The group was set up largely as a result of a former ex-pat English teacher discussion board, English Spectrum, which by all accounts was very loosely moderated – to their detriment – and included a mock post on how to molest students, posts on sexual encounters with Korean women, and pictures of young ex-pats drinking and fondling consenting young Korean women at parties. These individuals posted enough highly provocative posts and pictures that it eventually (and inevitably) caught the attention of concerned Korean citizens and Anti-English Spectrum was born. The group’s profile and activities grew exponentially following the arrest of convicted pedophile, Christopher Paul Neil, in 2008 who had taught in Korea though had not committed any offences there.

Rundown on what the 'friendly' folks at Anti-English Spectrum believe lies within a Western English teacher's brain

From that point on, Anti-English Spectrum under its devoted leader, Lee Eun-ung, went into overdrive ‘protecting’ the Korean masses, in particular Korean children and women, from heavy drinking, sex offending, drug abusing, Korean women fondling, no-good Western dropouts who couldn’t find a job elsewhere – apparently the vast majority of native English teachers fit that bill according to the folks at Anti-English Spectrum. Their activities have including stalking native English teachers for months at a time until ‘finding’ an offense to take to the police, posting malicious, false and discriminating posts, having an audience with Government officials on one occasion, and having one member(/s) post death threats to a prominent expat union. Many ex-pats argue that Anti-English Spectrum have largely influenced public opinion of and laws pertaining to native English teachers through their efforts in liaison with the media, police and Government officials. Whereby they have often cited either misleading, incorrect, incomplete or downright false and inflammatory accounts of native English teachers to further their agenda feeding on age-old latent xenophobia still existing in modern South Korean society.

Korean women who hang out with Western males are also targets of Anti-English Spectrum

A more complete coverage and rundown of Anti-English Spectrum, their history, actions and motives can be found at Andrea Vandom’s excellent, detailed study of the group along with; The Marmot’s Hole, Brian in Jeollanam-do, Gusts of Popular Feeling, three Korea-based ex-pat blogs along with that have extensively followed the Anti-English Spectrum group, their history and activities.

I arrived in Jeonju, South Korea in April 2003, less than one year after the fateful tank accident involving a US military tank and two Korean teenage girls and around the same time as the beginning of the Iraq War. There still was latent anger present at that time towards individuals appearing to be American – pretty much any Westerner -  though these feelings were largely dissipated once people found out your nationality, provided of course you weren’t American, it was a tough time to be American in South Korea.

At the time being wide-eyed and open to new experiences although I felt some tension, even animosity, at my presence from time to time and although many locals were extremely nervous and anxious around my presence during these times as sometimes you truly were the first foreigner locals had ever interacted with, the vast majority of the time I was treated with goodwill, kindness, sincerity and an eagerness to show me the best face Korea had to offer.

Since this time, I have inevitably gone through the peaks and troughs of living abroad in a culture that is vastly different to my home country and the resultant anxiety, alienation, isolation and anger that can result from such, particularly when the host culture is one of the most ethnically homogeneous on Earth with a documented history of xenophobia and mistrust of foreigners – often for purely valid reasons. Most foreigners who landed on Korean shores before mid-last century were not friendly neighbours but more conquerors, mercenaries and invaders.

As time has gone on I have changed and Korea has changed alongside with me. The change and development within Korea in the short time I have been here has been truly remarkable though some thing take longer to change than others. Korea, in my mind, is now more familiar with Westerners and while many may be more comfortable with our presence, this is not entirely true for all individuals. Whereas, when I first came to Korea I was often the source of constant astonishment, curiosity and interest this is not so much the case these days as most people have seen plenty of people who look similar to me for a number of years now.

Unfortunately, what has sometimes followed in its place is a feeling of jadedness, insecurity and in some individuals, even animosity and hate, to what I am and what I appear to stand for and represent. Whilst, by no means most individuals feel threatened, uncomfortable or even angry at my presence, it is there and has been something that hasn’t – nor probably will – leave Korean society, though the same is true of every society on Earth, there will always be those who dislike the different, the ‘outsiders’, the foreigners.

