Is "Korean rage" a real thing?

In the wake of the mass shooting at Korean-run Oikos University in Oakland, by a South Korean immigrant, child psychiatrist Winston Chung writes in the San Francisco Chronicle about the prospect of hwabyŏng (화병/火病).

It includes a scholarly description of the psychological ailment, courtesy of the World Cultural Psychiatry Research Review:

Hwabyung, which means anger (fire) disease, is a culture-related anger syndrome in Korea. The symptoms include a subjective feeling of anger with anger-related bodily and behavioral symptoms. The symptoms seem to symbolize the nature of fire (anger) and its suppression and/or release. According to the patients' explanation, reactive anger, resulting from being a victim of an unfair situation, must be suppressed so as not to jeopardize harmonious family or social relationships. However, if the unfair situations continue, the suppressed anger "accumulates and becomes dense”, and finally causes a disease. Defense mechanisms related to hwabyung were found to be suppression, inhibition, withdrawal, somatization, and oral consumption. The concept of hwabyung seems to have been shaped by Korean people's socio-cultural experiences throughout history. Such historical experiences have developed a unique, collective emotional reaction called ‘haan’, which is a chronic suppressed anger resulting not only from the tragic collective national history, but also from a traumatic personal life. Accordingly, hwabyung shares many components with haan and seems to be a pathologic form of haan. Additionally, hwabyung and haan are commonly related to other Korean cultural heritages including shamanism, traditional medicine, the culture of the relationship (“jeong”) and collectivism, and the traditional philosophy of the ‘han’ in Korea. Finally, a suggestion was made regarding the conceptualization of an “anger disorder” based on the studies of this anger syndrome.

There's a chicken-versus-egg thing going on there: How much do hwabyŏng, chŏng, and han exist in their own right, and how much do people see themselves fitting universal difficulties into these cultural narratives of psychological distress and behavior?

Anyway, Winston Chung sort of fits the case that the killer One Goh was afflicted with this, though I'd be loath to give cover to what was garden-variety mental illness that should have been treated long before.

And like I suggested before, the last-chance saloon that is the United States for many immigrants from dog-eat-dog South Korea may attract a slightly disproportionate number of South Korean misfits, including some who suffer from undiagnosed mental illness.

Wow. I've said that twice now and so far the Netizens haven't attacked.

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Maybe she should plead "Linsanity."

"No, I've never seen nor heard of this woman in my life."

That's what everybody in kyopodom is going to do to the now radioactive Jenny Hyun, a songwriter for Girls' Generation and ChoColat who posts things like this [UPDATE: It's since been removed, but I have an archive of it]...

... and writes things like this:

Linsanity indeed. It bears reminding, people of K-pop, that tweeting, cyworlding, and facebooking are forever. Also, defending against racism by using racism is just plain stupid.

And it's not like she doesn't know that:

Anyway, just like the watermelon mayor in Orange County, this kind of public display of your own racial boneheadedness just doesn't fly. And Ms Hyun is from America, so she can't claim cultural ignorance like LG was able to (briefly).

I do have sympathy for people who inadvertently step over the line (e.g., "You people," "Was the term 'spic-and-span' derived from Hispanic housekeepers?" — if innocently asked — etc.), but Jenny Hyun knew exactly where the line was and she proudly trounced all over it. This only hurts other Korean-Americans and other Asian-Americans attempts to bridge the chasms of misunderstanding that still exist between Blacks and Asians, especially Koreans. No doubt a lot of Blacks are thinking, "Yup, just as I thought, this is what they really think of us," which is itself kinda sorta racist (the lumping altogether aspect, that is).

The only possible defense I can imagine for Jenny Hyun is if she can prove someone hacked into her accounts (which has happened to my email accounts in the past, so it's not outside the realm of possibility).

UPDATE:
Kinda sorta related, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart had a hilarious take on Blacks-versus-Asians in relation to all the aforementioned Linsanity:



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Kyopo crime story of the day

Western visitors to Korea like to talk about two things: dog consumption and the propensity for South Koreans to say "Fighting!" for just about anything.

So it was only a matter of time before an unscrupulous someone would combine dogs and "Fighting!" to get, um, dogfighting:

Police [in the Philippines] have arrested six South Koreans suspected of running a massive, high-tech dogfighting operation where matches in the Philippines were shown online to overseas bettors, according to police.

About 240 pitbulls were confiscated in the raid late Friday from a secluded compound where the dogs were kept and the matches held, the local police intelligence chief said on Saturday.

"They had an arena enclosed with mirrors. They had videocams, computers and they would show live fights of the pitbulls and it could be seen on their website in Korea," Chief Inspector Romeo Valero said.

