In my last episode, I mentioned about how I got involved with the international conference of 4-5 October on Mainstreaming Human Security: The Asian Contribution, organized at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. Prof. Chantana Banpasirichote was literally the convener and the MAIDS (MA in International Development Studies), where she is the Director, was one of the co-organizers. I had hardly a couple of hours to write an abstract for a paper and a couple of days to prepare a six-page draft. After receiving comments from Chantana, I prepared a second draft. The latest ARENA book on Human Security edited by Prof. Anuradha Chenoy was a useful reference and I mailed the 'final' paper within a couple of days to meet the deadline for incorporation in the CD which she was planning for the conference participants.

According to Pravit, Thai ARENA is split over the issue of the regime change in Bangkok. I am a bit aware of this phenomenon, as one of the members of Pravit's network, Pinpaka, is my student and she wrote a "term paper" on this issue for my course on Globalization and Social Movements in the spring semester. Pravit was very unhappy, disappointed and angry with Surichai for his alleged "collaboration" with the military-backed government. In Pravit's words, "he is getting a fat salary as a member of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA). This is my money, my tax money. I'm really angry. He has to explain his position."

Surichai had a radical intellectual image in the Thai civil society and seemed to be a sort of "godfather" to many young activists. Pravit has a feeling that he Surichai lost his credibility to the young people.
Pravit was feeling very hungry. Musha wished for Thai cuisine. Pravit took us to a Thai restaurant near MBK and entertained us with a good lunch.

After lunch, Musha went back to Sasa and I went to MBK, my favorite place for shopping. When I returned to Sasa at around 4:30, I saw Suthy was waiting in the lobby. We came to my room and I phoned Musha to join. After a while Musha left as he had to catch an evening flight to Japan.

Suthy has retired from Chula as a regular professor, but comes occasionally under a contractual arrangement. He brought his car. He enquired about my daughter whom he met in Kathmandu PP21 assembly in 1996. He reminded me of our search in few years ago for a shop for half a day that sells medical instruments and helped me to buy a BP instrument for my daughter. He was happy to know that she has already been a 'doctor'. We went to a river-side place for dinner. Suthy found a restaurant that offers traditional Thai cuisine. Soon we started our discussion on the Thai theater. Suthy's proposition was very simple. "Surichai may have his point. But I think, as member of the civil society, we should keep distance from the military."

I was wandering how Chantana is "handling" the issue, at home and in the public life (Chantana and Surichai are partners in life).


Muslim brotherhood

I the Bangkok conference, I met Prof. Buddhadev Chaudhury of Calcutta University after a couple of years. Both of us have a common friend in Bangkok, Sabur, a Bangladeshi married to a Thai and living there for a quarter of a century. Sabur had his heyday when he was the coordinator of ACFOD. He had quite an unceremonial exit from ACFOD in 1996 and soon after his departure ACFOD died. Sabur founded a small NGO named Asian Resource Foundation (ARF). I was involved with it in the beginning as I drafted its first brochure. He also runs another network named AMAN (Asian Muslim Action Network). I have a mixed feeling about it and prefer to keep distance. I never pronounce my "Muslim" identity in public life. I often say that I am a Bangladeshi Muslim male by accident and I am not responsible for any of these three identities.

Among the conference participants in Chula were Prof. Imtiyaz Yusuf  (born in Tanzania, educated in India and now teaching in Assumption University, Bangkok), Prof. Omar Farouk (from Malaysia and now teaching at Hiroshima City University) and a large delegation from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) led by Prof. Chandan Sengupta. I smelled from his name that he is a Bangalee Babu. He told me that his ancestral home was in Barisal, a coastal district of Bangladesh. Prof. Abul Shaban was a member of the TISS delegation. On 5 October, five of us, Imtiyaz, Omar, Shaban, Buddha and I, went to the Harun Masjid in the downtown where Sabur was waiting. This mosque was built with donations from the local Muslim community originating from the Indian region of Kerala. All the "Muslims" except I were fasting because of the Ramadan. About a hundred or more devotees assembled to have iftar (evening breakfast) and prayer. I named Buddha as Badruddin and asked him to join the Maghreb (evening) prayer. Anyway, he was waiting outside looking after our bags and we entered the mosque for the prayer. Then we went to a South Asian restaurant for spicy halal dinner. It was a refreshing evening with some old and new friends.