Learning a bit of the language and being able to understand a reasonable amount of what is being said in my presence – as any Korean learner in Korea can attest – can be a blessing and a curse for often locals with use their language as a cloak of fraternity and partnership among each other – essentially closing in the wagons and will often freely express their true feelings under this cloak – believing the foreigner does not understand – whilst often saying or appearing to say something different.

Whilst, Korea’s experiences are by no means unique and a clearly sign of a once homogeneous country coming to terms with a sudden, rapid influx of foreign nationals on its shores – something which all Western nations themselves have gone through to one degree or another. I often likened Korea to 1950s Australia, when all of a sudden the majority Anglo-Celtic population – who in 1947 comprised a whooping 90% of the Australian population – had to come to terms with the rapid influx of thousands and thousands of displaced Europeans (and in later waves from the 70s onwards Asians, people from the Middle East, Oceania and Africa) seeking a new life and more often than not coming with a different appearance, different tongue, different palate, different customs and different culture. In many ways, Australia itself – despite being one of the most multicultural Western democracies – still has a long way yet to go until there is true equality amongst all ethnic groups living in the country.

I believe Korea will grow from these growing pains of being a newly open, modern society and will move on to become more inclusive and accepting of individuals who may not look, act or speak like the local populace. Though, it will take time and it will take honest discussions and discourse on just what direction Korea wants to take, otherwise there’s the potential of a growing disenfranchised, maligned or disadvantaged subset of the local population creating problems for social harmony and integration of ethnically non-Koreans in Korean society.

Time will tell and sometimes I wonder I have the patience to stick around and see whether Korea can become the truly great, integrated society it has the potential to become. It does have a lot going for it.

I’m interested in your thoughts on modern Korean society and its race relations and xenophobia. What it was like in the past, what is it like now and what do you believe it will be like in the future?

Being Spring I also took the opportunity to take pictures of the blooming flowers, in particular the Cherry Blossom (or 벚꽃, さくら、桜), one of the few pleasant legacies of Japan’s colonisation of the Korean peninsula.

As you’ll see from these photographs below the area is full of life, character and history. Unfortunately, this very character is being torn up bit by bit to make way for wide, modern roads and generic apartment complexes. Even more depressing is that seemingly no one begrudges this march towards modernity and destruction of the past. Granted the ancient schools and Confucian academies will remain but little of the soul and character surrounding these sites will remain as rustic street after rustic street is torn up to make way for progress. Unfortunately, to many locals’ eyes, rustic shacks and old alleyways are merely eyesores and painful reminders of when Korea wasn’t as prosperous as it is today. It’s very understandable really. But,  I just hope that at least some of it will remain so that future generations can fully appreciate where they came from and how their forefathers’ lived.

The whole collection is located at: Suncheon’s Old Core (Part I and Part II).

Enjoy!

Suncheon Jeojeon-dong Catholic Cathedral

Suncheon Jeojeon-dong Catholic Cathedral, the oldest cathedral in town

Cherry Blossom trees on the cathedral grounds

Okcheon seowon Confucian school (옥천서원 |玉川書院)

500 year old tree nearby Okcheon Seowon Confucian school

Entrance to Okcheon seowon - former Confucian school

Flowers by the river

Suncheon’s soul

Plaque and pavilion inside memorial site

Pavilion containing beautiful calligraphy and paintings

Old alleyway full of character, unfortunately will most likely be lost in the next few years to make way for a road and/or apartment complex

Main gate to Suncheon Hyang-gyo, former Buddhist school

Korean names are typically three syllables long. Typically the first syllable is the Family name – or Surname – (such as Kim, Lee, Park, etc.) and the two remaining syllables are the individuals Given name (or first name, which is kinda ironic as its second but don’t worry about that!). There are, of course, exceptions such as rare family names consisting of two syllables and some individuals only possessing a one syllable given name but 98% of the time this holds true. Bear in mind, that there are only just over 100 family names circulating in South Korea and that the surnames Kim, Lee and Park themselves account for over 45% of the whole population.

