of Hansen's disease patients to tell their own story, and to seek restitution for their treatment under Japanese colonialism and post-colonial Korean governments. He has been researching ... Aeyangwon hospital in Yeosu and Sorokdo National Leprosy Hospital in Sorok Island, Jeollanamdo. This forum will explore leprosy in Korean society as a phenomenon originating at the microscopic level of bacteria but extending to the level of social constructs in the discrimination, otherization and isolation faced by leprosy patients. Largely originating in Japanese colonial policy, patients have historically faced quarantine, forced labor, and forced sterilization as they were caught in the triangle of Japanese colonial government, missionaries, and an often hostile Korean population."

Hansen's Disease in Korea


Basically, Hansen's disease or leprosy is caused by a bacteria that attacks the nervous system, both the autonomic nerves and sensory nerves, which results in a widespread variety of symptoms ultimately resulting in deformities, caused by a build-up of bacteria, in the extremities and working its way to the body core.

Historically, lepers in Korea were forced to live a life separated by the "civilized" or healthy peoples. They were not allowed to enter cities and were stoned if attempting to do so, they were the objects of many wild and nefarious tales that furthered ostracization within the society, and because there was no known cure or treatment, lepers were greatly feared. Fear breeds anger, hatred, violence, torture and lack of understanding or compassion, and therefore lepers were the marginalized "social others". Korea is a culture predominantly of one ethnicity and leprosy sufferers were considered almost as if they were another race, and many tales of boogie-man caliber existed to keep them ostracised or "other-ized", such as lepers feast on healthy children's liver [suggesting that healthy young livers could be powerful antidotes to the leper's unhealthy state ...]

In 1904, Scottish Missionary Wiley Forsythe arrived in Korea and he became very symbolic as a Christian to value the lives of Korean people [he was attacked in 1906, left Korea for treatment but adamantly returned again the next year] and the life of lepers, namely a leprous woman in 1909. Though many versions of the tale exist, the apocryphal account is of Wiley Forsythe in some stories as seeing a leper woman being stoned by some villagers, so he put her on his own horse [in Korea at that time, dignitaries always rode and were led around by someone calling out their status - if they had a horse, they would not walk] and, leading the horse, took her to a mission hospital where she could get help. Before leaving her at the hospital where of course she could not be admitted in, he even made sure she had a place of shelter, a brick kiln, where she could stay while being treated.

In 1907 Robert Manton Wilson came to Korea as a medical missionary for the Southern Presbyterian Church. Dismayed at the lepers begging and wandering the countryside, he establish a leprosarium in Kwangju, and around 1920 the patient population peaked with over 1,100 patients, making it the largest leprosarium in Korea. With its continued growth and the growing fear of the "contagion" in and around Kwangju, the leprosarium was relocated between 1926 and 1928 to the Yeosu peninsula ... [how appropriate to marginalize the already marginalized at the margins of the nation]. He remained for decades administering to the Koreas, but when WWII broke out, he departed although he did return for a brief 3 months in 1947 at the behest of General McArthur as many leper patients had wandered away from their registered leprosarium. Missionary Wilson was regarded with great respect by the lepers, and, in another lecture I heard, when a memorial stone was constructed in Kwangju to commemorate his great efforts in Korea, a group of lepers broke out of the Yeosu colonies and traveled in the secrecy of many nights to "steal" the stone and take it with them back to Yeosu, such was their respect for the missionary doctor who did so much for them!

In the early days of the leprosariums, there were no known drugs for leprosy, but the missionaries had various levels of treatment. For the physical ravages of the disease they injected an Ayurvedic oil called Chalmoogra Oil [it didn't help]; for spiritual help those wanting treatment were required to join the church; for supporting themselves they were taken from the life of beggary and given vocational training; and finally, for their socialization genders were segregated to prevent the procreation of more "outcasts". Some marriages between lepers were allowed, but men were persuaded to get vasectomies [for missionaries this seemed to be the solution to controlling the population of lepers but later vasectomies were a political mandate of the Japanese colonial rule] and married lepers could adopt leper children who were brought into the leper colony.

The Rise of State-model Leprosy Colony on Sorokdo


In 1916 the Sorokdo leprosy colony was established, by whom I don't know, but in 1933 Suho Masasue, a Japanese doctor and sanitary officer, took over as director, and expanding on the role of the "national leprosarium" in Korea that would control this pestilential disease under the more effective Japanese colonialism, Sorokdo became know as one of the important national leprosariums, with population peaking during WWI with around 6,000 patients. To put this large number for one colony into perspective, the total number of lepers in the 1940s and 1950s is estimated around 100,000~150,000.

