Tabloid sensation from The Korea Herald.

Check out this report from The Korea Herald. An invitation for lawsuit
here. If my memory serves me right, it was only a few days ago when The
Korea Herald made a mother-of-all page one boo-boos. Is this how the
daily redeems itself of its falling stars?

Here is my letter to the Herald.

Dear Editors,

I was puzzled by the article headlined: "Unsuitable
graves may be disinterred: Church" and I have only read the online
version. I certainly hope this will not make it as a page one lead,
just right after your daily bungled its page one so embarrasingly a few
days back. My first thoughts were "what's the big deal?" and "three
writers combined came up with this?"

But here are some POINTS I'd like to raise:

1) You are insinuating something serious against a church. i.e. "an
Itaewon pool player." The church may have serious funding problems and
may be seeking a solution. The three writers didn't seem to delve
further into this matter except for a brief allussion. I hope you don't
end up with a lawsuit.

2) There is no mounting concern among the foreign community. Maybe, I
have been here on and off for just 10 years. You should ask the writers
who was" concerned." Are these three writers turning this issue into a
sensationalized tabloid story? Or they just "concerned" over a byline
with a Latin preamble?

3) It's common for graves to be relocated. As long as the "sanctity" of
the remains are preserved in a new location, it's fine by any common
standards. This happens all over the world. If the Korea Herald is
outraged, why not highlight funding problems facing the caretakers? But
instead, you have made them look like monsters. Why not ask missionary
movements, charities, foreign missions and the Korean government to
help preserve the cemetary?

4) The general secretary of the Committee for the HAC, Kim Kyoung-rae
stated, "This is nonsense. We are here to protect all the tombs. We
will never move the bodies until Jesus comes!" Are you arguing about
this? Impugning one's integrity? Sure, there are ambiguities but does
this story merit PAGE ONE? I assume so, judging by its placement your
online edition.

And "after 60 years" as mentioned in the report, maybe members of the
foreign community, or diplomatic missions can help find a new place for
foreign remains as well. It shouldn't be problem.


5) Peter Underwood claims no knowledge about this matter. If he does
not feel threatened, why are you dragging him into a non-story? You
also dragged in a Korea expert. Couldn't Korea expert Professor Donald
Clark be quoted instead for the very urgent and dangerous situation in
North Korea?

Seems like the Korea Herald is becoming a playground for foreigners who
need a byline. Your community page is as pedantic as the English
teachers who contribute to them (and I am told, only open to teachers
with connections), your national news is replete with grammatical
mistakes, and the diplomatic page has been reduced to cheap PR stunts,
with nothing critical in them. Read the diplomatic pages of major
dailies in other parts of the world where hard questions are posed.
Heck, even CNN poses "hardball" questions regardless of diplomatic
niceties.

I'll try to pick a copy of the Korea Herald later, and I will have a
good chuckle if this twaddle is your banner story for the day. Maybe,
I'll just check the page one and buy the Korea Economic Daily or the
Korea Times instead. Yours always comes last in my menu of options.

If I was the editor, I would have given "Korea ranks 35th in economic
freedom" greater importance.


With ghost stories like this, you can tell yourself: "requiescat in
pace"

Sincerely

JC.



And here is the "sensation"


The Latin expression "requiescat in pace" or "rest in peace" is a
prayer for the repose of the dead, but for many of those buried at the
Foreigners' Cemetery in Mapo-gu, their continued peaceful rest is
uncertain.

There is mounting concern among members of the foreign community about
the future sanctity and security of certain graves at the Yangwhajin
Foreigners' Cemetery. Those not classified as missionaries face the
possibility of being disinterred, or possibly even worse, having the
grave markers removed and the ground put to other use.

At the center of the controversy is the 100th Anniversary Church (HAC),
which claims to be the caretaker of the almost 550 graves containing
the remains of missionaries, diplomats, soldiers, businesspeople and
expats from 16 nations.

Adding to the anxiety of the foreign community and many of their Korean
relatives, are the mixed and ambiguous messages they are receiving from
the HAC and the local government regarding which graves could be moved,
the criteria to be used, and ultimately, the real motive for the
project.

"If any grave is not suitable for the original purpose of the Foreign
Missionary Graveyard, it should be relocated after the notice to
relatives," proclaimed the 100th Anniversary Church in an internal
document dated Aug. 14, 2005.

Buried here are numerous famous personalities from Korea's past:
Earnest Bethell and Homer Hulbert - icons of support for Korea's
independence movement; Franz Eckert, who created an early national
anthem for Korea; Clarence Greathouse and Charles Legendre, both
important American advisers to the late Choson period, and a number of
missionaries such as Horace Underwood, Henry G.. Appenzeller and John
Heron.

In an interview with The Korea Herald, Kim Yong-nam, who identified
himself as administrator to the Church and Yangwhajin, supported the
claim that those who were unsuitable for the cemetery such as Koreans,
a foreigner he described as an "Itaewon pool player," and members of
the U.S. military - who chose to be buried at the cemetery along with
their families - would be removed at some time in the future.

In a separate interview, general secretary of the Committee for the
HAC, Kim Kyoung-rae stated, "This is nonsense. We are here to protect
all the tombs. We will never move the bodies until Jesus comes!"

However, not all in the committee or the church seem as confident or
determined as Kim Kyoung-rae.

The director of information of HAC, Yosep Jung professed, "We want to
protect the missionaries' graves for eternity, but as to the other
graves (foreigners) maybe after 60 years we will not be able to protect
them."

Yangwhajin preservation team manager at the Mapo-gu ward office, Lee
Jun-beom said, "It is a misunderstanding. The bodies will never be
moved to another place. We are trying to keep this site as a historical
place that should be remembered."

On the other hand, Jung noted that in the future, only the remains of
those who were important to Korea and its people would be preserved at
the cemetery.

When asked to clarify who will make that decision, Jung stated that his
church would undoubtedly be one of the key groups in determining who
was, and who wasn't important to Korea's history.

Jung went on to say that some of the burials that had taken place
recently were technically illegal. He pinpointed those buried since
2003 and not, Jung claimed, officially registered with Mapo-gu ward.
Among those whose legality is being questioned is former director of
Yonsei University, Horace Underwood III, who was buried in 2004. The
Underwood family connection to Korea goes back four generations to the
first Horace Underwood who arrived in Korea in 1885 as a Presbyterian
missionary.

Peter Underwood, the son of Horace Underwood III, stated he was unaware
of any requirements needed to bury his father at Yanghwajin, and that
it was common knowledge that the Underwoods would be buried there.
Peter asserts that his father's funeral was "very public" and many
churches and their representatives were involved, including, he
believes, members of the Council of the Hundredth Anniversary Korean
Church.

The question that begs to be answered is: why does the church want to
remove the remains of non-missionaries?

Kim Yong-nam's ambiguous answer was to esthetically improve the
grounds, while Jung noted that future budgetary constraints might
prevent them from maintaining non-missionary graves.

Korea expert at Trinity University in Texas, Professor Donald Clark
summed up the cemetery and what it means to Korean history in his book
The Seoul Foreigners' Cemetery at Yanghawjin: "A walk along the
cemetery paths is a tour back through the entire century of the Western
impact on Korean life. Yanghwajin represent the life of the foreign
community in Korea, its purposes, its diverse people, the contributions
they made, and the hardships they suffered."

(robertneff103@xxxxxxxxxxx)

(yoav@xxxxxxxxxxx)

(chrisgelken@xxxxxxxxxxx)

.

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