This is part 2 of Children’s Day, although it centers on a subject one rarely talks to children about: leper colonies.
After the Children’s Day festival in Goheung, 2 other teachers, 2 children and I went to Sorokdo, an island south of the Goheung mainland, which is about a half hour drive from the city of Goheung.
During the last Japanese forced colonization of Korea* (1910-1945), the occupying forces gathered all Koreans with leprosy, and put them on Sorokdo. They were quarantined in fairly miserable conditions, sterilized and compelled to do forced labor (along with most other Koreans). After the Japanese lost WW2, Sorokdo remained ignored by the S.Korean government until at least 1956, and even then, neglected until 2000.
Many of us still associate leprosy as some biblical affliction – but it persists today, with approximately 300,000 new cases a year, world wide, and is now known as Hansen’s Disease.
It’s a long and sad chapter in Korean history, and there are still a number of details I don’t know – but I also wanted to visit Sorokdo because I love islands, and they always call me to explore them.
So we drove on the newly constructed bridge to this place of beauty and sadness.
There are now several museums there (with the displays in Korean) that attracts hundreds of tourists a day, because this piece of history piques the interest of many Koreans. Before last year, the island could only be reached by ferry, but now it is flooded with the curious (myself included), much to the dismay of long time residents.
Survivors of that period still live on the island, and I saw several when I was there, although I wasn’t supposed to be on that part of the island (tourists are rightfully prohibited from wandering near the homes of the hapless victims. Both days I was there we took wrong turns). Where they live is incredibly peaceful, beautiful and lush with island vegetation, and I wished to linger there, but knew we couldn’t. Only a small part of the island is currently accessible to non-residents.
*At some point, I hope to write about the deep, unhealed scars that a brutal Japanese occupation/colonization etched in this Land of the Morning Calm. But suffice it to say now that Sorokdo wouldn’t have this history without the Japanese.
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Mark,
Your S. Korea experience sounds wonderful. I wonder, do your students speak english already or are they learning from the NETs? Also, how is your lack of the native language keeping you from communicating? Are you learning the native language as much as your students are learning to speak english?
thanks,
Susan
Thanks for commenting. Those are all good questions that I will address in upcoming posts!
Mark
I love reading your blog. Good stories posted here. So teaching in Korea… hmm sounds like the Koreans prefer to hire Native Americans rather than korean-americans/australians etc.. I'm a bit worried because I'm from NZ but Korean born. I can speak korean fluently, but I speak english like a native. Is it true that koreans discriminate? Is it harder to get into elementary schools than hagwons if you're not ethnically european?
Hi Cindy,
I've only just saw your post, so sorry for the delay. To answer your questions:
Visa requirements stipulate you MUST be a native English speaker, and you can come from only one of six countries – and Kiwis are amongst the invited guests! However, I've noticed a strong bias towards Americans and Canadians, in their hiring practices, especially in the public schools. However, there are folks from other countries here, including NZ. In fact, many Koreans send their children to NZ to learn English. But I've heard from Koreans that they have a more difficult time with Australian and NZ "accents" than us N. Americans, mostly because of cultural bias and many of their training materials are someone with an American accent.
There IS discrimination here on a number of different levels, as there are in most countries. And I've heard that while kypos (Asian-Americans) are hired (I personally know of one) they prefer young, attractive Americans of European descent as their top choice (I'm lucky that I'm one out of three). Feel free to email me for more info: surmonk@gmail.com.