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I just finished watching a movie by Kim Ki-Duk (3-Iron and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring).

This was a very disturbing movie, as it was meant to be.

Address Unknown deals with some very thorny issues involving Americans and Koreans intermingling in Korea due to the ongoing American military presence there. I don't know much about this topic...(in depth).. but, this movie has piqued my curiosity. It puts a negative slant on things. I believe there are a number of people on this board who spent time in Korea in the military. If any one has seen it, pleas post your reactions to it. I'm curious to hear what others think.



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skimmer8 wrote:

I just finished watching a movie by Kim Ki-Duk (3-Iron and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring). This was a very disturbing movie, as it was meant to be. Address Unknown deals with some very thorny issues involving Americans and Koreans intermingling in Korea due to the ongoing American military presence there. I don't know much about this topic...(in depth).. but, this movie has piqued my curiosity. It puts a negative slant on things. I believe there are a number of people on this board who spent time in Korea in the military. If any one has seen it, pleas post your reactions to it. I'm curious to hear what others think.

I haven't seen the movie except for short previews on AZN, but I am well aware of its storyline....Unfortunately, the "negative slant on things" as portrayed in that film has often been repeated numerous times in real life, not only in Korea, but in other Asian countries, as well, Vietnam and the Philippines being two of the foremost examples. I have met and or seen a few of these Amerasian children....Their lives were often sad and tragic...

Manny wrote:

skimmer8 wrote: I just finished watching a movie by Kim Ki-Duk (3-Iron and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring). This was a very disturbing movie, as it was meant to be. Address Unknown deals with some very thorny issues involving Americans and Koreans intermingling in Korea due to the ongoing American military presence there. I don't know much about this topic...(in depth).. but, this movie has piqued my curiosity. It puts a negative slant on things. I believe there are a number of people on this board who spent time in Korea in the military. If any one has seen it, pleas post your reactions to it. I'm curious to hear what others think. I haven't seen the movie except for short previews on AZN, but I am well aware of its storyline....Unfortunately, the "negative slant on things" as portrayed in that film has often been repeated numerous times in real life, not only in Korea, but in other Asian countries, as well, Vietnam and the Philippines being two of the foremost examples. I have met and or seen a few of these Amerasian children....Their lives were often sad and tragic...

I said "negative slant" because the movie was so dark and violent (as was Old Boy, the other, most recent Korean movie I have seen). I'm Okay with dark, but not a big fan of graphic violence in movies. I was trying to figure out how much of my response was due to the violence. Based on my research, this movie is portrays something very real and disturbing.

I was so despondent after watching this movie, I went online and read a slew of articles on the topic. A real eye opener.

An article on Hines Ward and being mixed race in Korea (with interesting statistics):
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200602/kt2006020917515310510.htm

An old investigative report about US Military in Korea (contains graphic photos)
http://www.kimsoft.com/korea/us-army.htm

skimmer8 wrote:

Manny wrote: skimmer8 wrote: I just finished watching a movie by Kim Ki-Duk (3-Iron and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring). This was a very disturbing movie, as it was meant to be. Address Unknown deals with some very thorny issues involving Americans and Koreans intermingling in Korea due to the ongoing American military presence there. I don't know much about this topic...(in depth).. but, this movie has piqued my curiosity. It puts a negative slant on things. I believe there are a number of people on this board who spent time in Korea in the military. If any one has seen it, pleas post your reactions to it. I'm curious to hear what others think. I haven't seen the movie except for short previews on AZN, but I am well aware of its storyline....Unfortunately, the "negative slant on things" as portrayed in that film has often been repeated numerous times in real life, not only in Korea, but in other Asian countries, as well, Vietnam and the Philippines being two of the foremost examples. I have met and or seen a few of these Amerasian children....Their lives were often sad and tragic... I said "negative slant" because the movie was so dark and violent (as was Old Boy, the other, most recent Korean movie I have seen). I'm Okay with dark, but not a big fan of graphic violence in movies. I was trying to figure out how much of my response was due to the violence. Based on my research, this movie is portrays something very real and disturbing. I was so despondent after watching this movie, I went online and read a slew of articles on the topic. A real eye opener. An article on Hines Ward and being mixed race in Korea (with interesting statistics): http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200602/kt2006020917515310510.htm An old investigative report about US Military in Korea (contains graphic photos) http://www.kimsoft.com/korea/us-army.htm

I have come across reviews about this movie and the violence was not something that seem to resonate with those I read....What caught my attention was the storyline which struck very close to home, especially since I am a native of the Philippines and am familiar with the social problems created by those US military personnel who had
abandoned their children born as a result of their sexual relationships with local women....Yes, that movie portrays something all too real and disturbing, and what you saw was only the tip of the iceberg....

