| Show Korea confronts spate of phony resumes Blaine Harden The Washington Post An epidemic of phony academic credentials has broken out in South Korea a nation where calibrations of human worth arc are obsessively tied to college achievement Admired performers beloved media personalities assorted scholars and a revered Buddhist monk have been exposed as time long-time resume In most cases they have confessed their sins and asked for public absolution When I was young and was making my my liv living ng singing commercial jingles I lied and for the next 30 years that lie has been troubling my conscience confessed Yo Yoon on Suk-hwa Suk 51 a famed and versatile actress who has been called South Koreas Korea's Meryl The fhe state state prosecutors prosecutors prosecutor's office h has s launched it a a nationwide i investigation this summer into fabricated degrees plagiarized doctoral theses and forged test certificates It has asked tipsters to call in with information Even if you are accomplished in Korea people are constantly asking about your college degrees said Whang Sang-min Sang a professor of psychology at University in Seoul You have constant pressure to fake it In an online statement Yoon said last month that she faked it to enhance her career She said she falsely stated on a resume that she attended the prestigious Womans University The lie took on a life of its own after she became well known She was invited to speak at the university's chapel where she recounted her supposed college memories Like Yoon many of the fakers who have been this summer are prosperous and middle Until their lies became public they occupied solid perches in inthe inthe inthe the Korean establishment They invented academic achievements three decades ago when this prosperous nation now the worlds world's II largest th-largest economy was still recovering from the economic and cultural devastation of the 53 1950 Korean War It was a time when traditional social structures had largely collapsed when a college credential had become the preeminent measure of individual worth and when it was terribly hard to get into a good university Unless you you finished college you were not really a decent human being in this society said Whang who has a doctorate in psychology from Harvard and studies South Korean popular culture For actors and for singers it was the same If you had a degree people appreciated your acting and singing more Whang said a sizable number of ambitious talented Koreans who failed to get into the right university wrote fiction in resume form to grab a secure rung in this credentials- credentials crazed culture For many years no one checked them out A university credential in South Korea could even enhance the perceived holiness of ofa a Buddhist monk and attract hordes of followers to his meditation center Venerable Ji Gwang 57 who presides over a large and prosperous meditation center in an upscale area of Seoul said as much last month when he admitted that he lied on a long-ago long resume It falsely said he had attended Seoul National University this country's top-rated top public college People swarmed in because they heard that a monk who had gone to a distinguished university was teaching the scriptures in English Ji ii Gwang said at a news conference last month His meditation center has grown phenomenally since the mid from froma a handful of members to more than In a reluctant interview this week inside the center the monk said his resume problems occurred when I was still in the secular world He falsified his resume when applying for a newspaper job in the thel l This is now irrelevant for forme forme forme me as a practicing monk he said in the interview which came after aver he had delivered a long lecture on ecological responsibility to toa toa toa a hall packed with attentive middle-aged middle women He said he expected his scandal to blow over I Iam Iam Iam am just waiting for time timeto to pass pass For his followers at the meditation center i it seems enough time has already passed During the interview several expressed anger at questionS questionS' bout about the the the- degree and repeatedly asked Ithe i ithe the reporter to leave The passage of time though is unlikely to help others in worlds of South Korea There are rumblings here that fraudulent academic credentials are widespread among Christian ministers Credentials are a big big problem said Rev Joseph o Park a director of the Christian Council of Korea an umbrella group for the churches of a nation where about 30 percent of 49 million people are Christian It may soon be revealed that very famous ranking high-ranking church officials have faked their credentials For ministers there are financial as well as social incentives to pump up college achievements Successful churches together with their senior ministers can become wealthy drawing on the tithing of prosperous congregations whose members value the wisdom of preachers with college credentials Not everyone who has been accused of faking credentials has admitted a mistake and asked for forgiveness Most notable among the unrepentant is Shin Jeong-ah Jeong 35 an art history professor professor-at Seoul's University Uni She li was a rising s star ar in Seoul society and the youngest- youngest ever artistic director of a a. a major arts festival She had a doctoral degree from Yale and bachelors bachelor's and masters master's degrees from the University of Kansas on her resume Yale however told the Associated Press that she never attended the university |