Faculty meeting

MAINS monthly faculty meeting was held on 8 October. Thesis writing, graduation ceremony and visiting faculty for 2008 academic year were in the agenda. We discussed about the feasibility and possibility of a special schedule for MAINS unlike other graduate schools in SKHU. It was also discussed and agreed that SKHU would try a different format, inviting visiting faculty for one for the spring, one or two for the summer and one for the autumn quarter. Accordingly Francis sent a general invitation to ARENA Fellows for "expression of interest".

I explicitly mentioned in the meeting that the first year of MAINS had been "experimental". We may not afford another experimental year. Continuity in facilitating MAINS should not be compromised. If there is no regular visiting faculty, we may not need two co-directors. One director from SKHU should be in charge and should assume full responsibility. Otherwise, the course and the students may suffer.

However, I feel that it will take time to ground the MAINS firmly and we need not hurry. Maybe, we shall be in a better position to assess the situation at the end of 2008.

Later Francis presented a summary of a report on MAINS curriculum that was assigned by SKHU to ARENA before. The main report is in Korean. Francis read out a summary in English that gave me an impression that he had worked hard to prepare the report.


APCEIU workshop

Asia-Pacific Center of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU), an off-shoot of UNESCO, convened a training workshop on Education Policy for two weeks, partly in Seoul and partly in Icheon. I knew about APCEIU when I came to Seoul in November 2004 to attend one of its workshops. Lawrence was the Deputy Director of APCEU for about a year and he invited me. I remember that workshop for another reason. I was put together with another participant in one room in the hotel. He was snoring whole night and the sound could beat that of an airplane when it takes off. Later I was allocated another room. I don't understand why organizers of conferences ask people of our age to share room without asking for our right to choose "partners".

APCEIU invited ARENA to help in facilitating the workshop. Francis invited Dessa to come for a week. Later Dessa, Francis and I constituted a team to address sessions on globalization, human rights and peace for two days, 10-11 October. While Dessa and Francis did all the preparations including module development, I just prepared a couple of presentations, one on globalization on the first day and another make-shift presentation as a "concluding speech" on the following day.

We went to the UNESCO center at Icheon on 9th evening. Dessa was the key facilitator. We met 25 participants from 18 countries. What a diverse group? There were participants from Peru to Japan, from Sri Lanka to Uzbekistan, from Jordan to Mongolia, from Bhutan to Guatemala. There were also two participants from Bangladesh. However, the majority of the participants were from education ministries and the teachers were a minority. I have doubts about the efficacy of this workshop, as most of the ministerial officials have little role in formulating education policies in countries I am familiar with. This type of workshop should have participants from educational institutions and bodies that are involved in curriculum development and not bureaucrats who shuttle from one ministry to another in their service life.

However, the general level of participation was satisfactory. Dessa was very innovative, lively, artistic and persuasive. Francis was also superb in his role as co-facilitator and educator. I discovered a different Francis here.

I was supposed to sum-up two-day sessions. I planned it in three parts. I prepared a power point presentation based on the last two days’ discussions. Then I recited a poem that I composed recently. I wanted to respond to a participant from Nepali bureaucrat who mentioned that “the world has changed. We have been observing cultural invasion. Girls are wearing short skirts. Our values are being destroyed.” My contention was very simple. While the world is changing, many of us have failed to keep pace with the change. I wanted to highlight this in the second part of my concluding remarks. This is cited below.

In my concluding part, I became a "salesman". I showed a slide inviting application for MAINS 2008 academic year and showed the MAINS website. I got positive response form many participants. They enquired about it. Some of them showed interest to join and asked me whether there is an "age bar". I requested all of them to take note of the website and recommend “good candidates”. I was wandering whether we can have students from countries like Guatemala or Bhutan or Uzbekistan to effectively globalize MAINS. 

