The Sociology of North Korea

Over at Asia Times Online (is there a dead-tree edition?), eminent Korean Studies scholar Aidan Foster-Carter talks about the inner workings of the Pyongyang regime that have led us to where they are now, and why they might be crumbling:

Second, I dare to hope for a happy ending. Kim Il-sung's sociological nous has kept the state he created alive longer than many (me included) had expected. But can it go on for ever?

That I doubt. A full answer would loose more hares than there's room for here. In the 21st century, refusing market reforms is a recipe for self-destruction. Abroad, North Korea's old game of militant mendicancy, despite some success from the Sino-Soviet dispute right up to the six-party talks, is past its sell-by date; other powers are fed up and won't play any more.

But just to stick to the processes already mentioned, these too are far from foolproof. The weakest link is familism. Past history, in Korea or anywhere - think of the Borgias in Italy - suggests that monarchies or other forms of family rule can be riddled by strife. Some crown princes just aren't up to the job. People plot, and before you know it the knives are out.

Much of the rest will be familiar stuff to regular Pyongyang watchers, but it's always interesting to get the good professor's take.

The Korean in CNN International

CNN International has highlighted one of my must-read blogs, Ask A Korean:

It was originally a small, amusing project.

"I was in my third year of law school -- before the economy went to hell -- and I found people asking why Korea is this way or that," the Korean tells CNN. "I thought I could start a blog for fun."

The Korean, who prefers to remain anonymous, is the man behind "Ask a Korean!" -- a Q and A blog for people curious about North and South Korea and Korean culture.

Now an attorney who lives in the Washington, D.C. area, the Korean was inspired by "¡Ask a Mexican!," Gustavo Arellano's satirical column that's syndicated across the United States. (In the same vein, among others, there's also "Ask a Frenchman!" and "Ask a Russian.")

Since he answered his first question ("Dear Korean: Why are Korean men such awesome pool players?") in 2006, he's fielded thousands of questions from readers.

"It's almost become like a public diary. I guess the content is what makes it interesting," he said.

Perhaps if I re-introduce Ask Kushibo, I'll get on CNN. The downside of that is that it means more work.

World's fastest Internet?

The Wall Street Journal says it's Masan:

When it comes to connecting to the Internet quickly, the best place to be isn’t Silicon Valley, or even Japan. It’s the city of Masan, South Korea, according to a report released Wednesday by Akamai Technologies Inc.

And Masan’s speeds are blazing fast. It’s the only city in the report with average connection speed above 20 megabits per second. In contrast, the fastest city in the U.S., Monterey Park, Calif., had an average speed of 6.9 Mbps.

It’s not clear why exactly Masan, a coastal city with a population of about half a million and a name that means “horse mountain,” ranks so highly. But the top 10 cities in the report were all in South Korea, which simply has a different technology environment from that in the U.S. For years the Korean government has spent billions on high-speed networks and subsidies to encourage broadband connections. And unlike in the U.S., competition between broadband services in Korea is cutthroat, driving down prices.

And I do sometimes miss that speed. Where I am, the university or coffee house connection is not so bad, but traveling on the Mainland can be a hair-pulling experience.

Today in stupidity

• On an upcoming visit to India, US President Barack Hussein Obama won't be visiting a famed Sikh temple because the head covering he'd be required to wear might stoke rumors he's a Muslim.
  
  Again, the elitist Obama is treating the American people like they're stupid, as if they can't tell the difference between Sikhs and Muslims. (Oh, by the way, I'm being sarcastic.)

• The Republican candidate for Delaware's US Senate seat, Christine O'Donnell asked "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” After being told it was the First Amendment that bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O’Donnell replied with (faux?) incredulity, "You’re telling me that’s in the First Amendment?"
  
  Clearly the First Amendment, which bars Congress from making "law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," contains the principle of "separation of church and state. But it appears she was going with the notion that the First Amendment does not contain the actual wording "separation of church and state." From various right-wing sites I've read, this is a popular notion aimed at demonstrating how liberal interpretation of the Constitution has led the country down a God-hating path. They note also that the Constitution does not contain the word "privacy" nor does it say anything about abortion.
  
