His head buried in his hands, he heaves forward in his seat. He is falling apart, doing everything he can to stop himself from crashing. His slightly wavy brown hair is tangled in mess on top of his head. He’s breathing, but like a drowning person’s last attempts to find air.

“Hey,” I touch his shirt. He looks up with blood shot eyes and stares. His eyes are watering. ‘From looking at the computer too long,’ I think to myself. But then he asks, “Do you want to go outside and talk for a little bit?”

I couldn’t refuse. He looked like he was going to break into a scream, or a hysterical laughter he wouldn’t be able to control. Laughter, of all things. There was a strange smirk on his face. Or maybe he was just trying not to cry.

We walked step by step out into the lobby. There were two people standing next to the large glass pane windows, chatting about the beautiful spring weather and the pink and white cherry blossom trees outside. We sidetracked into a narrow hallway, a common place for journalists to go when they wanted to smoke or vent their miseries.

He came forward and hugged me—almost fell on top of me. It was not a sensual hug, or intimate, to any extent. More desperate, like a wordless request for me to catch his fall. I was wary of other people’s suspicious glances, so I tried not to prolong the moment for too long. But the short touch was enough to tell me how exhausted he was.

He began to talk. Last night, he had seen his ex-girlfriend from Japan. She was visiting in Korea for a couple of days and wanted to see him. “Did your wife get upset?” I asked. No, she didn’t. She didn’t even seem to care.

He smiled. “You know, when I saw her, I could just tell that she really loved me–”

“…”

“We’ve both moved on and she is already seeing someone, and yeah, I’m married. But I could tell she just loves me unconditionally. I felt that warmth coming from her.”

“And you miss that,” I suggested.

“Yeah, I think I do. I was really afraid of it before. Her love was too burdensome to handle, but now, I kind of look back nostalgically on it and wonder…”

Unconditional love exists, or so he thinks, but he does not have it.

Few people do, I say. And when we stumble upon it, out of luck or fate or what have you, we let our own selfishness get in the way. Ultimately, we lose grasp of that pure love and trade it for one that is more convenient, but less passionate, and we settle.

I do not have much more to tell him and we walk back into our seats. He mopes. I ponder. He gets up to take a walk. I sit back in my chair and pick up a pen. He releases his pent up anger and hopelessness in a batting cage. I have no other choice but to just write.

Even when they pick up, they answer with a simple, “I’m sorry, I’m on the phone about an important meeting…” and there is nothing you can do about it.

You can’t get angry, you can’t ask to have more time, you can’t take back the hours you spent anticipating, waiting.

In times like these, you just have to suck it up and enter that deep slumber of nothingness we call sleep. It takes the feeling away and makes it easier to bear.

But it doesn’t. It tastes exactly the same.

I always disliked eating by myself. I thought it was a sign of weakness. Your inability to mingle with the rest of the group or to ask someone to eat with you.

But I tried it out today, all by myself in a large empty room lit by a bright fluorescent light. I didn’t feel weak.

It was rather refreshing, and I was having all kind of thoughts.

Like the bizarre cold front that’s seeping up the warmth of spring all over America’s east coast, the slumping economy hanging on for dear life, my future, my boyfriend’s boyish smile, the curiously strong taste of Altoids.

I must have eaten too fast. Next time, I will keep a book open next to me to space out my time.

I feel myself retracting inwards a lot more often these days. Is this part of growing up? To feel more than you express, to think more than you act, to say less and ponder more.

I’m starting to feel restless again. I feel like I need to pack up and leave by myself. Go travel somewhere, meet strangers, ride trains, order unknown dishes.

Maybe my trial in eating alone today was preparing me for the road ahead. To feel comfort in this big vast and somewhat empty world, and to be able to fill that emptiness with my impossible goals and a pinch of hope.

My heart sank.

They were telling us, move on! Let go! Go out into the world now and become an adult! And the way we’re going to teach you how to do that is to now just cut you off…and give you a lame alumni.duke.edu replacement email. But no replacement ID. Now all you have left to do is give lots of money (even more than the $160,000 tuition everyone already had to pay) to help pay for unnecessarily extravagant 50 inch plasma tvs and $3000 spanish benches all over our campus. 

I guess it had to happen sometime. I couldn’t always remain under the comforts of a Duke name. 

It was, in fact, too comfortable at times. It was a world of opportunity and unlimited dreaming, where money seemed to flow where the mouth moved, where the ideas lay, where the passion lived. But it was also a place of privilege, pride, and ignorance, where even altruism was driven by self-importance and the desire to succeed.