Few participants were not happy with the food that was served in the cafeteria. Some participants were fasting and they were looking for halal meat. One of the participants from Jordan named Anwar was “agitating” on this issue. On 10th evening, I found them talking to the Director of APCEIU, Kang Gai-Geun. Probably they were discussing about the food issue. In the following evening, Kang Gai-Geun brought some North Indian food from Seoul. I also had a share of it. It was delicious. After finishing the meal, I said, Alhamdulillah and explained it to Kang the meaning of the phrase: all praise to the God. Kang exclaimed, “I brought the food, and you should praise me; why praise the God?” Anwar tried to “pacify” him and said “You are the messenger”. Later Anwar told me, “Look Professor, you told us, we have to fight for rights. Now you see we have halal food.”


Eid in Seoul

In MAINS, there are four "Muslim" students and another one is half-Muslim. Three students had been fasting regularly following their respective national calendar. Eid prayer was held at Etaewon mosque in the downtown on 13 October. I accompanied three students, Mafuja, Mamun and Nurkholis, in the morning. Several thousand people from diverse nationalities assembled.

Mafuja’s PR is quite good in the Bangladeshi community. She managed to grab a leader of Bangladeshi migrant workers. His name is Masum whom we met before on several occasions. He took us to a Nepali restaurant at Dongdaemun and generously offered lunch.

In the evening, male students hosted a dinner in their apartment. Food was very tasty and all credit goes to Bono, the master chef. Prof. Cho Hee-Yeon also joined later. We left at midnight with stomach-full of food and heart-full of happiness. Earlier I carried few empty boxes with me with a hope to bring some left-over food. Bono didn’t disappoint me. I brought some beef bhuna and chicken korma that sustained me for a week.

Incredible Jeju

Jeju is the largest island of Korea, located in the southeast sea of the Korean Peninsula.
It has an area of 1,847 km² and its population is around 550,000 (year 2002). Jeju Island was the stage of the “Red Hunt” of 3 April 1948. Then the Island's population was around 300,000, and about 30,000 Jeju people were killed during the hunt.

I came to know about the island and the "hunt" in our spring course on “life experience workshop”, when Prof. Jin Young Jong showed a documentary titled Red Hunt. It was made by Cho Sung-bong. It was banned by South Korean authorities. Screening the film resulted in his imprisonment under the grounds that it was a pro-Communist and a pro-North Korea documentary. It tells the horrifying story of genocide on Korea’s most southern island Cheju-do (Jeju) in 1948/49.

Starting on 3 April 1948, following Korea's liberation from Japan in 1945, a peaceful demonstration turned to an action of terror and bloodshed that saw the island's population of 270,000 decimated to a third within the space of one year. An estimated 30,000 to 80,000 of these people were subjected to torture and brutal death in the name of anti-communist cleansing. In the past, this incidence was downplayed as a “communist uprising”. The perpetrators of this mass murder were the governors of South Korea, the Cheju-do police and the US Military.  

50 years later, the perpetrators are still in power in South Korea and the holocaust that took place on Cheju-do is still a taboo. Cho Sung-bong, using eyewitness accounts, US documents and commentaries by historians, created a documentary that describes in horrific detail the atrocities that had taken place in Jeju. The film was immediately banned by the South Korean authorities.  Despite attempts at censoring the discussion or acknowledgement of a mass murder in Jeju, a human rights activist and director of a Human Rights Film Festival, Suh Joon Sik, persisted with his human rights awareness campaign, and screened the film in 1998. The authorities had made several attempts to close down the festival and resorted to cutting power supply, so that the film could not be screened, and shut off access to the facilities at the University that was due to host the festival. Suh Joon Sik used generator, and in corridors of the University the film was screened. This act resulted in his imprisonment and three warrants were issued to the film maker. 

Cho Sung-bong’s objective was very clear. “We want to bring to light the cruel massacre that took place in Cheju half a century ago and the situation regarding the violation of human rights, using the testimonies of the old people who have shared this nightmare. Based on these historical facts, we have asked both Rhee Sung-man, President of the divided nation, and the United States of America to take responsibility for their criminal acts.”

Since then I had been planning to visit Jeju. I also heard that it is the most beautiful region in South Korea and a major tourist attraction as well. Prof. Cho Hee-Yeon helped me to book a guided package tour through the internet. Earlier he tried to get a free tour for me and requested his friends in Jeju University to invite me. That didn't work. I had to postpone the program twice because of other engagements and finally reached Jeju on 17 October. It was a one-hour’s flight from Gimpo airport. I was received by a guide, Ha Nan Ju, at Jeju airport. She dropped me at a hotel at the city center. I was picked up in the following morning and there started a two-day tour around the island.

