The Joong Ang Ilbo has now reported on the controversy surrounding the Yanghwajin Foreigner Cemetery in Seoul.  The article is a good read and provides a decent overview of the fight going on over the future of the cemetery:

Those visiting the cemetery’s 14,000 square meters likely appreciate the sacrifice of those early missionaries, but they may be unaware that a present day conflict is underway between two Protestant churches one foreign and one Korean over the right to manage the cemetery and affiliated properties.

The foreign congregation, Seoul Union Church, with 100 members, claims that its Korean neighbors in the 2,000-strong 100th Anniversary Memorial Church are trying to push it out of a chapel on the cemetery grounds, which the union church has occupied since 1986 and has shared with the memorial church since 2005.

Seoul Union, founded in 1885, was the first Protestant church in Korea and its congregation has included some of the most venerable foreign families in the country. Many of its former members are buried in the cemetery. It worries that a demand by the memorial church that it change its service time from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. is a disguised attempt to displace it from the cemetery and the chapel. The deadline for the schedule change is Sunday, Aug. 5.

The situation has become so bitter that it seems headed for court. Both sides accuse the other of mismanaging the cemetery, while Seoul Union leaders say a long-standing agreement to leave the property under the effective control of the foreign church is being violated.
Union church member John Linton, a prominent Seoul doctor whose missionary family has been in Korea for more than a century, says the prospects for resolution are bleak. “We think this is a kind of war,” he said.

Yes war has been declared and it appears August 5th is when battle is going to commence:

Rev. Prince C. Oteng-Boateng, the current pastor of the union church, recently sent a letter to Korean church leaders asking for help. The pastor requested supporters to attend the morning service at union church on Aug. 5 and block any physical coercion by the Korean church.

“We believe that any attempt by the memorial church to disrupt or forcibly remove Seoul Union Church from its rightful home, and to obstruct our right of usage, will result in a public demonstration [against] its actions,” the pastor said in the letter.
“We are appealing to you and the entire Korean Christian community to pray with Seoul Union Church and to seek your direct intervention in defeating this persecution,” the pastor wrote.

The controversy over the Yanghwajin Foreigner Cemetery in Seoul has been covered in great detail before by guest blogger Robert Neff over at the Marmot’s Hole.  He was the first person to get the story out about why the Korean Memorial Church wanted to get rid of the foreigner composed Union Church; because they planned to disinter the bodies of foreigners in the cemetery:

In an interview with The Korea Herald, Kim Yong-nam, who identified himself as administrator to the Church and Yangwhajin, supported the claim that those who were unsuitable for the cemetery such as Koreans, a foreigner he described as an “Itaewon pool player,” and members of the U.S. military – who chose to be buried at the cemetery along with their families – would be removed at some time in the future.

Many of the graves that may be disinterred include members of the US military.  Robert Neff in a later posting at the Marmot’s Hole provided names of all the US military servicemen and their family members buried at Yanghwajin.  The list was forwarded to the US Embassy and USFK, but there has yet to be any feedback on what course of action if any US officials plan to do.  The list of servicemembers and their families buried at Yanghwajin is quite long, and it is sad to think these people, even death, are not free from discrimination of foreigners in Korea.

This is why the Union Church is fighting so hard to protect the cemetery from the Memorial Church and it appears this is headed for a final showdown on August 5th.

Family members of Korea’s most famous Christian missionary family, the Underwood family, are buried at Yanghwajin.  The members of the Memorial Church never caused any issues until Dr. Horace Grant Underwood III died in 2004.  It cannot be understated the amount of respect and influence a man like Horace Underwood III had in Korea.  It seems more than just a tad bit coincidental that this dispute over the fate of Yanghwajin began shortly after his death.

It would be interesting to hear what the Underwood family has to say about this matter, but the remaining members of the Underwood family left Korea for unspecified reasons shortly after the passing of Horace Underwood III.  The way things are looking now foreigners buried in the Yanghwajin Foreigner Cemetery maybe leaving for “unspecified reasons” as well.

It will be interesting to see how the Seoul City government intends to enforce this new law:

Put out those butts while waiting for the bus.

Seoul city officials will ban smoking at bus stops beginning Sept. 1, according to a Korea Herald news report.

More than 5,300 bus stops now have signs stating, “Bus Stops, No Smoking,” according to the report.

According to the report, some parks in Seoul will be declared no-smoking zones this month and smoking at all city government parks will banned by the end of 2008.

I expect this law to be enforced like stop lights, as in once a year "crackdowns" that last for one week.  Personally I really don’t care if someone smokes outside, what bothers me is when people throw their cigarette butts on the ground.  It also bothers me when people throw litter in general on the ground which cigarette butts make just a fraction of in Seoul.  So when will litter laws be implemented and enforced in Seoul?

I fail to see the news value in this the latest English teacher scandal that it should make headlines in the Chosun Ilbo, but heck at least it doesn’t involve GIs.  Marmot has a whole lot more.

The Stars and Stripes has the latest on a drunk GI in Itaewon and a taxi cab related incident.  Nomad has more.

I have never seen a brigade Command Sergeant Major get in this much trouble before.  If I had the chance to ask him one question it would be where he planned to flee to from the CID agents pursuing him in Balad, Iraq?

