By Clare Hubbard

One indicator of the difficulty that North Korean defectors have in assimilating to life in South Korea is crime statistics. The crime rate among North Korean defectors in South Korea is more than twice that of the country’s overall crime rate of 4.3%.  Defectors are also five times more likely to fall victim to crime.  Desperate for money, defectors will commit crimes against each other, playing off the vulnerability of newly defected countrymen. The ill-gotten money is used to send to the criminals’ families in North Korea, pay back their brokers for defection costs and to create a financially stable life in South Korea. The money earned through the resettlement program at Hanawon (House of Unity) Center, along with life skills training, is not enough to create a successful transition into South Korean society for most defectors.

Two recent cases highlight defectors committing crimes against their peers:

• The 2012 Human Trafficking report states that in April of 2011, the Seoul Metropolitan Police arrested a 40-year-old North Korean female refugee who had forced 70 North Korean women into prostitution. She and others involved had paid Chinese brokers around $32,000 to bring the North Korean women who were living in China to South Korea. The woman pleaded guilty to charges related to commercial sex trade and paid a $1,800 fine.
• In October 2012, North Korean defectors were arrested on charges of using a real estate scam to con other defectors. Defectors were told that their money would be invested by a Chinese proxy because of Chinese limits on investments by foreigners.  The cons showed pictures of apartments under construction in China to make the scam more believable. The pyramid scheme tactic took around $4.6 million from 155 defectors over the course of two years.  Each defector was told to invest 30 million won ($25,000) and were then paid 3 million won a month later ($2,500) and told they would receive all their money back once they found other investors. Fifteen defectors were charge in the scheme.  A Chinese man is also believed to have been involved.

These crimes occur because of defectors’ general lack of awareness about practices in South Korea and overseas.  Many North Koreans also face prejudice from South Koreans who perceive them as socialists who are dependent, lazy and selfish. This discrimination makes it hard for North Koreans to fully integrate into South Korean society.

By law, North Koreans are automatically given South Korean
citizenship.  When defectors come to South Korea they endure a month-long vetting process to check their background and make sure they are not North Korean spies.  Then they are put into the two month re-education program at Hanawon, which provides defectors with social readjustment training, medical care, and counseling.  Upon leaving, each North Korean adult receives a stipend of 36,960,000 won (about $35,000) with the expectation that part of it will be used as  a down payment for an apartment. Also, every defector is assigned a career counselor. All of this is provided by the South Korean government. Yet, despite all this support, North Koreans still have an extremely challenging time assimilating into a South Korean lifestyle.

The overwhelming freedom that comes in a capitalist society is often too much for a defector to adapt to within the two months of training.  Having lived in a totalitarian society for so long the defectors are ingrained with a set of values different from those of Koreans who grew up in a democratic environment.  Language, technology and discrimination are major barriers for defectors.  South Korean’s have embedded some English words into their vernacular (often called Konglish) which makes it difficult for defectors to understand. Also words associated with capitalism such as real estate and insurance are unfamiliar to defectors.

There are 29 South Korean regional support centers for defectors looking for jobs.  These centers provide three weeks of training.  Also, to encourage South Korean industries to hire defectors, the government subsidizes half of the defector’s monthly wages for two years.  Despite aide from the government South Korean companies are reluctant to hire North Koreans because of discrimination and also from “some defector’s inability to compete with South Koreans in work ethics, habits and skills.”  Defectors are known to frequently miss work and high absence rates give South Koreans the impression that defectors are undependable and lazy.

Defectors can have such unrealistically high expectations of life in South Korea that they develop in China or during readjustment training.  The reality of working at a blue-collar job is often not what was anticipated and defectors will quit to create their own businesses or with the belief that they will be hired for better work. If the self-owned business fails or they are not hired at another job, maintaining a stable lifestyle can be impossible; defectors will find other ways to make money, sometimes turning to crime. Families can play crucial roles in the adjustment process, and a defector will think twice before quitting a job because they are more aware of their responsibility to others.

To better integrate North Koreans into South Korean society, the Hanawon Center should look for ways to better prepare defectors for their new lives. Also, South Koreans should be more understanding of the difficulties defectors face when being integrated into South Korea.  With possible future unification, South Korea needs to come up with a better system of integrating defectors to create a foundation for a more stable and prosperous Korea.

Clare Hubbard is a former Fulbright Korea English Teaching Assistant and current intern for the Korea Economic Institute.

Photo from InSapphoWe Trust’s photostream on flickr Creative Commons.

Below are the key findings from the surveys conducted by Research and Research in November and December. Where applicable, dates the survey was conducted are in brackets.

The presidential race between Park Geun-Hye and Moon Jae-In remained tight. As of December 12, 43.4% support Park, while 41.9% support Moon.

Following Ahn Cheol-Soo’s exit from the race, 38.5% stated it would be advantageous for Moon Jae-In, while 33.5% said it would benefit Park Geun-Hye. [Nov. 24-26]

44.8% cited Park Geun-Hye as being more capable of handling relations with North Korea. 40.6% cited Moon Jae-In. [Nov. 30-Dec. 2]

Regarding the announcement by North Korea on December 1 of a planned long range missile launch, 25.4% stated that this would be advantageous for Park Geun-Hye. 9.4% stated it would help Moon. 48.5% said it would have no influence. [Dec. 3–5]

While 48.6% said that this election would be a referendum on the administration of Lee Myung-Bak, 43.3% said it would not. [Dec. 3–5]

55.1% expected Park Geun-Hye to win the election. 25.0% expected Moon to win. [Dec. 9–11]

The sample size of the survey was 1,000 respondents over the age of 19. The margin of error is ±3.1% at the 95% confidence level. The survey was conducted by the Research & Research. It employed the Random Digit Dialing method for mobile and landline telephones.

Note: Due to election law in Korea, the last results that can legally be released are those from on or before December 12. Polling will continue, but those results are embargoed until after the election.

Also, results presented for December 12 should not be interpreted as fully accounting for the North Korean missile launch. Only one-third of the sample was collected on that day. While this sample was likely aware of the launch, the other two-thirds of the sample was collected in the two days prior.

