SEOUL — In what has become South Korea's autumn of scandal, it sometimes seems no one is immune from accusations of impropriety.
The top executives at Samsung, the country's biggest company, are alleged to have created a bribery network whose tentacles snared politicians and prosecutors, professors and journalists. The front-runner for president is campaigning beneath the dagger of possible fraud charges. Elite schools are reeling under allegations of fixed entrance exams.
And from the upper echelons of the art world to Buddhist temples, South Korean personalities are being ignominiously exposed for having faked their academic credentials to get ahead. If there was a moment that illustrated the pervasiveness of the scandals now roiling South Korea, it came with the indictment this month of Ahn Yoo-jin, accused by prosecutors of inflating her educational record in order to land a teaching job at a college.
Ahn is a professional belly dancer.
"Competition for survival has become ruthless and morality disregarded," says Kim Mun-cho, a Korea University sociologist. "In the competition to be ahead of others, people resort to any means available, resulting in corruption."
Some blame the tendency to shave corners on a cutthroat mentality that developed in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which shook Koreans' faith in an ever-expanding economy. Others contend that South Korea has never shaken off the mutual back-scratching culture of a small society, where the establishment has tight personal connections forged by blood, school or regional ties.
And some suggest that Korean society simply has an unhealthy obsession with success. "Living an ordinary life is not regarded as being successful, and staying still economically is seen as an unbearable retrogression," Kim says. "Korean society demands overachievement."
Whatever the reason, Koreans picking up a newspaper or turning on TV news these days are confronted with seemingly endless stories of bribery and cheating, influence peddling and corruption.
Scandals have always been a hallmark of South Korea's presidential elections, and the campaign that officially began this week for the Dec. 19 vote is no exception. A former business partner of Lee Myun-bak, the front-runner, was extradited to South Korea this month from Los Angeles, amid speculation he would incriminate the candidate in the alleged money laundering and stock manipulation that brought down their financial services company. Prosecutors are expected to decide next week whether to take action.
Meanwhile, the country's top official at the National Tax Service is under arrest on charges that he took $66,000 in cash from one of his deputies as part of a kickback scheme. And a Seoul court is hearing evidence against Byeon Yang-kyoon, President Roh Moo-hyun's former top policy advisor. Byeon is accused of using his influence to have a female friend hired at a Buddhist university as a professor of Western art history. He has argued that he did not know she had apparently faked her university credentials.
The woman, Shin Jeong-ah, was curator of a Seoul museum and co-director of the Gwangju Biennale, the country's premier art event. Now she has been indicted for allegedly enhancing her academic record, including claiming a nonexistent doctorate from Yale University.
The notoriety of Shin's alleged academic fictions during the summer triggered a deluge of similar embarrassing confessions. Among those accused of lying about their educational qualifications are a highly successful Buddhist monk, a prominent architect, a comic book artist, and belly dancer Ahn, whose television appearances, stage performances and chain of schools called Belly Korea had made her a minor celebrity.
"Education is the top priority in South Korea; it gives a person a sense of pride," says Choi Hyang-ok, an administrator at one of Belly Korea's schools, where she says the prevailing mood is that Ahn was a victim of jealous rivals. "That's why many people wonder, 'Should I exaggerate my credentials if I can?' "
Ahn's resume transgressions are small stuff, however, next to the allegations of comprehensive corruption made against the Samsung Group, a corporate behemoth with interests ranging from electronics to construction and shipbuilding.
According to the company's former top lawyer for seven years until 2004, Samsung has crafted a network of bribery that extends to the judiciary, government tax and finance officials, academia and the media. The attorney, Kim Yong-chol, described a system in which cash was handed over in briefcases, or disguised to look like books or CD cases.
Shielding himself behind a respected organization of Roman Catholic priests, Kim told a nationally televised news conference from a Seoul church that even the country's top prosecutors were on Samsung's payroll. The list included the government's nominee for chief prosecutor and the head of the national commission looking into corruption, he said.
