article
How it feels to be a Korean…in Korea
United Nations world • 2 (4) • Published In 1948 • Pages: 18-21
By: Kang, Younghill.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In 1946 Kang went to Korea as Chief of Publications in the Military Government's Office of Public Information. Later he became political analyst and advisor to the director of the XXIV Corps Office of Civil Information. He lived in Korea as an American among Koreans, but since he himself is a Korean, Koreans of all political shades treated him as a Korean, and he learned much that they would otherwise have been ashamed or afraid to tell others. This paper is a brief comparison of living conditions in Korea under both Russian and American domination. Although most of his information concerns South Korea, he does introduce comparitive data on North Korea. The report mainly consists of a discussion of food shortage, black market operations, political repression, high taxes, inflation, police brutality, and political exploitation. Kang feels that responsibility for the terror and grafting in South Korea is shared among USAMGIK, a few cynical political leaders, and the missionaries who unwisely advised the Army to install reactionaries in positions of power. In a dismal parting shot, he concludes that 'if reactionary politicians do not ruin South Korea, inflation almost surely will.'
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Business cycles
- Exploitation
- Offenses against the state
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Korea
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 1998
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Asia
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- East Asia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Government Official
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 3: Good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- ER ; Robert J. Smith ; 1951
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1946-1948
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- not specified
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Korea
- NotesAdditional notes
- [by] Younghill Kang
- This document consists of excerpts
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Koreans