There was a certain vanity, though, that the name of Duke fed and nurtured. Especially here in Korea, where the names you wear and the people you know are unfortunately the only things that matter. Though I try to suppress and deny it, it fed my ego to see the expression on people’s faces, filled with a mixture of want and approval, when I told them where I went to school. It was an automatic ticket into an exclusive world, which, as much as I hated, pulled at me like a nagging child.

But when faced with the truth, you realize that Duke and its glorious prestige is fake. It doesn’t really matter. And those to whom it matters to don’t really matter.

The billions of dollars and power associated with that name will not help you find happiness, or meaning, or allow you to understand the suffering of those around you in this complicated weave of human connections called life. 

And so I’m happy it’s letting me go. It hurts my pride and my vanity a bit, but those need to die anyway. 

It’s time to live by another creed.

To taste the rigors and tears and laughs of what this life offers without being covered by a blanket of complacency and undesevered optimism. To overcome our fears of disapproval, rejection, uncertainty, pain, and death. To understand what it means to suffer, and to love, and to find freedom in those unabashed expressions of human interactions. To find joy in serene silence as well as chaotic noise. And to accept, but to hope, in all circumstances, with a grateful heart. 

To not be complacent. And to not forget the cries of those around you.

They don’t teach you these things in the college classroom. It’s what you learn in the smiling face of a child who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, in the wrinkled hands of your working parents, in the passionate words of a musing academic,  in the broken yet hopeful cries of a war torn society, in your dreams, in your imagination, and in those deep dark corners of your life waiting to shine.

The Busan District Court sentenced the 42-year-old man, identified only by the first initial of his surname “L,” to a 30-month prison term suspended for three years on charges of forcibly having sex with his Philippino wife at knifepoint.

In 2004, a district court found a Seoul man guilty of sexually assaulting his wife. But this latest unprecedented ruling marks the nation’s first judicial conviction of a man on marital rape charges.

“The defendant should have treated his wife with affection, because she has difficulties in speaking Korean and feels lonely in this remote foreign country. His behavior cannot be acceptable as he threatened his wife with a gas gun and knife to have sex against her will,” the Busan court said in its verdict.

The man was also accused of forcing his 25-year-old wife to have sex even during her menstrual period. He married his Philippine wife in 2006 through an international marriage broker in Korea and was indicted last year on charges of rape.

The court said it suspended his sentence for three years as he expressed remorse for his misconduct. It also noted the victim was held responsible for failing to make efforts to communicate with her husband and to adjust to Korean culture.

brk@yna.co.kr

Blogger’s comments:
The victim is responsible for failing to make efforts to communicate with her husband? And for failure to adjust to Korean culture?

What situation could you imagine where a wife could even attempt to communicate with a man who 1) believes he owns her as a commodity, 2) demands sex from her at knifepoint against her will?

There are several things wrong with this picture. The thought that it is okay to “buy” someone’s dignity and freedom because your country has a higher GDP than the other’s country is disgusting. And for the judges in Korea to fault the woman for failure “to adjust to Korean culture” is not being able to notice the huge plank in their own eyes. Maybe if Korea came out of its still backward patriarchal worldview and belief that it is better than everyone else (except white people), other nationalities and races would have an easier time adjusting. And do Koreans adjust to other cultures well when they are abroad? Never! They do everything they can to retain their tradition until it painfully fades with each younger generation.

지난 달 24일 예고한 바와 같이 북한은 12월 1일부터 개성공단 관리직 및 입주사 직원 축소, 남북경협협의사무소 폐쇄, 육로통행 제한, 개성관광 중단, 경의선 운행 중지 등 일련의 남북교류 차단조치를 취하였다. 이에 따라 작금 개성공단 입주 기업에 대한 지원업무가 차질을 빚고 있고, 통행․통관 등에 불편이 가중되고 있다.

소나기 퍼붓듯 북한이 강경조치를 동시다발적으로 실행에 옮긴 배경과 의도에 대해선 서너 가지로 풀이할 수 있다. 우리의 대북정책에 대한 불만 표시와 햇볕정책에로의 회귀 강요, 김정일 건강이상설 등 체제동요를 막기 위한 사전 포석, 남남갈등을 노린 고도의 대남 심리전, 6자회담 등 향후 미국과의 핵협상에 대비한 협상입지 강화 등. 한 마디로 충격요법을 통해 한반도에 긴장을 한껏 고조시킴으로써 이명박 정부를 궁지로 몰아넣고, 이를 발판으로 최대한의 실리를 챙기겠다는 것으로 요약된다.

