tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-364058562024-03-18T07:07:54.040-04:00Ask a Korean!Answering Questions Since 2006.T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.comBlogger1074125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-87670426902104930222021-06-15T23:51:00.002-04:002021-06-16T17:01:26.661-04:00Kim's Convenience, RIP<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHgNI7XnDF8MF6KTIe3Hnhf1W8kURtJuT_n88m1OAv1msnih6p-GU4CeCUf6ZKSo3O1wCtrgyye3gGNAIflQvGtM1TANmmU0XtGshVIDdq2mXlDq3I_GgD6u-WCb1r83dhLTUz/s1024/01kim-tv1-jumbo.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="696" data-original-width="1024" height="436" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHgNI7XnDF8MF6KTIe3Hnhf1W8kURtJuT_n88m1OAv1msnih6p-GU4CeCUf6ZKSo3O1wCtrgyye3gGNAIflQvGtM1TANmmU0XtGshVIDdq2mXlDq3I_GgD6u-WCb1r83dhLTUz/w640-h436/01kim-tv1-jumbo.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/dining/kims-convenience.html">source</a>)</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">It's been announced that the Canadian sitcom Kim's Convenience is ending after its fifth and latest season, but to me, the show ended around Season 3. TKWife and I dutifully carried on with the show through Season 4, but in truth, we both knew we were going through the motions for the sake of expressing solidarity with North America's Korean diaspora. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">How could we not carry on? TKWife's family is the real life version of Kim's Convenience. My in-laws have owned a liquor store in Washington DC for decades. The first episode of Kim's Convenience - the Gay Discount - had put us on the floor. In that episode, which was also the show's pilot, the patriarch of the family showed mild discomfort with gay people while working at the store. After the father Appa was called out for it, he institutes a "gay discount" during Pride in order to dispel any claim of bigotry.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">To us, this was not a sitcom but a documentary. My elderly in-laws are devout Evangelical Christians and they are certainly not comfortable around gay people. Yet Pride Parade is an unofficial holiday at the liquor store, because it is bar none the year's best sales week. Have you ever seen extremely conservative Korean elderly couple, grinning from ear to ear with genuine happiness upon seeing a battalion of gay men in risque clothing? It's high comedy, and now the world saw what we see each year.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Gay Discount episode, to date, is among the most brilliant portrayals of the contradiction in our Korean diaspora lives that I have ever seen. We are coded as POC, and assumed to fit into the liberal side of the politics along with Blacks and Latinos. But our lives in reality don't map neatly onto the typical racial politics. When the expectations that our society has of us don't match our actual behavior, something's got to give to mend the rupture. Either we awkwardly change our behavior or the people around us awkwardly change their behavior, and hilarity ensures.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Unfortunately, the first episode was the peak of Kim's Convenience. None of the other episodes managed to capture the pilot's brilliance, while some were pockmarked with low moments. The character of Nayoung - the Kim family's cousin from Korea visiting Toronto - was genuinely offensive and racist. While Kim's Convenience broke new ground in the mainstream television by showing Korean Canadians as ordinary, everyday people, the Nayoung character from Korea was a grotesque <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=kim%27s+convenience+nayoung&rlz=1C1CHBF_koUS723US724&sxsrf=ALeKk00ilpqZVahhyHA2VH0jYExdReA6qQ:1623815059022&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjs_pe-npvxAhUPhuAKHX23B20Q_AUoAnoECAEQBA&biw=900&bih=1432#imgrc=iFXLPTuc25SiYM">caricature</a>, with ridiculously dyed hair, high-pitched falsetto voice and jumpy mannerism. I saw more than a few Koreans in Korea quit the show immediately upon seeing the character: "So <i>that</i>'s how gyopos see us? They're normal and we're some kind of freaks?"</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Fueled by the good memory of the first episode, TKWife and I persevered. But doing so required turning off parts of our brains and deliberately overlooking things that would never happen in a Korean diaspora family in North America, like the first generation immigrant parents speaking English to each other and with their best friends who are Chinese and Indian. I know expectations are different between a lighthearted sitcom and an arthouse movie, but it still seems worth noting <i>Minari</i> won an Oscar with the movie being acted out almost entirely in Korean. Plus, there is an under-explored comedy gold mine in the way in which diaspora Koreans strategically deploy their home language and English. Why not push the envelope further?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In fact, the show missed an even greater opportunity that could have pushed it to an entirely new level. Kim's Convenience could have built a whole season just based on the Kim family's church life, where the cross-currents are the fiercest between the Kims' POC status and their genteel Christian sensibilities. When Pastor Nina character appeared in episode nine, I had thought to myself - oh shit, they did it. They put a Black woman pastor at a Korean American church. I held my breath in anticipation: how will the Kims react? Where are they trying to take this? </p><p style="text-align: justify;">As it turned out, they didn't take it anywhere. Pastor Nina's race and gender never became a plot device, as if it was a perfectly common and everyday thing for a Black woman to be the lead pastor of a Korean church full of first generation immigrants. Why put Pastor Nina character there, if she was going to be treated like a pastor who is a Korean man? The show had five seasons to capitalize on the contradictions of desiring a safe space in a new land and the new land's demand for diversity and inclusion, and it never did.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">By Season 4, the show was a wreck that attempted to be the lesser version of <i>The Office</i> and <i>Friends.</i> going through the awful sitcom death spiral where everyone dates everyone simply because the showrunners ran out of ideas. The show meandered through the least interesting part of the Kim family's world, namely the rental car shop where the Kim family's son Jung works. The show is called Kim's Convenience, but nothing really happened at the convenience store anymore. There will be a <a href="https://time.com/6072074/kims-convenience-racism/">spin-off</a> of Kim's Convenience based on the character of Shannon, the white love interest of Jung who also works at the rental car shop which only begs the question: why does the ground-breaking Korean Canadian show insist on going to the least Korean space within the show and focus on the least Korean character?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Only recently did we come to <a href="https://time.com/6072074/kims-convenience-racism/">learn</a> that none of the writers for the show was Korean, and the sole Korean Canadian presence Ins Choi, who originally created the concept for the show, was not very involved. The stars of the show are mad as hell at the way it ended. For my part, I'm mostly sad about the unrealized potential of the pilot.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</p>T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-65807116748318147022021-03-24T13:54:00.004-04:002021-03-24T20:19:47.052-04:00Asian America after the Atlanta Shooting<div style="text-align: justify;">Even though we were together, each member of my immigrant family—father, mother, me, and my younger brother—went through his or her own individual journey of immigrant life. Only recently have I come to appreciate how remarkable my mother’s journey was.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Born in 1952 and growing up in a small city in Korea, she faced the ambient sexism of the time that demanded that women be uneducated and obedient housewives. My mother overcame that prevailing current of her life with outstanding intellect and flinty determination. In a time when higher education was a pipe dream even for most Korean men, she left home and attended a teacher’s college on a full scholarship. There, she learned English, and won a grant that put her in a study abroad program in New Zealand, in all likelihood making her the first Korean woman who visited the country from her small town. Unlike most of her peers, she was college educated, internationally sophisticated, and had a successful professional career as a teacher at a prestigious private high school.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Our immigration was her idea. She saw that her two sons were chafing at the restrictive Korean school system, and wanted us to be in a freer atmosphere. She was unafraid to move to an entirely new country at 45 years old, well into her middle age. But our migration was ill-timed: the East Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, and our unscrupulous immigration attorney, wiped out much our family’s net worth. We lived in a series of crappy little houses in Southern California, dealing with nasty landlords who never fixed any broken thing. My brother and I would wait for a once-a-week special from the neighborhood McDonald’s, when it would sell ten hamburgers for 99 cents. For years, that was the only treat we could have, because cheeseburgers were too expensive.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Our run-down life deeply wounded my mother’s pride. In our early days in the US, she spent days in a cold-burning rage because a well-meaning neighbor lady suggested that my mother should find work, and the Korean supermarket nearby was hiring a cashier. <i>Cashier</i>, my mother spat the word with contempt, as if she was firing a spent chewing tobacco into a spittoon. <i>Do I look like a cashier?</i> When our fancy furniture and dinnerware finally arrived from Seoul after months of shipping, my mother made a point of serving tea to the neighborhood lady in our nicest tea set, just to make clear that despite her current conditions, she was simply not the type of person who worked at a supermarket.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Instead, my mother did what she does best: she studied to be a teacher, again. At age 48, she passed the exam to earn the teacher’s credential for the State of California. She began as a substitute teacher, then was hired as a full-time teacher, teaching Korean in high schools throughout the Los Angeles County. By the time she retired, she was teaching at the magnet high school in our town, the one for which my brother and I were too stupid to attend. We would joke that, in our immigration that was done for the sake of education, mom was the biggest winner of our family.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All this is to say: my remarkable immigrant mother would refuse to be associated with the Korean American masseuses who were killed in Atlanta last week.</div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">On March 16, a deranged racist attacked several Asian American owned spas in the Atlanta metro area, killing eight. Six were Asian American women. The killer claimed that he was a sex addict who wanted to “eliminate temptation”—a claim that’s not only disgusting but also bitterly ironic, because those spas were not brothels, nor were the murdered women sex workers. The four Korean American victims, who were masseuses and helps at the spas, were aged 74, 69, 63 and 51. The shooting served as a terrible allegory of the increasing amount of violence that Asian Americans have been facing in the past year: an act of violence occurring at a racialized space (an “Asian massage parlor”), targeted against the most vulnerable demographics, namely women and the elderly.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">(More after the jump.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Reacting to the shocking killing, Asian American writers and thought leaders have been airing out the numerous different manners in which they were discriminated, reaching high and low, from all kinds of angles. Asian American <a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU10/20210318/111343/HHRG-117-JU10-Wstate-LeeE-20210318-U23.pdf">historians</a> drew a throughline of violence against Asian Americans stretching back for 150 years, starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act and going through the lynching of Chinese rail workers, the Japanese American Internment, the murder of Vincent Chin and the racist violence against South Asians post 9/11. Asian American foreign policy <a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/03/21/our-anti-china-foreign-policy-is-fueling-violence-against-asian-americans/">experts</a> said the US’s adversarial posture against China is contributing to anti-Asian American hate crimes. Congressman Andy Kim <a href="https://twitter.com/AndyKimNJ/status/1373282037122097153">shared</a> a story in which the State Department pre-emptively denied him from an assignment regarding North Korea because of his Korean heritage. Connie Chung <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2021/03/21/chung-media-was-miserably-late-to-covering-anti-asian-hate.cnn">lamented</a> that the media was “miserably late” in covering anti-Asian violence, because news rooms were not interested in Asian American stories.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Asian American women writers <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-atlanta-shooting-and-the-dehumanizing-of-asian-women">pointed</a> out that racist violence against Asians often take on misogynistic forms, as the American image of Asians is sexualized. Several Asian American writers <a href="https://twitter.com/mjmichellekim/status/1372996262790721539">noted</a> that the police mangled the names of the Asian American victims, and the mainstream US society’s inability to deal with Asian names was another form of subtle violence. Pop culture writers connected the mainstream media’s stereotypical depiction of Asians—<a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/racism-bts-continues-to-face-is-part-of-larger-anti-asian-xenophobia-op-ed">including</a> K-pop superstars like BTS—with the American society’s continued treatment of Asian Americans as foreigners. Many Asian Americans shared their own story of racist violence and intimidation—slurs hurled at them, racist gestures made at them, or microaggressions like being mistaken for a different Asian person, reminding them that Americans did not see them as one of their own.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All fair points, and I personally experienced several of them. I know my Asian American history, I adopted a Christian name for the sake of easier pronunciation, and people at my workplace frequently assume I’m just visiting US from one of the Asia offices of my company. But even as I nod along in empathy at each rendition of these stories, I come away with a nagging feeling that these stories are inadequate. It’s good to have these stories out there. But it’s not good <i>enough</i>, when the stories we told have settled into the ground, and there we see eight dead bodies.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div> <br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Many have argued that the horrific tragedy of Atlanta shooting may give rise to a new and unified political consciousness for Asian Americans. I would like that result, but I’m not so sure if it will happen.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When the news of the shooting broke, I was revisiting what I consider the best <a href="https://slownews.kr/73438">article</a> about migration into South Korea, titled Globalization Through the Eyes of Rural Areas by writer Im Myeong-muk. Im recalls that as he grew up in a small town in Korea, the first non-Koreans he met were migrant laborers and mail order brides from China, Vietnam, Pakistan and Central Asia who spoke survival level Korean. Then, as he was undergoing a doctorate at a prestigious university in Seoul, the composition of foreigners he met changed dramatically: they were usually white people from US, Canada or Europe, speaking exclusively English. Seeing this disparity, Im said Korea was undergoing two different types of globalization:</div><blockquote>The globalization is happening in two separate worlds: one inhabited by people who speak fluent English and travel to cities around the world, and the other inhabited by people who survive with physical labor, working in rural areas far outside of the capital city. … <br /><br />The gap between the two worlds will only continue to grow. Korea’s urban middle class will want to raise their children in an international atmosphere, and Seoul, the attractive metropolis, will continue to draw people from all over the world. Meanwhile, most of the rural areas will face extinction [because of population decline], and will increasingly rely on foreign migrant labor as the last resort. In this situation, I worry that the people of the “upper globalization” will not understand those in the “lower globalization.” </blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">South Korea is thousands of miles away from the United States, and its history of immigration is short compared to the United States’. Nonetheless, the description of the two globalizations struck at the heart of my discomfort. What if, instead of imagining “Asian America” as a unitary body traveling through history, we imagined it as a story of different streams of migrations, collecting eventually into two pools?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The discourse about Asian America rests on the two pillars of cliches. First, Asian Americans are the successful “model minority,” and second, Asian Americans are not a monolith. Asian Americans are more educated and disproportionately represented in the high-earning white-collar profession, but Asian Americans are simultaneously less educated and poor. This apparent contradiction is typically explained in terms of Asian Americans’ national origin: for example, Cambodians, Laos, Hmong and Vietnamese <a href="https://www.nhpr.org/post/asian-americans-smart-high-incomes-and-poor#stream/0">immigrated</a> to the US as war refugees, while Filipino nurses and Indian software engineers arrived at the US already as middle class.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But a story of Asian America based on “two globalizations” paints a more accurate picture than the one based on national origin. Some immigrants, and/or their children, have the wherewithal to plug themselves into the service industry that forms the upper crust of the US economy. Other immigrants, and/or their children, do not, and are swept into a different flow of migration that follows the demands for physical labor or, frequently among women, companionship with American men. (Of the six Asian American <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56446771">women</a> slain in Atlanta, at least two—Xiaojie Tan and Yong Ae Yue—moved to the United States because they married an American man traveling their part of the country.) Even if we just focused on ethnic Koreans, tons of Korean Americans are doctors and lawyers and engineers, and tons of Korean Americans are manual laborers and sex workers and subsistence-level small business owners.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here, we are presented with the core of problem, a more granular look at the issue that is clumsily labeled with the cliché that Asian America is not a monolith. It would be enough to say that America is not a monolith. It would be enough to say that Asian Americans are divided in the same way Americans are divided, with bourgeois and professional-managerial class (PMC) on one hand and the labor class on the other. What distinguishes the division of Asian America is not the major fault lines, but the many factors that add to the severity of the division—the fact that Asian Americans come from different countries, different languages, different histories.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Im Myeong-muk wrote: “I worry that the people of the upper globalization will not understand those in the lower globalization.” As applied to Asian America, I have the same worry.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I empathize with the fact that Asian Americans are grieving, and airing out the litany of abuses we have taken—historical injustice, denial of career advancement, random racist slurs from the street—is a part of that mourning process. But as days go past, I worry that those mourning words, the intellectual expression of an outburst of grief, would solidify into a plan of action—and that plan, for all of its good intentions, will not be good enough. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if, as a result of this shooting, more people watched the PBS documentary on Asian American history, read Joy Luck Club, put another Asian face into the next big superhero movie, or even learn to pronounce the names of their Asian American colleagues correctly. But they are not <i>enough</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Seeing Asian America as two globalizations clarifies the fact that all this historicizing and intellectualizing are much more relevant to the members of the upper globalization: the Asian Americans who speak English, who work in a white-collar job, who can get their words printed on the New York Times and the Washington Post. (Obviously that includes me.) Too often, our historicizing and intellectualizing are articulated through the trite cliches of white liberalism, about how it is all about white supremacy, US imperialism, or misogyny. That may be, but that’s not nearly all of it. Failure to recognize this truth leads to a kind of trickle-down social justice theory—that if we made one more Asia-themed Marvel movie, spent one more hour of high school history class talking about Vincent Chin, or promote one more Asian American investment banker to being a managing director, that will stop the bullets directed at Asian American masseuses.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If there truly is to be solidarity among Asian Americans, more is required. The privileged members of the upper globalization must set their sights beyond their own racialized pain arising from slurs, microaggression, or delay in career advancement, and stare into the racialized pain that we are much less likely to experience. In our suburban homes and our drives to the office, we are much less likely to spend an extended amount of time in a racialized space (like Asian-owned massage shop), be exposed to police brutality (as was the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/11/nyregion/sex-workers-massage-parlor.html">case</a> with Yang Song in New York), be under constant threat of deportation through this country’s appallingly inhumane immigration system, or just be poor and broke.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We must also recognize that pan-Asian solidarity is much easier to imagine when it only involves people like us, the members of the upper globalization. My mother is 69 years old, around the same age as three of the slain Korean women. You might think my mother would have an easy time empathizing with the spa workers, because they are all first-generation immigrants from the same country, speaking the same language, belonging to the same age group, even belonging to the same socioeconomic class within the United States. But no.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My mother, like many other low-income first-generation immigrants, is not of the labor class; rather, she is a temporarily embarrassed PMC. She, and the vast swath of the Korean American community who think like her, will not find solidarity with whom they see as lower-class women who touch people for living. Young Asian Americans, look back to your parents and grandparents: how many of them were educated elites back in the home country, only to be relegated to low-income status in the US? Did they find solidarity with the poor people around them, or did they drive themselves and their children to be educated and get a white-collar job, and get out of that status as soon as possible? The vanilla expression that Korean Americans are dedicated to education covers up a sinister streak in our drive for success—that our parents did not want us to be like <i>those people</i>. My mother accomplished the incredible feat of becoming a white-collar professional in an entirely different country, language and system in her late middle age, because her entire life story is about elevating herself above being a housewife or a cashier.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is but one schism that exists within the Korean American community. Imagine this type of schism existing in dozens of different AAPI communities of all different national origins. Imagine the size of the gulf that exists between a third-generation medical doctor who is Indian American, and an illegal immigrant food delivery worker who arrived from Cambodia five years ago. Imagine the lives of Asian Americans whose news and media consumption is entirely outside of English, such that even as they live physically in the United States, their worldview and political orientation are still tracking along the patterns set in their home country in their first language, and their opinion about the United States and their current conditions are refracted through that lens. Imagine how irrelevant they would find the talking points in the upper globalization world, delivered through the jargons of white liberalism that make sense only to people in a specific social group. Why would we want to “defund the police”, they might wonder. “Don’t we need the police to prevent the assaults that are happening to us?” How will we bridge all these gaps?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is not a counsel of despair; rather, it is a call to be clear-eyed about the complex challenge that lies ahead of Asian Americans as we try to sublimate the deaths of eight in Atlanta. It is a call to those Asian Americans who are fortunate enough to have the time, energy, money and social capital to respond to this tragedy to look beyond ourselves and our own peculiar brand of pain. Stop making this about us, so that when this moment is in the past, we are not just left with more diversity training in the office and more cops in the streets who will only contribute to the bloated carceral state. It is fine to mourn, but when we are finished with the mourning and begin to act, I hope that our actions will be more about the concrete measures that improve the lives of Asian Americans who are the most exposed, like immigration reform, gun control, healthcare for the needy and protection from workplace abuse. It would be nice if the Karen in our office got our name right, but that’s not going to stop bullets.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-15646488256979798842020-12-01T17:13:00.001-05:002020-12-01T17:41:38.037-05:00Rescuing Our Parents from the Conservative Brain Rot (and Introducing The Blue Roof)<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT8ZDvCMbt0Vpl9iNrJgB2UUaz0rMlgnzzkZ0NNkvdKIWcTdACEs_PEtOa_IFdBxDosLrdZTWCosBmkkGg2xb8SBQbZt4XOrqASZZgz_9TXDPZRu28C75f9zVqwSINOHdUPZTz/s512/unnamed.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="349" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT8ZDvCMbt0Vpl9iNrJgB2UUaz0rMlgnzzkZ0NNkvdKIWcTdACEs_PEtOa_IFdBxDosLrdZTWCosBmkkGg2xb8SBQbZt4XOrqASZZgz_9TXDPZRu28C75f9zVqwSINOHdUPZTz/w436-h640/unnamed.png" width="436" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Diagram by "National Alliance for Tunnel Security", claiming to show <br />the configuration of North Korean tanks under the Gyeongbokgung Palace <br />in Seoul, infiltrated through a secret network of underground tunnels.<br />(<a href="https://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=aspals&logNo=220336507581">source</a>) <br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Dear Korean, </i></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Help! I need a recommendation on people/show/clips or anything in Korean that can counter all the Fox News parroting Korean news that my mom watches all the time on YouTube. If they’re a Christian, that would be a bonus since most of the videos she watches are sent by church people and thus she thinks are truth. </i></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Rim</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Dear Rim,</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I'm sorry to say I can't be very helpful. If I knew the solution, I would be consulting political parties around the world how to unscrew the people's minds warped by the conservative online media, which is more of a systemized disinformation campaign rather than journalism. To be sure, there are good and popular liberal Youtube channels and podcasts that cover Korean news. (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtAbTqMyJif9KRRd8f1o3JQUHvsqvWacq">Allileo</a> by Yu Si-min comes to mind.) But it would be pointless to recommend them, because your parents will never watch those commie channels. The problem is not the lack of good and rigorous material; the problem is the deliberate refusal to seek the truth.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I am writing this post primarily in order to let the world know that your problem is very common among younger Korean Americans. Virtually every day, I receive emails from people in your exact situation - asking for resource on how to reverse the brain damage caused by our parents' destructive Youtube habit. The rotting of our parents' minds in fact began much earlier, because Korea faced the problem of the conservatives' institutionalized disinformation campaign <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2018/03/koreas-nine-years-of-darkness-part-i.html">earlier</a> than the United States. Before any American could contemplate the possibility of Russians putting up fake Facebook posts to sway US voters, the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration from 2007 to 2012 was <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2018/04/koreas-nine-years-of-darkness-part-iii.html">using</a> Korea's spy agency to run a domestic psy op generating millions of message board replies and fake tweets. Among older Koreans, it is an accepted truth that President Moon Jae-in secretly hoarded a 1,000 tons of gold (to a point that an armed robber <a href="https://1boon.kakao.com/issue/goldking">attacked</a> Moon's office before he was the president, looking for the gold) and North Korea has 1,620 tanks <a href="https://m.blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=jhsong46&logNo=221077565091&proxyReferer=https:%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F">hidden</a> under Seoul through an elaborate network of tunnels.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The issue became much more visible recently as the disinformation campaign went international. A few years ago, I was bewildered that second generation Korean Americans, whose politics in the US was firmly within the mainstream, began parroting some wild-ass talking points about Korean politics - then I realized they were getting all the Korean politics news from their parents who were undergoing the brain rot. But in the past year or so, the second generation Korean Americans began noticing that something was off: even if they knew nothing about Korean politics, they could tell something was wrong their parents started saying COVID-19 was not real. This issue became more visible to the younger Korean Americans because South Korea's conservative Youtube channels would pick up the bullshit from US conservative media, such that the parents started spouting a more recognizable form of bullshit.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHWMUDjqmY6X1bCGUpcDr2imB2KNdsDHVUuy6HtiMjyDFbrJQJU3tEUez0Ja2h-B3rKpJQOJpmYyn1hJ_PObktvQiTfQmK5yUbMP30F-40x4QLQ4KU_vNVST5ysSakO0axbF6L/s1085/The_Blue_Roof.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1085" data-original-width="991" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHWMUDjqmY6X1bCGUpcDr2imB2KNdsDHVUuy6HtiMjyDFbrJQJU3tEUez0Ja2h-B3rKpJQOJpmYyn1hJ_PObktvQiTfQmK5yUbMP30F-40x4QLQ4KU_vNVST5ysSakO0axbF6L/w585-h640/The_Blue_Roof.png" width="585" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">After getting hundreds of questions and requests similar to Rim's, I did come up with one response: with a team of like-minded people, I started a website/newsletter that focused on South Korean politics. If you follow me on Twitter (@askakorean), you probably already know about The Blue Roof: <a href="http://www.blueroofpolitics.com">www.blueroofpolitics.com</a>. We started TBR for many reasons, but speaking for myself, one of the major reasons was because there needed to be some kind of a resource for Korean Americans who are dealing with their parents' Youtube habits. I have no grand hope that this will be the silver bullet; your parents likely will not be persuaded to read TBR's coverage of South Korean politics. But at the very least, you can have some frame of reference with which to gauge how far off course your parents have gone.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Again, I am sorry I cannot do more for this truly serious problem. But I can guarantee that our team at TBR is producing a high quality publication. The site only three months old, but we count among our subscribers virtually every international media outlets with a presence in Korea as well as many diplomats and academics. And atoning for my sin of very infrequent posting on this blog, I am committed to producing TBR every week without fail. It might not get your parents off the right-wing Youtube channels, but at least you will now be able to hold a conversation with them.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</p>T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-48116373372211962442020-05-21T17:45:00.001-04:002020-05-21T20:59:26.114-04:00The Hater's Guide to KBO<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmyFUpSg7GjqAmdnyUAc2DC6K-jGmGb72G-hIaFOVK8GEOgMrzSp0j6u0JCbmpBKCUqkVMrHD_xHBkaAgn_JWpcMzOBmVMgS5W_dcJgTj_GI_3e4PVBnYukN0t-QdXXIzu6KJG/s1600/fw89UcC.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1017" data-original-width="999" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmyFUpSg7GjqAmdnyUAc2DC6K-jGmGb72G-hIaFOVK8GEOgMrzSp0j6u0JCbmpBKCUqkVMrHD_xHBkaAgn_JWpcMzOBmVMgS5W_dcJgTj_GI_3e4PVBnYukN0t-QdXXIzu6KJG/s640/fw89UcC.png" width="628" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Darius I is concerned that Persians are listening to K-pop. (<a href="https://i.imgur.com/fw89UcC.png">source</a>)</td></tr>
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There are a number of different ways to win the Sid Meier’s Civilization game series. Commonly, people go for “conquest victory,” a straightforward military rampage through the adversaries’ territory. But sometimes, you might inadvertently land on the “culture victory” before you are quite finished with the conquest—because as the world is burning, your civilization is the only one putting out movies and live concerts. Even if your cultural products kinda suck in relative terms because you spent all your resources toward building up the military, you end up winning with culture just because you’re the only game in town.</div>
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That was the thought that came to my mind when I heard that ESPN began broadcasting KBO baseball. As a lifetime fan of Korea Baseball Organization, let me be straight with you: KBO baseball can be some sloppy shit. You’ve come to the wrong blog if you thought I was going to defend the quality of the KBO play just because it’s Korean. Is it entertaining? Most definitely. Are there some true top-shelf talent among the players? Absolutely. Can it produce some transcendental, sepia-colored sports movie stuff from time to time? For sure. </div>
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Does it also regularly feature some of the most rage-inducing, dumbass dropped balls that make you hold your breath every time there is a routine pop fly? The gifs don’t lie.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZ7DGD8sOa3COic59a-_chLG7Fdj1mrxGY7MweU-AeoKjV4CnP7xAx6i9P3BKc_CsrRbV8EUyGvJiJ8M4IeR0HKAdNcyt0tytmZ3k8A8KOzuJ8xR1nKEBnxJRUoiwN4reVMYi/s1600/1440378933IoIP2gZOL14rowASb.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="158" data-original-width="210" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZ7DGD8sOa3COic59a-_chLG7Fdj1mrxGY7MweU-AeoKjV4CnP7xAx6i9P3BKc_CsrRbV8EUyGvJiJ8M4IeR0HKAdNcyt0tytmZ3k8A8KOzuJ8xR1nKEBnxJRUoiwN4reVMYi/s400/1440378933IoIP2gZOL14rowASb.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(<a href="http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=kihwan9709&logNo=220463671066&beginTime=0&jumpingVid=&from=section&redirect=Log&widgetTypeCall=true">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Yet you’re here, because you’re desperate. You’re so desperate for baseball that you’re up at 2 a.m. watching AAA-level baseball (that’s being generous) being played in an empty stadium. Because the rest of the world is on fire, and by having a competent response to the coronavirus pandemic, Korea is inadvertently on its way toward a culture victory.<br />
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But strike that—you’re not here because you miss baseball. Or at least, baseball <i>qua</i> baseball is not what you miss. What you miss is the baseball experience. What you miss is the experience of being a fan. The quality of the play on the field is secondary to the fact that you belong to a fandom, and have the sense of camaraderie arising from the shared interest. Above all, what you miss is the sweet, sweet taste of sports hate. <br />
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Therefore, with a hat tip toward Deadspin (RIP) and Drew Magary, Ask a Korean! presents: <b><u>The Hater’s Guide to the KBO</u></b>. Why pick your KBO team based on the dead metrics like number of championships, when the object of your true desire is another group of people who sports-hate the same way you do? Let the hate wash over you, and find the hate-vibe that fits yours, among these fine ten KBO teams.</div>
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(More after the jump.)</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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<b><u>Incheon SK Wyverns</u></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNz_YIHsz2OqCfHU2YDkzKwej9TG2BuYcvMA0R_6Evd1ZGXniCxDz9u7gtHcgFh0ozc7RSfYFuBA1EE59aGMXZBZAMn3obajwsNvoJV5jutQpgTn8U0ktlKuYOKjsNjJ8ghvm8/s1600/e6b7c272988949af6146d8a7698525aaded28e401597e5f2e3e2bafe1e8f45bb4fdfde9ceb9e26730d34257466ffccd79847e49b81120cd34484d50ac2097156bc11d7fee1cd6be8d552c239892bf08ce421ae55d9367f48ae8e4332e54e79f1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="864" data-original-width="1244" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNz_YIHsz2OqCfHU2YDkzKwej9TG2BuYcvMA0R_6Evd1ZGXniCxDz9u7gtHcgFh0ozc7RSfYFuBA1EE59aGMXZBZAMn3obajwsNvoJV5jutQpgTn8U0ktlKuYOKjsNjJ8ghvm8/s320/e6b7c272988949af6146d8a7698525aaded28e401597e5f2e3e2bafe1e8f45bb4fdfde9ceb9e26730d34257466ffccd79847e49b81120cd34484d50ac2097156bc11d7fee1cd6be8d552c239892bf08ce421ae55d9367f48ae8e4332e54e79f1.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Basics:</b> Founded in 2000 (8th team). Four championships (2007, 2008, 2010, 2018).<br />
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<b>The Hate Vibe:</b> Your team cranks out win after win in the postseason, but your fandom does not grow because your city is boring and your team wins in a boring way. Even your corporate sponsor is boring. Everyone knows Samsung and Hyundai because they make cell phones and cars. Even the lowly LG gets some name recognition with its refrigerator. What do you even buy from SK?<br />
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<b>US Comparables:</b> 1999-2008 San Antonio Spurs <br />
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<b>Totally Normie Reason to Love This Team:</b> Incheon’s Munhak Stadium has a “BBQ Zone.” They set up your group at a picnic table with grills available for rent. The seats are right in front of a convenience store that has meat and beer, and you can bring your own food as well.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQHFZwBEJffG2kdhJIUwe_LSzoOiKzkgykS4hCxQeeow-dHe7XbTv5zs74TtQid_xVrGw5RdkGJ20hNa02f6lpNWIvr9qymv4SD0J9WZiKVwLKFP9lqDEqJgGgvIv7lVkYMlp8/s1600/35384494_826255940903136_6547581164901629952_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQHFZwBEJffG2kdhJIUwe_LSzoOiKzkgykS4hCxQeeow-dHe7XbTv5zs74TtQid_xVrGw5RdkGJ20hNa02f6lpNWIvr9qymv4SD0J9WZiKVwLKFP9lqDEqJgGgvIv7lVkYMlp8/s640/35384494_826255940903136_6547581164901629952_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You could have a worse view of the field. (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/incheonlife1/photos/pcb.826256300903100/826255930903137/?type=3&theater">source</a>)</td></tr>
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<b>Bonus Hate Point:</b> Wyverns’ style used to be known as the “saltwater baseball,” because the team likes to go up 1-0 and squeeze out a win with its bullpen. (In fairness, Wyverns evolved more into a long ball hitting club in the past several years.)<br />
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<b><u>Suwon KT Wiz</u></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPGyArqBq1NR0mrZHWBRzfzs3WV7nlVErKC80jyZnT203flBmYLHohB6-_kWCd4TrYRXcspnISuWKMIXmbqhWPJrpyASTl09Ug2Ef1igMt7Q3AGgDaFiLJBJfeK_Bl5plL51v_/s1600/0e0fd027fabd041b0d3d128e0a7767074f5e1d97ada3f8f14863801fca0fccff11c7fe84b6f2be15071cdba2f95b88c683ee42b1b788efd12c800cfa50fe7d4c9d666ad8504254ea6aa5a5ece17a4a4fe6e1a66aa1cee2654bd869454e83e4fe.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="763" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPGyArqBq1NR0mrZHWBRzfzs3WV7nlVErKC80jyZnT203flBmYLHohB6-_kWCd4TrYRXcspnISuWKMIXmbqhWPJrpyASTl09Ug2Ef1igMt7Q3AGgDaFiLJBJfeK_Bl5plL51v_/s320/0e0fd027fabd041b0d3d128e0a7767074f5e1d97ada3f8f14863801fca0fccff11c7fe84b6f2be15071cdba2f95b88c683ee42b1b788efd12c800cfa50fe7d4c9d666ad8504254ea6aa5a5ece17a4a4fe6e1a66aa1cee2654bd869454e83e4fe.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Basics:</b> Founded in 2013 (10th team). Never made postseason.<br />
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<b>The Hate Vibe:</b> No one gives a shit about an expansion team that started seven years ago, coming in at 10th – 10th – 10th – 9th – 6th in the past five seasons. The team used to play at a rented college baseball stadium with maybe 30 people in the stands (ok fine it was more like a few thousand but it feels like 30.) A major candidate for Gyeonggi-do governor seat <a href="http://www.newstomato.com/readNews.aspx?no=456268">pledged</a> that he would run a marathon naked if the Wiz ever won a championship, secure in the knowledge that it will never happen in his lifetime.<br />
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<b>US Comparables:</b> 2005-2008 Washington Nationals<br />
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<b>Totally Normie Reason to Love This Team:</b> Get in on the ground floor, I guess? Also, the newly renovated stadium looks legitimately nice.<br />
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<b>Bonus Hate Point:</b> Expansion teams don’t get bonus anything.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3trDNPrG7T4uhp38_QuDhFxiF35wfobagSEuaOof4cXRjjATG4ZUO0oRAwZks0EM5vrviTEbn1n_dDziBDAbRu0DXjfH9fbbBKBmhNp5wTCWSDUQvOt9jg1Eu1_5weNKKP_9v/s1600/LG_%25ED%258A%25B8%25EC%259C%2588%25EC%258A%25A4_%25EB%25A1%259C%25EA%25B3%25A0.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><br />
<b><u>Daegu Samsung Lions</u></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpZtQnsB1sxpbkNj2dcbPQopqorAn-zuAXLITOMpKfFDRzVqPzNyGDv-3hZOKtabnL-w-UMzr4yHr1wrWeZNFlmgqWWTkSI03A8rVQf7QaDxmTL4Rbq9BttoNA1nzIqksuvvPk/s1600/46ce056d60e05d4922f0426c8437e44c40fb0c9cfda9f1628218ee462cc703bd8ecebb9ad0ffa27f799e945fadf80f7251f088d1283488e5e757e8645e61b0d9ce7cc21420239d3c4a0c5ee147e5b6d249b1cdc151431bd46649f733d9c68bb35c6365468987fcd06eaad.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="500" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpZtQnsB1sxpbkNj2dcbPQopqorAn-zuAXLITOMpKfFDRzVqPzNyGDv-3hZOKtabnL-w-UMzr4yHr1wrWeZNFlmgqWWTkSI03A8rVQf7QaDxmTL4Rbq9BttoNA1nzIqksuvvPk/s320/46ce056d60e05d4922f0426c8437e44c40fb0c9cfda9f1628218ee462cc703bd8ecebb9ad0ffa27f799e945fadf80f7251f088d1283488e5e757e8645e61b0d9ce7cc21420239d3c4a0c5ee147e5b6d249b1cdc151431bd46649f733d9c68bb35c6365468987fcd06eaad.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Basics:</b> Founded in 1982 (Co-1st team; one of two KBO teams whose name, city and corporate sponsor never changed since KBO’s founding). Eight championships (1985, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014)<br />
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<b>The Hate Vibe:</b> You’re a rich asshole. Your corporate sponsor is the biggest sugar daddy in Korea. You love throwing money at good players and admiring your purchased championships that other teams couldn’t afford. Fans of other teams call you “Money-sung” [돈성], and the manager of other teams will <a href="https://news.joins.com/article/2494316">straight-up tell the media</a>: “Anyone would win with that much money.”<br />
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<b>US Comparables:</b> 1990s New York Yankees; Post-2010 Boston Red Sox<br />
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<b>Totally Normie Reason to Love This Team:</b> These guys win. Lions hold the KBO record for most number of wins, highest total winning percentage, highest winning percentage in a single season, and the most number of Korean Series appearances.<br />
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<b>Bonus Hate Point:</b> If you tell a Lions fan about how the team spends its way to championship, they will respond that the team isn’t all that rich any more since the Samsung Group changed its sponsorship policy. Which is seriously the most on-brand thing for a rich asshole.<br />
<b></b><u></u><br />
<b><u>Changwon NC Dinos</u></b><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDw3d3QoaPgra-gpgyRcDy7q1brsqnoJkURAALGmL_leBt8LjziepYX5btnENOkA8Ro1_I_MLmtFb-5yF-3Rr7bFpHM9yV5n1Ftyp93mLllsM4dUKcjtWTIc-7yb6eygSnlrh4/s1600/ea7bfe2f433e78f69b6b958bc712e469f8642279126594f70a55400254751610b7a557d5c26e6440e90397c2e09d97b463e6502b8dd52cdfdfcfc309a0159dacf28908ea6f0493e8902b28f7b263b02d563c405bc985404377546841f29ef969cb9ba77220a956acf5a8f.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="689" data-original-width="1001" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDw3d3QoaPgra-gpgyRcDy7q1brsqnoJkURAALGmL_leBt8LjziepYX5btnENOkA8Ro1_I_MLmtFb-5yF-3Rr7bFpHM9yV5n1Ftyp93mLllsM4dUKcjtWTIc-7yb6eygSnlrh4/s320/ea7bfe2f433e78f69b6b958bc712e469f8642279126594f70a55400254751610b7a557d5c26e6440e90397c2e09d97b463e6502b8dd52cdfdfcfc309a0159dacf28908ea6f0493e8902b28f7b263b02d563c405bc985404377546841f29ef969cb9ba77220a956acf5a8f.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Basics:</b> Founded in 2011 (9th team). No championship, one Korean Series appearance (2016)<br />
<b></b><br />
<b>The Hate Vibe:</b> You’re based in a grungy-ass industrial city known for its shipbuilding. Your fandom is made up of dockworkers and welders looking for any excuse to put on a good sports riot. Not some candy-ass bench clearing, but a proper <i>riot</i> riot where the fans bring a blowtorch to tear down the stadium gates because the tickets were sold out and they were not let in. (Yes, this really happened.) Opposing team’s players wear their batting helmet even when their team is pitching because they fear the empty soju bottles aimed at their heads.<br />
<b></b><br />
<b>US Comparables:</b> Philadelphia Eagles<br />
<b></b><br />
<b>Totally Normie Reason to Love This Team:</b> This expansion team wasted no time to get good. It made post season every season since 2014, only three years after the team’s founding. Also, the dinosaur mascot is pretty sweet.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUTkv1auepCDEnZf3Up1FHAlb1kkXjYepoQA3MeLeMOfuTu5mEWeFygDh0MqtKv2gF4yQLUnQKicQk0uqKa9STe2mpO0sa-HtY075NyHVmS-xk1IuJUw7q8EeGmfisSLPxVDXV/s1600/202005150259772264_5ebd89256140d.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="650" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUTkv1auepCDEnZf3Up1FHAlb1kkXjYepoQA3MeLeMOfuTu5mEWeFygDh0MqtKv2gF4yQLUnQKicQk0uqKa9STe2mpO0sa-HtY075NyHVmS-xk1IuJUw7q8EeGmfisSLPxVDXV/s640/202005150259772264_5ebd89256140d.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seri, a.k.a. Swole Daddy (<a href="https://www.sbnation.com/2020/5/4/21247035/nc-dinos-mascot-korea-baseball">source</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>Bonus Hate Point:</b> Dinos fans will protest that they no longer riot. All the riots are in the past, back when Changwon/Masan was hosting the Busan Lotte Giants for six games a season in the 1980s and 90s. Don’t fall for this gaslighting—just look them right in the eyes, and you will see the glint of rioter’s DNA.<br />
<br />
<b></b><u></u><br />
<b><u>Seoul LG Twins</u></b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3trDNPrG7T4uhp38_QuDhFxiF35wfobagSEuaOof4cXRjjATG4ZUO0oRAwZks0EM5vrviTEbn1n_dDziBDAbRu0DXjfH9fbbBKBmhNp5wTCWSDUQvOt9jg1Eu1_5weNKKP_9v/s1600/LG_%25ED%258A%25B8%25EC%259C%2588%25EC%258A%25A4_%25EB%25A1%259C%25EA%25B3%25A0.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="469" data-original-width="600" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3trDNPrG7T4uhp38_QuDhFxiF35wfobagSEuaOof4cXRjjATG4ZUO0oRAwZks0EM5vrviTEbn1n_dDziBDAbRu0DXjfH9fbbBKBmhNp5wTCWSDUQvOt9jg1Eu1_5weNKKP_9v/s320/LG_%25ED%258A%25B8%25EC%259C%2588%25EC%258A%25A4_%25EB%25A1%259C%25EA%25B3%25A0.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Basics: </b> Founded in 1982 (co-1st team) as MBC Blue Dragons, changed to the current name in 1990. Two championships (1990, 1994)<br />
<br />
<b>The Hate Vibe:</b> You are an overshadowed second team of the city. You burn with the inferiority complex of never being your city’s favorite team and knowing exactly why—because you suck, and even when you win for a little, that gut-punch loss will come when it matters.<br />
<br />
<b>US Comparables:</b> New York Mets<br />
<b></b><br />
<b>Totally Normie Reason to Love This Team:</b> As a Twins fan, let me tell you – there isn’t any. If wallowing in sports misery is not your thing, run and don’t look back.<br />
<br />
<b>Bonus Hate Point:</b> Despite being one of the league’s oldest teams, and despite being based in Korea’s largest city, Twins do not attract any new fans because they suck so hard. In a <a href="https://www.gallup.co.kr/gallupdb/reportContent.asp?seqNo=1105">poll</a> conducted shortly before the 2020 KBO season began, only 1% of the respondents aged between 18 and 29 said Twins was their favorite team. Even Seoul’s third team, Kiwoom Heroes, earned 2% of the young demographic.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>Gwangju Kia Tigers</u></b><br />
<b><u><br /></u></b>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeBpYYTc5bjmc-qladJONm_fTnkdvV1nBEebYOiuzq5YKNQCv1ERs8DiTlGUjmWieI-bLyPpd6sKv6qDD8pjyL-1AOiK9RUOiOIxsXPUGMak0_M86iN4IhaVfhPl2De6j1YCts/s1600/47a070b197890fa42d0e7a257a9dbd926d5bd7692e31ff83106ac7f9d354ba78420bdb94314dc035bad8183a5ed65afca83f59ba2b8391aa7adbe0edcdc9b79fc157308ffd603e81af35213172085e88722475139e31421f80a1abcc80e1b3a9089ec6687ddaea8de2bce.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="189" data-original-width="250" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeBpYYTc5bjmc-qladJONm_fTnkdvV1nBEebYOiuzq5YKNQCv1ERs8DiTlGUjmWieI-bLyPpd6sKv6qDD8pjyL-1AOiK9RUOiOIxsXPUGMak0_M86iN4IhaVfhPl2De6j1YCts/s320/47a070b197890fa42d0e7a257a9dbd926d5bd7692e31ff83106ac7f9d354ba78420bdb94314dc035bad8183a5ed65afca83f59ba2b8391aa7adbe0edcdc9b79fc157308ffd603e81af35213172085e88722475139e31421f80a1abcc80e1b3a9089ec6687ddaea8de2bce.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<b><u><br /></u></b>
<b>Basics: </b> Founded in 1982 (co-1st team) as Haitai Tigers, changed to the current name in 2001. Eleven championships (1983, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2009, 2017)<br />
<br />
<b>The Hate Vibe:</b> Your team is reeking with the stench of rotting tradition. Sure, your team has the most number of championships in the KBO, but vast majority of them came in the last century when the players were smoking cigarettes in the dugout. Yet you will keep talking about the history and tradition of this venerable club, simply because you need the distraction from the actual team on the field.<br />
<br />
<b>US Comparables:</b> People frequently compare the Tigers to the Yankees simply because both have the most number of championships, but the Tigers’ hate signature matches perfectly with the one for Notre Dame football.<br />
<b></b><br />
<b>Totally Normie Reason to Love This Team:</b> In all seriousness, the history is something special. Four Korean Series wins in a row from 1986-89 may never be repeated. Tigers also have the greatest player KBO history in Seon Dong-ryeol, a legendary fireballer. In 1986, Seon started 22 times, pitched a complete game 19 times and shutout eight times. He also appeared as a reliever/closer 17 times and earned six saves in the same season. His overall ERA that season was a mind-bending 0.99.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRhf12sVXTdKnEzit4_R_sKS-IuG9NNY79RIq_vKqb06-lXmVK1XwPCbmAD2UB00A-HnY4CYAi_bz3BZqm_xfjt1pcfLVKGZms2aVv1jt40rYS89ZY0ImuGeX_jYV9Zyv7mP0y/s1600/0320200318124319_tuzoxgil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="640" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRhf12sVXTdKnEzit4_R_sKS-IuG9NNY79RIq_vKqb06-lXmVK1XwPCbmAD2UB00A-HnY4CYAi_bz3BZqm_xfjt1pcfLVKGZms2aVv1jt40rYS89ZY0ImuGeX_jYV9Zyv7mP0y/s640/0320200318124319_tuzoxgil.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vintage Seon Dong-ryeol was as good as it got. (<a href="http://www.yachin.co.kr/teamNews/?mode=view&cate=2&b_idx=99982769">source</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Bonus Hate Point:</b> If claiming regional bias is a big part of your fan experience, you will love rooting for the Tigers. The Chun Doo-hwan dictatorship of the 1980s, which massacred hundreds of protesting Gwangju citizens on May 18, 1980, ensured that no baseball game happened in Gwangju on May 18, fearing that the game would evolve into another protest. Forget your east coast bias – there’s no bias like a murdering dictator bias.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>Seoul Kiwoom Heroes</u></b><br />
<b><u><br /></u></b>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTjEz0MqPYvfO8JTIc79JmbUK6BwxKBUhG3EIQkgffkoLf1AeGAoNV8spkktLqKIHb7a0GZ91ebS6-HsM78bl8PH5i1ar03pujkccYTgiGPNsVzAc2vruHlMJDATveiws-5ue_/s1600/0e60583cd7853843e777b09ea25d53c35b3bcb883e4df4cd3f092efda5dc1662f112e2625b9840b4f989c7b832a502466c9ce1be2acc90dc318993295b510049602a8b84fdae6814b941106bd4f21eb3c73a2290e35fd05eb0eff1f050536936.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="552" data-original-width="745" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTjEz0MqPYvfO8JTIc79JmbUK6BwxKBUhG3EIQkgffkoLf1AeGAoNV8spkktLqKIHb7a0GZ91ebS6-HsM78bl8PH5i1ar03pujkccYTgiGPNsVzAc2vruHlMJDATveiws-5ue_/s320/0e60583cd7853843e777b09ea25d53c35b3bcb883e4df4cd3f092efda5dc1662f112e2625b9840b4f989c7b832a502466c9ce1be2acc90dc318993295b510049602a8b84fdae6814b941106bd4f21eb3c73a2290e35fd05eb0eff1f050536936.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<b><u><br /></u></b>
<b><u><br /></u></b>
<b>Basics:</b> Founded in 2008 (7th team) as Woori Heroes, changed to the current name in 2019. No championships, two Korean Series appearances (2014, 2019)<br />
<br />
<b>The Hate Vibe:</b> The WooriSeoulNexenKiwoom Heroes. A team so poor that it has to change its name every three years or so, because the only way for the team to survive is to sell the naming rights to different corporations, squeezing its fans to buy new merch in the process. Will a team that sells its name also sell its best players? Of course it will—the team made numerous illegal trades where it received over $110 million in undisclosed cash considerations.<br />
<b></b><br />
<b>US Comparables:</b> Oakland A’s owned by an evil Billy Bean.<br />
<br />