Marmot has the scoop on Britney Spears latest fashion statement, wearing Hangul that makes no sense for here to wear.

I have never seen a brigade Command Sergeant Major get in this much trouble before.  If I had the chance to ask him one question it would be where he planned to flee to from the CID agents pursuing him in Balad, Iraq?

I have decided to start doing monthly update on how well the ROK Drop blog has been doing and recognizing my top referrers.  Since I moved my site over to WordPress last December traffic to site has slowly been building month by month.  I appreciate everyone who stops by and reads what I have to think about things and appreciate many of the great comments left by readers..

June ROK Drop Statistics

ROK Drop   Visits        Pages         Hits            Bandwidth
Average        1265.03     3814.10     14566.43   320.84mb  

Top Ten Countries Visiting ROK Drop for June
1. United States
2. South Korea
3. Australia
4. Sweden
5. Canada

Note: You can see my overall top country visitors on my sidebar.

Top Referrers
1. Lost Nomad
2. Marmot’s Hole
3. DPRK Studies
4. Occidentalism
5. Milblogs

Thanks to all my top referrers for linking and sending traffic to the ROK Drop. 

Top 10 Searched for Key Phrases
1. ROK Drop
2. GI Korea
3. Michelle Wie
4. rokdrop
5. XK2 tank
6. lee pani
7. abortion in korea
8. xk2
9. yuko tojo
10. lee sabi

Top Five Posts for the Month of June
1. USFK Soldier Sentenced and Convicted in Grandma Rape Case
2. The Solution to Indiscipline Problems Found
3. Filipino Diplomat Caught Shoplifting in USFK PX
4. Korea’s Looks to Add to UNESCO Sites, Is Dokdo Next?
5. Japan’s Lawmakers Take Out Full Page Ad on Comfort Women

Why a post from this past March on the Grandma Rape Case has received so much traffic this month is beyond me.  Hits for posts on Dokdo and comfort women is not to surprising. 

So what was President Roh doing while the memorial ceremony was going on for the six sailors murdered by North Korea during the West Sea Naval Battle?  Kim Dae-joong from the Chosun Ilbo has the answer:

Despite being supreme commander of the armed forces, the president did not show up at a memorial service honoring the dead in an inter-Korean naval clash near the Northern Limit Line, the de-facto sea border between the two Koreas, on its fifth anniversary. At the time, the chief executive was busy at Cheong Wa Dae handing letters of appointment to steering members of the Presidential Committee for the Inspection of Collaborations for Japanese Imperialism and the Advisory on Democratic Peaceful Unification. It was a glaring display of his lack of interest in, and disrespect for, the status and role of our armed forces. Yet no one complained.

So authorizing more searches for Japanese collaborators over 60 years ago is more important than attending a memorial ceremony for six sailors murdered in service to their country five years ago.  Why am I not surprised?

This is some surprising news coming out of Japan concerning an issue from World War II that doesn’t involve comfort women for a change:

Japan’s defense minister said Saturday that the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States during World War II was an inevitable way to end the war, drawing criticism from atomic bomb survivors.

“I understand that the bombing ended the war, and I think that it couldn’t be helped,” Fumio Kyuma said in a speech at a university in Chiba, just east of Tokyo.

The United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of World War II, in the world’s only nuclear attacks.

Kyuma, who is from Nagasaki, said the bombing caused great suffering in the city. Part of his speech was aired by public broadcaster NHK.

He also said he did not resent the U.S. because the bombs prevented the Soviet Union from entering the war with Japan, according to Kyodo News agency.

The remarks, rare for a Japanese Cabinet minister, were quickly criticized by atomic bomb victims.

I think the AP mistranslated what Kyuma said because when the bombs were dropped on Japan, Russia had already entered the war on August 8, 1945 before the second bomb was dropped.  Thus the bombs did not prevent the Soviets from entering into the war. The bombs were dropped to get Japan to surrender more quickly before the Soviets gobbled up to much Japanese territory. Coming Anarchy has some good commentary on this issue and provides a better translation of what Kyuma said:

“I understand the bombings brought the war to its end. I think it was something that couldn’t be helped.”

The United States “dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki although it knew Japan would lose the war” without having to resort to using an atomic bomb, Kyuma said.

Noting that the Soviet Union was preparing to wage a war against Japan, he said the United States must have thought the use of an atomic bomb could prompt Japan’s surrender, thus preventing the Soviet Union from carrying out its intentions.

“Luckily Hokkaido was not occupied. In the worst case, Hokkaido could have been taken by the Soviet Union,” he said. “I don’t hold a grudge against the United States.”

This logic is correct because Hokkaido today probably would be in Russian hands if the bombs were not dropped. If Hokkaido fell to the Soviets, Japan to this day would not have gotten the island back. This is validated by the Russians still holding on to the Japanese Kuril Islands just north of Hokkaido which they refuse to return to Tokyo.

I actually did a post on this a couple years ago about the decision to drop the atomic bomb compared to the proposed US invasion of Japan called Operation Olympic. Read the posting and decide if you think the US should have dropped the bomb or not. Now if only somebody in the Japanese government could show this much historical clarity about the comfort women issue instead of arguing over the definition of “coercion” and publishing unconvincing newspaper ads.