Youth for Nation: Culture and Protest in Cold War South Korea

289 Pages·2017·8.149 MB·English

by  Charles R. Kim

YOUTH FOR NATION
A Study of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute
YOUTH FOR NATION
Culture and Protest in Cold War
South Korea
Charles R. Kim
University of Hawai‘i Press
Honolulu, Hawai‘i
© 2017 University of Hawai‘i Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
22 21 20 19 18 17 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kim, Charles R., author.
Title: Youth for nation : culture and protest in Cold War South Korea / Charles R. Kim.
Other titles: Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.
Description: Honolulu, Hawai‘i : University of Hawai‘i Press, [2017] | Series: Studies of
the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016054297 | ISBN 9780824855949 (cloth ; alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Korea (South)—Civilization—American influences. | Youth protest
movements—Korea (South)—History. | Korea (South)—History—1948–1960. |
Korea (South)—Politics and Government—1948–1960.
Classification: LCC DS917.77 .K55 2017 | DDC 322.4095195/09045—dc23 LC record
available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016054297
Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
The Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute w ere inaugurated in 1962 to bring to a
wider public the results of significant new research on modern and con temporary East Asia.
University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-f ree paper and meet the guidelines for
permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources.
Contents
Acknowle dgments vii
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
Chapter One
Narrating the Postwar Crisis 22
Chapter Two
Wholesome Modernization 43
Chapter Three
The Student Vanguard 75
Chapter Four
Permissible Criticism 109
Chapter Five
4.19 as Authorized Protest 137
Chapter Six
Miracles Every Day? 176
Epilogue 205
Notes 215
Selected Bibliography 251
Index 255
v

