For more than 16 years, older voters in Korea dominated politics, giving the conservatives a big advantage—and a majority in the national parliament.

Then, in the April elections this year, conservatives unexpectedly lost their majority. The reason: Younger voters turned out at ballot stations like never before. They had been mobilized by new uses of social media in the campaigns.

Why did this change take so long? Korea has been in economic recession for many years. It has long been plagued by high youth unemployment and skyrocketing rents in the major cities. And the conservative major party (since 2012 called the Saenuri Party) pretty much ignored these trends, pushing forward its usual business-friendly policies.

Yes, there was criticism when the conservative president, Ms. Park Geun-hye, advanced policies unilaterally, often without broad consultation. But the older generation of voters remained so active—particularly in provinces like Kyungsang, Daegu and richer parts of Seoul—that the party retained its power in the country’s 300-seat unicameral parliament.

Part of the delay involved the opposition of the center-left party. After losing presidential power in 2008, the party engaged mainly in internal fights. Ultimately, the opposition party divided into two parties, leaving the opposition even weaker.

All this made the April results a real surprise. Altogether, the warring opposition parties won a majority of 171, sweeping the greater Seoul area as well the traditional conservative parties of the country. Not one of the opinion polls, which are closely followed in Korea because they are generally accurate, had predicted the results.

What they didn’t predict was a sea change in the make-up of the electorate—“a revolution by young Korea” is how political commentators described it. Most striking was a huge increase in the number of voters in their 20s (up 13 percent from previous elections), and a significant boost in the number of voters in their 30s (up 6 percent). At the same time, the number of voters older than 50 decreased.

It was the very first time since the democratic revolution in the late 1980s, when young students led the struggle to overthrow the military dictatorship, that younger voters dominated the electorate, and the democratic result.

The traditional Korean media missed the shift because the companies that own Korea’s television and newspapers are dominated by conservatives. The media also missed the story because the new youth engagement was built around conversations in social media that weren’t driven by any media organization. New campaigns online pushed the proposals of the opposition candidates and, to an even greater extent, the need to vote. For the first time, individual citizens created the news. Koreans made their own podcasts, YouTube videos, and alternative websites.

During the party nomination process before the election regular internet users exposed several politicians for their past scandals, improper behaviors, false pledges, and criminal records. Some lost their nominations as a result.

In the process, the rise of digital media supplanted the traditional Korean civil society organizations, many of which have roots in old (and sometimes secret and illegal) associations that worked on labor rights, anti-corruption, and human rights during the dictatorship era in 1960s and 1970s.

Slowly, the civic space has changed, with some of the older civil organizations remaking themselves to the technologies of this era. New organizations have also been established. The newest tide of civil groups has its origins not in established organizations but in Facebook and Twitter. These newer groups offer grounded and practical goals; they want to improve the difficulties of daily life, to push for job stability, decreasing rent, and lowering college tuition.

Even before the election, new youth groups, which organized online, raised a lawsuit against the employers and corporations that exploit young part-time employees. One such organization, the “Union of the Unemployed,” established in 2006 but with roots in an online community that dates to 1998, supports the unemployed through counseling. It also offers training in entrepreneurship and campaigns for improvement of labor conditions for the temporarily hired young people.

Then there’s the Slug Union, a collective of young people without their own housing, which pushed for stronger local rent support programs from local governments. They perform flash mobs—fun performances in crowded public areas—to draw the media’s attention and raise awareness of their issues. Their reinterpretation of the demonstration has had the positive—and significant—impact of making Korea’s rough demonstration culture considerably less violent.

This year, these newer groups, of all types, used social media tools to encourage what became a big trend: Young people posting “Proof Shots,” or selfies to prove they had voted, on Instagram or Facebook. This tactic fed on itself, driving up turnouts. (Given the popularity of the practice, such voting selfies were subjected to legal restrictions, including not identifying candidates or parties in the frame, and not taking the photo inside the ballot booth).

The boost in youth turnout wasn’t just about social media-driven technology. Recent election reforms from the National Election Commission made voting more convenient. The commission instituted a new integrated electronic voting register system for the 2013 elections. This allowed people to vote anywhere in the country, with only an identity check required. Previously, voters had to register in advance and could only vote at assigned places.

The 2013 reforms also included early voting, which made it easier to bring young people to the ballot. These changes increased the early voting rate for those younger than 30 from less than 25 percent (in 2012) to more than 40 percent this year.

All these shifts combined to create the surprising result. For the first time in modern Korean history, an election took place with a more democratized sphere, and young people flooded this newly open space.

The post How Voting Selfies Brought Down South Korea’s Conservative Majority appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

When it comes to brutal acts of history, desires to remember are inevitably challenged by cravings to forget. No nation or group wants to be seen as a perpetrator of evil deeds. Patriots across the world celebrate the heroism of soldiers and noble actions while ignoring dark or painful chapters of their nation’s past. For instance, many Americans have embraced a mythical view of their nation’s involvement in World War II, preferring to commemorate the greatness of the generation that fought rather than recall the horrors of Hiroshima, racial strife that permeated their military forces, or the trauma that soldiers brought home.

Acts of cruelty also raise questions of liability. It is hard to imagine the U.S. or England ever being receptive to claims from families of the nearly 800,000 innocent civilians who were killed by World War II allied bombings in Europe. Japan and America have argued since 1945 over whether the U.S. is morally responsible for the atomic bombings that ended the war and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of noncombatants.

The United States finally agreed to pay reparations to Japanese-Americans interred in prison camps from 1942 to 1946. But it took 40 years, and came only after the story emerged of Japanese-American valor and sacrifice in fighting on America’s behalf in Europe. This minority group—deprived of their possessions and rights during the war—had to link their claims to powerful patriotic identities associated with the American war effort—and downplay their victimization—in order to gain the hearing they deserved.

In a curious cultural turn, Japan actually embraced victimization in much of its public remembrance of World War II. The American bombings brought not only horror and death but also a rationale to avoid accepting any responsibility for brutal deeds like Pearl Harbor or the Rape of Nanking, in which Japanese forces raped and murdered thousands of Chinese citizens. For decades after the war, the narrative in Japan was that the nation’s people had been wronged by military elites who recklessly tried to expand Japanese power in Asia. Textbooks generally sidestepped any notion of responsibility and featured stories of Japanese suffering or kept silent about wrongdoing. However, though the hibakusha—Japanese citizens disfigured by atomic radiation—were certainly victims, they were shunned because of fears that they might spread radiation sickness. They were also troubling reminders of the devastating results of some of the Japanese government’s policies.

