Shadow of the Han River -- Observations in the Republic of Korea, Summer of 1977

Shadow of the Han River -- Observations in the Republic of Korea, Summer of 1977

At the time, I felt a strong sense of discomfort with the Japanese media's coverage of Korean politics. The newspapers were full of the names of Kim Dae-jung and Kim Ji-hea, and the TV stations were filled with pundits praising them as "fighters for democracy. It is true that they were suppressed and deprived of freedom of speech. However, I could not agree with the tone of the article that called the whole of Korea a "dark dictatorship.

The city of Seoul, which I had visited many times for interviews, had changed rapidly under the Park Chung-hee administration. Factories sprang up in what had once been farming villages, highways extended, and people's lives became more vibrant. The Saemaul Movement brought a wave of modernization to the countryside, and children were cheerfully going to school in school uniforms. It was hard for me to believe that this scenery was merely the product of propaganda.

Yet, many Japanese cultural figures and the mass media refused to see this reality. In their eyes, the Park administration was just a "military dictatorship," and it was their "conscience" as intellectuals to criticize it. I could only see it as a "good/evil dualism. In reality, South Korea is a nation facing a real threat in the form of North Korea, and it had no choice but to seek a balance between its economy and its security within the Cold War structure.

What was even more alarming to me was the fact that the Japanese speech community was so influenced by the "human rights diplomacy" that the Carter administration in the United States was advocating at the time. Carter's words were perceived as if they were absolutely righteous, and words such as "human rights" and "freedom" were beginning to be used by themselves in Japan. However, human rights are inherently contextualized differently depending on culture, history, and national circumstances. I could not help but question the application of Western values to Asia.

I did not intend to endorse Korean politics in its entirety. I have seen the reality of limited freedom of speech and political repression many times in the field. But that was not all. The Park administration certainly had the will and the results-oriented policies to make the nation viable.

The Japanese often like to pass moral judgments on events in faraway lands. But before doing so, shouldn't we look at our own feet? How "democratic" is this country, where Kakuei Tanaka, who was arrested in the Lockheed affair, continues to hold sway in the political arena? That is what I wanted to ask.

As a journalist, I am always aware of the importance of speaking about reality without simplifying it. And in the case of Korea, I was convinced that this very "simplification" was distorting public opinion. Crying out loudly for "freedom" and looking at reality are two completely different activities.

And I still recall. The sound of fireworks seen from the window of the inn in the heat, my dog's tick ruckus, the memory of that kettle in the barracks where I mistook the salt for the seasoning of shiruko (sweetened red-bean soup). Everything was sweet and bitter. But it was the taste of salt that brought them all together. I believe that politics, too, needs the taste of salt.