Koreans are generally more sensitive than other nationalities to outside (i.e., international) criticism or scrutiny and obsessed with their “place” in world rankings. So these three articles caught my attention; a series on a movement to stop foreign adoption, misleading abortion statistics, and the praises of dog meat, all of which can be seen as nationalistic reactions to less than favorable international attitudes about Korea in those areas. I won’t delve into the well-covered areas of fan death or the infamous Dr. Hwang.

A movement has been started to legally prevent Korean children from being adopted outside of Korea:

A group of mothers who gave their children up for adoption by foreigners in the ‘70s and ‘80s have begun a campaign to end overseas adoption.

[. . .]

The group says that recent measures taken by the government to encourage domestic adoption have been a failure and that the tide of Korean children being sent overseas is unabated. They are seeking 1 million signatures on a petition urging the government to do more.

Seventy percent of single mothers in Korea give up their children for adoption. In 2005, the last year for which reliable figures are available, 2,101 Korean children went to new families overseas.

“Participation [in our campaign] only means that you believe South Korea must take care of its own children from now on,” said Trenka.

It is very sad and unfortunate that some of these mothers now have regrets about what they did in the past, but a law will not solve the problem. The real issues are not addressed: why did they feel (aside from being poor) that they had to give their children up, and more importantly, what to do with all the unwanted children if adoption is illegal? Orphanages? More abortion?

This article lays out a specific situation:

Among the members of Mindeulae, Kim Young-suk is known as “Eun-seon’s mom,” which is her way of reminding herself of a decision she made almost three decades ago and has often regretted. In 1978 Kim signed an adoption consent form and felt so much guilt and shame that she kept her past to herself as a punishment.

[. . .]

Kim’s trials and tribulations began when she lost her husband in a car accident at the age of 28. She was left with two children, aged three and one, and no insurance, government subsidy or support from her family. Within a few months she ran out of money to pay her rent, but nobody would help her. She turned to her mother in-law, but her pleas were rejected.

In 1978, Kim felt she had no good choices left. She took her youngest daughter, Eun-seon, to an adoption agency in northern Seoul and signed an agreement to relinquish her daughter that same day.

[. . .]

For three years after she signed the adoption consent, Kim visited the adoption agency to get basic information about her child’s status. But she was repeatedly rebuffed by the agency’s secretary who said she was protecting the privacy of the child’s adoptive parent. When Kim insisted, the agency accused her of behaving capriciously when she gave up her child.

Overwhelmed with shame, she never returned to the agency and never really moved forward with her life either. She never remarried and kept the same phone number for 30 years, so her youngest daughter could find her mother.

Her rights as a birth mother, as with most Korean women who gave up their children, were effectively terminated by the adoption procedure.

Many Western couples who want to adopt a child continue to choose a Korean baby because the rights of birth mothers in the adoption registry here are deliberately skewed to give more power to adoptive parents.

This is in stark contrast to Europe or the United States, which allow birth mothers to select the child’s adoptive family and location, making it much easier for reunions to take place later.

Kim had a tough choice, but adoption is after all a legal procedure that is meant to be permanent. That is the nature of adoption.

I’ll also throw down the bullsh*t flag on the assertion that Westerners go to Korea to adopt, “because the rights of birth mothers in the adoption registry here are deliberately skewed to give more power to adoptive parents.” They go there because they want to raise a child, and Korea has, excuse the crude terminology, and an excess market.

There is also a false implication about U.S. adoption laws, though I’m not sure about those in Europe; the U.S. does indeed protect the adopting family.

This gets to the heart of the issue:

Over the past few years the Korean government has tried to promote domestic adoption, suggesting it as an alternative to in-vitro fertilization for couples who have difficulty conceiving and to reduce the stigma of being known as a “baby-export” country.

Last year the Ministry of Health and Welfare introduced a law that requires all adoption agencies to try and find Korean parents for the first five months of a child’s registration. The new law also extended the right to adopt to single parents and to couples with five children or more.

Yet the number of children being sent overseas for adoption hasn’t fallen since the law was passed.

One reason is the ongoing fear that people will know a child is adopted. The other is the emphasis on blood, which limits the children some adoptive parents are willing to accept to infants with the same blood type.

There is also the steady demand from adoptive parents in the United States and Europe, who pay higher compensation to Korean adoption agencies than the small subsidy provided by the Korean government for domestic adoptions.