It seems that under Japanese colonialism, lepers were not allowed to marry as in the Yeosu peninsula the men were housed in simple houses on the western side and women on the eastern. Control was intended to be absolute and people who were known to establish any similar political interests were separated and relocated to various villages on the peninsula. The leprosarium on Sorokdo was for political activists, rascals and criminals, and to be sent there was to be sent to the harshest environs for "controlling" the disease as well as controlling any political unrest. One such person sent to Sorokdo was leper inmate Lee Sung-San who assassinated the Japanese doctor Suho Masasue in 1942.

Leprosy in Korea Today

There are 14,200 registered cases of recovered leprosy patients living in Korea today. Of these, 10,900 are registered as disabled, and 332 are listed as "active" patients. The predominant number of people with the leprosy bacteria are over 40 years of age, and fewer that 10 "new cases" are registered each year. The majority of recovered leprosy patients live in agricultural settlements, approximately 5,000, and yes, there is still a stigma to marrying anyone, even a relative, of a leper so the "social other" still exists in Korea today. To illustrate, just three or four years ago three (healthy) children were reported to have disappeared and as the children's community was tangent to a leper community, rumors of the lepers stealing the children for recovery rituals were rampant. The children were found, no kidnapping had happened, but the dormant rumors and wild imaginings of the feared "other" have obviously never been put to sleep with modern medicine.

Cicadas and Humidity

The summer has been staggeringly hot, well, when it wasn't raining and it sure has rained too much this particular summer. It's rained so much in fact that Seoul made international news for flooding within the city, but almost 2 months of nearly non-stop rain is a bit much. However, I might add that the rain wasn't quite as bad as 2 years ago when the rivers flooded to overflowing and walking and bike trails paralleling the rivers completely disappeared. At least there were intermittent days this year when the sun would peep through and which allowed the waters to not back-up so badly. Housing in the low level areas were the ones badly affected again with homes being flooded and foundations being undermined causing structures to collapse or mudslides to appear where mudslides were not known to be.

Anyway, now that the rains have stopped, the humidity now soars and the cicadas (pictured) chirr from the trees. When the humidity goes up, so does their volume and lately I've noticed the shrieking chirr, much louder than the chirr of cicadas in the northern states, has started as early as 5:30 a.m. Yes, it's blazing! But exercise is needed so in the early a.m. before kids and drunk old men populate the riverside walks, I strap on my rollerblades and fly along the paved paths, feeling the rush of wind and adrenaline. Zipping along, I made a strange discovery. Some trees along the path would be loud with chirring and others silent, so I started paying some attention to the reasons for the crescendos and gaps of silence. It seems that cicadas don't chirr, and perhaps don't populate, the acacia trees [not the stickery acacia trees common to Africa but the acacia trees that trail white lupine-like blooms with heavenly perfume for 10 glorious days in the spring]. Poplars and pines are favorites as well as a unknown specie of gum tree. The chirr of the cicadas has become such a comforting sound that I associate it with Korea, but unfortunately, I also associate it with a climbing and unpleasant level of humidity.

Apt Complex Roof Repairs

My cat was fascinated by the movement on the rooves in my apartment complex and would daily watch the roof tile repairmen as they migrated from building to building overhauling the rooves: removing old tiles and shingles, retarring and then reshingling. They worked either before or after teams of painters came in, rigged up long ropes and descending over the sides of the buildings for giving the complex a whole new look. They painted over the tired wintry colors popular in the last couple of decades and put on a fresh autumn color scheme.

The painters were fast, team painting an entire building in about 2 days. There were the spray painters [they must have terrible lungs and carpal tunnel from breathing in all that continuous spray and repetitively squeezing the spray nozzle for hours on end.] My cat especially loved these guys because they would swing to and fro lowering themselves slightly with every other pass, repetitive movements that cats who have all the classic symptoms of autism love. Following the spray painters were guys descending on ropes also but they didn't swing so rhythmically back and forth but instead had several sizes of paint brushes fixed to them or their bucket and they would touch up the edges around the windows if needed and make the perpendicular lines as straight as possible.