  But if that's what she was going for, then she tripped up on her own wording. She should have asked, "Where in the Constitution are the words 'separation of church and state'?" Because the principle is right there, even if that phrasing is just shorthand for it. I guess this disconnect is why so many people think nothing of the government blocking a mosque or Muslim prayer center where a mainstream church or synagogue would be allowed.

• Sarah Palin was warning her supporters not to get complacent, telling them by tweet not to "party like it's 1773 just yet." Assuming that that date was yet another brain fart on the part of would-be Republican candidate for the presidency in 2012, the Daily Kos guy and PBS's Gwen Ifil (a Kushibo favorite) chided her for not remembering the year the Declaration of Independence was signed. What Ms Palin meant was that the eponymous Boston Tea Party occurred in 1773. Egg... on... faces.
  
  The Boston Tea Party, of course, was a major historical event in which local citizens who felt powerless tried to strike a blow against the perceived elite and forge a political force by scapegoating an unpopular ethnic minority. Much like today's Tea Party. (I kid! I kid! I kid because I love... to kid!)

Dealing with North Korea as a "black swan"

Writing in the Washington Post, news analyst Fareed Zakaria asks what will happen when North Korea falls (that's his title, followed by an ellipsis for dramatic effect).

While most of the piece is a remedial review for those who haven't been paying attention, at the very end he poses some interesting questions that perhaps most people don't ask about North Korea. Of course, these are questions which people with a keen interest in the region (area specialists, foreign residents in South Korea or Japan, ROK citizens themselves, etc.) have been pondering for quite some time now:

There are big issues at stake. Does a unified Korea retain its close alliance with the United States? Does it keep the North's nuclear arsenal? Do American troops stay in the country? If the answer to all three questions is "yes," then a unified Korea will be an American ally, with American troops, and nuclear weapons -- sitting on China's border. How is Beijing likely to react to that? Would it move troops in to shore up the regime? What would South Korean and American forces do then?

When North Korea collapses, it is easy to imagine chaos on the Korean peninsula that triggers a series of reactions from Beijing and Washington that are competing and hostile. Forget genteel rows over the yuan's value -- this is what could produce serious geopolitical instability. And that's why it's crucial that the United States, China and South Korea start talking about "black swans."

Those are important questions (and I have all the right answers, by the way), and his advice is sound:

But to solve that problem, it will need to discuss with China the rules of the road when Pyongyang falls.

But frankly, the rest of the article is the same mundane repetition of the Western media's Cliff's Notes version of what's been going on lately. He even starts off with, "Previously, on Desperate Housewives, ..."

Well, no. He didn't. But he might as well have.

But perhaps I am too harsh. Not everyone who reads the WaPo has a stake in what happens on the Korean Peninsula as this Seoulite and his family and friends do (or "M" from Japan, or folks I know in US military uniform, etc.). So maybe they do in fact need a recap from time to time about the intrigue that's been going on up north (with or without the Western media's auto-reinforced interpretations) and what it might mean in the future.

And in that regard, the article is useful, and the conclusions do make sense: Talk with Beijing, have a roadmap, let's deal with this calmly. My added advice: Make Beijing not fear a Washington-allied unified Korea by, say, promising not to put US military bases in former DPRK territory.

Maybe such ideas like that would have made Mr Zakaria's anodyne op-ed a bit meatier.

Apparently, the strategy is to pay them so little that they can't afford to buy pot...

It looks like the drive to get English teachers for rural South Korean communities has made its way to Iowa, with the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa agreeing to provide students who will teach English while learning Korean. They will receive a monthly stipend of 1.5 million won (a bit under $1500 for the time being).

Roboseyo has noted how little pay this is, adding that if this is what ROK government ministries are going to do, then they shouldn't complain about "unqualified English teachers." (To be fair, the people making such complaints are often not the same ones making such policies.)

He also quoted from memory someone from The Marmot's Hole who noted that among the three hiring goals that ROK government agencies have...

• lots of foreign English teachers.
• trained and qualified English teachers
• cheap English teachers

... they realistically can only choose two.

I'm not quite that pessimistic, but I can understand the cynicism. And certainly asking people who haven't yet graduated from college to work for what seems a pittance might seem like a recipe for disaster.

