The Most Arduous Job In The World
During the period from October 2016 to March 2017, South Korea was in political turmoil. News media covered a scandal about Choi Soon-sil, daughter of the late Church of Eternal Life cult leader and then President Park: Choi, who has no official government position, had access to confidential documents and information for Park, and acted as a close adviser for Park to develop national policies. In late October 2016, investigations into Park's relationship with Choi and her father Choi Tae-min began. Since then, Korea people had to endure thousands of gossips and scandalous reports from news media every day. This scandal unveiled corruption of the establishment and induced conflicts among various social classes, while her approval rating fell to 4% which is the worst ever approval rate in Korea history. However, I will not cover all the details to mute out political views, and I will concentrate on my very personal experience in this essay.
At the beginning, I was ashamed. It was humiliating because I voted for her as the nation's President and it turned out to be a catastrophe. I was influenced by my parents and voted for her even though I didn't really know about her personality or vision. She is the eldest daughter of Park Chung-hee, who served as the President of South Korea from 1963 to 1979. Park Chung-hee is a controversial figure in South Korea as he led a period of rapid economic growth, while his authoritarian rule saw numerous human rights abuses. Anyway, older generation had fond of her reminiscing the Miracle on the Han River, the era of double digits economic growth.
People were shocked and nonplussed by the scandal. It was nothing that people could expect or imagine for. Setting aside all the wrongdoings that Park and Choi did with their close friends, people were furious about the illicit admission of Chung Yura (a daughter of Choi) to privileged private university. She didn't even show up to school to earn credit. Her professors did her homework and wrote reports on behalf of her. She flew to Denmark with her little baby to avoid investigations and media while the situation was getting more chaotic. Later on, media reported more covert stories such as how Choi could amass such a wealth amounting more than several billion USD by embezzling public funds abusing then president Park's power and how the wealth had been transferring to the daughter, Yura.
Back to my story, I am not an activist in terms of politics. I grew up in a family which helds very conservative political view as we lived in a city that received numerous benefits from previous conservative goverments comparing to other regions in South Korea. In a sense, we are much more like Republicans than Democratics. Therefore, I had been indifferent to candlelight vigils in the past. Candlelight vigils are now a new tradition of South Korea since the noughties. South Korea has been rashly tranformed to a democratic society within just 50 years from once a colony of Japan and then under military dictatorships for decades. Blooded demonstrations and armed riots were entailed during such dramatic transformation. Candlelight vigils are a peaceful form of public protest to the authority without such violence, which are supported by many citizens admiring advanced democracy. People came out to squares whenever there were serious issues such as when two girls were killed by US military armored vehicle in 2002, when the government enter into FTA ratification to beef renegotiation in 2008 and when 304 people died in a sinking ferry and the government (then President Park) did not do its responsiblity in 2014. I knew those issues were tragic and felt sympathy to victims but did not do any action to my shame.
However, this time was different. I have a two year old daughter and I could not see the issue in a same indifferent way as I did before. I could not help but to think of the nation in my daughter's generation. I didn't want to give her worse future than I have now. I wished she has at least fair opportunities and lives in a nation without corruption and mistrust. While My husband and I did a family talk, we reached to this conclusion. What if our daughter grows up and later asks us where we were and what we did at this historical moment? If we do nothing now, we will definately be ashamed as parents not giving her a proper role model. Therefore, we went out to the square in November 26th, 2016. One irony was that we did not talk to our parents about participating a vigil as we were worried if they are not happy about this idea. They are from different generation anyway.
Back to my story, I am not an activist in terms of politics. I grew up in a family which helds very conservative political view as we lived in a city that received numerous benefits from previous conservative goverments comparing to other regions in South Korea. In a sense, we are much more like Republicans than Democratics. Therefore, I had been indifferent to candlelight vigils in the past. Candlelight vigils are now a new tradition of South Korea since the noughties. South Korea has been rashly tranformed to a democratic society within just 50 years from once a colony of Japan and then under military dictatorships for decades. Blooded demonstrations and armed riots were entailed during such dramatic transformation. Candlelight vigils are a peaceful form of public protest to the authority without such violence, which are supported by many citizens admiring advanced democracy. People came out to squares whenever there were serious issues such as when two girls were killed by US military armored vehicle in 2002, when the government enter into FTA ratification to beef renegotiation in 2008 and when 304 people died in a sinking ferry and the government (then President Park) did not do its responsiblity in 2014. I knew those issues were tragic and felt sympathy to victims but did not do any action to my shame.
However, this time was different. I have a two year old daughter and I could not see the issue in a same indifferent way as I did before. I could not help but to think of the nation in my daughter's generation. I didn't want to give her worse future than I have now. I wished she has at least fair opportunities and lives in a nation without corruption and mistrust. While My husband and I did a family talk, we reached to this conclusion. What if our daughter grows up and later asks us where we were and what we did at this historical moment? If we do nothing now, we will definately be ashamed as parents not giving her a proper role model. Therefore, we went out to the square in November 26th, 2016. One irony was that we did not talk to our parents about participating a vigil as we were worried if they are not happy about this idea. They are from different generation anyway.
