Opinion - The Korea Times

Dangerous family?

By Kim Ji-myungThe names of three women ― the wife of Hanjin Group Chairman Cho Yang-ho, Lee Myung-hee, and their two daughters Cho Hyun-ah and Cho Hyun-min, have now become household names in Korea. By any standard, the three women's rude behavior and morbid personalities have invited a limitless level of criticism from the public.Lee Myung-hee has come under investigation for physically assaulting employees. She and her daughter were also charged with the illegal hiring of foreign maids. The first daughter began this series of scandalous incidents with the “nut rage" affair more than four years ago in 2014. She was an executive vice president of Korean Air at the time. Hanjin Group is the largest shareholder of Korean Air. Last year, the second daughter also was charged for alleged violence toward employees. They are also charged with tax evasion by illicitly importing luxury items through private luggage, evading standard search procedures. Enraged, many citizens joined an online petition on the Cheong Wa Dae homepage demanding to usurp the title of Korea's “national f

Apr 7, 2019By Kim Ji-myung

Kim Ji-myung

Memoir of independence activist's wife

By Kim Ji-myungOn the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement this year, three topics have drawn attention. One, whether South and North Korea could stage joint events to remember this historical day together, which was not realized. Two, shedding more light on those independence fighters who have not been honored because of the strict evidence-based qualification requirement. Three, acknowledging women fighters whose dedication and sacrifice have largely been kept behind curtains or ignored. Some three million Korean independent fighters are estimated to have dedicated their blood and soul, lives and property, under Japanese colonial rule. Of them, only some 15,000 have been recognized and honored, and among these, only 359 women fighters are included as of 2019.The recent spotlight on woman activists is partly attributable to a few remarkable memoirs written by women of independence fighting families. The example of Yi Hoe-yeong's family is probably the most remarkable and moving. In the rustling winds of late December in 1910 ― around four months aft

Mar 12, 2019By Kim Ji-myung

Kim Ji-myung

Story of Korea told century ago

By Kim Ji-myungThe July 25, 1897, issue of the New York Journal carried a sizable story headlined “Prince of Corea Comes to America Wearing a Coat of Mail for Fear of Assassins.” It features large drawings of a Korean prince and the imaginative protective steel wire undershirt, two Korean royal women (both dead), and two suspected assassins from Korea. The prince, Uihwa, was a secondary prince born to a consort of the Korean King Gojong. The article argues that Prince Uihwa was marked for death, because the Crown Prince (later King Sunjong) feared him. The two women are Queen Min (known as Empress Myeongseong), the mother of the Crown Prince, and Lady Jang, a royal consort and the mother of Prince Uihwa.That is why, according to the article, two men follow the prince with the mission to murder him when they had the chance, and why the U.S Secret Service and the detective force of every city in which Prince Uihwa visited were instructed to look out for his safety. While quite favorable in describing the prince, such as “a gentle, cultured youth, fond of afternoon and

Feb 11, 2019By Kim Ji-myung

Kim Ji-myung

Kim Jong-un's new image in Seoul?

By Kim Ji-myungDuring the last several days of December, Cheong Wa Dae staff must have spent grueling hours waiting in anticipation for the news from Pyongyang of Kim Jong-un's decision to visit the South in 2018. The officials seemed to give up their futile hope at last around Dec. 28 or 29. Till the last moment, South Korean media talked about a possible visit on Dec. 30! President Moon Jae-in's office in the final months of 2018 had heightened people's expectations to the maximum with press releases on the detailed preparation for Kim's visit. His itinerary, a possible helicopter landing on the crater of Mount Halla on Jeju Island, where to set up a heliport for this event, etc. However, the wide gap in people's recognition of the situation is alarming. Some of my friends, mostly aged and conservative, maintain two rock hard beliefs (although all welcome the thawing of inter-Korean relations and an ultimate unification). The first is the absolute unfeasibility of Kim's visit to the South, and the second is the fundamental mistrust in Kim's words regarding the denuclearization prog

Jan 11, 2019By Kim Ji-myung

Kim Ji-myung

Portraits of Queen Min and Xiang Fei

By Kim Ji-myungOn Aug. 31, 1894, the Hawaiian Gazette published in Honolulu carried an article on the Sino-Japanese war which had broken out one week earlier. Headlines read: “China and Japan Still Fight, Korea's King Declares Himself Independent of the Emperor, He asks Japan to Fire China.”Accompanying this relatively short article are two large sketched portraits of the king and queen of Korea. The caption for King Gojong's portrait reads “Li, the king of Korea. The man for whose kingdom Japan and China are fighting.” The caption for the woman's portrait is “the queen of Korea. One of the chief intriguers by whom the present war was brought about.” Both sketches were “reproduced from the San Francisco Examiner” according to the paper. Probably no Korean, Japanese or Chinese viewer would have taken this woman in Chinese-style clothing to be a Korean queen. However, almost no foreigner except for a few women in Seoul had seen Queen Min, not to mention a photo of her. Thanks to the extensive “Chronicling America” project, we

