Somewhere Along the Way: The Dokdo Trip

Thursday, May 24th: by 7:30am I was already on a bus to the coastal city of Pohang. From there myself and a group of other teachers selected for the annual Dokdo trip boarded a boat bound for the island of Ulleungo in the East Sea (Sea of Japan). The purpose of the trip, organized by the Gyeonsangbuk-do Provincial Office of Education (POE), was somewhat twofold. For one, it was an opportunity to present lectures and promote discussion on the history and issues of international law involving the twin islets (dongdo and seodo) known jointly as Dokdo, and it was a series of photo-ops to document this large presence of foreigners learning about the issue and setting foot on the island (or at least the concrete dock we were limited to). Case in point, I was interviewed by a TV crew about my thoughts on the island a few moments after disembarking from the ferry.

In brief, the issue surrounding Dokdo is that both Korea and Japan have both long laid claim to it, still without resolution (it sits in the ocean 87.4 km southeast of Ulleungdo and 157.5km northwest of Japan's Oki island, off the coast of Shimane prefecture). To this end Korea has built some facilities to house and support a fisherman and his wife, as well as about a dozen or so police officers stationed on the island. South Korea is desperate to raise international awareness of the issue, as it has been largely ignored outside of the country and certain groups within the Japanese government, which is the main reason efforts are undertaken each year to bring teachers currently serving with EPIK to Ulleungdo and Dokdo. In terms of a legal battle, Korea is not confident in going with Japan to trial in international courts over the dispute because they (apparently) feel that Japan, as a larger and more powerful country, will hold more sway in such an arena. The risk of losing Dokdo is absolutely unacceptable to most Koreans.

The issue has increasingly perked my interest as time has gone by here, in a large way because while I never heard a word about this island while living in Japan, even pre-teen students will bring up Dokdo here in Korea to make sure I know which country it belongs to. There's a dramatic contrast between the average person's consciousness and passion about the island between the two countries--the difference is night and day, in fact.

I should mention that we didn't spend all our time focused on Dokdo during the trip. On Ulleungdo we attended lectures by the administrator of the trip, Hee Eun Lee, Associate Dean and a professor at the Handong International Law School, together with his wonderful senior Law students, but we also toured the island. It is beautiful and jaggedly mountainous, forged by volcanic activity, with dizzying forested heights dropping steeply down into crystal clear waters of breathtaking turquoise-sapphire blues.

As with any sponsored trip I've been on in Korea we were treated excellently by our hosts and got to see all areas of Ulleungdo, including a green, fertile valley nestled in its interior, which our bus accessed by a mountain road that felt not unlike the theme park ride (fun in summer, no doubt mortally terrifying in winter).

The boat ride from Ulleungdo to Dokdo itself took about an hour and a half, but we only spent twenty minutes on the island. I've heard before that the visits are by and large kept strictly brief, and additionally it was apparently breeding (or was it hatching?) season for the large seagull population there. The sky was grey and it was a relatively bleak day when we were there. The islets were bigger than I thought, but the fight has never been over the rocks themselves. Whoever owns Dokdo also owns waters for two hundred surrounding miles, as per maritime law. Those waters are rich with fish and it's hypothesised there may also be large natural gas reserves under the ocean floor. For the average Korean, Dokdo is a symbol of their sovereignty from Japan. For Japan, and I suspect elements within the Korean government, ownership of the islands is all about the economic benefits. It's a conflict I doubt will be resolved anytime soon, though emotionally the Koreans have far more to lose. It's yet another example of this region's contradictory nature: countries filled with mostly goodhearted and well meaning people fall victim to the tidal pull of nationalism.

Just as unfortunate, when this occurs between historically and contemporarily homogenous states, an ugly, underlying racism can't help but linger as well.