<Above picture are of a vigil and my daughter's back holding a candlelight when we were participating>
Even though I was reluctant to go out at first it was amazing and goose bumping experience to see two million people gathered in one place. People were there with all the different reasons and from all the different backgrounds - labor unions and corporate managers, right and left, young and old. They have diverse political and social views but could not stand the shameful government. That was the utmost important matters for the people. The square was reminding me of a scene from Les Miserable, people singing a song of angry men "do you hear the people sing?". I get goose bumps while I am wrting now. After then, dozen's of vigils with multi-million people were held every Saturday until the Constitutional Court issued a unanimous ruling, confirming the impeachment proposal and removing President Park from office. Finally she got arrested. I was watching the live with my iphone at office. Final verdict came out and surprisingly I was too happy considering that my indifference to the politics in the past.
Several months has passed and new President won the vote with strong rating. He was a human rights lawyer, and old ally of Roh who is beloved then President for his democratic vision. he looks doing well but we must wait to see objectively what he will accomplish during his regime which history will evaluate later. A presidential role is very hard job to serve as all the issues are so complicated and intertwined between many parties' interests. However, now I come to think of it, parenting is no less arduous job than a president of a nation. Parents make many choices for their children. President Park(the father), Choi made choices for their daughers and new President was almost lost because of his son's rumor(at first it seemed he would win very easily as he had very strong rating base, but he spent hard time fighiting the rumor that he gave a job to his son unfairly abusing his authority while he was the Chief Secretary. Anyway he won and later discovered by investigation that it was only slander and the evidence was faked in another camp.). Even the President Trump is having hard time partially due to his daughter and son-in-law's previliges. Being a good parent is not easy. Why did I go out to the field and hold a candlelight with my daughter? Why was I suddenly interested in politics? Nothing was changed in me but the fact that I am a mother now.
Sounding like cliche but life is a journey to find one's identity and I know that I am consisted of various pieces. Pieces are changing, missing and sometimes being found again. In this chapter of my life, I found that the biggest and the most colorful piece of my identity is being a mother. I am still figuring out what it is and how to be good at it. I wish that I can give a better future to my daughter as my parents did for me. Sometimes that wish drives us to dangerous paths as I learned recently from above examples, however, as I am looking my daughter's face, all the worries and struggles disappeared. Maybe this is why we are doing it after all - looking happy smiles on our children's faces.
Even though I was reluctant to go out at first it was amazing and goose bumping experience to see two million people gathered in one place. People were there with all the different reasons and from all the different backgrounds - labor unions and corporate managers, right and left, young and old. They have diverse political and social views but could not stand the shameful government. That was the utmost important matters for the people. The square was reminding me of a scene from Les Miserable, people singing a song of angry men "do you hear the people sing?". I get goose bumps while I am wrting now. After then, dozen's of vigils with multi-million people were held every Saturday until the Constitutional Court issued a unanimous ruling, confirming the impeachment proposal and removing President Park from office. Finally she got arrested. I was watching the live with my iphone at office. Final verdict came out and surprisingly I was too happy considering that my indifference to the politics in the past.
Several months has passed and new President won the vote with strong rating. He was a human rights lawyer, and old ally of Roh who is beloved then President for his democratic vision. he looks doing well but we must wait to see objectively what he will accomplish during his regime which history will evaluate later. A presidential role is very hard job to serve as all the issues are so complicated and intertwined between many parties' interests. However, now I come to think of it, parenting is no less arduous job than a president of a nation. Parents make many choices for their children. President Park(the father), Choi made choices for their daughers and new President was almost lost because of his son's rumor(at first it seemed he would win very easily as he had very strong rating base, but he spent hard time fighiting the rumor that he gave a job to his son unfairly abusing his authority while he was the Chief Secretary. Anyway he won and later discovered by investigation that it was only slander and the evidence was faked in another camp.). Even the President Trump is having hard time partially due to his daughter and son-in-law's previliges. Being a good parent is not easy. Why did I go out to the field and hold a candlelight with my daughter? Why was I suddenly interested in politics? Nothing was changed in me but the fact that I am a mother now.
Sounding like cliche but life is a journey to find one's identity and I know that I am consisted of various pieces. Pieces are changing, missing and sometimes being found again. In this chapter of my life, I found that the biggest and the most colorful piece of my identity is being a mother. I am still figuring out what it is and how to be good at it. I wish that I can give a better future to my daughter as my parents did for me. Sometimes that wish drives us to dangerous paths as I learned recently from above examples, however, as I am looking my daughter's face, all the worries and struggles disappeared. Maybe this is why we are doing it after all - looking happy smiles on our children's faces.