<b>Totally Normie Reason to Love This Team:</b> If you’re into a dome stadium, Heroes is your team. Gocheok Sky Dome is Korea’s only dome baseball stadium, which means it is the only stadium that comes with its own local rules on the balls that hit the ceiling. (If the ball is stuck in the ceiling without going into the foul territory, it is ruled as a ground rule double.)<br />
<br />
<b>Bonus Hate Point:</b> Unlike most KBO teams that operate as a division of their corporate sponsors, Heroes are (mostly) owned by two individuals who sue each other constantly and (reportedly) loot the team’s funds to pay their lawyers. The majority owner is currently serving a prison sentence for embezzlement and breach of duty.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>Seoul Doosan Bears</u></b><br />
<b></b><u></u><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5O_UQfurTLPJNPxDCquzQa_rpIc019PIYypBW2OcPHz_iFetVsccUYbYQb6Hz2_suWi3IdbWqMunUZtp46Se6Az3yEKydw2nAyVqjG8sYqEBM_EHORAg0V6nPhmv7GhTD0dJO/s1600/1e5d974e4252b8e8f0f32365cc88c270431120ed14faba3c2ede854fb12f0f0d18567d107482555efa169b7b3bed66187f868162caf3478d61cdb5338c206b488a4baf60267e4f96f355ca9c9b057d556c2ef689336bcb0127fab8b928108c5bd4aef2db1c293ecc70b7c.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="211" data-original-width="250" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5O_UQfurTLPJNPxDCquzQa_rpIc019PIYypBW2OcPHz_iFetVsccUYbYQb6Hz2_suWi3IdbWqMunUZtp46Se6Az3yEKydw2nAyVqjG8sYqEBM_EHORAg0V6nPhmv7GhTD0dJO/s320/1e5d974e4252b8e8f0f32365cc88c270431120ed14faba3c2ede854fb12f0f0d18567d107482555efa169b7b3bed66187f868162caf3478d61cdb5338c206b488a4baf60267e4f96f355ca9c9b057d556c2ef689336bcb0127fab8b928108c5bd4aef2db1c293ecc70b7c.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Basics:</b> Founded in 1982 (co-1st team) as OB Bears, changed to the current name in 1999. Six championships (1982, 1995, 2001, 2015, 2016, 2019)<br />
<b></b><br />
<b>The Hate Vibe:</b> You are frontrunner. Your team wins – five appearances to the Korean Series in the last five years, with three championship. Your team is the biggest team in the biggest city playing at a historical Jamsil stadium that hosted the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Your bandwagon is driven around by the former US ambassador to South Korea <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/05/08/kbo-is-spotlight-now-this-super-fan-has-known-about-its-raucous-charm-years/">who gives media interviews</a> about how great your team is. <br />
<br />
<b>US Comparables:</b> New York Yankees, not because the Bears splash money around like the Yankees, but because even those who have not watched a single baseball game in their lives sometimes wear a Yankees cap.<br />
<b></b><br />
<b>Totally Normie Reason to Love This Team:</b> It does feel pretty special to say your team won the very first KBO championship in 1982. The team also has the highest proportion of women fans in the KBO, such that it is the only team with a team song with separate male/female vocal parts.<br />
<br />
<b>Bonus Hate Point:</b> Despite their squeaky-clean image of being the “Korea’s Team,” Bears players have been implicated in some huge, messed-up crimes and scandals like drunk driving that killed a person or an awful break-up with a celebrity news anchor who later committed suicide. But the Bears take care of their own, as those players always are allowed back to play.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>Daejeon Hanwha Eagles</u></b><br />
<b></b><u></u><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyhjzs2myyuFfcCW22hTagTFTvvg6Zsn3ywxNyIU6fgaT4euo4ree2WvOqBOefdorn4aArp75NB3NrPiW5P1epf1jVQ-8ALZ4cxu_Kek_ZyOLgw4ECoLUJq9xqrSPgL9-tbVnb/s1600/306fb492a25f0feec66aaffc8340b4b609a225070c7db567fd9625f3a25214f039869496bd27568a71364851390a3e89e2bba67d78681140a75e66f4d280c93974983e5146e142d027e9106357916315f35c30ab63cd78450ddc1d43a169b9fd12a79bd61e88096fbed29.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="156" data-original-width="250" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyhjzs2myyuFfcCW22hTagTFTvvg6Zsn3ywxNyIU6fgaT4euo4ree2WvOqBOefdorn4aArp75NB3NrPiW5P1epf1jVQ-8ALZ4cxu_Kek_ZyOLgw4ECoLUJq9xqrSPgL9-tbVnb/s400/306fb492a25f0feec66aaffc8340b4b609a225070c7db567fd9625f3a25214f039869496bd27568a71364851390a3e89e2bba67d78681140a75e66f4d280c93974983e5146e142d027e9106357916315f35c30ab63cd78450ddc1d43a169b9fd12a79bd61e88096fbed29.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Basics:</b> Founded in 1986 (sixth team) as Binggrae Eagles, changed to the current name in 1993. One championship (1999)<br />
<br />
<b>The Hate Vibe:</b> You love losing. You are a connoisseur of defeat, savoring every different variety of losing year after year after year. You came to love losing so much that an occasional win feels bitter and you can’t wait to lose again. You will sell off the superstar that your team miraculously landed so that you can crawl back to the comfort of losing. You simply accept it when the fans of other teams call your Eagle mascot “chicken.”<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCaQO4MuwHWlZyv1zH8o45meHfjusUSs6cLAoV95QxxcsNjou2Mw9u-eG7mrRiylPB1F4M0CMj5xt1imMrjhs6OzC8yCI7B_11bFex0f6zWu1tIeb4iqXnEEVmBn8G7cGS6C1S/s1600/_%25ED%2595%259C%25ED%2599%2594%25ED%258C%25AC%25ED%258A%25B9%25EC%25A7%2591_%25ED%2595%25B4%25ED%2583%2588%25ED%2595%259C_%25ED%2595%259C%25ED%2599%2594%25ED%258C%25AC_%25EA%25B7%25B8%25EB%258C%2580%25EB%2593%25A4%25EC%259D%2580_%25EB%25B3%25B4%25EC%2582%25B4%25EC%259D%25B4%25EC%259A%2594_%25EB%2584%25A4%25EC%259D%25B4%25EB%25B2%2584%25EB%25B8%2594%25EB%25A1%259C%25EA%25B7%25B8.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="497" data-original-width="414" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCaQO4MuwHWlZyv1zH8o45meHfjusUSs6cLAoV95QxxcsNjou2Mw9u-eG7mrRiylPB1F4M0CMj5xt1imMrjhs6OzC8yCI7B_11bFex0f6zWu1tIeb4iqXnEEVmBn8G7cGS6C1S/s640/_%25ED%2595%259C%25ED%2599%2594%25ED%258C%25AC%25ED%258A%25B9%25EC%25A7%2591_%25ED%2595%25B4%25ED%2583%2588%25ED%2595%259C_%25ED%2595%259C%25ED%2599%2594%25ED%258C%25AC_%25EA%25B7%25B8%25EB%258C%2580%25EB%2593%25A4%25EC%259D%2580_%25EB%25B3%25B4%25EC%2582%25B4%25EC%259D%25B4%25EC%259A%2594_%25EB%2584%25A4%25EC%259D%25B4%25EB%25B2%2584%25EB%25B8%2594%25EB%25A1%259C%25EA%25B7%25B8.png" width="532" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"I am five years old and I'm a member of the Junior Eagles Fan Club."<br />
"Do you have a dream?"<br />
"Eighth place for the Eagles." (<a href="https://blog.naver.com/doubledune_/220146457777">source</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>US Comparables:</b> Seattle Mariners, pre-2015 Chicago Cubs<br />
<br />
<b>Totally Normie Reason to Love This Team:</b> You would be hard-pressed to find a better fandom, which somehow keeps growing even as the team trudges through a losing season after a losing season. Also, your corporate sponsor’s original name was Korea Explosives Group, founded by a guy whose nickname was Dynamite Kim.<br />
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<b>Bonus Hate Point:</b> The orange-grey team colors are goddamn hideous and you will never want to buy their merch no matter how much you love the team.<br />
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<b><u>Busan Lotte Giants</u></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlIYtaNY7BcT22lhWnvRe0W-pW-Fxw6ysFRChx22iCTncbxw9hyphenhyphenC-ijmeMih3CAOFE4eLmCo1XqrBDt90sUtk9eE2wjjxjpc6AsUmxpp7BImF2-XkQ15dG1cN9MHMBik1JaytY/s1600/0065fc7b580cde090dd584c79cb32f8dbc38c5d2207521435920dab789a8c7dd652c3681a1ccac9c2f51fb112375435a8432ed414a1a67bcaa52a5d8c9d724966acc90c9bdb4c5c86758bc63b1d143c0874303adae3225f096f40f5ee933a7f6fb89f65e20674175ea3d6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="956" data-original-width="1333" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlIYtaNY7BcT22lhWnvRe0W-pW-Fxw6ysFRChx22iCTncbxw9hyphenhyphenC-ijmeMih3CAOFE4eLmCo1XqrBDt90sUtk9eE2wjjxjpc6AsUmxpp7BImF2-XkQ15dG1cN9MHMBik1JaytY/s320/0065fc7b580cde090dd584c79cb32f8dbc38c5d2207521435920dab789a8c7dd652c3681a1ccac9c2f51fb112375435a8432ed414a1a67bcaa52a5d8c9d724966acc90c9bdb4c5c86758bc63b1d143c0874303adae3225f096f40f5ee933a7f6fb89f65e20674175ea3d6.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Basics:</b> Founded in 1982 (co-1st team, one of two teams whose name, city and corporate sponsor never changed since KBO’s founding). Two championships (1984, 1992).<br />
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<b>The Hate Vibe:</b> You love losing, but not like the Eagles fans. Eagles fans smile and accept the suck; Giants fans are dickishly proud of their suck, implausibly claiming the losses are the grit that builds the fan culture. But everyone knows the vaunted Giants fan culture just a way to distract from having to actually watch the game.<br />
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<b>US Comparables:</b> Philadalphia Phillies, pre-2004 Boston Red Sox<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sajik Stadium is as good a sports experience as any. (<a href="https://news.joins.com/article/22172860">source</a>)</td></tr>
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<b>Totally Normie Reason to Love This Team:</b> In all seriousness, Giants’ fan culture is unparalleled. Giants are the first KBO team to have more than a million home game spectators for the season, and holds the top four positions in the all-time rank of attendance per season. If you are a fan of sports experience in general, the Sajik Stadium ought to be on your bucket list along with Camp Nou for FC Barcelona and Bryant-Denny Stadium for Alabama football.<br />
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<b>Bonus Hate Point:</b> If you are older than 14 and catch a foul ball in the Sajik Stadium, you can’t keep it. The entire stadium chant “Ah-ju-ra” (“give it to a child”) at you, demanding you hand over your precious foul ball to a nearby child. More likely, a parent will shove a small child at your face, demanding you hand over the ball. It may seem like a cute fan culture point, but how many foul balls have you caught in your life?<br />
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-74011513064668830402020-03-04T22:55:00.000-05:002020-04-01T19:21:48.993-04:00The Forgotten Neoliberal Man of Parasite<div style="text-align: justify;">
[Spoiler Warning: This post discusses highly granular details of the movie <i>Parasite</i>, and it really wouldn’t make sense unless you watched the movie first.]</div>
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<i>Parasite</i> is a story of three families. But if you tried to guess the plotline by reading thinkpieces and analyses about the movie without having watched the movie, you would never know it involved the third family.</div>
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To remind ourselves, let us recap <i>Parasite</i>’s dramatis personae. The rich Park family lives in a gorgeous house atop a hill. Its father Dong-ik is a CEO of a tech company. Mother Yeon-gyo is somewhat of a trophy wife, who considers herself to be sophisticated but is in fact oblivious and gullible. They have two children, high school junior daughter Da-hye and third grader son Da-song. </div>
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The poor Kim family lives in a half-basement at the bottom of a hill. The movie hints that the Kim family once lived a decent middle-class life, running small businesses like a fried chicken joint and a castella cake store. But at the beginning of <i>Parasite</i>, all members of the Kim family are unemployed; they get by doing odd jobs like folding pizza boxes. The Kim family members infiltrate the Park family home one by one under false pretenses. First, the son Ki-woo fakes a college diploma to get a job as an English tutor for Da-hye. The daughter Ki-jeong pretends to be an art therapist, getting a job to look after Da-song. Ki-jeong then frames the Park family’s chauffeur, and installs the father Ki-taek as the replacement driver for Dong-ik. Finally, the three Kims scheme against the housekeeper Mun-gwang, also driving her out and replacing her with the mother Chung-suk.</div>
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Then there is third family that receives little to no spotlight in movie reviews: the Oh family, the husband and wife duo of Geun-sae and Mun-gwang. Like the Kims, the Ohs were also destroyed after their small business failed. They were in the same line of business (the <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/11/parasite-a-window-into-south-korean-neoliberalism">infernal castella cakes</a>,) but they fell even harder than the Kims did. The wife Mun-gwang managed to hold her job as a housekeeper to the Park family, but the husband Geun-sae is less fortunate. Running from loan sharks, Geun-sae hid in the Park family house’s secret basement and lived there for over four years. He was fairly content with his life at the bottom, until the Kims drove out Mun-gwang from the Park family house and disrupted that life. </div>
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(More after the jump.)</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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Among the three families, the Kim family is undoubtedly the most important one in <i>Parasite</i>’s narrative. Nearly all analysis and thinkpieces about <i>Parasite</i> focuses on the Kim family, as most of the movie moves through their perspective. (That was indeed <a href="https://www.nocutnews.co.kr/news/5165307">the intent</a> of the director Bong Joon-ho, who said he could have made a movie from the Park's perspective, which would have been scarier.) The Park family makes occasional appearance, because of their position as a foil for the Kim family in the narrative about the rich versus the poor. Yet the Oh family is entirely absent in the meta-narrative about the movie, although the basement dwellers are arguably more important for the movie than the Parks. The Parks, after all, are a foil and do not drive the action. Meanwhile, the second half of the movie is largely driven by Geun-sae’s violent reaction to the Kim family’s disruption of his life. (Related injustice: unlike other actors in the movie, Park Myeong-hun’s brilliant portrayal of Geun-sae is almost never discussed.)</div>
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Why is there no discussion about Geun-sae and Mun-gwang? There seems to be an obvious answer: spoilers. The shock of discovering Geun-sae in the basement is one of the biggest thrills in <i>Parasite</i>, a veritable “Kevin Spacey is Keyser Soze” or “Bruce Willis is a ghost” moment. But upon deeper reflection, this answer is not as obvious as it seems. After all, the internet is full of movie takes with the dutiful “Spoiler Alert” at the top. With the Academy Awards behind us, there are all kinds of the different <i>Parasite</i> takes that dig deep into all the details of the movie—about how the Park house set <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2020/02/how-bong-joon-ho-built-the-houses-in-parasite.html">was built</a>, what the <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/21/korea-bong-oscars-parasite-hidden-backstory-middle-class-chicken-bong-joon-ho/">flickering words</a> “chicken place” and “castella shop” mean, what it is really like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/world/asia/parasite-seoul-south-korea.html">to live</a> in the half-basement home that the Kims were living in. So why wouldn’t there be a discussion about the Oh family?</div>
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Here’s my hunch: there is no discussion about Geun-sae, the basement dweller, because we are unable to think about him. In fact, our inability to think about Geun-sae is tied directly to Bong Joon-ho’s decision to make Geun-sae a spoiler. Our failure to discuss Geun-sae is not because he is a spoiler; rather, Geun-sae had to be a spoiler because we are conditioned not to think about him.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJlYRDQLbHTV9Uj-y7qBoOej3YkHfMwHEPKpXk5WdhekHnVPfaIOyb88aS8yPWD5VEr6ZO1rBLBoch4rnYZ3zTf-WNqjt6rAkunZl94iEsZ12PgoVIuRZ0ehK12eQl3jpMJesY/s1600/201906111855065897_5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="463" data-original-width="680" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJlYRDQLbHTV9Uj-y7qBoOej3YkHfMwHEPKpXk5WdhekHnVPfaIOyb88aS8yPWD5VEr6ZO1rBLBoch4rnYZ3zTf-WNqjt6rAkunZl94iEsZ12PgoVIuRZ0ehK12eQl3jpMJesY/s640/201906111855065897_5.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Actor Park Myeong-hun, who played Geun-sae in <i>Parasite</i> (<a href="http://m.hankookilbo.com/News/Read/201906111855065897">source</a>)</td></tr>
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What kind of man is Geun-sae? With just a few words, the movie gives a basic biography. Like the Kim family, Geun-sae used to have a middle-class life, then was slowly pushed into the basement life. He used to run a “king castella” shop, a dessert fad from Taiwan that was in reality more like a Ponzi scheme. Having borrowed money for the business from unsavory people, Geun-sae escaped into the Park family’s basement to run from the loan sharks. He did not intend to stay in the basement as he went in, but he ends up living in the dungeon for more than four years. When the viewers meet Geun-sae in <i>Parasite</i>, he displays no particular desire to leave the basement. Tied up to a pipe, Geun-sae pleads to his captor Ki-taek: “Please. You have to let me stay here.” </div>
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Actor Park Myeong-hun, who played Geun-sae, developed the character <a href="https://www.nocutnews.co.kr/news/5168977">together</a> with the director Bong Joon-ho. In doing so, Park focused on the theme of degradation—a perfectly normal person, slowly becoming deranged as years pass by in the dungeon. (Bong Joon-ho custom-built the Park family house as a set, and the basement design was <a href="https://www.seoul.co.kr/news/newsView.php?id=20200213023002">inspired by</a> the basement of Josef Fritzl, who <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritzl_case">held</a> his daughter captive in the concealed basement in his house for 24 years.) To act out Geun-sae, Park Myeong-hun began by imagining his character as an ordinary man, perhaps a bit more naïve than others. Park thought Geun-sae would have had a regular job, but was pushed out with a meager severance pay. To feel the effect of the enclosed space on the mind, Park traveled to the movie set before all other actors, simply lying down in the basement for hours. He recalls that at some point, everything—including his mind—<a href="http://www.cine21.com/news/view/?mag_id=93255">became</a> hazy and slow.</div>
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Another elaboration on Geun-sae’s character comes from Bong Joon-ho’s storyboard sketch of Geun-sae’s study. A gifted cartoonist, Bong is infamous for hand-drawing numerous comic book-style storyboards, showing precisely the shot he wants for each scene. In a true Bong Joon-ho fashion, the director collects numerous miscellanies to paint a devastating picture of Geun-sae’s life:</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi97RAEYSMgKDUZ13wk3dRkDVZaYKDvjtP85WCM5q53c4Oi5nfx-Zc5_XM2OFppwsbdUkb8fvHAcjyCVdjkJZyyt9OpnLt-EE0kIgp0zkSup2p8PqhooVC-t6nP-sj6IVgD1U-N/s1600/Parasite+Geunsae+Study+Translated.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="696" data-original-width="928" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi97RAEYSMgKDUZ13wk3dRkDVZaYKDvjtP85WCM5q53c4Oi5nfx-Zc5_XM2OFppwsbdUkb8fvHAcjyCVdjkJZyyt9OpnLt-EE0kIgp0zkSup2p8PqhooVC-t6nP-sj6IVgD1U-N/s640/Parasite+Geunsae+Study+Translated.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Originally from <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bong-joon-ho-shares-his-early-sketches-parasites-twists-turns-1275754">Hollywood Reporter</a>, translation by me. Click picture to enlarge.</td></tr>
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It takes some familiarity with contemporary Korean society to pick up on all the clues in Geun-sae’s study, showing a man whose dreams were slowly extinguished. At one point, Geun-sae wanted to be a lawyer, as can be seen from the bar exam study guides under his desk. But that dream was dashed when South Korea switched its legal education system to the US-style law school system while abolishing the old Continental-style bar exam that enabled one to be a lawyer just by taking a single exam. Geun-sae then aimed lower by studying for a different exam—on his desk, there are study guides for blue collar jobs like becoming an electrician or a plumber. The ideal of meritocracy never left him.</div>
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As he studies, Geun-sae is trying to motivate himself through a number of different ways. He reads biographies of inspiring people like Nelson Mandela or Steve Jobs. On top of the bookcase, Geun-sae built a “Hall of Fame,” a shrine dedicated to rich and famous people, including Dong-ik who lives upstairs. Geun-sae tries to somehow build a connection with the rich and famous people, for example by writing to the architect Namgung who designed the Park family home. He reads old magazines thrown away by the trophy wife Yeon-gyo, imagining the life of luxury portrayed in the magazine. But obviously, none of those motivation tactics really worked—because Geun-sae is still in the basement.</div>
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Personally, the familiarity of this sketch hit me like a gut punch. Who among us have not aimed high, only to despair at the limits of our own ability or the circumstances that changed beyond our control? Who among us haven’t turned increasingly more cynical as our dreams of greatness shrink over the years into something much more mundane? Who among us haven’t read stories of inspiring people with the vain hope that we, too, can be like them if we just tried a little harder? Living in a capitalistic society, who among us haven’t looked at a nice car or a nice watch while searching for an easy (and crass) motivation?</div>
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We live through these struggles by settling and accepting. We try to focus on the positives and explain away the negatives. We tell ourselves, maybe this life is all I deserve, and maybe it’s not so bad after all. However improbable it may seem, after spending four years in the sunless dungeon, Geun-sae came to the same conclusion. To incredulous Ki-taek who says “I can’t believe you lived here for so long,” Geun-sae says calmly: “Plenty of people live in the basement. More if you count half-basement apartments. . . . I like it here. It almost feels like I grew up here.”</div>
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This is the moment we see Geun-sae’s character most clearly as a neoliberal man. In fact, Geun-sae is the most neoliberal man in <i>Parasite</i>, because he accepts and legitimizes the system that condemns him into the abyss. Someone like Dong-ik, for example, would have an easy enough time being a neoliberal man—after all, as the capitalist, Dong-ik sits at the top of the neoliberal structure and reaps most of the benefits that the structure produces. The challenge of neoliberalism is to create a neoliberal man like Geun-sae. Without the millions of Geun-saes who buy into the system that crushes them, the capitalist structure cannot survive.</div>
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This is why Geun-sae’s actions and motivations become the main driver of action in the second half of <i>Parasite</i>. His life in the basement is ultimately what supports the entire ecosystem of the movie, with the Park family in the top floor and the Kim family slipping in and out of the bottom floor and the half-basement. When Geun-sae finally decides to emerge out of the basement, the whole edifice of the movie comes crashing down.</div>
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<b>III.</b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Behind-the-scenes still of Mun-gwang and Geun-sae (<a href="https://www.msn.com/ko-kr/entertainment/news/%EC%98%81%ED%99%94-%EC%86%8D-%EC%A7%80%ED%95%98%EC%8B%A4-%EB%82%A8%EC%9E%90-%EA%B7%BC%EC%84%B8%EB%8A%94-%EA%B0%91%EA%B7%BC%EC%84%B8%EC%97%90%EC%84%9C-%EB%94%B0%EC%99%80/ar-BBZVTRJ">source</a>)</td></tr>
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The popularity of <i>Parasite</i> in the United States owes to the current zeitgeist of our society. Inequality is a big issue, and the dynamic between the rich Park family and the poor Kim family makes for a neat story that reflects what is on the minds of many. But introducing the Oh family—the other poor family—greatly complicates this narrative, because the Parks versus the Ohs play out very differently from the Parks versus the Kims. </div>
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For those inclined toward a rich-versus-the-poor story, the Kims are heroes. Even though the Park family may be better off materially than the Kims, the Kim family never cedes any mental ground. After the Kims successfully infiltrate the Park home, Ki-taek gloats: “I was surprised the family was so easy to trick.” Chung-suk adds: “Especially the missus. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.” The Kim family concludes that money makes people dumb and naïve. In one of the most insightful lines in the movie, Chung-suk notes that the Parks are not “rich but nice,” but “nice because they are rich.”</div>
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On the other hand, the Ohs are traitors to their economic class. Geun-sae worships the Park family, especially the patriarch Dong-ik. Geun-sae keeps a picture of Dong-ik in his “Hall of Fame” of great people to be inspired by. Geun-sae also developed a ritual for worshipping Dong-ik, personally hitting the lights to illuminate Dong-ik’s walk upstairs into the house while singing a song of praise. Yet Dong-ik, the object of Geun-sae’s worship, has no idea who he is. When Dong-ik finally comes face-to-face with Geun-sae for the first time, he asks in confusion: “Do I know you?” In the Bible, those words are divine damnation: “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven . . . then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you’” (Matthew 7:21-23). But that does not matter to Geun-sae. Even in his dying moments after Chung-suk stabs him in the side in self-defense, Geun-sae looks to Dong-ik with reverence, letting out a primal scream: “RESPECT!!” </div>
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Focusing on the interaction between the Kims and the Ohs, the two poor families, is even more uncomfortable—for it is the Kims that destroyed the Ohs (at least proximately,) and the Ohs in turn destroy the Kims. On the surface level, there are enough nodes between the two families to build some kind of solidarity: both were previously middle-class families, ruined by the same king castella cake business. They have shared the experience of working for the Parks. And in fact, the Kims do show some measure of sympathy to the Ohs: Chung-suk opens the door for Mun-gwang to come into the house, and Ki-jeong suggests bringing food to the basement. But in the end, those small flashes of good intention do not result in a cooperation between the two families.</div>
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Set against the Ohs, the Kim family looks less like flawed heroes and more like outright villains. There was no reason for the Kims to drive out the Ohs from the Park house in the first place: Ki-woo, Ki-jeong and Ki-taek all had comfortable positions within the Park house, so why drive out Mun-gwang? Even after finding out the true story of the Ohs by discovering Geun-sae in the basement, the Kims feel disgusted and repelled rather than empathetic. Mun-gwang pleads to Chung-suk: “Please sis! We’re all in the same boat, aren’t we? We all need a little help to get by.” Chung-suk slaps her down: “I’m not your fucking sister, bitch. And I don’t need nobody’s help.” Eventually, Chung-suk kills Mun-gwang by delivering a fierce kick in the chest that pushed her back down to the basement (and giving Mun-gwang brain hemorrhage in the process.) Ki-woo tries to finish the job of securing his family’s position in the Park household by attempting to kill Geun-sae, until his plan goes awry.</div>
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With his wife’s death, Geun-sae goes into a maniacal rage. (Bong Joon-ho <a href="http://www.cine21.com/news/view/?mag_id=93255">noted</a> that among the three families, the Ohs loved each other the most. Park Myeong-hun <a href="http://www.cine21.com/news/view/?mag_id=93255">agreed</a> with the interviewer who said the most romantic scene in <i>Parasite</i> is the scene of Geun-sae and Mun-gwang dancing in the empty Park family home.) But again, the rage is never directed to Dong-ik, the capitalist. Geun-sae bashes Ki-woo’s head in with the scholar’s stone, then plunges a knife into Ki-jeong’s chest. It is once again Chung-suk that ends up killing Geun-sae, as she was fighting for her own life against Geun-sae’s knifing. Only with Geun-sae at the death’s door does Ki-taek take any meaningful action that resembles class solidarity: grabbing the knife to kill Dong-ik, after being triggered by Dong-ik’s repulsion by Geun-sae’s smell. </div>
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But as cathartic as it may be, killing Dong-ik doesn’t really do anything for the poor families. The Ohs are annihilated, and Ki-jeong is also dead. Ki-taek is condemned to the dungeon that Geun-sae once lived, and Ki-woo and Chung-suk are back to the dingy half-basement apartment.</div>
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<b>IV.</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfYM2lTWl22L8lmmw_RltTlCrasybQrX89C_VoeOEftEgSZkPmB8vhH81mhhikh3f2tBoSaikdaTsX69S7BARIMJDNKqk6ySw0xMkfwiefSSib3DFgI3vZyiHHd6bi1qMhvUsr/s1600/image003_1-embed_2020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="984" data-original-width="928" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfYM2lTWl22L8lmmw_RltTlCrasybQrX89C_VoeOEftEgSZkPmB8vhH81mhhikh3f2tBoSaikdaTsX69S7BARIMJDNKqk6ySw0xMkfwiefSSib3DFgI3vZyiHHd6bi1qMhvUsr/s640/image003_1-embed_2020.jpg" width="602" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bong Joon-ho's sketch of Geun-sae.<br />
"Let's just say for now that the red stuff on his face is hot sauce." (<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bong-joon-ho-shares-his-early-sketches-parasites-twists-turns-1275754">source</a>)</td></tr>
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<i>Parasite</i> is often conceived as a critique of neoliberal capitalism—more specifically, how the callous obliviousness of the rich humiliates and degrades the poor. That is indeed what the movie does, and the better reviews of the movie—<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/11/parasite-a-window-into-south-korean-neoliberalism">this one on the Jacobin magazine</a> comes to mind—focuses strongly on all the details of South Korea’s neoliberal society created the division between the rich Parks and the poor Kims. But by failing to discuss Geun-sae, the analysis that focuses on the rich versus the poor loses sight of the crucial flip side of <i>Parasite</i>’s commentary: Ki-taek versus Geun-sae, the poor versus the poor.</div>
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Leftists may have thought Ki-taek and Geun-sae could have formed an alliance against Dong-ik. There certainly was enough fodder for the two men to find solidarity, as we saw above. But of course, no such solidarity happened: Ki-taek’s wife killed Geun-sae’s wife, then Geun-sae killed or nearly killed Ki-taek’s children, then finally, Ki-taek’s wife kills Geun-sae who was trying to kill her. In a movie that supposedly critiques neoliberal capitalism, what do we make out of the denouement that involves the poor destroying each other?</div>
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Ultimately, the rift between Ki-taek and Geun-sae is traceable to their differing attitude toward the rich man Dong-ik. For those who sympathize with Ki-taek, Geun-sae’s attitude is less than intuitive. Why would Geun-sae buy into the capitalist system that condemns him to the bottom of the society? Leftists have a theory: Geun-sae suffers from “false consciousness,” essentially brainwashed by the capitalist society to buy into its norms and ignore his own desperate conditions. I never found this explanation particularly convincing, mostly because I’m skeptical of any theory that claims to know people better than they know themselves. But setting aside whether Geun-sae’s consciousness is indeed false, the false consciousness theory only serves to postpone the analysis. The issue would simply be recast as: why is Geun-sae susceptible to false consciousness while Ki-taek is not?</div>
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The physical locations of the two families—the Kims in a half-basement, and the Ohs in the basement—suggest an answer. The Kims are closer to the surface than the Ohs, and the Kims are free to move about the neighborhood while the Ohs are locked in the Park family house. A discerning eye, familiar with the landscape of poverty in Korea, can pick up more signs that the Kims and the Ohs may be both poor, but not equally so. Despite their dilapidated looks, half-basement apartments in Seoul are not cheap. With the skyrocketing housing prices in Seoul (especially relative to the rest of the country,) it is not uncommon for half-basement apartments to be <a href="https://m.mt.co.kr/renew/view.html?no=2017032013045604303#_enliple">worth over</a> US $100,000. Even if the Kims were renting rather than owned the half-basement they were living in, the typical rental arrangement in Korea is to have a renter put down a very large deposit (up to 80 or 90 percent of the value of the house in some cases) in exchange for paying either no monthly rent or very small rent by US standards—which means unlike the Ohs, the Kims were sitting on a not-insignificant amount of capital. </div>
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The Kims don’t just have more money than the Ohs; they also hold more cultural capital, as Pierre Bourdieu might put it. Ki-taek is familiar with the finer distinctions among the scholar’s rocks, a status-displaying bauble for Korea’s rich. Ki-woo speaks English well enough to work as Da-hye’s English tutor, showing off yet another status symbol in the US-led globalized era. Ki-jeong studied art, the discipline that is arguably the closest to being a study in the discernment of cultural capital—small wonder, then, that Ki-jeong turns out to be the smoothest fraud. Collectively, the Kims could leverage their cultural capital into infiltrating the Park family home. The Kim family’s smell might give them away to the Parks, but never their mannerism. Meanwhile, although Mun-gwang worked for the Parks for over four years, her husband Geun-sae could never be the driver for Dong-ik.</div>
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Relative to Dong-ik, both Ki-taek and Geun-sae are poor. But the small distance between the Kims and the Ohs, the dwellers of half-basement versus those of basement, make a big difference in their worldview. For all their struggles, the Kims are close enough to the surface in their half-basement home: “It’s clearly a basement, but people living there want to believe they belong to the above-the-ground world,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/world/asia/parasite-seoul-south-korea.html">noted</a> Bong Joon-ho. The Kims can access the above-ground and interact with people like the Parks at the top of the hill, which dispels any illusion the Kims may have had about the rich. Chung-suk’s “They are nice because their rich” could be an incisive retort to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The rich are different from you and me.” </div>
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Locked in his sunless basement, Geun-sae, as a practical matter, does not exist. Bong Joon-ho <a href="https://www.nocutnews.co.kr/news/5166817">noted</a> Geun-sae was "treated as a ghost by the Park family. Here's a man who is perfectly alive and well, but in this house he is a ghost who lives underground." Geun-sae cannot approach the world of the rich; the rich people like Dong-ik exist only as abstract images. To Geun-sae, who bought into the narratives of neoliberalism and meritocracy, someone like Dong-ik (or Steve Jobs, or other famous people in the “Hall of Fame”) are the demigods of capitalism to be worshipped from afar. So Geun-sae spends his years in the dungeon worshipping Dong-ik’s footsteps, even as Dong-ik is scarcely aware of Geun-sae’s existence.</div>
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We can now see why, amid all the enthusiasm about <i>Parasite</i>, virtually no attention is given to Geun-sae.</div>
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The Kim family’s genus of poverty suggests why <i>Parasite</i> received a particularly strong response from a certain demographic of American movie fans—the young urbanites struggling to make ends meet in an expensive city, but with enough sophistication to sit through a foreign movie with subtitles and write for newspapers and pop culture websites. The Kims are poor, but not quite destitute. In a pinch they can pass themselves off as auxiliary members of the high society, albeit with the quiet anxiety that comes with an imposter syndrome. This is arguably the most relatable type of poverty for the group of Americans who are leading the political and cultural discourse today.</div>
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This is why all analyses of <i>Parasite</i> focus on the Kim family, and never on Geun-sae. If you identify strongly with the Kim family, turning your eye toward Geun-sae means facing your own ugliness. It means recognizing your privileged position relative to those like Geun-sae. It means you, like Ki-taek or Chung-suk, fail to see yourself in the plights of Geun-sae or Mun-gwang. It means facing the fact that, to gain small advantages or protect your own position, you would not hesitate to drive Mun-gwang out of her job or kick her down the stairs.</div>
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Above all, identifying with the Kims means being oblivious to Geun-sae’s presence. The genius of Bong Joon-ho is that his plot twists are not placed only for the sake of surprise, but also in order to make a point. Geun-sae’s presence had to be a surprise, because those in the position of Ki-taek never plan for those in the position of Geun-sae. Those who fight against inequality were surprised when millions of working poor prefer to worship a billionaire gasbag. Feminists were surprised when transgender women seem to affirm the gender roles that they worked so hard to dismantle. The marginalized Americans who find enlisting in the military to be a path toward the American Dream are surprised to learn that the people they are killing have their own opinions about what the US military did to their country. So of course Geun-sae is a spoiler—the millions of Geun-saes around the world are spoilers, because they spoil the best-laden plans of the millions of Ki-taeks.</div>
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One can raise a structuralist objection. It is too much to expect that Ki-taek would be a hero, for the system of neoliberal capitalism corrupts all within it. A better world emerges only after this world passes through a Gotterdammerung. But that’s not the message of <i>Parasite</i>, which is simply not an agitprop. Recall that the movie concludes with an impossible fantasy, in which Ki-woo vows to somehow earn enough money to buy the Park family home to rescue his father who escaped to the Park family basement after murdering Dong-ik. Even after the Gotterdammerung, there is no better world. Rather than transcending the capitalist system, Ki-woo submits to it, putting himself in the same mental position as Geun-sae while his father assumes Geun-sae’s physical position. </div>
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(Bong Joon-ho <a href="https://www.nocutnews.co.kr/news/5166817">on the ending</a>: "I wanted to be honest, beyond optimism and pessimism. ... It would not have been difficult to set up an ending that provided a rosy exit for Ki-woo. In some ways, that would have been easier. But I thought that would be even more cruel and irresponsible. I felt that it would better for the viewers to come face to face with sorrow. It's incredibly sad for Ki-woo to say, 'I will buy that house,' and 'Father just has to walk upstairs.' I did the calculation, and it would take Ki-woo 574 years to buy the house if he saved all of his salary and spent none of it. ... It would be irresponsible to conclude that things will be good when the situation cannot possibly be good.")</div>
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<i>Parasite</i> indeed is a critique of neoliberal capitalism—but its critique is much more robust than the rich versus the poor. Geun-sae virtually never makes any appearance in <i>Parasite</i> reviews because for those who care about inequality, the messages presented through Geun-sae is too horrible to contemplate: that class solidarity is impossible, that the rage of the lowest socioeconomic status is never directed to those at the top of the structure, that even after nihilistic destruction of lives, the machinery of capitalism continues to churn, imprisoning bodies and minds.</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-13534066145557642612020-01-31T17:53:00.002-05:002020-01-31T17:53:34.715-05:00Book Review: A Team of Their Own by Seth Berkman (2019)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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(Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book.)<br />
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The women’s national team for South Korean ice hockey had a problem: it sucked. As the host country for the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games, the Korean team could qualify automatically. But the team was embarrassingly bad: as of February 2011, South Korea’s all-time record in women’s hockey was 0-15, with the cumulative score of 242-4. In 2012, the International Ice Hockey Federation issued an ultimatum: the team would not receive an automatic qualification unless it improved. As a quick fix, Korea Ice Hockey Association installed an American coach, and searched for any woman hockey player of Korean descent in the United States and Canada who could be naturalized prior to 2018. With an injection of international talent, the team did qualify for the Olympics. Then, just weeks before the Games began, North Korea proposed forming a joint team with the South Korean team as an inter-Korean gesture of goodwill.</div>
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So goes the story of Seth Berkman’s <i>A Team of Their Own</i>. The events surrounding the Korean women’s ice hockey team was so compelling that a book might practically write itself. The ultimate underdog improves enough to play in the world stage, thanks to a hodgepodge of players from different corners of the world overcoming their differences through the magical power of hockey! But the actual book that emerged out of Berkman’s telling is not exactly the one that might be expected by someone who followed the team in real life. On the first look, Team seems like a feel-good sports story. But dig just a bit below the surface, and a more complex story emerges to challenge the importance of cultural identity and question the purpose of sports.</div>
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(More after the jump.)<br />
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.<br />
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I should not undersell the feel-goodness of <i>Team</i>, since the story of Korean women’s ice hockey team is as good as any sports story. Ice hockey is little known in South Korea, and women’s version even less so. South Korean women's ice hockey team used hand-me-down equipment, and their stipend was under $200 a month. They were not allowed to access the national training facility and its cafeteria, which meant their training was mostly running up and down hills outdoors and their nutrition regimen was instant ramen and delivery Chinese food. Particularly galling is the different treatment given to the men’s hockey team, who received higher stipend and better facility despite posting records that were no better than the women’s team.<br />
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Each member of the team has a story straight out of central casting. Veteran goalkeeper Shin So-jung was talented enough to join the national team at age 14 and draw interest from Brown and Harvard, but chose to attend college in Korea because her family could not afford her to study abroad, especially after her father passed away. Similarly, Choi Ji-yeon had the opportunity to attend a hockey academy in Canada but had to decline because she needed the tiny stipend she received as a national team player for her family. Han Soo-jin was an accomplished pianist at the prestigious Yonsei University college of music, but gave up her concert gown for pads, helmet and a stick in pursuit of her true passion.<br />
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Joining this likable group of Koreans was another group of women from the Korean diaspora, with incredible stories of their own. Marissa Brandt, born Park Yoon-jung, was adopted from Korea to Minnesota at age one. Marissa and her sister Hannah—biological child of the Brandts—proved to be hockey prodigies, and ended up earning national team spots for different teams: Hannah for Team USA, Marissa for South Korea. Randi Heesoo Griffin was 25 years old Ph.D. student when she received the recruiting call, four years since she played collegiate hockey for Harvard. She initially thought she was away from the game for too long, but she ends up scoring the first of only two goals the team scored in the Olympics. Coaching this group was the young Sarah Murray, daughter of the former NHL coach Andy Murray looking to make a name for herself.<br />
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The first half of <i>Team</i>, in which we see these individuals coming together, is an engaging read because the reader cannot help but root for these women. This is in no small part thanks to Berkman’s prose, which is written with the easygoing sports-writer voice with folksy turns of phrases. The story goes as expected: initial bouts of awkwardness between the old timers and newcomers are soon overcome as they develop an informal sisterhood forged through the shared experience of practicing, traveling, eating, and playing together. The magic of ice hockey overcomes.<br />
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The story of the players’ cultural identity as Koreans is as important a thread in <i>Team</i> as ice hockey. The joint Korean women’s ice hockey team featured every conceivable way of connecting to Korean-ness. Many of the players were simply born as Koreans and remained so. But <i>Team</i> also features mixed heritage Koreans like Randi, adoptees like Marissa who left the country as an infant, second-generation Korean immigrants who downplayed their Korean identity to fit into the mainstream society, and even a blond, blue-eyed Sarah Murray who previously had no connection with Korea but came to regard the country as her second home. <i>Team</i> shows how those with a small foothold to the Korean identity gradually bought into their Korean-ness and bonded with their teammates, as their team slowly improved. Berkman, himself a Korean American adoptee, recounts each Korean woman’s rediscovery of their identity with knowing sensitivity.<br />
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So far, so good. It’s the comforting story we have read many times over, about how sports can overcome everything and re-affirming cultural identity can only be an unmitigated good. But as North Korean players enter the picture in the second half, <i>Team</i> takes a turn. At the time, the world <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/for-16-days-pyeongchang-games-turned-all-of-us-into-one-unified-team/2018/02/25/9011c378-1956-11e8-92c9-376b4fe57ff7_story.html">celebrated this joinder</a> as it expected the same comforting story to continue. From the inside, however, <i>Team</i> shows that the actual events unfolded somewhat differently.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Korean women's ice hockey team shortly after the match against Sweden, Feb. 20, 2018<br />The banner in the background says: "We are one." (<a href="http://www.knnews.co.kr/news/articleView.php?idxno=1241181&gubun=">source</a>)</td></tr>
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North Korean players join the team only three weeks before the Olympics, not nearly enough time to form a cohesive team. From skills perspective, the North Korean players cannot measure up—yet some of the South Korean players who prepared for years to play in the Olympics had to be cut from the team to make room for the North Koreans. Regardless of good intentions, the politics surrounding the merger was ignorant and disrespectful to the athletes. Do Jong-hwan, South Korea’s Minister of Culture and Sports, absurdly claimed that more players wouldn’t affect the team’s performance because hockey had so many in-game substitutions. Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon said the quite part out loud when he said: “Speaking honestly, the women’s ice hockey team is not going to win a medal during the Olympics, is it?” The team became a spectacle for reasons entirely unrelated to their performance on the ice. The international media hounded the players, while dignitaries barged into the locker room for photo ops.<br />
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Sure, there are some “sports can overcome” moments, like an anecdote about how the South Korean players integrated the North Korean players into the team by building a shared dictionary of hockey terms. But a handful of those moments are not enough to dispel the question of what the addition of North Korean players achieved, if any. Two years since the Winter Olympics, the inter-Korean relationship is mostly back to where it was before the Games. North Korea is not close to denuclearizing, and South Korean public’s enthusiasm for inter-Korean exchanges is waning. The athletes of the two Koreas are once again separated and unlikely to meet one another for quite some time. Even during the Olympics, they used separate lodging facilities and Pyongyang’s minders accompanied the North Korean athletes at all times. Arguably, the most Berkman could muster up as an instance of teammates from the two Koreas bonding is an anecdote about a South Korean player showing photos on her smartphone to her North Korean teammate. That's a nice enough story, but a small beer if you were looking for an example of how sports can heal deep divisions.<br />
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What if the North Korean players were given two years to train together and form a more intimate team, as the diaspora Koreans did with Korea-born players? But we all know that could not have happened for the 2018 Winter Olympics. This, then, raises some very uncomfortable questions that we are not used to asking when we read what was supposed to be a feel-good sports story. Are we sure about this magical power of sports? Are we sure having a shared heritage means anything? Is the Olympics really about athleticism and sportsmanship, when so much of it revolves around the pageantry of nationalism? What’s so great about being Korean, when that identity turns you into an instrument of politics that occur beyond your view or control? Although <i>Team</i> is an easy and engaging read, these questions are not the stuff for an after-school special.<br />
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In fact, the most important chapters of <i>Team</i> may be the penultimate ones, describing what happened after the Olympics. In the part where most sports movies would fade into a black screen and put up nice narrative sentences about what a great life each athlete had after the Games, the book goes onto show how Korean women’s hockey team staged a strike just one month after the Olympics to demand a better treatment, especially in relation to the men’s hockey team. After going through the Olympics as a pawn of politics, the women’s ice hockey team was acting to gain agency.<br />
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The increased agency translated to results on the ice. After going 0-5 with a cumulative score of 28 to 2 to finish in the last place in the Winter Games, the Korean women’s ice hockey team went 3-1 to win the silver in their division in the World Championships held in Italy just two months after the Olympics. As <i>Team</i> tells it, many of the players felt the World Championship was the more memorable experience than the Olympics. “We were playing for us and we were playing only for us,” said Danelle Im, a Korean Canadian player from Toronto—revealing why the players felt the World Championship was more meaningful, and hinting at the answer for all the thorny questions about sports and heritage.<br />
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-51601851354369016632019-12-27T21:14:00.002-05:002019-12-27T21:14:59.974-05:00Hoya is Looking for a Home<div style="text-align: justify;">
Alright - here is something that is only tangentially related to Korea, but a chance to do some good for a very good boy in his holiday season.</div>
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Meet Hoya.</div>
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Hoya is a four year old, 40 pound Jindo mix. Hoya is currently in Joondog Training Center at Chuncheon, Korea, receiving training to become adoptable both within Korea and abroad. He is neutered and received all the necessary vaccine shots including DHLPP and rabies. He is very friendly with strangers and understands basic commands like "sit" and "stay." More pictures of Hoya are available at his Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/hoya_newfamily/">https://www.instagram.com/hoya_newfamily/</a></div>
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Hoya is from Masan, Korea, where he was slated to be euthanized. But he was rescued on Christmas Eve of 2018 and has been fostered in Seoul, when he is not spending time in Chuncheon. For the past year, Hoya has been looking for a loving home, either in Korea or abroad. I am writing this post because Hoya's foster mom, who is a friend, asked me personally. I solemnly swear this involves no catch, no sales pitch, no solicitation for money, no BS--I am just trying to help my friend find this dog a home.</div>
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Because Hoya has been previously abandoned, we want to make sure he finds a stable, forever home with plenty of love. This means that he should ideally live with a family, or at least a person who can be with him for most of the day rather than leaving him alone for hours. Hoya should live indoors, but should be able to go outside for a walk at least twice a day to use the bathroom. </div>
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Hoya can stay in Korea or go abroad. If you are located in Korea, Hoya's foster mom can bring him to you. If you are abroad, you can come and pick up Hoya, or we can arrange for a travel volunteer to take Hoya to your home.</div>
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For all questions and (serious) inquiries, please contact Hoya's foster mom at <a href="mailto:clara.thepalm@gmail.com">clara.thepalm@gmail.com</a>, or message Hoya's Instagram at @hoya_newfamily. Hope you are in the right situation to give Hoya a loving home.</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-53863275139329466702019-12-20T22:53:00.000-05:002019-12-22T15:35:47.363-05:00Taking K-pop Seriously in the 2020s<div style="text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seo Taiji and Boys, c. 1993 (<a href="http://www.seotaiji-archive.com/xe/434873">source</a>)</td></tr>
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The 2010s is nearly over. What will the 2020s have in store for K-pop? <br />
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Modern K-pop began around the late 1980s, fresh off South Korea’s transition into democracy in 1987 and the successful 1988 Seoul Olympics. This means at the year’s end in 2019, modern K-pop is finishing its third decade. Each decade of modern K-pop carried its own characteristics that built up to the Korean pop music that we know today. <br />
