Wrong!

Moderates reject US policies, not US per se. In the middle is a pragmatic anti-Americanism, represented by moderate non-governmental organizations that do not reject the US per se, but instead focus on specific issues, such as the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), concerning the presence of US troops, or wartime operational control of South Korean forces.

Anybody who really understands South Korean society would know the word "pragmatic" is the key one in this quote.

I would guess there are several reasons why intelligent people keep getting this wrong year after year. One is the reluctance to criticize most Others that is drummed in by Western higher education. Another would be the desire to see things as making sense.

That is where the word "pragmatic" comes in.

If you begin your look into anti-US culture in Korean society by trying to make it make sense, you have already handicapped yourself.

You would be better off putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger than trying to make sense of how 20 gallons of fromalin could = what 2000 witnessed.

If you force yourself to find pragmaticism in the how Koreans, even at the very top of information gathering, can't remember how GIs are put in Korean prisons each and every year when they decide to say

First Prosecution of US Soldier : Washington Should Respect Seoul's Decision for Ties

when the first GI put on trial happened in 1967 --- you have pretty much already forfeited a chance to understanding how it really works.

I really don't know how to make people who would write stuff like the above understand it. It isn't about issues.

Maybe the best way I can put it is this ----- the reason I have taken so much time and effort to write up the posts at www.usinkorea.org - to focus on individual issues - was because I was trying to drive home the point that IT ISN'T ABOUT ISSUES!!!

Confusing, isn't it......

I tried to make sense of it once like this:

South Korean society can't just pile up misinformed, exaggerated issue after issue, then point to the lump sum to justify the net charge that their anti-Americanism is justified.

Which kind of means: you can't say Korea is pragmatic if in each issue in the anti-US grab bag, pragmaticism is absent and trumped by gross nationalism with touches of racism.

I guess it is highly ironic what I try to do on my site:

I try to prove to people like the author of this article quoted above - by pointing out in great detail how on this issue and that issue and that issue and this issue ----- Korean society's habit is to will itself to ignore facts and pragmaticsm and fairness and scale ---- in favor of venting pent up, nationalistic righteous rage - and in the time between spikes, use a general sense of anti-US in Korea feeling to make themselves feel better about Korea itself.

I guess I have spent all this effort (and money) for 4 years to argue basically one overall point ------

Korean society is NOT pragamatic in its anti-Americanism......

I just never realized that until I started trying to explain why this author and pretty much many more people in the public domain who bother to talk about anti-US culture in Korea get it wrong.

Sometimes the effort seems hopeless.....

I get it. I got it a long time ago. You, and I, often get the feeling that it is not worth the effort to tell a Western educated person that their logic is not similar to Korean logic. That Occidental and Oriental are on a different wavelength. Just about the time you think you know what Orientals are thinking, they do something that tosses that theory out the window. Eventually we agree to disagree. Make the best of your experiences in the Land of the Morning Calm, love it for what it is, a different world.

Love for their misguided brothers in the North is real. No American will ever be able to penetrate into that brotherhood. No matter how many of us are buried in the soil, and died for Korea, we are not Han people. We can never be. We will be tolerated and accepted by some, and exploited by others.
We are here because our government believes it is in the best interest of the United States. (U.S. Policy) The day that policy changes, we will leave. If, or when, is anybody's guess.

When I was still an English literature grad student, I did a paper that in part looked at the different patterns of thought/rhetoric different cultures used as the model of good academic/argumentative writing. It was very interesting. One of the studies looked at Korean professors who had spent some years in university in the US or Western society and those who had not. You could see the difference, and every once in awhile I'll see it again in the editorials in the Korean papers.

But, I think more than anything, it isn't so much the lack of logical thinking that Korean society exhibits in relation to the US in Korea, but it is more of the mind-block caused by --- very excessive nationalism and a tendancy to let emotion dominate - and I think the emotional nature of Korean society sets it apart from even Japan.

I frequently refer to the "respect my righteous rage" phenomenon in Koreans society. The fact that a person feels offended is often justification enough for feeling offended --- that the anger justifies itself.

That is one reason you see them get so outrageously carried away over 20 gallons of fromalin dumped in the sewer system that eventually fell into the Han.

But, it is the same kind of thing that led me to see two Korean women all the time getting into pushing or hair pulling matches at E-Mart on the weekends when the place was packed.