Almost all the time Nan Ju was talking using a microphone, perhaps explaining the history and the importance of the sites we would be visiting. All were in Korean and I preferred to watch the blue sky, green hills, sub-tropical forests and orange gardens through the window. I could see the Mt. Halla, 1950 meters above the see level, which is the highest peak in South Korea. The tour has been covering sites that can very well entertain people, particularly the children. But certainly it was very relaxing for me. The weather was perfect for outing, and the temperature was warmer than that of Seoul. At a certain point, Nan Ju started distributing pills from a plastic bottle. While she dropped one on my right palm, she whispered: this is Viagra. I immediately put it on my tongue and found that it was an orange-flavored candy. There was a couple from Busan and the gentleman was good in English. He became my de facto guide.

In the afternoon we visited a place named “honeymoon house”. It was actually a resort used by the first President of South Korea, Syngman Rhee. He was an independence activist and politician. He was one of the leading figures of the Korean independence movement. After independence, he became the leader of the rightist democratic side, and in June 1946, assisted by the U.S., announced his plan for the establishment of a separate government for South Korea. He was elected as president of South Korea in August1945. After barely managing to survive through the Korean War with the help of the U.S. and the U.N., he was again, somewhat illegally, elected as president. He sought to continue his presidency, even by using illegal methods. When he elected himself for the fourth term through fraudulent election, the uprising of 19 April 1960, a nationwide protest against the government, took place. Lee resigned from his presidency and moved to Hawaii, where he died. While bedridden in a Hawaii hospital, he told his wife, “Even an old tiger returns to his cave when he dies…. I cannot close my eyes before I see my country unified.” He had an Austrian wife who continued to live in Korea after his death.

On the second day, the Busan couple didn’t show up. We had typical touristic funs, like watching elephant-show, riding horse and so on. We also visited a folk village with many choga (houses with straw-roof). We also visited Ilchulland where the 1700m km long Micheon cave is located. However, only 365 meter is opened for the public. It may be mentioned that the island was made of volcanic ash and stone and there are several natural caves. At the last leg of the tour, we went for a sea-cruise. Later we boarded a mini-submarine that went under 35m of water. I could see a bit of under-water marine life for the first time.

In the afternoon I talked to a boy and his mom. They were from Seoul. His name was Ki Tae. He speaks English. He is a student of grade five and informed me with utter disappointment: “I have no girlfriend”. In solidarity to him, I replied: "I don’t have either”.  We became very good friends and when we parted in the evening, he gave me a small sea-shell which he collected from the shore of Jeju.


People's tribunal

The week from October 14 to 21 was observed by millions of activists across the world as Global Action against Debt and IFIs (international financial institutions, such as, the World Bank and the IMF). One major thrust of the week of global action is the demand for immediate and unconditional cancellation of all “illegitimate debts” across the globe that had been and is still channeled through corrupt and oppressive regimes for no or little benefit accruing to common people.

On 23 October, a class for MAINS on “ecological debt” was scheduled. Earlier I suggested the students as a collaborative project to organize a People's Tribunal on Ecological Debt as part of the global week of action. Accordingly it was planned on 23^rd afternoon. Students played different roles as follows:





Ø      Case: Ecological Debt of TVI, a Canadian Mining Company, against the Subanen community in Zamboanga Del Norte in the Philippines. The Subanen is an indigenous community in the Zamboanga Peninsula in Mindanao affected by the mining activities of the said Canadian firm and the government is an accomplice to the "crime". People’s Tribunal against ecological debt.

Ø      Prosecutor (defending the case): Nilani and Mamun
Ø      Expert (defending the case): Jessica
Ø      Offender (representative of TVI): Banajit
Ø      Adjudicator: Nur Kholis (MAINS student and recently appointed as commissioner of the national human rights commission in Indonesia),  Prof. Hye-Je Cho, Mohi

The students worked hard to prepare the tribunal. Jessica may be particularly mentioned in this respect. In my view, this has been a valuable experience that the students have undergone and may help some of them to engage in similar activities in the future.