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The first decade of modern K-pop began in the 1990s, with its bannerman Seo Taiji and Boys [서태지와 아이들] debuting in 1992. In what came to be known as the Golden Age of K-pop, the “New Generation” [신세대] of Koreans—richer, more sophisticated, and more international than ever—set off an explosion of pop culture, creating a pop music scene with a variety of genres and styles including rock ‘n roll, hip hop, R&B and electronica. The first decade of K-pop set the basic contours of K-pop’s artistic bent: a no-holds-barred mixture of genres and styles and emphasis on choreography. Emblematic of this period is Seo Taiji’s <i>Hayeoga</i> [하여가]: an avant-garde mixture of rap metal with guitar and taepyeongso [태평소, a high-pitched traditional woodwind] bridges, to which Seo Taiji and Boys danced. <br />
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The later part of this decade also saw the inchoate form of K-pop’s “industrial revolution”: production companies putting together “idol groups,” a highly curated group of good looking young men and women who underwent a rigorous training program to maximize their appeal. Emblematic of this trend was H.O.T., a mass-produced simulacrum of the Seo Taiji experience. Powerful production companies like SM Entertainment and YG Entertainment that tightly controlled its trainees, churning out idol stars like Hyundai Motors produced automobiles. Meanwhile, the Hongdae indie scene began booming in Seoul, and underground hip hop groups like Garion was experimenting with rhymes in the Korean language.<br />
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The second decade, beginning around 2000s, was when the “industrialized” K-pop became international. In 2000, BoA debuted almost simultaneously in Korea and Japan, eventually topping the charts in both countries. Recruited at age 12 by SM Entertainment, BoA underwent rigorous training that included singing, dancing and language lessons, all geared toward making her blend naturally into both Japan and Korea. With stars like BoA and TVXQ (who replicated BoA’s model in China,) K-pop began to attract notice as an international phenomenon, although primarily centered in Asia. </div>
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(More after the jump.)</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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Girls’ Generation was the peak of the second decade, and ushered in K-pop’s third decade by making headway into the US market. The third decade also began with PSY’s <i>Gangnam Style</i>—the hyper-viral sensation and the first K-pop music to make a truly global imprint. As the 2010s progressed, K-pop went from being a primarily Asian phenomenon with some niche appeal in the West, to a full-blown mainstream trend everywhere in the world. In 2019, there is little question that BTS is at the top of the global pop music, creating a worldwide mania unseen since the days of Michael Jackson and the Beatles. International fans of K-pop also began to venture beyond the idol music fare, discovering Korea’s hip hop and indie artists who emerged outside of the production company model.<br />
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K-pop’s global success may be the most significant pop culture trend of the 21st century. In the modern world, it is unprecedented for artists from a non-Western country, singing in their own language, are leading the world’s taste in music. Many voluminous books could be written about how this could have happened, but to briefly offer some of my theories: the right mixture of proximity and distance from the US/UK pop music; music optimized for the internet age, with emphasis on addictiveness and virality; the shift of global economy away from the West, the rise of Asian middle class that could demand and even impose their own aesthetic preferences, the greater ability for ethnic minorities in the US to dictate the mainstream trend on music, and so on. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Album cover for BoA's Valenti, released in Japan c. 2004.<br />
The album sold a million copies on the first day it went on sale. (<a href="http://www.yes24.com/Product/goods/42870562">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Art alone cannot make itself great. Good criticism is essential to contextualize the art and give it meaning. By placing an artistic piece of work in the flow of history for that art, and juxtaposed to other contemporaneous pieces of work, good criticism imbues the work with value and enables artists to explore new possibilities. In Korea, the Golden Age of K-pop in the 1990s was soon followed by the golden age of pop music criticism. Serious writers and academics like Park Jun-heum [박준흠], Shin Hyeon-jun [신현준] and Lee Yeong-mi [이영미] traced the history of Korean pop music, examined its development and documented many of the essential aspects in K-pop’s development – the artistic process of its most significant artists, the time, place and manner in which the Korean public enjoyed their music, pop music in Korea in relation to the world, and so on. <br />
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Through their work, we know that origin of Korean pop music can be traced to the late 19th century, when Western music was introduced to Korea. We see the tenacious appeal of the yona-nuki scale from the colonial era—most prevalent in the “trot” genre today—that survives in K-pop to this day. We visualize Shin Jung-hyeon [신중현], Korea’s Godfather of Rock, electrifying the American crowd at the US military base clubs in the 1960s. We feel the heat of the Club Moon Night from which legendary hip hop groups like Seo Taiji and Boys and Deux emerged in the 1990s. With historical criticism, we are able to see which popular K-pop acts of today are true groundbreakers, and which are merely finding popularity by following the path that others have opened.<br />
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As we are entering the fourth decade of modern K-pop, and the third decade of international K-pop, I am heartened to say the quality of English language K-pop criticism is increasing as well. As the first generation of English-speaking K-pop fans are reaching their 20s and 30s, they are producing well-informed pieces of criticism that are meaningfully advancing the discussion.<br />
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Unfortunately, however, those writers are still in the minority in terms of influence and reach. Even in times when BTS is the first artist to have three Billboard chart-topping albums in a calendar year since the Beatles, serious discussion about K-pop on major English language outlets are still few and far between. The coverage is tone-deaf even at entertainment-focused magazines like the Hollywood Reporter, which recently wasted precious access and word count on <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/bts-is-back-musics-billion-dollar-boy-band-takes-next-step-1244580">a writer who had little prior exposure to K-pop</a> and no Korean language skill with which to converse with the band members. (Imagine covering the Beatles this way in 1964.) When the coverage is not tone-deaf, it is sensationalistic without depth. With the recent passing of superstars Sulli and Goo Hara, the articles <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-11-06/k-pop-s-dark-side-assault-prostitution-suicide-and-spycams">purportedly exploring the “dark side of K-pop”</a> are once again appearing on media outlets that never cared to cover K-pop stars when they are alive.</div>
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Underlying this shallow and sensationalistic treatment is a certain preconception about K-pop, which roughly goes like this. The term “K-pop” is co-extensive with Korea’s idol pop music. The idols are more of a manufactured product than artists. The Big Three production companies that dominate the scene—SM, YG, and JYP—carefully curate and groom their talents since very young age, in what essentially amounts to a child labor. The idols have no agency of their own, which leads to the “dark side of K-pop” such as slave-like contracts and suicides. The people who love K-pop are sheep-like idiots, reflexively responding to a product that was carefully engineered to appeal to their base instincts. In this massive game of puppetry involving live human beings, there is no artistry, nor is there any serious depth to explore.</div>
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There was not one moment in K-pop history when this preconception was true. Idol pop music is but one segment of the overall Korean pop music; in terms of musical output, its size is dwarfed by the other parts of Korean pop music including hip hop, indie, and adult contemporary. This non-idol music segment of K-pop, in turn, influenced the shape and manner of Korea's idol music industry. (For example, BTS's early offerings are <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/a-brief-history-of-korean-hip-hop.html">directly influenced by Korea's hip hop community</a>.) Even at the height of the idol pop era—around late 2000s, in the times of Girls’ Generation, TVXQ and Big Bang among others—the idols were real artists making meaningful input into their own music and performance. (If you are skeptical, check out <a href="https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC%A7%80%EB%93%9C%EB%9E%98%EA%B3%A4%EC%9D%98_%EC%9E%91%EC%82%AC_%EB%B0%8F_%EC%9E%91%EA%B3%A1%ED%95%9C_%EB%85%B8%EB%9E%98_%EB%AA%A9%EB%A1%9D">the list of tracks</a> that Big Bang’s G-Dragon composed and lyricized for the group.) </div>
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While K-pop’s musical landscape is highly varied to a point that defies a catch-all description, the best of Korean pop is among the most progressive and complex pop music in the world, to a point that American R&B composers, left jobless in the US pop music that is getting ever more simplistic, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/how-american-rb-songwriters-found-a-new-home-in-k-pop-627643/">flock to compose</a> more serious music for K-pop stars. And ultimately, this is what fans of K-pop come for. They like their stars for the same reason anyone likes any pop music star: sometimes because of good looks and fine choreography, but mostly because of good music.<br />
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Yet the prejudice against K-pop persists in the English language media largely because it fits neatly with the Western world’s preconception about Asians. Because of course Asians are uncreative automatons. Because of course Asians are the shifty, calculating sort. Of course any “art” from Asia must be a result of a careful, devious strategy, executed by obediently unthinking robo-humans who are brainwashed since childhood, like those Asian math geniuses who seem more like a calculator than a person. Of course there is nothing to be said about K-pop’s artistry.<br />
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The hold of such racism-tinged view of K-pop is such that the conventional wisdom about K-pop in the English language discourse has no explanatory power. The preconception about K-pop fails to explain each new phase of K-pop's development for the past two decades because ultimately, its explanation for K-pop’s popularity was that K-pop fans were stupid, and at some point the K-pop production companies will run out of dumb people to dupe. I recall the sneers from 20 years ago, when K-pop first began its international foray: Korean pop music is nothing but an uncreative derivative of US and UK pop music, and the greatest K-pop artist Seo Taiji was no more than a serial plagiarist. When BoA and TVXQ began selling out stadiums in Japan and China, the sneerers retreated but did not stop: K-pop may be able to go abroad, they said, but its appeal is limited to Asia. They saw the success of <i>Gangnam Style</i> as a confirmation of their derision rather than a reality check: look—the only K-pop that can succeed in the US and the Western world is a big, fat musical joke.<br />
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Then came BTS, who eliminated any further room for a laughing retreat. Faced with the group’s remarkable success, the conventional wisdom about K-pop resorted to the final refuge of those in error: bald-faced denial of reality. Even as BTS was topping the charts all over the world, much of the English language discourse about K-pop never considered how a group of mostly Korean-speaking hip hop artists, who came out of a tiny production company that basically let them be themselves, challenged the yesteryear’s preconception about K-pop. Even while millions of fans around the world filled stadiums, flooded radio stations with request calls and organized themselves into arguably the most potent online force in internet history, the English language media simply refused to understand why. Instead, they continued to trot out a writer with little prior exposure to K-pop to cover the biggest K-pop star ever, or push sensationalistic stories about the “dark side of K-pop” that continued to lean on the idea of evil, micromanaging K-pop production companies.</div>
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<b>III.</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV0o71FvWdUGBZl-FGjW3HIxpBI8-dF28wWumxwHaYqTVjuD4bkYi-qwNMWzuRX5jWqw-8UJGv3a_FJO1dRL3NNgrZZrUeGoZ1EQQYnY1Y_shFBX64eL1JvMJhFG6kU7Yo_RGI/s1600/509D51D400000578-6206105-image-a-9_1537885343352.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="634" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV0o71FvWdUGBZl-FGjW3HIxpBI8-dF28wWumxwHaYqTVjuD4bkYi-qwNMWzuRX5jWqw-8UJGv3a_FJO1dRL3NNgrZZrUeGoZ1EQQYnY1Y_shFBX64eL1JvMJhFG6kU7Yo_RGI/s1600/509D51D400000578-6206105-image-a-9_1537885343352.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">BTS addresses the United Nation, c. 2018 (<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6206105/BTS-speech-United-Nations-world-K-pop-music.html">source</a>)</td></tr>
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A defensible case can be made for the conventional wisdom about K-pop, if you squint hard enough. For a long time, I have said that the preconception about K-pop reflects but a single part of the Korean pop music landscape in the late 2000s—in other words, the time when the English speaking world first encountered K-pop, and the small cohort of idol groups it encountered. With appropriate qualifications, you can make a reasonable defense of the conventional wisdom about K-pop, like so: </div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“The conventional wisdom of K-pop is not wrong, insofar as it is describing the part of K-pop that is relevant to the international fans. Granted, Korean pop music may be much bigger than what is visible to the international fans. But the international fans only interact with a limited part of K-pop, and the remainder of Korean pop music is not accessible to them. If the media outlet is primarily geared toward the non-Korean audience, there is nothing wrong with speaking about the only part of K-pop that the international audience will engage with.”</blockquote>
I have <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2017/05/k-pop-is-not-genre.html">long disagreed with this argument</a>. It requires pretending words don’t mean what they say, and arbitrarily restricting the meaning of the word “K-pop” to “a limited segment of Korean pop music with which the international audience is likely to interact.” But as a functional matter, the argument was defensible enough – at least until mid-2010s. <i>Gangnam Style</i> showed the cracks of this argument when a pudgy rapper in his 40s<span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">—</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">absolutely nobody's idea of a finely curated pretty boy<span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">—</span></span>became the greatest global K-pop star until that point. Then BTS hammered at those cracks to shatter the argument, to a point that there is little to be salvaged. As the peak of K-pop’s third decade in which K-pop emerged as the global pop music mainstream, BTS gestures at the coming trends in the 2020s, K-pop’s fourth decade.<br />
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It is time to retire the old talking points about production companies in K-pop once and for all. At no time did the production companies define Korean pop music, but as of late 2019, the K-pop production companies do not even define <i>international</i> Korean pop music. As the international K-pop fans are more broadly exposed to Korean pop music, they are rapidly expanding their horizons beyond the idol pop acts of the 2000s and into Korea’s hip hop and indie, where production companies do not play much of a role. Today, indie acts like Hyukoh and Bolbbalgan4 routinely break into Billboard charts, and the next decade will see even more Korean pop musicians who will gain international renown without going through any idol production system.</div>
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Also, as idol acts of the 2000s grow into mature artists, they are freer to explore their own musical art with little to no interference from their production companies. BoA, who was the epitome of the industrialized K-pop production, is now a 19-year veteran with nine studio albums under her belt. Although she still maintains her contract with SM Entertainment that discovered her talent as a 12 year old, SM is no longer in the position to tell BoA what to do. Same is true with IU, or Taeyeon from Girls’ Generation. (Indeed, same was true with Sulli from f(x) and Goo Hara from Kara, notwithstanding incessant talks of “K-pop’s dark side” relating to their untimely deaths.) In the 2020s, more of today's idol artists will graduate into mature solo performers, heeding no one's artistic direction other than their own.</div>
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Even within the idol pop segment where the production companies are more important, the landscape is shifting rapidly. The triopoly of SM, YG and JYP is no more, as the tiny outfit BigHit upended the idol scene with BTS and grew into a juggernaut. The success of BigHit’s model, which emphasized its artists’ authenticity and narrative journey, is inspiring other smaller production companies to enter the market and follow suit. Even the Big Three are changing their approach, getting their artists more involved in the creative process. </div>
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Potentially more disruptive to the idol pop segment is the fact that the influence of traditional gatekeepers in Korea is decreasing by day. The old formula that a K-pop group must succeed in Korea first, then seek international fame<span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">—another relic of the 2000s<span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">—is no more. Today, K-pop groups appeal directly to the international fans through Youtube and social network, such that we are beginning to see a subtle divergence between the K-pop acts more popular within Korea, and K-pop acts more popular outside of it. BTS, in fact, is an early example of the phenomenon. While the group was fairly popular in Korea, BTS found greater success outside of their own country first, and saw its international success reverberate back to Korea. Recognizing this trend, </span></span>US production companies are joining the fray, playing a more direct role in creating K-pop groups that appeal more specifically to the international market—such as SuperM, a joint project between SM Entertainment and Capitol Records whose debut EP immediately topped the US chart. With more players in the idol pop field offering different paths to stardom, the idea that K-pop production companies are creating fine-tuned product is far past its shelf life.</div>
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Of course, the production companies continue to exist in K-pop, and their influence is still significant. Some production companies do micromanage its talents sometimes. Some production companies do ruin the lives of its artists and those around them sometimes. It is completely fair and fine to discuss the good and bad aspects of K-pop production companies, as there is plenty to discuss. (For example, the involvement of YG Entertainment in the Burning Sun club scandal is still not discussed enough.) You only need to be clear about which part of K-pop you are discussing: a specific act by a specific person or a company, and not the entire edifice of Korean pop music. R. Kelly's persistent sexual abuse was not an indictment of the entire American music industry, nor was Amy Winehouse's suicide a wholesale condemnation of UK pop music scene. Why would Korean pop music be different?</div>
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If you wish to discuss the entire edifice of Korean pop music—and it would be a worthy effort to do so—I have but one suggestion: <b><i>Take K-pop Seriously</i></b>. Lose the idea that K-pop is fake and K-pop fans are dupes. Instead, seriously approach the history of Korean pop music, seriously examine the K-pop landscape that extends beyond idol pop, seriously consider how the current generation of artists are responding to their predecessors and their peers, and seriously engage with fans to understand why they like what they like. Because the turn-of-the-21st-century thought about K-pop is way outdated, and it will only get more outdated in the coming years.</div>
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<br />
<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-83040221576752984122019-09-24T21:20:00.000-04:002019-09-25T10:51:19.972-04:00On Impeachment Eve<div style="text-align: justify;">
I still need to finish the last part of the <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2018/04/koreas-nine-years-of-darkness-series.html">Nine Years of Darkness</a> series. But hearing the news that Nancy Pelosi finally greenlighted an impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, I thought it would be fitting to share an excerpt of writing by Cheon Gwan-yul [천관율]. Cheon, a journalist for a South Korean magazine SisaIn, has been the sharpest observer of the political landscape leading up to Park Geun-hye's impeachment in 2017.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP9xMk0b79Qd5dmZo9uEX-Ijy4gROf1tiEZnXHlbtd6z2g7z-JeAuKw9DZGCXCDsQjzgrLwvbS6sRZH-sMcCZEkKt6xFszdMPrkGI6K8EAjK4VllUxlJUw7jyjd76X71gdy_fe/s1600/%25EB%258B%25A4%25EC%259A%25B4%25EB%25A1%259C%25EB%2593%259C.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="720" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP9xMk0b79Qd5dmZo9uEX-Ijy4gROf1tiEZnXHlbtd6z2g7z-JeAuKw9DZGCXCDsQjzgrLwvbS6sRZH-sMcCZEkKt6xFszdMPrkGI6K8EAjK4VllUxlJUw7jyjd76X71gdy_fe/s400/%25EB%258B%25A4%25EC%259A%25B4%25EB%25A1%259C%25EB%2593%259C.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cheon Gwan-yul (<a href="https://brunch.co.kr/@wanleehani/29">source</a>)</td></tr>
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To set the stage first: Cheon was writing this on November 12, 2016. Trump had been elected four days previous, and the public sentiment against Park's corruption scandal was reaching its peak. Two weeks prior to this date, Park Geun-hye <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-irrational-downfall-of-park-geun-hye.html">appeared on a press conference</a> to admit that she indeed let Choi Soon-sil, daughter of the shaman who claimed to speak with Park's dead mother, review and edit presidential speeches. The Candlelight Protests had been ongoing for several weeks with an average crowd size of a million or more people. Impeachment was not yet a certainty; Park hinted that she might be open to resigning, and there was real doubt on whether there were enough votes for an impeachment motion.</div>
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This writing was a lengthy post on Cheon's Facebook, which I read in real time. (It later became a part of the opening essay for his book on the impeachment.) It was shared more than 8,000 times, and "liked" more than 3,000 times. Since then, I have read it many times over, marveling at how well Cheon Gwan-yul's observations have held up, and how applicable this is to Trump as well. </div>
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Below, I translate the relevant portion.</div>
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* * *</div>
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<b>The President Will Not Resign</b></div>
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If the president were the type of leader who considered the future of [her] Saenuri Party or the possibility of a conservative resurrection, she might choose to fall on the sword. Her resignation would turn the tide like few other actions could.</div>
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But our president is a highly privatized person. Unlike her predecessor [Lee Myung-bak] who was diligent in pursuing his private interest, she simply makes no distinction between her public life and her private life. (In contrast, Lee had an excellent sense of distinguishing the public from the private, such that he could smoothly transfer resources from the public to the private.) This is a level of privitizing power that we have never seen before.</div>
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. . .</div>
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<i>To a privitized president, the family business is the only remaining objective.</i> [Emphasis mine.] Minimizing the possibility of ending up in prison; securing the lightest sentences for key figures around her; preserving her wealth as much as possible. These are higher priorities than the party's resuscitation and the future of conservatism.</div>
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(More after the jump.)</div>
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<i></i><br /></div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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<b>There Will be a Stalemate</b></div>
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With any other politician, there would have existed the room for compromise--but not with this president. A privitized leader is not bound by a sense of responsibility; she only seeks to protect the family business. For the party on the offensive, there is no middle point to meet. The president only wants one thing, but there is no way to give that to her.</div>
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The president has the constitutional legitimacy of the Republic. She's not a leader of a coup d'etat. If she chooses to give up on restoring support, abdicate from governing, and lock herself into a room, there are few ways to get her out. And it's easily imaginable that she would choose this path.</div>
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The privitized president will lead us into a stalemate. The pressure from the streets and the legislature will remain high, but she has no room to take a step back. And we are clearly not in the situation to forcibly foreclose on the president's constitutional legitimacy.</div>
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<b>The President Will Not Change; Those Around Her May</b></div>
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If my analysis is correct that the president is privitized, the protests, no matter how large, do not change her calculation. Protests work by pressuring the leader's sense of responsibility owed to the public; this president does not have that. The protests do not apply pressure to the family business, the president's sole objective. Therefore, the protests will not change the president's calculus.</div>
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But that is not the case with the outside power structure that surrounds the president. They have no reason to share the president's fate, or to sacrifice themselves to save the president's family business. Currently, the president has in her hand two power structures: the prosecutors, and the Saenuri Party. Even after the president departs, they must continue living. To them, the size of the protests applies pressure.</div>
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It may be possible for a whistleblower to emerge out of the prosecutors and further sway the public opinion, or for the Grand National Party to begin fracturing as it faces the next election. In such a case, their cost of protecting the president changes. This may be the path that breaks the stalemate.</div>
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. . .</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQLBx0aiV14eH41zql0wlYq0bmchmIiyUXrmSEcrLmh5fjg_pSd4J4ZqV78tco9seh5iaC2GFinndPJCwQgrUMjPip801DZzDmcYRZDO3_fDT8Pzz7lWFVIBg1wOrIYxMNa6zu/s1600/%25EC%25B4%259B%25EB%25B6%2588+2016%25EB%2585%2584+11%25EC%259B%2594.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="700" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQLBx0aiV14eH41zql0wlYq0bmchmIiyUXrmSEcrLmh5fjg_pSd4J4ZqV78tco9seh5iaC2GFinndPJCwQgrUMjPip801DZzDmcYRZDO3_fDT8Pzz7lWFVIBg1wOrIYxMNa6zu/s640/%25EC%25B4%259B%25EB%25B6%2588+2016%25EB%2585%2584+11%25EC%259B%2594.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Candlelight Protest of Nov. 12, 2016 (<a href="http://www.wikitree.co.kr/main/news_view.php?id=281654">source</a>)</td></tr>
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<b>What do the Protests Accomplish?</b></div>
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<b></b><br /></div>
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On the heels of Donald Trump's election, there has been an explosion of hate crimes. Through Trump's election, the energy of hate--which was suppressed in the popular culture--acquired an important realization: we are the majority. I thought I was alone, but half the country thinks the way I do. Those who wanted to freely hate people of different races, religion and sexual identity became aware of one another's existence. I know you exist, and you know I know you exist. The people who are connected through this sense of mutuality become much stronger and bolder.</div>
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The sense of mutuality is very difficult to cultivate. There must be a chain: I must know that you agree with me, and that there are many of you; you must know that I am emboldened through this knowledge of you; I must know, in turn, that you are excited by this knowledge of me. The sense of mutuality does not emerge simply because a million people watch the same news. There is no way for one person to know if the other 999,999 people watched the same news, and felt the same way I did.</div>
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But a protest with a million participants accomplishes this. A protest is an excellent factory to produce a sense of mutuality. Just as soon as they share the same space, the participants instantaneously progress through this chain of knowledge and acquire the sense of mutuality. This is why people get together to watch football in the public square although they have big screen TVs at home. This is why they prefer to stand in the same physical space despite living in a hyper-connected, online society.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Power does not fear the lead pipe swung against the police. But people connecting with one another and confirming one another's existence send chills down the spine of power. Now [with the Candlelight Protests], the power faces the severe pressure to change the status quo. If you asked me what the protests accomplish, this would be my answer.</div>
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<i></i><br /></div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-44779810853673144122019-09-24T09:27:00.000-04:002019-09-24T19:43:11.151-04:00Korea-Japan and the End of the '65 System - Part VI: Taking Stock[<a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/1998/02/korea-japan-and-end-of-65-system-series.html">Series Index</a>]<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The ’65 System is dead—but Americans are slow to wake up to this fact. Much of the foreign policy circles in and around Washington DC still think South Korea and Japan can patch things up quickly and get on as they did before July 2019. They argue: it’s about point-scoring in the domestic politics by stoking the nationalistic passion. Moon Jae-in and Abe Shinzo are being childish over ancient history. South Korea and Japan ought to be natural allies, sharing a common bond as liberal democracies to stand up against the threats of China and North Korea. </div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
But why would Abe Shinzo or Moon Jae-in need more political points? Abe is the longest serving prime minister in Japanese history with three re-election victories, and Moon is the most popular president in South Korean history whose approval rating at one time was over 80 percent. Abe did not begin the trade war to become more popular with the Japanese, and Moon did not say “we will never lose to Japan again” to become more popular with Koreans. Neither Abe nor Moon is using history to be popular; they are popular because they are focused on history.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNKpaGRqCXsbiXu_KMD3WIVzOLeqVEt85I-EyBJCtoppG0DlZGwWB1opsmk-eM1LrhJBhKxzB4ccq0TwspBtH7yzUEgYGO-kTOCyjsMB6nFTLv9WhI_e6qa3ufNKBJxRsKgUqQ/s1600/dw-moon-abe-nkorea-170511.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="763" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNKpaGRqCXsbiXu_KMD3WIVzOLeqVEt85I-EyBJCtoppG0DlZGwWB1opsmk-eM1LrhJBhKxzB4ccq0TwspBtH7yzUEgYGO-kTOCyjsMB6nFTLv9WhI_e6qa3ufNKBJxRsKgUqQ/s640/dw-moon-abe-nkorea-170511.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moon Jae-in (left) and Abe Shinzo, c. 2017 (<a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/moon-jae-in-shinzo-abe-agree-on-early-summit-cooperation-on-north-korea">source</a>)</td></tr>
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The patronizing suggestion that South Korea and Japan are “natural allies” is likewise ignorant. Of course, in a vacuum, friendship is better than strife. Why not pursue the better thing, when South Korea and Japan both have democratic government, market economy and broadly similar cultures? </div>
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This point conveniently glosses over the fact that neither country considers each other a “natural ally.” In 2015, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09557571.2019.1573806">pointedly deleted</a> the description of South Korea as “shar[ing] basic values with Japan such as freedom, democracy, and a market economy.” In a US-Japan-South Korea trilateral summit in 2017, Moon Jae-in <a href="https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20171105015100001">noted matter-of-factly</a> to Trump and Abe: “the United States is our ally; Japan is not.” </div>
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Countries existed in the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese isles for more than 4,000 years; during those 4,000 years, no part of Korea was Japan, and no part of Japan was Korea. Compare this to, for example, India and Pakistan: two regions of a single empire that lasted over three centuries, with democracy and market economy in both countries. Yet India and Pakistan represent two nuclear powers that are closest to going to war with each other. Does anyone tut-tut at the two countries, about how they should be “natural allies”? </div>
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Or consider England and Germany—both advanced democracies, highly developed market economy and broadly similar Christendom culture. (If you scoffed at “broadly similar Christendom culture” covering both England and Germany, just remember that the Japanese and Koreans have the same reaction to the claim that they have similar cultures.) The English head of state traces her heritage to Germany: it has been barely more than a century when the House of Windsor was called the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Saxe-Coburg_and_Gotha">House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha</a>. So where are all the talking points about the “natural alliance” for England and Germany, as England rushes headlong for Brexit?</div>
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The selective manner in which the “natural allies” talking point is deployed to other neighboring countries reveals the assumption behind the seemingly well-intentioned question. American observers insist that South Korea and Japan ought to be natural allies, not because they actually are, but because the United States needs them to form such an alliance that serves the US objectives.</div>
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(More after the jump)</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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It also doesn’t make sense to point to “the greater threat” of China. The USSR could serve as the backstop to the ’65 System; China cannot. The Soviet Union truly represented an existential, whole-of-society threat. It was engaged in a policy of mutually assured destruction with the free world, with a body of ideology that clearly stood apart from the liberal-capitalist order. South Korea, after all, fought a war against a Soviet Union proxy that nearly erased it from the map. In contrast, the United States cannot even decide what to do with China, its greatest trading partner outside of North America. Dozens of US experts have published an op-ed titled “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/making-china-a-us-enemy-is-counterproductive/2019/07/02/647d49d0-9bfa-11e9-b27f-ed2942f73d70_story.html">China is not an enemy</a>”, and even those who support Donald Trump’s trade war against China do so reluctantly, not enthusiastically. Why would South Korea and Japan regard China as “the greater threat,” and sign up for the new Cold War that the United States did not yet begin?</div>
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If China is a poor replacement for the USSR as “the greater threat,” North Korea is a laughable one. It’s been decades since North Korea presented an existential threat to either South Korea or Japan, and that will not change for the foreseeable future. The only thing North Korea can do is to self-destruct while causing significant harm to South Korea or Japan. That, of course, is something that must be avoided. But it is not something for which South Korea really needs help from Japan, or vice versa, since either country can eliminate North Korea on its own should a war breaks out. Even more fundamentally, the end goals of South Korea and Japan as to North Korea are fundamentally different. In one way or another, South Korea is seeking to make peace and reunify with North Korea. Japan has no such mandate.</div>
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Once again: the ’65 System is dead. We can be certain of the death of the ’65 System, because Abe’s trade war pierced through the core of the System. The ’65 System deliberately left the history issue unanswered, so that South Korea and Japan could first build a close economic and security cooperation and gradually work toward bridging the gap in their respective stances. Abe’s trade war directly challenged this logic: unless South Korea capitulated to Japan’s version of history, no economic or security cooperation was possible. No matter what kind of bilateral relationship may emerge between Japan and South Korea, it will not be a system that depends on indefinitely tabling the history issue, because South Korea and Japan have come to a point where the issues of history can no longer be deferred.</div>
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It didn’t have to be this way. The United States could have demanded from Imperial Japan the same level of historical self-reflection it demanded from Nazi Germany. The US could have excluded the leaders of the Japanese Empire from the positions of power, rather than elevating them back to the top levels of the government. It could have compelled Japan to engage in a more honest accounting of the damages caused by its imperialism and war, and pay due reparations to its neighbors with unqualified apologies. With the true resolution of the historical issues, there was no reason why northeastern Asia could not have developed like western Europe. Just as much as Germany became the centerpiece of the European Union that today forms a healthy block of liberal democracy and free trade, Japan could have been the centerpiece of eastern Asia that could have linked Korea, Taiwan, southeast Asia and beyond.</div>
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The United States never did that. We can have a long debate on the many possible reasons, such as the exigencies of the Cold War and the different extent of Soviet advances in western Europe versus northeast Asia. But the ultimate reason is straightforward: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/23/opinion/america-japan-south-korea-dispute.html">the United States never took Korea seriously</a>. The suffering of the European countries deserved healing; the suffering of Asian countries did not. European injury was real, such that they needed to be healed before western Europe can move forward as a community. Asian injury was not, so Asian people can shut up and march onto the direction to which the United States pointed. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvs43JDS2vj8a-AHiQe3iqaeeANaQp941EwLeLIJ_Ns0As252CaWOf3jRz3EZWE_3OQWIVXCGooe7ulMAhkQIJ1HqyOsBH-cNfAJYhRQqtv5VfHLrC1JdE86YlmAu86lUqmq2A/s1600/women.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="780" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvs43JDS2vj8a-AHiQe3iqaeeANaQp941EwLeLIJ_Ns0As252CaWOf3jRz3EZWE_3OQWIVXCGooe7ulMAhkQIJ1HqyOsBH-cNfAJYhRQqtv5VfHLrC1JdE86YlmAu86lUqmq2A/s640/women.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In a photo taken in China, "Comfort Women" line up in front of soldiers. Date unknown. (<a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/south-korea-to-build-comfort-women-museum-in-seoul">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Therein lies the fundamental injustice of the ’65 System: its survival depended on South Korean dictatorship’s ability to silence the individual victims of Japanese imperialism. The System could work only as long as the people who received the wrong end of history to remain muzzled under Korea’s authoritarian dictatorship. It is not a surprise, then, that South Korea has been blamed disproportionately whenever the status of the ’65 System was threatened—because when the victim raises her claim to vindicate her rights, she inevitably destroys the superficial peace that has been suffocating her.</div>
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In order to maintain the ’65 System, those who held a vested interest in the System—which included most US foreign policy heads, Japan’s conservatives, and South Korea’s conservatives—had engaged a series of appalling victim-blaming. “Why make an issue out of bygones, which happened so long ago?” “What’s the point of dwelling on the past, when it is virtually impossible to sort out the historical injustice from a natural development?” “By the way, things were not as bad as you claim. And at any rate, look how well you’re doing now!” “There may have been injustice, you people did it to yourselves. You were weak, and you deserved it.” They callously disregard what Kan Naoto has thoughtfully noted: “Those who render pain tend to forget it while those who suffered cannot forget it easily.”</div>
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These are the same set of odious logic marshaled to justify any kind of systemic oppression—racism, sexism, slavery, you name it. This is not a coincidence: where rubber met the road, Koreans experience Japanese imperialism most acutely in the form of racist slavery and systemized rape. Comfort Women deniers love placing the blame on the ethnic Korean middlemen who procured the women for the rape stations, just as much as the defenders of African slavery love talking about how it was really Africans who enslaved each other. Japanese right wing loves talking about how Imperial Japan improved the lives of Koreans, just as much as American white supremacists love talking about how African Americans have it better in the US compared to their brethren in Africa. There is constant gaslighting as to how Imperial Japan treated Koreans during the colonial times, like a battered wife trapped in a household with an abusive spouse. </div>
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This victim-blaming was also carried out by attributing to Koreans the same negative characteristics that attach to the victim who speaks up. Koreans are “emotional,” for example, while the Japanese are merely following the international law. Koreans do not keep their promises and move the goalposts all the time. Little thought is given to the ample historical record that Japan never intended to pay any reparations in 1965, and in fact did not do so. No one talks about how much contorted mental gymnastics the Japanese government has engaged in the interpretation of the Treaty of San Francisco and the Basic Treaty, just to avoid redressing the wrongs it had committed to the victims of World War II, both Japanese and Korean. </div>
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Above all, no one talks about how deeply emotional and irrational it is for Abe Shinzo to end the ’65 System, the foundation of Japan’s relationship with its closest economic and security partner, for the sake of defending wartime slavery. The US foreign policy circles did not protest Abe’s trade war nearly as strongly as when they howled against Moon Jae-in’s decision to cancel military intelligence sharing agreement. In part, this was because Americans were simply ignorant about the fact that the survival of the ’65 System in its modern iteration depended on separating the history issue from economic and security cooperation. But it is also in part because it is always easier to get the victim to shut up than to have the perpetrator face up to its crime.</div>
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But it is no longer possible to silence the Korean victims of Japanese imperialism. Indeed, from the abortive 2015 Comfort Women Agreement, we can see how any such attempt to muzzle them will end: in an impeachment of the president and decimation of the political party that supported her. When the greater attainment of freedom and democracy leads to the fall of an international order, one cannot help wonder just how much that order was worth keeping.</div>
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Ito Hirobumi, one of modern Japan’s Founding Fathers and the first colonial chief of Korea, was killed by An Jung-geun, a very modern Korean with a baptismal name of Thomas. The national narrative of history shapes the national identity. Modern Japan’s national identity is being the Asiatic empire. Modern Korea’s national identity is resisting Japan’s imperialism. The two narratives that form the national identities of Japan and South Korea are mutually exclusive. There is no potential for a compromise between Ito and An, between a colonizer and a proud man who refuses to be enslaved. The encounter between the two can only end in conflict. </div>
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Any serious attempt to predict the future of Japan and Korea must take the conflict in identities seriously. If the politics of the last 100 years taught us anything, it taught us the centrality of identity in politics. Obviously, it is in the self-interest of both Japan and South Korea to cooperate closely, if only because friendship is better than strife. But in politics, self-interest is no match to identity. Lyndon Johnson remarked: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” </div>
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Same applies to Japan: it is willing to hurt itself in order to look down on Korea. Abe Shinzo’s trade war damages Japan just as much as it damages South Korea, but Abe will press on—because defending the use of wartime slave labor is truly that important to Japan. By linking trade and national security with the history issue, Abe is sending a clear message to Korea: no economic or security cooperation is possible unless Korea submits to Japan’s version of history. South Korea simply will not accept this demand. Indeed, the entire modern history of South Korea, rising from the ashes of the Korean War into a top-ten economic and military power, can be understood as an effort not to be coerced into anyone else’s historical narrative anymore.<br />
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This means that, for a third party who wishes to step into this picture—say, like the United States—the prognosis appears grim. Deferring and quarantining the historical issue is no longer possible. Any third party who steps into these narratives faces a binary choice. There can be no both sides and no mediation. In a situation like this, the US would be tempted to avoid making the choice altogether, and step away from the whole row.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlll_FzZMYi7QWgq4OPrDrNBB9WKYEMJJoWhkPXRVa5_zurmwIbKa_1TEQE7d0S_o09wqP1Pt1PfAy68sMZa9DoehrRjghiY0xWGvM2Y1QcvSSWPx7KNLBQzOqTvbXm2rVYn2A/s1600/https___api.thedrive.com_wp-content_uploads_2017_10_hyunmoo-2-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1440" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlll_FzZMYi7QWgq4OPrDrNBB9WKYEMJJoWhkPXRVa5_zurmwIbKa_1TEQE7d0S_o09wqP1Pt1PfAy68sMZa9DoehrRjghiY0xWGvM2Y1QcvSSWPx7KNLBQzOqTvbXm2rVYn2A/s640/https___api.thedrive.com_wp-content_uploads_2017_10_hyunmoo-2-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">South Korea tests its Hyunmoo-2 ballistic missiles, c. 2017 (<a href="https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/15490/south-korea-reveals-plan-to-hit-the-north-with-a-huge-missile-barrage-if-war-erupts">source</a>)</td></tr>
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In some ways, the US has been already doing that for the past decade. Since Barack Obama’s “Pivot to Asia,” the US has been taking a paradoxical posture of trying to accomplish more with less investment. Weary from the disastrous Iraq War, the US wanted to reduce its international footprint. Yet responding to the rise of China demanded more resources than before. The US tried to bridge this gap by getting its allies and security interests to do more. Under Donald Trump, who sees US allies as free riders, this trend intensified, erratically zigzagging US position from giving more autonomy to its allies to abandoning its allies altogether.<br />
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Both South Korea and Japan have used the greater autonomy to re-arm themselves. After the Korean War, the United States prohibited South Korea from developing its missiles system, fearing South Korea might start a war against North Korea. Today, South Korea boasts one of the world’s largest arsenals of ballistic missiles, with range and payload that grow by day. After World War II, the Untied States prohibited Japan from building a military. Today, the US encourages not only Japan’s re-militarization, but also the international venture for Japan’s Self-Defense Force.<br />
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All this was done under the assumption that South Korea and Japan will act in their own self-interest, and cooperate with each other in order to counter China. But this assumption forgets the lesson from Henry Kissinger, who <a href="https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v17/d139">once told</a> Zhou Enlai that the US military was not in Japan to attack China, but to stop Japan from re-arming itself and repeating the 1930s. With greater autonomy and more powerful military, neither South Korea nor Japan will limit itself to narrowly executing what US imagines to be in the self-interest of either country. Loosened from the US influence, Japan and South Korea will act out its national identity.<br />
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From the perspective of nuclear proliferation, the under-the-radar arms race that is currently unfolding in east Asia has a potential to be even more alarming. The line separates the US that expects its allies to do more in defense, from the US that is no longer interested in the security of its east Asian allies is <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/the-election-came-down-to-77-744-votes-in-pennsylvania-wisconsin-and-michigan-updated">as thin as</a> 77,744 votes in three out of the 50 US states. US detachment from Asia can easily come to a point where Japan and South Korea are convinced the United States will not defend them against the nuclear weapons of China and North Korea. Inevitably, they will seek to develop their own nuclear weapons—as South Korea’s Park Chung-hee did in 1972 as he saw US withdrawing from Vietnam. If the US thinks it is challenging to maintain the relationship between South Korea and Japan, it should imagine how the task will look if both countries are armed with nuclear weapons.<br />
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Finally, the United States should consider the possibility that the world may be a very different in just a generation from today. The friction between South Korea and Japan is but a preview of the international picture that is coming down the pike. As the former colonies of the 20th century imperialism are becoming increasingly wealthier and autonomous, the historical bills will continue to come due—South Korea’s bill merely happened to arrive first because it is arguably the most successful former colony from the 20th century imperialism. Abdication from dealing with the aftermath of 20th century imperialism may well be an abdication from 21th century international affairs.<br />
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Looking back the history of Asia from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, one cannot help but be struck by the speed in which the unthinkable becomes plausible, and plausible becomes inevitable. It is a mistake to think today’s US allies will remain so in the coming decades, especially if the US abdicates from the hard work of maintaining the alliance. Japan was a US ally in World War I, but 23 years after the Great War, Japan was bombing the Pearl Harbor. It is clear the primary foreign policy challenge for the United States for the next century will be centered in east Asia. The US can either invest more into Asia and maintain the peace that ultimately extends across the Pacific, or withdraw from Asia and wait haplessly for the rising tensions to make it across the ocean in the form of bombers and ballistic missiles.<br />
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Regardless of whether the United States enters into a Cold War-level standoff with China, the US simply cannot afford to step away from east Asia, the most consequential region of the world in this century. If the United States is to stick with east Asia, it must rely on its two primary allies, South Korea and Japan. The US midwifed the ’65 System because it needed a bilateral relationship between the two countries to serve as a cornerstone against international communism in the Cold War. Today’s need for the two US allies may not be as dire as during the Cold War, but it is nonetheless significant. Just as much as US supervised the creation of the ’65 System, it must encourage the birth of the new bilateral system that can survive the 21st century and beyond.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhusZ0DTs02_C9ZE6QnDjGim8Vf_zKhTd29jl8pRWZPmkx4gWv6Yjf9xEHaeYXI7fvFVfjAB2tkY2TehzU6wd01hCiL2fz2n9gH-vU-M1VAnnjq5_iyFxiEcUQt-z1jvjZSoiQe/s1600/Seoul-vs-Tokyo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="780" data-original-width="1170" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhusZ0DTs02_C9ZE6QnDjGim8Vf_zKhTd29jl8pRWZPmkx4gWv6Yjf9xEHaeYXI7fvFVfjAB2tkY2TehzU6wd01hCiL2fz2n9gH-vU-M1VAnnjq5_iyFxiEcUQt-z1jvjZSoiQe/s640/Seoul-vs-Tokyo.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seoul and Tokyo. (<a href="https://www.webjet.com.au/travel/tips/seoul-vs-tokyo/">source</a>)</td></tr>
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What is to be done? I have two counsels.<br />