Similarly, the claims of Korean “comfort women” have always proved troublesome to the Japanese memory of the war. Their story raises questions not only about Japanese responsibility for sexual abuse but calls to mind the larger legacy of Japanese brutality in East Asia in the late 1930s and early 1940s. In 1991, three Korean female victims filed a lawsuit against the government in a Japanese court. Their cause was supported by women’s rights groups from many nations that were less invested in the politics of war commemorations than the problem of gender abuse. Japan rejected the women’s claims, and some Japanese officials asserted that these women had actually engaged in prostitution. Several years later, Byun Young-joo, a South Korean feminist filmmaker, produced two documentaries—The Murmuring (1995) and Habitual Sadness (1997)—that featured “comfort women” recalling their ongoing struggles since the war. Some spoke for the first time in years about their abuse, about being raped as teenagers, and of the physical and emotional pain they endured, with tears rolling down their faces. After the films came out, women’s groups from throughout Asia staged a tribunal in Tokyo in 2000 to hear testimony from “comfort women” and others as part of a larger public review of the Japanese emperor’s responsibility for wartime atrocities.

These women personify the difficulties in addressing trauma and persistent suffering in patriotic commemorations. Before Vietnam, American war memorials tended to efface a legacy of suffering and death and promote images that were more heroic. When it was created in 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. was controversial because it refused to erase the war’s legacy of agony by completely focusing wartime memories on the thousands of Americans who died.

It was certainly public knowledge that many Americans died in World War II or returned home with emotional problems. But until the Vietnam War, such traumatic memories were not at the forefront of the American commemoration of the conflict. Think of the famous memorial to the American victory on Iwo Jima erected near Washington, D.C. in 1954: Bronze figures of GIs are fused together in a victorious flag-raising. There is no mention on the monument that anyone died, a startling omission considering that one-third of all Marines who were killed in World War II lost their lives on that island. Most Americans still do not know of the struggles the men featured on the memorial encountered for decades after they came home. Ira Hays suffered from what’s known as survivor’s guilt and was upset that the sacrifice of Native Americans like him did not lead to improved living standards on reservations. James Bradley was haunted for his entire life by the sight of the mutilated body of a close comrade he served with on Iwo Jima.

The Glendale monument is not the first erected on American soil to raise issues of Japanese wrongdoing. Veterans of World War II who survived the Death March of Bataan and suffered in POW camps in Asia are featured on a number of memorials in New Mexico. In Las Cruces, New Mexico, for instance, bronze figures of American prisoners convey a sense of distress. Indifferent to the nature of American-Japanese relations, these men refused to subscribe to mythical ideas about a so-called “good war” and insisted their pain not be forgotten.

The post In Glendale, World War II Isn’t Over appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

So how does the new SAT compare to the university entrance exam in a place like South Korea, a test-crazed culture if ever there was one? Or Finland—a country that boasts a high school graduation rate of 96 percent (compared to 77 percent in the United States) and, like Korea, scores at the top of the world on the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, test (administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)?

In at least three ways, the new SAT looks a bit worldlier than it did before—which is good news. For one thing, this revamped test is designed to judge whether students have learned the things they were supposed to learn in school. In other words, it is more tightly aligned to the specific standards most schools now teach.

That may seem like a no-brainer, but since the United States always had a patchwork of nonsensical, mismatched standards in different districts and states, aligning national tests with what actually happens in schools was always easier said than done. Now that 46 states have adopted the Common Core State Standards (even if some are now regretting their decision), we can do what other countries have done for a long time. By matching itself up with these more challenging, more consistent standards, the redesigned SAT will almost certainly add coherence, rigor, and clarity to an education system that lacks all three.

The new SAT also includes an essay, though it is now optional. For students who opt in, the essay entails a very different kind of writing. Before, SAT-takers were asked to cite their own experiences or values in response to a statement—a painfully banal form of writing bearing little resemblance to most college and professional writing. The new test asks students to analyze evidence in response to a passage, requiring them to cite specific examples and explain how an author built an argument. That kind of writing is more similar to college entrance exams in the world’s education powerhouses.

Finally, the College Board’s efforts to make the new SAT more accessible to low-income kids are also encouraging—and internationally competitive. The U.S. education system is notoriously inequitable compared to other developed nations, with the most affluent neighborhoods hoarding the most experienced teachers and well-resourced classrooms. But by partnering with Khan Academy’s website to offer free test prep, the SAT is making a small effort to democratize test prep—something that South Korea did a decade ago, when it started offering free test prep through its public broadcasting TV and radio programs (and eventually online), turning its best tutors into celebrities. Truth be told, Korea’s free test prep did little to disrupt the country’s booming, private test-prep industry, but it is clearly one baby step toward equity, especially in rural areas.

But the similarities between the new SAT and its foreign counterparts end there, rather abruptly. Finland’s test is far more challenging than the SAT (and the ACT) in almost every other way—even in sheer duration. Finland is famous for having very few standardized tests (high school students take a lot of tests, but the tests are designed by their teachers—not a distant testing corporation). But during their senior year, Finnish kids do take one giant standardized test known as the Matura—the mother of all tests. This test lasts about 50 hours, stretched out over three long weeks. By contrast, the new SAT will last three hours and 50 minutes with the optional essay (or three hours without).

And in Finland, the essay is not optional. To the contrary, students spend a day writing short essays in response to several texts over the course of six hours. The next day, they choose one topic out of 14 options and write one long essay—over the course of another six hours. One recent topic was, “Why is it difficult to achieve peace in the Middle East?” That’s 12 hours of writing—compared to 50 minutes (or zero, for those who choose not to do the essay) on the new SAT.

None of this would matter very much if it weren’t also true that Finland’s entire system is more rigorous. These tests tend to reflect the rest of the story, in every country. In Korea, the test (known as the College Scholastic Ability Test, or CSAT) lasts eight hours, and the stock exchange opens an hour late so that students won’t have to deal with traffic jams on their way to the exam.

All around the world, the test is a symbol of what matters (or doesn’t) in a given country. So the new SAT is a promising sign for the evolution of the U.S. system writ large. Our average elementary and secondary schools still do not have nearly enough well-educated, highly trained, and supported teachers; our teenagers still are not learning critical thinking at the level of students in Finland or Korea (especially in math and science); and our average colleges still are not compensating for these weaknesses (which persist through adulthood for most Americans). But if the SAT can become more rigorous and more equitable, then maybe—just maybe—our schools and neighborhoods can do so as well.

The post How Do You Say SAT in Finnish? appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

And yet there’s no controversy and little conversation. No one is screaming that the Koreans are buying up America, or even downtown L.A. No one is complaining about how the Wilshire Grand Hotel has been demolished to make way for a skyscraper. If you read the online comments to the handful of news articles on the project, Angelenos say they welcome the shiny glass and steel New Wilshire Grand, and hope it will further revitalize downtown when it opens in 2017.

This reaction is very different from the alarmism of the 1980s, when the Mitsubishi Estate Company of Tokyo purchased Rockefeller Center in New York City, and Japanese companies invested in firms and properties all over America. What accounts for the difference? One obvious answer is that Japan, unlike Korea, was not an American enemy. The less obvious answer is that Korea, despite its achievements and centuries-old connections to America, has been slow to penetrate the American consciousness.