최근의 소식통에 따르면, 이번의 교류 제한조치가 김정일 위원장이 직접 재가한 ‘對內用’이라고 한다. 현재 북한은 체제불만 및 민심이반, 시장주의 확산, 대남 의존심리 등을 ‘3대 체제위협’요인으로 간주하고, 이에 동조․편승하는 세력을 소탕하는데 부심하고 있다. 이 같은 체제위기를 극복하기 위한 방편으로 군부를 앞세워 개성공단을 활용하고 있다는 것이다 .

이와 관련, 지난 9월 김정일 와병설이 등장한 이후 후계문제가 은밀하게 거론되자 김 위원장에 대한 충성이 약화될 것을 우려한 핵심 측근들이 권력엘리트들에 대한 단속을 강화하고 있다는 후문이다.

이렇게 본다면, 북한이 교류 차단조치를 취하면서도 현지 생산기업에는 다소 관대하게 대우(경영에 필요한 인원은 잔류 허용)하는 등 개성공단 위축에 따른 경제손실을 줄이려 한 대목이 이해가 간다.

북한이 지난 10여 년간 남북교류에 호응하면서도 자본주의 요소 유입차단 등 사회주의체제 이완 방지에 고심해 온 것은 잘 알려진 사실이다.

90년대 초반 북한당국이 나진․선봉지역을 자유경제무역지대로 지정해 개발에 박차를 가했지만, 김정일 위원장이 97년 경 현지지도를 통해 ‘황색 바람’을 경고하자, 이후 나선지역의 대외개방이 더 이상 진척을 보지 못한 것은 그 좋은 예다.

최근 조선노동당과 국가안전보위부 등이 ‘특별검열단’을 구성해 한국 TV 드라마 등 동영상을 보거나 유포하는 주민에 대한 색출 작업을 벌이고 있는데, 이 또한 ‘남한물 빼기’의 일환이라 할 수 있다.

작년 말 이후 노동당 통일전선부와 내각 산하 민족경제연합회(민경련) 등 대남기관에 대해 대대적인 사정작업을 벌인 것도 그와 무관치 않다.

그러기에 이런 사태 발생의 책임은 6.15 공동선언과 10.4 선언을 부정하고 집요하게 남북대결을 추구해 온 남측에 있다는 주장은 성립될 수 없다. 이명박 정부는 6.15 공동선언과 10.4 선언을 부정한 적이 없기 때문이다.

오히려 전면적인 남북대화를 제안(7.11 국회 개원 연설 등) 했고, 당국간 대화를 재개하여 현실을 바탕으로 상호 존중의 정신 아래 가능한 것부터 협의․실천해 나가자는 입장을 누차 밝힌 바 있다. 북측이 전단(삐라) 살포를 강경책의 명분으로 내세우기도 하지만, 해당 민간단체가 5년 전부터 해 온 일을 이제 와서 문제 삼는 것도 석연치 않은 구석이 있다.

전후사정이 어떠하든 개성공단은 북한의 개방의지를 가늠 하는 시금석이다. 이곳이 성공하지 못할 경우 앞으로 어느 나라도 북한에 투자하려 하지 않을 것이다. 따라서 북한은 개성공단을 볼모로 잡는 구태에서 하루빨리 벗어나야 한다. 대신에 정치적인 외풍을 받지 않도록 하면서 이 지역을 진정 남북 상생․공영의 사업장으로 발전시키는데 함께 힘을 보태야 한다.

Translation:

Kaesong not to be made hostage to inter-Korean tensions
Chae Sung Ho (Professor of Law at Chungang University)

North Korea on Dec. 1 followed through with its announcement on Nov. 24 to “selectively expel” South Korean personnel from the jointly operated Kaesong industrial complex, shut down the joint office for inter-Korean economic cooperation, enforce stricter border control, suspend tours to the historic city, and halt the cross-border train service. South Korean businesses operating in Kaesong are taking the hit as recent measures have disrupted support lines and tightened regulations on cross-border traffic and customs control.

