Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 05:56:34 -0800 (PST) From: the_dojang-request@martialartsresource.net Subject: The_Dojang digest, Vol 9 #130 - 6 msgs X-Mailer: Mailman v2.0.8 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Sender: the_dojang-admin@martialartsresource.net Errors-To: the_dojang-admin@martialartsresource.net X-BeenThere: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.8 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net X-Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net List-Help: List-Post: X-Subscribed-Address: rterry@idiom.com List-Subscribe: List-Id: The Internet's premier discussion forum on Korean Martial Arts. List-Unsubscribe: Status: O Send The_Dojang mailing list submissions to the_dojang@martialartsresource.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/the_dojang or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to the_dojang-request@martialartsresource.net You can reach the person managing the list at the_dojang-admin@martialartsresource.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of The_Dojang digest..." <<------------------ The_Dojang mailing list ------------------>> Serving the Internet since June 1994. Copyright 1994-2002: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource The Internet's premier discussion forum devoted to Korean Martial Arts. See the Korean Martial Arts (KMA) FAQ and the online search engine for back issues of The_Dojang at http://MartialArtsResource.com Pil Seung! Today's Topics: 1. Korea Studies Conference (Ray Terry) 2. Under the Black Umbrella (Ray Terry) 3. Heavy Hand (richard kolyer) 4. Dan test fees again (Charles Richards) 5. Re: Organizational Management Stuff (Bruce Sims) 6. summer program (Ray Terry) --__--__-- Message: 1 From: Ray Terry To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2002 21:25:31 PST Subject: [The_Dojang] Korea Studies Conference Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net A website with a full schedule of the Cambridge University Korea conference. Eventually it is hoped that this website will also have details of the other activities of the Cambridge University East Asia Institute. http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~jhs22/korea/ --__--__-- Message: 2 From: Ray Terry To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2002 21:34:16 PST Subject: [The_Dojang] Under the Black Umbrella Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net _Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, 1910-1945_, by Hildi Kang. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press. 2001. 166 pages, xviii. ISBN: 0-8014-3854-3. Cloth, $25.00. Reviewed by Mark Caprio Rikkyo University, Tokyo Hildi Kang developed the idea to write _Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea_ while listening to her Korean father-in-law tell stories of his experiences during the period of Japanese occupation. Missing from these memories were the accounts of Japanese atrocities preserved in the "passionate stories of martyrs" that she had come to expect. In conducting the research that culminated into her book, Kang came to realize that "under the shade cast by the Japanese presence, some people, some of the time, led close to normal lives" (p. 21). The recollections that she collected contribute an essential (but to date neglected) ingredient to our understanding of Korea's colonial history. Their contents disturb the neat package that pits the colonizing (Japanese) aggressor against the colonized (Korean) victim. _Under the Black Umbrella_ is essentially a volume compiled from a collection of authors - fifty-one to be exact. Kang's contacts also tell stories that they heard from parents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents and thus enable her readers to gain a sense of Korean life before annexation as well. Kang's interview style appears informal: rather than preparing a list of questions she left the direction of the discussion to her informants. In addition to providing personal insights to newsworthy events, such as the 1919 March First Movement, their memories allow us a glimpse of the mundane: daily Korean-Japanese interactions, work experiences, income and expenses, and overseas travel. Attitudes that the Korean harbored toward their Japanese subjugators, both negative and positive, embroider the tapestry Kang weaves of the everyday life that many residing on the peninsula endured over this period. To date the majority of English language accounts by Koreans of their lives during the thirty-six years of colonial rule have been written by individuals committed to exposing the atrocities committed by the Japanese. Their stories tell of patriotic efforts trampled by the heavy foot of the omnipresent colonizer, an oppression that forced many of these writers to flee their country. Two of the more popular accounts of this genre are Richard Kim's _Lost Names_ and Peter Hyun's _Man Sei!_. Earlier, Louise Yim (_My Forty Year Fight for Korea_) and Induk Park (_September Monkey_) introduced us to the lives of female participants in the March First Movement. More recently painful first-hand recollections of the plight that the comfort women faced in the latter part of this history have added a valuable (albeit terribly sad) dimension to our understanding of this period. Other second-hand scholarly accounts that have incorporated discussion of Korean daily life include Carter Eckert's _Offspring of Empire_ and Soon-won Park's _Colonial Industrialization and Labor in Korea_. Kang's work represents the first book written in English devoted specifically to the oral histories of a wide variety of ordinary Koreans under Japanese rule. The stories contained in _Under the Black Umbrella_ complicate not only the neat picture of colonial life in Korea but colonial situations more generally. The multiple voices that Kang amplifies reflect the Japanese arrogance and brutality found in the majority of portrayals of this period. They also append positive experiences, however, including the kindness