Acknowle dgments
Many people and a number of institutions have contributed to this study. As a
doctoral student, I was fortunate to work with two leading specialists of post-
1945 K orea: Charles Armstrong, my gradu ate advisor, and Ted Hughes. Each in
their own way greatly expanded my awareness of modern K orea and its place in
global history and generously provided expert feedback and guidance throughout
the research and writing pro cess. Priscilla Ferguson, the late JaHyun Kim Haboush,
and Louise Young also significantly enriched my base of knowledge and shared
numerous insights that have helped me to improve this study. I am truly grateful
to these former teachers, each a member of my dissertation committee, for their
wonderful support and their many valuable comments on this project. I am also
very grateful to John Duncan and Sam Yamashita, my MA and undergraduate
advisors. Their fantastic classes, knowledgeable advising, and steady encour-
agement enabled a scattered student to find his way in this field of study and, in
the pro cess, shaped my scholarly outlook and approach much more than they
may realize.
The late Nancy Abelmann and Andre Schmid were extremely supportive of
this proj ect from its early stages. Both read the initial version from start to finish
and contributed incisive feedback. I have much gratitude and appreciation for
their remarkable generosity and kind encouragement. I also wish to thank the nu-
merous people who, at dif er ent stages of the revision pro cess, read chapter or article
drafts, commented on a public talk, or engaged with me in conversation about the
proj ect. Especially useful w ere insights shared by Paul Chang, Steven Chung, Chris
Hanscom, Merose Hwang, Cheehyung Harrison Kim, Jeong Min Kim, Sun- Chul
Kim, Sungjo Kim, Su Yun Kim, Tina Klein, Aimee Kwon, and Jefrey Wasserstrom.
I have benefited in a variety of ways from working in the History Department
at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. Many colleagues have helped me man-
age life as an assistant professor by providing practical tips and perspectives,
while others have pointed out useful ways to improve this book. My sincere
thanks to Laird Boswell, Cindy Cheng, Suzanne Desan, Fran Hirsch, Neil
Kodesh, Florencia Mallon, David McDonald, Tony Michels, Leonora Neville,
vii
viii Acknowl edgments
Jennifer Ratner- Rosenhagen, Karl Shoemaker, Jim Sweet, Lee Wandel, Thong-
chai Winichakul, and André Wink for helping me in these ways and several
more. My department mentors, Bill Reese and Sarah Thal, deserve special thanks
for their expert guidance and steadfast work on my behalf. I am grateful for the
camaraderie— and, at times, the empathy—of my East Asia colleagues, several of
whose time on the tenure track has overlapped with mine. Louise Young has
been an incredible colleague and has provided many helpful suggestions as an
informal mentor. I owe her extra thanks for her unflagging support of this proj-
ect and of my work overall. I thank the gradu ate students with whom I have
worked at UW, especially Hye Eun Choi, David Fields, Danny Kim, MeeSun
Kim, Eunhee Park, and Seungyop Shin. I have learned a great deal from our
seminars and conversations. I am also grateful to the department’s superb staf
for making my daily work so much easier, as well as for the kind support of sev-
eral people in (and formerly of) other UW departments— Eunjung Kim, Byung-
jin Lim, Steve Ridgely, and Hyuk Yu.
Gradu ate studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and Columbia
University gave me the opportunity to study, exchange ideas, and hang out with
many, many terrific people. Several more such people kindly befriended me
while I was an other wise isolated postdoc at Yale University and the University
of Toronto. All of them shaped my thinking and helped keep me going during
my gradu ate studies and postdoc years, and many of them continue to do so in
the pres ent. I am extremely grateful for their numerous kindnesses and their
intellectual camaraderie. In addition, for their invaluable, early- career advice,
I extend my sincere gratitude to Henry Em, Namhee Lee, Serk- Bae Suh, and
Jun Yoo.
I did my original research for this proj ect as a visiting researcher at Yonsei
University’s Institute of Korean Studies. I am grateful to the institute’s staf and,
in par tic u lar, Kim Dong- No, who generously took time out of his busy schedule
to provide research guidance. Lee Eun- Jin of Kyungnam University shared a
number of very useful sources and his extensive knowledge of Masan’s local
history. The Yonsei University Archives granted access to its 4.19- related docu-
ments, and An Jaeyeon helped im mensely by transcribing much of the material
from the archives that I have used in this book. Yu Hyosun of the Korean Educa-
tional Development Institute library located several essential postwar textbooks,
and Cho Eunjoo, Lee Sangrok, Paek Chŏngu, and Shin Hyunjoon provided help-
ful research leads. The commemorative socie ties for the 1960 marches in Taegu
and in Masan— the 2.28 minjuhwa undong kinyŏm saŏphoe and the 3.15 ŭigŏ
kinyŏm saŏphoe— gave me a plethora of sources and introduced a number of in-
terviewees who had participated in the two cities’ demonstrations. I am espe-
Acknowl edgments ix
cially grateful to Pyŏn Sŭnggi, former director of the Masan society, for all of his
help. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the eigh teen individuals whom I inter-
viewed for this study. Listening to their testimonies deepened my understanding
of South Korea’s 1950s and 1960s far more than the endnotes of this book reflect.
I began the painstaking pro cess of rethinking and expanding this proj ect at
Yale University and the University of Toronto and as a ju nior fellow at the Acad-
emy of Korean Studies. I am grateful to Valerie Hansen and John Treat; Eileen
Lam and Andre Schmid; and Do- Hyun Han and Seungyeon Jung for helping to
make each period of residence a productive one. Feedback given in public talks at
these three institutions, as well as at the Korea Democracy Foundation; Ohio
State University; Stanford University; University of California, Santa Barbara;
and University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign pushed me forward in the revi-
sion proc ess.
I am indebted to a number of individuals for aiding in my search for new
materials. Michael Kim shared Stephen Bradner’s fine study of 4.19, which was
indispensable for clarifying my interpretations of the event. Jon Kief and Tina
Klein introduced me to the Asia Foundation Collection at Stanford University’s
Hoover Institution. Kim Byung- Kun and Park Mi- jung of the Tonga ilbo provided
me with copies of numerous photog raphs taken during 4.19. Jae Won Chung and
Jon Kief sent copies of several magazine articles that were not readily available
to me in Wisconsin. And Hye Eun Choi helped in a huge way with impeccable
research assistance during the final stage of the revision pro cess.
I am grateful for research and writing support granted by the Fulbright- Hays
program, the Korea Foundation, the Acad emy of Korean Studies (award identifier:
AKS-2007- CA-2001, funded by the Ministry of Education, Republic of K orea), and
the Association for Asian Studies Northeast Asia Council, as well as for the addi-
tional support for this book provided by the UW- Madison Office of the Vice Chan-
cellor for Research and Gradu ate Education, with funding from the Wisconsin
Alumni Research Foundation. I thank the publishers of The Review of Korean
Studies and The Journal of Asian Studies for allowing me to integrate into this book
much of the content of two earlier articles, which appeared in the September 2009
and May 2012 issues of the respective publications.
My sincere thanks to Stephanie Chun, my editor at the University of Hawai‘i
Press, for guiding this proj ect to completion with professionalism and efficiency.
I also thank two anonymous reviewers who provided highly incisive comments on
an earlier version of the manuscript. I am grateful to Kristen Bettcher for shep-
herding me seamlessly through the copyediting pro cess; Ashley Moore for her
meticulous copyediting; and Amron Gravett for her skillful indexing. Thanks, too,
to Tanya Buckingham for her patient work on the map that appears in chapter 5.