Online Campaigns Aim for Correct Information on Korea

About 15,000 members of the Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK), backed also by 3,000 foreign members, have waged an online campaign to help foreigners have a better understanding of Korea.

The non-governmental group has sent emails to operators of Web sites worldwide to persuade them to use the correct Korean geographical names of Tokto for the easternmost islets and the East Sea for the sea between Korea and Japan.

To encourage more Koreans to join the online campaign, VANK began airing an ad on Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) on Friday.

``Some people often play down our efforts, calling us a group of nationalists,íí VANKís planning director Park Gi-tae said.

``Our ultimate goal is to help Koreans, often considered isolated from the world, to become friends with people everywhere. And we want to introduce them to our nation exactly as it is. Our campaign is based on this idea,íí he added.

According to Park, Korea has often been introduced to the world from the perspectives of neighboring countries, which were in many cases distorted due to geopolitical reasons.

``Of course, Koreans themselves are to blame for insufficient publicity efforts, but some countries, such as Japan and China, bluntly prevented the world from seeing Korea as it is by trying to depict the nationsí history and territory as their own,íí the 32-year-old director said.

His remarks came after Japanese Ambassador Toshiyuki Takano claimed last Wednesday that the Tokto islets are legally and historically Japanese territory.

The easternmost islets are referred to as Takeshima in Japanese.

Members of the Shimane Prefecture council submitted a bill for establishing a prefectural ordinance to designate Feb. 22 as ``Takeshima Dayíí in an apparent attempt to stake claim to the islets.

``They are nothing new, though,íí Park said. ``The Tokto islests have been widely known to the world as Korean territory for a long time, ever since being recorded as belonging to the Silla Kingdom in 512. But the Japanese government has kept up its claim of sovereignty over Tokto.

``However, Japanís effort will reach the point where it doesnít work someday, as the voice of the nation comes mainly from the government side, in comparison to Korea whose efforts are led by the people. We will keep urging our members and all Korean people to join our efforts.íí

VANK volunteers have also appealed to countries and organizations to correct any false information about Korea on their Web sites, particularly information saying that any part of Koreaís history and territory is Chinese.

``For the past six years, we have succeeded in persuading operators of 310 major Web sites of foreign governments and institutions to depict Korea correctly,íí Park said.

The number may appear small, but the effects have been spreading to other Web sites that post information about Korea.

For instance, Europeís largest map distributor Multimap, recently ceased labeling Tokto as Takeshima at the request of VANK. It has 7.3 million members worldwide who refer to the world map on their Web sites.

Park said the groupís biggest triumph so far is getting the National Geographic Society to change the labeling of the Sea of Japan to the East Sea on its Web site.

According to him, its members joined e-mailing campaigns to the company from 2000. At last, VANK received the companyís promise to correct the misinformation. The following year, the National Geographic Society made the change.

``Until then, we thought it was just the governmentís job to rectify distorted history. But the achievement gave us confidence to keep on with our work,íí Park added.

However, their efforts have met countermoves from the countries concerned. Recently, it was reported that the Japanese government had requested international airline companies such as Delta, Northwest, Air France, Air Canada, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines to use the Sea of Japan instead of the East Sea.

Several weeks ago, the VANK succeeded in receiving a pledge from Jeppesen, a world leading supplier of flight information charts, to write both names on its charts.

``The Web site of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan shows how sensitive the nation is to us, hinting at their movement,íí Park added.

The Web site reports on VANKís e-mail campaigns to foreign mass media and corporations.

Tokyo has begun to take countermeasures and has succeeded in convincing some institutions to reverse their corrections.

The group, however, shows no signs of retreating.

``We will keep working on our campaign to talk to more than 700 foreign government agencies or companies into adopting the East Sea,íí Park said.

VANK, whose small office is located in Sindang-dong, Seoul, initiated its work in 1999 with just five full-time employees, including Park.

``Even if weíve only got five full-timers, some 18,000 other members help us, weíre doing fine without more in-office workers,íí Park said, explaining about its lack of recruitment. ``But, having no money to hire people may be an honest reason for that,íí he said, jokingly.

A lifetime membership to VANK is 20,000 won, and is all the funds they take in for operating the office.

``Itís not a lot of money, you see,íí Park says. ``But we manage with that and sometimes some other donations. We donít think that will discourage our efforts or our vision. We believe there might be a way out.íí

Even with little money, VANK is running a total of nine programs such as making five pen-pals per each member, correcting false information about Korea, promoting friendship exchanges with school classrooms from other countries, building a database of publicity contents of Korea and publishing an online and offline newspaper, called the PR Korea Times.

``Actually, a campaign for correcting fallacies on Korea is just part of our activities. Itís not our priority,íí Park said. ``Our initial and most important aim is letting Koreans make friends with foreigners, thus showing a `Friendly Koreaí to the world.íí

VANK, which started as a pen-pal community in 1999, has focused on the friendship exchange program with overseas schools.

``We are aware that some people criticize us as nothing but nationalists who give one-sided facts to foreigners, but it is a misconception, because people only hear about us when the media focuses on part of our work,íí Park said.