hankyoreh

Dec. 18. Only 10 minutes later the posters were removed by police and security guards. (by Kim Bong-gyu

By Song Ho-kyun and Park Seung-heon, staff reporters

The “How are you nowadays?” movement continues spreading as supporters band together offline and on. Some are sharing images of their posters through social media, while others are organizing rallies and press conferences.

The main figures behind the poster movement stopped by the offices of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) in Seoul’s Jeong-dong neighborhood at 2 pm on Dec. 18. Ju Hyun-woo, the 27-year-old Korea University business student who wrote the first, and Kang Tae-kyung, a 25-year-old philosophy student who wrote the second, had another poster with them this time. Written by Kang Hun-gu, a 23-year-old Korea University student, it was an answer to a “How are you nowadays?” reply by Korean Railway Workers’ Union (KRWU) president Kim Myung-hwan.

Kang said he planned to become “totally subversive.”

“Some are calling us ‘subversive outside forces,’ but we are the true insiders, the ones who headed out to Seoul Station for our own well-being - as people who would not be okay if the railways were privatized, and would not be okay if the workers faced mass suspensions,” it said. “If it’s subversive to talk about your own well-being, then we’re going to be totally subversive now.”

The poster went onto a bulletin board set up in the KCTU lobby. Ju and Kang Tae-kyung went on to meet behind closed doors with KCTU secretary-general Yoo Ki-soo and other members.

“We hope that the KRWU, the high schoolers, the elderly people in Miryang, the residents of Gangjeong, and all the other oppressed people who can’t make their voices heard gain the freedom to write more and to say more,” Kang said.

At many high schools around the country, students have been putting up posters, only to have them taken down immediately by their schools. The Hankyoreh learned about poster removals at Dongdeok Girls’ High School and Hyeseong Girls’ High School in Seoul, Seodaejeon Girls’ High School in Daejeon, and Pungam High School in Gwangju.

A student at Dongdeok, in Seoul’s Seocho neighborhood, put up a poster on Dec. 17 to voice support for the ongoing KORAIL strike. It was taken down at around 7 am, before students arrived. The school also made a warning announcement around 11 am.

“A poster was put up secretly and without permission on the first floor,” it said. “This is a violation of school regulations and will be punished sternly.”

Kim Min-ho, the school’s principal, explained that bulletin board messages can only be posted when they have been submitted for approval first and confirmed to be in line with school goals.

“We took the poster down because it was put up without regard for procedure,” he said.

Another poster went up at Dongdeok on the morning of Dec. 18 and was taken down immediately. The message read, “Messages containing skewed or baseless information should rightly be punished, but free expressions and exchanges of opinions play a positive role in developing true members of a democratic society.”

At Hyeseong, located in Seoul’s Nowon district, the police were called. When a poster expressing support for the KRWU strike and criticism of National Intelligence Service interference in last year’s presidential election went up, principal Yun Yeong-sik made an emergency call to police (112 in South Korea). Officers arrived on the scene from Nowon Police Station, but did not have any charges to pursue an investigation.

Posters were also taken down on Dec. 15 at Seodaejeon and Dec. 16 at Pungam.

On Dec. 18, three posters went up outside the rear gate of the Central Government Complex in Seoul. Police and security workers took them down within ten minutes.

Meanwhile, a press conference was staged by ten young people associated with the Snail Union, Youth Union, and Yonsei University student council.

Lee Han-sol, the student council’s 24-year-old president, wrote a poster message reading, “I support the people opposing the electricity transmission towers in Miryang, the strike against railway privatization, and the vulnerable groups who can’t even speak out. I want us all to live together. I want to find solutions that allow us to live together, so that this attention and concern we’re showing for each other now leads to real change.”

staff photographer)

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