Long-Range Missile Diplomacy

For those who follow the Korean Peninsula closely, South Korean elections and North Korean provocations seemingly go hand-in-hand. While North Korea has railed against the potential election of Ms. Park, conventional wisdom holds that provocations benefit the conservative party. Thus, debate remains on which benefits North Korea more—a liberal
administration willing to provide unconditional food and economic aid or a conservative administration that provides in with important internal legitimization. But the more immediate question is if North Korea’s reportedly successful missile launch will have any effect on the South Korean presidential election.

While an announced, and failed, launch is a known variable in terms of South Korean public opinion, a successful launch remains an unknown. However, the best reading of the data suggests that the launch will not have a strong impact on the election. There is some recent history to back this up. Just a day prior to the National Assembly elections in April, headlines hit the papers that North Korea was ready to launch a long range missile. Of course, the
conservative Saenuri party went on to unexpectedly win that election. However, connecting one to the other is spurious at best. First, as the March edition of this report noted, the Saenuri Party was clearly surging before the announcement of the rocket launch and the Democratic United Party (DUP) made several strategic blunders during the campaign. Second, in a survey conducted by the Asan Institute immediately following the National Assembly election only 6.1% cited the pending North Korean missile launch as the issue which decided their vote. Of course, it could be argued that because the Blue House, and not the National Assembly, sets North Korea policy the most recent launch will have a much larger impact.

There are two strong arguments that this will not be the case. First, the Korean public’s opinion on which candidate is most capable of handling North Korea relations is split—44.8% cite Park Geun-Hye as most capable, 40.6% cite Moon Jae-In.1 This is roughly in line with the spread from the previous time this question was asked in late October. In that survey, 40.9% cited Park versus 35.5% for Moon. 2 (10.0% cited Ahn Cheol-Soo.) It appears that respondents have already decided which candidate’s North Korea policy they prefer and a non-lethal missile launch may harden those positions rather than causing voters to switch.

Second, following the announcement of the launch on December 1 there was no evidence of a shift in candidate support. Support for Ms. Park remained largely flat from December 4—the first day when the North’s announcement would have been fully accounted for in the data. However, a significant rise for Moon Jae-In coincides with the launch announcement, but such a connection is speculative. Thus, the effect of the announcement on the presidential polls is unclear but likely negligible.

Regarding the effect of the actual launch, there is little data to go on, and its interpretation should be done carefully. On December 12, 337 respondents participated in the survey— approximately one-third of the full sample. (One-third participated on December 11 and onethird on December 10.) Because the launch occurred before 10am, it is likely that this group of respondents was aware of the missile launch. However, there was no surge in support among this group for Park Geun-Hye. While support did rise slightly (2.7pp from the previous day’s respondents), it was within the margin of error. Moreover, Moon Jae-In also saw a slight rise in support among this group as compared with the previous day. Again, this is not a full sample, but it does suggest that there will not be a strong impact from the North
Korean launch.

If there is to be a shift, it is most likely to come from voters in their 20s. One of the most consistent results in Asan surveys is that this cohort is decidedly security conservative. When it comes to issues related to North Korea, they identify much more with Koreans in their 60s than with those in their 30s or 40s. On which candidate is best able to handle North Korea relations, 48.3% cited Ms. Park—14.7pp higher than those in their thirties and 10.8pp higher
than those in their forties. However, since December 4 there has been no consistent upswing for Ms. Park (Figure 2). While she did gain 8.4pp from December 4 to December 7, those gains were erased by December 11. While there was a 3.7pp gain for Ms. Park from December 11 to December 12 the driver of that gain is not clear nor is such a gain unusual for her among this cohort.

The Final Count Down

The timing of the North Korean missile launch has now overshadowed what might actually be the most important event of the campaign—Ahn Cheol-Soo’s exit from the race. Unable to come to terms on how to best decide a unified progressive candidate, Dr. Ahn unilaterally withdrew from the race on November 23. This was certainly not an ideal situation for either Ms. Park or Mr. Moon. Park would have preferred that both candidates remained, creating a
three-way race which she would have easily won. For Moon, the result was even more unsatisfactory. Even though he became the unified candidate, the unification process was not perceived to be based on consent between the two candidates but rather a failure of negotiations.

The less than harmonious unification process may have led some Ahn supporters to refuse to support Moon immediately. According to Research & Reasearch’s survey on November 26, 56.8% of previous Ahn supporters answered that they would now support Moon, while 18.9% stated they would support Park—21.9% remained undecided. This was not unexpected. It was clear that Moon and Ahn were not seen as perfect substitutes for one another, and the October-November issue of this report noted that there would not be a 1:1 shift.

Following Ahn’s resignation, Moon failed to overtake Park in the polls, and on November 29 the gap between Park and Moon was as large as 8.5pp. However, Moon’s support began to recover and the spread between Moon and Park gradually shrank. As of December 12, the race remains tight with Park leading by only 1.5pp.

Generation, Generation, Generation

This election is projected to be another battle between generations. As is already well established, Park Geun-Hye’s base is among those in their 50s and 60s, while Moon Jae-In now enjoys strong support—thanks to Dr. Ahn’s withdrawal—from those in their 20s and 30s. Given that it is generally known how the oldest and youngest generations will vote, those in their 40s could prove to be critical in this election. As shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4, and in
true tossup fashion, this cohort is divided amongst itself on which candidate it prefers. While those aged 40-44 have consistently preferred Moon Jae-In (Figure 3), those aged 45-49 have generally preferred Park Geun-Hye (Figure 4), although that lead has been narrowed significantly.

Demographic Shift

One of the challenges facing not only Moon Jae-In, but the progressive candidates of the future, is the demographic shift towards an older society. According to the National Election Commission, in the 2007 election those in their 50s and 60s or over combined to make up 33.7% of all eligible voters. However, in terms of actual voter turnout, these two cohorts combined to make up 40.8%. In 2012, according to the most recent census data, these two cohorts now combine to make up 38.7% of eligible voters, a 5.0pp increase from five years earlier (Figure 5).