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My first counsel is realism. The United States must realize the ultimate reason for the ’65 System’s demise: the inability to indefinitely defer the history issue by suppressing South Korean voices. The next system between Japan and South Korea must be more equitable, if only because South Korea 2019 is very different from South Korea 1965. Korea of the mid-20th century was authoritarian, impoverished and vulnerable to communist invasion. Korea of the 21st century is a vibrant democracy, economic heavyweight, and military powerhouse. It cannot be folded into a regime like the ’65 System.<br />
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Inevitably, this means taking steps that will appear to Japan as favoring South Korea. In a situation with mutually exclusive historical narratives, this is inevitable. There is no need for the United States to be heavy-handed; ultimately, the history issue for Japan and South Korea to resolve on their own. But the US cannot be so concerned with the appearance of impartiality that it steps away from the Japan-South Korea relations altogether. <span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Above all, condemning imperialism is simply the right thing to do. </span>The United States must remind Japan that the US also suffered from Japan during World War II, yet it has been excessively generous on Japan’s historical revisionism out of strategic considerations that were present in 1965, but not in 2019.<br />
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My second counsel is patience. There are certain stopgap measures in the Japan-South Korea relations that the United States is able to implement, and it should do so. Chief among them would be to push Abe Shinzo to back off the trade war, in exchange for Moon Jae-in to re-enter the military intelligence sharing agreement with Japan. As much as possible, South Korea-Japan relations should be pushed back to the equilibrium that existed from 1990 to 2010: quarantine the history issue to be resolved separately from economic and security cooperation. It may be a long time before the level of cooperation between the two countries recover to the pre-trade war days, but staunching further deterioration is the priority.<br />
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Beyond that, it will be a long struggle. Abe Shinzo’s trade war against Korea is overwhelmingly popular in Japan, even among those who are not particularly fond of Abe. Few things are uglier than a formerly privileged facing a climb-down from his perch. It will take a great deal of nudging and cajoling for Japan to begin shifting away from its identity as an imperialist power. The good news, at least, is that it will involve fewer morally appalling actions, like making an end run around former wartime sex slaves who are waiting for justice to be served before they pass away.<br />
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If I may offer any hope, it is that the historical issue between Korea and Japan will not last forever. Both in Japan and South Korea, a new generation is emerging. Unlike that of their grandparents and parents, the attitude of young Koreans—in their teens and early 20s—is neither injury nor admiration. The young Koreans are familiar with Japan. But they are two generations removed from Imperial Japan’s cruelty, and they have no post-war memory of Japan being the better place, the model that South Korea self-hatingly emulated.<br />
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Across the strait, the newest generation of Japanese remembers neither the post-imperial greatness nor the bitter taste of decline in the Lost Decades. They have spent their entire lives in comfortable stagnation, focusing more on the small joys of daily lives over the allure of national grandeur. Their only memory of South Korea is that of a pop culture trend-setter. To them, dismissing Korea as the weaker country is absurd; the idea of dictating Korea’s actions is unthinkable.<br />
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With these generations, there is a chance for the two countries to construct a new bilateral regime that overcomes the fatal defects of the ’65 System. There is a chance for South Korea and Japan to start over on equal footing—but only if the next coming decades shape this future generation into believing their countries ought to be friends, not enemies.</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-3888616378276890292019-09-17T10:33:00.000-04:002019-09-17T10:33:02.876-04:00Korea-Japan and the End of the '65 System - Part V: the End of the '65 System<div style="text-align: justify;">
[<a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/1998/02/korea-japan-and-end-of-65-system-series.html">Series Index</a>]<br /><br />The ’65 System was a flawed one, based on an imperfect set of treaties that papered over the fundamental disagreement between Japan and South Korea. Yet it continued to survive thanks to opportune alignments in the domestic politics of Japan and South Korea. The ’65 System was born when Park Chung-hee, a former officer of the Imperial Japanese Army, replaced the former independence activist Syngman Rhee, negotiated the ’65 treaties, and violently suppressed the Korean people’s objections. It peaked in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when both Japan and South Korea had relatively progressive politics. Even as Abe Shinzo attacked the ’65 System in the early 2010s, Park Geun-hye’s willingness to kowtow to Abe’s demands kept the system running. And above all, the United States was there as the backstop whenever the ’65 System showed signs of wear.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moon Jae-in and Donald Trump meet at the White House. c. 2018 (<a href="https://www.hankyung.com/politics/article/2019032916881">source</a>)</td></tr>
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<br />By late 2016, however, the good luck would run out. Abe Shinzo continued to lead Japan, well on his way to becoming the longest serving prime minister in Japan’s history. Park Geun-hye was not as fortunate: she was revealed to have <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-irrational-downfall-of-park-geun-hye.html">engaged in a bizarre corruption scandal</a> involving a daughter of a shaman who claimed to speak with her dead mother. Koreans responded with a massive series of Candlelight Protests that drew over a million protesters for months. In March 2017, Park was impeached and removed, and liberal Moon Jae-in won the following snap election and took office in May 2017. Meanwhile, in November 2016, Donald Trump would be elected as the US president with a healthy assist from the Russian spy agency.</div>
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Trump’s election was an inflection point for US foreign policy in Asia, to put it mildly. Trump had little regard for allies, constantly complaining the cost of troop presence in both Japan and South Korea and the imbalance in trade accounts. Yet he maintained perhaps the best relationship with North Korea among all US presidents, putting into doubt the Cold War logic that presupposed Kim Jong Un as the enemy. The Trump administration would pursue policies like the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy in Asia to counteract China’s Belt and Road Initiative, but the administration’s fundamental incompetence meant even a routine maintenance of alliance in Asia was a challenge. </div>
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Moon’s victory, too, was an inflection point: South Korea’s decisive rejection of the conservatives’ dictator-worship politics that sacrificed ordinary people for the dubious prospect of economic development. It was also a rejection of South Korea’s previous ruling class: the former house slaves-turned-oligarchs who owned much of the large corporations and conservative newspapers. Park ended up in prison on corruption charges, along with former Chief Justice Yang Seung-tae and a number of Park’s cabinet members. Moon’s election was followed by a series of policy initiatives that rejected every agenda of South Korean conservatives. Instead of Red Scare, peace and dialogue with North Korea. Instead of chaebol-centered economy, an economy led by growth in wages and income. And instead of backroom deals, an open and transparent process of politics and diplomacy.</div>
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(More after the jump.)</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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<a name='more'></a><br /><br />In this atmosphere, the two patches that the Park and Abe administrations stitched on top of the deteriorating ’65 System fell away. In October 2018, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Korea issued the long-delayed opinion on wartime slave labor, affirming the 2012 decision that vindicated the rights of the plaintiffs, this time against Nippon Steel. The next month, after a public review that revealed Park Geun-hye’s undisclosed side deals and interference with civic activism regarding Comfort Women, the Moon administration disbanded the foundation established by the Comfort Women Agreement. The administration <a href="http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2018/11/22/2018112200259.html">would emphasize</a> that the Agreement remained valid and the Korean government would not seek to re-negotiate it—a hair-splitting diplomatic move reminiscent of Japan’s treatment of the ’65 treaties.</div>
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Enraged, Abe Shinzo searched for a way to retaliate, and decided on recourse that was in style in 2019: a trade war. On July 2, 2019, Japan announced it would withdraw the blanket approval process for three chemicals critical for semiconductor manufacture, such that each shipment of the chemicals required government approval—which may be withheld up to 90 days. (As it happens, the shelf life of these volatile chemicals is approximately 90 days.) It was a shot aimed at the beating heart of South Korean economy, as semiconductors is South Korea’s leading export and the main engine for its economic growth.</div>
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It must have been sweet revenge. In the early 1990s, Japanese companies like NEC, Toshiba and Hitachi were the world leaders in chip manufacturing. But since the late 1990s, Japan’s position as a leader in semiconductor steadily eroded, with South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and Hynix emerging as dominant market forces. The coup de grace came in 2012, when Elpida—a company created by merging the surviving Japanese chip manufacturers in a desperate bid to overtake the Korean companies—<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-elpida/elpida-seeks-bankruptcy-protection-5-6-billion-debt-idUSTRE81Q0OQ20120227">filed for bankruptcy</a>, with $5.6 billion in debt. With Elpida gone, Japan no longer had any company that manufactured DRAM semiconductors.</div>
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But Japan’s materials industry survived, supplying the two Korean semiconductor titans that collectively occupied over 70 percent of the global market share in DRAM chips. It was another triumph of the ’65 System: even as Japanese and South Korean companies competed against one another on one level, they cooperated very closely on another level. Japan’s semiconductor industry may have fallen, but its materials industry seamlessly transitioned to form a tight-knit supply chain with South Korea’s chip manufacturers, to a point that they provided upwards of 90 percent of the required supply.</div>
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In the hands of Abe administration seeking satisfaction, however, this close relationship became a weapon, a chain around South Korea’s neck that could be jerked around. All of this, because Abe Shinzo could not stand the idea that Japanese corporations might have to pay a nominal sum to the wartime slave laborers.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moon Jae-in walks past Abe Shinzo in 2019 G20 summit in Osaka.<br />(<a href="http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/900029.html">source</a>)</td></tr>
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The trade war caused a significant reputational damage for Abe in the international media. It did not help the matters that just a few days before Tokyo announced the trade restrictions, Abe Shinzo gave a keynote speech in the G20 summit in Osaka, striking a pose as the guardian of free trade endangered by the reckless Trump administration in the US. Noting the turnabout, an op-ed on Nikkei Asian Review called Abe “<a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/The-danger-of-Abe-s-Trumpian-turn-against-South-Korea">duplicitous</a>.” An article on the Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/japan-a-champion-of-free-trade-takes-a-page-from-trumps-playbook-11562069661">noted that</a> in 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in response to American export embargo.</div>
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<br />Seeing the blowback, Abe administration came up with a post hoc national security justification, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-koreas-weapons-program-fuels-tokyos-trade-spat-with-seoul-11562757564">insinuating that</a> export control was necessary because South Korea had been furtively diverting the chemicals to North Korea. No one believed them. Both <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/business/japan-south-korea-trade-war-semiconductors.html">the New York Times</a> and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-koreas-weapons-program-fuels-tokyos-trade-spat-with-seoul-11562757564">the Wall Street Journal</a> noted the Japanese officials produced no evidence of such diversion. Even the arch-conservative American Enterprise Institute <a href="http://www.aei.org/publication/japan-back-off-on-korea-samsung-and-hynix-are-not-huawei/">called</a> the national security excuse “spurious.” Meanwhile, Abe Shinzo couldn’t even stick to the script, <a href="https://japantoday.com/category/politics/japan-pm-says-wwii-labor-row-is-biggest-issue-with-s.-korea">blurting out</a> the export control was about the World War II slave laborer decision after all. It was perhaps <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/06/japan-started-a-war-it-wasnt-ready-to-fight/">an op-ed on Foreign Policy</a> that delivered the most damning assessment, labeling Abe with incompetence rather than malice: “Basic public relations knowledge would suggest that announcements of this kind should be accompanied by at least some evidence of your reasons . . . and, most importantly, a clear and consistent line of what is going on.”<br /><br />The national security justification particularly enraged Seoul. It <a href="http://www.korea.kr/news/policyBriefingView.do?newsId=156342789#policyBriefing">repeatedly demanded</a> Japan to produce evidence for such a serious accusation, which Tokyo did not give. The US began getting involved as well, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-japan-usa/u-s-urges-japan-south-korea-to-look-at-standstill-agreement-for-trade-feud-idUSKCN1UP26U">urging</a> both Japan and South Korea to enter into a “standstill” agreement. Abe administration ignored the United States and, on August 2, went on to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/japan-removes-south-korea-trade-white-list/story?id=64728582">de-list</a> South Korea from its export “white list”, essentially requiring shipment-by-shipment approval to every product that Japan exported to South Korea. Moon Jae-in <a href="http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20190802000547">unloaded</a> on Tokyo in reaction: “No matter what pretexts are given, Japan’s decision is undeniable trade retaliation against our Supreme Court’s rulings on Korean victims of forced labor during colonial rule. . . . [I]t is a selfish, destructive act that will cripple the global supply chain and wreak havoc on the global economy. . . . Japan’s measure will add even more difficulties to our economy under these severe circumstances. However, we will never again lose to Japan.”<br /><br />Matters appeared to settle a bit after August 15. The Liberation Day speech for Moon Jae-in could have been a ripe opportunity to unleash more strong words against Japan. Instead, he <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/South-Korean-leader-s-Liberation-Day-speech-offered-hopeful-vision">extended an olive branch</a>: “Reflecting on the past does not mean clinging to the past but overcoming what had happened and moving toward the future. We hope that Japan will play a leading role together in facilitating peace and prosperity in East Asia while it contemplates a past that brought misfortune to its neighboring countries.” However, despite the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-japan-labourers/japanese-south-korean-foreign-ministers-to-meet-in-beijing-on-wednesday-idUSKCN1V90GO">meeting</a> between the two countries’ foreign ministers on August 21, Japan did not withdraw the trade war. The next day, South Korea played the strongest hand it could against Japan: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/south-korea-axes-pact-to-share-military-intelligence-with-japan/2019/08/22/fe57061c-c4be-11e9-8bf7-cde2d9e09055_story.html">nixing</a> General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), by which Seoul and Tokyo shared sensitive military intelligence. One analyst <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/south-korea-ends-intelligence-sharing-japan-trade-war-2019-8">noted</a>: “I think the two countries can be fairly described as adversaries now.”</div>
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The ’65 System can be summarized as follows: an attempt to begin a bilateral relationship between Japan and South Korea based on a set of imperfect agreements that papered over the fundamental difference between the two countries. The cost of such imperfection was borne mostly by Korean victims of imperialism, who were silenced by South Korea’s dictators. What justified those costs were economic and security cooperation: forming a close trade relationship and standing together against the common threat of communism. The hopeful version of the ’65 System was for the relationship built thusly would gradually narrow the gap between South Korea and Japan, allowing the two countries to eventually forge a relationship that transcended the historical memory, as US did with UK, or as Germany did with France and the EU.</div>
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In fact, the hopeful version of the ’65 System was prevailing all the way until late 2000s. Economic cooperation with Japan did play a significant role in South Korea’s development in the 1970s. The opening of pop culture market led to a formation of commonly shared pop culture with Japanese anime and Korean dramas. Korean food enjoyed a boom in Japan, and Japanese restaurants opened everywhere in Korea. Millions of Korean tourists visited Japan each year, and millions of Japanese tourists visited Korea. The historical issues were making progress, however haltingly. The courts and international bodies were adjudicating those issues in an orderly fashion, giving relief and while draining the emotion from the issue little by little. Japan’s reckoning with its imperial history was improving each year, with Prime Minister Kan Naoto’s statement in 2010, promising “a future-oriented Japan-Republic of Korea relationship,” serving as the high point.</div>
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Unfortunately, Japan’s sharp right turn in the 2010s undid all this progress. The 2012 decision by Korea’s Supreme Court on wartime slave labor—enabled by the evolution of the ’65 System—brought to fore the core question left unaddressed by the ’65 treaties: was Japan’s colonization of Korea just? Is Japan ready to admit that it was wrong to invade Korea in the 20th century, and move toward a future-oriented relationship? Japan, led by Abe Shinzo, answered “no.” To Abe, it was more important to defend the righteousness of its imperial conquest than to have a future-oriented relationship with its closest neighbor and security partner.</div>
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It is difficult to overstate the damage that Abe’s trade war caused to the ’65 System. The ’65 System was able to persist and grow because South Korea and Japan had separated the cost of System—namely, the historical issues—from the benefit of the System, namely the economic and security partnership. This was initially achieved by South Korean dictators suppressing the Korean victims of Japanese imperialism. But even after the victims began voicing their injury in the 1990s, South Korea and Japan were able to continue the ’65 System by drawing a clear line between the historical issues on one hand, and the economic and security issues on the other.</div>
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Abe’s trade war crossed this critical line. To exercise leverage on the historical issues, Abe used economic cooperation with South Korea as a chain around Seoul’s neck. When the blowback began for engaging in a trade war, Abe made up a national security excuse that no one believed in. From there, the decline of the ’65 System passed the point of no return. For South Korean corporations, no economic cooperation is possible with a business counterpart who could stop its supply for an arbitrary political reason. Major South Korean corporations already began shifting its production lines away from Japanese materials: LG Display, for example, <a href="https://www.msn.com/ko-kr/money/topstories/%EB%8B%A8%EB%8F%85lg%EB%94%94%EC%8A%A4%ED%94%8C%EB%A0%88%EC%9D%B4-%EC%9D%B4%EB%8B%AC-%E6%97%A5-%EB%B6%88%ED%99%94%EC%88%98%EC%86%8C-%EC%99%84%EC%A0%84-%EB%8F%85%EB%A6%BD%E2%80%A6%EB%8C%80%EA%B8%B0%EC%97%85-%EC%B2%AB-%EC%82%AC%EB%A1%80/ar-AAGYg36">completely cut itself off</a> from the hydrogen fluoride from Japan within two months after Tokyo began the trade war.</div>
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Abe’s bogus national security rationale was even more damaging. For the South Korean government, it was absurd to share military intelligence with a government that designated it as a security threat. And the final backstop of the ’65 System, the United States of America, was too busy being led by an imbecile who wanted to <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-nuclear-bombs-hurricanes-97231f38-2394-4120-a3fa-8c9cf0e3f51c.html">nuke a hurricane</a> to intervene in time with the requisite forcefulness.</div>
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Thus ended the ’65 System in August 2019, fifty-four years after it began. </div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-80511057330825209172019-09-11T16:28:00.002-04:002019-09-11T16:44:00.760-04:00Korea-Japan and the End of the '65 System - Part IV: The '65 System's Decline<div style="text-align: justify;">
[<a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/1998/02/korea-japan-and-end-of-65-system-series.html">Series Index</a>]</div>
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The most hopeful case in favor of the '65 System can be stated as the following: it was the politics of the possible. No, the core historical issue of whether Japan's colonization was legitimate was never addressed—but it was not possible to resolve that issue in 1965 at any rate. Why not begin the bilateral relationship with Japan and South Korea, and build a strong tie based on economic and security cooperation? Then later, the strong bilateral tie between the two countries could be leveraged to find true resolution on the historical issues when the wound from history is less raw. </div>
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Until around 2010, with prime minister <a href="https://japan.kantei.go.jp/kan/statement/201008/10danwa_e.html">Kan Naoto's moving statement</a>, this hopeful case seemed to be well under way. But looking back, it was right around this time when the '65 System began running out of runway. As it turned out, Japan's reckoning with history was skin-deep, limited to a small circle of liberals who held the top offices of the government without being able to hold onto the the structure underneath them. The success of Japan's liberals was a flimsy one, only serving to cause a backlash.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abe Shinzo visits Yasukuni Shrine, in which Class A war criminals <br />
from World War II are memorialized. c 2013 (<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/12/25/world/asia/japan-pm-war-shrine/index.html">source</a>)</td></tr>
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In reaction to the 1995 Murayama Statement that apologized for Japan’s colonial rule, more than 160 Japanese legislators formed a group called the Alliance of Legislators for the 50 Year Anniversary of the End of War [終戰 50週年 國會議員 聯盟] to oppose the statement. Taking the center stage of the group is a young politician named Abe Shinzo, grandson of war-criminal-turned-prime-minister Kishi Nobusuke. So vocal was Abe against Japan’s recognition of its imperial past, <a href="https://d.kbs.co.kr/news/view.do?ncd=4251850">some at the time thought</a> Abe was not looking to be a prime minister in the future, because his stance was utterly beyond the pale. When Kan gave his forthright statement of apology in 2010, Abe <a href="https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/asia/article/2157956/comfort-women-and-japans-war-history-abes-historical">cursed at</a> Kan on live television.</div>
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Abe has had ties with the far-right group <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-religious-cult-secretly-running-japan?ref=scroll">Nippon Kaigi</a>, which believes Japan began World War II to defend itself and protect Asia, Imperial Japan’s war crimes like the Comfort Women or the Nanjing Massacre were fabricated, and the Tokyo War Tribunal was illegitimate. The overriding goal for Nippon Kaigi, which Abe shares, is to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution to a constitution that allows for standing military and emphasizes obligations to the society over individual rights. </div>
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There is little doubt that Abe has faithfully subscribed to Nippon Kaigi's mission statement. As the prime minister, Abe <a href="http://icks.org/n/data/ijks/1482467285_add_file_2.pdf">questioned </a>"whether Japan had committed aggression" against anyone during the war, indicated he would not uphold the 1995 Murayama statement, and refused to accept the judgment of the Tokyo Tribunal. To top it off, Abe Shinzo visited the Yasukuni Shrine on August 15, 2013, to pay respect to the Class A war criminals on the anniversary of the end of World War II, and again on December 26, 2013. By early 2014, Abe administration was flirting with the possibility of withdrawing the Kono Statement that acknowledged Japan's use of wartime sex slaves during World War II.</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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It only took 11 years since the Murayama Statement for Abe Shinzo to be the prime minister of Japan, succeeding Koizumi Junichiro in 2006. When the far-right factions in Europe gained some measure of political power, the alarm bells went off around the world. The world freaked out when Alternative fur Deutschland barely missed the cut to join Germany’s Bundestag in 2013, or when Marine Le Pen came in third in France’s presidential election in 2012. But few in the Western world cared when a blatant history-denier like Abe Shinzo became the prime minister of Japan in 2006, and again in 2012. The fact that 15 out of the 18 members of Abe’s 2014 cabinet were members of Nippon Kaigi received virtually no attention. </div>
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The only Western observers who recognized Abe as a far-right revisionist were his ideological bedfellows. Donald Trump’s alt-right advisor Steve Bannon <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/03/08/national/politics-diplomacy/ex-adviser-steve-bannon-confident-donald-trump-win-2020-despite-probes/#.XUY1v-hKhaQ">has called Abe</a> “Trump before Trump,” drawing parallels between the nationalistic agenda between the two leaders. But that’s wishful thinking on Bannon’s part, for Abe is incomparably more competent than Trump. The better US analogue for Abe, instead, is Richard Nixon. </div>
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Like the way Nixon failed to win the presidency in 1960 after serving as the vice president for Dwight Eisenhower, Abe’s first run as the prime minister barely lasted a year, and his LDP turned over power to the Democratic Party that held government from 2009 to 2012. Then, just as Nixon positioned himself as a candidate of stability in the midst of the disastrous Vietnam War, Abe’s LDP promised a return to normalcy after the catastrophic Tohoku earthquake in 2011, which raised the specter of a nuclear disaster as the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant suffered three nuclear meltdowns.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjagJ7GLSP6n4LoAxMDvF6iVUcafWlhZRcYFmCFI6IqNMkzHVpaDgvjyPyXw1xRV6JY4va7_h7BAfVHZrGExwdBozJU7wvCPSIzCXCFxsscAJczlKHl4rWVOG8VeHqV6SShgXMt/s1600/146545105196_20160610.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="640" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjagJ7GLSP6n4LoAxMDvF6iVUcafWlhZRcYFmCFI6IqNMkzHVpaDgvjyPyXw1xRV6JY4va7_h7BAfVHZrGExwdBozJU7wvCPSIzCXCFxsscAJczlKHl4rWVOG8VeHqV6SShgXMt/s640/146545105196_20160610.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Japanese right-wing groups protest in the Shin Okubo neighborhood, the Koreatown of Tokyo. <br />
Man in the center holds up a sign that says "Korean whores". c. 2013 (<a href="http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/international/japan/814485.html">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Abe Shinzo shares yet another tendency with Richard Nixon: penchant for racist dog whistles. Just as Nixon pursued his “Southern Strategy” by attracting racist white voters with thinly veiled issues like busing, Abe exploited the Japanese’s increasing hatred toward Zainichi Koreans—Japan’s second class citizens created by John Foster Dulles and Yoshida Shigeru. By mid-2000s, the social fallout from Japan’s “lost decade” of the 1990s was becoming visible, just as much as the outward of expression of racism in the United States built up over years since the 2008 financial crisis. The far-right group <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaitokukai">Zaitokukai</a> began in 2007, sending thugs to terrorize Zainichi Koreans and other immigrants from Asia. </div>
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Abe latched onto the most perfect dog whistle to attract this demographic: North Korea’s abduction of the Japanese. In the 1970s and 80s, North Korea abducted as many as 17 Japanese civilians, to steal their identity for its spies and use them as Japanese language tutors. North Korea did not admit this crime until the early 2000s. In a large part, the fuel for Abe’s political rise that resulted in his first run as the prime minister was his strong stance on the North Korea abductee issue, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20721851?read-now=1&seq=14#page_scan_tab_contents">with a boost from Nippon Kaigi</a> that invited the families of the abductees as guest speakers to its conferences. It was unimpeachable for Abe and the LDP to denounce North Korea for this terrible crime—so unimpeachable that few in Japan protested when the LDP also <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/assets/sites/731/docs/Nationalisms_of_and_against_Zainichi.pdf">smeared Zainichi Koreans</a> for having been complicit with these crimes. After all, <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2019/09/korea-japan-and-end-of-65-system-part.html">one of the reasons</a> why Zainichi Koreans came to existence was because they were suspected of being friendly to North Korea.</div>
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The dog whistle was not limited to North Korea, however. With increased visibility in Japan thanks to its export of pop culture, South Korea also became a target of Japanese right wing’s racist campaign. A manga series named “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_Kenkanryu">Hating the Korean Wave</a>” cumulatively sold more than a million copies. Since 2012, right-leaning current affairs magazines of Japan <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09557571.2019.1573806#.XUdO8kMGSow.email">began covering</a> South Korea more extensively than North Korea, nearly rivaling the coverage of China at one point. Major bookstores in Japan began having an entire section dedicated to the popular <i>kenkan </i>(“hating Korea”) books. In 2014, the <i>kenkan </i>books <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09557571.2019.1573806#.XUdO8kMGSow.email">were</a> the first, seventh and 17th-best selling books in Japan in the category of current affairs nonfiction. In 2017, a former ambassador of Japan to South Korea, Muto Masatoshi, <a href="http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=3034294">published</a> a book unsubtly titled “Fortunately, I Wasn’t Born a Korean.” </div>
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With the combination of deft bureaucratic maneuvering and the call for stability laced with racism, Abe Shinzo would once again become the prime minister in 2012. After having won two re-elections since then, Abe is set to be the longest serving prime minister of Japan, where an average prime minister’s term is around two years.</div>
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The political story across the strait appeared to be similar as of 2012. South Korean liberals’ ten year run from 1997 to 2007 ended with the election of Lee Myung-bak, former CEO of Hyundai. His approval tanked toward the end of his term thanks to his all-around corruption and venality, to a point that Korea’s liberals were toasting Lee as the fairy godfather of democracy. But Korea’s conservatives pulled off the 2012 presidential election by rallying around Park Geun-hye, whose sole political asset is the fact that she is the daughter of the dictator Park Chung-hee. (It also helped that Korea’s spy agency ran <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/11/presidential-election-and-spy-agency.html">a domestic psy op against voters</a>, in the style of Russian intelligence agency assisting Trump’s election.) From the jaws of defeat, Korea’s conservatives snatched victory by going all-in on retrograde dictator-worship. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQPvKvW-mjuN83tJ_NsnBfiELWwvpBCR7CaxJrFxTopKpUTOEutXzjQ3B9mak1N0x4-HQCrlua9axY46o5kk1v84ZoJK6RBXd5u4qzV1_aook93bnC3SZS0q3jE4oJnTNVyXMh/s1600/IE001531513_STD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="550" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQPvKvW-mjuN83tJ_NsnBfiELWwvpBCR7CaxJrFxTopKpUTOEutXzjQ3B9mak1N0x4-HQCrlua9axY46o5kk1v84ZoJK6RBXd5u4qzV1_aook93bnC3SZS0q3jE4oJnTNVyXMh/s640/IE001531513_STD.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the night of Park Geun-hye's election, her supporters celebrated by holding up<br />
a portrait of her father Park Chung-hee. c. 2012 (<a href="http://m.ohmynews.com/NWS_Web/Mobile/at_pg.aspx?CNTN_CD=A0001817710#cb">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Like a strange joke, Japan and South Korea were simultaneously re-enacting the 1960s, with Kishi Nobusuke’s grandson and Park Chung-hee’s daughter respectively at the helm. Even the Cold War dynamics was re-enacting itself, with China as an emerging hegemon replacing Russia’s role. Just as much as Kennedy pushed a shotgun marriage that resulted in the ’65 System, Barack Obama was nudging Japan and South Korea to put an end to the historical issues in order to strengthen the US-Japan-Korea trilateral alliance as a part of his “Pivot to Asia” program.</div>
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Just like 1965, the historical issue loomed large for Abe and Park. South Korea’s Supreme Court had already ordered the Korean government to do more for the former Comfort Women, and the powerful testimony of the wartime sex slaves were resonating around the world to a point that was damaging Japan’s international reputation. Meanwhile, the former slave laborers, buoyed by the victory against Mitsubishi, were pursuing another action against Nippon Steel. As the substance of that case was the same as with the Mitsubishi, another court victory was all but certain. </div>
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Abe Shinzo administration approached these issues just as the Japanese government approached the negotiation of the ’65 treaties—with total disregard to the people hurt by Japan’s imperialism. In September 2013, Ihara Junichi of Japan’s Foreign Ministry met with Park Jun-yong of Korea’s Foreign Ministry in Tokyo, <a href="https://news.jtbc.joins.com/article/article.aspx?news_id=NB11858085">to deliver</a> a barely disguised threat: Korea must “respond appropriately” to the Supreme Court case between wartime slave laborers and Nippon Steel, or “this issue may get serious to a point it’s beyond control.” It was an absurd, offensive request, arrogantly demanding a foreign country to override its independent judiciary. </div>
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Luckily for Abe, however, Park Geun-hye was like her father and had little regard for separation of powers. She <a href="http://www.seoul.co.kr/news/newsView.php?id=20190729500167">ordered</a> her Foreign Ministry to intervene with the Supreme Court. Seeing that it would be absurd for the Supreme Court to issue a contrary opinion on the same issue within a year, the Foreign Ministry instead lobbied the court to delay ruling on the case, on the cynical hope that the very old plaintiffs would die off. </div>
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Then-Chief Justice Yang Seung-tae <a href="https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20190201139400004">acquiesced</a>, using the case as a bargaining chip to earn more business trips abroad. Yang even met separately with the attorneys for Nippon Steel to fine-tune their legal briefs, and also tried to influence his fellow justices toward overturning the 2012 decision. With Yang running interference, the Supreme Court simply sat for five years on what should have been an easy decision. All but one plaintiffs had passed away when the Supreme Court finally ruled on the case in 2018, after Park had left the office.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjukWCm20s2dQvk17MWCND6m2h_WRv-f205VrCz1mhsKtNtqFgVl6DFC5W2chRZgm-DdVY5oMAUwR9zQL1EYEOtm8Fg9b79Tq0I2KF_M61sf2lt7AOpwvjQ9hBfDpHYA0GIss5q/s1600/leaders01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="780" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjukWCm20s2dQvk17MWCND6m2h_WRv-f205VrCz1mhsKtNtqFgVl6DFC5W2chRZgm-DdVY5oMAUwR9zQL1EYEOtm8Fg9b79Tq0I2KF_M61sf2lt7AOpwvjQ9hBfDpHYA0GIss5q/s640/leaders01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Park Geun-hye, Barack Obama and Abe Shinzo at the Nuclear Security Summit c. 2016 (<a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/leaders-of-us-japan-and-south-korea-present-united-front-against-north-korea">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Then there was the matter of Comfort Women settlement, which the Obama administration pushed hard. To be sure, Obama probably did not intend the resulting agreement to be botched like it was. The Obama administration displayed enough sensitivity to the historical issues in East Asia, for example by <a href="https://jp.usembassy.gov/statement-prime-minister-abes-december-26-visit-yasukuni-shrine/">expressing disappointment</a> when Abe visited the Yasukuni Shrine in 2013. When Abe repeatedly hinted that he may withdraw the 1993 Kono Statement that admitted the existence of military sex slaves (Abe already had disavowed the Kono Statement back in 2007,) the Obama administration stepped in forcefully and <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/04/28/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-abe-japan-joint-press-confere">stopped it from doing so</a>.</div>
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The Comfort Women Agreement of December 28, 2015 seemed encouraging enough on the surface. In the joint press conference, Japan’s Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio <a href="https://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2015/12/28/full-text-japan-south-korea-statement-on-comfort-women/">read the statement</a> that Abe Shinzo, as the prime minister, “expresses anew his most sincere apologies and remorse”. In order to “heal psychological wounds,” Japan would use its government budget to fund a foundation to assist the former Comfort Women. In exchange, “this issue is resolved finally and irreversibly”, as long the two countries faithfully implemented the agreement.</div>
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But the Agreement repeated the same flaws of the ’65 treaties, by avoiding central issues, relying on backroom deals and freezing out the actual victims. The former military sex slaves were not at all involved in the negotiations for the agreement; they found out from the news that their government unilaterally ended the fight they led for over 20 years. The Agreement did not address of any of the key demands that the former Comfort Women have been making since the Kono Statement in 1993: that Japan admit the military was not merely “involved” in the establishment of the rape stations, but was the one directing such establishment; that Japan’s head of government actually show remorse and empathy, rather than having one of his proxies read a statement; that the government of Japan accept full responsibility for its war crime without hedging and reservation; that Japan would make the effort to educate the public about its war crimes.</div>
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The only meaningful progress in the Agreement was the fact that the foundation was funded by Japan’s government budget, which can be interpreted as the state of Japan accepting legal responsibility. But in the phone conversation with Park Geun-hye following the Agreement, Abe Shinzo <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20151228184759/http:/headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20151228-00000048-jij-pol">repeated</a> the exact stance that UN Commission of Human Rights rejected: that the ’65 treaties settled all claims, such that no legal responsibility remained. Abe went further in <a href="https://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=shm&sid1=104&oid=001&aid=0008124365">his statement to the Diet in January 2016</a>: the claims were all settled in 1965, and in fact, Comfort Women was not a war crime at all, because the military did not directly kidnap the women. Foreign Minister Kishida, who was also in attendance, further claimed using the term “sex slave” to describe Comfort Women was “inappropriate” and “not based on facts”</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgusf12TXXRr9CMWblfKPqTqJw7zAHbKmBODO6v0wbEQxw_Jk2pFLJBmg9OWDH420m-T3FkPcRbFsq3ReraXhmWJWJV2uedIaittY_v8o1GsdkLo__uIqnljz5sBoZj7ateF4wz/s1600/145268723576_20160114.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="590" data-original-width="970" height="389" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgusf12TXXRr9CMWblfKPqTqJw7zAHbKmBODO6v0wbEQxw_Jk2pFLJBmg9OWDH420m-T3FkPcRbFsq3ReraXhmWJWJV2uedIaittY_v8o1GsdkLo__uIqnljz5sBoZj7ateF4wz/s640/145268723576_20160114.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Former wartime sex slaves protest the Comfort Women Agreement in front of <br />
the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, saying they "absolutely object" to the agreement <br />
that was negotiated without any consultation with them. c. 2016 (<a href="http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/women/726117.html">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Even more offensive was the undisclosed side deals, which only came to light two years later when Park Geun-hye had already left the office. In <a href="https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20171227088400014">the side deal</a>, the Abe administration demanded—and Park administration accepted—that (1) the Korean government will handle any dissatisfaction from the former Comfort Women; (2) the Korean government will not support the international establishment of memorial statues or plaques for Comfort Women; (3) the Korean government will not use the term “sex slave” to describe the Comfort Women; and (4) the Korean government will move the Comfort Women memorial statue that was then in place in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. </div>
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In addition to the side deal, the Park administration actively interfered with efforts to recognize military sex slaves. When US Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen wanted to hold a commemorative event for Comfort Women in early 2016, the Korean Embassy <a href="http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?artid=201602232228255">requested her office</a> to cancel it. When a Korean history scholar was about to give a presentation criticizing the Agreement and the Abe administration, the Korean government <a href="http://news.jtbc.joins.com/article/article.aspx?news_id=NB11179030">shut down the symposium</a>. The government’s internal reports regarding the Comfort Women issue <a href="http://news.jtbc.joins.com/article/article.aspx?news_id=NB11179030">were destroyed</a>. The White Paper project on military sex slave that had been ongoing for more than a year <a href="http://news.jtbc.joins.com/article/article.aspx?news_id=NB11179030">was scrapped</a>.</div>
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Ironically, even with all this, Abe faced political costs. After the Agreement was announced, more than 200 right-wing Japanese <a href="https://news.naver.com/main/ranking/read.nhn?mid=etc&sid1=111&rankingType=popular_day&oid=001&aid=0008084184&date=20151230&type=1&rankingSeq=8&rankingSectionId=104">rushed</a> the prime minister’s office and protested Abe Shinzo “sold out” his country. Yet Abe had reasons to be hopeful that he put the sex slave issue behind him, “finally and irreversibly” as the Agreement said. Only months earlier in August 2015, Abe had <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2015/08/sorting-through-shinzo-abes-dog-whistles.html">declared</a>: “We must not let our children, grandchildren, and even further generations to come, who have nothing to do with that war, be predestined to apologize.” It looked like he was on his way to make good on this promise. He succeeded in papering over the historical issues with South Korea by doing an end around the victims of Japan's imperialism, just as Japan did fifty years ago in 1965.</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-89420229218801094832019-09-06T11:55:00.000-04:002019-09-06T11:55:24.914-04:00Korea-Japan and the End of the '65 System - Part III: The Rise of the '65 System[<a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/1998/02/korea-japan-and-end-of-65-system-series.html">Series Index</a>]<br /><br /><div>
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For approximately 25 years, the ’65 System functioned exactly as intended. Japan and South Korea would build a close economic relationship, while the historical issue was in the backburner. For a time, this was possible because South Korea’s dictators Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan muzzled the victims of Japan’s imperialism. But starting in the 1990s, the ’65 System was showing the possibility that it could become more than an uneasy patch-up job.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX_hLDMoh_db_2Tg6A4_Nma6CRpP4jXxdIuCCEqcgT2O8F9UByqizLoE6_dpHdONN3doeIzppk9NdmL41XXkYS2jFgLHNoYNLlL_TZgwToPEAdbNjk0q2-TNUch4Yf3IgWdAfz/s1600/1_3xeuuEtdQbDLGNiOwnwiUw.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1081" data-original-width="1600" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX_hLDMoh_db_2Tg6A4_Nma6CRpP4jXxdIuCCEqcgT2O8F9UByqizLoE6_dpHdONN3doeIzppk9NdmL41XXkYS2jFgLHNoYNLlL_TZgwToPEAdbNjk0q2-TNUch4Yf3IgWdAfz/s640/1_3xeuuEtdQbDLGNiOwnwiUw.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Japan's student protesters tussle with the riot police in Shinjuku, Tokyo. c. 1969 (<a href="https://timeline.com/japan-zengakuren-riots-anarchist-6b6cbcac0a97">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Around the time the two countries signed the ’65 treaties, both Japan and South Korea saw an awakening of progressive politics, in tune with the worldwide movement of activism. In Japan, massive student activism broke out throughout the 1960s, protesting the security treaty between US and Japan, Kishi Nobusuke government’s attempt to revise the Peace Constitution, the Vietnam War, and even the ’65 treaties. This generation of Japanese students, in groups such as Zengakuren and Zenkyoto, would mature to form the backbone of Japan’s liberal politics.</div>
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South Korea’s path was darker, as it was under a more overtly oppressive dictatorship that made less pretensions of being a democracy. The brief hope of freedom after Park Chung-hee’s death in 1979 was immediately dashed by the emergence of the next dictator Chun Doo-hwan, who massacred hundreds of protesters in Gwangju on May 18, 1980. But finally in 1987, the massive June Struggle would peacefully depose Chun’s dictatorship, and South Korea would successfully transition into a civilian-led government in 1993. Similar to Japan’s Zenkyoto Generation, South Korea’s ’87 Generation would form the mainstream of South Korea’s liberal politics.</div>
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The 1990s offered hope. The fall of Soviet Union in 1991 ended the Cold War, and with it, the need to maintain the anti-communist drive that permitted illiberal tactics of Japan’s conservatives and South Korea’s dictatorship. Korea hosted the 1988 Seoul Olympics, showcasing to the world the free and prosperous country rebuilt from war and destruction. By 1990, South Korea was a top 20 economy in the world, ahead of such countries as Sweden and Switzerland. </div>
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Meanwhile in Japan, the Showa Era ended with the death of Emperor Hirohito in 1989. The succeeding Emperor Akihito, who opened the Heisei Era, began his reign with a series of high-profile visits to Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, showing remorse and contrition to the victims of Japan’s Imperialism. In 1993, Japan’s LDP lost its majority in the legislature for the first time in 38 years, leading to the first non-LDP post-war Prime Minister in Hosokawa Morihiro. As Korea was freer and wealthier, Korea’s survivors of Japanese imperialism could speak out—and Japan was ready to listen.</div>
<br />(More after the jump.)</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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On August 14, 1991, 67-year-old Kim Hak-sun held a press conference in Seoul to give the first public testimony on the existence of “Comfort Women”—euphemism for wartime sex slaves that Imperial Japanese Army kept in rape stations near the front line, to be forced to have sex with soldiers dozens of times a day. Kim was traveling through Beijing with her father and sister, when the Japanese military arrested her father. On the same night, the Japanese military officers raped Kim and her sister, then placed them in the “Comfort Station” in Beijing. She managed to escape to Shanghai after four months, then returned to Korea after liberation.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzsmXJq3t0XMzV6MCUcSg5V7q3ubeA4Lxe4_44d57eW0urAl0WoJQU2q4J_JRNqtTIsS-Ayar1FPJvqJbF4xBMEGYUGjzMwFWpyCrM3TQ55yXj3NmHZ7pcm_ysQEB8xeTQF5HL/s1600/l_2016081501001890900151621.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="600" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzsmXJq3t0XMzV6MCUcSg5V7q3ubeA4Lxe4_44d57eW0urAl0WoJQU2q4J_JRNqtTIsS-Ayar1FPJvqJbF4xBMEGYUGjzMwFWpyCrM3TQ55yXj3NmHZ7pcm_ysQEB8xeTQF5HL/s640/l_2016081501001890900151621.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kim Hak-sun at the press conference in 1991, publicly raising the issue of Imperial Japan's<br />wartime sex slaves for the first time. Kim would continue her activism until her death in 1997. (<a href="http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?art_id=201608142305015">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Kim’s courageous testimony caused more survivors stepped forward to testify. (Among them was the recently deceased <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2019/08/22/jan-ruff-oherne-former-wartime-prisoner-japanese-broke-50-year/">Jan Ruff-O’Herne</a>, a Dutch-Australian woman who was kidnapped in Indonesia to be placed in one of Imperial Japan’s rape stations.) Investigation revealed as many as 200,000 women were placed in the rape stations, recruited under false pretenses in some cases and outright kidnapped like Kim Hak-sun in other cases. In 1996, the United States Commission of Human Rights issued a special report on the former Comfort Women, making clear that Japan was still obligated to make reparations to the survivors <a href="http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/commission/country52/53-add1.htm">regardless of the Settlement agreement</a>: “neither the San Francisco Peace Treaty nor the bilateral treaties were concerned with human rights violations in general or military sexual slavery in particular.”</div>
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The Japanese government initially resisted accepting responsibility for Comfort Women, but to its credit, it did. In 1993, Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei issued <a href="https://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/women/fund/state9308.html">a statement</a> acknowledging “the military authorities of the day” were involved in running the rape stations, and expressed the Japanese government’s “sincere apologies and remorse to all those . . . who suffered immeasurable pain." This led to a broader recognition from Japan’s part to acknowledge its colonial past. Two years later for the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama of the Social Democratic Party—Japan’s first post-war socialist leader—issued the historic Murayama Statement: “through its colonial rule and aggression, [Japan] caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations. . . . I regard, in the spirit of humility, these irrefutable facts of history, and express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology.” </div>
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It must be said that Japan’s progress was a halting one. Many in Tokyo found reckoning with the past to be a capitulation, and reacted with revisionist claims. Many in the Japanese government—including Foreign Minister Watanabe Michio, Education Ministers Fujio Masayuki and Shimamura Yoshinobu, Land Minister Okuno Seisuke—claimed that Imperial Japan’s war was a “war of liberation” (Okuno), annexation of Korea was a “friendly agreement” (Watanabe) that was “done voluntarily” (Fujio), and Japan had no reason to apologize for its war (Shimamura). Murayama himself would dilute the meaning of his apology, he <a href="https://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=104&oid=001&aid=0003955790">remarked two months after his statement</a> that Japan’s 1910 treaty that annexed Korea was legally valid at the time. </div>
