You Are Here: The Korean Dads’ 12-Step Program

“She’s happy now,” Rhim said, smiling.

Hanna nodded her head. “I love my husband,” she said. “But he is” — she searched for the right bit of recovery jargon — “under construction.”

Like many of the men in the room, Rhim never wanted to come to Father School. (Seven dropped out after the first day.) “I’m not a bad father,” he told me a week earlier. But realizing how difficult it was for him to relate to his wife and two teenage kids — and realizing, finally, how empty that left him — he paid the $120 course fee and agreed to show up.

Father School has been helping Korean men like Rhim become more emotionally aware since 1995, when it started at the Duranno Bible College in Seoul. The mission, drawn up at the height of the Asian financial crisis, was to end what the Father School guidebook calls “the growing national epidemic of abusive, ineffective and absentee fathers.”

“Traditionally, in the Korean family, the father is very authoritarian,” Joon Cho, a program volunteer, told me a few weeks before this session of Father School began. “They’re not emotionally linked with their children or their wife. They’re either workaholics, or they’re busy enjoying their own hobbies or social activities. Family always comes last.”

In 2000, Father School spread from Korea to the United States, and the program — part 12-step recovery, part Christian ministry — was tailored to meet the needs of Korean immigrant fathers dealing with Americanized kids who wondered why their fathers weren’t more like the touchy-feely dads they watched on TV. Since then, Father School has exploded. It now operates out of 57 American cities and has graduated nearly 200,000 men worldwide.

“They are ready to cry,” said Young Chung, a veteran Father School volunteer, as he looked out at the sea of men arranged at a dozen or so small tables in the gymnasium here in this heavily strip-malled suburb of Los Angeles. “All you have to do is touch them.”

There is no denying it has been an emotional journey — the boxes of Kleenex on every table are there for a reason. Over the course of the program, the students, who range in age from 30 to 70, have been asked to examine issues that many of them have never dared to think about, much less share with a group.

“Our communication was lacking so much,” a man in his early 40s wrote in a letter to his father — one night’s homework assignment. “You expected so much from me, but I gave much more than you think. All your time was work, work, work. . . . You really didn’t put much into family life.”

In the midst of another participant’s group testimony, in which he talked about how he neglected his 16-year-old son when his son was battling drug and gambling addictions, he crumpled to the floor in tears. When he stepped down from the podium, a few members of the group gathered around him in a consolatory huddle while the rest applauded.

The syllabus also called for students to practice saying “I love you” and to ask their wives out on dates. One man drew laughs when he said that his wife was so flabbergasted by the invitation that she refused to go. At another session, they learned how to hug, albeit grudgingly. Only when the volunteers who run these sessions insisted did the men rise from their seats and offer a few stiff embraces.

But on graduation night, the mood was far more festive. For the first time, wives were invited to attend, and the men gallantly pulled out their chairs and introduced them around the room. Platters of spicy kimchi and rice were passed around the table, as a quartet of volunteers sang Korean spiritual songs set to a poppy beat. With all the attendant sincerity and awkwardness, it felt an awful lot like prom night.

Toward the end of the evening, the lights dimmed, and the students filed out of the room. Twenty minutes later, they returned carrying a small, plastic tub filled with water. They knelt down before their wives and removed their stockings and shoes. Some of the women wept as their husbands gently massaged their toes.

Over in a corner, Rhim was hunched over, drying Hanna’s feet. She wasn’t crying, but as he worked, she leaned down to rest her head on his shoulders.

 

North Korean Prison Camps Massive and Growing

Former inmates at the political labor camp at Yodok, North Korea, said they were frequently tortured and had been forced to watch the executions of fellow prisoners, the report said, noting that the North’s network of political prisons is estimated to hold 200,000 inmates.

“North Korea can no longer deny the undeniable,” said Sam Zarifi, the Asia Pacific director of Amnesty International. “For decades, the authorities have refused to admit to the existence of mass political prison camps. These are places out of sight of the rest of the world.” The report says that almost all of the human rights protections that international law has tried to set up for the past 60 years “are ignored.”

After comparing recent satellite photos of prison camps with images from 10 years ago, Mr. Zarifi said, Amnesty International became concerned that the “prison camps appear to be growing.”

North Korea’s work farms and prison factories are the world’s most notorious, according to human rights experts. Political prisoners sentenced to hard labor initially included landlords, purged party officials and the religiously active, according to Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, the authors of “Witness to Transformation,” an authoritative study of North Korean refugees.

