CHEONAN, South Chungcheong Province- A class of 25 sings along to a K-pop song by Ahn Chi-hwan, aided by a little ball that bounces from word to word on a big screen at the head of the class. The teacher motions her hand to her ear, inviting the convicts to sing louder. They enthusiastically oblige. Some clap their hands; everyone moves rhythmically in their chairs.

If it weren’t for the prison-issued navy-blue jumpsuits, it would be hard to tell them apart from any other tourists in the country. The class is part of Cheonan Foreigner Prison’s “Good Morning Korea” program. The students are all foreign convicts at what the Ministry of Justice touts as the sole foreigner-only prison in the world.

Leading the song today is professor Jung Yoon-ja.

“This program’s goal is to help foreign prisoners better understand Korea and adjust to living in Korea. We hope that foreign prisoners spread the good image of Korea when they get back to their country,” Jung said after the class. “We also hope that foreign prisoners will open their minds and have smiles on their faces while taking this program.”

Good Morning Korea is a big part of each weekday morning here. Run in collaboration with Dankuk University, instructors from the university come in to teach prisoners the Korean language and culture through song and stories.

Officials feel that communication is very important and focus on teaching to improve the prison’s environment. The main morning teaching point is “We are one family.”

Jung also said the prisoners are adapting well to the classes and seem to be enjoying them more now than they had been in the beginning. She feels it is effective to teach Korean language and culture using fairy tales, K-pop songs, and arts and crafts.

On Feb. 23 the Ministry of Justice held a tree planting ceremony for the opening of the Cheonan Foreigner Prison. Long pushed by the ministry as being the proper response to rising incidences of crime committed by foreigners in Korea, Minister of Justice Lee Kwi-nam gave the opening address.

“The Cheonan foreigner-only prison is opened to give foreign prisoners specialized treatment. In light of the fact that foreign prisoners have different languages, customs, cultures and religions, we will give them humanitarian treatment according to universal values,” said Lee.

A press release sent out by the ministry after the opening highlighted the rise in crime, pointing out that since 2006, foreign crime has risen by 250 percent in Korea, though the Korean Institute of Criminology reported in 2007 that the foreigner crime rate in Korea was 1.4 percent, compared with the 3.5 percent rate among Korean citizens.

The minister of justice’s sentiments were repeated, more or less, in point form by the director of the International Affairs Division, Ha Young-hoon, while on the tour of the prison. Adding to the list of reasons, however, was the rationalization that if prisoners from abroad are treated better in Korea, Korean prisoners in other countries may be treated better as well.

Inmates

Within Korea, there are 1,504 foreign prisoners from 42 countries. Of the total, the Cheonan prison holds 587 from 27 countries. On paper it sounds like a cultural mosaic of law breakers, but in reality the inmates are 74 percent Chinese -- including Taiwanese. At the time of the tour, there were 20 Americans and one Canadian. Of the approximately 200 Korean prisoners being housed here, guards said that 100 are awaiting trial and another 100 serve as kitchen and cleaning staff.

The prison seems focused on keeping the inmates busy through different activities and programs. Throughout a typical week, the schedule starts at 8 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m. Inmates spend weekends and holidays within their cells. During the tour, prisoners were playing sports, learning gardening and how to cut hair, in addition to the Dankuk University program.

Besides exercise, Cheonan breaks its work into vocational skill training and factory work production. The hope for the numerous vocational training programs is to prepare prisoners to re-enter society, says Ha. The challenge he says is to provide prisoners with training that is useful in their home countries.

“Different work situations in inmates’ home countries have led some to complain about the usefulness of our programs,” said Ha.

Factory work is another option in the prison. At Cheonan, inmates make both contractible beds and fish noodles, “odeng.”

Facilities

Walking around the prison grounds feels surprisingly relaxed given the reality of the location. Because Cheonan was a juvenile correctional facility before the foreigners were moved in, it has more of a school-like feel to it. This was emphasized by the guards during the tour. Are the murals depicting nature scenes remnants from the juvenile prison? No, said the guards. University art professors were brought in to paint them.

Pasted on each stairway and above many of the doors are slogans: “The past can’t be change but the future can always be altered,” and, “A clear conscience is a good pillow.” The messages are in English and Chinese.

The cell blocks are painted in pastel colors with clouds on them. With the exception of the large walls and jumpsuits, everything seems to be painted in light tones. The cells themselves are 6.48 square meters for one person and 15.48 square meters for five. Each cell has a TV with pre-approved programming for the inmates’ home countries and snacks such as apples and ramen are permitted to be kept in the assigned individual cubby holes. Each cell has the ability to be monitored electronically, but permission has to be obtained from the warden and a valid reason has to be provided.

Overseeing the prison is a group of 200 guards. Some of the guards speak foreign languages such as English, Spanish, Chinese and Russian. They don’t have weapons on them, but they say that if trouble were to break out, they are close at hand.

“The foreign inmates are actually easier to handle than Korean inmates. They listen more,” said Ha.

When asked if there are cultural difficulties between the guards and the prisoners, Ha said that there were fears initially. He said that some guards hesitated to work at a foreigner-only prison because of that question. That being said, things have gone relatively smoothly since the opening.

Different view

Though the Ministry of Justice, the guards and the instructors at the prison all seem happy with the new arrangement, former Daejon Prison inmate and current author Cullen Thomas has a different take.

Thomas feels that segregating foreigners from Korean convicts is counterintuitive and causes cultural learning the prison is trying to foster to be negated by something artificial. Thomas served three-and-a-half years in prison during the mid-90s for mailing himself hash from the Philippines and has since gone on to become a writer. He also penned the book “Brother One Cell,” which is an account of his time spent behind bars.

“I always felt that so much of the true value, both in terms of challenge and reward, of my Korean prison experience rested in living in that extreme and most basic way with Koreans, learning and speaking Korean, sharing bowls of kimchi and rice, and ramen with them, hearing their stories, seeing a picture of Korean society, even Korean history, through them,” says Thomas. “And beyond that, suffering with them -- whether we deserved it or not, and most of us did -- which remains, I believe, part of the core of the Korean national character, that sense of shared suffering.”

As for the programs offered at the prison, Thomas says they don’t ring true to him. He feels that most activities are just frivolities to pass the time. Though, he says that for the guards, harmless ways of engaging inmates always have some value.

Delving further into his thoughts Thomas says that “at work are some powerful forces; national pride, not wanting to reveal the native underbelly to foreigners, wanting to treat foreigners -- even law-breaking ones -- with some privilege or at least with separate consideration, to treat them somehow -- even in prison -- as guests in Korea.

“During my time I often felt that the authorities, from individual guards all the way up to the justice ministry itself, didn‘t quite know what to do with us. I get the feeling that this is still the case.” 

By Adam Walsh (adamwalsh@heraldcorp.com)