Is what Kim Dae-joong claiming, that your childhood was ruined by coming to America, true?:
The children led their lives apart from their parents and roamed the streets. Living in blue-collar neighborhoods, the schools the children attended were often prone to crime and offered a poor educational environment. Not all of them, of course, but the children of many Korean emigrants, lived lives without pride or community consciousness, and eventually ended up on the wrong side of the tracks. In the end, many Koreans who went to America for the sake of their children’s education saw their children ruined by it instead.
 I don’t think it is true that all these Korean-American kids are ruined by coming to America and Kim Dae-joong is just overreacting to one isolated incident of violence from one emotionally disturbed person.  However, I am interested in hearing opinions from those who live in the community. Â
7:26 am on April 24th, 2007 1
GI,
Kim Dae Joong is idiot and he never experienced being a 1.5 Gen KA. Sure, in the beginning is never easy. I had to struggle to learn English and trying reach adolensce same time. I got into so much fight due to racism with White kids. I was enrolled in lower track classes due to my poor English skill. But we all over come it and assimilate into American life. Vast majority of us do succeed in life by graduating from college and have professional jobs. Just look at James Sun from the Apprentice. He is also 1.5 Gen.
Many non-Koreans keep on telling me that recent VT event has nothing to do with Cho being a Korean. But it was the same cultural background that we grew up which prevented him from getting treated for his mental illness. Korean parents do their best to hide their skeleton in the closet by not seeking professional help for any mental illness that their children might have. They all felt shame if local small Korean community found out about the illness. As long as Cho was not committing crime and he was studying hard in school, his parents have thought that the problem will just go away.
My 2 won-cents
BTW, I will be attending Mary Read’s Wake tonight in Annandale, VA. Her funeral is Tuesday.
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7:29 am on April 24th, 2007 2
[...] Drop: A Question for Korean-AmericansPosted 30 minutes agoIs what Kim Dae-joong claiming , that your childhood was ruined by coming to [...]
8:05 am on April 24th, 2007 3
“Not all of them, of course …”
Kim Dae Jung did not say all of them but some of them … read carefully.
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8:13 am on April 24th, 2007 4
This is common everywhere, it happens in Brazil as well … there are lots of korean kids ruined here … I think Mr. Kim just wanted to point out the issue in order to remaind koreans parents to be concious ..
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9:38 am on April 24th, 2007 5
Dr. Yu,
I was referring to all of the “many Koreans who went to America” that had their childrens lives “ruined” according to Kim Dae-joong.
As CPT Kim pointed out many Korean-Americans including himself have been very successful.
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10:42 am on April 24th, 2007 6
I’m beginning to wonder if “Kim Dae-joong” isn’t a moniker used by different authors at the Chosun Ilbo. Starting a few months ago, the analytical quality of his articles started to slip (aside from a strong nationalist element coming to the front). This is the latest example.
How many is “many”? He could basically say anything without quantifying it. “Many” is meaningless in the way he uses it.
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2:29 pm on April 24th, 2007 7
The Chosun Ilbo like other news and media organizations has a political agenda. The “Kim Dae-joong” alias is just their small (and I do mean small) way of selling it to the hordes of gullible people who don’t know any better.
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3:20 pm on April 24th, 2007 8
I would like to comment on:
” The children led their lives apart from their parents and roamed the streets.”
This suggests a failure on the part of the parents to change their parenting behaviour to suit a new environment.
Firstly, kids in Korea are on the street in groups till all hours of the night, supposedly due to their ‘educational needs.’ Not knowing exactly where their kids are seems to be the norm for many families in Korea. It is from these groups that most of the loud and rude ‘miguk’ comments come. Even elementary school kids. This behaviour can/may provide a negative basis for future socialisation patterning. As an extension of this, without a doubt one of the (if not ‘the’) biggest issue Korean kids have with homestay parents when studying overseas is the problem of not coming home at a resonable hour. Not calling to say where they are or why they will be late. Just treating home as a filling station between social engagements. I have also seen, in Korea and overseas, many instances of parents leaving young to very young children at home alone or in the care of another minor. Sometimes for more than one day. I would suggest that the issue mentioned by KDJ is not one that is created by living abroard – but one that has followed from Korea.
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3:31 pm on April 24th, 2007 9
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3:46 pm on April 24th, 2007 10
I think this is one guy. I believe Oranckay knows about him. I have a vague memory from a few years ago when Kim was talked about on the K-blogs and Oranckay gave a brief outline of him.
Anyway, if you look at him as a strong (South) Korean patriot, I think what can appear wishy-washy or contradictory make sense. Kim has always shown a very stong committment to the US-SK alliance, and has used things like “blood ties” to defend it, because he sees it as protecting Korea, but, his strong tie is to the protection, not the two nations as a partnership. He has shown frequently enough that if the US were not defending Korea, he’d be more than happy to kick Uncle Sam in the balls just as hard as a left-leaning Korean patriot.
He wrote an editorial for the 2nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that I’d still like to kick him in the balls for.
I can remember him writing a nationalistic-based post on how the US is anti-Korean using references to movies like Falling Down.
This article from him today is not outside his norm.
And that is the key to it.
By “ruined” he actually means “Americanized.” It isn’t their actual community consciousness he sees as missing, but their awareness of the Korean community and pride in it.
Just as Kim sees the value of the US relationship in narrowly defined terms of protecting the South from the North (and perhaps China), he describes the reason for coming to the US in narrow terms – education – not for American cultural values and whatnot.
And ending up on the wrong side of the tracks doesn’t just mean turning to criminals, it means moving to far away from the culture of the motherland.
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3:59 pm on April 24th, 2007 11
Thanks for the link GI Korea. Kim is a really erratic writer, sometimes making good points but also pulling stuff out of his ass like in this column. Notice he has no proof for his claims–he’s just being opportunistic about the shooting tragedy and blaming the U.S. for Koreans’ problems, which I guess is part of Korean genetics or something.
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5:38 pm on April 24th, 2007 12
I have to agree that Kim Dae-joong is definitely all over the place. He is pro-alliance but seems like he has to write some anti-US stuff every once in a while so people can’t accuse him of being a pro-US lackey.
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11:24 am on April 26th, 2007 13
Hail Mary Jesus. Even this (what clearly is meant to be a criticism against parents of those young Korean Americans) is classified as Anti American. Why don’t you take your own advices that you give to Koreans everyday and loosen up a little.
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4:36 am on June 2nd, 2007 14
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3:03 pm on July 1st, 2007 15
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