Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

Although anti-American sentiment, which reached a peak last year, is declining, the U.S. Embassy in Seoul is worried about how the United States is being presented in the classroom - and it intends to do something about it, according to the report.

The embassy was particularly alarmed by a test that members of the Korean Teachers and Educational Workers' Union, an alternative union not recognized by the state, gave their students soon after the war in Iraq began in the spring.

"It's so anti-American, it's amazing," the senior diplomat said about the multiple-choice quiz, an English translation of which the embassy provided to the Washington Times. "We are doing a survey to figure out how the United States is being portrayed in textbooks - primarily history books - and to see what the references and the omissions are. There are not a lot of references about the United States liberating Korea from the Japanese, for example."
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2003/09/30/200309300054.asp

[Ya-ta Boy]

[rockr1]

Here's a sample question...


The following is the text of a question from a multiple-choice test on the war in Iraq, translated from Korean. It is from an exam prepared by the Korean Teachers and Educational Workers Union, and was provided by the U.S. Embassy in Seoul.


Question: Which is not a reasonable justification for opposing the war against Iraq? Choose one.
1) [Saddam] Hussein was elected by the Iraqi people, but it is also true that he is a tyrant who has held on to his power for a long time. If this gives reason for the war against Iraq, then does this mean that the U.S. has reason to hit North Korea and other countries such as [Fidel] Castro's Cuba and [Moammar] Qaddafi's Libya?
2) If the war against Iraq started because the country has [weapons of mass destruction], then doesn't this mean that the United States, which possesses the greatest amount of WMD in the world, should be attacked by the U.N. forces?
3) If the war started because Saddam Hussein oppressed the Kurds for calling for independence, then why did the United States support Hussein and provide funding and weapons to him when he had oppressed the Kurds in the past? And why didn't the United States attack Russia when it used its tanks to invade Chechnya for pursuing its independence?
4) If it is true that the United States started the war because Hussein and [Osama] bin Laden planned and carried out 9/11 together, then why is it that the United States cannot provide any evidence of this? And why is it that the two (Hussein and bin Laden) denounce each other as the traitor of Allah?
5) If the war started because Hussein oppressed the human rights of the Iraqi people, then does this mean that [South] Korea should also be attacked by the United States for the same reason, since it has been branded by the Human Rights Committee of the U.N. as a country that fails to uphold its people's human rights for reasons such as overly strict censoring of student conduct, dress codes and incarceration of former North Korean spies for refusing to denounce their communist beliefs, based on its national-security law?
6) All of the answers above are reasonable; therefore there is no answer.

Source: U.S. Embassy in Seoul

[anae]

A multiple choice test about world politics??? The Korean education system is worse than I thought.

Children you don't have to think. We have already done that for you. Just pick any answer- our conclusions are obvious.

Where is that thread about critical thinking? I think rockr1 has just scored a point.

[Ryst Helmut]

#6 All of the answers above are reasonable; therefore there is no answer.

Shissa, I WISH the GRE was like this...I'd rock! Reasonable? Justification....sweeeet.

Shoosh,

Ig'nant R yst

[Plastic B]

Textbooks biased AGAINST the U.S? What a joke! All I teach is secondhand American dross, such as in my social studies class text which includes not one reference to Korea, I checked. And choked. But then again my hagwons includes the letters USA in it's name...

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

Confirms my worst suspicions about korean education, but in fact it's worse.

[Austin]

Thank you all for the late night entertainment when I have trouble sleeping!

Contrary to the popular myth, the U.S. did not liberate Korea from the Japanese!

Following the defeat of Japan, the U.S. took over Korea under the aegis of USMG. In 1946, the military government established the South Korean Interim Legislative Assembly to formulate and draft laws to be used as "the basis for political, economic, and social reforms"....in accordance with US geopolitical imperatives. The cornerstone of which was land reform. The U.S. made certain that no household had more than three hectares of land, which was extremely ineffecient, thereby insuring that Korea would have to depend upon on agricultural imports and aid from the U.S.