He told AFP that Filipino caretakers hired to take care of the animals said the dogfighting operation in a rural area about an hour's drive south of Manila had been going on for over a month, and sometimes dogs would die from their injuries. [AFP]

Sorry about that lame attempt at humor earlier. I'm not trying to make light of this, which is blatant animal cruelty on a large scale. And I'm just pleased as punch that people like this would get shut down.

Apparently, though, they are going with the infamous Poker-8 gang's defense after they were arrested for running "high-stakes" poker from their home and publicizing it on Facebook:

He said the Koreans did not know how to speak English and it was not yet known how long they had been in the country. One Korean claimed they did not know dogfighting was illegal in the Philippines.

They face six months to two years in prison for the dogfighting, but authorities will have difficulty charging them with illegal gambling because the money was managed overseas. One would hope that the Philippine authorities would hand over that part of their investigation to the South Korean authorities, which are in a position to haul these people to jail over the gambling portion of this.

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Orange County Crime Story of the Day: Death of a cellmate

You may recall this story from this past September, about the Korean-American actor who played  henchman Random Task (a nod to Oddjob) in the Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery movie getting life in prison for a brutal kidnap and rape that occurred two decades ago.

Well, it appears that Mr Jospeph Hyungmin is a suspect in the murder of his own cellmate:

The dead inmate was a parole violator serving a new two-year sentence from San Luis Obispo County for failing to register as a sex offender. He was found dead in the cell he shared with Son before 6 p.m. Monday.

The death was being treated as a homicide, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Terry Thornton said. [HT to White Rice]

I have no idea what sex offense had landed the fifty-year-old cellmate in prison in the first place, but, like rape, execution is not the sentence that was handed out and it is not something we should glibly label as just deserts.

Some might find it ironic, but in my own steadfast opposition to capital punishment, perhaps the only scenario I can think of where execution might be justified is when a lifer such as Mr Son must be stopped from murdering inmates, guards, or visitors to the prison he/she is locked up in.

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UPDATED: Orange County Crime Story of the Day: Henchman, indeed

A kyopo from Orange County who has played bit roles in various movies, including a stint as a henchman in Austin Powers, has gotten life in prison for a kidnap and rape over two decades ago.

From the Los Angeles Times:

To millions of moviegoers he was Doctor Evil's henchman Random Task.

But now a 40-year-old Orange County actor famous from an "Austin Powers" movie will be spending life in state prison in connection with a 1990 Christmas Eve gang rape and torture of a woman taking a walk to see the seasonal lights.

Joseph Hyungmin Son was found guilty Aug. 25 of felony torture, an offense that carries a life term without possibility of parole. The actor was originally charged three years ago with numerous sex crimes but because of a statute of limitations, prosecutors eventually won a conviction on torture.

The crime unfolded seven years before the 1997 movie "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery."

According to prosecutors, a woman walking back to her apartment alone with her dog after going to look at Christmas lights with a relative and friend was stopped by Son about 12:30 a.m. on Christmas Eve 1990. Son asked her for directions and then with another man dragged her to their car, threw her in the back and drove away.

Son and the other man told her they were driving to Compton, pistol-whipped her and repeatedly threatened to kill her. Prosecutors said Son then repeatedly raped, sodomized and forced the victim to orally copulate him in the back of the car. He also tortured her with a firearm. Son's cohort Santiago Lopez Gaitan, 40, of San Antonio raped the woman.

Afterward, Son threatened to kill the victim and counted the bullets in the gun out loud as she pleaded for her life. Son and Gaitan finally allowed the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, to leave, naked and with her pants tied around her eyes. The victim was actually in Huntington Beach and went to a nearby home where homeowners called the police.

While physical evidence was gathered in the case from the sexual assault, the case went cold. Son, however, was convicted in May 2008 of felony vandalism in an unrelated case and was forced to give a DNA sample. That sample was then linked to DNA collected in the 1990 case, prosecutors said.

I guess playing an evil sidekick wasn't much of a stretch for him. Good riddance.

UPDATE (October 2011):
Mr Son may have killed his own cellmate in prison.

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Orange County Crime Story of the Day: Beware of happy emails

When I'm away from Orange County for months at a time (previously in Seoul and lately in Honolulu), my mom would call me up and chat just to make sure I was all right and somewhat closer to getting married and producing grandchildren for her. On rare occasion when I was away for more than six months, I'd make sure to email her while I was in faraway lands like Hong Kong, Italy, or Japan.

