#kapa

Kapa (tapa), front and back, 1770s, 1290mm × 640mm, Hawaii, maker unknown. Gift of the Trustees of the Turnbull Estate, 1918. Te Papa (FE001475/4) (National Museum of Aotearoa-New Zealand, Wellington)

This piece of Hawaiian kapa (Hawaiian barkcloth), with three other similar pieces, are part of a small but important group of Pacific textiles presented to the Dominion Museum (Te Papa's predecessor) by the trustees of Alexander Turnbull's estate after his death. A note in the museum's register at the time indicates that at least some of these textiles were collected during the Pacific voyages of eighteenth-century English explorer James Cook. However, the Cook provenance is so far unproven.

Early examples

A large amount of kapa was collected by members of Cook's third voyage (1776-1780). Much was cut up into small pieces, which were often pasted or bound into books. The four pieces from the Turnbull collection are large compared with most known examples. They are typical of kapa collected on Cook's third voyage, which is significantly different from later Hawaiian kapa. All four pieces reflect the eighteenth-century Hawaiian practice of stitching pieces of plain barkcloth together to make much larger pieces before applying the decoration. In each case there is a neat seam on the underside.

Usage

Kapa was used for three types of clothing: men's loincloths, women's skirts (which were sometimes wrapped many times around the body), and capes or cloaks which, at a distance, rivalled the beauty of the more valuable feathered cloaks. Kapa was also used as room dividers or decorations in houses. As in other parts of Polynesia, it formed part of ceremonial presentations; some was even formally presented to Cook.

▲ Pictured: Song Sun-Keun pictured in the December 10, 1976 issue of the San Francisco Examiner

Mr. SONG: I would like to begin with a KCIA attempt to disrupt the speech engagement of Mr. Kim Dae Jung in San Francisco in May 1973 that was foiled; a KCIA-Moon Sun Myung connection through the Korean-American Political Association as early as 1970; and an assassination plot against me.

On May 18, 1973, Mr. Kim Dae Jung, sponsored by a group of Korean-American political science scholars, was to speak at the International Student Center in San Francisco. I understand you are going to question me about this, so I won't go into detail.

Mr. FRASER: Were you going to skip part of your statement?

Mr. SONG: Do you want me to read it?

Mr. FRASER: You might go through your whole statement. It might save some questions.

Mr. Young Shik Bae, a KCIA agent who also acted as vice consul at the Korean consulate general in Los Angeles, showed up with an entourage of more than 10 hoodlums from Los Angeles. Joining Vice Consul Bae were Mr. Dong Jim Kim, consul of the Korean consulate general in San Francisco and a certain Mr. Min Hi Rhee, a well-known karate instructor in the San Francisco area, and several of his karate students. Their tactic to disrupt Mr. Kim's speech was at once all too obvious to the entire audience.

As Mr. Kim began his speech, these hoodlums started to interrupt and harass the speaker. There was a commotion, shouting, and making ugly gestures and all. And they brought with them several bottles of tomato ketchup, dozens of raw eggs, and a movie camera.

The timely arrival of the San Francisco police, which resulted in removing Mr. Min Hi Rhee, saved the meeting from pandemonium. I was an eyewitness to the scene and duly reported the incident in my Korean language biweekly called the Korea Journal. Here I would like to submit the article with photos and its English translation.

Mr. FRASER: Thank you. We will make that a part of your testimony.

Mr. SONG: What surprised me was the fact that Vice Consul Bae Young Shik led this outrage openly. Furthermore, although I didn't realize at the time but later came to learn, Mr. Yang Doo Won, alias Sang Ho Lee, Minister at the Korean Embassy in Washington, D.C., who was also KCIA station chief in the United States, came to San Francisco and stayed at the Hilton Hotel, where Mr. Kim Dae Jung was staying and was the prime mover who directed that fiasco behind the scenes.

Second, I have heard that in 1970, Mr. Sang Ik Choi, a representative of Moon Sung Myung's Unification Church in the San Francisco area, received $25,000 from the Unification Church and set out to organize a Korean-American political group. Thus, the Korean-American Political Association (KAPA) was chartered in the State of California as a nonprofit corporation, and Choi set himself up as its president. Mr. Doo Whan Kim, while consul at the Korean consulate general in San Francisco, became the de facto vice president of KAPA.

The express purpose of this organization was to exert its influence on American politics, local as well as national. To date, KAPA is known to have contributed $5,000 to Gov. Jerry Brown during his 1974 gubernatorial campaign and $1,000 to Mayor Mosconi of San Francisco during his mayoral campaign in 1976. 

However, I would like to point out to you that this nonprofit U.S. corporation had an official of a foreign government as a key officer, and in addition was receiving financial support from Moon's Unification Church as early as 1970. When Mr. Sang Ik Choi was promoted to the position of fundraising manager of the Unification Church of New York, Consul Doo Whan Kim succeeded him as KAPA's president after resigning his post at the Korean consulate general.

I gained my knowledge of KAPA while serving as a consultant to the San Francisco chapter of KAPA. I have supplied the subcommittee staff with copies of several KAPA documents, concerning the relationship between KAPA and the KCIA.

Third, in May of 1973, I began publishing a local Korean language biweekly, the Korea Journal, and also was its editor-reporter. As the paper started to criticize various overt activities of the KCIA in the United States and the Park Chung Hee regime, a businessman who is a former KCIA agent approached me and indicated that he would help the Korea Journal to expand if its coverage were confined to local matters—in his words, if it became a "pleasant community bulletin board." I declined the offer.

Then I received a substantial offer to purchase the Korea Journal. This offer came to me indirectly through close acquaintances of my family. I told them the paper was not for sale. At the time, I was having considerable financial difficulty. I was approached for the third time again through some close friends with an offer to engage in profitable trade with Korea. It was all too obvious to me that such offers were made to divert my attention and activities away from my critical stand on Korean politics. I refused.

On separate occasions, two old friends of my father, Mr. Il Kwon Chung, the Speaker of the Korean National Assembly, and Mr. Han Lim Lee, the Minister of Construction, sought out my father and tried to persuade him to change his views on the Park regime. My father is a Methodist minister, whose views on the Park regime could not be changed by these visitors.

After all these "friendly" attempts and offers were turned down, I began to receive telephone calls threatening my life. I reported these telephone calls to the local police and wrote about them in the Korea Journal. I would like to submit a 1974 San Francisco Examiner article for your reference.

The threatening calls backfired because I became more vocal than ever. Then Mr. Man Sung Limb, a KCIA agent at the Korean consulate general in San Francisco, came up with a plot to assassinate me. In order to save time, I would like to submit for your files copies of articles which appeared in the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Times, Berkeley Barb, and the San Mateo Times that covered this plot. I am also submitting a tape recording and its transcript in translation of a personal interview with one of the witnesses who was present at the time Consul Limb discussed this plot.

Needless to say, such KCIA harassment and threats would be illegal acts in this country even if I were not a U.S. citizen, and these acts should be duly condemned.

Related articles below