Koreans

Giant Korean fan dancers will roll down the route of the 99th Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year's Day, waving their mechanical arms and heralding the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul. But the Korean-American community's first-ever entry in the Pasadena rite will carry another message as well--that the Korean community is a flowering, integral part of American society. "The Korean community locally is getting stronger and in the United States as a whole. . . .

Members of the Korean Chamber of Commerce have renewed their efforts to build a pair of cement monuments on Garden Grove Boulevard, after years of trying to find an identity for the Korean-dominated section of town. If the group can win approval from a previously reluctant City Council, the cement signs will formally identify the strip between Brookhurst Street and Beach Boulevard as the Korean Business District.

An emotional debate over the proposed signs to designate a strip of Garden Grove Boulevard as the city's Korean Business District ended Monday night without a decision from the City Council. Members of the Korean Chamber of Commerce of Orange County renewed their controversial efforts to install two cement monument signs on the boulevard in an effort to bring attention to the highly concentrated Korean business area.

For many students, summer is a time of lazy vacations or temporary jobs. For a group of scholars from Korea, this summer will find them studying music at Cal State Northridge. Beginning today, 60 students from the Seoul Superior Conservatory will spend five weeks in private sessions with CSUN music faculty. The group of students, which includes pianists, vocalists, guitarists and composers, will also participate in classroom discussions on subjects such as music technology.

A group of 44 men, women and children -- most or all of them North Koreans -- used ladders to scramble over a spiked fence around the Canadian Embassy in Beijing in an apparent bid for asylum, Canadian officials said. One man was stopped by police. A South Korean news report said all 44 were North Koreans. In Ottawa, however, a Canadian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman said that most of those who gained access to the embassy were North Koreans.

"Drawing the Line: Visa Frustrations Prompt South Koreans to Take Money Elsewhere" (Sept. 12) was incorrect in implying the visa requirement discourages South Koreans traveling to the United States. On the contrary, as your own statistics show, the number of visitors from South Korea has more than doubled in the last five years. In fiscal year 1995, the U.S. Embassy in Seoul issued over 400,000 non-immigrant visas, more than any other U.S. Embassy worldwide. Korean tourism to the U.S. has risen at least 20% annually over the last six years.

North Korea said Friday it will pay a bonus of one month's wages to all workers, technicians and office employees in June before the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students opens in Pyongyang in July. The bonus will be paid "in appreciation of the feats performed by the working class and other laboring people in the past 200-day campaigns," the report by the official Korean Central News Agency said. Officials say 30,000 people from more than 170 countries are expected for the July 1-8 festival, a major political, cultural and sports event involving mostly Communist and Third World nations.

Having undisputed light heavyweight champion Roy Jones Jr. fight in Los Angeles for the first time in his career would be good enough for most local boxing fans. But Jones' title defense against Julio Gonzalez at Staples Center on July 28 is not the fight many in boxing will be watching closely. They'll be looking at the undercard pairing of World Boxing Council featherweight champion Erik Morales against Injin Chi, the WBC's No. 1 contender.

Re "North Korea's not our problem," Opinion, Oct. 11 Last I heard, South Korea was a valued, trusted and friendly ally of the United States, an important part of the world economy and the originating country of many good American citizens, including a lot of our neighbors in Southern California. North Korea is not our problem? What better message to send Koreans and our other allies that America cannot be trusted to come to the aid of its allies, as well as live up to its treaty obligations.

Twenty years ago, they came to Dr. Man Chul Cho suffering from symptoms of hwa-byung, the "anger sickness" of Korean folklore: They couldn't sleep, felt anxious and depressed, had muscle aches and stomach pains. They had survived the riots, but couldn't forget. Some were considered fierce defenders -- they'd battled looters in public shootouts. Others had been all but invisible, pleading vainly for help from police while their shops burned. They were so angry, bewildered and frightened that they were willing to buck custom and culture and trust a stranger for therapy.