When I was a child growing up in New York City in the 1980s, the construction of a Korean skyscraper complex would have been inconceivable. Back then, Korea was virtually unknown, except when it was depicted as a poor, primitive, and war-torn country in M*A*S*H, (which, while set in Korea, was actually an allegory for the war in Vietnam). Even the actual Korean War is referred to as “The Forgotten War” or “The Unknown War.”

It wasn’t until quite recently that Korea, and Koreans, entered the American psyche. Throughout the 20th century, Korea existed in Japan’s shadow. In 1905, Korea became a protectorate (effectively a colony) of Japan and ceased to exist legally after it was annexed in 1910. The country was liberated after Japan’s defeat in World War II, divided into north and south, and then ravaged by the Korean War.

After the war, South Korea’s GDP languished in the company of sub-Saharan nations as Japan’s economy skyrocketed. By 1978, Japan had the world’s second largest economy. Japanese culture entered and established a place for itself in the minds of Americans. The 1980s were filled with all things Japanese—from comics (anime and manga) and literature (Haruki Murakami), to audio and entertainment systems (Nakamichi and Nintendo) and music (karaoke). With this onslaught on a myriad of fronts, the American fear of being subsumed by Japan was visceral.

I came of age during this period of Japan’s ascendancy, a time when Koreans were eclipsed by the scorching Japanese sun. As with many Korean-Americans, my family’s presence in America was a consequence of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which lifted many previous restrictions on immigration from Asian countries. Seeking to claim their portion of the American Dream, my parents came to New York City with just $1,000; in today’s terms, this is a little over $5,500. Times were tough. My father graduated from the prestigious Yonsei University in Seoul, but in the U.S. he was forced to take odd jobs, from night watchman in a discount department store to working in a pizzeria. I remember hearing stories of Koreans with Ph.D.s who had mental breakdowns because they could only find work in factories alongside high school dropouts.

I also remember being asked, “What kind of ‘ese’ are you? Japanese? Chinese?”

Korean invisibility in America didn’t last, however. Korea’s international profile has grown; the current Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, is Korean. Here in the U.S., Korean-Americans are increasingly visible and influential, in the arts (for example, L.A. painter and graffiti artist David Choe) and in education and development (Jim Yong Kim, the former president of Dartmouth College, was appointed president of the World Bank in 2012). Korean cuisine is spreading beyond urban enclaves to the rest of America through the popularity of Korean barbecue. In music and entertainment, 2012 was a watershed year for the international phenomenon known as K-pop (Korean popular music) with the American debut of multi-platinum group Girls’ Generation. And only those who live under rocks were unaware of the sardonic lyrics and equine gyrations of Psy’s “Gangnam Style.”

Downtown L.A.’s coming 73-story New Wilshire Grand is of a piece with this cultural arrival. It will house a luxury hotel, restaurants, retail—and a rooftop pool. Right now, it is a hole in the ground—a hole with a new foundation after last week’s concrete pour. When it is completed (2017, says the schedule), it will rise to claim the title of tallest structure in the West. In one sense, the building has been in the making for generations. For this immigrant son, it is a testament to how much has changed in my beloved city of L.A., and country. It is a point of recognition and pride. Even if you don’t hear all that much conversation about it.

The post The Koreans Are Coming! The Koreans Are Coming! appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

It’s appropriate that the Dodgers were the ones making the history, given that some 300,000 Korean-Americans call the Los Angeles area home. Still, Ryu is not in Daejeon anymore—bottles of soju cost about $10 in L.A., and the galbi isn’t quite the same. To stay in the Dodgers’ starting rotation, Ryu must adapt to Major League Baseball, and the United States, quickly and convincingly.

It’s impossible to understand the mountain Ryu must climb without understanding Korean baseball. And a glance at Korean baseball says a whole lot, as sports usually do, about Korean society itself.

Ryu started playing professionally for the Hanwha Eagles, based in Daejeon in North Chungcheong province in the center of Korea, in 2006. To this point, his career statistics include 98 wins, 52 losses, a 2.80 Earned Run Average, and 1,238 strikeouts—numbers that make him one of the best pitchers of all time in the domestic league. Yet a game in Korea is a far cry from your average ballgame in North America.

There is no league quite like the KBO. Jamsil Stadium in southeastern Seoul, the largest ballpark in the capital, feels like a bizarre amalgamation of an English Premier League soccer match and a pop music concert. Fans flock to stadiums across the country en masse with inflatable “thunder” sticks, which they bang together in a deafening fervor, and respond to every single pitch with intense enthusiasm, as if witnessing a fourth down, fourth quarter throw in a close NFL playoff game—again and again. Crowds erupt and begin chanting after a single with two outs in the third inning. K-pop cheerleaders perform choreographed dances on stage in the middle of prominent stadium sections. And cans of Cass, OB, and Hite beers are ubiquitous; there are no stadium rules prohibiting outside food or drinks. Fans in Busan are known to be the rowdiest (check out what a day at the ballpark there is like here).

The league is one of the smallest in the world, with just nine teams, including the NC Dinos, who will compete for the first time this summer. That means pitchers face the same lineups often, and teams rarely travel far. In fact, the longest trip Ryu has made in the KBO is a three-hour train ride to Busan. (With the Dodgers he’ll make five-hour cross-country flights a couple of times a season.) South Korea, after all, is roughly the size of Indiana, but with 50 million people.

When Korean fans talk about which team they root for, they will often refer to the major conglomerate that sponsors the club rather than the team name. For example, while ESPN will list “LAD” and “NYM” at the bottom of the screen for the score of a Dodgers-Mets matchup, KBS in Korea uses “LG” and “Samsung” for a game between the LG Twins, based in Seoul, and Samsung Lions, based in Daegu.

It’s difficult to overstate the influence these conglomerates, or chaebols, have had on Korea’s rapid growth over the past four decades. The 30 largest chaebols accounted for 84 percent of Korean exports in 2010. Samsung Group alone accounts for more than 20 percent of Korea’s GDP. It’s thus very fitting that the Samsung Lions always seem to win. The Yankees of the KBO are back-to-back champions and are never short on funds when it comes to signing players.

Ryu’s career also sheds light on the very sensitive issue of mandatory military service in Korea. While fans cheer on the Doosan Bears in Seoul, North and South Korean soldiers face off against each other along the DMZ line a mere 35 miles away. Attitudes towards the South’s relationship with the North vary throughout the country with significant generational influences. But, regardless of what one thinks of the sinking of the Cheonan warship in 2010, all men must serve two years in the South Korean military. That is, all men who have not won a gold medal in the Olympics or earned another special exemption. Ryu, 26, is one of the few athletes who have not had to put their careers on hold in order to fulfill mandatory military service. As a star pitcher in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he helped Korea win the gold medal, prevailing over Japan in the semifinals and Cuba in the championship. Other star athletes such as soccer player Park Chu-young, who plays in Europe, have been accused of dodging the military and kicked off national teams.