But wait. Is this really as bad as it seems? Methinks that some folks who have been working in Korea since the Bush administration may be blissfully unaware of just how bad things are back in the US (including, presumably, the 56th state). People are taking jobs they never would have considered before, with a lot of undergrad students happy to get a job, say, working at Starbucks.

Let's say this is twenty-five hours per week at four weeks per month. That comes to about $14/hour, with one's lodging paid for (plus language learning thrown in for free). That's thirty to fifty percent more than working at Starbucks, a job in which you would have to pay for your own housing.

Is this a bad deal then? Perhaps not. Now if I were an English teacher, I would be concerned about wage depression, if they were in fact able to effectively fill slots this way. Then again, if they're college students operating under government-university MOUs, the supply is naturally limited.

We'll have to see how this turns out.

How many millions of overseas ROK nationals in the Korean diaspora?

The Korea Herald article about reduced emigration from Korea also addressed another topic: the millions of SoKos who live outside of South Korea. It's a rarely touched upon topic, but it's different enough from the original news item that I thought it deserved its own focus. I'm reprinting the entire section so that no data is lost:

Meanwhile, separate government data showed among 2.87 million South Korean nationals living abroad, up to 2.29 million will be eligible to vote in the parliamentary elections scheduled to be held in 2012. The number represents more than 6 percent of the nation’s 37.8 million eligible voters.

The election law was revised in February last year to grant suffrage Korean residents overseas, including some 1.22 million people with a permanent resident status in countries such as the U.S. and Japan. Under the revision, some of them cast their ballots for the first time in the parliamentary by-elections held on April 9 in 2009.

The measure could wield strong influence in the upcoming elections, especially considering the fact that some of the election results depended on a narrow margin of no more than hundreds of thousands of votes.

Up to 73 percent, or 2.1 million overseas Koreans, are living in the U.S., Japan and China, with more than 1.65 million staying temporarily for work or studying purposes, according to the National Election Commission.

The figures, however, could only be temporary as many people are hesitant to register as living aboard or report acquiring a permanent resident status or citizenship in another country, the election watchdog said.

In 2007 the top court here ruled unconstitutional the law that restricted the voting rights of overseas Koreans, prompting moves to grasp the exact number of Korean nationals living abroad and grant them suffrage. The National Assembly approved of the bill calling for such rights last year.

So that's an estimate of nearly three million ROK nationals living abroad. When I helped out with overseas voter registration in Seoul, we were given estimates of six or seven million US citizens living abroad, a number equal to an average state. Given that the US with twice the number of citizens abroad but has six times South Korea's population, that means a South Korean is nearly three times more likely than an American to live outside his/her country.

For decades, if they were to obtain another country's citizenship, they were often stripped of their ROK nationality. Imagine not being able to get citizenship in the United States, for example, lest you be forced to sell your family land back in Kyŏngsang-namdo. They could also lose many of their rights as ROK nationals if they merely obtained permanent residence status in another country (e.g., a US green card).

But lately, Seoul has been reconsidering and changing a lot of these policies, since such draconian measures encourage shadow citizenship, economically and legally hobble ROK nationals who go back and forth from South Korea to another country of residence, and dampen ethnic Korean participation in the electoral process abroad (often with undesirable effects).

For example, South Korea is trying to find a way for ROK nationals to have dual citizenship in a way that doesn't permit evasion of mandatory military service. Spouses of foreign citizens whose countries require their ROK bride or husband to get a green card (or equivalent) if they wish to visit the US no longer see their rights as ROK nationals automatically eroded.

And of course, green card-type residency for foreign nationals married to South Korean husbands and especially wives are now the norm, while paths to residency and ROK citizenship have been opened up to many others. And the thing which has been the biggest boon for me has been the ability to own real estate despite being a foreign national, which was also designed to allow former ROK citizens to keep their land if they obtain citizenship elsewhere.

All of this adds up to a situation where the large number of ROK nationals can more easily make their status officially known. The actual number could be far higher. And if there were four, five, or even six million ROK citizens living abroad, how many would vote in presidential, provincial, or local elections? Can they become a wild card? (Maybe it's all the more reason to institute a Peruvian-style automatic runoff in elections where no candidate has gotten a real majority instead of allowing them to win with a mere plurality.)

Emigration from South Korea drops below 1000

I guess when population growth drops to barely one kid per couple, it's a good thing for there to be fewer and fewer out-going emigrants.