For days and days, instead of watching and cackling at pigeons on the distant rooves, the cat supervised the movements of the men. The roofers had no safety ropes and I couldn't help but wonder how much their life insurance policies would cost, especially as they cat-walked on the slanted roof tops 20 to 25 stories above the earth.
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Several weeks later:

A friend just told me that the government has "suggested" (in Korean, 'suggested' but in English 'required') certain color schemes in construction with the overall attempt of "beautifying Seoul" and making it look harmonious, kind of like living in the familiar environs of a single organism wherever you may live in the great metropolitan city.

The Japanese and Indicators of Social Change

Dr. Karl Moskowitz gave an exceedingly informative presentation on the Japanese occupation of 35 years and the resulting Japanese influence on Korean society. As he puts it, the colonial period raised two, if not three, generations of Koreans and current cultural change and social practices are not as homogenously Korean as Koreans would like to believe. In his lecture, he explores some of the rites of passage that the nation underwent during the 35 years of colonization. With authority he speaks. He received a PhD in History and East Asian Languages, Harvard and has particular interest in Korean and Japanese modern history. {Lecture given November 9, 2010 at the Royal Asiatic Society}

Colonial Period (1910~1945)

Population Statistics

Population in 1910 was 13,300,000 according to police records, which were consistently undercounted, e.g. people didn't register their babies for a couple or years. Other indicators show that perhaps the population was 15,300,000 in addition to some Japanese and a Chinese minority (based on a census). At this time there was no displaced diaspora excepting the 2 boat loads of Koreans who had gone to work in the sugar cane fields of Hawaii some time between 1903~1905. And of this 15 million population, only 3~4% were urban (including the Japanese), concentrated in Seoul, Daegu, and the ports. Kwangju and Daejeon did not as yet exist.

Control Policies (1910~1919)

Early in the occupancy, Japanese brought Japanese farmers to Korea (on the premise that Korea did not have enough population for agricultural labor), but then the Japanese went into "control mode" and became landlords and so rented land out to the Koreans. However, the March 1st Movement in 1919 made it clear that the control policy in Korea was failing.

Agricultural Policies (1920~1935)

Rice inflation in Japan had resulted in the infamous Rice Riot of 1918, and with the Japanese political need to bring more rice into Japan, policies overseas (particularly in Korea and Taiwan) were made for rice production. Rice policies in Korea included the making of small dams and irrigation systems; improving seeds for production; teaching more productive ways to cultivate and produce rice; the making and use of fertilizers; investment into land (e.g. in the 1920s, claiming land on the western coast). As rice became cheaper, the market prices determined in Osaka kind of collapsed, and so investments were then expanded to the sardine industry for making fertilizer to take back to Japan. Economic stimulation was necessary and the production of fibers to stimulate the economy became evident in the slogan "cotton in the south and wool in the north".

The occupational structure in 1920 was 87% agricultural, 6% commerce, and 2% public/professional (these numbers need to be read with caution - see comment near end on interpreting numbers).

Industrial Policies (1927~...)

1927 is the pivotal year for agricultural production with the completion of a fertilizer plant in (North) Korea, soon followed by the creation of the Chosin Reservoir also in the north. In 1931 the staged Manchurian Incident which fueled the Japanese to take control and form a puppet government in Manchuria resulted in upping the exploitation of its other colonies, particularly Korea to provide natural resources, fibers, rice, etc to fund further expansionism.

War Mobilization Policies (1937~...)

By 1930 Korea had become a mixed economy, no longer completely dependent on its agriculture, which had declined by 30%. An increasing push was for industrial development, and the Japanese were mobilizing manufacturing to support its Manchurian war front. In 1942, super mobilization began with most of Korea's production being exported leaving Koreans to eek out a minimal living in many places.

In 1938, the occupational structure had greatly changed from when Japan first began to occupy the colonies. Korean mixed economy comprised 76% agriculture, 6.5% commerce, 4% mining and industry, and 3% public/professional. Again read these numbers with caution as they reflect an interpretation which could be interpreted quite differently at present if we could know how the data was collected, interpreted and categorized. In 1940, 14% of the population was urban (urban meaning that 15,000 people or more occupied a town).

Korea and Koreans in 1945

Population in 1945 was 26,500,000 plus 500,000 Chinese and 2,200,000 Japanese (a number which had tripled in 35 years of colonialization). 100,000 Koreans were in Manchuria as economic and political refugees, for pursuing occupations, and as military conscripts who had been drafted (or volunteered) into the Japanese military.