Political prisons, they said, also now hold “anyone guilty of political or ideological crimes or even suspected of disloyalty,” adding that the system shows “little pretense of due process.”

Son Hyang-sun, a woman who defected from North Korea 15 years ago because she was starving, said she was caught on her first escape attempt. She was convicted and jailed for four months.

“They tortured me with an electric stick, yes, a cattle prod,” she said in an interview with The International Herald Tribune. “They stuck it everywhere.”

A recent State Department report on human rights in North Korea said “detainees and prisoners consistently reported violence and torture” as well as virtual starvation rations. In various accounts, escaped inmates have reported eating earthworms and rats to get enough protein to survive.

Jeong Kyoung-il, a former Yodok inmate who was interviewed last month by Amnesty, said that deaths in the prison occurred almost daily. But the deaths of fellow prisoners came to be seen in a depraved and desperate light. “Frankly, unlike in a normal society, we would like it, rather than feel sad, because if you bring a dead body and bury it, you would be given another bowl of food,” Mr. Jeong said.

 

Google's South Korean Offices Raided Over Data Collection

The investigation also highlights growing concerns about possible misuse of private information as the popularity of mobile devices like smartphones and tablet computers increases.

Information on users’ locations is viewed as crucial for the growing mobile advertising sector, as it helps personalize online ads according to individual preferences or geographical positions. Last month, Apple defended its use of iPhone location data but denied that it was tracking the movements of customers.

Google and Apple have been criticized by U.S. lawmakers over their protection and use of consumer data from cellphone applications, including where users are located.

Google executives have talked about the ability to tailor advertising to users on the basis of location. Google bought AdMob, a leading global mobile advertising firm, last year for $750 million.

“Every technology has a flip side,” said Kim Kwang-jo, a computer science professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. “Location-based services benefit customers by helping them find nearby restaurants, gas stations and other places with their smartphones. But it could potentially violate consumer privacy. There are loopholes in location-based services, and companies should get consent from customers to collect location data.”

Google confirmed that the police had visited its Seoul office and said the company was cooperating with the investigation.

Jang Byung-duk, who is in charge of cybercrime investigation at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, said, “We suspect AdMob collected personal location information without consent or approval from the Korean Communication Commission.”

The Seoul police also raided the offices of the local Internet portal Daum Communications on similar suspicions, Daum said Tuesday. Daum said the collection of location data by its mobile ad services was not illegal, as the data were anonymous and could not be used to track individuals.

Google has already been the subject of investigations in the United States, Britain, France, Singapore, Switzerland and South Korea over data collected for its Street View mapping service, using a fleet of cars that take pictures and gather information about wireless Internet connections.

The Seoul police concluded in January that Google had collected location information and other data from 600,000 wireless Internet users in South Korea with three Street View cars.

Google tightened its privacy policy after revelations that the cars, which take panoramic pictures of city streets, had inadvertently collected data from unsecured wireless networks in more than 30 countries.

The top Internet portals in South Korea — one of the world’s most wired countries — filed a complaint with antitrust regulators last month claiming that Google was unfairly stifling competition in the country.

Google is one of the smallest players in South Korea’s fixed-line Internet search market, but it enjoys a share of nearly 20 percent in the mobile Internet market, backed by its Android operating system for cellphones.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is also considering a broad investigation into Google because of its dominance of the Internet search industry.

Google, which controls about two-thirds of the global search market, is a stellar performer in the booming smartphone and tablet market. Device makers like Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, both based in South Korea, increasingly are adopting Android to counter the heavyweight Apple.

Rival technology companies, including Microsoft, are trying to rein in Google’s growth. The global smartphone market is forecast to grow 58 percent this year, and Android-based devices will account for 39 percent of the market, according to the research firm Gartner. In the tablet market, Gartner said, Apple’s share will gradually decline to 47 percent by 2015 from 69 percent this year, with Google’s share forecast to rise to 39 percent from 20 percent now.

 

North Korean Prison Camps Massive and Growing

SEOUL — New satellite images and firsthand accounts from former political prisoners and former jailers in North Korea have confirmed the massive scale and bleak conditions of the penal system in the secretive North, according to a report released Wednesday by the human rights group Amnesty International.

Former inmates at the political labor camp at Yodok said they were frequently tortured and had been forced to watch executions of fellow prisoners, the report said, noting that North Korea’s network of political prisons, known as “kwan li-so,” is estimated to hold some 200,000 inmates.

“North Korea can no longer deny the undeniable,” said Sam Zarifi, the Asia Pacific director of Amnesty International. “For decades the authorities have refused to admit to the existence of mass political prison camps. These are places out of sight of the rest of the world, where almost the entire range of human rights protections that international law has tried to set up for the last 60 years are ignored.”