From the Korea Herald:

On the back of the lingering global economic downturn and comparatively brighter circumstances at home, no more than 900 South Koreans are anticipated to move out of the country by the end of this year, falling below the 1,000-mark for the first time in a decade, the Foreign Ministry said.

According to the figures released for the annual parliamentary audit and inspection, a total of 694 South Koreans have moved abroad as of September, with an average of 77 people registering overseas per month.

This is the sharpest decrease of emigrants since 2000 when up to 15,307 moved abroad. The number of emigrants has been dropping continuously sine then, with 9,509 leaving the country in 2003, 8,277 in 2005, 4,127 in 2007 and 1,153 last year, the ministry said.

I'm not sure how the audit arrived at what constitutes an emigrant, but I would submit that many ROK nationals are essentially part-time or temporary emigrants. That is, they go abroad for long periods of time to live, study, work, and even start families, with fuzzily indefinite return dates. Non-returners may not end up in those government stats. For example, South Korean citizens make up an enormous portion of foreign students in the US and Canada; how many of them never end up returning to South Korea to take up residence again?

Still, if the criteria to be considered an emigrant has remained constant over the past decade or so, it is telling that there were over fifteen thousand fitting that definition in 2000 but fewer than one thousand this year. A regularly improving standard of living may be a huge factor, but also at play, I believe, is a harsher impression about what's out there in places like the United States: higher crime, considerably less job opportunity, lack of social support services like guaranteed health insurance, loss of social capital, etc.

Meanwhile, the one thing that many South Koreans most wish to take advantage of in the US — a more open educational experience at the primary and secondary level and a better quality educational experience at some of the universities — can still be had without officially emigrating. Think of the kirŏgi families (wild goose families) where the wife goes abroad with the kids, or the college-age son or daughter who decides that, say, the University of California is a better fit than a second- or third-tier college in Korea.

Come to think of it, though, maybe we should reconsider the kirŏgi family concept.

Finally, while the reduction of emigrants may seem good for efforts to recover the birth rate, if a lower number of permanent emigrants is compensated by an increase in part-time or temporary emigrants, it may be a wash for the birth rate. Those who go abroad to study may end up delaying marriage and/or reducing the overall number of kids they have upon their return, making their numbers no better than if they had left.

We should also note that there are returning emigrants that officially number in the thousands — more than the number leaving. The Korea Times article on this same news item puts the number of returning ROK nationals at 4301 last year and 3205 as of the end of September this year. How many of these are bringing back future workers and how many of them are simply going to be cashing pension checks?

In other words, it's still a demographer's and economist's nightmare.

AFP reports on North Korean defectors caught up in insurance fraud

Agence France-Presse has an interesting article on folks from North Korea being targeted by insurance fraudsters:

North Korean refugees struggling to adapt to a bewildering new life in South Korea are increasingly getting sucked into insurance frauds as their first taste of capitalism.

Insurance scams have for years been common in the South, and fraudsters in recent years have targeted the refugees as sometimes unwitting accomplices.

"Sometimes defectors get involved because they don't know how the insurance system works. They just have no idea what they are doing is wrong," an official at the Hanawon resettlement centre told AFP. ...

Newly arrived refugees get government financial help but often must repay big debts to the brokers who arranged their escape via China.

This makes them susceptible to taking part in frauds, which focus on bogus medical insurance claims.

After the refugee has bought a private policy or enrols in a state scheme, or both, insurance company workers typically conspire with hospital administrative staff to issue fake certificates of treatment.

When a refugee has been reimbursed by the insurance company, and sometimes by the government, he or she hands over a portion to the accomplices.

"I received about three million won (2,700 dollars) and used the money to pay debts when I came to South Korea," one woman in her late thirties told the JoongAng Daily newspaper.

The article takes pains to depict the North Korean defectors as victims of this, a view I'm sympathetic to. After all, both survival in North Korea and the process of escape and then hiding in China would necessitate living by hook or by crook for many of them, and it may be hard to turn that off that attitude and behavior. An attitude of doing what you can to survive mixed with a perception drummed into their heads by the fraudsters that the only ones who get hurt are these big, bad corporations, and you've got an easy accomplice.