Political Memories

Two particularly sensitive periods concerning fellow Koreans rankled among the larger Korean community as resulted by Japanese occupancy. The first occurred roughly between 1905 and 1910 when "traitor" Koreans sold the country. Those Koreans were progressives who either got dragged in with the Japanese or who were out for their own personal gain. The second group cropped up from the mid-1930s onward and were the Koreans who were mixed in economically with the Japanese as overseers, employees, etc. These were also traitors and were feared and hated and yet envied, those conflicting emotions being strangely entwined.

Radiation in Seoul

Since the nuclear plant explosion near Tokyo at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, the Japanese economy has plummeted. Food exports are way down as some foods have been shown to contain high-levels of radiation, and tourism has been sadly reduced, resulting in little fuel to stimulate the depressed economy. A friend told me earlier today that from Seoul, S. Korea she could get a ticket for next to nothing, just 75 round trip. I think that translates as US$75 or even possible 75,000 KRW (Korean won), which is approximately the same. Japan is desperate to promote their tourism.

Well, tomorrow I fly to the US and have a short stopover in Japan, just a couple of hours. However, when I checked-in online earlier today, a notice popped up stating that people willing to be bumped could give notice at the Delta desk in Tokyo. I've been bumped a few times when not in a hurry, and am not feeling particularly rushed this round; however, I think checking the radation level for a 24-hour stay in Tokyo might be health-wise.

Hmm ... Some quick sleuthing online brought up a rather shocking bit of info: basically, Seoul has more radiation emission than Tokyo! According to the July 11, 2011 listing of several majors cities around the world (printed below but also linked), Tokyo's radition yesterday was .057 while Seoul's was .111, pretty close to double that of Japan's. The caption marketing Japan as not having dangerously high levels of radition is clearly stated in the title caption: "The dose of radiation in Tokyo is not high in comparison with that in major cities in the world."


So I thought I would follow the proffered link to find out more about radiation levels in S. Korea. The up-to-date reading states that 고산 (a bit southeast of Wonju and located centrally inland) is recording the lowest level of radiation today with a fluctuation between 63 and 67 [does that translate on the model that Japan is using as .063 and .067? - not clear as a different testing scale could be used in measuring these numbers] while 속초, on the east coast and a city closest to Japan, registers a fluctuation between 178 and 181 [ .178 and .181? - again not clear]. This is recorded in 국가 환경방사선 자동감시망 감시결과 which loosely translates as "Automatically Piloted Country-wide Environmental Radiation Observation Results".



I'm still not sure whether I'll ask for the layover or not, but living - not just passing though - a country that has such high radiation levels is a weee bit unnerving.

Symbolism in a Royal Garden

At the back of Kyungbokkung Palace, the largest and oldest palace in Korea, is a tiny garden in which the women in their isolated seclusion and prisoners from the commoners' eyes were allowed to wander. The garden is Amisan, a slice of verdent greenier nestled at the back of the queen's living quarters with access by the queen and the multiple concubines. In the terraced garden are four hexagonal chimneys obviously reflecting a rich household due to their distant proxemics from the building (the farther the chimney, the more statused the household) and also reflected in the quality of materials (fired bricks), 8-directional shape, size and most importantly, artistic design elaborately incorporated on the sides of the chimneys.


The symbols and designs are not coincidental but carefully planned and imbued with auspicious meanings. The phoenix, the imaginary celestial bird that appears when the king is considered a good and fair ruler and all is well in the kingdom, is an important symbol for the garden. The phoenix also is the representative bird for the queen, and another meaning of the phoenix is the animal representative for 'south', a delightfully auspicious direction and favored for house positions (and indeed, the garden as do all the palace buildings carefully face south). Although I don't know my trees, I'm sure that originally and maybe even at present the palownia tree spreads its branches somewhere in the garden as the palownia tree is the only tree which the celestial bird, the phoenix, will deign to land in.

Other symbols on the chimneys are bats for good fortune, plums and chrysanthemums symbolizing a man of virtue (why not a woman since this is primarily a garden for women???), and the 10 longevity symbols (십장생): crane, deer, herb of eternal youth, pine tree, bamboo, stone, etc. [A study on longevity symbols will reveal that there are a few more than 10; 8 of them seemed standard but the remaining 2 change by speaker, time period and who knows what reasoning.]

On the lowest terrace are two stone tubs or reflecting pools: Hamwolji and Hakhadam, which translate as "a pond containing the moon" and "a pond that reflects the sunset". These are significant within the terraced garden as the tiered garden represent a mountain while the stone reflecting pools symbolize lakes. The decorative motifs on the chimneys are symbolic of the world of plants and animals, and in total, Amisan was the representative garden-world for the higher mortals to linger in the natural world of the immortals.