Dec 14, 2018By Kim Ji-myung

Kim Ji-myung

Separate lives of Koreans and foreigners

By Kim Ji-myungWhere do foreign residents in Seoul hang out at 3 a.m.? And what about Koreans? A survey on the location and movement of more than 10 million people, including 270,000 foreigners, was conducted for one week in February and March of 2017, designed to find out their living and moving patternsThe Project “Seoul: Rhythm of the City,” found particular concentrations of long-term resident foreigners around a few locations at the small hours of the day. These included Daerim and Konkuk University stations where Chinese residences are concentrated; Sinchon and Kyunghee University where many students from abroad live; and the Dongdaemun area which is where most Central Asian residents have apartments. On the other hand, Koreans in their 60s were found evenly scattered around, while those in their 20s densely populated college areas and one-room rental areas such as Sinchon and Silim-dong. In other words, at this pre-dawn hour, people stayed mostly at their places of residence. This seemingly obvious result, however, had many unexpected findings when the movement of

Nov 16, 2018By Kim Ji-myung

Separate lives of Koreans and foreigners

Kim Ji-myung

Biggest donor active at age 95

By Kim Ji-myung“TrulyI tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown,” Jesus said to people. This is probably because people think the prophet does not do what people have heard he did in another town. Please forgive me if my quotation of Luke 4:24 is off the orthodox interpretation. I am talking about the “King of Donation,” Chairman Lee Chong-hwan (pen name Kwanjeong). One of his many country houses is next to my humble second home in Gyeonggi Province. Chairman Lee invited my husband and me to dinner at a riverside gallery-restaurant in our neighborhood just once when he built his house. Over the past 30 years, he was an ordinary elderly neighbor, staying there rarely and usually by himself without family members, sometimes playing an organ. He casually visited my house a few times, looked around the garden, and had chat with my husband briefly, standing under a tree. And that was all. Although he is a rich businessman worth 1 trillion won (about $1 billion), without even a penny loaned from bank, he doesn't waste money. Small money matters to the rich i

Oct 19, 2018By Kim Ji-myung

Kim Ji-myung

Heritage project with North Korea

By Kim Ji-myungAt the recent pre-summit working level meeting held in Gaeseong, they agreed to carry out an eighth joint survey and historical preservation effort at Manwoldae between today and Dec. 27 this year. The joint excavation of the Goryeo-era (918-1392) royal palace, Manwoldae, in the old capital city of Gaeseong has become a symbol of non-political and successful heritage activities. Between 2007 and 2015, seven joint excavation efforts were carried out at Manwoldae.Joint cultural and academic projects and activities continued relatively steadily although inter-Korean political relations affected contact in all areas. Cultural heritage projects, like joint excavations of Buddhist temple sites or palace ruins in the north continued except in 2012 and 2013, despite frequent and long periods of severed dialogue between Seoul and Pyongyang. Looking back, the first talks on protecting cultural heritage between South and North Korea occurred in 1972, after more than two decades of national division. By the historical July 4 Joint Declaration, South-North Coordinating Committees w

Sep 26, 2018By Kim Ji-myung

Kim Ji-myung

Visit to Tongdo Temple

By Kim Ji-myungMy recent visit to the Tongdo Temple in southeastern Korea seemed to be more than five decades overdue. The head family of the Gyeongju Kim clan, my family clan, has lived just 40 kilometers from Yangsan City, where this 1,300-year-old temple stands. The Gyeongju Kim clan village was very close to the small train station on the Seoul-Busan line. For the people of Yangsan, this station was their main passage to the outside world when roads were underdeveloped. Now that the area has been urbanized, most of it has been absorbed into the outskirts of Busan. I heard that many family gatherings and big events on important occasions were held at nearby Tongdo Temple, one of the biggest and most beautiful Buddhist temples in the south. However, my father had left his hometown alone at the age of 12 to enter middle school in Seoul, and then advanced to a college in Japan. After graduation, he lived in Seoul and my family has remained detached from clan occasions, although we visited his hometown very often. Throughout my career, my work involved creating or editing texts on Kor

Aug 24, 2018By Kim Ji-myung

Kim Ji-myung

1919-2019: time for new narratives

By Kim Ji-myungThe year 1919 marked a historical turning point in Korea. It was the 10th year of Japanese colonial rule. Emperor Gojong suddenly died on Jan. 21, 1919, at today's Deoksu Palace. Rumors and information from reliable sources pointed to Japan as the mastermind of his murder by poisoning. The Japanese had dethroned Emperor Gojong in 1907, replacing him with his unprepared son, Sunjong. Why? Japan decided to remove Gojong who dispatched three envoys behind Japan's back to The Hague in the Netherlands to proclaim Korea's rejection and protest Japan's illegitimate control of the country at the World Peace Conference.The poisoning of Gojong was a measure to silence him for good as he continued to fight for Korea's independence. Later it was found the Japanese governor-general in Korea had the royal doctor poison the emperor's tea, according to the memoir of Yi Bang-ja (1901-1989), the consort of Crown Prince Euimin. Words of officials who inspected the emperor's body instantly circulated throughout the city: His mouth was all black inside, and whole uprooted teeth were found

Jul 29, 2018By Kim Ji-myung

Kim Ji-myung

Read more

Dangerous family?

Memoir of independence activist's wife

Story of Korea told century ago

Kim Jong-un's new image in Seoul?

Portraits of Queen Min and Xiang Fei

Separate lives of Koreans and foreigners

Biggest donor active at age 95

Heritage project with North Korea

Visit to Tongdo Temple

1919-2019: time for new narratives

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