S/Korea’s dramatic rise and ‘The Han River miracle’

From a war-ravaged background, South Korean leaders were able to magically transform their impoverished country into one of the world’s top industrial nations over five to six decades. Daily Trust explores how this Asia Tiger was able to achieve this feat. When the opportunity to be part of the Korea International Cooperation Agency’s (KOICA) Economic […]

From a war-ravaged background, South Korean leaders were able to magically transform their impoverished country into one of the world’s top industrial nations over five to six decades. Daily Trust explores how this Asia Tiger was able to achieve this feat.
When the opportunity to be part of the Korea International Cooperation Agency’s (KOICA) Economic Development Strategy training in the historic Kookmin University came knocking, one had little knowledge of the country, apart from the mesmerising display of the 2002 FIFA World Cup opening ceremony in Seoul and the unexpected third place finish in the tournament.
Naturally, as someone who’s about to visit a foreign land, curiosity about Korea began to take its toll. The opportunity to be with Korea’s ambassador to Nigeria, Noh Kyu Duk in Lokoja, where he gave two lectures at the Federal University, Lokoja and Kogi State Polytechnic about the two countries’ 35 years of relation anniversary provided a fair knowledge of the dramatic rise of Korea.
Despite the advantage of having independence far ahead of Nigeria, Korea was no match to Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania in the 1960s, in economic development. As one of the poorest countries in the world, Korea had less USD 75 GDP per capita.
Shortly after taking over self-government in 1950, a civil war between the two Korea’s broke out and lasted for three years, which further took the nation multiple-steps backwards, socially, psychologically and economically.
The Han River, which divides Seoul city into the ancient North and South therefore, is being given the credit as ‘The miracle of Han River.’
The ‘Han River miracle,’ following the war, became the wealth channel for the country which had nothing, regarding international trade. Fifty years later, in 2010, Korea was economically way ahead of Africa.
Global conglomerates like Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Hyundai Automobiles, KIA Motors, and the world’s third largest steel company, POSCO, are a few of the numerous indigenous companies Korea now boasts of, apart from having the world’s best and cleanest international airport.
KOICA, as a government-run agency was established by the Korean authorities and charged with responsibility to extend the country’s grant aid and technical cooperation to developing countries.
The training, the last of the three-year arrangement to Nigeria’s government officials, aims to share Korea’s economic development strategy with Nigeria and hopes the replication of similar schemes in Nigeria will propel its economy to its global right place.
The essence of establishing KOICA, Professor Sun Gul Hong of Kookmin University said, was to give back to the international community that helped the country with aid grants during its difficult, post-war periods.
Fifteen participants from various federal and state government agencies as well as the only media representative, Daily Trust, took off on the 18-hour cumulative flight and two-day trip to Seoul.
Expectedly, boarding Korean Air from Dubai airport to Incheon airport in Seoul left a telling story on our faces to the kind of food we have had to contend with throughout our sojourn in the country.
Colourless water for soup
After an 18-hour wait at Dubai, it was unarguably necessary to stay awake for the in-flight food. The happiness for the long-overdue arrival of my plate almost vanished instantly when I came face-to-face with a totally unknown Korean menu.
Staring blankly, unable to make sense of it all, a flight attendant came to my rescue, politely pointing me the starter, some ‘colourless water’ (soup) with leaves soaked inside. Eventually, a Korean seat-mate signalled a simpler approach. He mixed everything and asked me to do same, which I did, religiously.
Korean cuisine differs from Nigeria’s, despite the high consumption of rice by both countries. They eat a lot of rice because they plant a lot of it. Rice plantations are everybody’s business.
But they still have their own unique food, identified largely by the use of vegetables. Most of Korean cuisine is health-inspired. ‘Kimchi,’ which incidentally became my favourite, is the most popular. It is a spicy food, prepared with cabbage. ‘Bibimbap,’ a rice and vegetable combination was also a delight.
Highways must be straight
Seoul, the capital of South Korea, houses more than 10 million of the country’s 50 million people, and therefore has several skyscrapers. City dwellers have to contend with dense motor traffic. An ideally 30 minute drive from our base to Kookmin University, took one hour at peak period.
Seoul like Abuja has high cost of living and is the most expensive city to live in, in the whole of Asia, and the ninth in the world. Yet, beholding the awe of the countryside lives one in wonder of why Seoul is so populated.
When we embarked on a 6-hour countryside tour to the industrial hubs of Korea – Kuming, Pohang and Ulsan cities, what struck most of us was the nature of their stretched expressways. With 70 percent of Korea’s landscape being mountains, one would ordinarily fasten his seat belt prepared for steep roads and bends on the highway. But it was the other way round; there were hardly any bends.
A nauseating number of tunnels were dug deep inside the rocks, no matter the length and the number of lanes on the highway – three – way maintained even inside the tunnels! Three heavy trucks conveniently overtook each other in the illuminated but fascinating tunnels.
