A Rage Both Hot and Cold

SEOUL – Some things never change. Fourteenth-century Korean poet Yi Saek wrote lines that might be rendered into English very freely as follows:

Above the snowy valley, clouds are growing,

And I have no idea where I’m going.

That describes the Korean peninsula this winter. Only months after its triumphant hosting of the 2002 World Cup soccer games, South Korea is fearful, as North Korea–a Stalinist tyranny ruled by the unpredictable Kim Jong Il–threatens to acquire nuclear weapons. He indeed may have them already.

Meanwhile, South Korea is undergoing an angry domestic debate about the U.S. military presence there, and about the South’s conflict of loyalties. Where, ultimately, does Seoul’s allegiance lie: with its fellow Koreans to the north, or with its American ally? And what would Seoul do if push really came to shove between Washington and Pyongyang?

No one knows. Yet the answers to those questions will determine whether much of northeast Asia survives or goes up in a fireball.

Even the happiest imaginable resolution to the present Korean crisis will be expensive and dangerous. There is no quick fix…and world peace and millions of lives are at risk.

In brief, here is what is happening. The North is using nuclear brinkmanship to extort food and fuel from abroad. In the meantime, resentment in the South toward the American military presence is breaking out in the form of a loud and highly visible anti-U.S. movement.

Inadvertently, I keep wandering into anti-American demonstrations here in Seoul. Side by side with youngsters holding candles are Koreans in light-colored robes with tall black hats. "It’s funeral wear," one Korean told me.

As a U.S. civilian in Korea, I feel no sense of danger at such times. Yet the intensity of mourning is overwhelming–as is the expression of fury against American troops. Though anti-U.S. (antimigun in Korean) posters and buttons are visible downtown, cyber-savvy Koreans have gone far beyond such conventional means of protest. With chilling effectiveness, anti-American webmasters here have capitalized on the gruesome deaths of two Korean schoolgirls who were crushed by an American military vehicle last year.

See for yourself. Check out the anti-U.S. website at www.antimigun.org, especially the presentation about the slain children at www.antimigun.org/maybbs/pds/antimigun/speed/HyosoonMisun.swf. (Warning: you may not sleep well afterward. These images show what "visceral" really means.)

Now there is serious talk about America pulling out. Should U.S. troops in the South stay or leave?

Koreans are fiercely divided on that issue. In many circles here, Americans are hated as intensely as the Northern foe. The other day, a Western teacher told me what his college classes are saying:

"There was a rumor running rampant in Seoul that American soldiers were drinking Korean girls’ blood. One of my students told it to me, and she actually believed it. When I asked her why she believed it, she told me, ‘Because I heard it from a Korean, and Koreans never lie.’"

Even Koreans who are relatively sympathetic to Americans may say startling things when in a candid mood. "People here see U.S. forces in Korea as just for show," said one young man who used to work in the same office with me. "In a real war, they would be wiped out almost at once."

Koreans dread all-out warfare on the peninsula. Yet are other scenarios much better? Here are several:

Nothing changes. This seems unlikely. The North cannot survive forever on bluster, brinkmanship and extortion.

The North collapses. Unable to feed its people, the North might implode. Then hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of desperate refugees pour across the borders into South Korea and China. Such an upheaval could be almost as devastating as a war.

North Korea "Chinafies." If the North implements reforms and moves toward a mixed economy like China’s, then the two Koreas might reunite gradually. But the South would have to foot the bill for rebuilding the wasted North. Think of Germany, only a hundred times worse. Would Southerners’ love for their "brothers" in the North really permit such sacrifice?

Through diplomacy and aid, the South hopes to save the North from sudden, utter collapse. A controlled crash would be preferable. So the South is trying to buy time. "Give Kim Jong Il what he wants," say backers of this approach.

But what exactly does Kim Jong Il want? Beyond the North’s immediate needs, Kim actually seeks what the South also desires. He wants to reunite the divided Korean peninsula as a single nation and society, free from foreign domination. In "freedom from foreign domination" lies the key to understanding Korea. It is expressible in a single word. The word is han.

Han is the Koreans’ name for their particular mindset. Han has no English equivalent. It means a unique amalgam of pride, bitterness, anger, grief and longing for independence…not to mention revenge. For millennia, han has simmered inside the Korean people. Invaded some 900 times over 5000 years, they were occupied and brutalized for much of the 20th century. Memories of the Japanese occupation from 1910 to 1945 remain bitter. Certain memories of the American "occupation" are scarcely kinder.

Understandably, then, Koreans are tired of being pushed around. That is why the han in Korean hearts is erupting now. The grisly deaths of those two schoolgirls merely set off the eruption.

Han is what I perceived in the air during those anti-U.S. demonstrations. You could almost feel it, like heat from a stove. Heat like that could make something catch fire. And the fire could spread.

Impatience with foreign domination is common to both sides in Korea. So, one has to wonder: would the South stand with the U.S. against North Korea in an impending attack against the North? Or would Seoul take Pyongyang’s side against the child-crushing (and allegedly blood-drinking) foreigners? I could not tell you. I am not Korean. I do not have a heart full of han. And in this case, han–a hatred and rage both hot and cold at once, and in its own way as explosive as plutonium–may make the difference.

Whatever develops, clouds are massing anew over Korea’s valleys. And 700 years after Yi Saek, it is again uncertain where Korea is headed.

David Ritchie lives and works in Seoul, South Korea. His most recent book is 10 Million Tigers (Nulbom, 2002), a survey of life in Seoul.