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Seen in light of these remarks, Koreans saw Japan’s new apologetic stance to be a half-hearted foot-dragging. For example, majority of the former Comfort Women refused to accept money from the Asian Women’s Fund, established by the Murayama administration to pay reparation. To the former wartime sex slaves, the fact that Asian Women’s Fund was a private foundation funded by private donation rather than government funding was a sign that Japan was still trying to avoid legal responsibility, regardless of what its statement said.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2jaAI517xyVBpKuB6oHt7yAyXb8rVxIScKg1jaRaG2Ty80fJwm8KV5sg3LSA_4onIlrDwnYI8gJgB-XkmxDQFWF87PUGJDWVHgTcuIKW1B3HcIE-UMXb2aANAG6hME4RJdRKp/s1600/00502017_20181009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="449" data-original-width="640" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2jaAI517xyVBpKuB6oHt7yAyXb8rVxIScKg1jaRaG2Ty80fJwm8KV5sg3LSA_4onIlrDwnYI8gJgB-XkmxDQFWF87PUGJDWVHgTcuIKW1B3HcIE-UMXb2aANAG6hME4RJdRKp/s640/00502017_20181009.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Japan's Obuchi Keizo (left) shakes hand with South Korea's Kim Dae-jung, c. 1998,<br />in a summit meeting that resulted in the Kim-Obuchi Statement. (<a href="http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/opinion/editorial/865112.html">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Yet overall, the relationship between Korea and Japan was on an upward trajectory throughout the 1990s. In 1998, Kim Dae-jung became the first South Korean president to visit Japan. At the conclusion of the visit, he made <a href="https://news.joins.com/article/3709555">a joint declaration</a> with Prime Minister Obuchi Keizo, promising to move forward from the past, commit to democracy and market economy, encourage cultural exchanges and assist each other’s foreign policy agendas, including South Korea’s Sunshine Policy for North Korea and Japan’s greater involvement in the world affairs. Immediately following the declaration, South Korea and Japan opened each other’s markets for pop culture products. </div>
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Some in Korea feared such an opening would lead to an onslaught of Japanese movies, dramas and pop music in Korea. That did happen, to a degree: Koreans who had always consumed bootleg Japanese anime could now watch them legitimately on cable TV. With Koreans becoming more comfortable with consuming Japanese culture, hip neighborhoods in Seoul would be lined with Japanese style izakayas. But the trend in reverse was even more powerful: the budding Korean pop culture products, including K-pop and Korean dramas, would sweep the Japanese market, setting the stage for global Korean pop culture in the 2010s. In 2003, BoA would become the first of many K-pop artists who would top the charts in both Korea and Japan. In the same year, Korean drama Winter Sonata would become the first non-Japanese drama to crack 20% viewership rate in Japan.</div>
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The positive trend continued through late 2000s, especially as the Democratic Party of Japan held government from 2009 to 2012. The high point came in the <a href="https://japan.kantei.go.jp/kan/statement/201008/10danwa_e.html">statement</a> by Prime Minister Kan Naoto in 2010, to mark the 100 year anniversary of Japan’s annexation of Korea: “I would like to face history with sincerity. I would like to have courage to squarely confront the facts of history and humility to accept them, as well as to be honest to reflect upon the errors of our own. Those who render pain tend to forget it while those who suffered cannot forget it easily. To the tremendous damage and sufferings that this colonial rule caused, I express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and my heartfelt apology.”</div>
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Along this upward trajectory was a series of courtroom battles surrounding the treaties of 1965. A treaty is not merely a political document; it is also a legal document, subject to interpretation by domestic and international tribunals. Any contentiously negotiated contract that leaves key concepts ambiguous is bound to invite litigation to clarify the contract’s parameters. So, too, was the case with the treaties of 1965. As both Japan and Korea liberalized in the 1990s, the former wartime slaves and former sex slaves began pursuing their own claims against Japanese government and corporations in their individual capacity. And over time, they won.</div>
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Their claims came to be centered on a critical issue, left unaddressed in the Settlement Agreement: did the ’65 treaties, signed by the states of Japan and the Republic of Korea, extinguish the claims held by the individuals? In other words, were the individuals free to sue and enforce their own claims, regardless of what the treaties said? As discussed <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2019/09/korea-japan-and-end-of-65-system-part.html">earlier</a>, at the moment of entering into the ’65 treaties, Japan’s answer was a clear “no”. </div>
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Indeed, Japan’s position that a treaty does not extinguish a claim held by an individual dates back beyond the ’65 treaties. In 1956, two American soldiers robbed and shot a Japanese civilian. The civilian sued the Japanese government for his injury based on the theory that, because the Japanese government extinguished his claim against the American soldiers in the Treaty of San Francisco, the government must be answerable to his claims instead. The Japanese government appeared in the case, titled <i>Horimoto v. Japan</i>, and <a href="https://escholarship.org/content/qt8mt1g1ww/qt8mt1g1ww.pdf?t=n4ox6w">stated its position</a>: the Treaty of San Francisco only waived the diplomatic protection that the Japanese government might provide to its individual citizens to help pursue the claim, and the claim itself was not waived. </div>
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When the court ruled against the government’s position, the Japanese government appealed and <a href="https://escholarship.org/content/qt8mt1g1ww/qt8mt1g1ww.pdf?t=n4ox6w">repeated the same argument</a>: “because the claims were not owned by the government to begin with, there should not be a situation where individuals lost their claims as a direct result of a treaty no matter what promise their government made by signing a treaty with a foreign country.”</div>
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The Japanese government restated this exact same position for the next several decades. In the celebrated case of <i>Shimoda v. Japan</i> in 1963, victims of atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki sued the Japanese government for compensation, arguing they would have been entitled to compensation from the United States if Japan had not sign away their rights in the Treaty of San Francisco. The Japanese government again stated: “The government of Japan, by Article 19(a) of the Peace Treaty, did not waive its nationals’ individual claim for damages against the government of the United States . . .” </div>
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In 1989, the Japanese victims of Siberian internment camps—former Manchurian dwellers who were imprisoned by the Soviets—sued the Japanese government under the same theory, in a case called <i>Nikaido v. Japan</i>. Again, the same position: “the claims that Japan waived by Article 6(2) of the Joint Declaration by the USSR and Japan were claims owned by the government of Japan itself and diplomatic protection, and the claims owned by the Japanese national individuals were not waived.” In another Siberian internee case called <i>Matsumoto v. Japan</i> from 2000, the Japanese government repeated the same point.</div>
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The Japanese government repeatedly re-affirmed this position before its legislature as well. In 1980, addressing the Siberian internee issue, Cabinet Legal Bureau’s Tsunoda Reijiro stated to the Diet: “claims owned by Japanese nationals as individuals were not waived.” Again on the Siberian internee issue, Foreign Ministry’s Takashima Yushu repeated the same point in 1991: “Not having waived individual claims means that individual claims based on the domestic legal system of the Soviet Union have not been waived.”</div>
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Most importantly for the Korean victims of imperialism, Foreign Ministry’s Yanai Shunji <a href="https://escholarship.org/content/qt8mt1g1ww/qt8mt1g1ww.pdf?t=n4ox6w">testified before</a> the Diet in 1991: “all claims that had existed between Japan and Korea, including nationals’ claims, were settled—meaning that both Japan and Korea renounced the right of diplomatic protection they retained as states. Therefore, it does not mean that so-called individual rights themselves were extinguished in the sense of domestic law.” Even as recently as 2018, Japan’s Foreign Minister Kono Taro testified before the Japanese legislature that the Settlement Agreement <a href="https://news.v.daum.net/v/20181116103305861">did not extinguish</a> claims held by individuals.</div>
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To be sure, much of Japanese government’s hair-splitting distinction between “withdrawal of diplomatic protection” and “extinguishment of individual rights” is a transparent ploy to avoid having to pay reparations for Japanese citizens who suffered in World War II—an “interpretive acrobatics”, as Professor Lee Keun-gwan of Seoul National University Law School drily noted. Ironically, however, the idea that states cannot arbitrarily extinguish claims held by individuals, especially when the claim relates to human rights violations, began gaining currency in international law. For example, in the 2001 case of <i>Prince Hans-Adam II of Lichtenstein v. Germany, the European Court of Human Rights</i> assessed whether the 1952 treaty that settled claims from World War II legitimately settled a claim held by an individual. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrAeIu1CtDFmr4V-mJzg7XYynMXM2-FBeZNCKDGWgaDSRy72jq5XCuFnQ0cM0W5R_Pri_accI7pygLUb6KRZKZLJ25fpHo_GsaPcSVt05GFsrndDr_Wutf8vh40u_wejKVwaOq/s1600/IE001665064_PHT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="581" data-original-width="800" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrAeIu1CtDFmr4V-mJzg7XYynMXM2-FBeZNCKDGWgaDSRy72jq5XCuFnQ0cM0W5R_Pri_accI7pygLUb6KRZKZLJ25fpHo_GsaPcSVt05GFsrndDr_Wutf8vh40u_wejKVwaOq/s640/IE001665064_PHT.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Former Comfort Women Gil Won-ok (left) and Kim Bok-dong step out of Seoul Western District Court, c. 2014<br />(<a href="http://www.ohmynews.com/NWS_Web/View/img_pg.aspx?CNTN_CD=IE001665064&tag=%EA%B5%90%ED%95%99%EC%82%AC&gb=tag">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Relying on this stance by Japan, victims of Japanese imperialism began their legal battles in Japan, United States, South Korea and elsewhere. At first, they lost more than they won. In 2006 in the US, for example, former Comfort Woman Hwang Geum-joo lost her case before the DC Circuit Court, which found the case a non-justiciable political question. Aided by conscientious Japanese attorneys, some of the former wartime slaves sued Nippon Steel, Japan Steel and Fujikoshi munitions company in Japanese courts. The plaintiffs lost these cases, but settled with the defendants before appealing or bringing another case in a different forum. <a href="http://nyujilp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/NYI201.pdf">These settlements</a>, which were entered between 1997 and 2000, were miniature versions of the Settlement Agreement between Republic of Korea and Japan: a sum of money paid with no description attached, and a vague expression of sympathy with no acknowledgment of legal liability. </div>
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But they also won big victories. A major victory came in 1996, when the UN Commission on Human Rights issued a special report on wartime sex slaves and specifically rejected the Japanese government’s argument that the ’65 treaties covered the claims of the former Comfort Women: </div>
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“The Special Rapporteur is of the view that neither the San Francisco Peace Treaty nor the bilateral treaties were concerned with human rights violations in general or military sexual slavery in particular. The ‘intent’ of the parties did not cover the specific claims made by ‘comfort women’ and the treaties were not concerned with human rights violations of women during the conduct of the war by Japan. It is, therefore, the conclusion of the Special Rapporteur that the treaties do not cover the claims raised by former military sexual slaves and that the Government of Japan remains legally responsible for the consequent violations of international humanitarian law.” </blockquote>
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Another major victory came in 2011, when the former military sex slaves sued the Korean government before the Constitutional Court of Korea, arguing the Korean government failed to carry out its duty owed to the former Comfort Women by failing to negotiate a proper reparation. </div>
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In 2012, the most important legal victory came. The former wartime slave laborers from Korea sued Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for damages, and the Supreme Court of the Republic of Korea found in the plaintiffs’ favor. The <a href="http://www.law.go.kr/precInfoP.do?precSeq=166297">2012 slave labor decision</a> is particularly important, because it strikes at the heart of every piece of ambiguity left open by the ’65 treaties.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Plaintiffs of the Mitsubishi case, former wartime slave laborers and their family,<br />give a press conference after their Supreme Court victory. c. 2012 (<a href="https://news.joins.com/article/8284895">source</a>)</td></tr>
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The five plaintiffs were conscripted from Seoul and Gyeonggi-do in late 1944. The Japanese military and the police rounded them up on a train to Busan, from which they were taken to Hiroshima, Japan. There, they worked at Mitsubishi’s metallurgy factory while being captive in a concentration camp. Their slavery ended only after an atomic bomb fell in Hiroshima, from which they suffered lasting radiation injuries. </div>
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The plaintiffs first sued Mitsubishi in Japan, and lost the first round in 1999. They appealed the loss, while also suing Mitsubishi in Korea in 2000. The Supreme Court of Japan dismissed the case in 2007, holding that Mitsubishi’s conscription of the plaintiffs was itself legal, because Korea at the time was the territory of the Imperial Japan, and the conscription was based on a lawful decree. Japan’s Supreme Court found that, nevertheless, certain aspects of the conscription may have been unlawful—for example, because the slave laborers were placed in unsafe conditions including irradiation from a nuclear attack. But the Japanese Supreme Court found the ’65 treaties precluded any claim from such unlawful aspects of the conscription.</div>
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Based on the dismissal, Mitsubishi argued to the Supreme Court of Korea to also dismiss the case, as international comity generally requires one country’s court to respect decisions by another country’s court in the same matter. The Korean Supreme Court rejected the argument. The court noted that the Japanese decision offends the Constitution of the Republic of Korea, which draws its legitimacy from the 1919 Provisional Government and declares Imperial Japan’s occupation of Korea to be illegal from the start. To give recognition to the Japanese decision that the conscription was legal, according to the court, would contravene the premise of the Korean constitution.</div>
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Korea’s Supreme Court also struck back against the Japanese Supreme Court’s opinion that the ’65 treaties settled the plaintiffs’ claims, by hitting every point of ambiguity left open in the ’65 treaties. Since the Basic Treaty never recognized that Imperial Japan’s annexation of Korea was illegal from the start, the Japanese government likewise never recognized that the conscription was made pursuant to a decree issued by the colonial government that had no authority to issue such an order. Also, the Japanese government has characterized the money paid pursuant to the Settlement Agreement as “economic assistance,” not an exchange for the settlement of any claim. Even if the Settlement Agreement contemplated the waiver of claims held by individuals such as the former wartime slaves, such waiver was only a waiver of diplomatic protection—the same exact logic that the Japanese government has consistently employed since the <i>Horimoto</i> case in 1956.</div>
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With the 2012 slave labor decision, the ’65 System came full circle. As intended, the System ensured the relationship between South Korea and Japan would grow. But such growth led the two countries to focus their gaze into the ’65 System’s hollow core: the fact that there was no resolution to the most important question in the relationship between Japan and South Korea. The system's survival depended on silencing the victims. So, it is unsurprising that this particular decision that empowered the victims of imperialism would serve as the detonator that would undo the ’65 System.</div>
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<i>Got a question or comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-40375035339077860882019-09-03T16:26:00.000-04:002019-09-05T17:03:06.817-04:00Korea-Japan and the End of the '65 System - Part II: The '65 System<span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">[</span><a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/1998/02/korea-japan-and-end-of-65-system-series.html" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #0066cc; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Series Index</a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">]</span><br />
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After An Jung-geun shot Ito Hirobumi in 1909, An demanded he be treated as a prisoner of war, a soldier who carried out an asymmetrical warfare campaign against an enemy general. Imperial Japan ignored the request; An would be tried and executed like a common criminal of Japan.</div>
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This would be the consistent theme for the next 100-plus years between Korea and Japan. Korea would insist that it is an independent state, and Japan would refuse to recognize such a claim. The '65 System, which re-established bilateral relationship between Japan and South Korea, never sought to address this gap. In the end, the gap never closed, and led to the '65 System's undoing.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Japan's Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru signs the Treaty of San Francisco, c. Sept. 1951 (<a href="https://ceas.yale.edu/events/continuing-legacies-san-francisco-system-past-present-and-future-options">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Much of the post-war drama between Japan and South Korea could have been avoided if the United States had resorted to a simple solution: include South Korea as one of the Allied Powers in the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco, which formalized Imperial Japan’s defeat. The Asian countries included in the Treaty of San Francisco all normalized relations with Japan in short order. Japan normalized relations with Burma in 1954, the Philippines in 1956, and Indonesia in 1958, paying war reparations for each round of normalization.<br />
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It was the character of Japan’s colonization of Korea that complicated the matters. Japan’s normalization with Korea was going to be a much more daunting task than normalizing relations with the Southeast Asian countries. Imperial Japan <i>invaded</i> the Southeast Asian countries, but it never <i>colonized</i> them. Japan’s occupation of Southeast Asia began in the early 1940s as World War II was unfolding, and lasted only a few years until the end of the war. When the war was over, the Southeast Asian countries—including Burma, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam—were considered a part of the victorious Allied Powers, participating in the Treaty of San Francisco as signatories. Normalizing ties with these countries only involved actually implementing Article 14 of the San Francisco Treaty: “Japan should pay reparations to the Allied Powers for the damage and suffering caused by it during the war.”<br />
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Indeed, the US <a href="http://www.jpri.org/publications/workingpapers/wp78.html">initially had planned</a> to include South Korea as an Allied Power. But less than two months before the treaty was signed, the US suddenly reversed position—precisely because Korea was a Japanese colony. The US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was concerned that Koreans would upend his carefully planned conference by taking a strong position against Japanese imperialism. Also, Japan insisted that inclusion of Korea as an Allied Power would mean that nearly a million Koreans living in Japan would received status as citizens of an Allied Power, receiving the benefit of the treaty.<br />
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(More after the jump.)</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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Throughout the colonial period and beyond, ethnic Koreans in Japan faced regular pogroms by the Japanese society. (The most egregious was <a href="https://harvard-yenching.org/the-great-kanto-earthquake">the massacre following the Kanto earthquake</a> in 1923, in which Japan's police and military, jointing the vigilante mob, began an ethnic cleansing that killed more than 6,600 ethnic Koreans who were falsely accused to poisoning the well and raping Japanese women in the aftermath of the earthquake.) If Korea were considered an Allied power, the ethnic Koreans would receive a protected status, beyond the application of Japanese laws and under the protection of the Allied forces. Japan’s prime minister Yoshida Shigeru argued to Dulles that most of the ethnic Koreans in Japan were communists friendly to North Korea, unworthy of the treaty’s protection extended to Allied civilians. Dulles <a href="http://www.jpri.org/publications/workingpapers/wp78.html">bought the argument</a>, saying he could see the wisdom of “Korean nationals in Japan, mostly communists . . . not obtain[ing] the property benefits of the treaty.”<br />
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The South Korean government raged at the decision. The Provisional Government and the Independence Army had fought on the side of the Allied powers. The South Korean government also noted ethnic Koreans in Japan were facing lawless violence, as they had no nationality that Japan recognized. None of it mattered. To this day, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Koreans in Japan live without a state, face various formal and informal discrimination as literal second class citizens. And South Korea would have to negotiate its peace outside of the ambit of the Treaty of San Francisco.<br />
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How would South Korea's inclusion to the the Treaty of San Francisco have made things simpler? Take the Philippines, which was a US colony in 1941. There was little dispute Imperial Japan invaded the Philippines on December 8, 1941, ten hours after it bombed Pearl Harbor and declared war against the United States. The Philippines, as the US colony, fought on the side of the Allied Power, and eventually won. As an Allied power within the ambit of the San Francisco Treaty, Philippines received $550 million in war reparations and normalized relationship with Japan in 1956: five years after the Treaty of San Francisco, and nine years earlier than South Korea's normalization with Japan.<br />
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Did Imperial Japan similarly invade Korea in the early 20th century, as it invaded the Philippines in 1941? To Koreans, the answer was an obvious yes: Imperial Japan put their king at gunpoint and made him sign the Annexation Treaty. Koreans resisted the colonization with all of their might, forming a government-in-exile and a military that battled the Japanese Empire. But not so with the Japanese. In their view, Imperial Japan’s colonization project in the early 20th century was an entirely legitimate one, something that every major world power was doing in their own corners of the world. Sure, they regretted losing World War II, which caused the Japanese to suffer. But Japan didn’t lose the war <b><i>to</i></b> Korea—it lost the war <b><i>with</i></b> Korea.<br />
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This issue became the sticking point as soon as South Korea and Japan began discussing the normalization of relations in 1951, after the Treaty of San Francisco was concluded. Initially, Syngman Rhee’s administration had <a href="http://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Contents/Item/E0067966">demanded</a> a reparation from Japan in the amount of over US $2 billion, which included reparations for unpaid monetary claims such as unpaid bonds and debts, forcibly appropriated food and materials, and pain and suffering caused upon Koreans. In response, Japan claimed it still held claims over Japan’s property left behind in Korea, in the form of the infrastructure in Korea that Imperial Japan built, and the property that 600,000 Japanese who once lived in Korea left behind. (The office of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, which occupied Japan immediately after the end of the war, estimated Japan’s claim over Korea could be as much as $6 billion.) This would not have been an issue if Treaty of San Francisco applied to South Korea: in article 14 of the treaty, the Allied powers re-possessed all Japanese assets left behind in their countries.<br />
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In a negotiation session in 1953, Hong Jin-gi, chief negotiator for Korea, requested Japan to withdraw the claim for its property, noting that Korea by then had withdrawn from making claims based on human rights violations such as massacre and slave labor and instead limited itself to claims already reduced to a monetary sum. Kubota Kanichiro, Japan’s chief negotiator <a href="http://www.hani.co.kr/kisa/section-001001000/2005/08/001001000200508261347196.html">retorted</a>: “Then Japan, too, has a right for a claim: for 36 years, Japan conferred a great deal of benefit to Koreans by planting trees in Korea’s mountains, building railroads and constructing hydroelectric dams.” When the appalled Hong noted Korea could have done those things as an independent nation, Kubota went further: “Without Japan, Korea would have been a Chinese or Russian colony—and would have been in a much worse situation.” When Kubota made clear he had no intention to withdraw his comments—which came to be known as “Kubota’s Delusional Remarks” [구보타 망언] in Korea—the Korean delegation walked out. <br />
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It would take four years for the negotiations to resume. Even then, little progress was made. South Korea insisted Japan illegally invaded Korea in the early 20th century, Korea fought back for more than three decades, and won its independence. Japan claimed it legitimately colonized and annexed Korea, Imperial Japan conferred a great deal of benefit to Koreans, and lost its colony only after the war ended. These two positions were mutually exclusive.<br />
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The stalled negotiation met a turning point when Syngman Rhee was overthrown in 1960, and a former officer of the Imperial Japanese Army took his position. <br />
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Rhee was a former Korean independence activist who was contemptuous of the Japanese. (In his book, Rhee <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2019/07/how-does-syngman-rhees-friendship-with-america-still-matter-today/">called the Japanese</a> “a small folk, small in body and brain, circumscribed in their small island world for centuries.”) The April 19 Revolution, protesting Rhee’s increasing attempt to rig elections and make himself the lifetime president, ended Rhee’s reign. But newfound democracy in Korea barely lasted a year: on May 16, 1961, General Park Chung-hee mobilized his Manchukuo alumni in the military and rolled tanks into Seoul. After forcing the president Yun Bo-seon to resign at gunpoint and dissolving the government, Park appointed himself to be the vice chairman of the Supreme Council of National Restoration and the de facto ruler of the Republic. He would rule from 1961 to his death in 1979.<br />
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The former officer of the Imperial Japanese Army had much less qualms about normalizing relations with Japan. The United States was pushing for it at any rate. (John F. Kennedy’s aide on Korea <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/south-korea-japan-cold-war/">wrote in</a> a report for the National Security Council: “There can be no question of waiting for or seeking some Korean readiness to act. We must galvanize the action.”) Park Chung-hee also needed to develop Korea’s economy in order to justify his dictatorship, and for that, he needed money. Japan had the money: by mid-1960s, Japan’s economy was well on its way toward becoming world class once again, thanks in no small part to the wartime economic boom occasioned by the Korean War. (Yoshida Shigeru, Japan’s prime minister at the time of the Korean War, <a href="https://news.jtbc.joins.com/article/article.aspx?news_id=NB11846201">called</a> it “God’s gift to Japan.”) In 1960s, Japan and South Korea were as far apart in wealth and power as they were in 1875. Tokyo had hosted the Olympics in 1964; most in Seoul didn’t have indoor plumbing.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kim Jong-pil (left) and Ohira Masayoshi, c. 1962. Kim and Ohira were the chief negotiators for the '65 Treaties.<br />
(<a href="https://www.hankookilbo.com/News/Read/201611120414307009">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Under Park’s reign, the negotiation with Japan resumed in 1962. But even as a dictator, Park did not have a completely free rein. (Unlike, say, 1979, when Park was <a href="http://www.donga.com/news/article/all/20130828/57265472/1">casually discussing</a> with his aides about how it would be ok to kill between a million and two million pro-democracy protesters, since Pol Pot in Cambodia got away with killing three million.) When the Park regime announced in 1964 that it would begin normalization negotiations with Japan, a nationwide protest broke out and was quelled only after the Park regime declared martial law. Park Chung-hee may not have been as hostile to Japan as Syngman Rhee had been, but to save his own neck, he could not lightly disregard Koreans’ pain and humiliation from the colonial times. The same question of how to characterize Japan’s colonization of Korea that derailed the negotiations during the Syngman Rhee times continued to dog the negotiations. <br />
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The Park regime attempted to get around this issue by avoiding it entirely, and going straight into negotiating the amount of money to be paid. The result of this compromise is the language in Article II of the <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Basic_Relations_between_Japan_and_the_Republic_of_Korea">Treaty on Basic Relations</a> between the Republic of Korea and Japan, which states: “It is <b><i>confirmed </i></b>that all treaties or agreements concluded between the Empire of Japan and the Empire of Korea on or before August 22, 1910 are already null and void.” (emphasis added). By merely saying “confirmed,” the two countries avoided specifying whether Imperial Japan invaded Korea, or Korea voluntarily agreed to join the Japanese Empire. <br />
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But focusing just on the money was still a difficult issue, because Korea and Japan could not agree on how to characterize the money. Because Japan continued its position that its annexation of Korea was entirely legal, it resisted calling the money “reparation” or “compensation”—because, in Japan’s view, no compensation was due to a lawful part of the Japanese Empire. To Japan, paying reparations to Korea was as absurd as paying reparations to the Nagano Prefecture. In the initial meeting between the two countries, Japan’s Foreign Minister Ohira Masayoshi offered $300 million to be called either “congratulatory gift for independence” or “economic assistance.” That characterization was not acceptable for Park Chung-hee. If Korea accepted Japan’s funds called “congratulatory gift” and waived the claim held against Japan, it would mean in substance that Park exchanged Korea’s claim over Japan with Japan’s claim over Korea—the precise bargain that Syngman Rhee’s administration found so insulting that the negotiations stopped for four years. <br />
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The breakthrough came when, once again, the parties decided to avoid the issue. Japan would raise the dollar amount, in exchange for refusing to state what the money is for. This was memorialized in a 1962 memorandum that came to be called the <a href="http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/politics/politics_general/59955.html">Kim-Ohira Memo</a>: Japan will pay to Korea a total of $500 million, of which $300 million was a grant and $200 million was a loan. The two countries <a href="https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20131125168000073">revisited the issue as late as 1965</a>, and the situation was the same: Japan refused to characterize the money as reparations, or payment to settle Korea’s claims. The minutes for the meeting on May 14, 1965, a little more than a month before the final agreement, show <a href="https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20131125168000073">this exchange</a>:<br />
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Japan: “What we are providing is not a reparation. We consider it to be more of an economic assistance.”<br />
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Korea: “It is odd to call it only an economic assistance.”<br />
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Japan: “Korea seems to think it is in consideration of the claims, but we do not think that way. This needs to be addressed accordingly.”<br />
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Korea: “The agreement will refer to both claims and economic assistance. It cannot be only for economic assistance.”<br />
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Japan: “In the Kim-Ohira agreement in late 1962, Korea’s position was that it was for both claims and economic assistance, but Japan’s position was consistently that it was an economic assistance.”<br />
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Korea: “In other words, do you mean Japan’s position is it is purely an economic assistance?”<br />
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Japan: “Correct. It is Japan’s position that the fund is furnished only as an economic assistance.”</blockquote>
As a result, the final language of the Agreement Between Japan and the Republic of Korea Concerning the <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Agreement_Between_Japan_and_the_Republic_of_Korea_Concerning_the_Settlement_of_Problems_in_Regard_to_Property_and_Claims_and_Economic_Cooperation">Settlement of Problems</a> in Regard to Property and Claims and Economic Cooperation contains no description of what the money was for. Unlike the Treaty of San Francisco, the word “reparation” never appears in the Settlement agreement, nor does any similar word like “compensation.” There are not even words like “in consideration of” or “in exchange for” to indicate the purpose of the money payment. Indeed, shortly after the Settlement Agreement was signed, Japan’s Foreign Minister Shiina Etsusaburo <a href="https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/247496?page=3">reported to</a> Japan’s legislature on November 19, 1965 that the money paid was to “congratulate the beginning of a new nation,” and not reparation.<br />
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Finally, there was the issue of claims: what kind of claims were the two countries settling? Here, the story was basically the same: the two countries could not agree which claims were being settled, and what such a “settlement” would actually mean. This was an acute concern for Korea. As referenced earlier, Imperial Japan and its subjects left behind as much as $6 billion worth of infrastructure and property. To recognize Japan’s claim over such property is not just a matter of money; it was an odious insult, as if a thief was suing a homeowner for the value of the crowbar that the thief dropped in the house while fleeing.<br />
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But the issue was just as important for Japan. As early as 1956, Japanese citizens were suing their own government for damages caused by the Allied forces, because they could not assert claims directly against the Allied forces. Their legal theory was that, because the Japanese government signed away their claims in the Treaty of San Francisco, the government is now answerable to their claims. To defend against these lawsuits, it was imperative for the Japanese government to say that—no, the individuals’ claims were not signed away. <a href="https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20100311003300073">Internal documents</a> from Japan’s Foreign Ministry during the negotiations make Japan’s position clear: settlement of the claims has nothing to do with whether an individual can directly assert his claim. Instead, the settlement only means Japan would not offer <i><b>diplomatic protection</b></i> to the individual asserting such claims. In other words, the Japanese government would not assist the individual asserting a claim against Korea, but the individual is free to pursue his own claim independently. <br />
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In the end, the parties again resolved this issue by simply drafting the language around it. Article II of the Settlement Agreement say the two countries “confirm that the problems concerning property, rights, and interests . . . have been <b><i>settled</i></b> completely and finally.” (emphasis added). By using the word “settled”, rather than more precise words like “extinguished” or “waived,” Japan and Korea could continue holding onto their own versions of what such a “settlement” actually did.<br />
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On June 22, 1965, Republic of Korea and Japan entered into 29 treaties and agreements, including the Basic Relations Treaty and the Settlement Agreement. Put together, the treaties were silent in odd places. Korea and Japan agreed to resume a diplomatic relationship, but said nothing about the previous relationship was. Japan was paying Korea money, but said nothing about what the money was for. Korea and Japan agreed to settle their claims against each other, but it was unclear exactly what kinds of claims were alive or dead. But superseding these ambiguities was a crude form of agreement: in exchange for normalized relationship and money, both Japan and Korea will go back to their people and tell two different stories—and the two governments will not challenge each other’s version. The negotiation documents for the two treaties were sealed, and did not become public until 2005.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg08LZeSSYhAmOURI5euKVTJEWrUWPFlEmcpgQbOKza3wnYNw0ZPZAK5_z_KsMlGFN6lF4ZETAnpSexrWGgPg4r1l5p0QEioMUONsS6ocxNlnEK6XnqDeTlD55-605ESsRp3Cl3/s1600/%25EA%25B8%25B0%25EB%25B3%25B8%25EC%25A1%25B0%25EC%2595%25BD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="620" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg08LZeSSYhAmOURI5euKVTJEWrUWPFlEmcpgQbOKza3wnYNw0ZPZAK5_z_KsMlGFN6lF4ZETAnpSexrWGgPg4r1l5p0QEioMUONsS6ocxNlnEK6XnqDeTlD55-605ESsRp3Cl3/s640/%25EA%25B8%25B0%25EB%25B3%25B8%25EC%25A1%25B0%25EC%2595%25BD.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Signing ceremony for the '65 treaties in Tokyo, c. June 1965 (<a href="https://www.hankyung.com/life/article/2019050312051">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Today, Tokyo loves pointing out that the total of $500 million is a sizable sum, considering Korea’s GDP was around $3 billion in 1965. Another favorite talking point is the money was used to build crucial infrastructure such as Seoul’s first metro system and the POSCO steel mills. Less discussed is the fact that $500 million in grants and loans for 36 years of occupation compares unfavorably to the $550 million in reparations that Japan paid to the Philippines, for only four years of occupation that resulted in the similar number of deaths as Korea’s. <br />
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Also undiscussed are the strings attached to the loans to Korea, contained in undisclosed side agreements: for whatever capital project Korea embarked with the funds, Korea had to use the Japanese companies’ products and services. (This is the reason why Seoul Metro’s Line 1 travels on the left-hand side, while all other lines travel on the right-hand side.) Much of the money that Japan loaned to Korea went straight back to Japan’s corporations, many of which were built on the back of Korea’s wartime slave labor during World War II. With a captive customer, Japan’s corporations liberally overcharged Korea. Mitsubishi overcharged for its train cars in the Seoul metro project so much—nearly double of what it charged Tokyo—<a href="http://news.jtbc.joins.com/html/049/NB11862049.html">that it triggered a legislative investigation</a> back in Japan’s Diet. And of course, Park Chung-hee and his cronies <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/south-korea-japan-cold-war/">amply pocketed</a> much of the funds.<br />
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Left in the cold were the Korean victims of Japanese Imperialism. It took nearly a decade of protests for the Park dictatorship to even pay out some of the money for reparations. In the end, the dictatorship used less than 5 percent of the $600 million obtained from Japan to pay out the Korean people. Each dead received approximately $300, a pittance even by the standards of Korea 1974. ($300 is worth approximately $3,000 in today’s dollars.) There was no compensation for survivors until 2007, when the liberal Roh Moo-hyun administration recognized the inadequacy of the 1974 compensation and passed a special act to make additional reparations of approximately $600 million to the surviving wartime slaves and their family.<br />
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Thus began the ’65 System, a patch-up job that never addressed the core cause of the Korea-Japan strife to let it fester. Why bother addressing the core cause, when the benefit was clear and the cost was transferable? The United States got its stability in the northeast Asia to settle the eastern front of the Cold War. Japan, the retreated colonial master, could continue to exert influence over its former <i>lebensraum</i> by making South Korea its indentured servant, dependent on its economy. South Korea, led by the former house slaves, received handsome payments to run the country out of the master's mansion. The only people who bore the cost were those actually hurt by Japan's imperialism, the former field slaves. Korea's dictatorship used their injury as leverage to extract money from Japan, then muzzled them after throwing some nominal amount of compensation.<br />
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This system would govern the relationship between Japan and Korea for the next five decades.<br />
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-67082271863228255092019-08-29T12:15:00.000-04:002019-12-27T16:15:19.336-05:00Korea-Japan and the End of the '65 System - Part I: Colonial Times<div style="text-align: justify;">
[<a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/1998/02/korea-japan-and-end-of-65-system-series.html">Series Index</a>]<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxeC8MkMbREqgiaPkPhnHnWKO1WAQ2MpvKzbaBq3tbggwGok90kEGnfJuo-kkeUC5D7ROGO9WLTCPhJJCEmj2M4-TFEiSlKzxZCZtVAuZHuBOsP5F7wxgV5gn8saM8SFLLktgt/s1600/%25EC%2595%2588%25EC%25A4%2591%25EA%25B7%25BC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="367" data-original-width="550" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxeC8MkMbREqgiaPkPhnHnWKO1WAQ2MpvKzbaBq3tbggwGok90kEGnfJuo-kkeUC5D7ROGO9WLTCPhJJCEmj2M4-TFEiSlKzxZCZtVAuZHuBOsP5F7wxgV5gn8saM8SFLLktgt/s640/%25EC%2595%2588%25EC%25A4%2591%25EA%25B7%25BC.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Newspaper illustration showing An Jung-geun's arrest after shooting Ito Hirobumi<br />
(<a href="http://news.tf.co.kr/read/life/1603608.htm">source</a>)</td></tr>
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The first prime minister of modern Japan was Ito Hirobumi, who took office in 1885. Ito is remembered as one of modern Japan’s Founding Fathers. With an illustrious career that spanned four decades, Ito was the face of Japan to the contemporary world, similar to how late 19th century Germany was remembered as the time of Otto von Bismarck. Ito shaped and molded virtually every corner of modern Japan, setting the foundation of Japan’s modern constitution and the basic framework of Japan’s diplomacy with the world powers. He was also Japan’s first Resident-General of Korea, which Japan made its protectorate in 1905. </div>
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Ito died in 1909 at age 68, when Korea’s independence fighter An Jung-geun shot him in Harbin, China. <br />
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An was a son of a wealthy landowner in Korea’s Hwanghae Province, which sits between Seoul and Pyongyang. He came from a devout Catholic family and had a baptismal name of Thomas. After Korea became Japan’s protectorate, An formed a volunteer army to fight the invading Japanese forces. Eventually he moved his base to eastern Russia, and successfully killed the chief of Japanese imperialism over Korea. <br />
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Until his death, An maintained that he was a prisoner of war rather than an assassin, and demanded to be executed by a firing squad if he should be executed. Japan did not recognize An’s claim that he represented a foreign country, and hanged An as it would have executed any Japanese criminal. <br />
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That, in a nutshell, is the modern Japan-Korea relationship.<br />
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Modern Japan began with Meiji Restoration in 1868, when Japan’s political system consolidated under the emperor. With Meiji Restoration, Japan rapidly industrialized and sought to join the ranks of world powers. The first step of doing so was to colonize Korea. The <i>seikanron</i> (征韓論, “the Case of Invading Korea”) debate began in the early 1870s, and gained steam through the following decades.<br />
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Seikanron was Japan’s own mixture of <i>lebensraum</i> and “the white man’s burden”. Japan’s conquest of Korea was necessary, the argument went, for the sake of Japan’s security; it was also a humanitarian mission for the inferior race trapped in the decaying Sinosphere. In 1894, Fukuzawa Yukichi <a href="http://books.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/04/09/2011040900238.html">exhorted</a>: “There is nothing better than bullets and gunpowder to destroy [Korea’s] illusion of China-worship.” Because Korea is “always extended toward Japan’s heart like a sharp dagger,” <a href="https://www.seoul.co.kr/news/newsView.php?id=20190423038002">argued</a> Okakura Kakuzo in 1904, “if our adversaries conquer the Korean Peninsula, they can easily advance toward Japan.”<br />
<br />
(More after the jump.)<br />
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It is often said these arguments were products of Japanese nationalism. They were, but only in some aspects. Japan’s imperialism was as internationalistic as it was nationalistic. Its internationalism was based on racism. Japan saw the Opium War between England and China with a great deal of alarm. It appeared that the imperial conquest of the white race has covered the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, and finally came to Northeast Asia. To repel such overtures, the Asiatic races had to band together, (conveniently) led by the Japanese, the most advanced among the various Asian races. By the 1930s, these thoughts evolved into the superficially universalist slogans of the Japanese Empire—slogans like “Greater Asia Co-Prosperity” (大東亞共營), “Korea and Japan as One Body” (內鮮一體) and “Five Races Under One Union” (五族協和).<br />
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It is important to note that those making the case for invading Korea were the key figures in the birth of modern Japan. Fukuzawa was the founder of the prestigious Keio University, and appears on current day Japan’s 10,000 yen note. Okakura was an artist of international renown, founder of what eventually became Tokyo University of Arts and author of the book that introduced the philosophy of tea in Asia. As we saw earlier, the Founding Father of modern Japan, Ito Hirobumi, was also the first Resident-General of Korea.</div>
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For Japan, modernity is inextricably intertwined with conquering Korea. Japan’s memory of the period immediately following Korea’s annexation comes with a warm glow—as implied the term Taisho Democracy, a popular descriptor for Japan’s inter-war period. In contrast to Meiji era’s authoritarianism, the Taisho era is remembered for desire for liberal democracy, literary societies, and European style cafes. For Japan, the “wrong turn” for the country did not come until the 1930s, when Imperial Japan invaded Manchuria and set upon the course for World War II.<br />
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Obviously, Koreans remember this period quite differently.<br />
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Japan’s first step for colonization was the 1875 Battle of Ganghwa Island, in which a Japanese warship invaded an island fortress 30 miles west of Seoul. The power disparity between the two countries was obvious at the first encounter: the defending Korean forces lost 35 men, while the Japanese forces only suffered minor injuries on two soldiers. The following year Japan became the first foreign country to open Korea’s ports by signing the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1876. After fighting off Russia in the Russo-Japanese war, and suppressing the desperate resistance by Korea’s royal court and its people by killing many of them (including Korea’s queen and over 16,000 volunteer soldiers,) Japan’s made Korea its protectorate in 1905, and formally annexed Korea in 1910.<br />
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Other imperial powers simply nodded along. Horace Allen, a Protestant missionary in Korea who founded what eventually became the Yonsei University Hospital in Seoul, wrote to Washington in 1907: “We will make a serious mistake if we allow sentimental reasons to induce us to attempt to bolster up to [Korea] in its independence. These people cannot govern themselves . . .” Imperial Japan entered into agreements with US and UK that it would not encroach upon their respective colonies in the Philippines and India, in exchange for no intervention to its colonization in Korea. That’s about how important Korea was to the world in the early 20th century: a mere chip to be exchanged in the Great Game.<br />
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None of the supposed benefits of Taisho Democracy came to Korea, as Japanese rule for Koreans meant slavery and exploitation. Japan used Korea as the empire’s rice basket, to feed newly urbanized population in its industrialized cities. Japan’s extraction of Korea’s food production was so severe that the average height of Korean men <a href="http://www.donga.com/news/article/all/20161205/81664223/1">steadily decreased</a> in the 36 years of occupation, as Koreans had little to eat.<br />
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Koreans massively resisted once again in 1919, in the March 1 Movement in which more than a million Koreans staged a peaceful protest nationwide. Although the March 1 Movement did not free Korea, it did give birth to Korea’s first modern government—the Provisional Government established in 1919 in Shanghai, China.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmZFf_3qEXfNVnkyXH9oZ1gQ9vrjFf9avWguszHLgkhoim1NLTjpfgcM9MzbqzbeumZ8lPxTSmiosBVO8MoOegfY-af-s6t0CghGQhlbXtvPYJXdiJD_FSyOteD8WQ5324c0v9/s1600/%25EC%2583%2581%25ED%2595%25B4+%25EC%259E%2584%25EC%258B%259C%25EC%25A0%2595%25EB%25B6%2580.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="434" data-original-width="580" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmZFf_3qEXfNVnkyXH9oZ1gQ9vrjFf9avWguszHLgkhoim1NLTjpfgcM9MzbqzbeumZ8lPxTSmiosBVO8MoOegfY-af-s6t0CghGQhlbXtvPYJXdiJD_FSyOteD8WQ5324c0v9/s640/%25EC%2583%2581%25ED%2595%25B4+%25EC%259E%2584%25EC%258B%259C%25EC%25A0%2595%25EB%25B6%2580.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Key members of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, established 1919.<br />
The sitting figure in the center is Ahn Chang-ho, who later led the independence movement in California.<br />
(<a href="http://www.ohmynews.com/NWS_Web/Event/Premium/at_pg.aspx?CNTN_CD=A0002483241">source</a>)</td></tr>
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The Provisional Government is critically important for Koreans. To this day, the Republic of Korea traces its government’s legitimacy to the Provisional Government, as the preamble to Korea’s constitution begins with these words: “We, the people of Korea, proud of a resplendent history and traditions dating from time immemorial, upholding the cause of the Provisional Republic of Korea Government born of the March First Independence Movement of 1919 . . .” The Provisional Government had a constitution, three branches of a democratic government and regular elections.<br />
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Most importantly, the Provisional Government had an army that fought against Imperial Japan in China. True, the size of the army was on the small side—<a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/north-korea/1944-04-01/korea-postwar-world">approximately 16,000</a> as of around late 1930s. But Korea’s Independence Army was a highly effective outfit that punched above its weight. In the Battle of Fengwudong and the Battle of Qingshanli in 1920, the Independence Army inflicted 10x casualty to Imperial Japanese Army in Manchuria. One of the generals of the Independence Army, Kim Won-bong, caused so much damage to the Imperial Japanese Army that he fetched <a href="http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?art_id=201901220600045">a bounty in the amount of a million won</a>—or nearly $30 million today. (The FBI’s <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/16/AR2008051603921.html?hpid=topnews">bounty</a> on Osama bin Laden was $25 million.) <br />
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In its asymmetrical warfare campaign, the Provisional Government sent its agent Yun Bong-gil to bomb and kill the Japanese military leadership that had just conquered Shanghai in 1932. Yun successfully killed Shirakawa Yoshinori, the commander-in-chief of Japan’s Shanghai Expeditionary Army, and injured several more high-ranking generals. The <a href="http://www.dongponews.net/news/articleView.html?idxno=23672">statement</a> that Yun gave to his Japanese interrogators is worth quoting at length, for its prescience and clarity of vision:<br />
<blockquote>
“As Korea currently has no power, it cannot actively resist Japan and win independence immediately. But soon, when a world war breaks out and the great powers fall, not only Korea but also all the colonized people around the world will be independent. It is inevitable that today’s powers will undergo a season of natural decline, as surely as the leaves turn and fall. Therefore, the role of us independence fighters is to hasten the cycle of the countries’ rise and fall. </blockquote>