KOICA’s representative at the tour, Mrs. July Lee told us that one marching order given to all construction companies back in the time was that Korean highways “must be straight.” She said former president Park Chung Hee, a military leader who ruled Korea for 18 years, was the brain behind the introduction of highways in the country, as a necessary path for development.
Professor Gul, in agreement said, when ex-president Park, whose daughter, Ms. Park Guen Hye is the incumbent Korean president, started constructing the first highway, the country had less than 100, 000 cars on the roads. And despite the criticisms, achieved the linkage of the industrial areas, especially Pohang city, where the world’s third largest steel company, POSCO is located.
However, as stretched as the expressway is, no driver could go above the specified 100Km/hour or below 50Km/hour with security cameras monitoring activities.
Miniature cities, known as ‘Service Areas,’ are located along highways and serve long-journey travellers time to stop, refresh, smoke, drink, eat and shop before hitting the road again.
Communities, housing estates and rice farms by the side of the roads either within the capital city or along the express road have not been forgotten. Sound-proof glass walls are all over; this according to the tour guide was to protect the residents and farmers from road noises of vehicles!
Only one mosque in Seoul
South Korea, like Nigeria, provides constitutional freedom of religion. It was however surprising to learn that 49 percent of the Korean population have no religion at all.
But Christianity, with Protestants (16 percent) and Catholics (10 percent) form majority of religious adherents in the country. Others, including Muslims and the yet-to-be known religious adherents have one percent, with only one mosque which also accommodates foreign nationals.
Seoul central mosque is described in the ‘Korea Travel Guide book,’ as “a domed building with offices, meeting rooms and separate places of worship for men and women. Five worshiping services are held every day at sunrise, noon, afternoon, sunset, and late in the night.”
The book informs that lectures are given in English, Arabic and Korean, but the worship service is only in Arabic. Additionally, there is a Muslim grocery store near the mosque.
It was intriguing to learn from 22-year-old university student, Won ho Yean, attached to us whenever we were going to market and other social places for language interpretation, three things he loves most are alcohol, soccer and travelling.
But as our conversation went on, and explaining to him that although I, too, like travelling and watching soccer, but my religion forbids alcohol consumption, Won quickly cut-in: “I don’t have a religion, I don’t have a religion.”
Kim, Lee, Park: Korea a one-race society
Although Koreans have opened their country from the early 2000 to the world, allowing foreigners to nationalise, with a Filipino woman becoming a lawmaker, Korea has remain a one-race society as it was hundreds of years ago.
Partly, that has helped in the fast, unprecedented development of the country within just 50-60 years and becomes one of developed nations in the world.
This is buttressed by Professor Seong-Kan Kim’s revelation that one-fourth of Korean population bears the single name ‘Kim,’ which implies gold in Korean. The professor said going through families in Korea, it is very possible one finds ‘Kim’ in 70 percent of Korean families.
Kim is closely followed in hierarchy by ‘Lee,’ and then ‘Park.’ Incumbent president, Ms. Park Guen Hye, joked the professor, could have won her election back in 2013 even by the block votes of all the ‘Parks’ in the country in solidarity by her namesakes.
Women in the country are more important than men. Parents spend a chunk of their savings on the girl-child’s education. Professor Kim said women control families. Children listen to their mothers more and they identify with their mothers’ families.
“In my 30 years of university work, I have never received my salary. The salary always goes to my wife’s account,” Kim said buttressing the reality of women power in Korea.
World’s biggest, highest, best
Koreans have an unshaken love for their country, love for the economic growth of the country, especially in view of how Korea managed to overcome its incipient hurdles.
Dr. Jaeshin Park, who has visited Nigeria twice, via KOICA’s drive for e-Governance in Nigeria, said past leaders were able to instill in their forefathers the resolve for Korea to be ‘World Biggest, World Highest and World Best’ in whatever they pursued.
Just as they love the country, so they love one another. Individualism has no place in Korea. Their attitude to respect one another was almost ‘alien.’ A Korean can conveniently call your wife as ‘our wife,’ because there is nothing meant for only one individual, but for a whole. Koreans welcome foreigners, despite their relative ignorance of the larger world.
About 70 percent of Koreans own cars, hence the several traffic lights matching the cars. But, surprisingly, throughout our 17-day stay in the country, there was no malfunctioning traffic light in sight or an erring driver or disregard for zebra crossings.
Youngsters lackadaisically crossed roads, chatting on their phones, without raising their heads to look out for oncoming cars. They were confident that there would be no impatient driver on the horizon. I was too lily-livered to try out my confidence as the Koreans one Sunday evening when I was alone on a zebra crossing. My Nigerian fear overtook me as I sped across the crossing even though cars were stationary.
There was also the tension of North-South Koreas war over loudspeaker propaganda at the border, the deadline set by North Korea’s youthful leader, Kim Jan Un, the proximity of Seoul to the danger zone; ‘the most fortified border in the world.’