#Singanhoe
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
Korea’s tough steps along the long path to democracy
Leaders of the Provisional Government
“For, my friends, the real fruition of life is to do the things we have said we wished to do.”
− Woodrow Wilson, Memorial Day Address at Arlington National Cemetery, 1917
Ehwa School: The cradle of Korean women’s enlightenment
During the Joseon Dynasty, the lives of women were strictly limited by the directives of Confucianism; men and women were completely separated and women’s social activities, including school education, were prohibited. Women’s domains were strictly limited in daily life and they were completely excluded from the rest of society. As such, the roles of women were ignored and their voices could not be heard in the public sector. In this era, in which Korean women were totally marginalized and disempowered and female education was literally nonexistent, American missionary Mary Scranton came to Korea in 1855 at the age of 52 (1). She opened a mission school for girls with only one student in 1886, and Emperor Gojong bestowed the name of Ewha on the school in the following year. (2)
As a pioneer of enlightenment and modern education for Korean women, Mary Scranton ultimately guided Korean women to understand their self-worth and gave them faith in their abilities and independence. By doing so, Ewha School opened a new era of education for Korean women; it nurtured the individual and social consciousness of Korean women and produced many Korean female leaders. (2) At the heart of the Korean independence movement, including the March First Movement, stood Ewha and its students. (3) With a significant number of graduates and students – including the most famous Korean heroine, Yoo Kwan-soon – Ewha served as the true cradle of Korean women’s enlightenment by awakening them to their needs, rights, true selves and consciousness. (3) In my opinion, such education and empowerment made enormous contributions to Korean society by encouraging women to become proactively involved in the Korean independence movement against Japanese occupation, and by leading society to embrace women at its heart and to more fully recognize the crucial roles of women.
Ehwa School graduation photo (Yoo Kwan-soon indicated in circle)
The Singanhoe: A unified national organization pursuing national solidarity, freedom, equality, and human rights
As concerted efforts were required for Korean independence, a Korean nationalist organization entitled the Singanhoe, which unified leftist and rightist parties, was founded on February 15, 1927. (4) Under the slogan of promoting national unity, the Singanhoe pursued its goals including: obtaining freedom of expression, assembly and association; supporting youth and gender equality; promoting national identity; providing education; and achieving cultural, political, and economic independence. (4)
As the organization embraced various political views, it successfully gained support from many Koreans, gaining a membership of 50,000 through more than 140 branches at home and abroad. (4) Thanks to considerable support, the Singanhoe conducted activities such as the provision of lecture tours as well as active engagement in peasant and student movements. (5) Of particular note, the organization played a vital role in the Gwangju Student Independence Movement in 1929, which is considered the second-most important Korean independence movement following the March First movement during the Japanese colonial period. (5) In my opinion, the Singanhoe’s realization of the importance of the inclusion of all walks of life made a profound contribution to the enlightenment of Koreans, especially the marginalized, youths, and women. Hence, Koreans may realize their personal and national identity as well as a sense of ownership, which ultimately led them to fight for freedom, equality and justice, regardless of age, gender, or social status.
Platform and Regulations of Singanhoe (New Trunk Society)
Philip Jaisohn: The true father of modern Korea who was rejected from his family and homeland
Philip Jaisohn: The true father of modern Korea who was rejected from his family and homeland It was my sincere honor to meet one of the decedents of Philip Jaisohn (Soh Jaipil) in person, and I was deeply impressed by his life-long dedication to Korea. Leaving an indelible mark on Korean history, he is the true father of modern Korea. Having failed in a coup against the ruling monarchy, he lost his entire family and fled Korea to the United States. (6) He was subsequently shunned with his name becoming unmentionable within his family (7); he was accepted neither by his family nor by his homeland. He began to use his English name, Philip Jaisohn, and in 1896 he started publishing Korea’s first newspaper, The Independent, which was printed in Korean to enlighten the common people, particularly the lower classes and women, and also printed in English to gain international support. (6) He also organized the Independence Club in 1896 to pursue public education and language reform, to introduce democratic principles to Koreans, and to awaken the population to the need for self-realization. (8) At the same time, he wrote numerous letters and petitions to the Japanese government demanding an end to its colonial rule, and appealed to the international community for support. (7)
In pursuit of these fundamental changes in Korea, he completely sacrificed his individuality. Accordingly, one can assume that he replaced his own personal identity with his social, national identity. By erasing his personal identity in his native land, I believe that he lived two different lives: that of Soh Jaipil in Korea, and of Philip Jaisohn in the US. This separation may have been crucial for an individual who decided to take the path of self-sacrifice. However, his solitary, relentless fight for his democratic convictions brought overwhelming sadness inspired deep grief in me that was then coupled with a deep gratitude. Truly, rejected by his family and homeland, he was the father of modern Korea whose ultimate goal was not to gain the independence of Korea but instead to build a society in which each and every person enjoys equality, freedom, and justice.