Military service will most likely be far from Ryu’s mind when he battles National League lineups this summer, but it’s important to remember how far from home he truly is. It’s difficult to predict how pitchers from Asia will adapt to the level of play in the Majors. Yu Darvish, currently of the Texas Rangers, and former Dodgers pitcher Chan Ho Park are examples to emulate. But Dodgers fans would be better equipped to analyze Ryu’s potential with a fuller understanding of the world he has pitched in.

The post Samsung, Hyundai … Ryu appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

In Seattle, buses transported us to Fort Lawton, where we were billeted while we awaited a troop ship. We spent several days at Lawton housed in ugly tarpapered barracks. Our days were unstructured and therefore long. Some of the guys played poker, and others who looked more studious played cribbage and taught the game, too. Soon I was expertly calling out, “Fifteen two, fifteen four, and a run of three for seven points,” and moving my peg seven places forward on the wood scorekeeper.

On the morning of our departure we stuffed our belongings into our duffel bags, took our leave of the potbellied coal-burning stove that had kept us warm during that cold and rainy Seattle week, and boarded trucks that took us to the U.S.S. Frederick Funston (which had landed American troops at Salerno during World War II). As we walked up the gangplank, I pondered my good fortune in not having to board a ship bound for Korea, where so many of my fellow soldiers were going to lose their lives.

We immediately descended into the bowels of the ship to our assigned bunks—hammocks stacked three or four high (it took a little practice to maneuver one’s body into and out of a hammock). The ship sailed out of Seattle and through the Juan de Fuca Straits on an exquisitely clear day, Mt. Rainier presiding in the distance. At night, the Frederick Funston sailed under wartime conditions, blacked-out. Coming out on deck after sunset was to enter a world of absolute darkness. I heard the water of the ocean but could not see it. The only illumination sparkled in the heavens many light-years above, a wondrous, and humbling, sight.

Three days out of Seattle we docked at the military port of Whittier, Alaska, on Prince William Sound (where the Exxon Valdez caused an oil spill decades later), where we boarded a train that would take us to Fort Richardson, just outside the city of Anchorage some two hours away. That would be my permanent station. We saw moose grazing along the track and got our first glimpse of the snow-capped Chugach mountain range that overlooks Anchorage and Fort Richardson.

Our barracks were Quonset huts with semicircular metal roofs that curved down to form walls. The huts were heated by the same kind of potbellied stoves we had at Fort Lawton. Those stoves, and the fur-lined parkas over our uniforms, were our indispensable allies against the bracing Alaska air. (The coldest it ever got while I was there was 29 degrees below zero. That, the Anchorage newspapers assured us, was a cold spell.)

I put my gear away and lay down to continue reading about C.S. Forester’s Commodore Hornblower and his battles against the French in defense of the interests of the English Crown. Someone asked if I would like to join a group that was going to the PX, the Post Exchange. We stomped over the crinkly snow, led by a fellow soldier with a flashlight. There were no streetlights. There were no streets.

Not long afterwards we moved from the huts into a newly constructed fortress-like, three-story concrete building. Our 50th Army Postal Unit occupied one half of a first-floor wing of the building. In the other half, separated from us by a wide aisle, lived another unit, the 43rd Army Band. Each half was divided into cubicles about 12 feet square into which fit three bunks, two beds per bunk. Six of us used each cubicle. We lived in very close quarters.

The members of the Band lived close to us physically, but they were miles apart culturally. Like musicians everywhere they talked about their gigs, often playing for dances at the Officers’ Club. Still, one lazy Saturday afternoon I did join a group of them in one of their cubicles. One of the band members was trying out the art of hypnosis on a volunteer and telling him that, after coming out of his trance, he must say “Hooray for Hollywood!” every time someone lit a match. The post-hypnotic suggestion worked. Each time somewhat lit a match the volunteer would blurt out “Hooray for Hollywood!” We all found it hilarious, but the subject got angry over being laughed at for reasons he didn’t understand. When the amateur mesmerist tried to break the spell and failed—the subject kept yelling out “Hooray for Hollywood” with every lit match—he began to panic. Fortunately, a more experienced hypnotist came and restored order.

Our new building had a spacious mess hall, a barbershop, a laundry room, and a dry cleaner. One day I went to the dry cleaner with some uniforms, and, as I walked to the counter to set down the clothes, the proprietor, an Eskimo woman, moved to the door, shut and locked it, switched off the lights, and sidled over to me to try to embrace and kiss me. I was not flattered, and got out of there as rapidly as I was able. The Army word for Eskimo women was “clootchie,” a terribly offensive term, but incidents of heavy-handed female-to-male seduction attempts such as the one I experienced were, I learned from my fellow soldiers, common.

On most days we would rise at a leisurely hour, shower and shave, make our beds, police the area, have breakfast in the mess hall, and walk to work. I enjoyed trudging through the snow, especially on days when it was falling heavily, and we padded silently through the hushed world that enveloped us. Only our muffled voices disturbed the still whiteness that blanketed the landscape.

Major Wilson, a dapper man in his late 30s in the mustached style of the actor Ronald Colman, was the officer in charge of our unit. In civilian life Wilson had been a counselor at National Schools, a trade school that was located on Figueroa Boulevard in Los Angeles.

The army allowed for a modicum of individuality, contrary to what you might think. I never wore the droopy matching cap to our fatigues. Many soldiers wore their pant legs loose so that they covered their boots. Others, including me, had the more stylish sense of attaching the bottom of our pant legs to the tops of our boots with rubber bands.

Life became so routine that it was easy to imagine that we were just civilians who worked at a military facility, and this must have come to the attention of higher-ups. For a while, the reins tightened, and Major Wilson was forced to rouse us from our barracks in the early morning for calisthenics and close-order drill. Wilson would stand off to the side, a luxurious camel hair overcoat covering his tailored uniform, gloves on, cap firmly in place, and clearly irritated and bored. After a few weeks of strict Army-style living, we reverted to our more leisurely pace.

Our unit had men from all over the United States. Two were from New York City: Frank LaCara and another we called Nicky. Lars Nelson was an Aleut, born and raised in the Aleutians. Norbert Fleischacker and Paul Buechner were from Minneapolis-St. Paul. Our complaints about the cold amused them. “This isn’t cold,” they’d say. “Minneapolis is cold.” Joe Pinski, “Whitey,” was from Milwaukee. The first thing Whitey did when he awoke in the morning was to reach over to his locker for a cigarette. Vic Rak, from Cleveland, was forever asking me questions, possibly because I was rarely without a book in my hands.

I particularly liked Jim Barthol, from Colton, California. Jim was always cheerful and optimistic, never sloppy or unkempt, and never vulgar in his speech. I often made him laugh, usually because of some malapropism of mine. For instance, when I absent-mindedly referred to the RCA Victor logo—a dog with his ear to the phonograph with the words “His master’s voice”—as “the talking dog,” Jim laughed uncontrollably and told me what a great sense of humor I had.