There are several reasons why North Korea has simultaneously lashed out multiple hard-line policies toward the South. Its actions can be interpreted as a sign of disapproval toward South Korea’s policy on North Korea and a demand for the return of the “sunshine policy.” Other objectives include preventing social unrest within the system, especially in light of the rumors about Kim Jong-il’s severe illness, waging a psychological war with the South to stir up disputes among different South Korean groups, and displaying the regime’s resolute stance for future negotiations in the six party talks and bilateral talks with the U.S. Using “shock diplomacy,” North Korea seeks to drive Lee Myung Bak’s administration into a corner and use the leverage that it gains as a stepping stone to win more concessions for its regime.

According to recent news, the restrictive measures recently announced by Pyongyang were ordered directly by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il for domestic reasons. Authorities have been struggling to purge any group that sympathizes with or participates in what they consider the “3 Threats to the Regime”—dissatisfaction with the regime, expansion of markets, and dependence on the South. North Korea is putting forth its military and power over the Kaesong industrial complex to overcome this sense of crisis.

It is also reported that amidst rumors in September about Kim Jong-il’s failing health, close aides to the North Korean leader began cracking down on elites who were secretly discussing regime succession in fears that this would weaken the people’s loyalty toward the leader. Put into context, it is understandable why Pyongyang has enforced stricter regulations on interactions with the South. At the same time, however, North Korea has tried to minimize its economic losses resulting from the reduction of the workforce at the Kaesong industrial complex by “guaranteeing” the business activities of South Korean companies, which are integral components of the North Korean economy.

For the past ten years, North Korea has been known to pursue inter-Korean economic cooperation while concurrently restricting the influx of capitalism and preventing the relaxation of their socialist system. For example, it designated the Rajin-Sonbong region as a free economic and trade zone in the first half of the 90s to spur economic development, but all activities came to a halt when Kim Jong-il criticized the zone for being affected by the “yellow wind” of capitalism during a site visit in 1997. As part of a movement to “rid of South Korean influence,” the (North) Korean Worker’s Party and the Agency for National Security Planning recently decreed a “special inspection order” to track down anyone who watches or distributes South Korean TV shows or video clips. The large-scale interrogations conducted by Worker’s Party, the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, and the cabinet’s National Economic Cooperation Federation can also be linked to this movement.

Therefore, it is not valid to blame South Korea for the recent shutdown of Kaesong industrial complex by pointing to the South’s disregard of the June 15 joint statement and October 4 declaration and its “confrontational” policy toward the North. The Lee administration has never disregarded the June 15 joint statement or October 4 declaration. Rather, he proposed initiating full inter-Korean dialogue at the opening speech of the National Assembly on July 11 and has repeatedly emphasized resuming talks to discuss and implement realistic policies in an action-for-action manner. North Korea has criticized South Korea for its hard-line policies, accusing the government of spreading leaflets to undermine its regime. However, civic groups have been spreading leaflets for five years now, and one can only question the real motives behind why North Korea is now all of a sudden bringing this issue into the spotlight.

Regardless of the circumstances, Kaesong joint industrial complex serves as the test of North Korea’s willingness to open up. If this industrial zone fails, North Korea will not be able to attract foreign investment from any country in the future. North Korea needs to break away from the idea of taking the Kaesong industrial complex hostage as a means to ransom its way out of inter-Korean tensions. Instead, it should prevent itself from being blown over by political influences and cooperate in developing the region into an industrial complex of mutual benefits and common prosperity for both North and South Korea.

What I saw while browsing through the NY times, CNN, and the BBC was far more horrifying than the “shooting” I had imagined in my head. It was a massacre. As I sorted through hundreds of photos and eyewitness accounts of the terrifying incident, I felt chills running up my back and cold sweat dripping from my forehead. Young boys, aged 20 to 25, spraying rounds of ammunition from their AK47s with completely emotionless expressions on their face. Almost a look of content and entertainment. A complete, inescapable nightmare.

I guess being American, I couldn’t help but be struck by the fact that the attackers were singling out people with US and British passports. If I had been in that crowd, I could have probably passed for being Korean, but still, the situation made me wonder what motives were behind their particular selection. What explanation was there for their incredible hate and deploration of Americans and Britons? Even after hearing several hours of news reports concerning this attack, I’m not sure whether the terrorists were planning on killing the hostages or not. But if they weren’t, perhaps their goal was to keep them for ransom, or perhaps even a spit in the face of two supposed superpowers.

While thinking about this attack, I realized that the tactics of military power and hegemonic rule of the US had once against met its match–the untrackable, intangible, transnational strategies of terrorists who challenged the state’s monopology over the use of violence. More force and military hard power’s not going to fix the problem. It will only create greater strife and violence. So what’s left for the world to do?

I guess that’s the problem left to our generation to find out.