Korean and English versions of The Independent
Concluding Thoughts
The word ‘democracy’ is derived from the Greek words demo (people) and kratos (power), and thus literally means “power of people,” or “governing of people.” Accordingly, government should be run “by the people,” and democracy truly depends on the opinions and participation of people. To better reflect the voices of the people, freedom − especially freedom of speech − is absolutely essential. It also requires full recognition of true self-worth and subjectivity, which leads to autonomy. In that light, each and every person should realize their rights and equality, and feel a sense of ownership in oneself and one’s society.
This realization is a major step in democracy and may only be possible when society embraces and enlightens all of its members. It is my opinion that the Korean independence movement should be understood as a democratic movement and not just as nationalist movement to gain independence in a period of colonial rule. That is why institutions like Ewha School and the Singanhoe, and individuals like Philip Jaisohn, relentlessly demanded such values as self-determination, freedom, equality, justice and human rights, and engaged in life-long dedication to introducing new ideas and instilling consciousness among Koreans. Achieving their ultimate goal in the long path towards democracy in Korea has been continuously pursued by their decedents living today, and will be an ongoing evolutionarily process pursued by future generations.
References
(1) “The history of the Scrantons,” Ewha Voice, accessed May 27, 2018,
http://evoice.ewha.ac.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=2110
(2) “University Name,” Ewha Womans University, accessed Mat 26, 2018,
https://www.ewha.ac.kr/mbs/ewhaen/subview.jsp?id=ewhaen_010401000000
(3) “Ewha students at forefront of March First Movement,” Ewha Voice, accessed May 27, 2018,
http://evoice.ewha.ac.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=1889
(4) “신간회 (Singanhoe),” Wikipedia, accessed May 28, 2018,
https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC%8B%A0%EA%B0%84%ED%9A%8C
(5) “신간회 (Singanhoe),” Historynet, accessed May 26, 2018,
http://contents.history.go.kr/mfront/ti/view.do?treeId=06028&levelId=ti_028_0300
(6) “Soh Jaipil,” Wikipedia, accessed May 26, 2018,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soh_Jaipil
(7) Tong-sung Suhr, “The ‘Grandfather’ I didn’t Know”
(8) “Independence Club,” Wikipedia, accessed May 29, 2018,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Club
0 notes
Text
Back in Korea
by Chris Yang / photo: Flickr Creative Commons
On the first day at my new high school, my history teacher began his class by asking a question.
“Why are you Korean?” he asked. There was a brief moment of silence in the classroom.
“Uh, ‘cause we were born in Korea?” one of us finally answered.
“So just because you were born in Korea you are a Korean?” the teacher retorted.
“Yeah, because I have Korean citizenship.”
“Don’t approach the question like that. Stop thinking of the law. What makes you Korean? Why do you think you’re Korean?”
Another long moment of silence.
We sat there for minutes without being able to provide a clear answer.
“Because we grew up in Korea.” Another one of us broke the silence.
“Because you grew up in Korea. But what if you grew up in Korea and were born in America in a typical American family? What if you grew up in Korea, but attended international schools and knew nothing about Korean culture?” the teacher posed even more questions.
“...then you’re an American.”
“So the place of your birth doesn’t matter,” he pointed out.
He waited another few minutes in silence in the hope of one of us coming up with a good answer.
There was no good answer.
He finally gave up waiting and gave us his answer. “You’re Korean. You’re Korean because you speak Korean and learn Korean history. Because you know Korean history better than the history of any other nation. Because you speak Korean better than any other language in the world. Because you are comfortable with the Korean culture. Because you take that culture as part of yourself.”
Everyone else seemed to agree.
I did not.
On July 26th, 2013, my cousin and I boarded our first flight to Toronto, Ontario. It was the very beginning of my temporary life in Canada. I lived in Scarborough with my host family and attended a private elementary school about thirty minutes away from the house. My parents stayed in Korea and my younger brother joined me six months later.
My memories of those next three years have been glorified a little, but, in the end, it is an undeniable fact that those years changed me in more ways than anyone can possibly imagine.
I came back to Korea on June 26th, 2016. I was fourteen years old at the time.
When I transferred to my local Korean middle school in August, I was quick to realize that I no longer fit into Korean society. I felt like an outsider. I couldn’t quite understand this strange feeling. I was born in Korea, grew up in Korea and had absolutely no affiliation with Western culture until the age of eleven. Yet, when I came back to my home country, the very culture I was raised in seemed unfamiliar. It was like living in a foreign country all over again.
I remember telling my friend, just a few days before my final trip back to Korea, that I missed home after three years of living abroad. She told me she could never imagine herself doing what I was doing. That is, studying alone in a country halfway across the earth within a different culture and using a different language to get around. Until then, it didn’t occur to me that not only did I leave my parents behind, but also my country, culture, and language. I began feeling nostalgic and was finally ready to go back home.
But when I did come back home...home was no longer home.
I spent months thinking about why I felt so foreign in the very country where my identity originated from. I managed to come up with two broad, reasonable answers by the time I graduated middle school: 1) bilingual problems and 2) cultural differences.
Being bilingual comes with its benefits. But for me, those benefits came with a somewhat costly price, particularly during the first six months back in Korea. I had rarely used Korean in the past three years and now I had trouble with my native language. I would have sentences I wanted to say that I could only think of in English. I would spend most of my speech stuttering while trying to translate words in my head.
