ASIA / PACIFIC
Page 4 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
February 19, 2018
Olympics are a chance to go
home again for Korean American
By Claire Galofaro
The Associated Press
G
FEMALE FIRST. Afghan coders practice at the Code to Inspire com-
puter training center in Herat province, western Afghanistan. The group of
young Afghan women in the deeply conservative province is breaking tra-
ditional barriers as the country’s first female coders in an overwhelmingly
male-dominated field. The game they created underscores Afghanistan’s
struggle to eradicate vast opium poppy fields ruled by the Taliban. (AP
Photo/Ahmad Seir)
First Afghan female coders
bring it on: “Fight Against Opium”
By Ahmad Seir and Rahim Faiez
The Associated Press
H
ERAT, Afghanistan — A group of young Afghan
women in the deeply conservative Herat
province is breaking traditional barriers as the
country’s first female coders in an overwhelmingly
male-dominated field.
The game they created underscores Afghanistan’s
struggle to eradicate vast opium poppy fields ruled by the
Taliban.
For 20-year-old Khatera Mohammadi, a student at the
Code to Inspire computer training center, it’s more than
just a game: “Fight Against Opium” was based on her
brother’s real-life experience.
Mohammadi recounted to The Associated Press
recently that “each time he came back home, he would tell
us about the poppy fields, the terrible mine blasts,
battling opium traffickers and drugs.”
She and her colleagues at the center thought that if they
create a game, it would raise awareness, especially among
the young.
Philippines objects to China’s
naming of undersea features
By Jim Gomez
The Associated Press
M
ANILA, The Philippines — The Philippine
government is rejecting Chinese names given to
some undersea features in a vast offshore
region where the Philippines has undisputed sovereign
rights, the presidential spokesman said in a new tiff
despite the Asian neighbors’ mended ties.
The Philippines has already raised its concern to China
over its naming of the undersea features in Benham Rise
and may officially notify the international hydrographic
body that lists such records, spokesman Harry Roque Jr.
said.
China proposed the names for the features in 2015 and
2017, he said.
In Beijing, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said
China has been participating in activities related to
proposing names for undersea features “in accordance
with international practice” and the rules of the
international hydrographic body.
“China fully respects the Philippines’ continental shelf
rights over Benham Rise,” said Geng Shuang, the Chinese
spokesman. “Meanwhile, we hope the relevant parties can
be objective and responsible in viewing relevant technical
works.”
Benham Rise lies on the other side of the Philippine
archipelago from the South China Sea, where Manila,
Beijing, and four other governments have been locked in
territorial disputes.
Critics have questioned why Philippine President
Rodrigo Duterte’s administration allowed a group from
China to undertake scientific research in the waters given
Manila’s long-simmering territorial conflict with Beijing
in the South China Sea.
China has defied and refuses to comply with an
international arbitration ruling that invalidated its claim
to virtually all of the South China Sea on historical
grounds.
“We object and do not recognize the Chinese names
given to some undersea features in the Philippine Rise,”
Roque said in a statement, using the name given by the
Duterte administration to Benham Rise.
Duterte has ordered an end to all foreign scientific
Continued on page 10
ANGNEUNG, South Korea
— When Song Hong used to
tell his grandchildren about
his childhood, he would joke that they
were “country folks” from a rugged
and rural corner of the world that
none of their fellow Americans had
ever heard of, or likely ever would.
Then one day, from his home in
California, he saw the news: That
rugged and rural corner of the world
he left four decades ago for a new life
in the United States had been named
the unlikely host of the 2018 Winter
Olympics.
“I was so proud,” he said. “That
they would hold the Olympics in my
hometown, and I would have the
chance to have my own family see it. I
want to show it to them.”
They planned the trip for years.
And this month, Song and his wife,
Chong, arrived with their son, daugh-
ter-in-law, and two grandchildren to
explore a very different city than the
one they left behind in 1975.
The most elite athletes in the world
now live, for a few weeks, in the
high-rise apartment buildings of the
Olympic Village with an address he’d
never dreamed he’d see attached to
such prestige: Gangneung. On the
other side of the city stands Olympic
Park, with its brand-new arena for
marquee events like skating and ice
hockey.
