The Giving Tree 

There is a book called “The Giving Tree” by an American picture book writer, Shel Silverstein. When I was high school student, a friend gave me this book, yet I didn’t really understand what the author was trying to say in the book, because it sounded strange to me then. In the story, a boy and tree are friends and always play together like gathering leaves and making them into crowns, climbing up her trunk and swing from her branch, eating apples, playing “hide-and-go-seek”, etc., and the Tree is happy. And time goes by, the boy starts demanding things: money to buy things, a house to live with family, and a boat to sail away and each time the Tree give apples to get some money, branches to build a house, and to make a boat, saying “And the Tree was happy”, yet it wasn’t true… And after long time the boy comes back to the Tree when he becomes an old man and “I don’t need very much now, just a quiet place to sit down and rest. I am very tired.” says the boy. The Tree, which is actually now a “stump” by the acts of the boy, says, “Well, an old stump is good for sitting and resting. Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest.” And the Tree was happy. The End

When I saw the news on an example of “Neo-colonialism”, I was really surprised and disappointed. In 2008, the president of Madagascar made contract with a Korean company to lend some land “for free of charge for 99 years”. And its scale of land is outrageous: the half of cultivated acreage in Madagascar, which is as big as the size of half land of territory of Bergin. It was about to be lent to “a” Korean company “for free” by the contract. Is it acceptable in your country? However as a natural counteraction, citizens of Madagascar got furious and made a demonstration, in which 135 people were killed, in order to demand the resignation of the president. You could say, in an indirect way, that some abrupt Koreans robbed the lives of 135 people in Madagascar. This kind of indirect exploitation is called “Neo-colonialism”. The thing is, Japan has one end of responsibility indirectly.

As a background, we must think why these Koreans could do this violent act. There are two factors to make it happen: “character” to do it and “ability” to do it. The former, character, is seen in the Vietnam War: countless cases of cruel rape by Korean soldiers; the latter, ability, is the matter of money to bribe people into doing injustice. Some examples are seen in the World Cup Soccer in 2002, Kim Yuna in figure Skating in Vancouver, and the recent controversy of Wrestling in Olympic Games, in which referees, judges, and even the IOC are controlled by Korean money. The former can’t be touched because it’s their nature, but why does Korea has power in money now?

In the annexation of the Korean peninsula for 35 years, Japan developed the whole country and “gave” Korea social infrastructures: built roads, ports, railways, founded hospitals and public health offices and educated the notion of hygiene and medical treatment, planted trees on bald mountains, established schools, even a university, and taught Korean alphabet, formed police organs for public peace, made up industries, and so on. Japan “gave” Korea everything for modernization in fact. As a result, the average of life, 22, 3 years old at the end of 19^th century became about 50-year old during the Japan’s rule of the peninsula. You could say that the prosperity of Korea today is given by Japan. But they misuse their power, money, in the wrong way that Japan didn’t intended and predicted.

I name this blog “The Giving Three”, stemming from “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein. I am a volunteer who “gives” something, but to “Give” is not very easy because we can’t see what will happen after giving in future. I want to think about it in this writing for my blog on this occasion.