Sadly, I fear that this kind of thing looms large in any post-reunification future, as the two versions of Korea clash in ways we cannot even begin to fathom now.

Stop me if you've heard this one

Somali pirates have commandeered a South Korean ship again:

The South Korea Foreign Ministry told Yonhap News 43 crew members aboard the 241-ton trawler Keummi 305 were captured by the pirates on Oct. 9 about 10 miles off Lamu, Kenya. The crew included two South Koreans, two Chinese and 39 Kenyans, the South Korean news agency said.

A South Korean citizen living in Mombasa, Kenya, told Yonhap the pirates took the boat to Harardhere, north of Mogadishu.

Officials had not yet heard from the pirates with any demands.

"Given past instances, it would put the hostages in even more danger if the government tried to negotiate directly with the pirates," a ministry official said. "We're trying to find out more about the incident using all possible channels."

Got that? Negotiations with Taliban, okay. Negotiations with Somali pirates, not a good idea.

UPDATE:
Yonhap has more on this story.

At the HIFF

Dole Cannery Regal Theater, home of HIFF.

I should be working, but I'm going to see Obsessions Confessions instead. It's in Japanese, but I assume there are subtitles.

UPDATE:
Quite an interesting film. Sort of Lady Vengeance meets Battle Royale.

Och'ŏnmanmyŏng

The population of the Republic of Korea (the southern, friendly one) has officially crossed the fifty million mark. It was a baby girl born on September 13. Interestingly, the 49,999,999th ROK resident was a baby born to a Vietnamese woman from Kyŏnggi-do Province.

Still, with so many couples have just one baby or none, we are haunted by the same inverted population pyramid that has been plaguing Japan. 

Really, there needs to be some sort of campaign for couples to get to baby making. We can call it "ROK On!" and it should involve romantic music and daycare vouchers.

Michelle Rhee's farewell message

Korean-American educator and chancellor of Washington DC schools Michelle Rhee has penned a valedictory letter in the Washington Post, along with the soon-to-be exiting mayor Adrian Fenty who brought her in to fix DC schools:

When the two of us began this journey together, we made a pact with each other. We pledged that we would always put children first and make decisions that would be in their best interest, even when -- especially when -- we knew it would cause consternation among adults. This pact was our true north. In many ways, it cut through the hard choices to something clear and simple: We would fight for the right of every parent to promise and give their children an excellent education. We would insist on a school system that backed up that promise. We would ensure that children received the skills and knowledge they needed to do anything they wanted in life. ...

We've made tremendous strides. On the nation's gold standard, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, we've gone from being the worst-performing school district in the country to a force of 46,000 children who lead the nation in gains -- with some of the greatest advances coming from our students of color, students receiving special-education services and students formally learning the English language for the first time.

On our local exam, we've increased student achievement in all subject areas and grade levels. At the secondary levels, these gains are unparalleled anywhere in the country. More students are graduating and ready to attend college, our schools are safer and our parents are more satisfied. A greater percentage of the system's taxpayer dollars are going directly to the classroom, where they belong, instead of supporting a bloated and formerly inefficient central office. The operational issues that long plagued our schools (undelivered books, late paychecks and shoddy facilities) are quickly becoming complaints of the past.

We absolutely believe the progress can continue. Our presumptive new mayor is a native Washingtonian who cares deeply about education. We leave behind arguably the most talented and driven team that a school district administration could have. They are in the schools; they are in the central office; they are in other District agencies partnering with DCPS to modernize schools and update and support technologies. All of these people and more are getting up every morning and doing the incredibly difficult work that the cameras don't see. As leaders, we simply "blocked and tackled" so that they could get things done.

I know she didn't invent it, but I just want to point out that I like the phrase (and the concept) of having one's true north.

Anyway, I do realize that Ms Rhee has her critics, but if nothing else, I do think her situation underscores how real and meaningful change rarely comes easily or automatically, just because we elect people who say they will do things differently. Whether it's teachers' unions, corporate interests, anti-government ideologues touting free-market solutions for everything, it's easy for groups to get caught up in the politics and thus fail to effect necessary improvements, and indeed, those who make the hard choices often set themselves up for ballot box defeat (and this applies to Obamacare as much as anything).

And that's my sappy, anodyne comment of the day.