Turnout among these cohorts has been incredibly reliable. In every election since 2000, turnout among the 50s and 60s+ has averaged 74.7%. Comparatively, turnout for those in their 20s and 30s averaged 41.8% and 51.8%, respectively. (That number is 64.5% for the 40s.) In presidential elections, those in their 50s and 60s combined for an average turnout of 78.9%, compared with 51.8% of those in their 20s, 61.3% of those in their 30s, and 71.3% of
those in their 40s.3 This strong, reliable turnout among the oldest voting blocs provides Ms. Park an advantage given their strong support for her (Appendix Figure 1, Appendix Figure 2).

If this trend holds, and there is every reason to believe that it will, Mr. Moon will clearly need very strong turnout from the young cohorts—cohorts which have historically had trouble in making it to the voting booth. However, a rise in youth turnout would likely create a rise in overall turnout, something that would be swimming against history. Since 1987, each presidential election has had lower voter turnout than the previous election. In 1987, turnout was at 89%, declining each year, with major decreases from 1997 (81%) to 2002 (71%), and from 2002 to 2007 (63%).

The Gender Card

Somewhat surprisingly, there has been very little said about Ms. Park as the first female candidate with a real chance at taking the Blue House. Given the generally poor reviews Korea is given for gender equality and female labor force participation rates, almost nothing has been said about gender throughout the entire race. The older generations have left the issue alone because she is the daughter of Park Chung-Hee, and the younger generations have been quite on the issue because they are much more liberal on social issues.

However, there has been a consistent preference among women for Ms. Park. While the two candidates have been virtually tied among men, Ms. Park has maintained a 6-10pp lead over Mr. Moon among women (Figure 6). This is an interesting phenomenon, particularly considering that in American elections female voters disproportionately vote for Democrats. Yet, it is premature to assert that Korean women see Park Geun-Hye as a presidential candidate representing women. In fact, Korean female voters have long been quite conservative, and are more likely to support the Saenuri Party than the DUP.

Regional Races

The regionalism present in South Korean elections isone of the most well-known features of Korean politics. The east-west rivalry has been in existence since before the Japanese invaded Korean in 1592, and shows little sign of abating in the current election. While Park holds large leads in the Busan/Ulsan/Gyeongnam area (Appendix Figure 3) and Daegu/Gyeongbuk  (Appendix Figure 4), Moon leads easily in Gwangju/Jeolla (Appendix Figure 5). The Daejeon/Choongchung area was expected to be hotly contested and indeed that has been the case. What was once a commanding Park lead in late November has become a race within the margin of error in early December (Appendix Figure 6). The real prize remains as the greater national capital region. Seoul and its surroundings combine to make up approximately 48% of the population, and a clear victory here could create a huge advantage for either candidate. While Park trails in Seoul by 7.4pp as of December 12 (Figure 7), Incheon/Gyeonggi remains within the margin of error (Figure 8).

Conclusion

This report presents a mixed view of the election for both candidates. However, even though the race remains tight in the poll, Moon Jae-In still faces several significant challenges. The most significant problem is going to be youth turnout. While many of these young voters voice support for Moon Jae-In, it is not clear that they will actually turn up on voting day. After all, many of them were supporters of Ahn Cheol-Soo, and without him in the race they may simply abstain. This, along with the simple demographic challenges he faces, presents a very difficult—but not impossible—path to victory for Mr. Moon.

To download the full report from Asan Institute, please click here.

By Ben Hancock

Going to Korea to learn Korean has become significantly more popular in recent years. But despite the growth in numbers, interest among U.S. citizens still appears to be relatively weak, according to statistics from the Korean Ministry of Justice.

In 2010, nearly 18,000 people — 17,880 to be exact — were in South Korea for the sole purpose of learning Korean. That’s nearly double the number of people who were there for the same reason just four years prior in 2006, the first year the ministry started keeping such figures. (The “D-4-4” visa for Korean language learners was introduced in 2006, and was changed to the “D-4-1” visa in 2009.)

In both 2006 and 2010, the majority of aspirant Korean speakers came from China. But the demographics otherwise have changed. For example, the number of learners from Vietnam jumped drastically from 134 to 400, nearly matching the number of students from Japan in 2010. They totaled 556 that year, marking a slight drop from 2006.

In the same period, there has been some growth in language student arrivals from the U.S. — from 67 to 108 — but it pales in comparison to the numbers coming from Asia. There were 305 language students from Uzbekistan in 2010; the same year, there were nearly 1,700 from Mongolia, and hundreds from countries around Southeast Asia.

These numbers don’t tell the whole story, of course. For example, there were 966 overall study abroad students from the U.S. in Korea in 2010, and we could assume that many of them were taking some kind of course in the Korean language. That’s slightly up from the 933 study abroad students from the States in 2006. Then there’s of course the thousands of American English teachers in Korea, some of whom we could guess are also taking an interest in the local language.

To get a better sense of what’s been happening on the ground, I interviewed my own former Korean language instructor, Yeon Jeong Kim. Ms. Kim has taught Korean for eight years to a variety of foreign learners, and is on her way to England this fall to study for her masters in Intercultural Communication. The following is her perspective on the changing dynamics in Korean language education, the challenges foreign learners face, and what foreign residents miss when they don’t take part in the language. (This interview can also be read in the original Korean; any errors in translation are my responsibility, seonsaeng-nim!)

1.       What made you decide to become a Korean teacher?

When I was in college I had the chance to teach some foreigners Korean, and I found that I enjoyed teaching our culture and language to people who came from other cultures and spoke other languages. I thought to myself how great it would be if I could do this as a job. But at the time, there weren’t many institutions outside of universities and private academies, and I worried because finding work was more difficult than I had imagined. But I ended up coming across an advertisement for Ganada Korean Language Center and applied, and luckily was able get the job.

2.       Have you noticed any trends in your students? For example, has there been an increase in the number of students from one particular part of the world?

Korean language education has actually undergone many changes since eight years ago. At first there were mostly students from Japan or China or other neighboring countries, and because studying Korean as a hobby wasn’t very popular at the time, most of the students were studying the language for business purposes. Of course, as in the past, most of the students now are still from Japan and China. But with international marriage [in Korea] on the rise and Korean popular culture gaining a higher profile worldwide, the people learning Korean are coming from a more diverse group of countries and are increasingly studying for their own reasons.

