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University Daily Kansan Thursday, October 26, 1961 Professor Studies San
Korean Problems: Chopsticks, Ties
By Phil Newsom UPI Foreign News Analyst
On May 16 of this year in the Republic of Korea sergeants who had become generals overnight, suddenly also became rulers overnight.
Which is not to decry sergeants, who, it is well known, supply the backbone of armies just as other non-commissioned officers supply know-how for navies and keep the war birds flying.
These, however, were not men who had achieved status through years of tradition, but rather as result of a crash program after World War II. These were the products of nearly 50 years of Japanese domination and, after 1845, the paternal but equally unyielding rule of President Syngman Rhee.
SO, FIVE MONTHS after May 16, it is not surprising that certain seeming incongruities should appear in the sincere but grim military administration now in charge of the future of the Republic of Korea.
One is the fact that the score of so young generals in South Korea's ruling junta concern themselves not only with the broad policies of a government whose keynote is austerity but also with its smallest details.
Take, for instance, chopsticks.
These instruments recently came under junta scrutiny and were judged an extravagance. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry ruled that wooden chopsticks, used only once, not only were a drain on the nation's forests but also were costing more than $1.5 million annually to produce. Hence, no more wooden chopsticks. From now on, it would be plastic or metal.
THIS SAME GOVERNMENT ordered its workers out of neckties and into shapeless corduroy. So the chopsticks could not be considered a departure but rather another propaganda gesture truly to bring the austerity battle home.
But, as one correspondent noted,
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. — Thomas Paine
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it was like asking Koreans to use somebody else's toothbrush.
Take also the case of Lt. Gen Chang Do Young, former head of the ruling junta who this week was indicted and ordered to trial on charges of anti-revolutionary activity.
Up until May 16, Chang served as Korean army chief of staff and after the revolution became the junta chairman.
BUT HE WAS NEVER a very good revolutionary.
On May 18, a United Press International dispatch disclosed that on the night of the revolution Chang made a personal appeal to Gen. Carter B. Magruder, head of U.S. and U.N. forces in Korea, to intervene to halt the rebellion.
This, despite the fact that Chang was an active, although perhaps reluctant, party to it. Chang's disaffection could not have been unknown to his fellow revolutionaries but he continued to serve until July 2.
However, in spite of weaknesses, the junta has obtained U.S. support. It is fighting unemployment. It has curbed the greediness of the money-lenders and it is making sincere efforts to aid Korean farmers.
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