"How did HE Get In?"

cobrat
Tue, 26 Mar 2013 01:54:15 +0000

one was drafted into the Korean army (which begs the question of why he was competing on the American team, but I digress).



poetgrl,

He could have been a naturalized immigrant who left South Korea after the maximal age* when he wouldn’t be subject to the South Korean draft for males and his parents didn’t get around to dropping his citizenship for him before he turns 18…even if he was naturalized as a US citizen well before adulthood.

He doesn’t even have the option of renouncing his South Korean citizenship to avoid the draft. In this situation, once over 18…if a South Korean male hasn’t served his mandatory military service, he can’t renounce his citizenship until that service is completed. Life in the South Korean armed forces is already exceedingly tough for young Korean males who were socialized there. It’s much worse if one left at a young enough age if one’s suddenly yanked out of an American childhood/adolescence with little/no command of the Korean language/social norms and is sent off to South Korean military boot camp.**

If a South Korean immigrant child ends up in this situation, his only choices are to comply with the draft or stay permanently out of South Korea as he’s liable to be arrested & drafted/imprisoned for draft evasion the moment he steps onto South Korean soil.***

One former colleague who grew up in NYC in his teens and attended BxScience can’t go back/visit South Korea for this very reason. When I asked other South Koreans about this, they all confirmed this was actually a problem with a portion of South Korean male immigrants…even those who emigrated from South Korea as children.


Basically, you’d practically have to have left within a few years of birth(babyhood) to avoid this issue altogether.


** Draft dodgers are looked upon with such contempt and disgust by South Korean society, especially for sons of the political/wealthy elite and famous actors/pop stars that they feel it’s better to serve out one’s mandatory service and endure it as best as they can as it’s far better than facing the exceedingly negative PR fallout of trying to dodge the draft.

*** Not sure whether the possible repeal of the South Korean draft laws and their going to a volunteer military as has been discussed in the South Korean/East Asian press will impact South Korean emigrants who were liable for military service and opted to “draft dodge by not returning”.