No doubt, the U.S. justified the measures they took with Korean land reform to destroy the landlord class, since they were interferring with the United State's "plan" in Asia (as the U.S. tried to do the same in Japan and Taiwan). By redistributing the wealth, the U.S. was able to reconstruct and control the power in Korea by insuring that Koreans would not be able to meet domestic food demand, let alone generate a surplus.

No surprise really, as the U.S. has attempted to do the same thing to several other countries throughout their short history and has been successful for the most part. However, let us at least get the following straight: they did not liberate Korea, but merely replaced the Japanese with the U.S. neocolonial system.

If Korea is to begin telling the truth about the U.S., I fully support them. It has been a long time coming!

[Gwangjuboy]

[Interested]

Hmmm. Reminds me of the anti-French sentiment going on in the U.S. I wonder if the French ever get pissed off about how little their role in liberating the Americans from British is mentioned? From what I've read (from American sources) the Americans have the French to thank for their independence...but they're not particularly grateful either these days.

[Real Reality]

September 2, 1945 - Japanese sign the surrender agreement, U.S.S. Missouri surrender ceremony

The Japanese Surrender Documents of World War II

WHEREAS the terms of the Instrument of Surrender were subsequently as follows:

1. We, acting by command of an in behalf of the Emperor of Japan, the Japanese Government and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, hereby accept the provisions set forth in the declaration issued by the heads of the Governments of the United States, China, and Great Britian on 26 July 1945 at Potsdam, and subsequently adhered to by the Union of Soviet Socialist Repub- lics, which four powers are hereafter referred to as the Allied Powers.

2. We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese armed forces and all armed forces under the Japanese control wherever situated.

Finally, we do hereby formally and unconditionally surrender to the Commanding General, United States Army Forces in Korea, all persons in Korea south of 38 degrees North Latitude who are in the Armed Forces of Japan, and all military installations, ordnance, ships, aircraft, and other military equipment or property of every kind or description in Korea, including all islands adjacent thereto, south of 38 degrees North Latitude over which we exercise jurisdiction or control.

In case of conflict or ambiguity between the English text of this document and any translation thereof, the English shall prevail.

Signed at SEOUL, KOREA at 1630 hours on the 9th day of September 1945.

http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/japsurr.html

[Lawrence]

As long as there is envy, ignorance, and denial from citizens of the
world's marginalized English speaking countries, from which, no doubt ,
Austin hails , there will always be those who are blind to facts obvious and indisputable. The US chased the Japanese out of Korea,
and all of occupied Asia, in 1945. There was a little thing called the atomic
bomb, which was dropped on two separate sites in central Japan in early
August 1945, that effectively ended the Japanese imperial military menace, and left victimized countries, such as Korea, China, and the
Philippines, to pick up the pieces. The US subsequently occupied Japan for seven years for the purpose of reconstructing and democratizing that country, the result being what you see in Japan today. DESPITE ZERO FINANCIAL INCENTIVE TO DO SO, the US generously and courageously helped rebuild South Korea as well, providing military, humanitarian, and economic assistance that continues to this day. Considering that GNP figures from the World War 2 era document that Korea , north and south, were more impoverished than most AFRICAN countries at the time, I find suggestions that the US was and is in Korea for economic reasons to be particularly specious.

[The Bobster]

No, not much these days ... it was a long time ago. However, there are plenty of people still alive who remember the years of japanese occupation. These older Koreans tend to very much more pro-American than the younger ones.

Oh, and Austin, thanks for the comedy in trying to assert that the US has been some kind of occupying colonial power here in Korea since 1945 ... if it were true, I'd expect to see a few more American cars on the streets here (like, just any at all) but instead I see a lot of Korean cars in california. Funny, isn't it?

[chomsky]

[Mosley]

Quotation: "Contrary to popular myth, the U.S. did not liberate Korea from the Japanese."
He's right, you know. It was Kim Il-sung who did- and singlehandedly, at that.