The bottom line is that Korean society stigmatizes adoption. My wife’s aunt adopted a daughter and they didn’t tell her until she was well over twenty years old. More people ought to in Korea, but they don’t and the government will only make unwanted Korean children languish in orphanages for five months needlessly.

And some adoptees themselves have been pulled into the urinara mindset:

As the biggest-ever meeting of Korean overseas adoptees wraps up its five-day event tomorrow in Seoul, another group of adoptees has a different goal: ending the practice of overseas adoptions altogether.

Jane Trenka, a 35-year-old U.S. adoptee living and working in Seoul, said yesterday that about 100 adoptees she organized will stage an anti-overseas adoption protest at the Dongguk University subway station in central Seoul. A group of dozens of birth mothers who put their children up for adoption will join the protest, the first of its kind by Korean adoptees, Trenka said.

[. . .]

Birth mothers in Korea are forced to send their children overseas for adoption because of the lack of a social welfare system here, Trenka said.

That last sentence is complete propaganda; Korean children are sent overseas because Koreans don’t want them or the stigma Korean society attaches to adoption. The example given above was about money, but that is not the reason in the vast majority of cases. It continues:

Trenka, author of a book about the issue, said adoptions are a form of violence against the birth mother, because Korean society frowns on the idea of a single woman raising a child. Thus, the single woman has no choice but to give up the child.

She compared the issue to the so-called comfort women, who were forced to be sexual slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II.

[. . .]

Trenka grew up in a small town in Minnesota and studied piano and English literature in college in Minneapolis. She said said her adoptive parents gave her everything she needed, but didn’t encourage her to find her birth mother.

“No choice”??? No, no easy choice. There is a difference. And of course her parents didn’t encourage her to find her birth mother; they are her parents!

Moving on to the next issue; abortion. The title of this article, “Women With Sons More Likely to Seek Abortions,” seemed odd since there is an undeniable preference for sons in Korea and East Asia in general. Turns out to be a specious conclusion uncritically accepted by the journalist:

The abortion rate of women who have sons is higher than those who have daughters. This was the finding of the College of Health Science at Yonsei University.

[. . .]

In particular, women who have only sons have seen a 3.2-fold higher abortion rate than those who have only daughters. The abortion rate for women having only one son was 16.5 percent while that of women who have more than two sons was 71.7 percent.

In contrast the abortion rate for women who have only daughters was 15.9 percent while those with more than two daughters was 42.4 percent. Prof. Chung said that the result indicates that women having sons are more likely to seek abortions.

Professor Chung put the findings in an odd way; the reality is that women don’t seek more abortions because the have sons, they have sons because the had abortions (presumably of female fetuses). Women pregnant with daughters actually seek more abortions, women who have given birth to sons have had more abortions.

And this last story on dog meat (h/t Nomad) takes the cake, eh, boshintang:

Korea is now an industrial society with large urban populations. The influence of Western culture, which regards dogs as pets, plus protests by the Korean Society for Animal Protection, have made some people have second thoughts about eating gaejangguk.

The issue becomes more controversial on bok days (the last bok day of this summer is next Tuesday) and Koreans are today in intense debate about the merits of dog meat.

Professor Ann Yong-geun of Chungcheong University waded into the controversy last month when he said that there is a nutritious property of dog meat that cannot be proven by Western medical science.

He said in a CBS radio program that although dog meat has less protein and fewer minerals than pork, chicken or beef, eating dishes like gaejangguk and boshintang (dog stew) mysteriously allow more energy to enter the body.

Drawing on folklore, others say that dog meat is good for stamina, the liver and the stomach, as mentioned in the Donguibogam, a medical text written by the physician Heo Jun in the Joseon Dynasty.

Also, dog meat eaters believe that the meat is low in unsaturated fat and high in protein with low levels of cholesterol. Some even argue that yellowish-brown dogs are more nutritious for men and that women should eat black dogs.

It’s true, but can’t be proven by “Western” science. Can’t argue with that, literally.

Mentioned here is the, “influence of Western culture, which regards dogs as pets,” which is true enough. What is not mentioned is how the dogs are tortured to death. While for some the issue is just that dogs are considered man’s best friend and should not be eaten, something that those arguing for Korean culture latch onto and argue with via the cultural angle; but they never address the issue of torturing the dog to death.