Jiyoung's ordeal

Jiyoung Lee-An is the only “full-time” Program Officer at ACIS at the moment. She is young, hard-working and naïve. She has been managing the project on Marriage Migration in Asia, which has partial funding. I am afraid there may not be money to pay her “salary” after November.

As I often visit ACIS and have opportunity to talk to her, I am familiar with the ordeal she has been passing through. She has a high expectation from Fellows and she still doesn’t realize that the Fellows are too busy. I can cite several examples. Surichai never responded to my mails in last 25 years. That does not necessarily mean that he doesn’t respond to any mail. People have their priorities; both in terms of their programs and in terms of whom to respond. Surichai told me that he and Chantana have to drive all the way to the campus from their home and they start at 5:30 in the morning. They leave the campus after 9:00 in the evening to return “home”. This is the life they are living, days after days, months after months and years after years. I can cite many more examples. People are busy.

In my own domain in South Asia, where I feel more comfortable, I often say to my friends that many of us pretend to be busy. Pretending to be busy means, one assumes that others are not busy; others have no important work to do. In my opinion, everybody is busy with their works and all their works are important. Sometimes I feel angry and insulted, if I don’t get response to my mails. But I am getting used to it. I am indebted to one suggestion of Arjun. He always advises me to “relax”. I also like to advise Jiyoung: “Relax; you don’t have to achieve a revolution only by yourself, and certainly not by tomorrow."

One evening, Jiyoung burst into tears as she was informed that the regional school of her program could not be held in Ho Chi Minh City, as planned earlier. She had probably a guilty feeling as if she would be “blamed” for not being able to secure the program in the designated location. I tried to console her saying that she should not feel responsible for no fault of her. It was indeed a good lesson she learned and maybe it will make her more mature in planning events, in dealing with Fellows, in downsizing expectations and to become modest about outcomes. I am also learning similar lessons while handling MAINS. The world is full of “adjudicators”, but there are not too many to lend a helping hand.

ACIS is going through a difficult period. The debacle of 2005-06 is still haunting. The obligatory report that ARENA owes to the EED is still pending. There is not enough money. We have been able to pull several young volunteers who have all the dreams and vigor to give ARENA a new life. What are needed from us, the Fellows, are sympathy and solidarity and timely response to mails and constructive suggestions; what to do and how to do.

In the past, ARENA had full-time paid staff for each program and programs could go on rather smoothly. Yet there were lot of difficulties. Under changed circumstances, we should extend our helping hands to the ACIS in whatever form and we can and whatever capacity we have. It may take time. But it's moving, slowly and gradually.

ARENA program meeting

Program meetings are now held almost every Tuesday evening, where we share our respective inputs and review the progress. We have now a new volunteer named Shin Jong. She comes every Monday and has started working for the program on “human rights to peace”. Volunteer Alex J. Lee already drafted a “letter of inquiry” on the proposed project on “Race in Asia: Reframing globalization vis-à-vis race and Asian-diasporic identity”. This will be sent to Carnegie Corporation of New York for funding. Volunteer Jim Hyun Joong and MAINS student Banajit Hussain are working on a proposal for the proposed Asia-Latin America project, which would be ready in November. Francis reported that he has already worked out a project for a training workshop for Korean young activists and soon a MoU is likely to be signed with the May 18 Memorial Foundation. He also hinted at a possibility of reaching an “agreement” with “Korean History Foundation” for funding a book project on “war, memory and peace”. Jiyoung reported that the venue of the proposed regional school of the “marriage migration in Asia” project has been shifted from Ho Chi Minh City to Manila, though the dates remain unchanged. Maureen and Neng are helping her. Suryun, a SKHU student and our part-time finance officer, found a volunteer named Hyun-gu, a SKHU student, to work for digitizing all arena publications. Hong works part-time for developing and updating the website and comes every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.