After comparing recent satellite photos of prison camps with images from 10 years ago, Mr. Zarifi said, his group became concerned that the “prison camps appear to be growing in size.”

North Korea’s work farms and prison factories are the world’s most notorious, according to human rights experts. Political prisoners sentenced to hard labor initially included landlords, purged party officials and the religiously active, according to Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, the authors of “Witness to Transformation,” an authoritative study of North Korean refugees.

Political prisons, they said, also now hold “anyone guilty of political or ideological crimes or even suspected of disloyalty,” adding that the system shows “little pretense of due process.”

Son Hyang-sun, a woman who defected from North Korea 15 years ago because she was starving, said she was apprehended on her first escape attempt and was taken back to the North. She was convicted and jailed for four months, spending part of that time in a political prison.

“They tortured me with an electric stick, yes, a cattle prod,” she said in an interview with the International Herald Tribune. “They stuck it everywhere.”

A recent U.S. State Department report on human rights in North Korea said “detainees and prisoners consistently reported violence and torture.”

A former Yodok inmate who was interviewed last month by Amnesty, Jeong Kyoung-il, said that deaths in the prison were almost daily occurrences. But under the perilous conditions in the camp, the deaths of fellow prisoners came to be seen in a depraved and desperate light.

“Frankly, unlike in a normal society, we would like it, rather than feel sad, because if you bring a dead body and bury it, you would be given another bowl of food,” Mr. Jeong said.

“I used to take charge of burying dead people’s bodies. When an officer told me to, I gathered some people and buried the bodies. After receiving extra food for the job, we felt glad rather than feeling sad.”

 

Clinton Visits Seoul to Discuss North Korean Denuclearization Talks

 Jason Strother | Seoul ?April 16, 2011

South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-Hwan walks together with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to a meeting room at the Foreign Minister's Residence in Seoul, South Korea, April 16, 2011

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Seoul Saturday for a two-day visit.? Her trip comes as multinational efforts to pressure North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program remain deadlocked.? The visit started days after Pyongyang said it is holding a U.S. citizen on unknown charges.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Seoul to discuss efforts to resume six-nations talks on North Korea's nuclear program.

Those talks, which involve the United States, both Koreas, China, Japan and Russia, have been on hold for more than two years.

The United States and South Korea say the discussions cannot resume until North Korea shows it is sincere about honoring past promises to dismantle its nuclear program.

Some analysts say other South Korean preconditions are making it more difficult for the talks to resume.

Moon Chung-in, a politics lecturer at Seoul’s Yonsei University, says Seoul’s insistence that Pyongyang apologize for last year’s sinking of a South Korean warship and shelling of a South Korean island is preventing the negotiations from starting again. ?

"South Korea has been calling for inter-Korean talks first and get an apology from North Korea.? Then it will allow to resuscitate the six party talk process.? But Washington and Beijing appear to have a sense of urgency in resuming the six-party talk processes," said Moon.

North Korea denies it had anything to do with the March 2010 sinking of the South Korean ship, which killed 46 South Korean sailors.? An international investigation said the ship was torpedoed.? Pyongyang also says it was provoked by the South’s military to bomb Yeonpyeong Island, an attack that killed four.

The United States and South Korea also want to bring North Korea’s uranium enrichment program to the United Nations Security Council.? Pyongyang had denied for years that such a program existed, but last year revealed it to a visiting American scientist.

Moon says China, which has so far blocked any discussion of the enrichment program at the U.N., has a better approach.

"The United Nations Security Council has already adopted two sanctions resolutions but they are not working.? The Chinese government has been arguing that it is much wiser to deal with the enriched uranium program in the six party talks process rather then going through another sanctions regime," said Moon.

Clinton’s trip to Seoul comes days after North Korea announced it will try a detained U.S. citizen on unknown charges. ?

Some observers say North Korea could use this as a bargaining chip to win concessions from Washington.

But Moon notes during previous incidents where Americans were arrested in the North, Pyongyang did not gain anything from releasing them.

Last August, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter traveled to Pyongyang to win the release of an imprisoned American human rights activist.? Mr. Carter is expected to return to North Korea later this month with a group of other former world leaders for talks on regional tensions.? It is not clear if he will also try to gain the release of the detained American.

16-04-2011 Khyber Weekly- the best News Paper of Afghanistan (Afghanistan)

Peace is the only way to live togather. USA and N-Korea can decide a good way to find solve this problem. we hope they can.

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