Another facet of Korean names is that all family names are derived from a Hanja (Chinese character) base, each with a specific meaning or value. People are then also divided into regional family clans (much like Scottish clans) depending on the location of their family name – the largest group in Korea being the Gimhae Kim clan with over 3,700,000 descendants. Whereas most (over 90%) of given names are derived from a Hanja base, though it can be trendy to have ‘pure-Korean’ given names these days such as 단비 : Dan-bi (sweet rain), 이슬 :  I-seul (dew), 하늘 : Ha-neul (heaven); or even transliterised foreign given names, commonly Biblical names,  such as 샤론 – (Sha-ron) Sharon or 하늬 (Ha-nui) Honey. Apart from the rare examples of foreign names transliterated into Korean, all Korean given names have a specific meaning and often a lot of time and thought is taken into considering the name of a child, so much so that part of a fortune-teller’s trade is in calculating a suitable given name of a client’s child taking into account their birth date and numerous other factors.

So, with that little Korean cultural lesson over for the day, now let’s get onto my story …

Come 2004 and my return to Korea, the fair city of Gwangju to be precise, after a brief sojourn in Australia I was desperate to delve myself deep into Korea, its language and culture from the onset of my second stint in the ‘Land of the Morning Clam Calm’. One of my main hopes in this voyage of Korean discovery was to acquire a Korean name. Perhaps with a Korean name I could feel more belonging and feel more accepted in this alien culture – yes I was a naive fuck back then!

Anyways, I spoke to students about prospective names and happened to randomly meet a group of friendly young dudes and dudettes one night and spoke with them about a prospective Korean name. The most suitable name that came up from these discussions was 백지민 (Baek Ji-min) with 백 (白) Baek, being the family name and 지민 Ji-min (I can’t remember the Hanja form) being the given name. This was deemed suitable as Baek Ji-min sounded quite similar to Benjamin – my real first name.

Come 2006 and becoming quite bored of being told by Koreans that Ji-min was a girly or effeminate name and that only girls or poofters have it – or something of that like, I decided to venture on the quest for a new Korean name. To help in my Korean name acquisition was my former girlfriend’s father. He was – and still is no doubt – a strong, stoic, stocky and friendly 70 year-old descended from the Gaeseong Kim clan in North Korea. Whilst possessing the typically gruff and staid exterior of a Korean 아저씨 ‘ajusshi’ (married man), deep down he was a friendly,  considerate, wise and decent man who always accepted me despite being gasp, horror – a foreigner dating his daughter. I think maybe his personal history had something to do with his somewhat more enlightened approach to having a foreign devil date his daughter. He was born in pre-War (both Korean and WWII) Japanese-occupied Haeju, in North Korea. At the age of 10, I think just after WWII and Korea’s liberation from Japan, his immediate family decided to head south for a better life and not long after all shit hit the fan. He never said too much and I never asked him too much out of respect but I think he always, rightfully, considered himself very lucky and was quite accommodating towards Westerners as he viewed them and South Koreans for that matter as that much better than the alternatives he either grew up with or could have grown up with (that being Japanese and North Koreans).

He was a former Korean language high school teacher and a learned scholar, who took up the challenge of finding me a Korean name with relish. First cut was the surname Baek, meaning ‘white’, my reasoning for that surname was pointing at my skin colour but he deemed that may be viewed as arrogant by other Koreans .. ok, whatever … so he came up with the third most common surname Bak, more commonly seen as ‘Park’ : 박 (朴) – happens to also mean any of  ‘a tree’, ‘simple, unadorned’, or ‘sincere’.

He also wanted to have a name that sounded somewhat similar to my real first name, you know the one on the Birth Certificate and all, so he went for ‘Jae-min’ : 재민 (滓旻) as my given name, whereby the ‘Jae’ (재|滓) part means ‘sediment, lees’, or my favourite ‘dregs’!; and the ‘Min’ (민”旻) part means ‘heaven’ or ‘sky’.

