S. Korea Rife With Regional Rivalries

Kim Mu Young, a Christian evangelist, hails from the mountainous Kyongsang region, famed for its rugged individualism rooted in a history of isolated farmers scratching a living from a harsh environment.

But he works in the Chungchong area south of Seoul, renowned for refined manners and cautious ways that reflect a tradition of close links to dynastic rulers.

“If you’re a hotheaded person like me, you can barely live here because people are so tedious, so slow,” he complained. “In Kyongsang, if you urge someone to come to church, they say yes or no. If they say yes, they come. Here, people say, ‘Yes, that’s wonderful.’ . . . But then they don’t come. So I go visit them many times. And they just keep saying, ‘Yes, that’s wonderful.’ If they’d tell me no right away, I’d give up. But they don’t.”

Kim is butting his head against one of the myriad differences that divide the three major regions of South Korea in everything from social relations and politics to music, food and dialect. These regional variations give a rich texture to Korean society. But they also burden the nation’s politics with explosive antagonisms.

The imprisonment and ongoing trials of two former presidents from Kyongsang--the southeastern region of the nation--plus the expression of sharp regional divisions in legislative elections last month have placed provincial resentment and the issue of how to cope with it high on South Korea’s public agenda.

Many people recognize a need to lessen old rivalries and prejudices for the sake of greater national unity. This task has become more urgent as hopes--and fears--rise here that the Communist regime in North Korea may be on the verge of collapse. That could mean that South Korea will face the daunting task of national reunification--and the need to cope with much-greater north-south differences--before it has come to terms with its internal conflicts.

Yet Korean politics today is more than ever dominated by regional political machines. These are built around the personalities of the “three Kims”--President Kim Young Sam, whose base lies in the southern part of Kyongsang and the nearby city of Pusan; opposition leader Kim Dae Jung of the southwestern Cholla region; and conservative leader Kim Jong Pil, a dominant figure in the central Chungchong area.

Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jong Pil are considering runs for the presidency next year. President Kim, constitutionally barred from a second term, is determined to support his own candidate. So there is little doubt that rival politicians will continue to exploit and reinforce regional differences.

But there also are signs of progress toward defusing the most bitter emotions that poison relations among residents of different regions. The arrests of former presidents Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo are helping to heal the psychological wounds from the worst event of recent decades triggered, in part, by regional rivalries: the 1980 army massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Kwangju, the key city of the Cholla region.

That incident pitted supporters of the Cholla’s favorite son, longtime democracy activist Kim Dae Jung, against Chun, then a general whose imposition of martial law and arrest of opposition leaders triggered the civilian uprising in Kwangju. Chun assumed the presidency later that year. He is on trial on sedition charges for his power grab and on corruption charges for his behavior in office. Roh, Chun’s military colleague and political successor, also is imprisoned on sedition and corruption charges. Thus, the decades-long dominance of South Korea by cliques of Kyongsang military men has been decisively ended.

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History books are now likely to be rewritten to praise the Kwangju protesters and condemn those who ordered the crackdown, which left at least 240 dead. This could mark a key step toward easing the especially bitter feelings that divide Cholla and Kyongsang.

In the short run, however, many in northern Kyongsang are upset by what has happened to Chun and Roh. “Many people believe Kim Young Sam imprisoned politicians from this area for his own political reasons,” said Sok Jae Dok, 36, a resident of Taegu, the key city of the northern part of Kyongsang.

Regional antagonisms also fester because of common prejudices that are so clearly unfair they are recognized as such even by people who cannot free themselves from them. In Kyongsang, for instance, children are brought up with largely unexplained warnings not to trust people from Cholla.

“I know immediately from their accent if someone is from Cholla, and then right away my guard is up,” said Lee Sung Ho, 36, a Taegu taxi driver. “We’ve been told as I was growing up that you don’t trust Cholla people or mix with Cholla people. . . . I don’t know, it may go back to the Three Kingdoms era. . . . What’s said most frequently is they are clever and may take advantage of you.”

Lee’s casual reference reflects how life is still affected by truly ancient history: The Three Kingdoms period ran from 18 BC to AD 660, but its division of the Korean nation still resonates.

The historical record of political discrimination against the people of Cholla, according to Oh Soo Sung, a professor of social psychology at Chonnam University in Kwangju, began with the first king of Koryo, Wang Kon, who unified Korea in the 10th century.

“Wang Kon gave an order that the government should not employ people from south of the Charyong Mountains, which run along the border of Chungchong and Cholla,” Oh said. “That was the origin of discrimination against Cholla people. . . . He had a very difficult time [defeating a Cholla-based kingdom], and it was quite natural for him not to want to employ anyone from that area.”

A millennium later, during Japan’s harsh 1910-1945 occupation of Korea, Cholla remained an out-of-favor backwater. Industrial development was largely concentrated in Kyongsang, partly because a railway was built through the area from the southeastern port of Pusan to the Chinese border and beyond to serve Japanese economic and political goals in Manchuria.

President Park Chung Hee, who ruled from 1963 to 1979, was a Kyongsang native son who launched South Korea’s modernization. He continued the pattern, boosting Kyongsang, as did Chun and Roh.

Decades of favoritism toward Kyongsang was matched by pervasive discrimination against Cholla, not only by the government but by individual Koreans, in everything from rental housing to employment.

After the Kwangju massacre, the situation worsened: Cholla people were viewed as wildly anti-establishment, so they suffered job discrimination. That made them even more bitter.

