Happy Fourth of July!! Today we had the honor of hearing Mrs. Lee Yeon-sook, a former Congresswoman and President of the National Council of Women in Korea speak on women's issues in Korea.

Mrs. Lee was born in 1934, at the time when Korea was under Japanese rule. As a child she was forced to speak Japanese as was the rest of her family. She lived in the area that is now the "demilitarized zone", where families do still live today. Her sister went to the north during the late 30's and since the division of the two Koreas she has not been heard from since. As a young woman, Yeon-sook attended university as most did. During that time, this was the way to find a spouse. She attended Ehwa University, which was virtually destroyed during the Korean War. The School President gave a memorable speech to a crowd, where Yeon-sook was present, "Here you are where others could not be - you must pay your debt to society." Yeon-sook took this to heart. In those days it was useless to have a degree, there were no jobs after the war was over. She eventually landed a job in a school teaching English. From there her influence has been felt through her efforts to push women's issues to the forefront.


Here are some interesting items from her talk:

• In Korea, there is typically one child per family, actually 1.13 (the lowest in the world). The government has been trying to increase the birth rate by offering payments for childcare, which is very expensive). Due to the low birth rate, life expectancy is increasing rapidly.
• Women live to on average 83; men live to be 77. Today there is still a tradition to prefer boys over girls. For every 100 girls born, there are 107 boys. Abortion is illegal, as is the test to determine the gender of the baby.
• The age of women is 30 years at their first marriage. Men are typically 28 years old. 50 percent of women are working after 15 years old.
• Women earn 20 percent of the household income. 41 percent are working part-time unstable jobs. Women are earning only 63 cents compared to men's dollar.80 percent of teachers are women.
• The rate of school administrators are less than 10 percent. University professors are 13 percent female.
• 43 women hold seats in the National Assembly, out of 299 total seats.
• Every year, the first week of July is designated as "The Week of Women", which was fitting for us to meet Ms. Lee on July 4th. This was decided due to the Womens Development Act and this week is dedicated to raising awareness of women's issues.
• Ms. Lee spoke about the loss of tradition in the youth. Family was "eating mouth" - eating at same time and same food. Now this is no longer true with unhealthy fast food options (McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut are all there), long study hours, and little physical exercise.
• When asked about the fact that women are becoming higher achievers than their male counterparts, Ms. Lee replied, "Let men worry about that." A great way to close.

It was truely an honor to have Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Choi, Director of Korean Studies at the Korea Society of New York here with us today. Both women are shinning examples of how far Korean women have come in the post war period.




Well, after our morning seesion, a few of us decided to enjoy our 4th of July with a good old fashion game of baseball...Korean style....we attended another baseball game at Seoul baseball stadium...This time it was our team the Doosan Bears vs. the LG Twins. It ended in a 6-6 TIE after 12 innings of play!