Today's OCCSD has made me second guess that tack, for my own safety. Here we have a guy who is being accused of killing his business partner and then obscuring that fact by faking, through a series of emails, a situation where the murder victim was not in contact with his family because he'd gone to Africa for the vacation of a lifetime.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Last summer, Christopher Ryan Smith emailed family and friends with exciting news: He was embarking on an African adventure.

Over the next few months, his emails recounted the highlights. One day he was paragliding near Johannesburg. On another, he was sand boarding in "huge mines" in South Africa where the "sand was softer than snow powder."

In December, the 32-year-old Internet executive from Laguna Beach announced that he was going to Congo and Rwanda. Then, abruptly, all communication stopped.

His worried family in Oregon called U.S. authorities and launched an international hunt, fearing he might have run into trouble in the war-torn region.

But Orange County authorities now say Smith was never in Africa; in fact, he was already dead. They say he was killed inside his office in San Juan Capistrano by his business partner, Edward Younghoon Shin, who used Smith's email account to send the messages.

The thing is, I think I briefly met this Edward guy some years ago, maybe in Irvine. He's not the Edward of the K-blogosphere, though.

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Orange County Crime Story of the Day:kyopo home invaders

One thing I like about living in Seoul: a general lack of home invasions. But alas, globalization might someday bring them to ROK shores.

Anyway, this story in the Los Angeles Times was about a home invasion in Diamond Bar, a tony Los Angeles County burb just north of the OC, with a tie-in with Las Vegas. Nothing special really, that it's apparently a kyopo gang, caught by the oddest of details:

Detectives had little to go on in the case but learned one of the suspects was a black man who spoke Korean very well, Kim said.

Then last month, investigators learned of a monthlong FBI undercover sting with Las Vegas Metro Police that netted five members of a Korean organized crime group from Los Angeles.

The suspects were allegedly preparing to rob what they believed was a drug stash house in Las Vegas.

When they were interviewed by Asian gang team detectives in Las Vegas, three of the five suspects allegedly implicated themselves in the Diamond Bar home invasion robbery.
They included David Chon, 28, James Han, 28, and Rene Hypolite, 26, who investigators say has African American and Korean parents and speaks fluent Korean.

Investigators also identified three other suspects in the robbery: one who drove the getaway car and two who masterminded the home invasion. The alleged driver, Andrew Kim, 26, of Los Angeles, was arrested Jan. 24 at his home in Los Angeles.

I just hope it's not one of the eleven Andrew Kims I know.

Far East Movement

Far East Movement (whose initials would be FEM but they prefer to call themselves FM) made history recently by cracking Billboard's "Top 10" with their third album, "Free Wired," which includes "Like a G6."

I hate that song. It's one of those emptily derivative offerings that, if you are unfortunate enough to catch it on the radio, will be playing and replaying over and over and over again in your head while you're supposed to be reading about the effin' effects of education on positive medical outcomes and the so-called Latino Paradox whereby Hispanic immigrants to the US live longer than those born in America.

This is me reading:
"... Infant mortality rates are reported for major subgroups of the Asian and Pacific Islander American (APIA) and the Hispanic population, but subgroup differences were not available for adult mortality. The infant mortality rate for blacks is twice that of whites, and American Indians also have elevated infant mortality rates compared to.... When we drink, we do it right, getting slizzard."

[Kushibo squeezes eyes shuts and bangs hands against ears]
Make it stop! Make it stop!

Mind you, this is hours or even days after having heard the song. The only good reason to even see the video is this:

But truth is, I can't lust after this woman too much because, as I made clear in the "CSI: Koreatown" post, Korean women who get boob jobs are best left alone:

You see from other parts of the show that the young Korean mother (murder victim #2) is sort of hot. Thin—maybe too thin for someone who has had a kid—and crazy nutso. But hot. Though she's lying on her back, you can see her breasts are still standing at attention, which is nearly a sure bet that they're mercenaries. The moral of this episode is simple: never trust a Korean-born woman who gets a boob job. They're nuts. I'm not kidding. Certifiable. If you don't like 'em small and natural, move along, brother. Move along.

But this post is not actually about my proclivities (hey, I've got small hands, what can I say?), not even about FEM, but about the history they are now apart of, so sayeth the Los Angeles Times. They start with the meaning of FM's success:

Prior to FM, the last group of Asian Pacific Islander descent to run the dance floor might have been the Jets, the Tongan-German, Minneapolis-based family band that had a string of dance/R&B hits, including “Curiosity” and “Crush on You.” That was back in 1985.