3.       Are there concepts in Korean language or culture that seem especially difficult for foreign learners to grasp? And is there a big difference between, for example, a student from China or a student from the United States?

Almost all students say they have difficulty with Korean honorifics. Because this is a part of the language that is so tied up in Korean culture, it takes a lot of time for students to fully grasp it. Also, because most students understand Korean on the basis of their own language, another challenge is that they often carry over pieces of their mother tongue. For example, students from English-speaking countries say they have difficulty using conjunctions to make long sentences because the sentence structure is so completely different in Korean. Learning all the many Korean vocabulary words based on Chinese characters is also hard for English-speakers. At the same time, students from countries that use Chinese characters learn these vocabulary easily, but because they are sometimes used differently or in completely different contexts compared to China, this can sometimes be even more confusing.

4.       When I worked in Seoul, a co-worker of mine once described Korean to me as an “emotional” language. Do you think that’s an accurate characterization? Is there a big difference between the way thoughts and feelings are expressed in Korean compared with other languages?

Rather than being an emotional language, I would say that it’s a language that allows you to express emotion in a lot of different ways. As students would get up to higher levels, they would often say that the variations of expressions were actually the most difficult thing about learning Korean. There were a lot of students who would complain to me about how there were so many different words that, if you just look in the dictionary, all mean the same thing. But even if those words are similar, they are all actually different words. Koreans choose their words carefully based on the situation, and foreigners are of course going to have difficulty knowing the subtle differences between them. I think the reason why Korean has so many different expressions probably has something to do with the fact that Korea has a history close to 5,000 years long. Because language is a human trait, I think it’s to be expected that it will continuously change, and the longer the history, the higher likelihood there will be that it will become more diverse.

5.       Compared to China or Japan, there are relatively few Korean books being translated into English. Do you have a theory for why that is, and do you think that increased access to Korean literature in English might drive greater interest in Korea?

I actually think this is closely related to the fact that Korean has so many different expressions. As an example, the poet Ko Un has been nominated for the Nobel Prize nearly nine times, but has never won. Some experts see that as related to the difficultly in translating the various Korean expressions. I think that if there were just more skilled translators there would be an increase in interest in Korean literature. Outside of literature, though, a lot of the rights to Korean movies have been bought by Hollywood and re-made, and many of my foreign friends really like a lot of the recent Korean movies. It is a different area [than literature], but as a part of Korean culture and art, I think you can see that as evidence that Korean thoughts and perspectives are interesting to a foreign audience.

6.       As you know, many Koreans are fervent about learning English, and the amount of English spoken now in Korea allows many Westerners to travel around the country without really learning the language. Is it still important to study Korean, and what do visitors or foreign residents miss without an understanding of the language?

Of course, compared to the past there are more Koreans who can speak English, but the language of Korea is still Korean. I’m not even sure about the extent to which the younger generation, which has been the subject of the English fever, can really speak English, but certainly most older people cannot speak it. If someone is just traveling through Korea for a short time, not knowing the language will not be a problem, but I think that if you are living here you absolutely need to study Korean. A lot of people say that Korea has become an increasingly individualistic society, but I still think that fundamentally the thoughts of most Koreans do not revolve around “me” but “us”. In Korea, if you want to cross over the barrier and be one of “us,” knowing Korean is essential. If you don’t know the language, there’s a chance that you will miss the opportunity to experience that something extra, that special affinity that Koreans can show to others that we call jeong.

                                                                                                       ###

Ben Hancock is a journalist based in Washington, D.C. He has studied Korean language and culture since 2004, and most recently lived in Korea from 2008 to 2010. The views represented here are his own.

Photo from Vitor Antunes’ photo stream on flickr Creative Commons.

By Caryn Fisher

The ongoing trial of Anders Behring Breivik, the alleged mass killer from Norway who is undergoing trial for the murder of 77 people, reopens the concept of a link between violent video games and acts of violence in real life. During his trial, Breivik stated that he used the game “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” as shooting practice prior to the incident and had in the past spent time playing “World of Warcraft” for up to 16 hours a day. Although various studies and recent articles by Forbes and Reuters agree that there is no correlation between violent video games and violence itself, there is still a fear of correlation which the media plays upon, particularly in cases such as school shootings. Additionally, there also exists the problem of video game addiction, a problem currently faced by the South Korean government, as well as many other nations.

Imagine Seoul, a city where there is a 24-hour PC room on almost every street, filled with people of various ages who stay there from anywhere to a few hours to over a day. South Korea is a country where celebrities aren’t just movie stars and singers, but are also pro-gamers, such as Lim Yo-Hwan (aka Slayers_BoxeR), who earns around US $400,000 a year. In addition to celebrity pro-gamers, as of 2002, many of Korea’s major companies, such as SK Telecom and Samsung Electronics, began to sponsor teams to compete in pro-matches and tournaments, some of which reached audiences of 120,000 on-site and over 1,000,000 through online streaming.

For any video game fanatic, this would seem like paradise, but to the Korean government, this might not be the case. According to the National Information Society Agency, approximately 8% of the population in South Korea between the ages of 9 and 39 suffers from internet addiction, the rate being the highest for those between the ages of 9 and 12, coming in at around 14%. Due to this the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family instituted the Cinderella Law (also known as the Shutdown Law) in 2011. Under the Cinderella Law, individuals under the age of 16 are banned from accessing gaming websites between midnight and 6am. The South Korean government started this initiative in the hopes of treating people for gaming addiction and to help increase the amount of time that students spend studying, rather than online.

Despite the fact that this program was started less than a year ago, there have already been some mixed reactions by the parents of the game playing youth. Some parents state that they feel the government is trying to dictate their children’s lives, while giving the parents less say in how to educate their children. At the same time, there has also been some positive feedback from other parents, such as those who feel that as parents they often don’t have the time to constantly monitor their children’s online-gaming behavior due to having to work late. No matter which side their parents fall on though, young students who have been blocked from their hobby have already found other ways to get around the system, using their parents’ ID numbers instead of their own to register for the games for example.

