hankyoreh

Graphic by the Hankyoreh

Editor’s note: A student at an international school in Songdo, Incheon, the daughter of South Korean Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon has a flashy resume: according to it, she’s authored a scholarly article, been published, founded a volunteer organization, formulated a development plan for a mobile phone application, and participated in an art exhibit. But on the flip side are allegations of plagiarism and ghostwriting, which can be traced back to an industry based on the intellectual exploitation of young people from developing nations, including Kenya.

Han’s daughter utilized a predatory journal, one that muddies research ethics, and has exchanged resume-padding opportunities with the daughters of her 49-year-old aunt, a US college admissions expert surnamed Jin.

The Hankyoreh visited San Jose and other cities neighboring California’s Silicon Valley, where Jin worked, from June 1 through Thursday. This area is where Jin’s daughters — who were in a credential-building club with Han’s daughter — went to high school, and where Asian students engage in fierce competition with each other to get into prestigious US universities.

Those who had experienced US college admissions were enraged by the opportunities the daughters of Han and Jin had obtained through shortcuts, saying that even if everyone joined the race from different starting lines, they still should follow the same rules.

Through its three-part series “A League of Their Own: Toward Becoming Elite,” the Hankyoreh aims to shed light on and critique the “global resume-padding industry” that South Korean elites mobilize in order to hand down their academic credentials — a degree from a prestigious US university — to their children.

“My daughter was working on an academic paper for a year and a half, but in the end, she failed to complete it.”

The 20-year-old daughter of Jeong Mi-sun (pseudonym, 48), whom the Hankyoreh spoke to in San Jose, California, on June 2, poured hours and hours into authoring a research paper as an intern in a biology lab, a position she had gotten after sending dozens of e-mails to various professors while in her junior and senior years of high school.

Getting into a good university requires students to be involved in various extracurricular activities ranging from sports and arts to volunteer work and leadership activities. But Jeong’s daughter sacrificed all those sorts of activities in order to work on an academic paper. But in the end, her article was not published.

“Even though I did all these experiments, the data must have not been sufficient. Even after writing the whole article, I wasn’t able to publish it. It’s definitely not an easy thing to do, after all,” the 20-year-old said.

Still, she didn’t consider that year and a half to have been a waste. “It was difficult, but also rewarding, and I don’t think my efforts were in vain, because I’m doing similar work in college now,” she said.

However, she said she couldn’t help but feel angry when she saw reports of allegations that Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon’s daughter had published an article written by a ghostwriter.

“Publication is an important qualification that only children who go to good colleges in the US pursue, but it seems like [Han’s daughter] plagiarized someone else’s writing or just hired someone to write the paper for her,” Jeong’s daughter told the Hankyoreh.

“Since they can’t do sports or play an instrument on her behalf, [her parents] took this route to whip up important qualifications for their child,” she continued.

“If this [story] were to be buried without there being any kind of penalty, then I’d seriously question if there is such a thing as justice in this world,” she said.

The parents that the Hankyoreh met with were frustrated by the news of Han’s daughter.

San Jose is one of the richest cities in the US, with an average annual household income of around US$361,269, putting residents in the top 20 percent of earners nationwide. A contributing factor to such affluence is its location just a stone’s throw from Silicon Valley, where famous IT companies such as Google, Tesla and Apple are found, and high-earning engineers flock to live.

However, the insular world in which these people live has become more apparent — a world in which they too may struggle to keep up appearances, at times opting for expedients in order to do so.

“The privileged class now thinks buying academic degrees with money is a sort of competence in its own right,” said Shin Su-jin (pseudonym, 45), a Korean parent the Hankyoreh spoke to in Cupertino, California, on June 2. Her son is in the 11th grade.

“Anything achieved based on one’s wealth and networks is still recognized in the US. Such things can also be used to the benefit of one’s own children,” Shin shared.

However, regarding Han’s daughter’s case, she says, “This is a situation where it is suspected that the qualifications were faked,” adding, “If I give 80 [in effort], I only get 60 [in results], but someone else gives 80 and leans on another person to get 200, that’s a big problem.”

Lee Eun-kyeong (52), whom the Hankyoreh spoke to in San Jose on June 1, spoke of the difficulties she experienced when it came to her three children’s extracurriculars.

“When my youngest daughter volunteered at a hospital, 200 people applied but only 12 people were selected. This is how difficult it is to get [volunteer] credit [in the US]. In fact, studying is the easiest part,” Lee noted.

Still, there is a big reason why students must focus so intensely on accumulating credits. “One child I know failed to get into any of the University of California schools despite having gotten all A’s for four years on her GPA,” Lee said. “She studied so, so hard but still she lacked the [extracurricular] credits.”

Lee said she also thought about having her husband, who is an engineer, develop an application under their child’s name.

“There was that temptation, but my husband said it would not be good for [our child’s] education in the long run,” Lee shared. “I didn’t tell my son anything about this. Credits are something that you can rack up easily if you cheat or pay out. It’s earning them honestly that’s what’s hard.”

Another Korean parent, Min Ji-yu (pseudonym, 46), has three children — two high schoolers and one elementary school student. Min said she “does everything [she] can” to help her kids get the credits they need.

“After school, [the children] first swim for two hours and then practice musical instruments for another two hours. In the evenings, they write, draw pictures, and homework,” Min said, adding that leadership activities are also important.

“Although not required, kids usually take college courses in 10th or 11th grade. These are difficult and there is an astounding amount of material to study, but kids take them anyway because they have to show that they are [able to] handle college-level classes [by the time they apply to school],” Min said. “Also, the university recognizes the classes as credit, so they do it to save on tuition later.”

In the US, Min believed that these efforts would be fairly evaluated. However, her belief was shaken when she heard the allegations related to the so-called credential-building club led by a 49-year-old woman surnamed Jin, a university admissions expert, that the Korean justice minister’s daughter and her cousins were involved in.

“If they start digging into these problems [such as ghostwriting, plagiarism, and qualifications], I think they’ll turn up quite a lot. Those sorts have things have been around since before. It’s just that, before, they were careful about what they said and who they said it to,” Min said.

Korean parents whom the Hankyoreh spoke to feel this problem should not be overlooked. To them, if nothing is done about it now, the same thing will continue to happen again and again.

Hyeon Eun-ju (pseudonym), who is in her mid-40s with children in the 11th and 8th grades, was shocked by the story of a friend who is a parent of an elementary school student.

“A friend of mine praised Ms. Jin for her drive, organization and skills. She sees that she sent her own daughters to Ivy League schools, so she looks to her as a role model,” Hyeon said. “I don't think this will go away unless some kind of penalty is imposed,” she added.

On May 16, Koreans living in the US characterized the “false qualifications” of Han’s daughter as an organized crime and published a statement criticizing Han’s explanation on the world's largest private petition platform Change.org. By 5 pm on June 9, there were 11,486 signatures on the petition.

By Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]