Our post office was located in the large basement of a large building. On one end was a mail chute though which mail bags were dropped. Canvas sacks containing packages were emptied onto a large sorting table. Airmail came in large, bright-orange sacks. I worked in first-class mail with a San Franciscan named John Hession, who was a good worker but did not sort as rapidly as I did. When company mail clerks from the various military units came in to pick up their daily batch, they’d rib him about the deliberateness of his movements. “Hey, Hession,” they’d call out. “How come you’re so slow and Rodriguez is so fast?” John took it well, as did I.

A movie house provided diversion. It was there I saw Call Me Madam, a musical with Ethel Merman and Donald O’Connor, and the reaction of my fellow soldiers, who booed every time an actor burst into song, portended the end of movie musicals. When the audience is unable to suspend disbelief, the game is over. A few times I accompanied Barthol and a couple of others to the post beer hall. Hank Williams’ “Cold, Cold Heart” and Tony Bennett’s “Because of You” were popular, as was Johnny Ray’s “Cry.”

Anchorage was a thriving town with a population of 12,000, and on occasion we ventured in. Jim Barthol, Vic Rak, John Hession, Joe Sabo, and I went to a restaurant one evening and all ordered steak. The waitress began with me, asking how I preferred my steak, but I had no idea what she meant. After an uncomfortable pause, Jim Barthol, eager to rescue me from embarrassment, broke in and ordered his steak first. He was a class act. The more adventuresome members of the 50th APU patronized an Anchorage nightclub called The Green Lantern. They called it The Green Latrine.

Our unit had three sergeants. One we knew as Rick, a fidgety unsmiling fellow of about 35 with crew-cut blond hair. Rick was above it all, including all of us. He had a curious habit of painting his toenails red. No one ever asked him why. Sergeant Walton, from the South, was easygoing and pleasant. His sleeves were heavy with service stripes that told us he was a veteran of World War II. The third sergeant, Kowalsky, was completely useless. He reported to work on Monday mornings with a hangover, and if we were lucky he would gather himself on some old canvas mailbags and fall asleep.

Another unique character was a private named Bill, whom we all called by his preferred name, “Queenie.” When he was in the mood, Queenie held court on his bunk and played records, his favorites being those of Hilo Hattie with the orchestra of Harry Owens and his Royal Hawaiians. His favorite song went, “The Princess Poo-poo-ly has plenty papaya, she loves to give it away.” We never asked Queenie about his private life. Our rule was “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Several times during the winter we would bivouac, leaving the warmth and comfort of our barracks to live in the boondocks, simulating our response to an attack by an invading enemy. Field kitchens were set up and food prepared in giant pots. At meal times we lined up, metal eating utensils in hand. After eating we washed them by dipping them in scalding water. We slept in sleeping bags laid on the snow, our rifles nearby at the ready.

During one bivouac we engaged in war games and camouflaged ourselves by donning oversized white winter uniforms, pulling them over our parkas. White hoods obscured our faces, and we wore enormous white boots. Reconnoitering the area we spotted an enemy force some distance away and approached stealthily, satisfied to hear their muffled voices grow louder as they chatted on, seemingly unaware of our approach. Moving closer, we heard more clearly what they were saying: “Wow, what big rabbits!”

In my final Army weeks, time slowed down, but the day of my departure finally arrived. Those of us scheduled for discharge took a train to Whittier, a ship to Seattle, a flight on a scheduled airliner to San Francisco, and a bus to Fort Ord, where I was discharged, with the rank of Corporal, on May 6, 1953. I had served a few days less than two years. In that time, I had taken my first train rides and traveled for the first time by air, by sea, and by Greyhound bus.

The Army forcibly removed me from the unrewarding life I had been living and gave me the opportunity to meet people from every part of the country. A camaraderie exists among Americans who have served in the military, and, while combat veterans rank higher in honors, we ordinary veterans, too, have our place. I’d expected to encounter men very different from me. Instead, I encountered fellow Americans.

The post When I Got Sent to Anchorage Instead of Pyongyang appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

My military service began, in a sense, when I registered with the Selective Service System upon reaching my 18th birthday. On September 17, 1948, local draft board 121 issued me a draft card. (My last name on it was misspelled–as “Rodriquez”–as it was to be on each of the five Selective Service cards that followed.)

In June 1950, I was on a trip to Yosemite with my brother Raul, who had also registered for the draft, when I heard the news that North Korea had attacked South Korea and that President Truman was going to order the U.S. military to South Korea. We realized immediately that our lives were about to change.

On May 25, 1951, after an induction ceremony in the Mode O’Day building at Washington Boulevard and Hill Street in Los Angeles, I was no longer a civilian but a Private in the U.S. Army. My orders were to report to Union Station and take a train to Salinas. There, buses met us for transport to nearby Fort Ord, where we would undergo 14 weeks of basic training. I was assigned to training company C of the 20th Infantry Division.

The first two days at Fort Ord were devoted to getting recruits their clothes, very short hair cuts, shots, and other necessities. The Quartermaster issued us readymade uniforms and footwear with while-you-wait efficiency. My ID tags–dog tags–gave my name, my rank, and my serial number, U.S. 5609 5744. I have never forgotten it. The initials U.S. identified me as a draftee. Regular army personnel used R.A. (Whenever one of us appeared to be working too conscientiously, he risked having others label him R.A.)

We lived in white two-story wood barracks furnished with cots. At the foot of each cot was a green wooden footlocker for personal effects. Each article had its place: rolled up socks facing in the proper direction, underwear, handkerchiefs folded the Army way, comb, and razor. Behind each cot was a rack on which to hang our clothes, left sleeve showing, and a shelf above it for our helmets. Throughout the room were several substantial wood posts to which were nailed two-pound coffee cans painted red and half-filled with water. These were the “butt cans,” offered for the convenience of smokers.

Near the entrance of each floor was a rack in which we locked our rifles. Each of us was issued an M1 Garand, a rifle that General George Patton called “the greatest battle implement ever devised.” It was an air-cooled, gas-operated, clip-fed, semi-automatic shoulder weapon. Each clip held eight 30-caliber rounds. Everyone memorized his rifle’s serial number. We also learned to disassemble and reassemble the rifle blindfolded, by touch alone.

Cleaning our weapons and polishing our boots occupied a lot of our free time, giving us a chance to shoot the bull. Most of us were Californians, but at least two were from Arkansas and another from Massachusetts. Because the bungalows that housed the company were populated in alphabetical order, I had the company of three others who shared my last name. Jose Rodriguez was a mild-mannered fellow with an Alfred E. Newman grin. Luis Rodriguez was a streetwise guy who preferred the tough look. Ramon Rodriguez looked like a confused adolescent. At the barbershop, where Ramon was forced to see the curls of his pompadour tumble to the floor, he broke into tears.