and respect that a number of Japanese extended toward the Korean. We can expect that the majority of the people residing on the Korean peninsula during the Japanese occupation would identify with the response that Kang commonly heard when she asked her informants to talk about their experiences: "nothing much happened to me." Indeed, she had to discard a number of her interviews because the informant apparently had nothing extraordinary to relate. Those who felt their stories worth preserving, though, offered experiences from both extremes: some endured terrible hardships and repression at the hands of the Japanese resident in Korea while others remember this encounter in more positive terms. Watching a Japanese inspector force a farmer to eat the worms that inhabited his grass roof left ChOng T'ae'ik with a bitter impression of the colonizers (p. 104). The help and advice that Hong Ulsu received from his yakuza (Japanese gangster) boss encouraged the businessman through to his graduation from Tokyo's Aoyama University in 1932 (pp. 31-2). It was not always the Japanese who left them their most bitter memories. Yi HajOn, for example, complained that it was the Korean prison staff members who tortured him (p. 91). Clever Koreans, reported Hong Ulsu, participated in robbing their fellow countrymen of their land, as well (pp. 12-3). These oral histories are especially helpful in adding to our understanding of Korean participation in Japanese institutions. Statistics of Korean participation in these institutions were used by the Japanese to demonstrate the success of their assimilation policies. Kang's informants interject doubt into such a conclusion. Many remember their participation as stimulated by a desire for personal gain; others felt compelled to cooperate. Kim P. (anonymous) reported that she used her father's employment and connections to secure entrance into a better (predominately Japanese expatriate) school. Kang PyOngju remembered the Japanese "child-catchers" patrolling neighborhoods to "round up children and force them to attend primary school," although education was voluntary at the time (p. 51). His attendance in a Japanese-administered school was decided after his Korean teacher was shot in the leg during the March First Movement. His father, a doctor, had to formally enroll his son in school before he was allowed to administer aid to the injured man (p. 52). Nor were Korean visits to Japanese Shinto shrines always undertaken to demonstrate acceptance of Japanese assimilation policies. Informants remember these visits for reasons other than their respect for Japanese deities. Yi Okpum recalls the visits as necessary for survival: the shrine served as the distribution center for food ration tickets (p. 113). Yi OkhyOn, and other Koreans on Japanese police black lists, took part in Shinto ceremonies to avoid endangering their already fragile existence (p. 114). Ch'u Pongye recalls the beautiful view from the shrine site that overlooked the city of Pusan as ideal for her picnics (p. 114). Japanese discrimination against the Korean people is evident from statistics and other second-hand accounts left from the period. Kang's informants offer first-hand experiences of this injustice. Ch'oe P'anbang felt discrimination in his job at the Ministry of Communication: the Japanese got stipends for "hardship assistance" and housing that augmented their already inflated salaries; Koreans were assigned the less popular graveyard shift more frequently than their Japanese counterparts; and the Japanese promoted their kind more readily than the Korean worker (p. 70). Yang SOngdOk complained that the Japanese received permits to open stores quicker than the Korean merchants did. This advantage placed them in a better position to eliminate any future Korean competition (p. 70). Korean students attending colleges, reports Kang PyOngju, faced (and insisted on preserving) segregation in all aspects of their lives, from their out-of-school activities to their living arrangements: they did not mix in student committees and resided in dorms segregated by building. Opposition to attempts to mix the two peoples forced plans for integrated rooms to be downgraded to integrated dorms segregated by hall (pp. 53-54). A number of informants, however, do not recall this time as laden with anti-Korean discrimination. Kim WOngOk, who worked alongside Japanese on an opium farm, felt that he received equal pay, promotions, and treatment (p. 67) and that he enjoyed a similar experience after being transferred to another job in a different city during the war. His boss, Kim recalls, "looked like a typical Japanese. But he did not talk or act typical," for he criticized his country's "narrow island mentality," likening the Japanese to a "little frog in a little pond." Even more strikingly, Kang PyOngju was so respected in his village that even the local Japanese police chief would bow to him whenever they passed on the street (p. 59). Some stories told by Kang's informants reveal encounters on a basic human level that blur the distinctions generally separating Japanese and Korean. The two peoples, united by a shared fate, at times found affinity in their desire to lead a normal life rather than hostility over ethnic differences. One such experience is reported by Kang Sang'uk who recalls exchanging comic books, attending birthday parties, and playing marbles with his Japanese neighbors. He even joined his Japanese friends in poking fun at the Emperor's speeches, although not in public (p. 116). Even people hounded by the Japanese secret police managed to develop a humane relationship with their pursuers. Yu HyegyOng's family fed the detective assigned to watch over her father and eventually they all became good friends. After all, she recalls, "we were all humans" (p. 108). Hildi Kang's work injects a much neglected human dimension into our understanding of the thirty-six years of Japanese rule in Korea by attaching voices to the statistics, reports, memos, and other documents generally used to recreate