The Joong Ang Ilbo is continuing its fascinating series of interviews with the 89 year old former Korean Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil. This next interview describes how Kim Jong-pil started the first tangerine orchard on Jeju Island and started his own cattle ranch which was ultimately seized by the military dictator Chun Doo-hwan:
Kim Jong-pil visits an orchard on Shikoku Island, Japan, in November 1968 to learn about the tangerine farming for his orchard on Jeju Island. [Kim Jong-pil]During my 46-day confinement at the Army Security Command in 1980, only once did I cry. It was after I heard the news that the security command had announced in corruption charges that I had illegally accumulated 21.6 billion won ($18.6 million). A number of my assets were to be confiscated included a tangerine orchard on Jeju Island and a cattle ranch in South Chungcheong that I had donated to the Unjong Scholarship Foundation. I could not keep myself from crying after learning of the Chun Doo Hwan group’s perfidy. During my lifetime, I shed tears just a few times. I cried at the funeral for President Park Chung Hee in 1979. Recently, I cried when my wife Young-ok passed away.I shed tears in the interrogation room 35 years ago because the Chun group took away my dreams and ambition. Though 35 years have passed, I feel compelled to raise the issue in regard to the Unjong Scholarship Foundation. In May 1968, I declared my retirement from politics and relinquished all formal positions. I was determined to contribute to the improvement of the country through other means. I remembered a line from a book on Napoleon that I had read in middle school. The Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon in the battle of Waterloo, was asked how he had beaten the French emperor. He said he had fought in the spirit of Eton College and the victory was possible because of what he had learned on that school’s playing fields. His remark inspired me deeply and led me to nurture ambitions that I would one day set up a school just like Eton.
To set up an educational institution, I needed financial means. So I decided on a pioneering farming venture. In June 1968, I visited a vast track of land in Seogwipo, Jeju Island, and decided to turn it into a tangerine orchard. Agricultural experts told me I would fail and said the land was not suitable to such farming. But I pushed ahead. I bought 430,000 square meters of land for 32.5 million won. The price was very cheap because everyone thought the land was infertile. I deployed a crane and even dynamite to break through rock. I set up a tent nearby and spent the whole winter of 1968 there. I purchased 49,840 tangerine seedlings from Japan and planted them. About three years later, they bore fruit. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read the rest at the link which includes how he started his cattle ranch in Seosan and how Chun Doo-hwan seized these two agricultural properties from him.
I totally agree with these military exchanges because it reduces tensions and suspicion between two countries usually viewed as rivals. Hopefully cooperation will continue to build in other areas between the US and China as well:
Servicemembers from the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force demonstrate ways to secure and evacuate casualties to their Chinese Army counterparts during the Disaster Management Exchange held at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., Nov. 20, 2015. DOD
Army medic Sgt. Leslie Peterson hesitated to answer when a medic from the Chinese military asked a basic question about how Peterson would care for a soldier badly wounded in battle.
“Can I answer that?” Peterson asked a higher-ranking U.S. soldier.
Peterson was given a blessing to respond. Then she continued her demonstration that won applause from a couple dozen visitors at Joint Base Lewis-McChord on Friday.
She was a hit with this contingent from China’s People’s Liberation Army. But her hesitation underscored the newness of an unusual military exchange at JBLM that’s connecting soldiers from two armies usually characterized as rivals.
The exchange this week brought about 80 soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army to a military base in the continental U.S. for the first time. It marked a progression in an 11-year sequence of formal exchanges between the two armies focused on preparing for natural disasters.
Leaders from both countries view disaster preparation as an area where they can cooperate and build trust, possibly reducing the likelihood of an armed conflict in East Asia. [Stars & Stripes]
South Korean President Kim Young-sam (R) goes jogging with visiting U.S. President Bill Clinton at the compound of the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae in this July 1993 file photo. Kim, who has been hospitalized due to a high fever, died at Seoul National University Hospital on Nov. 22, 2015, the hospital said. He was 88. Kim formally ended decades of military rule in South Korea and accepted a massive international bailout during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis. (Yonhap)
In my opinion Kim Young-sam never got the credit he deserved for his time as Korean President. First of all he was able to punish the past military dictators by charging with treason and putting them on trial before ultimately pardoning them which arguably maintained national unity. He also got stuck with the task of handling the Asian Financial Crisis and accepting the bail out loan from the International Monetary Fund. Both of these issues were widely unpopular, but history has shown that the way Kim Young-sam handled them was correct and hopefully with his passing people will better remember the great things he accomplished as President:
Kim Young-sam
The nation – political supporters and detractors alike – mourned the death of former President Kim Young-sam, an icon of Korea’s democracy movement, who passed away Sunday at age 87.
Kim died at 12:21 a.m. at Seoul National University Hospital after suffering from septicemia, or severe blood infection, and acute heart failure, hospital chief Oh Byung-Hee said in a press briefing.
He had been hospitalized since Thursday with a high fever.
Kim was previously hospitalized for 18 months from April 2013 to October 2014 for stroke and pneumonia.
A native of Geoje Island in South Gyeongsang, Kim served as the first elected civilian president of Korea from 1993 to 1998, following decades of military rule.
Former leaders of the country and current politicians flocked to the former president’s wake at SNU Hospital in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Sunday, to grieve his passing and recall his legacy of helping to build a more democratic nation.
Former Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil – who was at times a rival and at times an ally to President Kim- arrived at the wake in a wheelchair. “He will forever be remembered in the hearts of the people as a leader of convictions,” he said. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Maj. Gen. Theodore Martin, the commander of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, carries coal briquettes on a back carrier in the city of Dongducheon, northeast of Seoul, on Nov. 17, 2015, to deliver them to impoverished residents. The briquettes are used both for cooking and heating traditional Korean homes. The division and the Gyeonggi provincial government delivered 5,000 briquettes to those residents in the city. (Yonhap)
If the New York Times wants to criticize President Park I have no issues with that, but at least provide all the facts so readers can at least make up their own minds instead of selectively publishing information to support the anti-President Park narrative:
South Koreans can be as proud of their country’s emergence from dictatorship into a vibrant democracy as they are of the rags-to-riches development that made their country a global industrial powerhouse. So it is alarming that President Park Geun-hye appears intent on backtracking on the democratic freedoms that have made South Korea as different from North Korea’s puppet regime as day is from night.
Last weekend, tens of thousands of South Koreans took to the streets to protest two repressive government initiatives. One would replace the independently selected history textbooks now available to South Korea’s educators with government-issued textbooks. The other would change labor laws to make it easier for South Korea’s family-controlled business conglomerates to fire workers. [New York Times]
Normally I say read the rest at the link, but don’t bother because it is more of the copy paste Park Geun-hye is daughter of former dictator and trying to squash dissent like her father nonsense. First of all the current textbooks were mostly written by leftists that are used by teachers who promote pro-North Korean ideology in the classroom. That is the driving factor of why the government is changing the textbooks. Secondly the textbooks have not even been written. I would be more sympathetic to textbook protests if one of these books had even been written that showed slanted history. Right now we don’t know what will be in them. Maybe they will be as bad as predicted, but maybe they won’t.
As far as the changing of labor laws the Park administration is trying to make it easier for corporations to layoff older workers in order to open slots for younger workers. South Korea has a large youth unemployment problem. Will this work? I have no idea, but the issue is not as simple as the New York Times makes it out to be. The New York Times should at least provide both sides of the issue to inform readers.