There was also an outcast among us: Schloss, who was never known by any other name. Poor Schloss, a Jewish immigrant from Europe, had a squat body, short legs, a large head, and an enormous mouth, and he spoke English with a heavy accent. His manner was passive, even obsequious, and it invited bullying. Jose and Luis did what they could to make his life difficult. They made fun of his accent. They short-sheeted him so he could not get into bed. They threw his bedding, mattress and all, out the second story window. The behavior of his torturers was shameful, but Schloss might have put a stop to it with a raging defense of his dignity. Instead, he’d smile and grovel, ensuring further persecution.

Saturday mornings brought an inspection of the barracks. We’d prepare the night before with a “G.I. Party,” a thorough cleaning and scrubbing of the living area. Legend had it that the inspecting officer would wear white gloves in order to detect dust and flip a coin onto each bed to see if it bounced. To this day I make my bed Army-style.

Bugle calls regulated our days. Reveille sounded at 6 a.m., when a corporal switched on the lights and we fell in for 30 minutes of calisthenics in front of the barracks. Fort Ord was near the ocean, and on winter mornings the damp cold was invigorating. After exercising we’d shower and shave and wait for Mess Call to summon us to breakfast. Bedtime was at 10 p.m., when Taps played and the lights went out.

Much time was devoted to close order drill. “Forward, march!” the drill sergeant would shout. “Left flank, march! Halt! Parade rest! At ease!” Lectures took place in wood bungalows, where instructors used blackboards and slides to teach us about weapons, the use of gas masks, map reading, and venereal diseases.

I loved the discipline of the Army. I can only imagine the conditions that we men could have created absent strict rules. On Sunday afternoons and evenings, when we began to return from weekend leaves and discipline disappeared, the barracks, especially the toilet areas, became indescribably filthy.

During inspection we stood at attention in ranks and at Port Arms, holding our rifles diagonally across the chest with the rifle muzzle pointed to the left. The inspecting officer walked down each rank, stopping in front of the man he wanted to check. No one looked the officer in the eye–to do so would be a breach of military etiquette. On occasion the officer would take your rifle, peer up the barrel for signs of carbon that had not been cleaned, and open the breech to check if it had been cleaned and oiled.

Target practice took place across the highway toward the ocean on the firing range, where we fired at white targets up to 500 yards away. The range master, from a perch in the tower, told us what firing position to assume, prone or on one knee, and, in a moment I enjoyed for its high drama, announced, “Ready on the right, ready on the left, ready on the firing line! Commence firing!” Fellow recruits stationed in the pits would raise and lower the targets, placing large black tags over any bullet holes. Failure to hit anything earned a red flag and some pointers from the observing instructors.

We also fired other weapons: the light and heavy machine guns, the bazooka, the mortar, the 45-caliber pistol, the carbine, and the BAR, the Barrington Automatic Rifle. The BAR was much heavier than the M1, and we fired it from the hip as we walked a range with popup targets in human shapes. There was no mistaking that we were learning how to kill and how to avoid being killed. We practiced tossing grenades and placed bayonets on our rifles to attack figures stuffed with straw. We were reminded to pack our gas masks before going out in the field, but one day I forgot it. That was the day we encountered tear gas, and I learned a lesson about the importance of obeying orders to the letter. Tear gas smarts.

On Saturdays after morning inspection we received weekend passes. Because I had a 1941 Ford parked at a garage in Seaside, I set up a jitney service and gave three of my fellow trainees rides to Los Angeles, charging each $10.00 for the round trip. We left Seaside around noon and reached Los Angeles at around 10 p.m., only to be back on the road the next day by 2 p.m. to reach Ord by midnight. It was an absurd way to spend a weekend. Except that those who stayed in the barracks soon found that they were easy prey for a sergeant looking for recruits to pull KP, kitchen police duty, peeling hundreds of potatoes, and scrubbing outsized pots and pans for hours at a time.

Toward the end of our 14 weeks we underwent exercises that simulated combat conditions. We advanced toward a group of buildings held by an enemy that fired at us, and we encountered explosions and smoke and clanking tanks lumbering noisily toward us. Even though we knew we were in no real danger, it was terrifying.

As we experienced simulated combat, the possibility of real combat drew ever closer. Jokes about becoming cannon fodder ceased, and no one mentioned Korea anymore. One tall, blond, thin boy from Arkansas who had lied about his age to get into the Army had second thoughts and revealed the truth. He was released to go home. Ralph Marciano, a saxophonist from Massachusetts, played more melancholy music. During one of our last activities, a 20-mile march lugging full packs and rifles, the kidding and horseplay that had accompanied our previous marches and group activities were no more. We all had the same thought; nobody voiced it.

To mark the end of our training, our company participated in a full dress parade on the base Parade Grounds. Several bands played, and we marched with other companies to the cadence of martial music. We wore our Class A uniforms with hundreds of spectators looking on and flags flying. I was proud that day to be a soldier in the Army of the United States. I was proud to be an American. I still am.

I believe that any commander-in-chief would profit from having undergone the rigors of military basic training. He would also benefit from having felt the weight of possible deployment to a combat zone (not to mention actual combat).

The next day, Saturday, was our last day at Fort Ord. We fell in after breakfast in front of Company Headquarters, standing at attention in ranks facing the Company Commander. Our orders had been cut, and in a few minutes each of us would receive his set. That piece of paper would determine which of us would live and which would die.

When my name was called I went up for mine. I scanned the papers rapidly, looking for the word “Korea.” The terse and formal language belied the significance of the orders:

Classification and Assignment Team
U S Army, Alaska
Fort Lawton, Washington
Assignment and Orientation Data
Fort Richardson-APO 949

I remembered that toward the end of basic training, when Army job placement personnel interviewed us, I had told my interviewer about my work as a postal clerk at the Terminal Annex in Los Angeles. Alaska Command, it turned out, needed postal clerks.

Had I been sent to war, I would have done my duty, followed orders, and hoped for the best, just as American troops in warzones are doing today. Tens of thousands of young Americans went to Korea, and, officially, 36,568 died there. Many of my fellow trainees were among them, but I don’t know who got sent and who didn’t. That day, after receiving my orders, I left the grounds immediately and headed to my car.

The post The Joys of Basic Training, 1951 appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

In late July, a malicious code infiltrated South Korea’s major portal site Nate and the social networking service Cyworld, the “Facebook of Korea,” granting cyber attackers with an IP address originating in China access to some 35 million netizens’ personal information. The attack, allegedly directed by North Korea, was the largest in the South’s history, more severe than the hacks in April that exposed the personal information of 425,000 Hyundai Capital users and paralyzed Nonghup’s banking system for days.

The attack on Cyworld shocked Koreans in a way that no online security breach has ever shocked Americans. This was not akin to a case of hackers gaining access to your embarrassing Facebook Chat conversations with an ex-girlfriend or tagged photos of you at last year’s New Year’s Eve party, or someone stumbling upon discrete information about one firm’s customers. No, thanks to Korea’s Real Name Verification and Cyber Insult Laws, enacted in 2008, those hacking Korea from outside made off with a treasure chest of critical information. July’s hackers accessed 35 million Internet users’ names, cellphone numbers, e-mail addresses, social security numbers, passwords, occupations, office numbers, and blood types. In a country of 48 million that is still technically at war, the idea that nearly 100 percent of the online population’s private data is now in the hands of the enemy is more than a little disconcerting.

