I want to tell this one example from 2002.
I was back in Korea for several months.
This was just after the big typhoon caused major flooding along the upper east costs of South Korea.

I can't remember which station it was --- I think SBS but maybe MBC --- anyway, the local Kangwon Provice news desk ran a story about the US military's effort to help out in that time of dire need for the people in the eastern have of Kangwon.

Here is how it looked....
My Korean listening comprehension is weak, and I could have made some big mistakes, but it seemed very obvious...

First, there was a shot of an A-10 taking off.

Then there was a looped shot of a large medivac transport helicopter with a large net loaded with badly needed supplies.

It was flying in low over a high school or middle school and gingerly laying the net onto the dirt soccer field.

What a nice thing to do.

However -----

between loops of the fly over, the reporters showed interviews they had done with some locals complaining about the noise pollution and how could the US military expect students to study with all that racket.

The title of the segment --- and I know I got this part right ---- was:

"This is humanitarian aid?"

That is a glimpse at Korean society and the US relationship in a nutshell.

It isn't all bad.

Yesterday I found a KBS segment showing GIs who volunteered their off duty time to learn about Hanbok and Korean customs.

But, if you are not watching AFKN, your chances of seeing positive community related activities like that on the television in Korea are mighty slim.......

If you want to hear about a leaky fuel tank however................

The Fuel comment reminds me that at NAS Fallon in Nevada. There is a leukemia cluster. When I was there 2003-2005 they did their best to blame it on the base. It is not just the foreign communities that point at the military base when something goes wrong. You can find this type of story at almost every base in the States. Here is the link to the STORY. And a different Source for it

And here is one from about.com: Story Link
The Fallon leukemia cluster
Adam was just one of 13 children in the Fallon area diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia. This military and farming community has a population of just 8,300. Normally the rate of this type of leukemia is only about three in every 10,000 people. A 14th child has been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia.
The Nevada state health division and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are testing for air, water, and soil contamination in Fallon. The researchers are awaiting federal review committee approval to begin taking tissue samples from affected families and children and a control group of healthy local residents.
"There's a potential cover-up here"
Local residents say it doesn't take a long investigation to figure out that something is poisoning the children. "The frustration is very high because we feel that there shouldn't even be the number 14, let alone this happening with (Adam)," said Brenda Gross in an interview with the Law Vegas Review-Journal. Her 5-year-old son is ill. "This should have been found and stopped a long time ago."
"We understand the parents' frustration," stated CDC spokeswoman Luana Ritch. "Studies of this type, to do them right, are very complicated and they are time-consuming because we have to follow the accepted method."
But local residents, including Mr. Jernee, feel the investigation should be moving along much faster. "I think that there's a potential cover-up here. It's just a gut feeling," he stated to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "I don't have any faith in these people any more. . . . How many kids have to die to get to the truth?"
"A Civil Action" connections
Dr. Gary Ridenour of Fallon and Drs. Alan Levin and Vera Byers of nearby Incline Village arranged a meeting for local families and out-of-state plaintiff's attorneys. Dr. Levin testified for plaintiff's attorney Jan Schlichtmann in the Woburn, Massachusetts, environmental lawsuit described in the book and movie, "A Civil Action." That lawsuit was over environmental pollution and multiple cases of acute lymphocytic leukemia, the same disease affecting the Fallon area. The attorneys who came to Fallon were referred by Attorney Schlichtmann.
Jet fuel spills suspected
Drs. Levin and Byers have analyzed many of the ill children's DNA and state that they have discovered patterns showing that environmental poisoning caused the children's blood cells to become cancerous. This supports the families' contention that jet fuel spills at the Fallon Naval Air Station are to blame.
Whatever the problem is, Mr. Jernee just wants to spare other children the ordeal Adam went through. "This whole thing has caused so much pain. I don't want any more children to go through this after what's happened to Adam." Hopefully, in time either through medical or legal means the truth about the Fallon leukemia cluster will be brought to light.
Information from this article was taken from:
- "Boy linked to Fallon leukemia cluster dies." Las Vegas Review-Journal, June 4, 2001. Available online.
- Associated Press. "Boy dies from leukemia; 13 kids ill." The New York Times, June 4, 2001.
- Weissenstein, M. "Fallon boy stricken with leukemia clinging to life." Las Vegas Review- Journal, May 26, 2001.

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Just my humble opinion!

Just as a sub note to my comment. After all the investigations by all the different sources they never did prove what the cause was of the cluster, but the base now has the child killer label with many of the locals.

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Just my humble opinion!

This touches on the core heart of why I spend so much time and effort on the situation in South Korea and the US involvement there.

I've always said soldiers are like the police - inside American society --- everybody loves to hate them - until they need them.

At periods of nationalistic upswing, soldiers are celebrated, but in all the other times, they are disliked in general - especially by the college educated.

The are symbols of authority, and they have jobs and careers people don't understand. Part of it is like me with dairy farmers (some children of whom I knew at college who were going to return to the farm). Why?!! After a youth of getting up at 4 AM and milking before going to school -- smelling all that cow poo. Why on earth would someone do that as a life's work?

Well. Just because I don't understand it doesn't mean the work and life has no value.

But, you have a lot of people who don't know much about the military in the US who use terms like "burger flippers" and "trailor trash" or "ghetto boys" to disparage the military men and women.

At university, some of these very same people, especially the more intellectually inclined, will write research papers about peasants, and the working poor, and liberating people...............

That's a whole another post for me...........

My point here is -------- what is the difference between common American thoughts and those in South Korea?