So, there you have it, my Korean name -  Park Jae-min : 박재민 : 朴滓旻 – literally means ‘sincere dregs of heaven’. I still get a chuckle when I think of my Korean name, though I barely use it these days – not that it was ever official in any sense, or on any documents. As  you noticed earlier in this piece, I did mention that my name giver was my former girlfriend’s father. As such, he may at that time have thought that my Korean name meaning ‘sincere dregs of heaven’ was appropriate though I’m sure if you asked him now – I can’t he doesn’t talk to me no more! – I’ve sure he’d refer to me as ‘dregs of (something not quite as flattering)’!

Cheers!

Indeed, it’s the second time I’ve been there in two months and it’s rapidly becoming my favourite city in Korea for several reasons. Firstly, Chuncheon’s a medium-sized, comfortable city of around 250,000 people – similar in size to Suncheon yet it seems to have more attractions and interests to keep you busy along with more Western amentities in the way of restaurants etc.; which leads onto my second reason being Chuncheon is beautifully located amongst mountains and surrounded by man-made lakes ideal for cycling, hiking, fishing, skating, and skiing depending on the season.

Thirdly, Chuncheon’s the set of several Korean dramas in the past and as such has become somewhat of a tourist destination for Japanese housewives and seemingly quite a few Chinese and Taiwanese tourists too given the number of authentic Chinese restaurants I saw – albeit not many but more than you’d expect in a Korean city of its size.

And, last but not least the people seem .. well, friendly and more accommodating to non-Koreans than in Suncheon. Chuncheon is nearby the DMZ and up until recently had a large US base smack bang in the middle of town but they’ve since moved out and it seems Japanese housewives and Chinese students have taken their place; the end result is that the locals are relatively accustomed to and accommodating to furriners, at least more so than in the Deep South of the ROK, where I live.

Being close to the DMZ means you see many young Korean soldiers on their compulsory military service and sense a somewhat more heightened attitude towards their long-lost brethren in the north. Chuncheon and Gangwon-do in general was the base of some of the heaviest fighting in the Korean War – it changed hands several times – and the locals suffered a lot during this time with the city being pretty much razed. As such, there seems to be somewhat more appreciation towards the Allied forces’ help during that time, at least more than you sense down here. Albeit, where I live was a Communist stronghold before, during and just after the war. The locals on the whole down here moderately appreciate not having to eat tree bark for breakfast like their northern brethren but hold a load more resentment than appreciation towards non-Koreans, no matter where they’re from. The longer I’m here, the more I realise this part. I am being a bit harsh here but I’ve become fairly jaded with this place as nearly all my Korean ‘friends’ here have gone on to show their true colours in one way or another eventually…

So, the contract’s up in four months. The economy’s screwed back home. Teaching English in South Korea’s an extremely comfortable job. Perhaps, a university job in Chuncheon is my next adventure! We’ll see  …

In the meantime here’s some pics and a video:

Looking across the frozen river to the lake and mountains

Looking down towards the frozen river & men ice fishing on it

Almost as good as Jesus! I can stand on (frozen) water!

Memorial commemorating Ethiopia's involvement in the Korean War

Skating on the ice of a frozen river

Oh, and a dumbass on skates.

We then got back on the bus and took a close look along the DMZ and drove by the Bridge of No Return, where POWs from both opposing sides were officially exchanged following the Korean War. Following lunch, we proceeded to the northern-most observation deck where you can view the north via coin-operated binoculars, however you are not allowed to take photographs within 10 metres of the deck due to security concerns.

After which we went to the third, and largest, infiltration tunnel the North Koreans built in order to attempt to invade South Korea. They were only 200 metres off completing this tunnel, capable of moving 30,000 troops an hour, before it was discovered and intercepted by the South Korean army.

That concluded our day and a very interesting and thought-provoking trip to the DMZ. I strongly recommend anyone with an interest in history, geography or Korea in general to make a trip up to the DMZ if you get the chance. Below are some photographs and a video of my trip. More photos and witty commentary are located here.

Myself on site with UN badge on, inspecting the place and looking for weapons of mass distraction, none found alas!

This man is all that there is between you and paradise in the north!

The chap on the left tried his hand at deflecting into the loving arms of the 'Dear Leader' and swiftly got kicked up the arse and sent back!

Shhh! I think he's watching me!

Beautiful ceramic vase

For when only the best will do ...