Skim,

Haven't seen the movie, but it probably is as accurate as that article--which is pretty darn accurate from a certain perspective. The article's extremely biased, tho and doesn't give the whole picture.


I can only tell you about my experiences. Maybe others can add their views...


I was raised in Utah, with trips to museums, the ballet, had art classes, we rode horses, I really was pretty sheltered. My dad was an asst principal and amateur orchestra conductor. My stepfather was a high school teacher. I didn't go to my first rock concert until I was 20 (Bryan Adams!).
My mom went nuts when she found out I'd joined the Army while visiting my sister in Oregon. She told me if I wanted to go into the military to go into the Navy or Air Force, since they had a higher class of people.

I'm going to sound like a total snob here, but my mom was sooooo right. Just like the article said, the Army mostly attracts lower class people who are trying to escape poverty. They didn't have a great support system or much nurturing when it comes to manners, etc. I saw over and over the same things the reporter saw. Except for the gang stuff. That must have started after I go out. There are A LOT of assholes in the Army...You have mostly inexperienced young men & women trying to lead riff-raff and the riff-raff usually prevail. We had a saying about all the ridiculous military regulations--they're geared for the lowest common denominator, the riff-raff. (Y'all can stone me now for my snobbery. )

I was NOT "Army material"--but managed to blend in somewhat. Probably much like Jim did.
Plus I was in MI, which requires a certain IQ level to qualify. Most of the people I was around were classy, even if they didn't have much formal education.
You know the saying "It's easier for a civilized man to act like a barbarian than a barbarian to act like a civilized man"? It's true.

I arrived in Seoul in the middle of the night. The next day we did a mini-indoctrination and took a tour up to Freedom Village where we took pictures of the North Koreans taking pictures of us taking pictures of them. Since I was in MI, I wasn't allowed to wear my dress greens, even tho it was required. The insignia would identify me as MI and they can't have that... even tho wearing my class B's made me stand out. Hellloooo! I was bused to Camp Humphreys later that day. As I sat in the bus, the Korean woman next to me REEKED of BO...or so I thought. I sat as close to the window as possible and tried to breathe thru my mouth. When I turned to get off the bus, I noticed she was sitting as far towards the aisle as possible and breathing out of her mouth! That's when I realized that the spices she ate were what I was smelling. Turns out Americans stink of salt and red meat to Koreans... while they smell like red peppers to us!!!
I often wonder how many women here would reeeeeally date one of these Korean actors if they knew how these guys probably smell...


Camp Humpreys was very beautiful. See this thread for more info

One of the most amazingly gorgeous sunsets I've ever seen was outside of Camp Humphreys. The fields were this deep emerald color, the cranes in the field looked like they were gilded with gold and the sky was an amazing combination of apricot, periwinkle, and rose...I still get chills thinking about it.


This is a map of the base
If you look at the map you'll see there are three gates into the base. Two are on the north side of the camp and there's another called "the Quarry gate" on the south. There are villages outside of each gate. The north gates led to Anjung-ri. The village to the south was off-limits.
I was told (not too sure how accurate this is, so take it with a grain of salt) that this was because a couple of GIs had been caught raping a Korean girl. Her family killed the men by slitting their throats, cutting off & stuffing their penises in their mouths & hanging them on the perimeter fence. Ther was some big brouhaha because the local police "couldn't" solve the crime and the family members didn't get punished. So the post commander put the village off-limits until the family members were punished, hoping the loss of income would force the issue. Instead, everyone just moved their shops over to Anjung-ri...There are probably still many locals who live in the south village and work in Anjung-ri.

As a woman, I don't have a problem with the family's reaction. But as an American, I wish that the Koreans had felt confident enough that the military would provide justice so that they didn't have to take matters into their own hands.

Korean women were treated with a certain amount of respect and it was the American men who accosted women. Korean men were very polite to me. Don't know how it is in the big cities, tho. Anjung-ri is pretty rural. Things could have changed too, since this was 20 years ago.

The walk-thru gate had a little box attached to the wall. They kept it filled with condoms so the guys (hopefully) would take a couple when they went out catting around. The hookers had their VD cards which had to be updated every week. VD is a real problem over there. They have something called the "Black Clap" which is incurable. It was confined to Korea and Asia, until it showed up in the US during the 90's at Pensacola... Stooopid Navy men! Except for you, Jason!!!