He giggles with delight that his
grandchildren, nine-year-old Chloe
and 11-year-old Brandon, are
impressed with his city.
“They’ve never been here before
and they say, ‘Oh! Grandfather, your
city is very nice. Everything’s nice,
everything’s new, because the Winter
Olympics [are] here,” he said.
Song and Chong Hong live now in
Mountain View, California. They
were young children when the Kore-
an War began in 1950. Both grew up
in poor families — just about every-
one here was poor back then, he said.
They ate bowls of rice and potatoes
that never seemed enough. American
soldiers arrived and gave chocolate
bars to the children. They seemed so
precious to Song, but the Americans
handed them out like they were
nothing, and he became enchanted by
what life might be like in the United
States.
Years later, he joined the army and
fought in the Vietnam War alongside
the American troops, who invited
them into their dining hall.
RETURN TO GANGNEUNG. Song Hong walks in downtown Gangneung, South Korea.
Song and his wife, Chong, arrived with their son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren to explore
a very different city than the one they left behind in 1975. The most elite athletes in the world now
live, for a few weeks, in the high-rise apartment buildings of the Olympic Village with an address
he’d never dreamed he’d see attached to such prestige: Gangneung. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
“I looked at the beef, the donuts, trip, tension was escalating between
cookies, cakes, ice cream — it’s all U.S. President Donald Trump and
there, anytime,” he says. There were Kim Jong Un, the third-generation
no jobs back home. His son, Chae, was North Korean leader. Chae asked his
just three, and he and his wife fretted father if they might want to
reconsider going.
about his future, about hunger.
“He was really dismissive,” Chae
“I told them, I said, ‘I have to try to
go to America,’” he remembers. “I just recalls. “He said, Kim Jong Un is all
imagined if I go to America, I would talk. It’s just part of living here.
have a job, everyday eating beef, Koreans are used to it, because it’s
always there.”
cake, Coca-Cola.”
As Song watched the opening cere-
And he did.
The family moved to California. He mony, he saw hope in the presence of
got a job as a welder, then he and his North Koreans, whose life he
wife bought an ice-cream truck and imagines must be a lot like his used to
eventually expanded their fleet to be, back when South Korea was poor.
“They must have been amazed
four. They also ran a coin laundry,
then a dry cleaner. They worked seeing the lighting, the firecrackers,
80-hour weeks and they didn’t mind the technology. They must have been
struggling because they imagined it in awe,” he said. He hopes the ath-
letes, the cheerleaders, and everyone
meant their son wouldn’t have to.
In that time, South Korea remade else who saw it goes home and tells
itself, too. His town, in his memory friends and neighbors that South
full of squat buildings with limited Korea is the land of plenty.
Just like he used to imagine
plumbing and electricity, now has
fine restaurants and tall buildings America to be.
“We are the same land, the same
and the most modern technology in
people,” he says. “The only difference
the world.
Yet he cannot imagine moving is our thinking.”
For now, he’s content to spend a
back.
“He’s very scared that here will be a week proudly touring his grandchil-
war between North and South dren around his hometown, regaling
Korea,” said his son, Chae, helping them with his childhood stories.
Here is the great gingko tree still
his father, who is still more com-
fortable speaking Korean, express his standing, he shows them. There is
where his childhood home once stood.
thoughts in English.
“In the U.S., we don’t have that. This is where he used to meet
Canada isn’t the equivalent of North high-school friends, where they’d rub
Korea,” Chae says. “Here, when he garlic on their faces to make their
comes back, he’s still subjected to that mustaches grow, just like they once
type of talk, that type of politics. He saw in an American movie. They
doesn’t have to worry about that in thought it might help. It didn’t.
His grandkids howled with
the U.S.”
While they were planning their laughter, and he beamed.
The Asian Reporter Foundation’s
20th Annual Scholarship & Awards
banquet will be held on
Thursday, April 26, 2018 at
Wong’s King Seafood Restaurant
(8733 S.E. Division Street, Portland).
For information about sponsorship opportunities,
nomination forms for “Most Honored Elder” and “Exemplary Community
Volunteer” awards, or college scholarship application forms,
call (503) 283-0595 or visit <www.arfoundation.net>.