Visit to Korean Parliament

Prof. Cho Hyo-je guided MAINS students to see the National Assembly house on 24 October. He also invited me to join. We walked around the premise and then sat on the chairs in the visitors’ gallery in the main assembly hall. The protocol officer gave a briefing on how it functions. We learned that South Korea has a unicameral legislature with 299 members elected for a four-year term. Among them 243 are elected from single-member constituencies through direct election, while 56 members gain office through a system of proportional representation by participating political parties. The Speaker is elected from the ruling party and one of the two Vice-Speakers is elected from the opposition bench for a two-year term. Speaker and Vice-Speakers resign from respective parties to maintain a neutral stance. South Korea has a presidential form of government and the president cannot run election for a second term. This is unique as in our countries most politicians think that they are indispensable.

Outside the main assembly hall, walls are decorated with photographs that describe the history of South Korean politics from the independence struggle to democratization movement of the 1980s. And the history became lively as Hyo-je described it passionately and professionally. He belongs to the generation of students of the 1970s and the 1980s democracy movement and has been deeply influenced by the political currents of that time.

We had a quick lunch in a park inside the assembly campus that Hyo-je brought. Then we went to see the assembly library. This is a huge space with reportedly three million books. We went around and learned how to use it. About fifty million pages of full-text materials are accessible online. This is the most resourceful library in Korea.

Yi Ki Ho is a research professor at SKHU. He is young, handsome and friendly. The extra bed that ARENA Fellows use in my apartment is actually a gift from him. He rides a very elegant black car that he got as a gift from his aunt. Once he wished to take me around Seoul. Later we discussed and decided that it’s better not to delay as winter will set in soon. So we had a day out on 25 October. He picked me from my office after lunch and we had a ride on his ponkhiraj (literally meaning the king of birds, the fairytale bird in Bangladesh that carries the princess or the prince to distant places in a moment).

Earlier I thought Prof. Cho Hyo-je was a very good guide. Now I am thinking whether to reconsider that assumption. Ki Ho started the guided tour with a description of Seoul city. Han River is called Han-gang in Korean. Gang in Korean means river. In colloquial Bangla too, gang means river. The river has bisected the city. The southern part developed at the outset. It is called Gang-nam. This includes the richest enclave of business area. The northern part, which is called Gang-buk, started developing during the Park Chung Hee regime. Now many rich people from the south have shifted to the north and now there is a posh enclave in the north for the people of the south. SKHU is located in the north at the edge of the city.

We stopped at a site near the river bank. At both sides of the river, there is a wide open space with full of amusement and sporting facilities for people of all ages. We passed by the Nanj camping place. There are tents of different sizes and shapes. There are some large “Indian” tents and small Korean ones. Tents can be rented for family outing or can be used as classroom as well. Bar-b-q facilities are also available.

In the countryside, there are two artificial mountains, which were dumping ground for city garbage. Now these look very natural with green cover. This is called Nanjido (Sky Park). There are 500 stairs to climb to the top. Many tourists assemble there to climb. Ki Ho told me that once he brought his students here and had a class on the top of the mountain. He assumed that I would also climb the sky park. But I thought not to as my heart condition might not allow. While passing by the World Cup football stadium, I asked him to stop and wanted to have an inner view. Korean football was at its peak when it played semi-final in 2002. The roof over the gallery is shaped like a Korean traditional kite that can be viewed better from the sky. The stadium premise is now used for sauna, supermarket, gym, cinema complex, food court, etc.

We then entered the compound of the Yonsei University. It was built on the gully of a mountainous area, quite a very big campus, rated second in Korea in terms of credibility, has a huge area that can swallow as many as twenty SKHU. Ki Ho was describing the structures in an emotion-choked voice. He is a former student of Yonsei. Then we visited PSPD office, a leading NGO in Korea, that developed by a group belonging to the generation of the democracy movement of the 1980s. Then we passed through a well-guarded street that leads to the “blue house”, the office-cum- residence of the president. We decided not to stop, as we didn’t have time to say hello to the president. We drove through the Samchong-dong way. This is a special road with traditional houses at its both sides that are used as art galleries and restaurants. I could recollect that I came here once with Francis, Dessa and Jiyoung to have a traditional Korean dinner. We walked for over forty minutes to find a vegetarian restaurant for.