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Of course, independence will not come simply by killing one or two high ranking soldiers. I am well aware that my mission will not have an immediate impact for independence; I merely hope that it raises awareness among Koreans, and let the world know clearly the existence of Korea. In the world map today, Korea has the same color as Japan, and people around the world give absolutely no recognition to Korea’s existence. Therefore, I firmly believe that, for the sake of our independence movement, it is not at all futile to impress upon them the idea of Korea through my mission.”</blockquote>
Events unfolded exactly as Yun predicted. Yun Bong-gil’s successful operation greatly impressed Chiang Kai-shek, who reportedly exclaimed upon hearing the news: “a young Korean man achieved what China’s million-men army could not!” So impressed with Koreans’ contribution to the fight against Imperial Japan, Chiang provided significant assistance Korea’s Independence Army, who fought alongside the Chinese army in the Burma Campaign, a major turning point in the Pacific War that destroyed Imperial Japan’s advances from Myanmar to India. (To this day, Korea’s history buffs cheer to the name of Mutaguchi Renya, the incompetent Japanese general who led the campaign, as the greatest patriot for Korea’s independence.)<br />
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In the international stage, Chiang Kai-shek acted as a guardian of Korea’s interest. In the Cairo Conference in 1943, where Chiang convened with Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to plan the post-war design for the Pacific Theater, Chiang insisted on Korea’s independence from Japan. In doing so, Chiang overcame the staunch objections of Churchill, the arch-imperialist who thought prying Korea from Japan would lead to England’s loss of its own colonies. (He was not without basis.) The result was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_Cairo_Declaration">the Cairo Declaration of 1943</a>, which stated: “The . . . three great powers, mindful of the enslavement of the people of Korea, are determined that in due course Korea shall become free and independent.”<br />
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As Imperial Japan’s defeat appeared imminent, the Independence Army would put together its final gambit: <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26201981?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Operation Eagle</a>, to infiltrate the occupied Seoul for reconnaissance, with an eye toward delivering the city for the Allied by September 1945. Fifty soldiers of the Independence Army joined the Chinese outpost of the US Operation of Strategic Services, the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, to receive training for infiltration via US aircraft and submarines. It is not clear what impact Operation Eagle would have had, if any, if it was carried out as intended. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Members of Operation Eagle, made up of US OSS agents and Korea's Independence Army, taken in Xian (Hsian), China.<br />
Man in the front row center is General Yi Beom-seok, who became the first Prime Minister and<br />
Defense Minister for the Republic of Korea. (<a href="https://1boon.kakao.com/ziksir/5d561e483fc431353648f4ae">source</a>)</td></tr>
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The actual implementation of the operation was tragicomic, as it often is the case in a war. The World War II was over on August 15, 1945, as Imperial Japan surrendered. Undeterred, on August 18, the OSS aircraft left Xian, China and landed in Seoul, carrying 19 American and three Korean soldiers. Great deal of confusion ensued: the Japanese soldiers guarding Seoul’s airfield knew their country had surrendered, but did not know what to do with the contingent of American and Korean soldiers that suddenly dropped into their midst. After their demand to meet Japan’s governor-general of Korea was rebuffed, the US-Korean members of the Eagle project flew back to China after requisitioning gasoline from the Japanese.<br />
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The US press <a href="https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/details?id=8627285">reported at the time</a>: “An Allied mercy crew which landed at Keijo [Seoul], Korea in the midst of 50,000 Japanese soldiers was alternately cursed, threatened, wined and entertained before it took off again with 500 gallons of Japanese gasoline.” That was the extent of Korea's Independence Army's action in Korea in the waning days of World War II.<br />
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There is no doubt that the activities of the Provisional Government and the Independence Army led to Korea’s independence. The Independence Army’s presence in China and Yun Bong-gil’s successful campaign in Shanghai led directly to the Cairo Declaration that pre-ordained Korea’s independence after the end of World War II. But the fact remains that, except for the inconsequential Operation Eagle, the Provisional Government and the Independent Army fought outside of Korea. Most Koreans, who live in the Korean Peninsula, continued to be subjected to Imperial Japan’s exploitation.<br />
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The exploitation intensified as Imperial Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, and intensified again when it entered World War II in 1941. Over a million Koreans were conscripted into wartime slavery, becoming expendable workforces at airfields and mines in the South Pacific that were routinely being bombed by the US Air Force. Up to 200,000 Korean women were trafficked into military sexual slavery, placed in rape stations in the frontline where they were forced to have sex with soldiers dozens of times a day. <br />
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Not all Koreans met this fate, however. Koreans who were wealthy and powerful during the Joseon Dynasty, for the most part, remained so even after the Joseon Dynasty ceased to exist. Indeed, some became even more powerful and wealthy, as they took advantage of the arrival of capitalist economy to their land. Kim Seong-su became a tycoon by running textile factories, and used the money to establish what later became Dong-A Ilbo, one of the largest conservative newspapers in Korea today. Lee Byung-chull, son of a large farm, founded a rice mill company in 1938 called the Samsung Trading Company, which grew into the world’s largest seller of smartphones. Many of them shared Japan's imperialistic worldview: Joseon was weak and backward, and Koreans simply deserved to be colonized.<br />
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Even Koreans from modest backgrounds found some opportunities. As the Japanese rule entered its third decade, a generation of Koreans emerged who had no experience of having their own country. This generation of Koreans found it easy to buy into the superficially universalist slogans of the Japanese Empire, like “Korea and Japan as One Body” (內鮮一體). Writer Yi Gwang-su <a href="http://shindonga.donga.com/Print?cid=834551">exhorted</a> in 1940: “We must not be dragged to become Japanese. We must not be bystanders. Voluntarily, actively and creatively, each one of us must become Japanese people, shedding Japanese blood no matter what part of our body may be pricked by a needle.” Yi rejoiced when Imperial Japan began conscripting Koreans as soldiers rather than slave laborers; to him, it was a sign that Japan was treating Koreans as full members of the empire. <br />
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With little or no sense of identity as Koreans, many of them joined to become appendages of the Japanese Empire. As second-class citizens, these Koreans could never aspire for a high office: they were orderlies at hospitals but never doctors, teachers at primary schools but never professors at universities, filing clerks at the colonial government but never an official. But being a house slave was better than being a field slave. Indeed, many Koreans were so desperate to be a house slave that they dropped every hint of being a Korean. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Manchukuo newspaper from March 31, 1939 reports the bravery of Takagi Masao,<br />
who wrote a letter in blood to volunteer for the Imperial Japanese Army. (<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.kr/2015/10/27/story_n_8396622.html">source</a>)</td></tr>
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One such Korean took a Japanese name Takagi Masao, and applied to join the military academy in Manchukuo, the Japanese Empire’s puppet government in Manchuria. When Takagi was initially rejected, he pleaded his case in a letter written in his own blood. He managed to join the academy in 1940, eventually becoming an officer of the Imperial Japanese army in Manchuria. Today, he is better known by the Korean name he abandoned: Park Chung-hee. At one point, Park ultimately reported to a man named Kishi Nobusuke, who acted Manchukuo’s economic manager. Although these two men did not have much interaction at the time, their fate would be intertwined through their descendants.<br />
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The World War II ended in August 15, 1945. The aftermath of the war was the beginning of the Cold War, as the United States jockeyed for spheres of influence against the Soviet Union. Unlike the European theater in which the US ceded a portion of Germany to the USSR, the US took a more forward position in the Pacific theater—by keeping the whole of Japan, and ceding the northern half of Korea. Under the US influence, opposing communism became the <i>raison d’etre</i> for both Japan and South Korea. <br />
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This meant that domestic politics in both Japan and South Korea played out in a field tilted in favor of the right. Immediately following World War II, both Japan and South Korea underwent US occupation, followed by an installation of right wing governments favored by the US authorities. In Japan, this meant the emergence of Liberal Democratic Party, which would hold the government for nearly four decades after the US occupation ended in 1952. It would only take Japan five years to elect as its prime minister a former Class A war criminal suspect—Kishi Nobusuke, former member of Tojo Hideki’s war cabinet. Imagine seeing Chancellor Hermann Goering of Germany in 1957.<br />
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Meanwhile in South Korea, a petty fascist named Syngman Rhee was tapped as South Korea’s first president, mostly because Rhee was a Princeton-educated Christian who mouthed pieties about the ideals of Jeffersonian democracy. (That Rhee <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeju_uprising">massacred</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_League_massacre">hundreds of thousands</a> in his hunt for communists was but a minor inconvenience to the United States.) Rhee’s government, for the most part, inherited the structure of the colonial government, with petty officials taking the higher offices that the Japanese vacated. For all the misery that Koreans suffered during the colonial rules, the government of the Republic of Korea was made up of those Koreans who had suffered the least. The house slaves took over the master’s mansion.<br />
<br />
(Series to be continued.)<br />
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-4172128237128411212019-06-03T09:14:00.000-04:002019-09-25T11:25:17.057-04:00Korea's Nine Years of Darkness: Part VI - The Candlelight<div style="text-align: justify;">
[<a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2018/04/koreas-nine-years-of-darkness-series.html">Series Index</a>]<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>A. </b><u><b>The Choi Soon-sil Scandal</b></u><br />
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Given how well the Choi Soon-sil scandal came to be known around the world (with <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-irrational-downfall-of-park-geun-hye.html">a little help from yours truly</a>,) only a brief summary of the scandal would suffice. Park Geun-hye turned out to be feeble in her mind, and outsourced much of her presidential duty to Choi Soon-sil, the daughter of a shaman Choi Tae-min who became close with Park because he claimed he could speak with Park’s dead mother. In addition to running the country on behalf of the president, Choi Soon-sil used her power as the shadow president to collect bribes, siphon government budget and dole out favors. (For additional detail, please refer to three massive posts that I previously wrote about the scandal: <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-irrational-downfall-of-park-geun-hye.html">one</a> <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-ultimate-choi-soon-sil-gate.html">two </a> <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-ultimate-choi-soon-sil-gate.html">three</a>.) </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In a photo circa 1979, Choi Soon-sil, Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak are<br />
sitting in a row at a function. The hold that Choi has had over Park<br />
was an open secret within South Korea's political circles for decades. (<a href="https://news.joins.com/article/22472265">source</a>)</td></tr>
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The most remarkable thing about the Choi scandal was just how many people already knew about her. As early as 2007 when Park Geun-hye first ran for president, the US Ambassador for Korea noted <a href="http://h2.khan.co.kr/201610271628001">in a diplomatic cable</a>: “Rumors are rife that the late pastor had complete control over Park's body and soul during her formative years and that his children accumulated enormous wealth as a result.” Facing off Park in the primaries, Lee Myung-bak made her association with the cult leader Choi Tae-min <a href="http://www.pressian.com/news/article/?no=12076#09T0">as a campaign attack point</a>, noting how every organization in which Park Geun-hye was involved included relatives of Choi Tae-min. </div>
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There were even attempts to expose Choi Soon-sil in 2014, full two years before the scandal truly broke. Park Gwan-cheon, a presidential aide who was not connected to Choi, was conducting an internal investigation to check the rumors that someone with no official position with the Blue House was interfering with the presidential affairs. He discovered Choi and blew the whistle—to no avail, as the Blue House managed in short order to turn the issue into how the aide Park improperly leaked presidential records. During his investigation, the aide Park gave <a href="https://www.mk.co.kr/news/politics/view/2015/01/20412/">a statement</a> to the prosecutors that would later become infamous: “Do you know the order of power in Korea? Choi Soon-sil is at the top, followed by [Choi’s husband] Jeong Yun-hoe, and the President is merely the third place.” The entire affair was like a strange and improbable gas leak: the stench was everywhere, and people kept lighting matches, but somehow, there was no fire. </div>
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The scandal did blow up in the end; it took a trigger that may as well have been carefully engineered to piss off the maximum number of Koreans. It was revealed that Choi’s daughter Jeong Yu-ra received a preferential treatment to gain admission to the prestigious Ewha Womans University—and nothing upsets Koreans more than college admissions chicanery. As the Blue House scrambled for a response, the final straw came: cable TV network JTBC discovered Choi Soon-sil’s Galaxy Tab that contained confidential presidential documents with Choi’s mark-ups. The next day, Park Geun-hye gave a press conference, admitting she gave the documents to Choi for her review. Park’s approval plummeted to 5 percent, rendering any support for her to a statistical error. </div>
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Meanwhile, a crowd of more than a million holding candles began filling up the Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul. </div>
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(More after the jump.)</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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<b>B. <u>The Candlelight Protests</u></b><u> </u></div>
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South Korea’s Candlelight Protests of 2016-17 deserve to go down in the history of democracy as one of the greatest displays of civic activism. For 20 times from October 29, 2016 to March 11, 2017, a crowd of the size between hundreds of thousands to over two million gathered at the center of Seoul to protest the Park Geun-hye administration, in the bitter winter cold with temperatures falling to the negative. The protests then led to the impeachment and removal of Park, achieving a peaceful transfer of power in accordance with the rule of law—a true restoration of democracy, in which the governing system bowed to the popular sovereign in a clash against the ruler. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJEHKdfm75WDInmZ3cnu85IKW6U98aLvAwxkdXbO03NWHNLkTw1w2nrbr-byvQKjc6LeeLxC7WZJM9JCAlQbt-arjKq2YsDmcZ5HiBlIif0VYQI7ypRzkO8MMjX04D1xIgjy_H/s1600/%25EC%25B4%259B%25EB%25B6%2588+2016%25EB%2585%2584+11%25EC%259B%2594.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="700" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJEHKdfm75WDInmZ3cnu85IKW6U98aLvAwxkdXbO03NWHNLkTw1w2nrbr-byvQKjc6LeeLxC7WZJM9JCAlQbt-arjKq2YsDmcZ5HiBlIif0VYQI7ypRzkO8MMjX04D1xIgjy_H/s640/%25EC%25B4%259B%25EB%25B6%2588+2016%25EB%2585%2584+11%25EC%259B%2594.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Candlelight Protest, Nov. 12, 2016. Crowd estimated to be ~1 million.<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 11.232px;">(</span><a href="http://www.wikitree.co.kr/main/news_view.php?id=281654" style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 11.232px; text-decoration-line: none;">source</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 11.232px;">)</span></td></tr>
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So many things could have gone wrong. The protests could have simply petered out after the first few weeks. Or worse, the protests could have radicalized and turned violent, which would have given the Park Geun-hye administration the excuse to declare a martial law and commit a massacre. (<a href="https://www.upi.com/South-Korean-military-planned-crackdown-on-Park-protesters/6941530861760/">The military made plans</a> for this exact scenario.) The impeachment vote, which required a significant number of defections from Park Geun-hye’s party, could have failed. But none of the above happened. Korean democracy’s path of avoiding disaster was the narrowest one—yet Koreans managed to walk straight on it, making the correct move at each turn. Somehow, millions of people made the correct strategic decision at every important moment without anyone commanding them. I’m not sure if something like the Candlelight saga of 2016-17 could ever occur again in Korea, much less in other countries. </div>
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How did it happen? A major factor was the fact that Seoul's mayor was the liberal heavyweight Park Won-soon, who ensured the Gwanghwamun Square was available for the public and restrained the police from overreacting. (Recall: winning elections at every level matters.) Another factor was the presence of the activists who were able to put together massive protests on notice. A collection of over a hundred civic organizations and labor unions took turns each week, setting up the stage and the sound system, handing out candles and signs, directing traffic and collecting donations. A team of volunteer attorneys ensured the police honored the protest permits that allowed the protesters to march right up to the Blue House. Volunteer app developers created the Candlelight Protests app that included helpful directions such as finding the nearest restroom. </div>
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It also helped that the Candlelight Protests were very much a middle-class phenomenon. They were not a demonstration led by brash young radicals. Rather, there was a relatively even distribution of protesters in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, with the age cohort attendance dropping only with people in their 60s and older. Many of the protesters were white collar professionals with college and graduate degrees. A significant portion of them, in fact, previously supported Park Geun-hye. One survey showed over 17% of self-identified conservatives participated in the Candlelight Protests. </div>
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These demographic features allowed the Candlelight protesters to act with discipline without degenerating into mindless violence. Indeed, the Candlelight protesters enforced peace strictly and almost militantly, drawing jeers from the radical leftists that the protesters were teacher’s pets, trying to appeal their harmlessness to the police and the conservative media. But in a number of ways, the protesters were correct. By remaining peaceful, the Candlelight Protests placed an enormous pressure on the legislature to remove Park Geun-hye. In addition, violence and chaos was exactly what Park Geun-hye’s generals wanted, as they had detailed plans to roll tanks into Seoul, declare martial law and arrest opposition politicians just as soon as the protests turned violent. By exercising an incredible degree of self-restraint, the Candlelight protesters avoided the re-enactment of the Tiananmen Square massacre. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdgpI8k6vsqHgigmW6Cda73Soba0YzfhhlQSsvG9QX9fMbtGTIsakJB09T_uXHYjv7l0zioHTHBy6L0-Qj9AMxSn_ByKZ4N8Hg276Z_raPy7ge25m1SEgszVqvoxFbJubtXijk/s1600/%25EA%25B8%25B0%25EB%25AC%25B4%25EC%2582%25AC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="818" data-original-width="580" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdgpI8k6vsqHgigmW6Cda73Soba0YzfhhlQSsvG9QX9fMbtGTIsakJB09T_uXHYjv7l0zioHTHBy6L0-Qj9AMxSn_ByKZ4N8Hg276Z_raPy7ge25m1SEgszVqvoxFbJubtXijk/s640/%25EA%25B8%25B0%25EB%25AC%25B4%25EC%2582%25AC.jpg" width="452" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Diagram of the movement of troops in case of a martial law,<br />
as planned by the Defense Security Command. Note the movement<br />
of troops away from the DMZ and into the mainland, opening up<br />
Seoul for a potential invasion from North Korea. Based on this plan, <br />
Seoul would have had 200 tanks, 550 armored cars, 4,800 troops <br />
and 1,400 paratroopers to crack down the Candlelight Protests. (<a href="https://www.seoul.co.kr/news/newsView.php?id=20180716800072">source</a>)</td></tr>
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(Aside: On October 29, 2016, <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-irrational-downfall-of-park-geun-hye.html">I wrote a post</a> about the Choi Soon-sil scandal that concluded with these words: “I don't want to actually write out what Park Geun-hye might do, because the mere thought of them sends chills down my spine.” At the time, my fear that I did not dare articulate was that Park would declare martial law and shoot at the protesters. As it turned out, I was not very far off.) </div>
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The role of the Koreans in their 50s is particularly notable. These were the Koreans who were in their 20s in 1987, when <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Struggle">the June Struggle</a>—another massive popular demonstration—ended the murderous Chun Doo-hwan dictatorship and democratized South Korea. Thirty years later, this generation grew into Korea’s prosperous middle class, turning more conservative in terms of preferring stability and economic advancement. Not insignificant portion of this group voted for Park Geun-hye in 2012, when Park still had the pristine “Queen of Elections” image. But when the Choi Soon-sil scandal posed a clear possibility of the Park Geun-hye administration reverting to authoritarianism, Koreans in their 50s decisively changed course. </div>
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The importance of Koreans in their 50s also shows that the Candlelight Protests were about restoration rather than change. At the time when the protests were occurring in late 2016, there were hasty and early analysis trying to find parallels between the Candlelight Protests on one hand, and the Brexit referendum and the Trump election on the other hand. Not so: the main driver of the Candlelight Protesters were well-to-do white collar workers, not those disaffected by globalization. As I noted several times in this series, South Korea is a preview of what is to come. </div>
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<b>C. <u>The Impeachment</u></b></div>
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As amazing as the Candlelight Protests were, they are only half of the story. The no-less-amazing other half is how South Korea’s liberal legislators secured enough votes from conservatives to pass the impeachment motion. Here, too, the path was exceedingly narrow. Yet Korea’s liberals somehow made the correct choice each time, with impeccable timing that interacted closely with the strength of the Candlelight Protests. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZJGQYbrkOnj7L-QOx3pRfHgx0zpn0umqbunlJmicnQ7hPeUBKCQxoSQYVkBbFywk4xulmBFFWZKiAnHv6E6NvLRQvdojj2pVsW8AxgzVNzzAITmSt4oxzgl1uXLoD3lH1oXap/s1600/%25EB%25B3%25B8%25ED%259A%258C%25EC%259D%2598%25EC%259E%25A5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZJGQYbrkOnj7L-QOx3pRfHgx0zpn0umqbunlJmicnQ7hPeUBKCQxoSQYVkBbFywk4xulmBFFWZKiAnHv6E6NvLRQvdojj2pVsW8AxgzVNzzAITmSt4oxzgl1uXLoD3lH1oXap/s640/%25EB%25B3%25B8%25ED%259A%258C%25EC%259D%2598%25EC%259E%25A5.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Plenary Chamber, i.e. the main meeting hall of the National Assembly (<a href="http://archivenew.vop.co.kr/images/c1e8a000473957b8c5d51542c4c75e0c/2014-04/marked/03053029_PHGL1378.jpg">source</a>)</td></tr>
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To impeach the president, the National Assembly had to vote in favor by more than two-thirds. Following the April 2016 National Assembly elections, Park Geun-hye’s Saenuri Party was reduced to 122 seats out of 300. The liberal block, on the other hand, had 167 votes split into three parties: the Democratic Party had 123 seats, People’s Party 38 seats, and the Justice Party six seats. Even counting a handful of independent legislators who were more liberal-leaning, the math was clear: liberals needed more than 30 defections from the conservatives—a quarter of the Saenuri Party Assembly Members—to successfully impeach the president. The Democratic Party leadership pulled this off by gradually raising the temperature to a point where the wavering Saenuri Party legislators saw no other option but to impeach. </div>
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The Choi Soon-sil scandal, in fact, blew up in part because of the Democratic Party. For the 2016 Assembly election, the Democratic Party welcomed a key defector: Jo Eung-cheon, the former Blue House aide who (as Park Gwan-cheon's supervisor) oversaw the internal investigation on the mysterious personality who interfered with the presidential affairs without an official position. As with his colleague Park, Jo faced investigation and trial for leaking confidential documents. After he was acquitted, Jo joined the Democratic Party and won a seat in the National Assembly. With the information that Jo had collected on Choi Soon-sil, the Democratic Party began giving hints about Choi to the friendly press around late September. </div>
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A month later, JTBC discover Choi Soon-sil’s tablet computer, and the Candlelight Protests began. According to the Majority Leader Woo Sang-ho, the Democratic Party leadership consciously decided not to go straight for impeachment—if they did, the calculation went, it would provoke a visceral reaction from the conservatives, making it impossible for the persuadable Saenuri legislators to defect. To avoid the appearance of partisanship, Woo also asked Moon Jae-in, the public face of the party, to refrain from weighing in. Then the Democratic leadership approached Park Geun-hye with a compromise: take a step back as an informal matter, and let the liberal parties appoint the cabinet that would run the government until the next presidential election. </div>
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The Blue House refused the compromise on November 9, <a href="http://news.jtbc.joins.com/article/article.aspx?news_id=NB11352574">declaring</a> the compromise is effectively a demand for resignation, and dared the liberals to impeach Park. (It was later revealed that Park Geun-hye was acting on a belief that no more than 25 Saenuri legislators would defect for an impeachment motion—an incorrect information that none of her cronies dared to correct.) In response to Park’s defiance, the size of the third Candlelight Protest held on November 12 climbed over a million people, more than tripling the size of the second protest. The Democrats began contacting moderate conservatives to explore the possibility of an impeachment. On November 20, the major liberal leaders including Moon Jae-in and the heads of the three left-of-center parties convened and agreed to pursue Park Geun-hye’s impeachment. From then on, the Democrats could only count votes to get over the two-thirds line. On November 26, the fifth Candlelight Protest attracted 1.9 million protesters. On November 30, the liberal block agreed to make the impeachment motion by December 2. </div>
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On November 29, Park Geun-hye played a gambit. In <a href="https://www.mk.co.kr/news/politics/view/2016/11/827697/">a statement</a>, Park declared she would let the National Assembly decide how she would end her presidency. The statement caused the moderate conservatives to begin wavering away from the impeachment option. Instead, the moderate conservatives proposed yet another compromise: Park would resign in six months by April 2017, and the presidential election would be held in June 2017. The statement also caused a dissension among the liberals: some wanted to keep the schedule of impeaching by December 2, while others wanted to delay and make sure they had the wavering Saenuri votes. Finally on December 3, 171 members of the National Assembly—every legislator of the three liberal parties, plus six independents—moved to impeach the president. The reaction by the Candlelight Protesters was explosive. On the same day when the impeachment motion was made, 2.3 million protesters attended the sixth Candlelight Protest, sending a clear signal to the National Assembly: Park Geun-hye must go. </div>
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South Korea’s democracy stood on a brink. On the day before the vote, the liberals legislators drew a line in the sand: they <a href="http://www.hankookilbo.com/News/Read/201612081023498581">resolved to all resign</a> from the National Assembly if the impeachment vote failed. Unbeknownst to most Koreans, the military was also <a href="http://www.sisaweek.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=110457">gearing up for a martial law</a> if the impeachment vote failed, as they expected the Candlelight Protests would finally get violent. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFlT1dpJ_pGyb2r3Tzc0Q3a4AnENyKtqYWomovOUX8AeaUp3FoRtgTnYbkSBhyphenhyphen65EOMBDpcMvydId12FfvFjHQ-cRfzO0V_NiLS6IL4qWQWuJNJNOyU41BmZHYnT5lZRF0YUUt/s1600/%25ED%2583%2584%25ED%2595%25B5+%25EA%25B0%2580%25EA%25B2%25B0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFlT1dpJ_pGyb2r3Tzc0Q3a4AnENyKtqYWomovOUX8AeaUp3FoRtgTnYbkSBhyphenhyphen65EOMBDpcMvydId12FfvFjHQ-cRfzO0V_NiLS6IL4qWQWuJNJNOyU41BmZHYnT5lZRF0YUUt/s640/%25ED%2583%2584%25ED%2595%25B5+%25EA%25B0%2580%25EA%25B2%25B0.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Speaker of the Assembly Jeong Se-gyun announces the passage of the impeachment motion,<br />
by the vote of 234 to 56. (<a href="https://t1.daumcdn.net/thumb/R1280x0/?fname=http://t1.daumcdn.net/brunch/service/user/5ns/image/QZZH6cNHOT1-Gg4rBsBlQ3HmCQY.jpg">source</a>)</td></tr>
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On December 9, the National Assembly voted on the impeachment motion, which alleged nine counts of violations against Korea’s Constitution and statutes. Out of the 300 members, 299 cast a vote in a no-name basis. The final tally was: 234 votes in favor, 56 against, seven invalid votes, and two abstain. In the end, 63 conservative legislators—more than half of the whole party—crossed over to impeach Park Geun-hye. </div>
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<b>D. <u>The Fall of Park Geun-hye</u></b></div>
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Park Geun-hye’s authority as the president was suspended as soon as the National Assembly passed the impeachment motion on December 9. (Prime Minister Hwang Gyo-an stepped in as the acting president.) Under the constitutional procedure, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Korea had to conduct the impeachment hearing. To remove the president from office, six out of the nine justices of the Constitutional Court had to rule in favor of removal. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfJ-3J7dosUImMpTkIGK6H2lpgq7chMsk-SJgs_xBFwz20Mc7FkyF0rQbeiWsZDZmcqXOsyX7PUfl4pOjbScD43rujK3nrMElRFEEA1ekoMcF98T3LpAJjV34t2otx__g67bFp/s1600/%25EA%25B5%25B0%25EB%258C%2580%25EC%2597%25AC+%25EC%259D%25BC%25EC%2596%25B4%25EB%2582%2598%25EB%259D%25BC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="499" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfJ-3J7dosUImMpTkIGK6H2lpgq7chMsk-SJgs_xBFwz20Mc7FkyF0rQbeiWsZDZmcqXOsyX7PUfl4pOjbScD43rujK3nrMElRFEEA1ekoMcF98T3LpAJjV34t2otx__g67bFp/s1600/%25EA%25B5%25B0%25EB%258C%2580%25EC%2597%25AC+%25EC%259D%25BC%25EC%2596%25B4%25EB%2582%2598%25EB%259D%25BC.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Taegeukgi protester wears a sign: "Rise Up, Military"<br />
and "Martial Law is the Answer". (<a href="https://dvdprime.com/g2/bbs/board.php?bo_table=comm&wr_id=18300785">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Park Geun-hye and her supporters did not wait quietly for the Constitutional Court’s ruling. Breaking from her usual habit, Park gave press conferences and even took questions from the media, claiming her innocence in the <a href="http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/politics/bluehouse/776930.html">characteristically rambling manner</a>. Meanwhile, the conservative groups began organizing their own counter-protests. The participants of these protests—mostly older people in their 60s and 70s, many of whom were brought up to Seoul from rural areas—came to be known as the Taegeukgi Troops, as the they waved the South Korean <i>taegeukgi </i>flag. While outnumbered by the Candlelight Protesters, the Taegeukgi protests were also enormous: their largest demonstration on March 1, 2017 reached nearly 900,000 in size. Their message was overtly hostile: the speakers for the protest <a href="http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/02/27/2017022700177.html">promised</a> “blood on the pavement,” and threatened “we will not guarantee the safety” of the Constitutional Court justices if they voted to remove the president. The protesters <a href="https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20170823161600004">waved signs</a> that said DECLARE MARTIAL LAW and RISE UP, MILITARY. </div>
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The Constitutional Court began the hearing on December 22. Park Geun-hye’s attorneys—when they were not engaged in antics like <a href="https://news.jtbc.joins.com/article/article.aspx?news_id=NB11422169">waving the Korean flag in the courtroom</a>—mostly argued the impeachment did not follow lawful procedure. It was not an unreasonable argument; because impeachment is such a rare event, there was little precedent for a number of procedural matters, such as how specific the charging instrument must be, whether the National Assembly had to vote on each charge separately, whether the full Constitutional Court was required (the term for one of the justices ended in January, leaving the court with eight justices,) and so on. The final oral argument was held on February 27, 2017. The justices would have a little more than a week to deliberate. </div>
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On March 10, 2017, the eight justices convened to issue their judgment. Lee Jeong-mi, the acting Chief Justice, read <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-impeachment-opinion-annotated.html">the entire opinion</a> from the bench. The opinion began with a brief preliminary statement, giving recognition to the importance of the moment. Then the opinion addressed Park Geun-hye’s argument that the impeachment process was defective—and rejected the argument. Then, the merits. The impeachment motion charged Park with five counts of violating the constitution and four counts of violating statutes, but in practicality there were four charges: (1) Park abused her authority by firing government officials who sought to uncover Choi Soon-sil; (2) Park abused her authority by applying pressure to the media that sought to uncover Choi; (3) Park neglected her duties by failing to act during the Sewol Ferry disaster, and; (4) Park abused her authority by assisting Choi Soon-sil’s profiteering. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3yk_EXK9zkD97QYtGDZ3IDLDfW7gbQ3BWGzaFbG5906sr8MpI3qXyuahAyn38DVPlBlMjSw7pOhbHy0mNCzcVahBaPbZKbn_qWHHzr94hGWhS86WyQf-0JlZx_jiBM7hO4uM9/s1600/%25EC%259D%25B4%25EC%25A0%2595%25EB%25AF%25B8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="882" data-original-width="1280" height="441" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3yk_EXK9zkD97QYtGDZ3IDLDfW7gbQ3BWGzaFbG5906sr8MpI3qXyuahAyn38DVPlBlMjSw7pOhbHy0mNCzcVahBaPbZKbn_qWHHzr94hGWhS86WyQf-0JlZx_jiBM7hO4uM9/s640/%25EC%259D%25B4%25EC%25A0%2595%25EB%25AF%25B8.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Acting Chief Justice Lee Jeong-mi reads the opinion on Park Geun-hye's impeachment<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 11.232px;">(</span><a href="http://worknworld.kctu.org/news/photo/201703/245620_19184_2028.jpg" style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 11.232px; text-decoration-line: none;">source</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 11.232px;">)</span></td></tr>
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The opinion went through each argument in turn. The court found there was not enough evidence that Park directed the firing of the government officials. The court also found there was not enough evidence that Park applied pressure on the media as well. Then the court held the president’s actions during the Sewol Ferry disaster was political and was not a matter for the court to decide. </div>
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Everyone drew a breath. </div>
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The court then began a long recital of Choi Soon-sil’s corruption: how she received confidential government documents, and how she established shell foundations and compelled companies to pay into them, doling out favors in return. Then: “The action by the respondent is an abuse of the president’s stature and authority for Choi’s profit; it cannot be considered a fair administration of the duties of the office, and violates the constitution, the National Public Officials Act and Public Official Ethics Act. … As the respondent’s violation of the law significantly and negatively impacts and influences the constitutional order, the gains of upholding the constitution by removing the respondent from her office is overwhelmingly great. Accordingly, by unanimous opinion of all justices, the court hereby issues the order: </div>
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<b><i>The respondent, President Park Geun-hye, is removed from the office.”</i></b> </div>
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<b>E. <u>Denouement </u></b></div>
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By the time the Constitutional Court announced its decision, the Taegeukgi Troops were in the middle of a continuous four day-long protest. When the news of Park Geun-hye’s removal broke, the crowd became agitated. Three men, aged 73, 72 and 66, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.kr/2017/04/19/story_n_16097996.html">collapsed and died</a> from heart attack. One more old man, aged 72, died when a loudspeaker shaken by the crowd fell on his head. </div>
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Park Geun-hye was certain she would prevail; she made <a href="https://m.insight.co.kr/newsRead.php?ArtNo=96704">no preparation</a> to leave the Blue House. Reportedly, the Blue House kitchen had prepared a five-story cake to celebrate. She did not even believe the news reports that announced her removal from the office, and instead called her staff to confirm. She would stay in the Blue House for two more nights after the Constitutional Court’s decision, ostensibly because she was not prepared to leave. With hindsight, Park Geun-hye may have been holding out hope that her generals would come to her rescue. </div>
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No such help came. Park Geun-hye, now an ex-president, returned to her old home in the wealthy part of Seoul on March 12. She reportedly came to an empty house, as Choi Soon-sil <a href="https://www.mk.co.kr/news/society/view/2017/03/180281/">stole all her furniture</a>. </div>
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In the snap election held in May 9, 2017, Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party won the presidency by the largest margin of victory in South Korean history.</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-91395078933427343422019-02-20T18:02:00.000-05:002019-04-24T12:36:36.782-04:00How to End a Forever War<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm6ObeTI0NGE1qGIMH3gT08O23dP10sFczLXidXud9QfT1oQOlz2-qPU8tf2LOtCTDdvktc6Z5Zo_SJq-55JnLYLFe6X0znxz4Dq9ufgjbrL5s-7yqhnJysocZrqx3OII0aK5z/s1600/Korean_War_in_pictures+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1133" data-original-width="1600" height="453" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm6ObeTI0NGE1qGIMH3gT08O23dP10sFczLXidXud9QfT1oQOlz2-qPU8tf2LOtCTDdvktc6Z5Zo_SJq-55JnLYLFe6X0znxz4Dq9ufgjbrL5s-7yqhnJysocZrqx3OII0aK5z/s640/Korean_War_in_pictures+%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Young Korean girl with her brother on her back during the Korean War, c. 1951<br />
(<a href="https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/korean-war-rare-pictures-1951-1953/">source</a>)</td></tr>
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North Korea and South Korea were never not at war, practically speaking. Less than two years after two governments were officially established in the Korean Peninsula, the two Koreas began the internecine Korean War in 1950. The war technically never ended, as the armed conflict only ended in a cease-fire in 1953 rather than a peace treaty. A Korean born in 1950 is 69 years old today. That means most Koreans—51 million in South Korea, 25 million in North, and 7.5 million scattered around the world—have never spent a moment of their lives not at war. </div>
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Shortly after the end of World War II in 1945, two young colonels in the US military—Dean Rusk (the future Secretary of State) and Charles Bonesteel—grabbed a National Geographic map lying around them, and <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130805-korean-war-dmz-armistice-38-parallel-geography/">simply drew a line</a> through the 38th Parallel. The Soviets would occupy north of the line, Americans the south. Rusk later would recall that the line “made no sense economically or geographically.” By late 1948, what appeared to be an informal and temporary division of the Peninsula became official and indefinite. North Korea’s Kim Il Sung invaded the South in 1950, and three years of hellish war ensued, killing millions. The United States came to the aid of South Korea; China did the same for North Korea. After the fighting ended, the Peninsula remained divided along the Armistice Line, which roughly tracked the 38th Parallel—the arbitrary line of division that never made any sense. </div>
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Out of the ashes of the war, two mirror images arose. Nominally, North Korea was a communist country in the Soviet and Chinese sphere of influence, while South Korea was a capitalist country in the US sphere of influence. For about 30 years after the war, however, the two Koreas looked rather similar at the ground level. In both Koreas, dictators took power, purged political opponents and massacred civilians suspected of being too friendly to the other Korea. Both Koreas operated gulags that imprisoned political dissidents. Both Koreas turned themselves into a permanent garrison state, staffed by conscripted men. Both Koreas pursued rapid industrialization to support the garrison state, aided by their respective global hegemon—US and USSR/China. It was only in the late 1980s that the two Koreas truly began to diverge, as South Korea democratized and North Korea was left in the wilderness as the Soviet Union fell. </div>
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The term “forever war” came to be in common usage as it became evident that the US-led war in Afghanistan and Iraq had no realistic end in sight. Ordinarily, a war ends by defeating the opponent, who evidences its surrender through a document of some sort—as Imperial Japan did with the Treaty of San Francisco following World War II, for example. In contrast, the post-9/11 War on Terror was not declared against a country, per se. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Terrorists">Authorization for Use of Military Force</a>, passed by Congress on September 14, 2001, authorized the US president to “use all necessary and appropriate force . . . in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States”. <a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/60-words">Some have argued</a> that this authorization has led to the longest war in US history, nearly 18 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. </div>
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Koreans, however, would scoff at the idea that 18 years is “forever.” As of 2019, the United States has been at war in the Korean Peninsula for 69 years. The US has over 28,000 soldiers spread across 15 bases in South Korea, as well as the war time operational control authority over the South Korean military. The US presence has driven North Korea to paranoia, as it vividly remembers the fact that the US military dropped more bombs across North Korea than it did during World War II, killing more than the Germans and the Japanese who died during the Great War. To ensure its survival after the fall of Soviet Union, North Korea began developing nuclear weapons to fend off any temptation of an attack. And until very recently, there was no indication that the Korean War would end any time soon. </div>
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(More after the jump.)<br />
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcI2gQuL568pt57X2Dv4dwzcrjFQjAA1YPsalOZNpPKdTAB1PBVo5s1mGjOvpV4ujMTHAjhFdjK0x50i1rGpLV7bv-z1F2sirH6ThrfYsaTym-s4cMF0E3AWV9nQdWgp5zKpl9/s1600/2016082407198012618_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="500" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcI2gQuL568pt57X2Dv4dwzcrjFQjAA1YPsalOZNpPKdTAB1PBVo5s1mGjOvpV4ujMTHAjhFdjK0x50i1rGpLV7bv-z1F2sirH6ThrfYsaTym-s4cMF0E3AWV9nQdWgp5zKpl9/s640/2016082407198012618_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">South Korean school children huddled as a part of the regular war preparation drill, c. 2016<br />
(<a href="http://m.moneys.mt.co.kr/view.html?no=2016082407198012618#imadnews">source</a>)</td></tr>
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How did the Korean War become a forever war? While one can give many different and nuanced answers to that question, the ultimate reason is simple: the Korean War never ended because every participant of the war needed the war to not end. The two Koreas needed the war, because the war became the premise for the two countries’ existence. To South Korea, North Korea is a group of rebels illegally occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula; the reverse is likewise true for North Korea. For each Korea, ending the war meant recognizing that the other Korea had a right to exist in the Korean Peninsula—and if “their” Korea had a right to exist, “our” Korea did not have the same right. The dictators that ruled each Korea also needed the war to continue, as they could constantly point to the war to justify their oppression. The United States and China needed the war to continue because they needed their client states to continue existing, and to that end, they needed to continue supporting “their bastards.” </div>
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In many ways, the Korean War is the perfect forever war, the Platonic ideal of a forever war, a war that does not seek to carry out an objective but exists for its own sake. The war’s ordinary objective of military victory is all but impossible to achieve for either Korea, as they are in the perfect position for mutually assured destruction. South Korea cannot attack North Korea: even before North Korea developed nuclear weapons, it could level Seoul and kill millions with just the artillery lined along the demilitarized zone. But North Korea cannot attack South Korea either, because the counterattack by the superior South Korean military, aided by the United States, will annihilate North Korea. As any attempt to break the cease-fire by either party meant Gotterdammerung in the Peninsula, there was little actual fighting between the two Koreas—just a few sporadic skirmishes that acted like an annoying but deadly alarm clock that killed a dozen soldiers each time it reminded the world that the two Koreas were still technically at war. </div>
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With the cease-fire entrenched, the physical reality of the war began to fade into background. Of course, the toll of the war was and is real: the DMZ is the most heavily militarized area in the world, and both Koreas spend an inordinate proportion of their economy toward building and maintaining their massive military. (<a href="https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.asp">By one measure</a>, South Korea is the seventh greatest military power in the world, and North Korea is the 18th.) But in a day-to-day life, the ongoing war is rarely at the forefront of the Koreans’ consciousness. Many outside observers are bewildered that South Koreans seem absurdly calm about the prospect of the second Korean War, which is all but certain to be a nuclear war. That’s what happens if your country has never not been at war with its closest country. Just as much as Americans adjusted to living with ubiquitous gun ownership and random mass shootings, Koreans adjusted to living with a forever war. The threat of war was so constant, and its effect so far beyond one’s control, that there was no point dwelling on the war. </div>
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Truly, this is the most pernicious effect of a forever war—that the constant possibility of mass death is normalized to a point that it dissipates into becoming the air we breathe. When the war lasts forever, it is no longer the opposite of peace, no longer a historical event with a beginning and an end. Instead, the war becomes the ontological premise for the whole society. Social edifices are built on top of the assumption that the war will last forever, which in turn make the society ensure that the war does indeed last forever. Even as they traded barbs and rattled sabers, the murderous dictatorships that emerged in both Koreas needed the war to justify their existence. (The interdependence between the two governments got to a point that South Korea’s conservatives, heirs to the dictatorship, <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/black-venus-the-south-korean-spy-who-met-late-north-korean-leader-kim-jong-il">paid money to Kim Jong Il to shoot up the DMZ in the hopes of preventing the liberal Kim Dae-jung from winning the 1997 South Korean presidential election</a>.) The old Chinese generals needed the war to maintain their stature. The American defense contractors needed the war to sell their weapons, and the Washington thinktanks needed the war to receive funding and give something for the ex-CIA agents to do. </div>
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If a free man is shackled, every moment spent with the chain grates the man. But if he were born with a chain around his neck, he is never bothered with the chain. What is more, to the extent he loves himself, he often falls in love with the chain, as the chain is a part of himself. Any attempt to remove the chain will provoke resistance, for to a man born with a chain around his neck, a life without the chain is no longer the desiderata. When the chain becomes the foundation of his existence, he will fight with all his strength to keep the chain around his neck. </div>
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The way to remove the chain, then, begins not with the chain, but with the man so chained—by alerting him to the possibility of a life without the chain, by convincing him that it is in fact the better life, the freer life without artificial imposition, the way a man was intended to live. So, too, is the way to end a forever war: it begins by imagining the possibility of the world at peace, and by tearing down the edifices that depend on the war. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh13XHHqtZoSD_bjg_Gm1IzFox9qjodPpBdWqJPnNBOdCI1LcLKCg0jYo1EegdPb3xaQGwzwbWYk9U82rf82EsgPSeYrcFVdpZ6mnIdGlu2wFt76YyUlImhndzbl-8RdOCOpY2U/s1600/Kim_and_Trump_shaking_hands_at_the_red_carpet_during_the_DPRK%25E2%2580%2593USA_Singapore_Summit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh13XHHqtZoSD_bjg_Gm1IzFox9qjodPpBdWqJPnNBOdCI1LcLKCg0jYo1EegdPb3xaQGwzwbWYk9U82rf82EsgPSeYrcFVdpZ6mnIdGlu2wFt76YyUlImhndzbl-8RdOCOpY2U/s640/Kim_and_Trump_shaking_hands_at_the_red_carpet_during_the_DPRK%25E2%2580%2593USA_Singapore_Summit.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump at the first ever US-DPRK summit meeting, c. 2018<br />
(<a href="https://news.usni.org/2019/02/18/senators-urge-caution-ahead-next-trump-kim-summit">source</a>)</td></tr>
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This moment is the closest we have been to the end of the Korean War, as Donald Trump is floating the possibility of issuing an end of war declaration following his second summit meeting with Kim Jong Un. In <a href="https://www.state.gov/p/eap/rls/rm/2019/01/288702.htm">a recent talk</a> given at Stanford University, Stephen Biegun, US Special Representative for North Korea, stated strongly: “President Trump is ready to end this war. It is over. It is done.” But as discussed earlier, ending the forever war is not merely about the formal cessation of hostilities. </div>
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If the Korean War does end, the beginning of that end would be traceable to 1987, when South Korea overthrew the last rendition of its military dictatorship. Finally freed from the need to justify its existence in relation to North Korea and the Korean War, the newly democratized South Korea began chipping away at the edifices built on top of the forever war. South Korea normalized diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1990, and with China in 1992. The two Koreas simultaneously joined the United Nations in 1991 as two separate states, effectively ending the ideological battle in which both governments claimed the sole legitimacy over the Korean Peninsula. Under the leadership of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Kim Dae-jung and his Sunshine Policy, the two Koreas began regular exchanges of people and economic cooperation—until South Korea’s conservatives, spurred by North Korea’s nuclear program, put an end to the engagement. </div>