You can blame bullies–and not solely the ones in Pyongyang–for this turn of events. It was “cyber bullying,” after all, that catalyzed the ratification of South Korea’s “real name” verification system and Cyber Insult Law after the beloved actress Choi Jin-sil, a victim of malicious online gossip, hung herself in her bathroom in October 2008. Leading politicians from the ruling Grand National Party–no fans themselves of nasty, anonymous online commentary–rushed to limit unfettered, unattributed online speech. This was not a dissent-crushing despotic regime looking to control access to information, but rather one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies turning the nature of the Internet on its head.

The “real name” verification policy requires extensive personal data as a prerequisite to accessing Web sites that receive more than 300,000 daily views on average. As a foreigner living in Seoul, the effects of this policy are immediately apparent. First, I have difficulty accessing Korean Web sites. This can be partially attributed to my use of an Apple computer with Chrome, Firefox, and Safari browsers (Korean Web sites are made for Internet Explorer, an odd quirk for such a high-tech society). My Korean language skills are also limited. But the key reason I was unable to purchase tickets for the Harry Potter finale online was my lack of a social security number and other essential personal information. It’s like being unable to get on a plane back home, for lack of identification.

With verified names attached to every online movement on all the major Korean sites, the government’s approach to the online universe is unusual. Could its national policy influence what is essentially a borderless medium? Could Korea’s clampdown on online anonymity spread?

It is too soon to tell for sure where the Korean experiment will end up, but there are reasons to believe that what Seoul imposes on its netizens is unlikely to undermine online users’ privacy in Los Angeles. For one thing, Korea is a self-contained online cul-de-sac, with a deeply entrenched language that is hard on outsiders. Second, Korea has an extensive online business culture of its own. Facebook and Google face formidable homegrown competition from the likes of Cyworld and Naver. Google commands only 2 percent market share, compared to Naver (68 percent), Daum (20 percent), and Nate (7 percent). Other online businesses beyond search are similarly dominated by domestic players. With users sticking to Korean Web sites instead of foreign-controlled ones, the government has more leverage to govern the online space.

Still, the brief history of the RNVL makes clear the limitations of centralized approaches to Internet policy in general, and of the Korean government’s specific efforts to affect the relationship between governments and the Web. Regulating content on the Web has proven difficult in open societies, if not seemingly impossible, and Korea is hardly alone in attempting to do so. The U.S. government still struggles to prevent illegal file-sharing within its borders, a decade after the landmark Napster vs. A&M Records court case. Anyone proficient in Googling can figure out how to download a Bob Dylan box set in 15 minutes.

Governments seek to maintain order online for a number of reasons. In 1996, President Bill Clinton pushed forward the Communications Decency Act aiming to regulate Internet obscenity, although the Supreme Court would rule it unconstitutional. American regulators tie themselves into knots chasing online gamblers and their online dealers. In the Internet’s early stages, the French government took Yahoo to court because the Web site allowed a user to advertise the sale of Nazi memorabilia, a crime in the European state. In the midst of trade negotiations, including the current Korea-U.S. free trade agreement sitting in Congress and the National Assembly, upholding copyright standards is a critical pillar of bilateral business, prompting agencies to block domain names and pressure search engines.

But in open societies, governments have generally been careful not to encroach on the right to remain anonymous online. There are ways to track down who is behind online activity, when necessary, and these digital footprints are becoming easier to detect. But for the most part people feel they can preserve their anonymity online if they so desire–a prerogative that is both a blessing and a curse. The comments pages under any semi-controversial YouTube video reveal the discouraging reality of Internet anonymity. Yes, there may be dissident and whistle-blower bloggers unveiling corrupt practices under pseudonyms here and there, but there are also plenty of intolerant seventh graders availing themselves of such anonymity to harass Facebook pages devoted to celebrating Ramadan.

Korea’s attempt to chisel away at the sanctity of online privacy would not be as effective in nations that are more reliant on outside Internet businesses integrated into a global community. Facebook’s enormous presence in Indonesia, for example, affords that country’s government less latitude to dictate how Indonesians engage social media than if it were dealing primarily with Indonesian sites.

But even the Korean experience has proven the limits of centralized Internet control. As the government requires real names for major Korean Web sites, young users flock easily to foreign-based sites where they can remain anonymous. YouTube Korea prohibits users from uploading or commenting on videos while their location is set on YouTube settings. However, anyone in South Korea can click on the “geography” tab on the U.S.-based Web site and change their location to California. Cyworld’s strict policies are noted as a major cause of Facebook’s increasing market share.

The latest cyber attacks have magnified the problems inherent in a real name verification system. Last month, Cyworld’s parent, SK Communications, became the first Korean Internet company to declare it will no longer require extensive information to open accounts, and said it plans to destroy its current database that was accessed by the July hackers. While trends suggest greater corporate and governmental control of the Internet in the 21st century, the Korean experience will make future policy makers think twice about eliminating anonymity from the Web.

Maxwell Coll, a New Delhi-born Washingtonian/New Orleanian, works for the Korea JoongAng Daily in association with the International Herald Tribune.

*Photo courtesy of powtac.

The post Korea’s Online Clash appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Many of us dream of finding someone to grow old with. Not many of us dream of growing old with someone we hate. But my grandmother has hated my grandfather for 69 years–and counting. Theirs was a relationship forged under circumstances entirely foreign to most of us today.

My grandfather, Young Choi, was born in 1917, during World War I. By the age of four, he had already lost a parent. (His father, rushing home from work, had grabbed onto a train that was pulling away from the station and slipped onto the tracks, getting crushed under the wheels.) After being widowed, Young’s mother sold her late husband’s business and used the money to purchase a modest plot of farmland on the southeastern coast of Korea. That’s where my grandfather was raised. There was little to do but study, and my grandfather excelled in school. Eventually, he got a university scholarship and earned a degree in economics.

My grandmother, Ok Park, was born in 1924. When Ok was seven, her mother died, leaving Ok to be raised by a stepmother whom Ok hated. Ok’s father was of little comfort. He was busy managing his business, a successful wine factory in northern Korea, and largely absent.

In 1942, when Ok was 18, she was told that a husband had been found for her, a man seven years her senior. That was Young Choi, my grandfather. Ok was distraught. She did not want to marry this man. She even considered running away, but she had nowhere to run. In that era, Korean women could barely graduate from high school, let alone college.

My grandfather didn’t want to get married, either–or at least not to Ok Park. He was an economics major, fluent in Japanese and Korean, with a love of Tchaikovsky and books. (He was also in love with someone else, although it never came to anything more.) Ok Park was an unschooled, unfriendly and callow teenager.