The same problem continues even to this day although it is not as severe as it used to be. I use two languages interchangeably but in different proportions. I speak faster and more fluently in Korean, but I have a richer vocabulary in English. While I still have trouble understanding idioms and cultural references in English, my comprehension of academic materials in English is undoubtedly better. In my history class, I was asked to explain my opinion of the dissolution of Singanhoe, a Korean nationalist organization during the Japanese colonial era. I knew my stance, but I struggled to get my answer out in Korean. After spending a few minutes stuttering out a few random words for my argument, I gave up and said the sentence in English, just like I did other times when I faced similar situations. My classmates understood and kindly translated the sentence for the teacher. I also remember spending hours trying to understand the concept of quantum fluctuation before my first science exam in high school. I struggled to understand the sentences in the textbook. It was as if Korean was my second language, not my native one. My friend suggested to Google it in English. It worked and it only took 15 minutes. My Korean writing is so hopeless that at one point I decided to write my entire physics essay in English and use Naver Papago, an online translating service, to translate my essay to Korean. But again, my English pronunciation is nowhere close to being that of my native Korean one and I have always had difficulties with various English accents. Oh, and of course, definite/indefinite articles and preposition struggles are real.
The cultural issues I faced are slightly harder to explain in words, even though it was just as problematic and complex as the challenges of my bilingualism. There were certain aspects of Korean culture that I had forgotten about and, as a result, had grown distant. Think of head-bowing. You know how in Asian countries you bow your head to show respect for others and especially elders? For some reason, I had to relearn this and probably appeared to be extremely rude on my first day of school until I got used to it again. I also had trouble keeping a straight face as strangers at school grabbed my hand, hugged me and made other physical interactions. Korea has a very intimate culture and I did not realize this until I came back from spending a few years in a culture where physical intimacy was not as socially accepted.
Another aspect of Korean culture that I struggled with, and still wrestle with to this day, is the hierarchy of students. And by hierarchy, I mean the alpha-omega relationship between students in different grades. I understand the need for teachers’ authority over students. What I don’t understand is how upper-class students are granted the same, if not more, authority and control over younger students. Age is power in Korea. Younger students are openly exposed to frequent physical hazings and have absolutely no voice within the student council and no say in any form of decision-making processes. Whatever is decided by older students, we are supposed to follow without question.
Most problems with cultural differences faded after a few months, but not the student hierarchy as I was part of that pyramid of authority. Likely, language issues were also something I had to face every day. My inability to use my native language as fluently as others around me and my struggle to fit into the culture I grew up with, but left behind years ago, made me question who I was. Legally I was a Korean; but, did I consider myself a Korean? Did I belong in the same country and culture my classmates belong in? Do we share the same cultural understanding?
I couldn’t come up with a clear answer.
“I’m Korean because I speak Korean the best”. But what if that’s limited to certain situations? What if I feel more comfortable with English? “I’m Korean because I learn Korean history”. But what if I learned Canadian history first and then Korean history next? Do I know Korean history better than Canadian history? I’m not sure. “I’m Korean because I take Korean culture as part of myself”. Do I? Am I able to fully immerse myself within Korean culture? Can I consider that as part of my identity? Again, I’m not sure. But if so, am I more comfortable with Korean culture than Western culture? My answer is closer to a no.
So who am I? Am I “Korean” enough to call myself Korean?
After countless debates with myself, I have come up with the answer. No. I no longer feel like I’m part of this country, this culture, nor this society. I have no idea why but I do not see myself as the same person as I was before I left for Canada. I feel foreign no matter how hard I try to assimilate myself back into this community. I just don’t feel like I belong here.
Then where do I belong?
Because as much as I don’t feel like a Korean anymore, I don’t see myself as a Canadian either. I know I don’t belong in that country either. I lived there only for three years. That time took a chunk of identity away from me but didn’t give back anything to replace that missing piece.
It left me stuck between two nationalities.
My theory is that I am in this position now because I spent my early teenage years in a culture so foreign to my home country. I went through a lot of rapid, personal changes during those three years. It was in Canada that I established my identity, shaped my beliefs and developed my personality. This does sound a little odd, but my lifestyle changed dramatically from that very moment I landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport. I became a completely different person.
I used to define myself as a Korean, especially in Canada. My identity was my nationality. Whenever someone asked where I was from, I answered “South Korea” without a moment of hesitation. My answer stayed the same even when someone asked me who I was. But when I came back to the place I defined myself with, I realized I was no longer who I used to say I was. That realization was basically the denial of the person who I believed I was.
Although I came to admit that my nationality no longer defines me, I still question where I belong and where I fit in. The sense of belonging has been missing ever since I came back to Korea.
Now after about two years of living in Korea, I am planning on leaving again. This time not to Canada, but to the U.S. Partially for better future opportunities, partially to redefine my identity, and partially as the result of my failure to adjust back to the culture that I left behind years ago.
But for now, I shall go back to my school and try to figure out how to survive another year of what some teachers call “a government sanctioned, illegal social experiment.”
Chris Yang is a student at a foreign language high school in South Korea.
0 notes