When I began writing about Asian American artists in the early 1990s, the common hope was for a “breakthrough” superstar that could pry open the gates of the record industry by convincing skeptical label execs that “we” were marketable. Yet although the sales of "Free Wired" could be the result of a trickle-down effect from other Asian American artists, it's more probable that FM’s success is the culmination of a long-term movement to part the doors of opportunity with a thousand nudges rather than a single magic bullet.

And some of that long-term effort is rather interesting:

Behind FM’s climb to the top are at least two intersecting histories of “Asian American music” (an ill-defined term, but bear with). One history begins in the early 1970s, at the very birth of the idea of “Asian America” as a social and political term unifying disparate ethnic groups. (FM, a group whose members are of Chinese, Filipino, Korean and Japanese descent, practically stand in as a poster child for pan-ethnic Asian America). Besides rallies and newsletters, activists used music to promote this nascent, umbrella identity.

For example, arguably the first album by a self-identified Asian American group was the 1973 eponymous debut of the folk trio A Grain of Sand. In line with the political source of their creative inspirations, their songs tackled cross-ethnic unity, labor solidarity and antiwar sentiments. A lost history lies behind these groups and their now-obscure releases, be it the eclectic, jazz/spoken word stylings of the Bay Area band Yokohama, California, or “The Ballad of Chol-Soo Lee,” a 1978 single released in San Francisco to raise awareness about the case of a Korean immigrant wrongly convicted of murder. By the time my generation came of age, the musical vehicle for social and cultural outreach shifted from that of folk and jazz to hip-hop. In the first half of the 1990s, a wave of politically charged collegiate rap artists came and went, including UC Davis’ Asiatic Apostles and Rutgers University’s Yellow Peril.

Most of these groups followed the Funkadelic principle of freeing minds and hoping butts would follow, but on an album like "Free Wired," with its catchy club anthems such as “Girls on the Dancefloor” and “Like a G6,” FM has gone the other way: butts first, minds maybe. Yet the group certainly walked the same path as many of those now-forgotten, Asian American rap pioneers.

Translation of that last line: Sellouts. But the multicultural assortment of women in the video are cute.

And while we're at it, some "Like a G6" parodies.

Korean-American man suspected of killing police officer in San Diego kills self and companion

Down in San Diego, a former Coast Guardsman named Holim Lee who was wanted in connection with the slaying of San Diego police officer Christopher Wilson was found dead with a twenty-seven-year-old woman with the ironic name Lucky Xanasene. She had been shot in the head.

Lucky Xanasene

Though he'd been recognized for heroic achievements in the past, Mr Lee had also gotten caught up in criminal activities, but at least one friend said he was a "really sweet" and "a good guy" who lately had been under the influence of drugs after finding life as a civilian very difficult. Mr Lee's family, who has expressed their deep condolences to Mr Wilson's family, say meth ended up taking over Holim's life.

San Diego police officer Christopher Wilson

Lisette Lee, alleged Samsung heiress and drug mule, to go on trial in November

You heard about her here! Now read about her here!

* Monster Island takes no responsibility for minutes of your life you'll never get back after reading these links.

The return of the kyopo backlash?

If you were in South Korea in the 1990s, you may recall that there was a wave of anti-kyopo sentiment (kyopo referring to ethnic Koreans living in foreign countries or returning to Korea) in the media and amongst some members of the general public.

Kyopo, exemplified as the hard-partying, money-flashing, innocent-Korean-girl-corrupting, and staying-out-all-night-every-night Hongdae types that became media icons — and may have inspired the term orenjijok [오렌지족] after the Orange County origins of many of these prodigal sons of bitches — were derided for many of the same "they are corruptive because they don't share our values" reasons that partying and toking "unqualified English teachers" are criticized today.

As I wrote here, the Korean media (not unlike media in a lot of places) need whipping boys (note the plural), and kyopo were a convenient target. And as I wrote at Brian's, in addition to the stuff above that sounds as much like it is applied to E-series visa holders today, kyopo were knocked for a plethora of other reasons that made them appear even more egregious:

Before the flood of NSETs in the past decade, kyopo were at one time the whipping boys of the media, flaunting their wealth, bedding down lots of girls, bringing in drugs, and teaching English without qualification. Sound familiar? Oh, and they were also seen by some as descendants of Koreans who betrayed Korea only to come back now that it was getting wealthy and could be exploited.

I only wish I'd been blogging fifteen years ago so I could cite some of this stuff from the archives.

Anyway, the point of this post (and there is one) is that some recent stories in the media [I will edit this to add a second recent one I don't have time to look for because I'm going kayaking around Lanikai] seem to be indicating a return of negative media attention on kyopo, especially the significant minority of kyopo (but a majority of Western kyopo) who are eligible for the F-4 visa that gives wide-ranging freedom to work.