But neither party really had any choice. The courtship game of Korea had simple rules. Parents of the groom chose a bride-to-be. If the bride’s family consented, the marriage was set. “Get married” was as final as “go clean your room.” Once married, a bride was expected to leave her family and live with her new husband and his parents, cooking and cleaning and bearing children. Daughters-in-law were chosen largely based on how strong and healthy they appeared to be. Apparently, my great-grandmother viewed Ok Park as a healthy-looking girl. In 1942, Young and Ok were married.

I think Ok must have decided from the start to make a mental note of everything she hated about her new husband. Today, it’s a list of almost infinite length, encompassing everything from manner of eating to habits of door locking. One of its cornerstones is that Young, at least in Ok’s opinion, was responsible for the death of Ok’s brother.

The incidents surrounding the death of Ok’s brother took place during the Korean War. In the summer of 1950, the North Korean People’s Army kicked off hostilities on the Korean peninsula. Civilians in the path of the invading army picked up whatever they could and fled to the southern tip of the Korean peninsula. Young and Ok, however, could not flee. Young had just gotten his appendix removed, and Ok had only recently given birth to a son. They stayed in Seoul.

One day, in the middle of the wartime mayhem, Young was seized with a craving for candy and wanted to head outside to get some. Ok yelled at him not to leave the house, that it was dangerous, but Young didn’t listen. Surely, he told her, the invading soldiers wouldn’t bother a man who’d just gotten his appendix removed. Unfortunately, the North Korean troops had a different opinion on the matter. Young and his candy were seized and taken up to the north. He would remain in captivity for several years.

That’s when Ok’s brother came into the story. He’d found work as a translator for the American troops. At one point, the U.S. military decided to send him on an assignment that would take him to North Korea. Before leaving, my grandmother’s brother promised her that he’d bring her husband back. But this never happened. A few weeks after Ok’s brother left for the north, he went missing. Then Ok received a letter informing her that her brother had been killed. How and why it happened–or whether it had anything to do with my grandfather (although almost certainly not)–is something no one knows. But Ok blamed Young all the same.

Eventually, American troops pushing northward captured Young and took him into custody as a suspected ally of the communists. Young was now shipped south, where he remained in detention until the end of the war. Finally, after three years, Young was freed. When he returned home, it was to a wife who considered him to be the cause of her brother’s death.

After the war, my grandparents had almost nothing. They struggled to provide for their children, three sons and a daughter. They couldn’t afford to eat eggs, fresh fruits or vegetables. Instead, they ate mostly white rice, kimchi and chicken soup. Ok’s children skipped classes to help her sell rice cakes outside of their school.

Life was unremittingly hard, and everyone dreamed of a change. Then a vaguely plausible hope of leaving Korea began to dawn. When Young was in his late 40s, the United States relaxed its immigration policy. Under the new guidelines, quotas for non-European immigrants were going to be more generous. After a great deal of discussion, Young decided to try his luck at age 50. He filed the necessary paperwork in January 1967. Two years later, a letter came from the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship granting Young approval for admission to the United States.

In 1970, Young sold the family house in Korea (it was the only way to pay for the airfare) and left with Ok and their daughter, the only one of the children still under 18, for the United States. The three of them landed in Pennsylvania in the winter of 1970. After a brief and difficult time in the east, Young found an accounting job at a Los Angeles department store called the Broadway. The family of three moved west.

In 1972, the three older boys who’d stayed behind in Korea got permission to move to the United States, too, and the family was reunited. Ok took a job as a seamstress in what became the garment industry of downtown, and her three sons went off to work odd jobs. Her daughter worked part-time and attended UCLA. The six of them crammed themselves into a one-bedroom apartment on Vermont south of Ninth Street. They had no car and barely any savings.

For the next twenty years, Young and Ok did almost nothing but work. There were material improvements. The family grew. There were grandchildren, of whom I, the third daughter of their third son, was one. But Young and Ok stayed compulsively busy. Save for eating dinner together, they rarely saw each other. They were too exhausted by the end of the day to converse, let alone argue. For a marriage made up of two non-loving partners, it was an ideal arrangement.

Of course, even if she’d had time to indulge her feelings fully, my grandmother would never have allowed divorce to cross her mind. There is a saying in Korean: Nehgah cheghim jikkae. It literally means, “I will take responsibility for you.” In many ways, it is even stronger than the words “I love you.” Marriage is a responsibility. A woman, traditionally, is a wife and mother to her husband and children, and a man is a husband, father, and provider for the family.

What my grandmother did faithfully do, however, was add to her list of “Million Things I Hate About Your Grandfather.” Even after sixty-nine years, the list continues to grow. Recent additions include his slowness in getting out of the car, his poor hearing, and his oddball compulsion of counting the number of times he chews his food. I can see her blood rising to a boil when her husband starts to speak. Not surprisingly, my grandfather has become a man of few words.

I used to tell my mom that I wanted to be swept away someday by a tall, dark Italian driving a Vespa. All she’d reply was that love is but a moment’s passion. Why wouldn’t I prefer the loyalty of a husband who was obligated to me by law? “White people say ‘I love you’ like it’s ‘Hello, how do you do?'” my mother complained. “They love everyone! How do you know he will love you the most and want to stay with you forever?”

And my parents wonder why I don’t want to get married.

Of course, I understand why my parents view marriage as they do, but their notion of the ideal spouse runs completely counter to the sort of person they raised me to be. They taught me to sell lemonade when I was 5, buy stocks when I was 10, and weigh my retirement fund options before I’d even started working. (Conveniently, they’ve also decided on medical school for me). They sent me to institutions that encouraged me to speak my mind and challenge others. That’s hardly likely to make me into someone who’ll simply relinquish her freedom and independence.

When I consider what my elders went through, I’m profoundly happy to live in a society that’s free of the sort of expectations of their generation. Still, I can’t deny the potency of those expectations in forging cohesive families. The sense of duty that binds my grandmother to a man she hates–a sense of duty that drives women in Korean society half-insane–is also the sense of duty that gave her the resolve to put in sixty-nine years of work to keep a household going. The spousal obligations that keep South Korean women so suppressed and Korean society so patriarchal are also the obligations that make a Korean mother’s bond with her child so strong.

Whatever the benefits of a sense of duty might be, though, they start to feel slight when I spend time with my grandparents in the same room. What’s strangest to me about my grandmother’s feelings towards my grandfather is that she combines such fierce love for her children with such fierce hatred toward the man who helped create them. How can you love someone who embodies half of the person you most hate? But apparently you can. When my grandfather’s eyes wander to a nearby table of women and my grandmother yells, “Just eat your food instead of looking at that table next to you,” I have to marvel at the power of her resolve. I suppose loyalty, compared to love, really is more powerful. It’s just far from beautiful.

Elaine Choi is an intern at Zócalo Public Square.

*Photo courtesy of Graela.

The post To Have and to Hate appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.