The big news of the week, as I'm sure many of you saw in the news, was that Korea's president 박근혜 has been officially impeached following a scandal involving conflicts of interest. 박근혜 is pronounced Pahk Geun Hyay, was Korea's first female president, and the daughter of the 3rd president (also the last dictator) of South Korea.
The process of demonstrations, protests, the trial, and eventual impeachment of 박근혜 has been really interesting to watch as it all unfolded shortly after we arrived and culminated just last Friday. Korea has a very interesting style of protesting including candles and concerts for protesters. People go to protests as families, and to me, it really looks a bit more like a makeshift festival than any protest I've ever seen. Korea is a very proud, nationalistic, and homogenous country and I believe this has something to do with the general agreement on most political issues. When it came to their president, for example, I didn't meet a soul who didn't agree with the masses that she had to go. Just yesterday, on a trip to Gwangju, we accidentally ran into a "protest" that was more of a celebration of the successful impeachment. Everyone who gathered to demonstrate originally, came together again to celebrate their success. It was neat to see that people not only came together when they were upset, but also when they were proud or excited. I'm sure it adds to the social cohesion and interconnectedness....
(K takes a break to play Overwatch...)
Hey everyone, Jamie here with just a couple thoughts. I'm basing pretty much everything I say here on conversations I've had with my co-teachers, so I won't be citing any sources and it should be read with a grain of salt. The president belonged to Korea's conservative party, and before the scandals support for her fell sharply along generational lines. She had something like 90% approval among seniors, and worse than 20% (if I remember right) among voters younger than 35. Enough older people still supported her after the scandal to mount a small protest when her impeachment was announced, but it really seemed like the vast majority of Koreans agreed that she had to go. I've seen signs around pushing for aggressive prosecution of industry leaders that were caught up in the scandal, and even for reevaluating the system of close government cooperation with the family owned corporations, also called chaebol.
To add a little bit of intrigue, Park Geun Hye's dad is the one who is often credited for South Korea's economic success. He also (kind of sort of) created the chaebol by giving politically allied families juicy roles in industrialization, and they're all still with us today. So the fact that his daughter is caught up in a scandal involving some of them is kind of interesting.
People have been concerned about the influence of the chaebol for a long time, but the scandal has cast a spotlight on it. It's also been a creeping problem, since Korea relies on exports and their biggest trading partner is China. With China's development, they've become a bigger market for Korean cultural exports (I think Katy did a post before about the hallyu) but they've started producing a lot of industrial products domestically that they used to buy from Korea. That's led to some concern about the structure of the economy and the chaebol's role in it.
The relationship with China is also a contentious political issue right now. Conservatives favor a strong alliance with America against China and North Korea, while liberals want more room to negotiate with China. Some also have problems with the U.S. military presence in Korea because of incidents like an American tank accidentally killing a young student. If you've been following the news about the impeachment, one of the big things American sources are talking about is the fact that the former president was working with the U.S. to deploy new missile defense systems in response to North Korea's expanded nuclear program. China sees this as an attempt to encircle it, and they're promoting boycotts against South Korean products, which is apparently already hurting. The liberal party, being the party the former president is NOT from, is expected to win the upcoming election, so the U.S. and the interim government are trying to push through the deployment of the defense system before a government more conciliatory towards China gets elected.
I hope that wasn't too dry!...
(And J takes a break to play Overwatch...)
Okay I'm (Katy) back. J just about covered everything else about the former president. We'll have a two month stint here without a president, before a special election is held in May for a new one. I'm pretty excited to see what an election looks like here. Given the little political observations we've made so far, it'll be fun to see how candidates are selected, promoted, and elected. This is Korea, so my best guess to that effect is that it'll all be electronic. The rest will be a learning experience.
Have a good week!
-J&K
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