Unfortunately, the Cinderella Law initiative, focused mostly on younger students, does not fully address the issue of gaming addiction in Korea. Although the Korean cases of internet and gaming addiction are not linked to cases of murder, such as the case of Columbine High School in the United States, there are many cases of personal and familial neglect that have stemmed from gaming addiction. One of such cases was in 2005 when a 28 year old man collapsed and died after playing the game “StarCraft” for 50 hours straight, with little sleep and few meals. The man, who died in a Daegu hospital after collapsing in a PC room, is said to have passed due to heart failure stemming from exhaustion. There was also another case in 2010 in which a Korean couple pleaded guilty to negligent homicide after their three month old daughter died of malnutrition while they visited PC rooms for extended gaming sessions. Ironically, the game they played, “Prius Online,” involved the raising of a child in the game. Although these types of cases are quite rare, the Korean government has responded by subsidizing programs in hundreds of hospitals and clinics focused on treating gaming addiction, one example being the Save Brain Clinic at Gongju National Hospital.

Although the figures for gaming addiction in South Korea seem relatively small compared to that of the United States, where up to 90% of young individuals play video games and up to 15% of them may be addicted to gaming, and China, where approximately 20 million people play online games, it is still a positive step that the South Korean government is looking into the issue. Along with South Korea, several other countries, including the United States, China, the Netherlands, and Canada have also begun opening treatment centers for gaming addiction. While the threat of gaming addiction looms, the Korean government also cannot deny that in a country of nearly 50 million people, of which more than half are registered for online gaming, the online-gaming industry is an important industry for the country. In 2011, it earned $1.1 billion in exports, more than half of the country’s overseas revenue. Balancing the benefits of this booming industry with its potential cost will likely continue to be a challenge as the influence and benefits, as both a hobby and occupation, continue to grow, particularly for the younger generations, in the most wired country in the world.

Caryn Fisher is the Executive Assistant to the President at the Korea Economic Institute. The views expressed here are her own.

Photo from Rory O’Donnell’s photo stream on flickr Creative Commons.

By Chad O’Carroll

In 2012 South Korea will hold elections for both the National Assembly and the presidency, the first time that both votes will be in held during the same year in several decades. With South Korean president’s being limited to a maximum term of five years, Lee Myung-bak will be ending his term in December, most likely to be replaced by either a candidate from the ruling Saenuri party, or from the main opposition – the Democratic United Party.  But what are the main issues of contention between the two parties in this year’s two elections?  The Peninsula takes a closer look at five of the main factors that will contribute towards the outcome of the 2012 votes:

PARTY REBRANDING

Despite Lee Myung-bak having brought the ruling conservative party success with a landslide victory in 2007, recent developments have led to a reorientation away from traditional political values on both sides of the political spectrum:

1. The recent win in the Seoul mayoral election by political novice Park Won-soon has altered the political environment for the 2012 elections, contributing to one in which more focus on identifying with younger generations will be important.  Having beaten the ruling party backed candidate, Park’s victory was aided by key support from software tycoon Ahn Chul-soo, a potential Presidential candidate that himself enjoys widespread popularity among younger generations.
2. As a result of the mayoral elections, both major parties have undergone name and identity changes in an attempt to capture some of the recent surge in support for non-traditional figures like Park Won-soon and Ahn Cheol-soo. The ruling party (GNP) has been renamed to Saenuri (“New Frontier Party”), while the Democratic Party is now known as the “Democratic Unified Party”.
3. The proportion of voters who regard themselves as conservatives fell from 43 percent in 2007 to 31 percent in 2011.  But despite the DUP’s efforts to change, one recent poll suggests the public view the Saenuri Party’s change of direction as being more credible.

NORTH KOREA

While a recent poll suggested that just 8.1% of South Koreans believe improving inter-Korean ties is an important goal for the next president, there are three reasons North Korea will nevertheless play an important role in determining the outcome of this year’s elections:

1. After five years of hard-line policy under Lee Myung-bak, indicators suggest that there will be increased impetus to make engaging with North Korea a priority on both sides of the political compass.  Seoul’s new progressive mayor has already started engaging with Pyongyang in cultural and sporting domains, while the ruling parties’ approval of these activities suggests that Saenuri are also becoming more open to engagement with North Korea.
2. North Korea has long been suspected of trying to influence elections in South Korea to create a more amenable Blue House.  This year, Pyongyang’s state-run media has been making a special effort to undermine the ruling Saenuri party and has been working hard to frame the elections as a dichotomy between war and peace.  With overseas citizens now able to in Korean elections for the first time this year, there are concerns North Korea’s input may have some influence in determining the votes of overseas Koreans.
3. Should North Korea decide to act belligerently in advance of either vote, then it could seriously impact the outcome of the elections. Following provocations like the sinking of the Cheonan and shelling of Yeonpyeong, many South Koreans took on a more hardline view of North Korea, less willing to pursue engagement policies. Because of this, North Korea might be reluctant to initiate any major provocations in advance of general elections, fearful of putting pro-engagement candidates at a disadvantage.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media, including Twitter, are playing an increasingly prominent role in Korean political discourse. A recent Hankyroreh and Korea Society Opinion Institute poll showed politics to be one of the most retweeted topics by users in South Korea this year. This and other indicators suggest social media will continue to shape the electoral campaigns in the months to come:

1. As mentioned, Seoul’s 2011 mayoral elections brought to power a political novice with a history of social activism.  This was achieved mainly through the support he garnered from younger generations through IT tycoon Ahn Cheol-soo (who is also extremely popular on Twitter with the under 40 age group).
2. Seeking to draw the attention of the politically active younger generations and increase transparency, in January the Democratic Unity Party decided to accept text votes from cell-phones to select their new leader.  The mobile voting system had previously proved influential, especially during the aforementioned 2011 Seoul mayoral by-election.
3. The team behind one of the world’s most listened to podcast, Naneun Ggomsuda, may also have a key role in determining the outcome of elections in South Korea this year.  Specializing in political satire, the podcast has to date taken a vehemently anti- Lee Myung Bak and New Frontier Party (formerly the Grand National Party) position which may influence listeners to vote for the opposition.