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It is apt that this round of improvement in the inter-Korean relations is being driven by South Korea’s Moon Jae-in, who became the president after the impeachment of conservative Park Geun-hye. Park represented the last gasping breath of South Korean conservatives who primarily drew their political strength from relentless red scare. Thirty years after South Korea democratized, South Korean conservatives—another edifice that depended on the forever war—finally collapsed under its own weight, as it was unable to hold together the hypocrisy that South Korea must allow the conservatives to be corrupt and authoritarian to fend off the North Korean threat. Once Park’s bizarre corruption scandal came to light, South Koreans voted the conservatives into political irrelevance. In 2017, Moon won his presidency with the largest margin of victory in South Korea’s democratic history. In the 2018 Local Elections, the conservative Liberty Korea Party was utterly destroyed, scraping only two governor seats out of 17 available. </div>
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Thus, South Korea became the first participant of the Korean War that cast off the need for the forever war. Having freed its mind from the false idea that it needed the chain around its neck, South Korea began the quest to actually shed the chain by ending the forever war. Luckily, just as much as Rusk and Bonesteel arbitrarily divided the Korean Peninsula, the United States was going through another arbitrary episode. Because fewer than 80,000 Americans in three Midwestern states felt economic and racial grievances stoked by the Russian spy agency, the buffoonish Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. Despite being an incompetent and odious figure in just about every area of domestic and international politics, Trump landed ass-backwards on a path toward an improved relationship with North Korea, with Moon Jae-in gently guiding the landing of his derriere. South Korean history buffs quietly joke that Trump might be the reincarnation of Emperor Wanli, the Ming Dynasty emperor who bankrupted his own empire while assisting Korea’s Joseon Dynasty against the Japanese invasion in the 16th century. </div>
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When Trump started floating the possibility of an end of war declaration with North Korea, a chorus of Washington DC’s foreign policy thinktanks warned direly that ending the Korean War would be a mistake. They argued that the end of the Korean War would weaken the US-South Korea alliance because, for example, North Korea <a href="https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/no-time-artificial-peace-korea">might demand</a> that the United States withdraw its military from South Korea. There is an absurd quality to these arguments: North Korea can make all the demands in the world, but the US does not have to listen. (For what it’s worth, North Korea <a href="http://www.newsis.com/view/?id=NISX20190207_0000550689&cID=10301&pID=10300">communicated directly</a> to Trump that they will not make an issue out of US military presence in South Korea.) Even more absurdly, some US analysts <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/debating-japan-vol-2-issue-2">even argued</a> that the end of Korean War might embolden Trump to withdraw the US troops out of South Korea—in other words, the United States must maintain the Korean War, just in case the US president might be tempted to reduce military presence in the Korean Peninsula. One might think that the issue is not the end of Korean War, but the Americans’ undermining the alliance with South Korea. </div>
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But these absurd arguments begin to make sense when you understand that, to these people, the US-South Korea alliance is premised solely on the Korean War. To the majority in the DC foreign policy circles, America’s alliance with South Korea does not rest on the fact that South Korea is the sixth largest trading partner with the United States, or that there has been a history of exchanging people, culture and ideas between US and South Korea that spans over a century. No—to them, when the war ends, so too will the relationship between the two countries, because nothing in the Korean Peninsula exists outside of the forever war. They have become so inured to the forever war that they are unable to entertain the simple proposition that two countries may form a friendship in the state of peace. </div>
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This is why the Korean War must end, today, now. Not only for the sake of Koreans, but also for the sake of Americans. Americans need to end their longest ongoing war, so that they can begin to see the possibility that their country can function without a war, and proceed to end other ongoing forever wars. Before we fall further in love with the chain that digs deeper into our necks every day, we must open our eyes to the radical possibility that we were never intended for this chain. </div>
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A skeptic might ask: where is North Korea in all this? What about North Korea’s nuclear weapons that threaten the world? What about Kim Jong Un’s totalitarian dictatorship and its appalling human rights records? How do all these highfalutin’ words make the world safer and make the lives of ordinary North Koreans better? Isn’t this just a heap of hippie naivete, some flower power bullshit that relaxes the grip of sanctions and embargoes that North Korean regime so richly deserves? </div>
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But to a careful reader, the answers to these questions should be obvious. The Korean War is not an ontological premise only for the former South Korean dictators or the former CIA agents working in DC thinktanks—it is the founding premise for North Korea’s Kim dynasty as well. Even more so than the South Korean dictators who justified their oppression by pointing northward, the Kim regime justified their oppression by pointing to the “American imperialists” and their “South Korean puppets.” What would happen to North Korea if their founding premise disappeared? </div>
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Whatever happens, this much is clear: North Korea will change. In fact, the end of Korean War will change North Korea a lot more than it will South Korea and the United states—because North Korea depends a lot more on the Korean War, and its society lacks the freedom to respond flexibly as the ground shifts from underneath. Of course, Kim Jong Un will do everything he can to hold onto power even if North Korea normalized relations with South Korea and the United States. But without the forever war, his oppression will no longer have even a veneer of legitimacy. By seeing their free and prosperous brethren from the South, ordinary North Koreans will also begin to see the possibility of a world in which they, too, may live without the chain around their neck. </div>
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People who depend on the edifice of a forever war—South Korea’s conservatives, Washington’s foreign policy heads—have long slandered those who favored engagement with North Korea as amoral cowards kowtowing to a murderous dictator. In fact, the hawks are the ones who depend on the standoff to continue forever, relying on the murderous dictator to justify their existence. Meanwhile, those who favor engagement with North Korea are the ones envisioning the truly radical destruction of North Korea: by eliminating the foundation for the Kim regime’s existence, and the reason for there to be two Koreas at all.<br />
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-28970351374236339522019-01-28T22:57:00.000-05:002019-02-12T13:30:29.315-05:00K-pop in the Age of Cultural Appropriation<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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“We created them, we taught them how to speak and think, and when they rebel they simply confirm our views of them as silly children, duped by some of their Western masters.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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- Edward Said, <i>Culture and Imperialism</i> (1993)<o:p></o:p></div>
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This being the internet, I will state my conclusion first, in the vain hope that it would be impossible for the reader to miss the point of this post:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>the idea of cultural appropriation is inapplicable to K-pop, because applying the concept of cultural appropriation ignores the historical context in which K-pop arose and developed</u></b>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It would make sense to discuss why stating this conclusion became necessary. Recently on the New York Magazine / Vulture, I, with a co-author, published an article titled: <span class="MsoHyperlink"><i><a href="https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/a-brief-history-of-korean-hip-hop.html?utm_source=tw&utm_medium=s1&utm_campaign=vulture&fbclid=IwAR1n_0d0jgU8VA2WWBy62hnNaMFu9ZaRsGfRLIGpc6mCdhY02iNGY92qSes">A Brief History of Korean Hip Hop</a></i></span>. To my knowledge, it is the first article on a major English language publication that attempted to outline the history of Korean hip hop, a significant force in the global pop culture today. While the article was on the whole well received, two significant objections were raised: (1) the article did not refer at all to the idea that Korean hip hop engaged in a cultural appropriation of African American hip hop artists, and; (2) by arguing that “BTS no longer refer back to American hip hop and worry about how their music measured up to the original[,]” as they “had plenty of precedents within Korean hip hop itself[,]” the article did not give proper credit to the real influence of American hip hop that is affecting the Korean hip hop artists today.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Speaking only for myself and not my co-author, I did not include either point in the article because they are baseless and wrong. As to the first objection, the idea of cultural appropriation is inapposite to K-pop; below, I will explain further why this is the case. The second objection is a simple misread, as the point of the article was not that BTS (or any other Korean hip hop artist) ceased to look to US hip hop altogether, but that they stopped using US hip hop as the golden standard to which they must measure up. Yet both objections are related, in that they stem from the same source: ignorance about the historical context in which K-pop emerged, and the imperial arrogance that thinks Korean hip hop has no existence outside of the US influence.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>II.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF5furBhjCXO2aJJ8fM3pCSXCDuA5FRSppzOpXoOmSV-d5sz1qC5AkwHds0N8YvHHDfPl-MWMfN6RbxJPYIKOtM1XQmXZ77NWsr96o3EN9jz6xk09G5aqXceGDxTbnMqxmgIQl/s1600/%25EB%25AF%25B88%25EA%25B5%25B0+%25EC%2587%25BC+%25EB%2593%25B1%25EB%25A1%259D%25EC%25B9%25B4%25EB%2593%259C.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1059" data-original-width="1600" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF5furBhjCXO2aJJ8fM3pCSXCDuA5FRSppzOpXoOmSV-d5sz1qC5AkwHds0N8YvHHDfPl-MWMfN6RbxJPYIKOtM1XQmXZ77NWsr96o3EN9jz6xk09G5aqXceGDxTbnMqxmgIQl/s640/%25EB%25AF%25B88%25EA%25B5%25B0+%25EC%2587%25BC+%25EB%2593%25B1%25EB%25A1%259D%25EC%25B9%25B4%25EB%2593%259C.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Registration card for Korean musicians to play for a USFK club.<br />
(Source: 신현준, 한국 팝의 고고학 1960 at p. 27)</td></tr>
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Once again, conclusion first: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>K-pop is a product to imperialism by the West, and in particular the United States.</u></b> Understanding this feature of K-pop must be the foundation of all intellectual endeavors assessing various aspects of Korea’s popular music.<o:p></o:p><br />
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On some level, this conclusion should be obvious. Clearly, K-pop is not indigenous to Korea. Western music did not arrive at Korea until late 19th century, through the typically hegemonic route: Christian hymns. Since then, the Western, and in particular American, influence over Korea would only grow stronger. At the end of World War II, two low-ranked US military officers* would divide the Korea with an arbitrary halfway line along the 38th Parallel, and the US came to occupy the southern half of the peninsula.<br />
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<span style="color: #666666;">(*The two officers, one of whom was the young Dean Rusk who would go onto become the Secretary of State for John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, knew so little about the country that they used a National Geographic map that they had laying around. <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/how-2-colonels-national-geographic-map-divided-korea-24734">Rusk later admitted</a></span> the 38th Parallel “made no sense economically or geographically.”) </span><br />
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The division led to the Korean War, millions of Koreans dead, and even more American soldiers being stationed in South Korea. At one point, there were more than 200,000 American GIs in South Korea—roughly the population of Pittsburgh today. <o:p></o:p><br />
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(More after the jump.)<br />
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.<br />
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This was the point at which Koreans first encountered with the US style pop music. In a country reduced to ruins, the only gig available for Korean musicians was to play for the Americans. They had to audition before a USO panel, who would give them a license (a literal piece of paper, pictured above) to play at one of the US GI clubs. In order to win the audition, the Korean musicians had to learn the latest American hits, the Elvises and James Browns that the US soldiers liked to hear. New music implanted by a massive foreign army who occupied your capital—cultural transmission does not get much more imperialistic than that.<o:p></o:p><br />
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For Koreans, being within the American sphere of influence meant more than the fact that the US hand-picked their leader Syngman Rhee simply because he was a Princeton graduate who styled himself as a Jeffersonian democrat, despite the fact that Rhee was away from Korea for more than three decades. (He was anything but a democrat, as he sought lifetime presidency while committing mass murder.) It meant that the Americans were in the position to dictate for Koreans what was beautiful and desirous. To Koreans, the American way of life, and American music, became beautiful and desirous. They became alienated from their own artistic history and tradition, as the United States became Koreans’ mental home.<br />
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However, this did not mean Koreans were no more than hapless victims after the war, having no agency to shape their contemporary culture. Even in the new reality in which the US aesthetics became the standard to which to aspire, Koreans would add their own style based on their own aesthetics, derived from their own history and culture. It was like an attempt of a woman who, having lost all her possessions in a fire, tried to work the sewing machine to make the donated clothes fit her better. The alteration does not change the fact that the clothes were not originally hers, but the alteration does insert some measure of her own aesthetics.<br />
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This was the central struggle that underlay every aspect of Korean culture—the struggle between the directives of beauty that were externally imposed, and those that grew internally and organically. In art, fashion, cuisine, or even in politics, economy and the law, there was a constant tension between desiring to be more like Americans and wanting to draw from Korea’s own tradition. For the most part, the former won out: South Koreans wear American style clothing, learn to speak English, live in an American-style constitutional democracy and emigrate to the United States by millions. Only in the past 15 years or so, as South Korean economy entered the first world status, that Koreans began carving out more space for Korea’s traditional culture as if they were tourists to their own heritage.<br />
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Korean pop music, too, has been subject to this struggle. Having learned pop music from American GIs, Korean musicians attempted to close that irreconcilable gap by attempting to re- create American pop music, but in their own style. The resulting body of music would form a spectrum: Korean pop music would range from the ones that look and sound just like the American kind, to the ones that do not at all. Often, the result was awkward and ill-fitting, a sewing job gone wrong, especially to the eyes of the original owners of the clothes. It would take many decades before K-pop would successfully find a style of Western music that would come to be its own, attractive style.</div>
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<b>III.</b><o:p></o:p><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY7JXDCup_AUbXElBKzma5snDlMZALLbs-Quyc6NWWHIW5F6IjeAkWTYBK64zHwwZhDsm806X0hA3rGn2wiek4dB1vDEZIi3KWYGhHAesbZQTSb3DnKEcWV-nbdHWS87jc88sy/s1600/20170921_155640.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="622" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY7JXDCup_AUbXElBKzma5snDlMZALLbs-Quyc6NWWHIW5F6IjeAkWTYBK64zHwwZhDsm806X0hA3rGn2wiek4dB1vDEZIi3KWYGhHAesbZQTSb3DnKEcWV-nbdHWS87jc88sy/s1600/20170921_155640.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seo Taiji and Boys, circa 1995.<br />
(<a href="https://m.blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=sanaissang&logNo=221102068539&proxyReferer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F">source</a>)</td></tr>
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I remember my first attempt to proselytize K-pop to my American friends. It was 1997, when K-pop was going through its 90s golden age. Some of my high school classmates from California wanted to listen to the music that the new guy from Korea was listening to. So I would have them listen to my favorite album at the time on my Discman: the fourth album of Seo Taiji & Boys, the tour de force that elevated Seo Taiji from a mere superstar to a cultural icon and the fountainhead of global K-pop.<br />
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I also remember the reactions: mocking laughter, over and over again. To my American friends, Seo Taiji’s music was mere derivatives that displayed no creativity. The title <i>Come Back Home</i> was obviously influenced by Cypress Hill; <i>Must Triumph</i> [<span lang="KO" style="font-family: "맑은 고딕"; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">필승</span>] was a Korn knockoff. This experience would follow me long after I left high school. The dismissive mockery came every time I would write about Korean pop music, about how everything in K-pop was derivative if not outright plagiarized, and the whole pop music industry in Korea is nothing but Koreans trying to be like Americans and failing.<br />
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Today, the volume of mockery got much lower, as the aesthetics and creativity behind Korean pop music became undeniable. Beauty sets the trend, which dictates its own course. Now that the aesthetic force behind Korean pop cannot be laughed off,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am now seeing a different kind of assault against K-pop: that Koreans are not making music the <i>right</i> way, sanctioned by the Americans who originated the culture. The charges of cultural appropriation come in this context, and they tend to come when discussing hip hop, the genre that obsessively focuses on authenticity and “keeping it real.”</div>
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Previously when I introduced the pioneers of Korean hip hop—Deux, Jinusean, Drunken Tiger—the American reaction was a dismissive hand-wave, as Korean hip hop artists were mere imitators who never merited a serious consideration. Now, the reaction is more often indignation: by attempting to import America’s hip hop culture, they say, Korean hip hop artists are stealing African American culture. Some make this charge broadly to claim all of Korean hip hop is illegitimate; some attempt to draw the boundaries more narrowly, arguing it may be fine for Koreans to rap, but not fine for Koreans to adopt hip hop’s hairstyle, for example.*<br />
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<span style="color: #666666;">(*I find this argument strange, because it ranks various elements of hip hop and consider some to be too integral to the African American culture to be appropriated, while others are not as important and therefore can be freely given away. If the point is to protect African American culture from being stolen, why is it ok for some elements of the African American culture to be stolen?)</span></div>
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In either case, the underlying premise is the same: it is for Americans to decide exactly how Koreans may perform music, because Korean hip hop has no existence apart from the American kind. To paraphrase Edward Said, Americans think they taught Koreans how to speak and think and perform music, and when Koreans rebel they simply confirm Americans’ views of them as silly children who did not yet reach the proper level of wokeness and political correctness. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>IV.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kathleen Battle<br />
(<a href="https://www.bocamag.com/kathleen-battle/">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Let us consider two instances. First, the case of rock ‘n roll. In the 1950s, white American musicians stepped into the musical trend that was being developed by African American musicians. As the white musicians tried to move and sound like black musicians, they eventually displaced the black musicians from the trend. The names like Bill Haley, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash came to represent the history of rock ‘n roll, and it was only through much concerted effort that the names like Chuck Berry and Roy Brown are remembered for their contributions in rock ‘n roll’s development. Next, consider the case of African American opera singers, who step into the musical tradition that is unmistakably white and European. Artists like Kathleen Battle or Eric Owens have regularly appeared in operas composed by Mozart, Verdi and Wagner, dressing up to play roles that the white European composers never intended to give to a dark-skinned person.<br />
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The former is an archetypal case of cultural appropriation in music; no one thinks the latter is cultural appropriation. What’s the difference between the two? The difference is the dynamics between the peoples involved. White American pop musicians, especially in the mid-20th century during which rock ‘n roll was being developed, had the power to take an element of black culture and call it their own, cutting off African American musicians in the process. African American opera singers have no such power over classical opera. No matter how iconic Kathleen Battle is—she is considered the best lyric coloratura soprano ever—her presence, or the presence of any African American opera singer, does not make anyone think classical opera is not European. This is so even though a part of Battle’s greatness stems from the fact that <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://kentakepage.com/kathleen-battle-the-best-lyric-coloratura-in-the-world/">she introduced the African American style vocal improvisation into soprano singing</a></span>. The presence of Kathleen Battle and Eric Owens does not displace the presence of Renee Fleming or Placido Domingo in opera, much less the presence of Mozart, Verdi or Wagner.<o:p></o:p><br />
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It should be obvious that Korean hip hop is not at all like the case of rock ‘n roll, and more like African American opera singers. Ask yourself these questions: can <i>any</i> number of K-pop act displace the black pop music as it exists? Can you imagine a world in which “hip hop” is known by names of Deux and Jinusean, not by Tupac and Biggie? Would anyone ever think CL’s success as a rapper threatens the stature of Nicki Minaj? Not a fucking chance—in fact, you’d laugh at yourself for even asking these questions. As long as the genre of hip hop exists, no one will forget the African American artists who founded the genre, regardless how successful their non-African American progenitors may become. At most, Korean hip hop can only become a noteworthy variation of a genre rooted in the African American music tradition; it can never eclipse the existing history and become the genre itself.<o:p></o:p><br />
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Fundamentally, it is not possible for Korean hip hop artists to appropriate African American hip hop, because the power dynamics between the two groups clearly point in favor of African American hip hop artists. Recall that K-pop is a product of American imperialism: it cannot be theft when the colonized take on the character of the colonizer, because the colonized never had a choice. (No one thinks Indians are culturally appropriating from the United Kingdom by speaking English.) To the extent that African American hip hop is a part of American pop culture (and it clearly is,) it takes a privileged position in Korea, as Koreans did not have a choice to be born into a world in which American pop culture is not the aspirational standard. This is why Korean hip hop artists have been exploring ways to be more like African Americans in terms of rhymes, sounds, and visual aesthetics in the early days of Korean hip hop. This is why Korean Americans like Tiger JK, who grew up in closer proximity with African Americans than Koreans in Korea, have had a particular advantage in Korean hip hop scene at first. Like the rest of K-pop, it took decades before Korean hip hop began to settle into its own style, and that settling is still ongoing.<o:p></o:p><br />
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To Americans, it may be jarring to hear that African Americans are in a privileged position—but this fact is obvious to anyone who is not an American. Of course within the United States, African Americans face systematic discrimination that puts them at economic and social disadvantage, often maiming them and killing them. Indeed, the zeal with which African Americans guard hip hop reflects this discrimination, as they are painfully aware that elements of their identity can be taken away at any time. But it won’t be Koreans who take away hip hop from African Americans, because they simply cannot. It may be true that compared to whites, African Americans hold less power within the American society. But as Americans who shape American pop culture, African Americans’ power is incomparably greater than any non-Americans’, including Koreans’. This is why, for example, the movie <i>Black Panther</i> depicts the fictional city of Wakanda <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2018/03/wakanda-and-busan.html">much more vividly than the actually existing city of Busan</a>.<o:p></o:p><br />
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It makes no sense to object that the biggest K-pop groups hold a tremendous amount of influence, topping charts, drawing spotlight and earning a lot of money. Such objection is as tone-deaf as claiming systematic racism does not exist because some African Americans are wealthy and powerful. No doubt some are. After all, an African American was the president of the United States just a few years ago. But what matters is the operation of the whole system. Barack Obama could become president only by strategically targeting the preferences of the white electorate, and BTS could top the Billboard chart only by strategically targeting the American audience. Nor does it make sense to point to anti-black racism in Korea. No doubt such racism exists. It is a healthy development that such racism is increasingly becoming visible to African Americans as Korean pop culture gains more exposure to the world, as it gives Koreans the impetus to cure their ignorance. But that is simply not relevant the operation of the whole system, based on the fundamental power dynamics between American and Korean pop culture.<o:p></o:p><br />
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It frustrates me to no end when I hear the naïve questions from Americans: why don’t Koreans develop a pop culture that is unencumbered by the American one? Why do Koreans play Western music at all, when they have their own musical tradition? Why must they create hip hop music and wear football jerseys and style their hair like African Americans? It makes me want to shoot back: if you don’t like Koreans putting their own touch to Western pop music and to hip hop, maybe you should have resisted the US imperialism. Maybe you should have stopped the Cold War before it began, so that the United States wouldn’t have the chance to tell South Koreans that it is the angelic force that protects them from the evil communists. Maybe you should have gotten America to stay the hell out of the Korean Peninsula instead of dividing in half, or failing at that, maybe you should have gotten the US soldiers to listen to Korean music as it existed in the 1950s rather than having Korean musicians learn to play Elvis and James Brown.<o:p></o:p><br />
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In the end I don’t shoot back, because I accept that this is the world we live in and there is no other kind. Neither the present day Korean nor the present day American can change the history that already happened. Nor do I assign too much blame on American imperialism, actually. Although being under US influence did cause a great deal of misery along the way, in the end it did not turn out too badly for South Koreans. Likewise, Korean pop music turned out fine. While I remain curious about the alternate universe in which traditional Korean music evolved into a mass media phenomenon (and <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J4RYjJjw7Y">listen to bands that point to that possibility</a></span>,) I am obviously a fan of Korean pop music as it exists today, regardless of the strong US influence that shapes the contours of K-pop. It could have gone better, but it could have been much worse, and at any rate it's pretty good right now. I am fine with that.<o:p></o:p><br />
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The point is not about assigning blame, or telling people what music to listen to and what not to. It is simply to remind ourselves that our present is rooted in the past, that we—Americans—need to be cautious about universalizing the domestic political standards that arose from a particular space and time.<br />
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I will conclude in the same way I began, with Edward Said. After spending a chapter of a book discussing how Jane Austen normalized British imperialism and slavery in <i>Mansfield Park</i>, Said concluded:<br />
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It would be silly to expect Jane Austen to treat slavery with anything like the passion of an abolitionist or a newly liberated slave. Yet what I have called the rhetoric of blame, so often now employed by subaltern, minority, or disadvantaged voices, attacks her, and others like her, retrospectively, for being white, privileged, insensitive, complicit. Yes, Austen belonged to a slave-owning society, but do we therefore jettison her novels as so many trivial exercises in aesthetic frumpery? Not at all, I would argue, if we take seriously our intellectual and interpretive vocation to make connections, to deal with as much of the evidence as possible, fully and actually, to read what is there or not there, above all, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>to see complementarity and interdependence instead of isolated, venerated, or formalized experience that excludes and forbids the hybridizing intrusions of human history</u></b>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>- <i>Culture and Imperialism</i> (emphasis added)<o:p></o:p><br />
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-8031823536372491962018-12-31T15:41:00.001-05:002018-12-31T23:55:23.867-05:00Goodbye 2018, and Happy New Year 2019!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3i8f5qMDPl4CgiyS2VBMwDZtmsXh7s_8idOiW4yhVWPXQlL60xCRYr6vgqkDXiwqzeOaQQGeZuyGh0ClHl6O-14klBaCh3YEpqALFNlaFm44BJXPUTdkzzTvTu9gvzg2Febdm/s1600/New-Year-2019-Unique-bg-picture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="612" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3i8f5qMDPl4CgiyS2VBMwDZtmsXh7s_8idOiW4yhVWPXQlL60xCRYr6vgqkDXiwqzeOaQQGeZuyGh0ClHl6O-14klBaCh3YEpqALFNlaFm44BJXPUTdkzzTvTu9gvzg2Febdm/s1600/New-Year-2019-Unique-bg-picture.jpg" /></a></div>
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It was a big year for me, although you wouldn't know it from the blog. But in real life, my career made big strides and I produced more writing than ever. Oh, and there is now TKDaughter2 in addition to TKDaughter1. That seems important.</div>
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Here's a look back at the most popular AAK! posts of 2018.</div>
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<b><u>Most Popular Posts of 2018 (All-Time Posts)</u></b></div>
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1. <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Counting in Sino-Korean [</span><a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/03/korean-language-series-sino-korean.html" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #0066cc; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Link</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">]</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">2. <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Becoming a Doctor in Korea [</span><a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2015/03/so-how-do-you-become-doctor-in-korea-if.html" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #0066cc; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Link</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">]</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">3. World's First Alt-Right, from Korean Politics [<a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2017/10/koreas-alt-right-and-how-to-fight-ones.html">Link</a>]</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">4. Meaning of Korean Last Names [<a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-do-korean-last-names-mean.html">Link</a>]</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">5. Gift Ideas for Koreans [<a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2011/04/ask-korean-wiki-gift-ideas-for-koreans.html">Link</a>]</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><u>Most Popular Posts of 2018 (Written in 2018)</u></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><b></b><u></u><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">1. Busan, as Depicted in Black Panther [<a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2018/03/wakanda-and-busan.html">Link</a>]</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">2. Shin Jung-hyeon, the Most Influential K-pop Artist [<a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2018/01/50-most-influential-k-pop-artists-1.html">Link</a>]</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">3. Another One for Tiger Parenting [<a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2018/07/save-tigers.html">Link</a>]</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">4. Nine Years of Darkness under Conservative Rule Part IV, the Darkest Moment [<a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2018/04/koreas-nine-years-of-darkness-part-iv.html">Link</a>]</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">5. Reasons to be Hopeful about North Korea [<a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2018/06/this-time-will-be-different.html">Link</a>]</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 14.04px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br />
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Experiencing the big changes in my life in the past year made me realize how much I love writing--and it is all made possible because readers like you keep reading my stuff. My heartful gratitude for reading this humble blog. Truly, it is you who make everything possible.</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-65336147421294946032018-11-22T11:09:00.004-05:002018-11-22T11:09:46.296-05:00The 2019 NK News Stuff is Here (With a Discount Code!)<div style="text-align: justify;">
As long time readers may know, this humble blog has shared long time friendship with <a href="http://www.nknews.org/">NK News</a>, the finest source in English to get the news about North Korea. One of the proudest moments of running this blog was inspiring NK News to begin <a href="http://www.nknews.org/category/nk-voices/ask-a-north-korean/">Ask a North Korean!</a>, an honest and revealing look into the country that is so opaque from the outside. And now it's a book, written by former Economist correspondent Daniel Tudor! (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ask-North-Korean-Defectors-Secretive/dp/0804849331">Amazon link for the book here</a>.)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf1A4rygZ18H4Ep-gR77B9toyPOeEWCwXhT7JzI_JCTbp9Pyzsbs7Ez-vbWQbGfZJTujBoDh5l2c_w_wVJs5pvrvRSNUl2ex9a5L_-oIc1gKHfm92ZMLmt1BLR4YCi9NRo-Emb/s1600/pyongyang+poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1190" data-original-width="960" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf1A4rygZ18H4Ep-gR77B9toyPOeEWCwXhT7JzI_JCTbp9Pyzsbs7Ez-vbWQbGfZJTujBoDh5l2c_w_wVJs5pvrvRSNUl2ex9a5L_-oIc1gKHfm92ZMLmt1BLR4YCi9NRo-Emb/s640/pyongyang+poster.jpg" width="516" /></a></div>
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Here is one way you can support NK News: buy their merchandise at <a href="http://www.nkshop.org/">www.nkshop.org</a>. As NK News usually does every year, there is a gorgeous <a href="https://www.nkshop.org/product/2019-calendar/">2019 calendar of North Korea pictures</a>. New this year is <a href="https://www.nkshop.org/product-category/art-prints/">a set of travel posters involving North Korean destinations</a>: Pyongyang, Kaesong, Wonsan, etc. Although it's difficult to travel to North Korea today, with the improving relations among US, South Korea and North Korea, one can look at these posters and dream.</div>
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For readers of Ask a Korean!, NK Shop gives a special 20 percent discount on all merchandise by using this code: <b>tknknews20</b>.</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-50173031356949798852018-08-11T23:12:00.002-04:002018-10-12T11:06:54.116-04:00The Misplaced Props in Pachinko<br />
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<i>Pachinko</i> by Min Jin Lee is a good novel, fully deserving the rave reviews it has received thus far. But <i>Pachinko</i> is not merely good; it is important. Deep, literary exposition about Korea in English has only just begun in the last few years, but with books like Han Kang's <i>The Vegetarian</i> and Kim Young-ha's <i>Your Republic is Calling You</i>, there are now a solid stable of Korean novels in English that give a look into contemporary Korea. Yet <i>Pachinko</i>'s subject—Zainichi Koreans—is a one that even novels originally written in Korean rarely broach, which makes Min Jin Lee's work not only good, but important. The hardship that these diaspora Koreans experienced because of Imperial Japan’s occupation of Korea, World War II, Korea’s division and the Japanese society’s discrimination is an important story that deserves to be told.</div>
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All this is to say: what follows in this post is not at all about the novel’s merits, but about my own peculiarities, and if any part of it seems like a criticism, it only comes from a place of love.<br />
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One peculiarity of mine is I greatly care about the mundane aspect of human lives. Indeed, I think the connotations that the word “mundane” carries—small, insignificant, unimportant—are exactly backwards. Most of our lives are spent in the mundane: eating, sleeping, fighting boredom at work, sitting in our room. Even if we experience the most dramatic day of our lives, the mundane returns the very next day as we must continue to wake up, eat, work, and sleep. Many find these things boring, but I do not<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">—because l</span>ike gravity, the mundane is what makes our lives possible by keeping us on the ground.</div>
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I deeply believe that the mundane, in fact, must be the most important aspect of our lives. Our everyday is not merely white noise that fills the gap between the exciting events worth remembering. What we eat, how we sleep, what we put in our homes, how we entertain ourselves—these are the most important things of our lives, for the simple reason that they are most of our lives. The expanded version of this proposition is how I understand history as well: the most important things in history is how people spent their mundane hours, eating, working and living. The events that are usually considered historically important—like a war, for example—are so only insofar as they have the power to radically and massively alter the shape of those mundane hours.</div>
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This is one of the reasons I rarely read fiction. Why read made-up stories, when there is so much fascinating mundane to learn about? The few fictions that I do find interesting are the huge tomes that relentlessly focus on the mundane. For me, the best part of <i>Les Miserable</i> was Victor Hugo’s 15,000 word description of the Paris sewers, so vivid that as you are reaching the story of Valjean carrying Marius through the sewer, you would marvel at the majesty of its architecture even while wincing from its smell. Pak Kyongni’s <i>Land</i>, a massive 16-volume epic about Korea in the late 19th and early 20th century, was an unstoppable read for me because of Pak’s placement of all the mundane things in the small town of Hadong—not only minor characters, but also every animal and plant that makes an appearance—serves to push the story forward with a greater weight than a simple succession of dramatic events could possibly do.</div>
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(More after the jump.)</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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Which brings us to <i>Pachinko</i>. Reading this powerful story about the four generation of Koreans whose life went from Busan to Osaka to New York and back to Japan, I kept getting stuck at the mundane. Again, please don’t get me wrong—this is not a criticism of the novel, but an explanation of why I’m weird. But every time I was about to be engrossed into <i>Pachinko</i>'s story, a misplaced “prop” threw in a needle-scratch moment. Amid the highly plausible story of a family migrating from Korea to Japan throughout the 20th century, there were so many implausible or anachronistic appearances of food items, names for things and people, or exclamatory phrases, that were more appropriate for usually 1960s and thereafter. It was like reading a compelling story about the Civil War, except the men in their stories kept called their love interests “bae” and constantly talked about eating Doritos and drinking Mountain Dew.<br />
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These misused props are not just a distraction; they are a missed opportunity, because the props contain the stories that travel on the same wavelength as the stories of the novel’s characters. For example, the third generation child of the Baek family, Noa, struggles with assimilation into the Japanese society that discriminates against Koreans. Noa copes and adjusts by changing names and disguising his Korean origin. The same theme could have been told through one of the most significant props in the novel—<i>yakiniku</i>, a Japanese-Korean dish. Yakiniku is marinated and grilled beef, a derivation of Korea’s bulgogi. In <i>Pachinko</i>, Kim Changho, an ethnic Korean living in Japan offers Sunja to sell her kimchi at his restaurant in Osaka. Supposedly in 1939, Kim tells Sunja: “My name is Kim Changho, and I manage the yakiniku restaurant right by the Tsuruhashi Station.” </div>
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This is anachronistic, because in 1939, the people in Japan did not call bulgogi “yakiniku,” nor did they call the restaurant that sold bulgogi a “yakiniku restaurant.” In 1939, Kim Changho would have told Sunja “I manage the Korean restaurant” or “Joseon restaurant,” as “Joseon” is the Korean dynasty that was felled by the Imperial Japan before the occupation. The word <i>yakiniku</i> was commonly used in Japan <a href="http://yulizen.tistory.com/224">only after the 1960s</a>, when the division of the Korean Peninsula began to look permanent. With their former country divided, the 600,000 Zainichi Koreans in Japan divided themselves along their political sympathies as well. With North Korea calling itself “Joseon” and South Korea “Hanguk,” the word “Joseon restaurant” itself became politically charged, with South Korea-leaning Zainichis preferring the term “Hanguk restaurant.” Eventually, the two sides landed on a neutral term: a yakiniku (“grilled meat”) restaurant. It was an alternative name chosen to mask the political troubles of the dish’s origin, just as the Baek brothers did. </div>
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Just like that, the mundane could have illuminated the main story, adding more weight of reality to the characters’ struggles of identity. Getting these details correct in the rare novel about the turbulent changes that the Koreans who lived in Japan would have taken <i>Pachinko</i> to another level.<br />
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In this spirit, here are all the ill-fitting props that I found in <i>Pachinko</i>, and a quick explanation why these parts are anachronistic or awkward. Again, none of this should be seen as a criticism of the novel, but merely a collection of curios for weirdos like me. Be forewarned: there are tons of spoilers below. </div>
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<b>· “Jesus”.</b> A major theme of Pachinko is the Baek family’s Christian faith, which is another factor that separates them from the Japanese society in which they live. Sunja is a convert into the faith as she married a Christian pastor Baek Isak. Yet the Christians in the novel almost never talk about “Jesus,” referring to “God” instead. (By my count, there was only one appearance of the word “Jesus” or "Yesu" spoken by a character in the entire novel.) This is very unusual, considering that early Christians in Korea regarded their faith to be worshipping Jesus—to a point that Korea’s early Christians called their faith “Jesus Religion” [예수교]. (For example, Korea’s first Presbyterian Church, established in 1912, was called 조선예수교장로회, or “Joseon Jesus Religion Presbytery.”)</div>
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<b>· Shamanistic Spirituality. </b> In the early 20th century Korea, the flip side of the Christian faith was the shamanistic spirituality, the folksy belief that the entire world is imbued with animistic spirits, including the spirit of one’s ancestors. This belief system forms the basis of many of Korea’s traditional rituals such as <i>jesa</i> (memorial service for one’s ancestors.) But there is zero reference to this type of spirituality in <i>Pachinko</i>, although a number of Korean characters are not Christians or do not start out as Christians. Yangjin is not Christian, for example; Sunja converts into faith as she married the Christian pastor Baek Isak. It is extremely unlikely that people like Yangjin or Sunja would not understand the world in terms of shamanistic spirituality, as early 20th century Koreans were very much living in what Jurgen Habermas has called the “enchanted world.” Yangjin and Sunja might not think about the ancestors' spirits all the time, but they would think about them at least as often as Isak and Yoseb thought of their faith.<br />
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<b>· “Oppa”. </b> Sunja’s initial love interest Koh Hansu tells her to call him “oppa” as they begin dating. This is entirely inappropriate. “Oppa” means “older brother,” and until around 1990s, the word meant literally that and nothing else. Women did not use that term to refer to an older man who is not actual, blood-related brother, much less a boyfriend. I’m not even old, but I vividly recall exactly when that trend of using “oppa” as a term of endearment started, and also recall how gross it felt to hear women use that word to describe their love interest because it evoked an image of an incest. The same image would have certainly entered the minds of Sunja and Hansu.</div>
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<b>· “Yobo”.</b> This Korean word plays a significant role in the story; there is a whole vignette on exactly when Baek Isak would call his wife Sunja <i>yobo</i> [여보]. The word is a term of endearment for one’s spouse like “honey” or “sweetheart”—today. Unfortunately, <i>yobo</i> did not mean “honey” in the early 20th century. The word originated as a contraction of 여기를 봐 [“look here”]: not a romantic noun, but a command. The word “yobo” appears in Korean in the late 19th century, and used only as “look here” through the early 20th century. See, for example,<a href="https://ko.wikisource.org/wiki/%EC%B6%98%ED%96%A5%EA%B0%80"> Chunhyangjeon [춘향전] from the late 19th century</a>: the main character Chunhyang, who is a young woman, uses the word “yobo” for her friend (“여보, 행수 형님!”) or even to the evil lord of the town (“여보 사또님 듣조시오!”). Even when Chunhyang uses the word “yobo” to her love interest, it still means “look here.” (“여보 도련님”). The use of “yobo” as an equivalent of “honey” does not happen until the 1960s. (Knowing this, I let out a primal scream when Baek Isak called Sunja “yobo” as they were making love. It was one of the two biggest needle-scratch moments.)<br />
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<b>· “<i>Uh-muh</i>”.</b><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> This is a light exclamation, similar to saying “gosh!” It is a feminine term with several variations, such as “</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">uh-muh-nah</i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">” [어머나] or “</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">egu-muh-nina</i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">” [에그머니나]. Yet the novel only uses one of the variations, which is stiff and unnatural. The exclamation is also frequently </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">deployed in inappropriate situations. For example, upon hearing that Kyunghee’s parents were murdered in the Korean War, Sunja sits down and says “uh-muh”—as if she just heard something slightly odd rather than something unimaginably terrible. At one point, Mozasu says “uh-muh,” something that a grown man would never say. (And especially not a tough guy like Mozasu. This was the other biggest needle-scratch moment.)</span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
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<b>· Public Bath.</b> Sunja moves with her husband Baek Isak from Busan to Osaka, to live with Isak’s brother Yoseb and his wife Kyunghee. There, Sunja visits a public bath with Kyunghee—as if she has always done so. This cannot be true: this had to be Sunja’s first visit to a public bath, as public baths were rare in Korea in the early 20th century. Although public baths are everywhere in Korea today, the public bath culture is an import from Japan and did not became part of Korea’s mainstream until after the 1960s. Upon entering a public bath, Sunja should have been bewildered just as much as a non-Korean person first visiting a <i>jjimjilbang</i>.</div>
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<b>· Doctor</b>. Baek Yoseb recalls that, as a child, his father wanted him to be a doctor. While that sounds very much like a typical Korean parent today, such desire would have made no sense in the early 20th century Korea—as the colonized people of Japan, Koreans were not allowed to attend medical schools. The highest healthcare position that Koreans could reach was being a doctor’s assistant, and fewer than 20 people per year were even allowed to be a doctor’s assistant. Along the same lines, the "doctor" that Yangjin and Sunja visit in Busan should either be Japanese, or not a real doctor if the person is Korean.</div>
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<b>· “Hanguk”.</b> Isak attends a Korean church in Osaka called “Hanguk Presbyterian Church”—an unlikely name, because the word <i>Hanguk</i> [한국], meaning “Korea” in today’s parlance, was not commonly in use in the early 20th century. A more likely name would have been “Joseon Presbyterian Church,” using the name of the last Korean dynasty before the Imperial Japan colonized Korea. The word <i>Hanguk</i> comes from <i>Daehanminguk</i>, the name that Korea’s government-in-exile used for itself since 1919, and did not enter common usage until South Korea took the name <i>Daehanminguk</i> after the division.</div>
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<b>· “Noodles in Black Bean Sauce”.</b> At the church in Osaka, the church's sexton serves Isak what sounds awfully like <i>jjajangmyeon</i> [짜장면]—which makes no sense, because jjajangmyeon is a Korean-Chinese dish that was invented in Incheon in 1905. The Japanese also had their own version of Japanese-Chinese dishes, but jjajangmyeon is not one of them.</div>
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<b>· Conversation at the Butcher Shop.</b> Kyunghee and a butcher named Tanaka have an extended conversation about how to make <i>seolleongtang</i>, a Korean soup. Kyunghee talks about how seolleongtang would be made with long-simmered leg bones, then served with rice and noodles. Several things are off with this: first of all, the Japanese butcher in the early 20th century would have likely just thrown away cow’s leg bones, as the Japanese did not know how to eat them. In fact, the first yakiniku in Japan was mostly made with intestines and organ meats, because Koreans picked up with the Japanese threw away. Kyunghee’s recipe is also anachronistic: prior to the 1970s, seolleongtang was served with rice only. Noodles do not appear in seolleongtang until the 1970s, when the South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee ordered the country to consume less rice and more wheat products, as the U.S. provided wheat flour as an aid. </div>
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<b>· Gimbap.</b> This is a Korean dish, rice rolled in seaweed. Supposedly in 1955, Mozasu “made excuses about getting some gimbap on the other side of the market . . .”. This is anachronistic: gimbap is a Japanese sushi roll that was Koreanized and became popular only after the Korean War. The Japanese tourists who visited Korea in the 1980s had no idea what gimbap was, and was often surprised to find a bastardized version of <i>futomaki</i> existed in Korea.</div>
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I found that as <i>Panchinko</i> entered the 1960s, the anachronistic props began to fade away, probably because Min Jin Lee was born in 1968 so she had some personal experience of Korea. It is also likely because today’s Korea is a continuation of the framework that settled in the 1960s—which means that, often, the most interesting stories about Korea are the stories from the time period just preceding the 60s, the stories about how things became the way they are today. I was so excited to read Pachinko for that reason, as it was a rare novel in English that dealt with the lives of ordinary Koreans during the Japanese occupation and World War II. Unfortunately, the novel left it a bit short of the mark for me.</div>
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At this point, I should add: authors, if you have a book length manuscript about Korea, I am available to be hired to review all these props. I have already helped several authors in this capacity. Don't be shy: you will be surprised at how much a good detail could improve your story.<br />