The pharmacies over there sell drugs that we would not be able to buy without a prescription over here, opiums and such. So they were off limits to the GIs. We were told that we would lose our security clearances and be demoted if they caught any of us in one....but I heard that a lot of the guys would go down and get penicillin shots from there rather than go on sick call and risk having the commander be informed about "things."

I only went to the clubs a few times. Every club had a stage where the Women would dance wile wearing bikinis. It was very hard for me to see the women dancing and the guys acting like such jerks. You could just see the shame and desperation in their faces that drove these women to humiliate themselves. It's the only time in my life I was embarassed to be an American...saw some really disturbing things that I would never want my daughter to see (if I had one).

I mostly stayed home and watched TV (the Armed Forces station), did jigsaw puzzles and read in my off-time. I was totally addicted to Donkey Kong Jr and collected comic books. I had a bike and rode around the paths between the fields for a little while, until it became apparent that I was reacting to the stuff they sprayed in the fields (probably DDT). I'd come home with huge red welts on my arms and legs. One positive note, this kept me from having to jog around the base during PT... The base is surrounded by farms. Gotta loooooove the indoor gym during those hot summer months!

It was hilarious to watch Tarzan movies that had been dubbed in Korean. Kinda like watching Godzilla movies in reverse. You could read their lips but didn't have a clue what was being said. It cracked me up to hear Papa Smurf talking Korean...


I lived off-post in Anjung-ri because our barracks were being remodeled. I was fortunate enough to have a really nice landlady. She had a little apt complex which had five apts. They rented four out & lived in the fifth. She would cook dinner for all of us about every three months. They were very good to us. She would make kimchi in these huge garbage cans and they'd bury them in the field next to the house.


I remember one time during the winter I was walking to work (3rd shift) thru the ville. I heard a Korean woman yelling "Hey GI! Hey GI! You want a cherry girl?!?" So I'm looking around for this GI...and realize she's talking to ME!!!!!! I ripped off my parka hood, and looked at her. "AJUMAAAAHHH!" She apologized profusely and I continued on to work. We had a good laugh about it at work...until she did the same damn thing three nights later! After that, I walked to work a different way.


I avoided going to Pyeong-taek, since that's where they had the open markets with the dog & cat carcasses hanging out in the open. But some guys went and took pictures, which I accidentally saw...I was pretty sad, even tho we raised chickens & rabbits for food...it's just not the same! One of my neighbors lost her cat right before they had to leave for the States. I heard that someone had found it, taken it and sold it in Pyeong-taek. They identified it by the orange fur around it's hind paws. Once a cat is skinned, except for the claws, it really looks like a rabbit.

There were some problems with dog packs. Most of the GIs would get a puppy and then abandon it when they left, or pass it on to someone else. I tried really hard to stay away from petshops, and the street vendors selling puppies. But one day, while I was visiting my tailor (doesn't THAT sound all swanky! ) a friend of his brought in the cutest little puppy. He looked like a fuzzy, miniature St. Bernard....I named him Frito and shipped him to my brother in Utah when I left for Germany. Frito had a great life and was 19 when he finally had to be put to sleep a couple of years ago.

Since I was living off-base I didn't have much disposable income, so I didn't travel much away from the base. I did manage to go to Seoul once. I couldn't believe how clean the streets were compared to American streets (think NYC and Philly). I would compare Korea to Germany in that respect.

One of the funniest things I ever saw was the three man shovel. They punch holes into the top corners of the shovel, tie ropes to the head and then two guys hold the ropes and swing the shovel into the dirt while the third man guides the path of the shovel. It's hard to explain, but apparently it saves your back while getting the same amount of work done. Pretty clever.

Had a couple of friends who were from the Virgin Islands. They came into work on day cracking up. Turns out they'd taken a bus ride and this little old lady had sat down next to them. She kept staring at Kevin. She finally took one of his hands and started rubbing it to see if the color would come off! It seems weird to us, but it really is a homogenous society and ANY difference stands out. So accusations of racism don't surprise me. But I experienced much worse in Germany. I can very easily see how that society would try to annihilate an entire culture it deemed inferior.


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I 'll write more later.

On a whole, Korea is a great place to visit, so don't let one person's cynicism prevent you from enjoying what this awesome country has to offer.

Korea ROCKS!

Catburt wrote

Quote:

we did a mini-indoctrination and took a tour up to Freedom Village where we took pictures of the North Koreans taking pictures of us taking pictures of them.