KORUS FTA

Signed in 2007by late President Roh Moo-hyun and his Uri Party (one of the predecessors of the renamed Democratic Unified Party), the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was later renegotiated by President Lee Myung-bak and his American counterparts in December 2010.  But while the FTA should therefore enjoy bipartisan support in South Korea, recent developments suggest it may emerge as an electoral issue later in 2012:

1. On Feb 8 2012, DUP Chairwoman Han Myeong-sook said her party would scrap the FTA upon winning power unless several “poison clauses” were modified.   Since threatening to scrap the FTA, Han has been silent on the matter. This may have been due to a backlash in public opinion, with some key groups worried her position could undermine Korea’s international credibility.
2. In response to Han’s threat, the Saenuri party conducted a poll which determined that 50.5% of the population thought scrapping the FTA would damage the interests of Korea, with just 33.2% in favor of nullifying the treat.  Lee Myung-bak has also rebuked the opposition for flip-flopping on the agreement, with many opposition figures having originally supported it under former leader President Roh.
3. The KORUS FTA is set to enter the implementation stage as of March 15.  But with Han having labeled the forthcoming April 11 general election as a referendum of the Lee administrations “overall policies”, it could nevertheless re-emerge in the 2012 political discourse.

“WELFARE POPULISM”

With an ever widening gap between rich and poor in South Korea, there is an increasing demand for politicians to address the issues of equality and welfare.  In response, both of the main political parties have been articulating new policies to address these concerns.  But some suggest welfare promises are nothing more than an attempt to pacify the demands of voters:

1. The ruling Saenuri Party is considering campaign platforms which may include raising the wages of conscripts to 400,000 won a month from below 100,000 won at present, providing free child care to families with children under the age of 5, and free high school education.  Similarly, the Democratic United Party’s promises include free school meals for all elementary and middle school students, a drastic expansion in national health insurance coverage, and slashing college tuitions by half.
2. The Finance Ministry has expressed concern regarding the continuing announcement of welfare proposals from both main parties, saying that if implemented, they could cost nearly one-third of South Korea’s entire gross domestic product.  “From the perspective of fiscal authorities, it is challenging to accept the pledges unveiled by the political circles,” the Finance Ministry said.
3. Given the extreme financial burden of the suggested reforms, politicians on both sides have been accused of pursuing populist (but unworkable) policies to attract votes. Nevertheless, opposition figures suggest that these policies are essential because the current administration drove the majority of people to greater economic difficulty with its ‘business-friendly’ policies.  For their part, the ruling party’s move towards welfare policies has been explained as an attempt to improve “the life cycle of each individual, boost employment and strengthen the government’s role in ensuring fair competition.”

Chad 0Carroll is the Director of Communications for the Korea Economic Institute. The views represented here are his own.

Photo from Jens-Olaf Walter’s photo stream on flickr Creative Commons.

By Caryn Fisher

In 2009, a report released by the World Health Organization stated that the suicide rate for South Korea had risen to 31.0 (per 100,000), more than double what it had been only ten years earlier and giving South Korea the second highest suicide rate out of the 107 countries listed by WHO, following only Lithuania. That same year, South Korea also became the country with the highest suicide rate among OECD nations. But why is it that a nation, ranked 12^th in the world by the International Monetary Fund for GDP (PPP), has such high suicide rates compared to its neighbors on the ranking (Mexico at 11^th with a rate of 4.2, Spain ranked at 13^th with a rate of 7.6)? Furthermore, what steps has and should the South Korean government and mental health organizations take to lower the rate in the future?

Source: World Health Organization (http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/repkor.pdf)

In 2008 and 2009, the large number of suicides, including former president Roh Moo Hyun and actress Choi Jin Shil, shocked the nation. A year later in 2010, a report by Statistics Korea stated that suicide was the leading cause of death among individuals in their teens, 20s, and 30s. That year, the total deaths in South Korea equaled 255,000, up 3 percent from a year earlier, of which suicide was the fourth leading cause of death, falling only behind cancer, stroke (cerebrovascular disease), and heart disease. As of 2009, an average of 40 people a day took their lives.

Though there are many possible factors as to why the rate is so high, some of the top reasons are:  pressure to succeed for young individuals, bullying in schools, and the lack of public acceptance of mental health issues coupled with the notion that Korea is a “shame society.” The first factor, pressure to succeed, is illustrated in many of the news headlines within the past year, particularly one in April 2011 that included four students and one professor at KAIST University. The students, who under University law must maintain a 3.0/4.0 GPA to keep their tuition-free status and who possibly even consider admittance to KAIST as one of their life goals, are falling victim to intense competition with their peers and a resulting depression due to the stress, common among youth in Korea these days. The academic pressures that they feel have led to youth in Korea being ranked as the unhappiest individuals out of a subset of OECD countries, as well as to the 50 percent increase in teen suicides from 2008-2009 and the 202 college students that took their lives in 2009.

In recent news, following the death of a young 13 year old boy in Daegu who committed suicide due to bullying from two classmates, the rise of bullying in schools leading to suicide has also been of great concern. In 2011, 14,939 students asked the Teenage Violence Prevention Center in South Korea for help with bulling issues. Of that group, 520 of them considered committing suicide due to the severity of the problem. One of the main problems is that students cannot rely on their teachers for help in this situation, as many of the teachers and school administrations try to keep the cases of bullying silent.

Additionally, Koreans still fear losing face in society due to mental health problems. Those who do rely on treatment methods such as visiting a psychiatric clinic pay their bills in cash, so that the record of their assistance with the clinic is not on their insurance records. It is also highly uncommon for Koreans to talk openly about emotional problems and the feeling of preserving face for their family is still of high concern. Professor Hwang Sang-min, a professor at Yonsei University, states, “Koreans always want to show their best image to other people,” which explains the desire to give up when the image is not maintained.

To help curb the increasing numbers, the Ministry of Health and Welfare passed a bill in 2011 that will make funding available for more suicide prevention centers nationwide, increasing the 151 community mental health centers, 170 rehabilitation centers, and 56 psychiatric nursing homes that have been established since 1995. Unfortunately, the pre-established mental health clinics are more effective in helping with basic family or marital problems, rather than getting at the root of the problem, depression. Also, though health insurance covers the cost of the sessions, the patient’s government insurance record then shows a “Code F,” deterring individuals from having insurance reimbursement for their bill in exchange for their records indicating they had assistance for mental health.