Korean-Japanese interactions during this difficult period. She has produced an essential supplement to other works that have appeared on this history, as well as a companion to be read in conjunction with the oral histories of other colonial situations. Those not familiar with Korean colonial history, however, may find the book troublesome. The author does provide a thumbnail sketch of political and social developments at the beginning of each new section of her book, but these summaries only contextualize her informants' recollections; they are not intended as a conclusive history of this period. Those familiar with this history might question points raised in these brief summaries, such as Kang's periodization of the era. Labeling the 1931-1945 period as the "years of assimilation" without explanation is misleading: in the eyes of the Japanese, assimilation policy characterized the entire period. The last fifteen years represented an intensification of this policy during a wartime situation rather than a change in the way the colony was to be administered. Similarly, Kang simply borrows her figures for casualties of the March First Movement from Lee Ki-baek's well-known _A New History of Korea_ (p. 344), even though he does not cite his sources, rather than referring to the more thorough work of such scholars as Frank Baldwin (_The March First Movement: Korean Challenge and Japanese Response_, Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1969, p. 233). Readers might also find Kang's endnotes frustrating: to use they are limited in number (only 30), and many of them contain careless mistakes in page numbers and misquotations. Kang's bibliography does offer us an adequate list of the essential works published in English on this history, although she neglects Soon Won Park's very informative history of the Onoda Cement Factory mentioned above. Kang readily acknowledges limitations (such as subject selection) in her research methodology that prevent wider conclusions being drawn from her study. Her sampling is limited to Koreans who had accumulated the means to move to the San Francisco Bay Area, and this does not necessarily represent a fair cross-section of Koreans. Furthermore, she has collected accounts in which informants recall events and feelings experienced over a half-century previous. As is the case with oral histories in general, we have no way of knowing the extent to which the period that separates the event from its retelling has dimmed our informants' memories, or the extent to which postwar interpretations of this history have influenced their accounts of this time. These caveats, though, should not distract the reader from the richness of the memories Kang's efforts have preserved. Instead, we should lament the fact that such a project has not been carried out previously, when potential informants were not as distanced from their experiences. Citation: Caprio, Mark 2002 Review of _Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, 1910-1945_, by Hildi Kang._ (2001) Korean Studies Review_ 2002, no. 2 Electronic file: http://www.koreaweb.ws/ks/ksr/ksr02-02.htm --__--__-- Message: 3 Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 22:20:48 -0800 (PST) From: richard kolyer To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Subject: [The_Dojang] Heavy Hand Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net ...as he softly plowed through a 2" thick concrete block, with us in the parking lot... "Master Terry" - If the DD picture you took did not turn out let me know and I will e-mail you what I have." If the second sentence implies that pictures were taken of the events described in the first sentence then I must respectfully ask that those pics be posted them so we can all see them. -richard Try FREE Yahoo! Mail - the world's greatest free email! http://mail.yahoo.com/ --__--__-- Message: 4 Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 05:32:30 -0800 (PST) From: Charles Richards To: Dojang Digest Subject: [The_Dojang] Dan test fees again Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net <> I just got off the phone with mother who was inquiring if she should pay for her 12 years black belt test which cost $450.00 not including boards and belt. ( Yes it will be a Kukkiwon Certification) Her Background: She does not have much money and she was was given an ultimatum today by the instructor that this is the cost to test, so its now or never. Her biggest concern is that she wants her child to continue his study in TKD, but ultimately she does not have much to give. She already paying 150.00 per month in this school ( name witheld). There are schools that gives out alternative, some school would rank this child and be given a certificate under the school or proceed later to have a Kukkiwon certification...This however is NOT an option for her. I wish I could assist but I do not know the child well enough to test him. Can anyone advise me as to how I can assist her ? Thank you all in advance for your attention regarding this matter. <> Dear Prince , Search the dojang digest archives for about two weeks of threads on this subject. But since everyone already knows I have strong opinions, I'll share a lesson. My wife and I decided to have a midwife assisted birth for our second child. Her fee was about 1.5 times my two weeks takehome pay. We were just getting by paycheck to paycheck...but we made a commitment for the best quality care and decided we'll make it work. As it turns out we delivered by c-section, so I asked our midwife if we could donate our unused birth kit to one of her clients that may be in a tighter financial situation....she said her husband taught her a valuable lesson a long time ago that people that say they don't have money actually have a cash flow problem.....I've seen this over and over again with students in the past....you know, they can't afford your $40 in school seminar, then you see them at the movies that same weekend :-) Or show up next week at the dojang in a new SUV. Yes, I have a point. After three years and an estimated $5,400 of tuition to me a $450 balloon payment wouldn't seem like that much money. Actually to me it would be because I could never afford $150/month for tuition. But if I could pay that much for that perceived quality level why would I not pay less than 10% of my total investment towards graduation? Dancing in the bee-hive a little outside the box, Charles Richards Moja Kwan Tang Soo Do Try FREE Yahoo! Mail - the world's greatest free email! http://mail.yahoo.com/ --__--__-- Message: 5 Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 06:54:42 -0600 From: "Bruce Sims" To: Subject: [The_Dojang] Re: Organizational Management Stuff Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Dear Patrick: ".....