Ansan College overrun by 'student activists'

What no teargas?

As anyone who follows Korean culture knows, the period between May 18 (the starting date of the Gwangju Uprising in 1980) and final exams in mid-June is the traditional protest season in Korea. As an extra bonus for me this year, little Ansan College (where I teach) has been the target of student protests all week. While they have not nearly been on the scale of the massive protests that Pusan Jeff has warned us about, I have been treated to seeing 50-odd kids marching in circles around the campus. Actually, this scaled-down version of a student protest has given me a chance to observe a couple of aspects of Korean protest culture that I might have missed observing larger protests.

Notes on Korean protest culture

Here are two things that I have observed:

1. Protesting is fun.
The leaders were dead serious but the followers seem to be protesting for fun as much as anything else. While the students were marching around campus on the first few days, a lot of the students (especially the young ladies) were all smiles and could barely contain their giggles as they chanted.

Since Ansan College is a two-year-college and a commuter school, our students don't usually get the chance to organize events like this. In fact, in my four years here, this is the first large protest that we have had. Although it has been a little disruptive at times (our school's pastor once had to drive the kids out of our building), I think its nice that some of our kids have had a chance to participate in this right of passage.

2. All protests hire the same DJ.
The kids have set up a little camp of about six tents near the front of our small campus. Since my office sits in the front of our building, I've had a chance to listen to them for the last several days. One thing I've noticed is that they have played the same two dozen songs for the last four days. They are also the same songs that I've heard at other protests in other parts of Korea. I don't know the names of the songs or the singers, but I bet you that the Marmot or Oranckay could give you a play list if you asked politely.

Koreans always have an idea of what is the proper way to do things and protests are no different. If your going to have a protest, you need to play the proper 'protest songs.' If is hasn't already been done yet, I bet you that a music company would make a nice little profit by selling these songs all together on a CD.

I would provide pictures but I lost my camera in a cave on Jeju-do a few weeks back. Maybe I'll be able to get some up next week.

Comments

[Infidel]

At the risk of comparing tangerines and oranges, when the rest of the world is observing the anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre, what are South Koreans protesting about? The right to waste time, or changes in the labor-management system? USFK's deployment? Iraq?

I didn't think it was possible, but Seoul has sunk now to a new low in cock-sucking and ass-licking, by not even mentioning the Tiananmen Massacre. South Koreans can protest about Washington until hoarse, because that's their right in a free republic. But not protesting against Beijing's naked tyranny is itself bowing to tyranny, and implicitly advocating it.

[The Yangban]

Thanks for reminding me. I'm on it.