Another change is that some Koreans are becoming more comfortable with Western psychotherapy and Western depression medicine. The problem with this is that, again, it is not truly addressing the root of the problem and instead is giving an easier way out to those who fear extended talk sessions and the chance that those around them will find out about their visits. Dr. Jin-seng Park, a psychiatrist working in Seoul, states that most patients expect and ask for medication, rather than participate in several sessions of talk therapy. Only about a third of Dr. Park’s patients take the time to participate in therapy, while the other two-thirds rely on medicine.

Some other changes that have been made to prevent suicide in South Korea include increasing the number of cameras along the Han River, increasing the monitoring of suicide hot lines, and increasing the number of volunteers who monitor online bulletin boards or websites related to suicide, as suicide pacts between strangers who meet online is a growing trend.

Overall, although changes have been made, the government should take more active steps in the future to reduce the number of suicides. The Ministry of Health and Welfare is due to look at the suicide prevention and mental health issues again in five years, but if the trend continues the way it has been, it would be more beneficial for them to move up the review. As seen in a recent poll by Ipsos, South Koreans find themselves to be the least happy out of the fifteen countries listed, possibly explaining the high rate for suicide in the country. As Korea continues to become a more prosperous country, the government and society as a whole can work together to address the problems at hand, depression and suicide, in order to not only help in preventing unnecessary deaths but also to help each other to feel happy in the prosperity that the country has built for itself.

Caryn Fisher is the Executive Assistant to the President at the Korea Economic Institute. The views expressed here are her own.

Photo from Craig Nagy’s photo stream on flickr Creative Commons.

By Ben Hancock

In the face of budget cuts, the education offices of South Korea’s two most populous regions announced in the second half of last year plans to reduce their roster of native English-speaking teachers in coming years. While the scale of the cutbacks in Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province is still unclear, the steps raise questions about whether the country as a whole is beginning to move away from an educational model that has exposed millions of Koreans to Westerners and their culture, and vice versa.

What seems to be happening is that Korean education officials are now shifting toward a quality over quantity approach to English education, according to Pak Soon-Yong, a professor of education at Yonsei University. “There is a discussion on the need to revamp English education to meet the needs of the times, one of which is to reestablish the guidelines to accommodate qualified native English teachers,” he says.

That’s a natural shift for Korea to make as a rising economic power with increasing international exposure, says Ben Glickman, who until recently was CEO of the Vancouver-based Footprints Recruiting company that places teachers in Korea and elsewhere. It also roughly follows the arc of Japan’s English-teaching industry — which rose along with its economy and high-tech sector from the 1980s until the mid-1990s, but then evened out in later years.

“Foreigners in Korea are not the novelty that they were 15 or 20 years ago,” Glickman explains. This means there’s less value in just getting kids exposed to a foreign face, especially in urban areas, and more interest in drawing educators who are specially qualified. Even now, many of the teachers hired through the government-run English Program in Korea (EPIK) are recent graduates who are shoved into classrooms with just a week of training, he says. And they’re earning roughly $40,000 a year, making them a target for local councils eager to ease spending.

Still, that amount is less than Glickman earned when he taught English in Korea over a decade ago. This is where the economics of supply and demand come into play. Glickman notes — and I wrote about two years ago — a rise in the number of Westerners newly seeking jobs in Korea or who planned to keep the ones they had, corresponding with the soured state of the job markets in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere. More applicants for less positions means that Korea can afford to be more choosey.

In a recent interview with the Jeju Weekly, Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) Foreign Education Department Chief Choi Chun Ok underlined the scope of the costs to pay for native English-speaking teachers.

“Foreign English teachers have greatly contributed to the development of English education in Seoul,” Choi told the paper. “However, it is time to reevaluate the cost-effectiveness, considering a huge sum of budget (about 52 billion won, or US$45 million annually). So we are changing our policy from quantity expansion to quality improvement.”

Scope of cutbacks unclear

Part of the reason it’s so difficult to get a handle on how deep the cuts will be is because there have been so many conflicting media reports, as noted by blogger Matt Van Volkenburg, who has run “Gusts of Popular Feeling” from his perch in South Korea since 2005. “I don’t think these moves should be exaggerated,” Van Volkenburg says in an e-mail to me. He notes that while the initially announced budget cuts in Gyeonggi were substantial (though the provincial education authority later seemed to backtrack), the cuts in Seoul were relatively shallow. In the capital, it seems clear that native speaker jobs in high schools will be cut significantly, with lesser cuts in middle and elementary schools.

Glickman is not surprised that it’s been hard to figure out what’s going on behind the scenes, especially in Seoul. Characterizing SMOE as a “notoriously opaque” agency, he recalls an instance in 2008 when the office fired more than a hundred teachers just before they were to begin their jobs. Many of them were already in Korea or on a plane, and the office never gave a clear explanation for its action.

That issue aside, it doesn’t seem like the cuts will have a major effect on Korea’s influence abroad, or the country’s allure. Glickman speculates this may have even been a piece of the calculations in deciding to start rolling back the English teacher positions. With Samsung now a household name and kimchi taco trucks proliferating in Seattle, LA, New York and Washington, it’s probably become apparent to Koreans that they don’t need to rely on English teachers to be cultural ambassadors, he says.

Van Volkenburg partly agrees. “As much as people like to scoff at the ‘Korean Wave,’ I’ve been told by people who work with foreign students studying in Korea that quite a few non-ethnic Korean Western students are attracted to Korea because of their interest in Korean music and dramas, so that will continue to pull more Westerners here.”

“It is too bad, however, that few people have thought about how native speaking teachers could be potential sources of information about the country,” he adds. “In the past, some soldiers and a great many Peace Corps volunteers went on to work in business or academia related to Korea. I’ve only ever seen one article … suggesting that foreign teachers be seen as potential ambassadors. Perhaps as the political winds shift and the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics approach, this idea might become more popular.”

Ben Hancock is a journalist based in Washington, D.C. He has studied Korean language and culture since 2004, and most recently lived in Korea from 2008 to 2010. The views represented here are his own.

Photo from the U.S. Army Second Infantry Division’s photo stream on flickr Creative Commons.