I did also have an ulterior motive for the visit, however. You see the sleepy village of Byeongyeong (or Byoungyoung, or several other derivatives), just outside the town of Gangjin, was the temporary home of Korea’s first Westerners, a Dutchman named Hendrick Hamel and fellow captives. Bookkeeper Hamel and his crew-mates had the misfortune of getting shipwrecked on the island of Jeju-do, just south of the mainland of the Joseon Dynasty in 1653, then aptly known as the ‘hermit kingdom’. What followed for Hamel and his men was a thoroughly unpleasant, uncomfortable and seemingly inescapable thirteen years at the hands of their Korean captors. Seemingly uncertain just what to do with the 35 hairy barbarians wrecked onto the Jeju shores, their captors carted the weary Dutchmen north from boondock to boondock until they became guests of the Joseon King’s court and a constant source of amusement for the king in Seoul, then known as Hanseong, for a number of years.

Eventually, the king tired of the hairy rogues and banished what was left of them – several of the crew died over the years – to what was, and still is, the outpost of the nation, deep, dark Jeollanam-do. Five men ended up in Namwon, Jeollabuk-do, five ended up in my very own Suncheon – it was cosmopolitan even way back then! – and the remaining 12, including Hamel, in Byeongyeong. Hamel and his men left their mark on the town of Byeongyeong as you will see in this informative link created by a visiting Dutchman, Jan Boonstra, 342 years after his co-patriots left including: 6ft western-style walls (previously unseen elsewhere on the Korean peninsula), irrigation canals, and statues remarkably similar to Jeju’s harubangs (previously unseen elsewhere on the peninsula). Other traits, which are somewhat touchy and controversial in nationalistic, homogeneous South Korea, are the apparent residue effects of probable inter-breeding between the randy Dutch and the fair maidens of Byeongyeong, and possibly, Namwon, and even gasp, Suncheon. Anecdotal evidence points to individuals of these parts, particularly those of the Nam family name, having tall, robust physiques, Western facial features and lighter eyes.

Jeju-do harubang

Byeongyeong harubang

From Jan Boonstra’s website:

It is also possible that some men met local women and through marriage or otherwise fathered children, whose descendants still live here. The Dutch were given the Korean name Nam. There are several roots for the clan of Nam in Korea, but one originates from around Byeongyeong. And it is from this region, that many people named Nam have typical features like a large body and facial characteristics that may well be from the foreigners in the 17th century. When professor Kim Tae Jin of the Chonnam University in Gwangju did research on this subject, he encountered resistance and a lack of cooperation from the people, as it is regarded as shameful to have mixed blood and not to be of pure Korean breed. Maybe the grand (sic) grandparents of these nice old ladies could tell more! Long time ago, before the Korean war, a tall man from Byeongyeong with western facial features called Nam, moved to the north and became a general in the army. It is said that when the North Korean army raided this area, the village of Byeongyeong was spared on special orders from general Nam.

This link, also created by a touring Dutchman, also contains anecdotal evidence of blue (or blu-ish)-eyed locals. Unfortunately, I didn’t encounter any myself that day but, have from time to time have met Koreans round these parts with almost Eurasian features and light eyes – perhaps they are distant descendants of Hamel and his men!

Hamel and a few of his men managed to comandeer a boat in Yeosu in 1666 and escape to Japan, where they relived their encounters which formed the first Western accounts of the secretive Joseon dynasty.

Thankfully, the historic links between Hamel and his men and the Joseon Dynasty have fostered friendlier relations between the modern states of the Republic of Korea and the Netherlands, particularly that of Gangjin county and Hamel’s hometown of Gorinchem, who share a sister-city relationship and relatively frequent cultural exchanges. Another welcome new attraction to the village of Byeongyeong is the Jeolla Military Fortress Hamel Memorial Museum, in honour of the Dutchman and his mates. Below are some photos of the museum and surrounding. The full album, also containing the Celadon festival, is located here.

Jeolla Military Fortress and Hamel Memorial Museum

6ft walls unique to Byeongyeong

17th century Dutch cannon

Hamel's Journal (or replica of)

Dutch plate