Or, what is the difference between some of those American towns with military bases where some or much of the public doesn't get along with the base and what happens in South Korea?

There are probably several. One is that whatever the snide thoughts that a good chunk of American society might feel about the quality of being that picks a military career, on a national social level it does not translate into a deep dislike for the US military which produces frequent outbrusts of activity against them.

Charlie Sheen might lay down in front of a US base once a decade, but nothing goes on in the US with the military and citizens like it does routinely in South Korea.

BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE

in the situations --- which explains why I spend time on this issue - is -

North Korea isn't sitting right above the United States ready to collapse any day and with a stockpile of weapons that will allow the vindictive tyrant regime in Pyongyang to take out as many American citizens as it can before dieing.

In short, South Korea is a very expensive, very dangerous place to station thousands of our soldiers because the North Korean regime is dangerous and unpredictable overall.

It might struggle along another 50 years. But, if it began to collapse tomorrow, nobody would be very suprised. And if it decided to use up its stockpiles of weapons in a last gasp effort against the forces in the South, it would shock nobody.

This makes South Korean society's culture of keeping a large pool of ill-will against the US in Korea much more cruicial to understand.

Why does American society accept such risk at such expensive year after year when Korean society loves to build up their own nationalism by despising the effort?

I have to agree with you. I believe that because there is no interest in the situtation because it is not in the news and many Americans don't care if it is not in their face. There are many who would support the Korean position as they would take a news report at face value rather than saying show me the facts. That is on of the reasons I come to this forum to read your latest findings and comments all though sometimes they are a little jaded at times as Korean are not the only players in the hate the American game. Sorry to see you do not blog as much but enjoy reading it here. Would like to hear your suggestions on this thread.

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Just my humble opinion!

The thing about South Korean society not being the only anti-US game in the global town touches exactly on what I wrote about the other day ---

there is nowhere else on earth where American citizens are accepting so much risks (and costs) than by keeping a large military force faced off against North Korea teetering on the verge of collapse.

If the French or Costa Ricans want to love to hate the US government and military and the idea of "America" --- I won't even yawn.

But to have SO MUCH at stake by being in South Korea year after year ---- makes the culture of anti-Americanism that is supported by so many mainstream social institutions in Korea is --- I believe --- unbearable.

It is the functional costs that make South Korea's version of anti-US thought too much.

And something else I usually mention about this time in a conversation like this --- I would not have stayed in Korea all those years and look forward to going back, or studied its history and culture for years, if I hated the place.

My other website and what I do here is strictly focused on one narrow aspect of Korean society ---- its negative relationship with the US.

If I had more time and energy, I wouldn't mind writing about Korea's Confucianism, its early education system, the contempoary trait of hard work and the entrepreneural spirit I saw widespread there which is something American society has lost though it helped make us a great country, and many other things about Korea I like.

I could also spend years blogging about things in American society I routinely b*tch about.

But I work hard on the anti-US issue because
1) Americans have virtually no chance to see what is going on and what is at stake anywhere else

and

2) Too much is at stake to not have some people making the effort to let it be known.

As for the blogging ----

I will probably get back into it in a few months, but I'm going to try not to.

At times it feels too much like beating your head against a brickwall.
I feel the same about the anti-US environment issue in Korea, but I'm willing to beat my head with just a snowball's chance in Hell it will accomplish anything.

But, after getting sucked into the Burger Flipping Loser English Language Instructor debate that continually goes on in the expat community related to South Korea ----

---I decided blogging is a head bashing against the wall that serves me no purpose.

I could blog about fishing and literature or non-fiction I'm reading or especially movies -------

but I've never cared at all to read blogs like that ---- so why start one?

Again ----- like I said ----- in a few weeks to a few months, after reading the Korean press and such -------- I'll probably get back to blogging when my mood swings again....

....but right now I'm not planning on it.

Thanks for the reply. I know the feeling of banging against a brick wall as I seem to deal with it daily when dealing with customers. I think everyone here has some interest in South Korea. Mine is that I am married to an Amerasian who is very opinionated about Korea, and it's history. Her adopting mom was a Buddhist and I have found that the culture has an interesting blend of Christian beliefs steeped in Oriental philosophy.

If you were to "I wouldn't mind writing about Korea's Confucianism, its early education system, the contempoary trait of hard work and the entrepreneural spirit I saw widespread there which is something American society has lost though it helped make us a great country, and many other things about Korea I like." I for one would be interested in reading it.

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Just my humble opinion!

I did a little something in the Articles section of this site on, if I remember correctly, a Neo-Confucian festival near Paju and in Paju to celebrate the birthday of Yi I (Yulgok) - the guy on the 5,000 bill and one of Korea's best known philsophers.

If you are in Korea, and Paju isn't too far to go, the Yulgok grounds are pretty nice - especially for people trapped in Seoul or the cities and don't get the chance to see open space. It is a large park with open grounds and hills, a fair museum, the Yi family graves, and a traditional private school complex.

I might do an article for a big national holiday that I think is coming up in May.
Or I might have missed it.

It is in Seoul at the Chongmyo Shrine --- I think it's spelled Jongmyo now.

It is where the Chosun Dynasty royal tablets are kept and once a year they hold a big festival that was held several times a year in the old dynasty to honor the spirits (tablet).

It is worth seeing for sure, but it is kind of crowded that day.

Chongmyo is a nice place to see too to get away from the congestion and closed in space of Seoul proper. It has less to see than Kyongbok palace, but it is a nicer place to stroll around in --- which is why a lot of old people can be found there.