“Businesses are reluctant to hire our students because of their reputation of being prone to demonstrate, in addition to their being from Cholla,” Oh said. “That leads them to neglect their studies, and that further deepens the problem.”

When he joined the faculty in 1979, Oh said, Chonnam University “was quite reputable, perhaps third in the nation.”

“Now it’s a third-rate university, because parents want to send their children to university in Seoul. Now it even reaches to high school. Parents send their children to Seoul for high school because when you look for work, you have to write down where you went to school.”

Antagonism between Kyongsang and Cholla became so severe after the 1980 massacre that people from one region visiting the other sometimes felt as if they were entering enemy territory. Tight media control and government propaganda under Chun’s 1980-1988 rule left many Koreans outside Cholla blaming the people of Kwangju for rebelling. Kwangju people, on the other hand, considered themselves heroes of democracy and resented the lack of understanding elsewhere.

Lee Sung Soo, 62, of Pusan, which is President Kim’s home base and is closely associated with southern Kyongsang, told of visiting a gas station in Cholla some years ago. The young attendant commented on his Pusan license plates, Lee said, and demanded that he give “three cheers” for Cholla’s local hero, Kim Dae Jung.

“I can understand the regional feelings of the Cholla people because so many of them died mercilessly,” Lee said. “But forcing an old man to say three cheers for Kim Dae Jung was too much. I refused. So he refused to fill my tank. After that experience, even if I’d wanted to vote for Kim Dae Jung, I’d have changed my mind.”

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All across South Korea, even among those with prejudices against Cholla people, almost everyone agrees that Cholla food is justly famous as the country’s best in both flavor and variety, with meals often including a dozen or more side dishes. Cholla also is seen as the nation’s greatest center of traditional arts. Its continuing cultural richness is sometimes attributed to the constant discrimination it suffered.

“People had no way to express their choked-up feelings except in art, music and dance,” Oh said.

Park Hwan Sung, 57, a Kwangju dealer in Korean paintings, said his business’ survival depends on the Cholla people’s love of traditional art. “Whenever you enter a teahouse or a home, there is almost always a Korean painting on the wall,” he said. “This is unique to the Cholla area.”

Cholla people’s desire to preserve traditions is rooted in the pride they have in their region’s ancient contributions to Korean culture, said Moon Byung Ha, 46, a Kwangju calligraphy teacher.

Television shows and a much-talked-about new movie, “The Petal,” are fostering greater understanding of Kwangju’s suffering. In “The Petal,” which includes historical footage from the 1980 massacre, a teenage girl traumatized by the shootings mistakes an uneducated worker for her brother and refuses to leave him--even when he rapes and beats her. Eventually, he realizes what she has endured and develops deep feelings for her.

At one level, the complex story line can be seen as an allegory about Kwangju, raped and beaten by an uncomprehending nation.

It also expresses the director’s hopes for the future. “The worker was indifferent and even hostile at first to the girl, but later he came to understand her,” Chang Sun Woo said. “I hoped the same will be true of the Korean people--that ultimately they will understand and even love Kwangju.”

Kim Duk Soo, artistic director and lead performer of the prominent traditional percussion troupe SamulNori Hanullim, has worked for many years to bridge the differences between rival regions and strengthen a truly national culture.

“Regionalism in its original form is not bad, because it reflects love of your birthplace, love of where you are living,” he said. “So I try not to miss the characteristics and valuable traditional aspects of each region. . . . If we could generalize, we could say the language they speak in Cholla is more delicate, Kyongsang is more masculine and the central area is more refined. The same thing applies to the music they play.”

The instruments of SamulNori--janggo, hourglass drum; buk, barrel drum; jing, large gong; and kwenggari, small gong--are common to Korean percussion troupes throughout the country. But the way they are used varies distinctly. “In Cholla, the sound of drums is not pronounced. The rhythm is more delicate and emotional, and they accent the beautiful dancing forms,” Kim said. “In Kyongsang, they place the drum in front, and its size tends to be bigger. In the central area, in Chungchong, there’s a more refined and disciplined manner of playing.”

None of this is mere coincidence, Kim said. Cholla’s values, he said, grew from its history as a rich agricultural center, with plenty of land, plenty to eat and a love of beauty that the well-to-do can afford. In mountainous Kyongsang, “they had to be strong to survive, and it was reflected in their music,” he said. “The central area was close to the government. There were more scholars and members of the ruling class. They had to be disciplined and refined.”

Thus, Kim said, in putting together his troupe’s repertoire he turns to the melancholy melodies of Cholla to evoke “pathos,” to Kyongsang for “brave marching music” and to the Chungchong area for “refined musical dialogues.”

Repeating a sentiment expressed especially often by younger Koreans, the 43-year-old musician predicted that once the famous “three Kims” with their strong regional bases are gone from the political scene, local antagonisms will fade.

And based on what happened when SamulNori performed in North Korea’s capital in 1990, Kim Duk Soo held out hope that even the immense north-south gulf can be bridged.

“Even in Pyongyang, although we have been separated these 50 years, I found nothing has changed for these four musical instruments,” he said. “With these four instruments we could be united. I cried to witness that.”

Chi Jung Nam of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report. Holley was recently on assignment in Seoul.

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South Korean Regions The regions of South Korea have distinct divisions in politics, social ties, music, food and dialect. While these variations give texture to Korean society, they help perpetuate political antagonisms dating to ancient times.