Courtesy of Mathew Schwartz

In a recent lecture on Korean characteristics and values, Professor Sam Richards suggested that a Korean protest is like going to a baseball game. They are organized. Safe. People hold up placards and signs. There are cheers and chants. The crowd stands up and sits down at regular intervals. There are candles held in memory of others. Old and young mingle. There’s food available for those in attendance. Basically, it’s all somewhat PG 13. You could take your kid to a Korean protest…and some actually do. It’s about being present and being seen rather than an act of violence. Korean people might be angry but this does not generally manifest in violence against the state. Moreover, a Korean protest is very different from what we see in downtown Paris or across American university campuses.

Having been to a few Korean protests over the decades, I was inclined to agree with this kind of description. Yes, I’ve seen some old men spit angrily as they shout at a crowd and also heard obscenities coming out of women’s mouths that would make a sailor blush. I’ve seen people wave American and even Jewish flags for seemingly no reason. But I wasn’t here during the mid-to-late 1990s when Molotov cocktails were used with such frequency the government had to step in and do something. In 1997, 69,160 fire bombs were thrown, many of them coming amid protests about the laid-off Daewoo Motor workers and Korean Confederation of Trade Unionists. I also wasn’t here in the late 1980s when the middle class, Christians, journalists, feminists and students helped bring democracy to the country. I was absent in the early 1960s when my friend Dr. Kim Kyung-jin was shot in the arm with a rifle as protests brought down the first South Korean president during the April Revolution. And in the Joseon........

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