That gave me a real chuckle!

Thanks for the interesting descriptions and your perspective.

Cathy's right about the lowest common denominator thing. When I was in, it was even worse. The draft was winding down and discipline was at an all time low. Some of the people being taken in were borderline retarded. This is one reason why I support conscription: the quality of the material was much better during the days of the draft.

We got no indoctrination whatsoever when we arrived in country. We had to learn from others who were already there. In defense of the GIs, the local prostitutes are very predatory and almost always far more experienced than the young men who are their clients. I very soon got tired of that scene and spent most of my free time wandering around Taegu or the local countryside. I never felt more comfortable in an alien place in my life. It became my second home and it remains so to this day. After we got married, I never went out to the vil bars, but we would go out occassionally with friends to other places (restaurants, the zoo, etc.) . Mostly, I just stayed at home and read a lot. The family we rented our rooms from were very nice and I wound up playing a lot with the children. Their father was a senior NCO in the ROK Army and was away during the week. I became a part of the neighborhood and had no problems with anyone there. But, outside the vil and neighborhood, we sometimes encountered this bigotry the article speaks of. The people who live and work in the vil are decent people and there is, and was, a a bond between them and the American soldiers. This is something we've NEVER encountered in the USA. Thank God!

I'm utterly disgusted and appalled by these SOBs that father children and abandon them. This is not only a problem with military personnel overseas, but with the American population at large. Something is very, very wrong with our society at the moral roots for this kind of thing to happen. It's always been there, it's true, but the increase in recent years is horrible. Irresponsible fathers need to be held accountable in the severest way possible, no matter what country they father the child in: home or abroad.

Sorry to say, the article is right about the white-black perception of interracial marraiges. I rarely see a long married black men and East Asian women, while long married white men and East Asian women are fairly common. I won't speculate on why this is. Honestly, I don't know why. To draw a conclusion that marraiges between Korean women and American men are more likely to fail than any others marraige nowadays, is pure nonsense, considering the general failure rates of all marraiges in Korea and the U.S., along with the continuing 'Westrnization' of Korea (far fewer cultural differences that might create difficulties). The failure that there are are probably due more to the immaturity of the couple than to any cultural reason (race has virtually nothing to do with it). Koreans who live, or have lived, in the U.S., or have migrated here, usually have a less severe perception of the mingling of the races - it's going to happen, so just accept it. It's one of our greatest strengths as a country.

All in all, such article and movies often leave a wrong impression: that there's an imminent crisis brewing, or that the extrermes they present are far more typical than they are in reality. People who have never been exposed to the real thing - in depth and first hand - take it as the truth, whereas the truth is not so graphic or colorful. It's more mundane.

Skimmer, I am sorry you watched the movie. I like his movies, but some of his ealier movies such as Isle and Unknown Address are very distubring and I have decided not to watch those. Oldboy is my favorite Korean movie, but I can understand that it certainly is not for everyone, especially for most women.

Directo Kim Ki Duk belives in realism and specializes in women being exploited. Needless to say, his movies generally don't do well in Korea. Overseas critics love him, though. Glad to see that his recent movies are more watchable with less shocking values.

Korea in the 50s and the 60s were very poor. In the 70s when this movie is set, Korea was still poor. I think he wanted to portray those who lived without any hope, the underdogs and the outcast. Discrimination again those biracial people in Korea is undeniably true and it is very disturbing as well.

Also, I would not take www.kimsoft.com too seriously. It seems like it has a very nationalistic views on things. Rely on the mainstream Korean newspaper. Even Korean newspapers tends to exaggerate. Whenever an American GI commits a crime, however small, the mainstream Korean media makes it really big. There are a very few bad apples, but American soldiers are not like what www.kimsoft.com makes us to believe.

Just so you know, one of the smartest people I have met are my shipmmates in the Navy. Many came from PA and Michigan area. To illustrate how smar we are, most of us in our engineering dept. always scored better in various tests than an officer who had an electrical engineering degree from MIT.

Jason, That is so true. Like I said, the people I worked with were smart and classy--even if they didn't have the degrees. It was a real eye opener for me to see all these people trying to be their best selves when faced with such stress and hardship. Anyone who's been in the military knows what I'm talking about....civilians will never fully understand. Hollywood can try all they want, but they'll never be able to show the whole military experience unless they make an incredibly loooooooong, boring movie.



I was always impressed by how nice the Katusas were. They were all so cute!
I had a crush on one, but don't tell! I only knew his last name was...Kim.

KATUSAS.