We then entered the premise of the Graduate School of North Korean Studies and looked around. The sun had already set. It started raining. We went to a cozy Korean restaurant to have dinner. Ki Ho decided the menu for me, Bom Nal Eu-Boribab (barley rice of spring). He told me that barley rice still reminds many people of older generation of war-time Korea when they people had to live on it because of poverty. I was hungry and took even the last bit of rice from the bowl. On way back from the restaurant, he showed me the entrance of the Cheonggyecheon stream, the canal that was dredged by King Yeongjo of the Joseon Dynasty six hundred years ago and was restored and paved during 2003-05. The five-hour tour ended, as Ki Ho dropped me near the City Hall subway station. As it was raining, he bought an umbrella for me so that I can reach home safely. I was moved by his concern.

While having dinner, we discussed some private matters too. He loves children. He wants to have many children. But his wife doesn’t agree. They have only one child. Ki Ho attended few faculty meetings of MAINS in the beginning. I wander, why he did not have any teaching assignment?

Our first attempt to visit the de-militarized zone (DMZ) in the summer as part of the course on "Critical Understanding of Culture in Asia" was not a success, as the day was a public holiday and many facilities were closed. So we took another chance on 26 October with Jang Ik-Su, a MAINS student, as our guide. All the students except one joined. This time we took a train from Seoul.

The most interesting part of the tour was to pass through the third tunnel with an open train. This tunnel was discovered in 1978, just 52 km away of Seoul. It is 1,635m long, 2m wide and 2m high. The tunnel goes to 73m deep. This is as large as to allow ten thousand soldiers in full kit to move in every hour. This is one of the five tunnels that North Korea made to “invade” the south. The DMZ is administered by the UN.

While returning from the cave, we saw a sculpture made of steel, shaped like a globe, torn apart into two pieces, and four women and men from four corners are pushing the broken parts to make it one. It symbolizes the urge for re-unification.

At the last leg of the tour, we visited Dora Observatory is on the South Korean side of the 38th parallel. Situated on top of Dorasan (Mount Dora), the observatory looks across the DMZ. It is the part of South Korea closest to the North. We could catch a glimpse of the North Korean state through binoculars. There is a North Korean propaganda village with houses and no people.

In the afternoon, Nilani, Bono and I joined Ik-Su to visit the “Seoul Tower”. It was built in 1975, and opened to the public in 1980. The tower is 237m high from the mountain base and is 480m above the sea level. The outer view of the tower is not so attractive compared to other towers I have seen, such as the Eiffel Tower or the Toronto Tower. We went to the base of the tower with a cable-car and then reached the observatory by using the elevator. We could see entire Seoul and adjoining areas in the evening through the window with tens of thousands of mercury bulbs glittering.

Under the shining bulbs is a thick layer of darkness. Korea’s economic growth over the past 30 years has been spectacular. Per capita GNP, only $100 in 1963, exceeded $16,000 in 2005. However, the rich-poor gap is also widening. When we were returning, we saw a meeting of the homeless people in the corridor of the Seoul subway station. I have been watching homeless people, mostly old, lying at the corners of the station making fence with paper carton whenever I pass through in the evenings. According to a research finding, little has changed since 1988 when 720,000 people were forcibly displaced in Seoul in preparation for the Summer Olympic Games. Many people have also become homeless because of rapid urbanization. Old and disabled persons begging in the trains are a common scene in Seoul. This is an ugly face of Korean affluence.

Presidential candidate Chung Dong-young of the United New Democratic Party (UNDP) Thursday criticized “jungle capitalism,” which will make only 20 percent of the population well off. His remarks targeted Lee Myung-bak, presidential nominee of the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) who has presented business-friendly pledges such as easing regulations on companies. `”The nation should not go back to jungle capitalism under which only strong men survive,” Chung said. The election will be held in December.


Noeul in Seoul

I have fallen love with the Hang-gang. So I went to Hangang Yuiansun, the riverside park, again with Ik-Su on the following day. This time, his two kids, Sehee and Jinwoo, were with us. While they were playing, I wanted to have a dip of the dusk. The skyline turned from red (naeul in Korean) to dark blue with the full moon in sight, slowly elevating from the hide behind the skyscrapers. I had a strange feeling. I thought I have been traveling for thousand years and the moon along with the moon. Yet we can't meet. After returning home, I tried to compose my inner feelings.

 

I like to dedicate these words to Jang Ik-Su.