Chang's grandmother.

My good buddy (cum father, Korean-life and love-life advisor, tango partner, mountain biking teacher) Chang told me a story about his grandmother recently. She had only told him the story the week before when he gave her a ride from Seoul to Shintanjin. I have frequently commented to Koreans that they must get the stories out of the older generation because they're about to be lost.

Chang's grandmother's story. Chang is not certain of the facts and I asked him to check them. I am not certain of the historical facts. My story may contain unintended factual errors. When Chang gets more facts, I'll make corrections to my story.
Chang's grandmother (GM) was somewhere in the middle of about nine children. At about age 8, her family moved to Japan for her father to find work. About half of the nine children were born in Japan. This was in the 20's during the time of Japan's occupation of Korea. The Japanese were ruthlessly exploiting Korean economic opportunities, leaving Koreans without work or means of support. Koreans by the thousands moved to Manchuria or Japan to find work. At that time in Korea, girls did not go to school. They were kept at home to learn homemaking skills and to be kept safe until their marriage. At the same time in Japan both boys and girls were provided public education. At 8, GM was already behind in school. Some Korean-Japanese associations organized special schools to bring immigrant children up to their grade level. In this way GM got some education. I don't think she was ever able to regularly attend a regular school but she attended school and received an education in the basic subjects of math, history, and Japanese language. She spoke Korean at home but did not learn the Korean alphabet. She spoke, read, and wrote Japanese fluently.

At about age 14 GM began working in a factory to help support the family. She continued her education through the special immigrant schools when she had the opportunity. GM married a Korean-Japanese and had four children, all girls, three born in Japan and one in Korea. In about 1948 or 49 some of the family returned to Korea. Open question: Did GM's husband serve in the Japanese army during the war. I've read that they had to, unless, I suppose, they were involved in war-effort work. Some of the original family remained in Japan and some returned to Korea. GM, her husband, and her children returned to Korea when GM was about 28. GM had continued to work in Japan after her marriage and again in Korea she continued to work. Her husband wasn't able to find work in Busan where they'd settled. After the Japanese occupation and the war, the economy was in a dire condition.

Then in 1950, the Korean War. GM's husband was already over the soldiering age and he became a draft clerk for his town. Feeling guilty for sending young men off to die for their country, he joined the army anyway. Within a few months he was killed, leaving GM to raise her girls in the midst of war and its aftermath. GM hasn't talked to Chang about this time of hunger and desperation, but I've read accounts. Those people suffered terribly from hunger, cold, and disease. In the cafeteria of my institute, I watch the older women who work as cleaners and grounds keepers: They still eat like people who have known hunger, piling their plates high, stuffing as much in their mouths as possible, furtively spooning what's left into plastic bags on their laps.

One of GM's four girls died at about age 9 and another at about 30. Two girls remain, Chang's mother and aunt. I don't know what education Chang's mother was able to get. She's one year younger than me so she was born in 1946. That puts her growing up in the worst times of Korea: World War II and then almost immediately the Korean War during her first ten years of life, and then more years of hardship during the recovery period for her next ten years. Chang's father died when he was a teenager and I don't know what he did for a living, but his parents managed to raise their two boys and put them through university and graduate school. Chang graduated from Seoul National University, the country's most prestigeous university, and is now a researcher at a prestigeous IT research institute.

It's a story repeated over and over. Chang's generation of highly educated techies coming from parents and grandparents who suffered through occupation and two wars. And the younger generation rarely knows anything about the lives of their parents and grandparents. I don't think it's because the young people are not interested. I think it's because the older generation doesn't talk to their children about their lives. I think in Korean society, parents talk to their children to educate them to their responsibilities in life, but they don't talk to them to share their feelings and experiences. I keep telling my young Korean friends: Get the stories and write them down. But they don't.

When Bush started this thing with North Korea, I wondered what was going on. Then I guessed that he was creating a backup. If he fails to attack Iraq, he'll have Korea to attack. Apparently he must attack someone. Why? To show he's macho? To best his father? To complement his father? To support the weapons industry? If it were just Iraq, we could guess it's oil, but Korea can't help with oil, so maybe it's weapons. My Moroccan friend Driss thinks there is a clear reason but the public doesn't know it. Then why doesn't the public know it? What happened to investigative reporting? Is Chomsky right? Is the news media in the pocket of a government-big biz coalition conspiracy? Beats the hell out of me. I wish I knew what was going on, but I sure don't. The only thing I'm sure of is that neither war pretext is the reason.

When you read about events in history and consider what the public knew at the time - and I do think the government might have been a bit more honest in those days (or am I being naive?) - then you have to know that we don't know much about what's going on. I just read an article about Chiang Kai-shek. Government advisors warned and warned the government that Chiang's government on the mainland was corrupt and inept, that most of the aid was going into private pockets. The governement ignored the warnings because it suited them to champion Chiang as a bulwark against communism. Furthermore, the press - maybe led by Luce's organs - also chose to champion him. Was fighting communism the only reason?

I've always assumed that Chiang's government in Taiwan was repressive and corrupt and the article I read confirms that. In addition to killing thousands of protestors at the beginning of his reign on the island, he ruled throughout with secret service agents and terror. And that included his own population of refugees as well as the Taiwanese and of course the native tribes people of the mountains.

The other thing I can't figure out is how the UN can make all those resolutions against Iraq but not put the same pressure on other regimes. Is it legal or does the UN just give into US pressure. I sure don't know and wish someone would explain it to me.

Someone told me that Bush wouldn't attack North Korea because South Korea is so densely populated and a war here would mean the loss of too many lives. Does anyone think Bush cares about that? My friend said maybe Bush doesn't but he certainly has advisors more intelligent than he. Yes, but.... I think Bush won't attack North Korea because it would destroy the economy of South Korea and then the economies of Japan and the other Asian tigers would fall and then our recession would go into a worldwide depression. Driss says the US would even be willing to create a worldwide depression to accomplish whatever secret goal they have. Oh yes, Driss thinks the US wants to destroy the European economy so the US can dominate them and the US is willing to go through a depression if they calculate they'll recover sooner than anyone else and then dominate everyone. I suspect Driss's analysis lacks sound knowledge of economics, but I don't know. I wouldn't put anything past any government.

Politics is so perplexing and disturbing.

I just changed my template to get multiple columns so I can record constant info in one column and my blog record in the main column. Let's see if it worked.

This morning as I was getting out of the shower, something triggered the memory of an event from 28 years ago. At a bargeque at friends Pete and Nancy, I met a Ugandan. Chatting with me and my six year old daughter, he told us he lived in LA with his sister and her six children. My daughter piped up, "Do you kiss and hug naked with your sister?" Understandably taken aback, he quietly replied no. My daughter came back with, "Then how did she get all those children?"

Beginning with such enthusiasm over my discovery of blogging, it took only three days to kill it. I read a slew of articles about blogging and became self conscious about wasting the Internet's space and time with my petty thoughts and activities. I decided I'd write only when I have something to say. Since then, I've had lots to say but no time to say it, so I stopped. OK, so new plan. Write a little every day and when the time and inspiration come, write something meaningful.