By Caryn Fisher

Although South Korea has been sending children overseas for adoption since 1953, it wasn’t until a 1988 article by Matthew Rothschild, entitled “Babies for Sale: Koreans Make Them, Americans Buy Them,” that the South Korean government and citizens began to second-guess their adoption policies and system. The system itself, which began as a way to provide homes and families for children from a post-war South Korea, is now responsible for nearly 200,000 children to date that have been adopted overseas, with 736 South Korean adoptions in the U.S. last year. As of 2008, there were 23 adoption agencies in South Korea, with hundreds of other adoptions being agreed upon under civil law.

Gaming the System

In Matthew Rothschild’s article, one of his main criticisms of the international adoption system in South Korea was the propensity of the country to be seen as a “baby exporter” and the revenues that each agency receives per adoption. According to Rothschild, a Korean adoption agency received $5,000 in fees per child internationally adopted in 1988, a figure that increased to approximately $10,000 by 2000. That figure has continued to increase, with some agencies now accruing around $11,000-$16,000 per child, despite the Ministry of Health and Welfare setting a maximum fee limit of approximately $8,603.38* for international adoptions and $1,759.68* for domestic adoptions. The revenues they collect may also continue past the adoptee’s infant years if the child decides to return to South Korea as part of a motherland tour or perform a birth parent search, both of which also incur fees from the agencies. As of 2011, South Korea generates approximately $35 million annually from adoptions.

In addition to the adoption agencies reaping revenue for each adoption, the agencies themselves also help to coerce the birth mothers to relinquish their babies. In a 1989 report by the Korea Herald, it is stated that Holt, one of the largest adoption agencies in Korea, paid up to approximately $200 in gratitude, per child, to each welfare facility and hospital in which children were relinquished. Additionally, adoption agencies used their connections to facilitate the continuation of adoption through the running of 13 out of the 27 unwed mother homes in South Korea, where social workers withhold information on raising a child as a single parent and instead urge the mothers towards adoption; and through their connections to hospitals, of which Holt alone uses 27, where the social workers arrive shortly after birth to take away the baby so that the birth mother cannot change her mind about adoption.

Social Issues and Acceptance

The large number of international adoptions, versus domestic adoptions, is largely due to the fact that many of South Korea’s values are the same as they were in the post-war period 50 years ago. One of the largest issues which facilitates adoption in South Korea is the discrimination against unwed mothers in society, resulting in young unwed mothers accounting for over 90 percent of total adoptions in 2008. Another issue is that there are many Koreans who still believe in Confucian values, particularly ones regarding blood ties, and do not want to raise another person’s child.

There are also factors that push the South Korean adoption system to be more reliant on international adoption, despite the fact that the government has, in the past five years, increased the promotion of domestic adoption. The fact of the matter is that adoptive parents in Korea are more likely to choose a female baby for adoption, and now also check the background and education levels of biological parents. This leaves many male children, as well as disabled children, and older children, stuck in the system of orphanages, particularly since the creation of the quota system for international adoptions in 2007, which limits the amount of adoptees that can be sent abroad per year.

Uneven Numbers

Despite the good intentions of the South Korean government to end international adoption, the system’s bias of domestic adoption over international adoption leaves many children in need of state care, as the social issues at the root of the problem have not been addressed. Instead, it is increasing both the number of children in orphanages and the age in which children are adopted. In 2008, the Ministry of Health and Welfare reported statistics that more than 9,000 children were in need of state care, with almost 5,000 in institutional care. Although the quota system was created to boost domestic adoption, the domestic adoption rate has not yet increased at a rate significant enough to balance out the decrease in international adoptions, in which the total annual international adoption limit is decreased by 10 percent per year.

The aforementioned problems also lead to developmental problems for the children who grow older in the orphanages. They not only have a harder time in trying to be placed in a permanent home, but also have a hard time adjusting once they get there.

Recent Reforms

Adoption policy and support for adoptive and birth families has taken a positive turn within the past decade. The South Korean government provides financial support to families who have domestically adopted children, with a greater monetary amount going to families who adopt disabled children. It also provides support to unwed mothers, including education vouchers to earn a high school diploma, child care and medical support, and deposit support for renting a group home.

As of June 29, 2011, the National Assembly revised the law governing international adoptions, renaming it “The Special Act Relating to Adoption.” The revision of this law, which takes South Korea a step closer to the ratification of the Hague Adoption Convention, was the first time that children’s right advocates, women’s organizations, adoptees, researchers, and adoptee organizations were able to voice their opinions on the matter. The bill, which encourages the adoption of children domestically and the preservation of the original family, lists several changes that will help to reduce some of the social issues previously mentioned.

First, one week must now pass between the birth of the child and the signing of an MOU relinquishing parental rights. The bill also mandates that counseling and information on parenting must be provided to the expectant birth parents. The bill also requires that children may only be adopted internationally if no home is found for them in South Korea and requires that the adoptive parents travel to Korea to receive their child.

Furthermore, adoptions will now go through the South Korean court system with a central information authority created to protect adoptee identity and medical information. This will be a dramatic change from the current system where individuals only need to obtain written permission from the biological parents to adopt and children in orphanages can be adopted without consent. Additionally, an integrated database will also be created so that adoptees can apply to find their birth families. The bill will also give the right to adoptees to obtain medical information without birth parent permission.

The bill will most likely go into effect in fall of 2012.

Future Reforms

Despite the recent changes that have affected both domestic and international adoption, there are still many issues that will need to be addressed by the South Korean government in the future. In addition to the low domestic adoption rates and the social norms limiting adoption within the country, there are also problems surrounding monthly adoption subsidies that don’t cover the real cost of taking care of a disabled child, the restrictions on support that single mothers receive from the government, the lack of proper sex education in schools, the lack of background and criminal checks for domestic adoptive parents, and the lack of budget allocated by the government to social welfare and the support of the country’s children.

This aside, the policies surrounding adoption have changed greatly since the 1950s and are continuing to develop positively for the future.

* All the monetary values in this blog have been converted from Korean won into U.S. dollars at the exchange rate of 1 U.S. dollar = 1,117.70 South Korean Won.

Caryn Fisher is the Executive Assistant to the President at the Korea Economic Institute. The views expressed here are her own.

Photo from the United Nations Photo photostream on flickr Creative Commons.