Indeed, as I suggested at Popular Gusts here, stories like this on in the Korea Times are going to keep raising the profile of "unqualified kyopo teachers":

A Korean-American murder suspect, who once worked here as a native English teacher and was apprehended last month, will be extradited to his homeland for trial, a court here said Tuesday.

The Seoul High Court said it has agreed to hand over the suspect, Ronald Rhee, to the U.S. Department of State. The U.S. government sought his extradition via the South Korean prosecution in February.

Rhee had been a member of a gang in Los Angeles. The 24-year-old, who earned American citizenship at the age of nine, stabbed a Korean-American there on July 14, 2006, and fled to Korea, according to the prosecution.

He worked as a teacher at a private language institute for two months last year with a fabricated diploma, the prosecution added.

"He meets all the requirements to be subject to extradition," said Judge Seo Ki-seok in a statement. "Plus, it's unlikely that he would face any discriminatory treatments in an American court because of his state of origin, religion or skin color."

The court dismissed the suspect's request to have his case handled by a South Korean court.

"Most people and the evidence in connection with the crime are in the U.S. In addition, given his long residential experience in the U.S., sending him to the U.S. does not challenge humanitarian values," the judge explained.

Rhee was arrested along with a group of "unqualified" native English teachers, who were suspected of using drugs habitually.

Here's more on Ronald Rhee. Note that in the article his "homeland" is his country of citizenship (the US), not his country of birth (ROK). (And you have to wonder about the utter foolishness of smoking pot in a country like Korea when you're on the lam for murder.)

There have been some high-profile cases of accused murderers teaching English on F-4 visas, not to mention the negative attention brought to kyopo through the movie about the murder of a Hongik University student at the Burger King in Itaewon, with both the media and the authorities taking notice.

I think this is part of an emerging trend (or rather, a resurgence), and as the media and some politicos have succeeded in getting some restrictions placed on the free-for-all hiring of any warm E-2-eligible body from an anglophone country, they may now be setting their sights on the F-series folks, including kyopo.

But up to some point, is negative media attention entirely unjustified? It may not be necessary for the ROK government to rethink giving wholesale residency rights to former ROK citizens and their direct descendants (which is what the F-4 visa is), but maybe it's time to plug the F-series donut hole that allows F-4 and F-2 visa holders to skirt the background checks that should be in place for people in our classrooms, especially if they're around teens and children.

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Orange County crime story of the day: Ponzi scheme, he wrote.

In a follow-up to this story from March 2009 (where Brian in Chŏllanam-do describes his own inclination for murder! Murder!!!) about this news, it looks like the Korean-American couple behind a Ponzi scheme that was ripping off other Korean immigrants have been caught:

Federal agents have arrested a couple that ran an Irvine investment firm, saying they were the architects of a Ponzi scheme that cheated some 60 Korean American investors out of $8 million.

Euirang Hwang, 36, chairman of Pinupitu Inc., and his girlfriend, Sang Yi, 39, were arrested at a Corona house at 6:50 a.m. Tuesday on federal wire fraud charges.

The duo orchestrated a Ponzi scheme that targeted 60 Korean American investors throughout California, promising them annual returns of between 24% and 45%, according to the Feb. 3 four-count federal grand jury indictment.

A Santa Ana judge Tuesday ordered Hwang and Yi held without bail.

Hwang allegedly solicited business from the Korean American community from 2006 to 2009, recruiting trusted business people and church leaders and presenting himself as a billionaire with holdings in 60 real estate and computer and office equipment companies in Korea, Japan and China. He told them he generated income by buying up small companies and selling them for profit.

Hwang founded the company and operated its Irvine offices, which at one point claimed 20 employees, and Yi, a South Korean citizen, allegedly controlled its finances as president and secretary.

According to the U.S. attorney’s office, the firm used the money collected from later investors to wire hundreds of thousands of dollars to Yi’s mother in Korea, pay for luxury car leases, personal and office expenses and to pay returns to earlier investors.

“They were doing it in large part just to have the aura about them of being successful,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Joseph McNally. “A lot of the money was used to put on this front of having a legitimate business.”

The Orange County Register also has the story.

As my own link above suggests, beware of get-rich-quick schemes. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Save your money, kiddies, and invest in something tangible and real, like a house. Or a restaurant. I know I sound like I'm channeling my father circa 1992 when I say this, but there's nothing wrong with hard work and honest earnings. Isn't the whole mess we're in now because of financial shell games and a collective burning desire to be rich?