>Organizations need to be cared after, monitored and maintained, and that >means time, tedium, paperwork and attention.< Change your word "NEED" to my word "SHOULD" and we are very close to agreement! However, I don't think you mean "NEED" I believe you mean "Government enforced", and with that you and I are in different worlds...." Sorry about the double citation above, but I was going to have a hard time making my point if I didn't reference your response as it relates to my orignal statement. I used the word "need" to indicate that a system could not function well, or at all, without that condition. The belief that I was stressing was that organizations can be generally likened to living organisms which, when not care for, sicken and die. The reason that I did not use the word "should" was that this might suggest simple compliance with a standard and my issue is goes quite a bit beyond this. I understand that most folks are VERY nervous about government intervention in MA and MA training. Me, too! I don't want, or need, one more civil servant watching over my shoulder. I honestly believe that responsible practitioners/teachers know the right thing to do, and do it. I am also adult enough to know that not all of these folks do that right thing the same way. (Just look at the variety of approaches that folks on this Net bring to the table--- M West, M Nabors, M Whalen, etc.) Where I am seeing the system in peril is when folks do not give the appropriate "bang-for-the-buck," skirt management responsibilities, exhibit poor judgement, or worse, exhibit immoral or criminal behavior. When this happens---- heres' where I get into trouble :-) ---- I believe that there are enough recognized MA authorities in the States to approach the individual in question and encourage him to correct his approach. I know there is a kind of "live-and-let-live" belief system whereby many practitioners agree not to uncover another persons' "dirty laundry" in public in return for the same consideration. I also believe that when services are mis-represented, practitioners are put at risk or the general good of the traditions which have been entrusted to this generation are abused, it is required of us that we act. I honestly don't think we need the government to do this. To close this off, I would cite Richards' post about maintaining membership rosters, or Rudys' post about discharging members. Maybe its just me, but this seems like "no-brainers." If one makes known that they offer membership in some organization, then maintainance issues like this come with the territory. Some people don't want, or can't deal with such things. Fine. But then, don't make known that you offer these services. Best Wishes, Bruce --__--__-- Message: 6 From: Ray Terry To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2002 6:31:06 PST Subject: [The_Dojang] summer program Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Forwarding... The National Institute for International Education Development (NIIED), an agency of the Korean Ministry of Education, is planning overseas study programs this summer for Korean secondary teachers in a variety of science and vocational fields. They are hoping to send up to 100 teachers in five groups sometime in July and August, and they are seeking universities in the U.S. who are interested in hosting one or all of these short-term development programs. Each program is expected to be four weeks in duration, to focus on teaching-learning methods in the sciences (theory and practice), and to include secondary school site visits. The programs are budgeted at a maximum of $75,000 each exclusive of international travel, and will be fully funded by NIIED. NIIED has an RFP for these programs, and is seeking inquiries from U.S. institutions with experience in professional teacher development. Fulbright Korea has worked with the Korean Ministry of Education for many years, and though we are not involved in administering the program, we are cooperating fully with NIIED in publicizing this opportunity and increasing the number of viable applications. If your institution is in the U.S. and would like to know more about this opportunity, or if any office within your university (College of Education?) would like to see the RFP, please have them contact me by email and I will send the RFP as an attachment (Word document.) Further contact after that point will be directly with the program officer at NIIED as indicated in the RFP. I hope you will pass this on to others who might be interested. Horace H. Underwood Executive Director (Fulbright) Korean-American Educational Commission 168-15 Yomni-dong, Mapo-gu Seoul 121-874, South Korea Ph:+82-2-3275-4000; fax:+82-2-3275-4028 hhu@fulbright.or.kr www.fulbright.or.kr --__--__-- _______________________________________________ The_Dojang mailing list The_Dojang@martialartsresource.net http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/the_dojang It's a great day for Taekwondo! Support the USTU by joining today. US Taekwondo Union, 1 Olympic Plaza, Ste 104C, Colorado Spgs, CO 80909 719-578-4632 FAX 719-578-4642 ustutkd1@aol.com http://www.ustu.org Old digest issues are available via ftp://ftp.martialartsresource.com. Copyright 1994-2002: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers apply. Remember 9-11! End of The_Dojang Digest