Ahoy! – Korean Navy submarine Sohn Won-il anchors Wednesday at the newly built naval base in Gangjeong-dong, Seogwipo, Jeju Island. Photos of the base were released Sunday. With 94 percent of the construction completed so far, the naval base is currently testing whether Aegis-class destroyers and submarines can moor and sail in and out of the pier. [NEWSIS]
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.
The real question is how long has this been going on with everyone turning a blind eye to it? Additionally is this just a one time raid and then everything goes back to what it was or are the authorities serious about stopping b this:
China’s CCTV on Monday broadcast an expose on casinos on Jeju Island that attract Chinese gamblers through prostitution.
The broadcaster said 80 percent of gamblers on Jeju are Chinese, often lured with the promise of free tour programs and prostitutes.
One casino contract shown in the CCTV program promised clients purchasing W100,000 worth of chips a free special massage, while around W36 million worth of chips leads to an opportunity to sleep with an aspiring Korean actress or model, and buying W90 million worth of chips two nights with the woman (US$1=W1,150).
Some Korean casino offices in China were raided by police. CCTV said 13 Koreans and 34 Chinese recruiters were arrested in June for illegally luring gamblers in Beijing, Shanghai, Hebei and Jiangsu. [Chosun Ilbo]
Below is a good read in the Financial Times about Cheju’s female divers called “haenyeo” for those that have not read about them before. I think what will end the haenyo tradition is the small pay the hard work earns. A top haenyeo earns up to $25,000 a year, most earn half that number according to the article requiring them to often work second jobs as farmers:
Each of the elderly women utters a distinctive cry as they surface around me from the bitterly cold East China Sea, clutching fistfuls of seaweed. From my left comes a sound like the bleating of a goat; ahead, a determined groan of endurance. All of them are whistling too, an ancient technique to expel carbon dioxide from the lungs. Occasionally, the wetsuit-clad grandmothers exchange a few words after depositing their seaweed in sacks tied to orange buoys beside them. But none of them rests for more than a minute before plunging to the seabed once more — a rhythm they maintain for five hours.
These are the haenyeo (sea women) of South Korea’s Jeju island, who have dived in search of seaweed and shellfish since at least the 17th century. Their work is one of the country’s most celebrated traditions but one that many islanders fear could soon be consigned to the past.
Traditionally a job handed down from mother to daughter, haenyeo life has been shunned in recent decades by nearly all the girls born in Jeju’s seaside villages, who have tended to favour more comfortable lives in the island’s two cities or on the mainland. From more than 14,000 in the 1970s, the number of haenyeo has dwindled to fewer than 4,500 today. [Financial Times]
You can read the rest at the link and I recommend watching the video included with the article as well.
A July report from the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) surprised volcanologists by dating Jeju’s most recent volcanic eruption to 5,000 years ago. Media outlets gleefully reported Mt. Hallasan was not dead, or dormant, but alive.
The research team, led by Jin-yeong Lee, radiocarbon dated carbonised wood (charcoal) below the basalt layer at Sangchang-ri, Seogwipo City, to 5,000 years old. This was 2,000 years more recent than the 7,000-year-old eruption at Mt. Songaksan, thought to be Jeju’s last volcanic activity.
Scientists had speculated that the basalt layer at Sangchang-ri was formed 35,000 years ago, yet the carbonised wood was below the basalt, making the rock at least as young as the ancient trees. Sangchang-ri was thus confirmed as the site of the most recent volcanic activity in South Korea. (The title of most active volcano on the peninsula goes to Mt. Baekdusan in North Korea, which last erupted in 1903.)
The findings were picked up by media outlets and headlines stated that Mt. Hallasan was “alive” and not dead, a fact already known as the earlier Songaksan activity was already within the same Smithsonian Institute’s Global Volcanism Program (GVP) 10,000 year timeframe for active volcanoes. Nevertheless, the Science Daily headline, “Jeju Island, Korea is a live volcano,” typified the reaction. [Cheju Weekly]
Here is an interesting historical account from the article:
While scientific evidence of volcanism on Jeju Island is proving difficult to confirm, one piece of historic evidence suggests that the island was active much more recently than 5,000 years ago. The “Dongguk Yeoji Seungram,” a Joseon Dynasty geography textbook (multiple volumes published between 1481 and 1530) includes this seemingly eye-witness account.
“In June 1002 CE, a mountain arose in the middle of the sea. There were four giant holes at the top of the mountain, out of which red liquid flowed and soared, and thick smoke plumed for five days. All the red liquid hardened and became stone like roof tiles.”