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-85434278498195425092018-07-07T21:32:00.001-04:002019-06-01T20:50:54.509-04:00Save the Tigers<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKPiWAf-f3LpymA6Nn0Rwn88YUOvW3NPegKHJadB4Scyl5xgF_swuSLIYFgjZe_EBu_al-IZD6raimb9d_H8Lk9VpapV3wQqibQ7EICQ99Ga1c6qb-yYv3dmXDdMfvlL6zFbrP/s1600/McDonalds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="760" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKPiWAf-f3LpymA6Nn0Rwn88YUOvW3NPegKHJadB4Scyl5xgF_swuSLIYFgjZe_EBu_al-IZD6raimb9d_H8Lk9VpapV3wQqibQ7EICQ99Ga1c6qb-yYv3dmXDdMfvlL6zFbrP/s640/McDonalds.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(<a href="https://www.rd.com/advice/travel/countries-banned-mcdonalds/">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Here’s the story of my immigrant family. We came from Korea to the United States in late 1997. I was 16 years old, my brother 14. Immigrant life was hard. Our immigration lawyer was a crook, stealing most of our family’s money while leaving us with an uncertain immigration status. We lived in a succession of shitty little houses, dealing with nasty landlords who never repaired broken fixtures in time. </div>
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My brother and I waited for the once-a-week special from the neighborhood McDonalds’, when it would sell ten hamburgers for 99 cents. (It was one dollar and seven cents after taxes.) Ever bought a <i>hamburger</i> from McDonalds’, because a cheeseburger cost too much? (Ten cheeseburgers were $1.29.) We would bring home those shit sandwiches, and our mother would improve them by taking them apart and sliding in the cheap vegetables from the Korean market. Our parents had to adjust from a comfortable upper middle class life in Seoul to <i>that</i>. My father was in a constant state of simmering rage, ashamed that he could not provide for us in California like the way he did in Seoul and fearing we might lose our immigration status because he was duped. My mother, a smart and proud woman, cried all the time. </div>
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Things worked out in the end. My parents threw away their lives that they have built for decades and came to the U.S. for the sole purpose of giving my brother and me a better path of education. Knowing this, we ensured that our parents would accomplish that mission. Both my brother and I entered school knowing minimal English, but we picked it up quickly. We both benefited from the University of California systems, which gave us excellent education and a good diploma. I am a lawyer at a big law firm, my brother an engineer at a big tech company whose name you’ve certainly heard of. People around us say we’re successful.<br />
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Right now, there is a confluence of two major education policies that involve claims of discrimination against Asian Americans. With New York high schools, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan would eliminate the entrance examination for the city’s magnet schools and instead have the schools take the top students from each of the city’s middle schools—a move to bring in more black and Latino students in place of Asian students. At Harvard, a lawsuit filed by an Asian American group claims Harvard’s admission has marked Asian applicants as scoring low on the “personality” category, taking fewer Asian American students as a result. </div>
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I’ll be honest: I don’t find these debates all that important. Obviously, I think education is important. It’s just that I am not at all convinced marginal improvement on one’s high school or college changes one’s life in a meaningful way. If you insist that I state my position, I’d give a lukewarm, split-the-difference answer: keep the entrance exam with New York high schools, but it’s also fine for Harvard to maintain an informal racial ceiling against Asian Americans for the sake of diversity. This is mostly based on practical considerations. College is the time for the young adult to leave the home, and a student who narrowly misses out on Harvard surely has a dozen other comparable options around the country. On the other hand, if a New York high school student misses the cut for one of the magnet schools, the drop-off might be significant, and it would require the entire family to move to a different city to mitigate the drop-off. My attitude probably stems from the fact that I neither attended my town’s magnet high school nor an Ivy League college, but feel that my life worked out mostly fine. But given this obviously anecdotal basis, I have no strong commitment to my position. </div>
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What I do find interesting, however, is the debate underlying the admissions debate. The way in which each Asian American draws her battle line usually relates to how she processes the current reality of Asian Americana: a group with all-abiding dedication to education, such that it produces a wildly disproportionate number of high-status professionals such as doctors, lawyers and engineers—what people might call “successful” professions. This leads to the Model Minority stereotype, with the implications that Asian Americans do not face discrimination and that other racial minorities too can overcome and be doctors and lawyers and engineers. </div>
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The Model Minority stereotype is bullshit, and deserves to be slammed. But I have seen a curious streak among many Asian Americans: in the process rebelling against the Model Minority, they also rebel against the importance of academics and the idea of “success” in assessing career paths. Asian parents care too much about schools, they say. The hard work of rote-learning and test-prepping produce uncreative automatons. The focus on being a doctorlawyer is a sign of vulgar materialism that chases after prestige. When Yale Law School professor Amy Chua spoke of "tiger parenting," she faced a firestorm of criticism, much of it from Asian Americans who saw tiger parenting as a backward attitude of their parents' generation that finally gained a name by which it can be reviled.<br />
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Typical is the attitude shown by attorney Ryan Park in his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/opinion/sunday/asian-american-tiger-parents.html">recent op-ed for the New York Times</a>. Park tut-tuts at Chua’s tiger parenting as “fanatical parenting choices,” saying the second generation Asian Americans are “largely abandoning traditional Asian parenting styles in favor of a modern, Western approach focused on developing open and warm relationships with our children.” The second generation parents, according to Park, “are striving to cultivate individuality and autonomy in our children in a way that we feel was missing from our own childhoods.” Park then concludes: “I aim to raise children who are happy, confident and kind—and not necessarily as driven, dutiful and successful as the model Asian child. If that means the next generation will have fewer virtuoso violinists and neurosurgeons, well, I still embrace the decline.” </div>
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(More after the jump.)</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFO8ei8KPp1S33v4GfdKJHCy2nf5LmfnuerYoCembY7VjEMDdtFS_r1zw4lJI8uhDpvpr2c7Yua81ZnVZaDMF6NG1lPI_p0yg13tMDTbpulI7EjBPLq-TUGvcdo2fM27SVVbNg/s1600/wall+street.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="618" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFO8ei8KPp1S33v4GfdKJHCy2nf5LmfnuerYoCembY7VjEMDdtFS_r1zw4lJI8uhDpvpr2c7Yua81ZnVZaDMF6NG1lPI_p0yg13tMDTbpulI7EjBPLq-TUGvcdo2fM27SVVbNg/s640/wall+street.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(<a href="https://nypost.com/2018/03/26/wall-street-bonuses-got-a-big-bump-last-year/">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Here’s another story about my immigrant life. I graduated from college and went to a fancy law school in the East Coast. I earned good grades in law school, which landed me a job at a fancy law firm before I even graduated. This was in 2006, when very smart people were saying the economic boom might last forever. My classmates were optimistic and arrogant, and so was I. We all had six-figure jobs right out of law school, and the law firms were so desperate for manpower that there was no way we would lose our jobs. Standard partnership track at a big law firm took eight years, but some junior lawyers were demanding partnership after five. In other words, people were drunk. </div>
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The cold water came in 2008, as Lehman Brothers fell. The New York banks were wiped out, and with them the New York law firms. Massive law firms with a thousand lawyers would turn into dust overnight. Even the surviving law firms faced hard times. The cafeteria of my fancy law firm switched its free ketchup packets from Heinz to Hunt’s, apparently because a top ten law firm with a thousand lawyers placed around the world could no longer afford to give out the top of line condiments. </div>
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Young lawyers—my classmates—were losing their jobs. But not at the same rate. Asian American associate attorneys, especially Asian American women, were the first to go. They used to get sterling reviews: diligent, hard-working attorneys who put in the extra time. Once the economy turned, the law firms scheduled a new mid-year review, in which the same qualities that were positive six months ago were turned into a negative: passive attorneys who did not display enough initiative and leadership. Then the law firms would announce “performance-based” layoffs, to avoid giving off the impression that they were in financial trouble. Majority of my Asian American classmates lost their jobs; many of them were never able to return to the legal profession. I was also on the chopping block, until a partner stepped in to save my neck because he was impressed with my ability to work for days without sleep. If it was not for him, my legal career would have ended after a year and a half since I graduated from law school. </div>
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When you’re a Korean American attending a fancy law school, you tend to keep tabs on other Korean Americans who also attend fancy law schools—which is why I know of Ryan Park. He has amassed <a href="https://www.bsfllp.com/news-events/two-supreme-court-clerks-join-boies-schiller-flexner.html">credentials that few mortals could ever reach</a>: top of the class at Harvard Law School and Fulbright Scholarship; stints at the State Department, Justice Department and the Department of Defense; judicial clerkship at the Southern District of New York, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If the legal field were the NBA, Park would have been the blue chip prospect who led Duke University to the NCAA championship, then was drafted No. 1 overall, to be the Rookie of the Year and an All-Star. These credentials allow Park to take a break from his legal career after his Supreme Court clerkship to be a stay-at-home father, only to join an elite law firm at a later date. </div>
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Which is why Park’s lamentation about his father’s strict education triggers a reflexive eye roll. <i>Suuure</i>—if you’re the top of the class at Harvard Law School, hit the three most important departments of the federal government and had clerkships with all three levels of the court, I’m sure you could stand to be a little less successful. But for everyone else? My law school was not as fancy as Harvard, but it was pretty darn fancy. That did not stop my Asian American classmates from losing their jobs faster than others did, nor did it save me from narrowly escaping the chopping block. If you’re an Asian American, the only way for you to be mostly insulated from this society’s latent racism is to be indisputably talented. Merely being very good is not enough; the separation between you and the rest of the world must be so overwhelming that you elevate yourself beyond the racism-infected system. </div>
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Asian American parents push their children academically because they hope against hope that their children would hit that escape velocity from the system. Dr. Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, <a href="http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/panelists/2010/03/transcript-jim-yong-kim-dartmouth.html">likes to recount a story</a> about his first time back home from college. In the car ride from the airport, the young college student told his father: “I think I’m going to major in philosophy.” His father slowly pulled over the car and told him: “When you finish your residency, you can study anything you want. You’re a Chinaman, and you are not going to make it in this world if you study philosophy.” There is a tragic quality to this, because no Asian American, no matter how excellent, fully escapes racism. The fact that a Chinese American William Lee was at one point the managing partner of WilmerHale, one of the most prestigious law firms in the world, did not shield him from a random racist <a href="https://abovethelaw.com/2016/11/in-time-of-political-unrest-former-biglaw-managing-partner-told-to-go-back-to-his-own-country/">harassing and stalking him at a gas station</a>, telling him “Why don’t you go back to your own country.” Yet the parents press on, hoping their children would be the at least a step removed from the unfairness of this world. </div>
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Younger Asian Americans rebel against that, for it is the lot of the children to rebel against their parents. The rebellion often comes in their youth, before they bear the full force of this society’s racism. The rebellion often comes from those indisputably talented Asian Americans who scorn their God-given gifts because they blithely assume everyone else has those gifts. They so badly want the freedom not to be successful that they scoff at the idea of success itself. They just want to be <i>happy</i>. They desire to be an <i>individual</i>, as if this society would ever treat them as one. </div>
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<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/05/im-not-black-im-kanye/559763/">Ta-Nehisi Coates saw the same desire</a> in Michael Jackson, a fellow African American who managed to hit escape velocity through his musical talent. Jackson sought for “liberation from the dictates of that <i>we</i>[,]” which led to a twisted kind of freedom: “a Confederate freedom, the freedom of John C. Calhoun, not the freedom of Harriet Tubman, which calls you to risk your own; not the freedom of Nat Turner, which calls you give even more[.]” Coates found such freedom destructive: “I wonder how different his life might have been if Michael Jackson knew how much his truly black face was tied to all of our black faces, if he knew that when he destroyed himself, he was destroying part of us, too. I wonder if his life would have been different, would have been longer.” </div>
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My early days in the United States were some of the unhappiest moments of my life. I saw my parents living in anger toward themselves and to each other. They screamed and yelled at each other almost every night; several times I had to step in between them because I genuinely feared they might kill each other. Not understanding anything the teachers said at school induced despair. The idea that I would have to take the SATs 18 months after coming to the United States seemed absurd. I thought about running away all the time, about going back to Korea, to be freed from all this misery. I’m not sure if I would choose to go through that again, if it were possible to go back in time to choose. </div>
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But I do know that, despite the difficult path we walked, no one in our family regrets coming to America. The knowledge that my parents denied themselves to give me an opportunity was branded into my heart, motivating me to study harder than ever before. Yes, that involved a ton of rote learning—how else do you think one learns an entirely new language at age 16? But contrary to the relentless claims about the harms of rote learning, my faculties for critical thought seem to have survived just fine. I am told that “successful” people like lawyers are often insecure and anxious, and my early days as a lawyer were certainly anxiety-inducing. Even now, I do go through career-related moments of insecurity and anxiety, sometimes for days and weeks. But I do not find them to be good reasons why I should have chosen a different career, much less a different path of life. I am glad I did not run away, shrink from challenge or give up on the idea of being successful in this country. </div>
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The greatest lie of the modern society is we are individuals who must pursue our own, individualized version of happiness. In truth, happiness is overrated, and so is individuality. The logical consequence of prioritizing individual happiness over all else is to take painkillers until you die. There is no unhappiness when you’re high. No pain, no bad thoughts, just take another one if it wears off. It lets you forget all about what others did to put you where you are, and it lets you leave this world without even realizing you’re dead. So of course, that’s how Michael Jackson left this world. </div>
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Or you can elect to <i>live</i>, and walk through all the frustration, challenges and despair that come along—the entire point of tiger parenting, which teaches children to persevere over difficulties. No, you don’t have to be a doctorlawyer; it’s ok to cast aside the old, stodgy ideas of what counts as a success. But you do need to be successful, in that you become the best version of yourself. This inevitably involves self-abnegation, because being better always entails sacrifice. Being a more capable person allows you to serve others better. Denying yourself easy pleasures leads to deeper, more profound ones. Submerging your own desire puts your mind in the right place to serve others, at a place one might call empathy. And yes, being the best version of yourself does tend to come with financial rewards, with which you can see and interact with the world at a level that would not be otherwise available. That's hardly a bad thing.</div>
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This is not a "happy" life, for unhappiness inevitably visits this life. There is nothing "individual" about it: the underlying formula is same for everyone, though the individual manifestation may be different. However clumsily it may be expressed, this is the type of life that every parent wants his or her children to have. It is the life that makes you better than you would have been while standing alone in the world, atomized and alienated. It is the life that recognizes your life’s interconnection with others’, your predecessors’ contribution for your existence today, and your duty to your family, your children, the people in your life. It may not be a happy life, but it is a fulfilled life. </div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-28724847792617583572018-06-02T22:37:00.002-04:002018-06-03T22:51:06.924-04:00This Time Will be Different<div style="text-align: justify;">
So—a lot happened since I posted last in late April! The U.S.-North Korea summit was on, then off, then on again. </div>
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Now that the summit is back on, so is the familiar chorus singing: “we’ve seen this all before.” The chorus points out North Korea promised to denuclearize, then lied, cheated and reneged on the promises, repeatedly for the past 25 years. North Korea previously put on the show of taking down a cooling tower of the Yongbyon nuclear facility in 2008, and the demolition of the Punggye-ri nuclear testing site last month is also likely to be a sham, to the extent that North Korea claimed the demolition shut down the testing site irreversibly. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPOl32Ukl9tVtNAuW-Ic3b_5rgG3qAiRH5xQ6LZmIcynOxNqrxNF9TRhJIJOByZdmiTXuxajyj0arQ0K-LssGcfy3LJ0vYz_4-0N2aqkl4CvxwzeJfX9UP2zmFJBl5PzsXXfqE/s1600/2013040300219_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="489" data-original-width="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPOl32Ukl9tVtNAuW-Ic3b_5rgG3qAiRH5xQ6LZmIcynOxNqrxNF9TRhJIJOByZdmiTXuxajyj0arQ0K-LssGcfy3LJ0vYz_4-0N2aqkl4CvxwzeJfX9UP2zmFJBl5PzsXXfqE/s1600/2013040300219_0.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">North Korea previously put on a grand show demolishing<br />
the cooling tower of the Yongbyon nuclear facility in 2008 (<a href="http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/04/03/2013040300219.html?Dep0=twitter&d=2013040300219">source</a>)</td></tr>
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The historical facts are, of course, undeniable. They all really happened. But it is a bit too much for the critics to argue that nothing will ever change when it comes to North Korea, as if North Korean behavior is the laws of physics. That simply cannot be true; the future never looks exactly like the past. It is entirely unreasonable to claim that time will pass but nothing will ever change, as if our world in 2018 is exactly the same as the world in 1994 or 2002 or 2007. History serves as a guide only to the extent that we can discern how the present is different from the past. Saying this time will be different is not naivete; rather, it is a rational conclusion based on noting the many differences between the past and the present. </div>
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When it comes to North Korea, there are essentially four players divided into two camps: North Korea and China in one, South Korea and United States in the other. Each one of the players is in a different situation compared to the past, and so is each camp collectively. </div>
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What’s different about North Korea? Here’s an obvious one: they are all but finished with building nuclear weapons and long-range missiles that could reach the United States. It has been amply established that North Korea sought the nuclear weapons and missiles as a form of deterrence against the attempts to overthrow the Kim regime, now in its third generation with Kim Jong Un. There simply is no “first use” option for North Korea that does not immediately turn it into a radioactive wasteland in a massive counterattack by the United States and South Korea. Prior to 2018, North Korea had enough reasons to cheat from its agreement: the payout for cheating was a better, more complete deterrence in the form of nuclear-tipped ICBMs. But now, the nuclear-tipped ICBMs are complete, bringing North Korea to peak negotiating position—which is a major reason why Kim Jong Un came out to talk in January 2018. It would be an overstatement to say North Korea has no incentive to cheat. But compared to 1994 or 2002 or 2007, it has much less incentive to do so. </div>
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(More after the jump.)</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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How is China different in relation to North Korea today? It is shocking to see how few analysts of North Korea consider this question, considering how China is the foundation of North Korea’s security and economy. The Sino-North Korea relation has steadily deteriorated in the recent years, as the memories of fighting together in the Korean War have faded. Shen Zhihua, China’s foremost historian on the Korean War, recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/world/asia/china-north-korea-war.html?_r=0">declared</a> that “North Korea is China’s latent enemy and South Korea could be China’s friend,” adding “we must see clearly that China and North Korea are no longer brothers in arms.” The ordinary Chinese, leading a fairly prosperous life in a relatively open economy, is rapidly losing patience with North Korea that they deem backward. The derision on the Chinese internet went to a point that in 2016, North Korea <a href="http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/bulletin/2016/11/16/0200000000AKR20161116159900083.HTML">requested</a> the Chinese government ban the usage of the word “Fat Kim the Third” online. North Korea’s nuclearization made the relationship even worse: the Chinese severely dislike the fact that the nuclear North Korea raises the possibility of a U.S. military action, and worry that North Korea might undergo a Chernobyl-style disaster whose fallout would reach China. </div>
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Xi Jinping’s rise to power also hurt the Sino-North Korea relationship. After Xi took office in 2012, he spent years battling his political rivals, which included former president Jiang Zemin and his cronies. Jiang remained influential even after 2002 when Hu Jintao succeeded Jiang. Importantly, Jiang and his cronies—the so-called “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_clique">Shanghai Clique</a>”—were very friendly to North Korea, using their regional base in Shenyang near North Korea to <a href="http://www.sisain.co.kr/?mod=news&act=articleView&idxno=30546">oversee</a> the trade between China and North Korea. As Xi was sidelining the pro-North Korea faction in the Chinese leadership, North Korea became openly hostile to Xi. The relationship came to a point where, in February 2013, Kim Jong Un went so far as to <a href="http://www.sisain.co.kr/?mod=news&act=articleView&idxno=30546">declare</a>: “Korea’s nuclear missiles would not be aimed at Washington only; they can aim at Beijing also.” (Imagine a U.S. ally making a nuclear threat to the United States!) The possibility of Xi Jinping staying as China’s leader for much longer, as Xi recently <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/11/592694991/china-removes-presidential-term-limits-enabling-xi-jinping-to-rule-indefinitely">eliminated</a> presidential term limits, cannot be a welcome news for North Korea. One of the speculated reasons why Kim Jong Un was in such a rush to murder his brother Kim Jong Nam was because Kim Jong Un feared China would use his brother as a puppet to lead North Korea after it overthrew his rule. </div>
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In the other camp, there is South Korea led by Moon Jae-in, who followed the nine deeply corrupt years of conservatives Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye. Moon is the most popular leader of the free world, as he enjoys stratospheric approval rating that floats between low 70s to mid-80 percent. This support allows Moon a very wide berth of operation, which he capitalized to the maximum. Much as been made about Moon’s willingness to dialogue with the North, exemplified by his daring second inter-Korean summit in which he crossed the demilitarized zone to meet with Kim Jong Un on short notice after Donald Trump abruptly cancelled the U.S.-North Korea summit. But equal praise is due for Moon’s ability to respond strongly when necessary. When North Korea tested its ICBM in July 2017, Moon Jae-in <a href="http://m.mk.co.kr/news/opinion/2017/449475">ordered</a> his own “decapitation” missile drill, meant to show Kim Jong Un that his own life would be at stake if Kim attempted a nuclear strike. During the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, North Korea’s special envoy Kim Yo Jong invited Moon for an inter-Korean summit; Moon declined, insisting North Korea satisfy certain “<a href="http://www.ohmynews.com/NWS_Web/View/at_pg.aspx?CNTN_CD=A0002404081">conditions</a>”—implying North Korea must dialogue with the United States with denuclearization on the table if it wants to have an inter-Korean summit. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQuO3pFeYvOgt8HIohfPXbJ7A3gijFa2PoOMlDsanU4wWmfE2hPXwlAZyLZezmcoE2cWRZxqesDH8EXWqnviDsgQLW2IUuqu0zHxryP3_Ag1NmTBEHNNKopkxpjCko4_Kcx1pP/s1600/H6KFFNKGKYQYC43PZQVQ_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQuO3pFeYvOgt8HIohfPXbJ7A3gijFa2PoOMlDsanU4wWmfE2hPXwlAZyLZezmcoE2cWRZxqesDH8EXWqnviDsgQLW2IUuqu0zHxryP3_Ag1NmTBEHNNKopkxpjCko4_Kcx1pP/s1600/H6KFFNKGKYQYC43PZQVQ_1.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Donald Trump and Moon Jae-in (<a href="http://pub.chosun.com/client/news/viw.asp?cate=C03&mcate=M1003&nNewsNumb=20170725284&nidx=25285">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Also noteworthy is the manner in which Moon Jae-in internalized the lesson from the Sunshine Policy era, chief among which is the importance of multilateral action. Exploiting the rift between China and North Korea, Moon has built a solid relationship with Xi Jinping. Moon Jae-in administration was the quickest in the history of South Korean democracy to hold its first summit with China. Xi apparently appreciated the effort, as he <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/07/korea-trump-china-xi-jinping-nuclear-moon-jae-in/533811/">opened</a> the meeting with Moon by quoting the Chinese maxim that appears in Moon’s autobiography: “the later flow of the Yangtze River pushes out the earlier flow”—a not-so-subtle hint that China may end up valuing its newer relationship with South Korea over its older relationship with North Korea. Moon also put in a huge amount of effort to ensure the United States comes along. South Korean officials have said Moon has spent triple the time and effort dialoguing with the United States compared to dialoguing with North Korea. Although many initially expected that the liberal Moon Jae-in would clash with Donald Trump, the two have in fact gotten on swimmingly.</div>
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Which leads, finally, to the United States. If you want to know how I feel about Donald Trump and his supporters, you can check out my previous writings, or spend a few minutes on my Twitter feed. But Trump’s <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/TrollXChromosomes/comments/7efnix/carry_yourself_with_the_confidence_of_a_mediocre/">White Male Confidence</a> is at least making him try things with North Korea that the previous U.S. presidents have not tried before. For once, North Korea is the first priority of the United States, not secondary or tertiary concern in relation to, say, Iran or Russia. Trump’s engagement with North Korea is happening early in his administration (as is the case with Moon Jae-in,) such that the U.S. is likely to stick to its end of the deal for some time. (In contrast, Bill Clinton’s deal with North Korea fell apart when George W. Bush succeeded Clinton and designated North Korea as one of the “Axis of Evil.”) </div>
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Put them all together, and we can get a sense of how the events came together for the past year. North Korea finished its nuclear-tipped ICBM and was ready to negotiate the terms of concessions to be earned from giving up its nuclear weapons. To the extent North Korea was reluctant to play its hand, China under a new leadership levied unusually harsh sanctions, which pushed North Korea to come to the table to discuss a potential denuclearization. South Korea had a leader who was savvy enough to progress in a deliberate pace while ensuring both China and the United States came along. And the United States had a leader who is self-absorbed enough to think he could do something the previous presidents could not and ignorant enough to depart from the standard operation procedure when it comes to North Korea. The result is the historic U.S.-North Korea summit meeting in Singapore, now less than ten days away. </div>
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Seeing the confluence of interests held by these four actors also allows us to see the basic terms of the deal that would take shape. North Korea, at a minimum, would have to halt its nuclear or missiles program in a verifiable manner, because neither the United States or China would accept anything less. In exchange, the United States would have to give North Korea some level of security guarantee for the Kim Jong Un regime, because neither North Korea nor China would countenance the possibility of a regime collapse. All four players are incentivized to open up North Korea to some degree. North Korea would open up to receive economic aid, as it would like to reduce its dependency to China under Xi Jinping. South Korea would like to reinstate regular exchanges with North Korea as a way to lower the overall military tension. United States and China would like to enter North Korea regularly in order to ensure North Korea is complying with the denuclearization program. </div>
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Having this basic frame allows one to be creative about the actual structure of the deal. Here’s a pretty wild idea that nonetheless stays within this frame: a U.S.-North Korea alliance, with the U.S. putting a small contingent of its troops in North Korea that simultaneously performs three functions: (1) persistent on-the-ground inspectors who can keep a close eye on North Korea’s compliance with denuclearization on the ground; (2) security guarantee against U.S. military action, as U.S. cannot attack North Korea without sacrificing its own soldiers; (3) security guarantee against China, as a sign of commitment for U.S. to intervene if China ever attempted to topple the Kim Jong Un regime to replace it with more a Sino-friendly regime. This is a great deal for the United States and South Korea, a solid deal for North Korea, and a tolerable one for China. Yes, I know it is pretty far out; the point is not to say this will happen, but to stretch the realm of possible outcomes beyond what may seem intuitive. </div>
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Am I saying everything will definitely be all fine and dandy? Certainly not. It would be foolish to make specific predictions in the diplomatic equivalent of the moon landing. The U.S.-North Korea summit may not even happen, for reasons we cannot imagine as of now. But where each actor stands in this play is not a secret. Considering the possibilities offered by how their current stances intersect is hardly the “Kim Jong Un is a Swiss-educated reformer” kind of wishful thinking. Because every element that makes up this time is different, I am hopeful this time will be different.</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-77432850839135771202018-04-29T22:20:00.002-04:002018-06-02T23:05:58.175-04:00The Inter-Korean Summit<div style="text-align: justify;">
International relations is supposed to be a high-minded discipline. It is politics at the highest level, as the world knows no higher power than a national sovereign. The politicians in the international relations are often elevated beyond the banalities of governance, having transcended the pedestrian worries about keeping the road free of potholes. They are considered “statesmen,” the titans of humanity that set the rules for the world we live in. All kinds of abstract theories proliferate about how states, through their statesmen, think and behave.</div>
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Then we come to a moment like this, that suddenly breaks us out of the spell of those theories, and makes us realize this is all human endeavor, whose foundation ultimately is one man speaking to another.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un's tea time, broadcast live to the world. (<a href="http://news20.busan.com/controller/newsController.jsp?newsId=20180427000261">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Plenty of history was made in the inter-Korean summit on April 27. It was the first time that a North Korean leader stepped foot on the South Korean territory. It was the first inter-Korean summit that was televised live. It was the first inter-Korean summit in which North Korea put denuclearization as a topic for negotiations. It was the first inter-Korean summit in which wives of Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un—Kim Jeong-suk and Ri Sol Ju, respectively—met each other to dine together.</div>
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So it may be a bit of a letdown that the substance of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/04/27/the-panmmunjom-declaration-full-text-of-agreement-between-north-korea-and-south-korea/?utm_term=.ee47d9760073">Panmunjeom Declaration</a>—the first joint statement between the leaders of the two Koreas—seems a bit thin. It’s not nothing, to be sure: the two Koreas agreed to cease all hostile acts, engage in a mutual reduction of forces along the demilitarized zone, and set up a “peace zone” in the Yellow Sea so that civilian fishing there could resume. The two Koreas would establish a liaison office in Kaesong, North Korea, and link together rails and roads. Separated family meeting is set for August, followed by Moon Jae-in’s visit to Pyongyang. Most importantly, the two Koreas will work toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and a peace treaty that formally ends the Korean War that technically is ongoing. </div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.<br />
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Obviously, most of the points are aspirational. The most concrete and immediately helpful point is the Yellow Sea peace zone, as the body of water west of the Korean Peninsula is the only place in which the two Koreas still engage in hostilities at a regular interval. (As recently as 2010, North Korea attacked and sank a South Korean naval ship killing 46 sailors, and shelled the Yeonpyeong Island with artillery.) But denuclearization clearly is not going to happen immediately, if it happens at all. Many of these points were recycled from the previous inter-Korean summits from 2000 and 2007, under South Korea’s liberal administrations. Kim Jong Un says he is shutting down his nuclear testing facility and having the site available for international inspection, but even that measure (or at least, a comparable measure) has occurred previously as well. Seizing on this, the critics—the most churlish boors whose hearts were hardened beyond the capacity to be moved by the significance of the moment—gnashed their teeth and rent their clothes about how they have all seen this before, Kim Jong Un is lying, and all of this will end in tears. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in together steps over the <br />
concrete beam that marks the military demarcation line (<a href="http://www.sedaily.com/NewsView/1RYFK6D8HN">source</a>)</td></tr>
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But 2018 being a reprise of 2000 and 2007 is not a reason to fret. There is a good reason why the two Koreas had to re-affirm the previous commitments from 2000 and 2007 to get back to where they were 11 years ago: because the state of the affairs has considerably deteriorated in the interim. North Korea likely has the capability to deliver a nuclear weapon-mounted ICBM to the United States. It has also attacked and killed South Korean <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROKS_Cheonan_sinking">soldiers</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeonpyeongdo#2010_bombardment">civilians</a>. South Korea responded by cutting off economic exchange programs and calling for sanctions against North Korea. Just six months ago, with Donald Trump threatening “fire and fury” to “totally destroy North Korea,” a military conflict appeared to be all but certain—yet here we are. The moment when Kim Jong Un was in the South Korean territory was the farthest moment away from a war the two Koreas have ever had. That’s not nothing. In fact, that’s quite a lot of something.</div>
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It is worth noting the other reason why the re-affirmation of 2018 was necessary: the total failure of United States and South Korea's North Korea policy for the past decade. In 2008, South Korea’s presidency went from liberal to conservative, ushering in a decade of hawkish polices. United States went the other direction as Barack Obama came into office, but Obama’s main North Korea policy was a lukewarm, “let’s do nothing and see if North Korea would collapse on its own,” which was given a fancy name “strategic patience.” As we all know, North Korea did not collapse. In a decade since 2008, North Korea went from a rudimentary nuclear weapon that may or may not have worked to a credible showing of a nuclear weapon-mounted intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the continental United States. </div>
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Where is the accounting of blame for the past decade? The critics of the 2018 inter-Korean summit must answer that threshold question first. The critics must explain why their preferred policy of “not talking to North Korea” failed to produce any result for the past decade. Read <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/opinion/north-korea-south-korea-peace.html">Nicholas Eberstadt on the New York Times</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/dont-let-the-korea-summit-hype-fool-you-weve-been-here-before/2018/04/27/d9fad7ba-4a2d-11e8-827e-190efaf1f1ee_story.html?utm_term=.ce47b1e057bc">Max Boot on the Washington Post</a>, or <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-04-27/north-korean-peace-pledge-is-a-trap">Eli Lake on Bloomberg View</a>—all of them decry the previous failed attempts at a dialogue in the early 2000s, but have zero reference to the events of the past ten years, although the immediate past more obviously informs where things stand today.</div>
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Despite its many significant faults, the Sunshine Policy era of 1998 to 2007 still had several positives. Millions of South Korean visited North Korea. Separated families were able to meet regularly. Tens of thousands of North Koreans got a taste of capitalism by working in South Korea’s factories set up in Kaesong, North Korea. Tens of thousands of North Koreans successfully escaped their country and settled in South Korea in an orderly manner. What does the conservative era from 2008 to 2017 have to show for? Why aren’t we talking more about the insane outrage that <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-ultimate-choi-soon-sil-gate.html">a fucking shaman daughter was editing the Dresden Speech</a>, Park Geun-hye’s signature North Korea policy statement? Why is there no recognition that Obama’s “strategic patience” was nothing more than another instance of US liberal’s ideational bankruptcy when it comes to foreign policy? </div>
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The lack of answers for these most obvious inquiries reveals something important: the critics of the inter-Korean summit are out of ideas. For the past decade, they tried their own idea of trying to denuclearize North Korea, and failed. Read Eberstadt, Boot or Lake above again, or really, any take critical of the inter-Korean summit. Even as they criticize, the critics fail to present any alternative that would denuclearize North Korea while avoiding a nuclear war. The fact that they only criticize the actual events unfolding today without being able to offer a different path of their own clearly attests: they got nothing.</div>
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Then it’s no surprise that South Korean president Moon Jae-in has been the one driving the process. When I survey the intellectual landscape on North Korea analysis, I see liberal-leaning South Korean analysts supplying the most daring and innovative paths forward. Contrary to critics who can only harp on how this round of talks is just like the last rounds of talks, the South Korean analysts have thought deeply about the shortcomings of the Sunshine Policy era and came up with new ideas, which Moon Jae-in is implementing now. </div>
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As unlikely as these events may seem, they have followed the exact path that Moon Jae-in had plotted out. The way forward is likely to be even more treacherous, as we all know that the implementation is the real game. To see where we are headed, you could do worse than studying what the South Korean leadership has drawn up—which I will discuss more in depth in the next post.</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-46105165315678978812018-04-22T22:54:00.000-04:002018-04-23T08:01:24.101-04:00Korea's Nine Years of Darkness: Part V - The Turning Point<div style="text-align: justify;">
[<a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2018/04/koreas-nine-years-of-darkness-series.html">Series Index</a>]</div>
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<b>I. <u>Early Resistance</u> </b></div>
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From the start, Park Geun-hye was not merely unpopular with South Korea’s liberals. Rather, her election was <i>offensive</i>. Regardless of Park’s fairly legitimate achievements as the conservative party leader, it was clear that most of her appeal derived from her dictator father Park Chung-hee. To Korea's liberals who cut their teeth in politics by fighting against the dictators, the fact that the voters would voluntarily elect as the politician who openly peddled dictatorship nostalgia was repulsive. With the spy agency scandal hobbling the early part of her presidency, Korea’s liberals resisted Park Geun-hye from the very beginning. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With no warrant, the riot police destroys the glass door of the Kyunghyang Shinmun office,<br />
in an attempt to arrest the striking KORAIL labor union leaders. (<a href="http://www.journalist.or.kr/news/article.html?no=32544">source</a>) </td></tr>
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The first flare-up was in December 2013, when the labor union for KORAIL—the company that runs Korea’s railway system—began a general strike opposing the government’s proposal that would have led to privatizing the rail business. The Park Geun-hye government declared the strike illegal, and obtained the arrest warrant for the labor leaders. More than 4,000 riot police were marshaled to break the strike. With only the arrest warrants (and not a search warrant,) the riot police destroyed the doors of the building that housed the headquarters of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, Korea’s leading labor union. </div>
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The building also housed Kyunghyang Shinmun, a leading liberal newspaper, but that did not matter to the police. In a scene reminiscent of the darkest days of South Korea’s dictatorship, the riot police trashed the offices of a liberal newspaper en route to arresting the labor union leaders (who managed to escape.) In a clear violation of Korea’s labor laws, KORIAL placed all employees who participated in the strike—more than 6,000 workers—on an indefinite administrative leave, effectively firing them. The raid of the proudly militant KCTU sparked a series of strikes and protests, with each demonstration drawing up to 100,000, that lasted until February 2014. </div>
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(More after the jump.)</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
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On December 10, 2013, Korea University student Ju Hyeon-u wrote an open letter to his fellow students on a large poster paper, and posted it on a message board on campus, following the traditions of the student activists for democracy during the 1970s and 80s. Ju’s open letter, titled “Are you all well?” [안녕들하십니까], began by noting the mass layoff in KORAIL and other labor disputes. Then Ju exhorted: </div>
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“I simply want to ask: are you all well? Are you all living without much trouble? Is it ok to look away because it’s not your problem? I ask, are you hiding behind self-justification, telling yourself ‘I don’t care about politics’? If you are not well, you would not be able to help yourself but scream whatever it is that afflicts you. So I want to ask, one last time: are you all well?” </div>
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Ju’s open letter became an instant classic, inspiring other similar open letters. At first it was all the colleges in Seoul, then colleges around the entire country, then high schools, work places and city councils. In the world’s first wired society, it was this classic form of communication—an open letter, written with a marker on a poster board—that became more viral than anything else. </div>
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Political openings appeared to emerge as well. As discussed in the last part, Park Geun-hye administration had to deal with the spy agency’s election meddling scandal from the very beginning. Park’s bumbling response to the Sewol ferry disaster, followed by her appalling attempt to paint the parents who lost their children in the sunken ferry as her enemy, further hurt her approval rating. </div>
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Yet Korea’s liberal political liberals failed to capitalize on the tailwind generated from the “Are you all well?” campaign or Park administration’s missteps. At first, there seemed to be a ray of hope in March 2014, when the former presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-su decided to put behind him the bitter memories of Moon Jae-in pushing him out in the 2012 presidential race and join the Democratic Party, which was to be renamed as New Politics Alliance for Democracy. But when it came time for elections, NPAD disappointed yet again: in the local elections held in June 2014, NPAD essentially fought Park Geun-hye’s Saenuri Party to a draw. </div>
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Meanwhile, Park Geun-hye administration continued to put legal and illegal pressure on Korea’s liberals. In August 2013, the administration arrested Lee Seok-gi, Assembly Member for the United Progressive Party, for plotting insurrection (!) against the Republic of Korea, by planning attacks against telephone relay stations and a petroleum reserve. Yet the prosecution’s evidence was the thinnest: by the time the case was appealed to the Supreme Court, the prosecution all but admitted that the evidence for a supposed attack plan against a telephone relay station was no more than the record of internet search checking the share price for Korea Telecom. Although the trial court initially sentenced Lee to 12 years in prison for plotting insurrection, on appeal Lee was only convicted of the crime of possessing North Korean books and movies. </div>
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Regardless, in December 2014, the Park Geun-hye administration convinced Korea’s Constitutional Court to disband the UPP for “violating the basic orders of democracy” based Lee’s conviction. When the cable TV news channel JTBC hosted a UPP spokeswoman to make a case that the court decided incorrectly, Korea Communications Commission <a href="http://www.journalist.or.kr/news/article.html?no=32544">fined JTBC and censured the producers of the program</a>.</div>
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But truth was, even without the Park administration’s extraordinary step of disbanding a political party, Korea’s liberals were doing a fine job on their own of self-destruction. The NPAD spent nearly the whole 2015 feuding within itself. Moon Jae-in won the intra-party election held in February 2015 to become the head of the party. Yet Moon’s promise of “the party that wins” quickly became an embarrassment, as NPAD was demolished in the special elections held in April 2015 to fill the National Assembly seats vacated by the disbanded UPP. Although UPP’s districts theoretically were heavily left-leaning, the conservative Saenuri Party took three out of the four. </div>
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Broadly speaking, Korea’s liberal camp is an alliance of two factions: relatively young urbanites who were socioeconomically liberal, and the denizens of the southwestern Jeollabuk-do and Jeollanam-do provinces who suffered quasi-ethnic discrimination during the dictatorship era, as each dictator hailed form the southeastern Gyeongsangbuk-do province. Much like the U.S. Democratic Party’s alliance between socially liberal whites and the discriminated African Americans, Korea’s liberal alliance was a delicate liaison that required much work to maintain, even in the best of times. Moon Jae-in represented the urbanite faction, as did his former boss Roh Moo-hyun. As both Roh and Moon were from the Busan area in the southeast, the southwestern faction always quietly suspected that neither Roh nor Moon had the best interest of the southwest in their hearts. </div>
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NPAD’s drubbing grew this suspicion into a full-blown revolt. To placate the southwestern faction, Moon launched a special committee to suggest reform proposals for the party, and even offered to put himself through a no-confidence vote. But Moon’s patch-up job failed, as NPAD took another beating in the special elections held in October 2015. The next month, Ahn Cheol-su—having established himself as one of the leaders of the southwestern faction—loudly left the NPAD. A stream of liberal Assembly Members followed Ahn, to establish the People’s Party. With the “alliance” portion of the name NPAD now a misnomer, the main liberal party led by Moon Jae-in changed its name back to the Democratic Party. </div>
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With the National Assembly elections looming in 2016, Korea’s liberal politicians were split into two squabbling parties, all the while Park Geun-hye’s “concrete floor” of approval rating remained intact at around 40 percent. The liberals could hardly think of a more despair-inducing scenery. They began genuinely wondering if the liberal parties could salvage even one-third of the National Assembly—a terrifying possibility, as the two-thirds majority of the National Assembly may authorize a constitutional amendment. In late 2015, the reprise of Park Chung-hee’s Yushin Constitution, which made Park Geun-hye’s father the lifetime president, was emerging as a distinct possibility. </div>
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<b>II. <u>Turning</u></b></div>
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Paris, France is an unlikely place to provide a turning point for South Korean politics, but that's how history often works. In November 2015, a series of terrorist attacks in Paris—much of it concentrated at the Bataclan Theater—killed 130 people, in the deadliest attack since World War II. Seizing on the Paris attack, Park Geun-hye introduced the Terrorism Prevention Act, which would authorize the National Intelligence Service (the same august spy agency that interfered in the 2012 presidential election) to conduct broad surveillance against the public. </div>
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The proposed Terrorism Prevention Act would have been the beginning of the end for the Korean democracy. Even without the law, the NIS was already conducting surveillance on civilians, interfering with elections and running misinformation campaigns against liberal politicians and celebrities. The Terrorism Prevention Act would have made all those activities legal by allowing the NIS to designate terrorism suspect, on its own and without any oversight. </div>
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With liberals being the minority position in the National Assembly, defeat on the Terrorism Prevention Act seemed all but certain. Rather than bowing out meekly, the Democratic Party Assembly Members decided to go down swinging by employing the newly introduced parliamentary tactic: the filibuster. In 2011, expecting they would lose the subsequent National Assembly election, the conservative party pre-emptively installed the filibuster to prepare for their time as the minority party. But because Park Geun-hye led the party to an unexpected victory in 2012, the filibuster provision went unused. Against the Terrorism Prevention Act, the Democratic Party decided to dust off and deploy the ultimate parliamentary weapon. </div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijBebm-8vfDwThp6k0ZdVVM4LEV-sVrwoXtHlZky2xUafiSecfPJ1d58h77kh_X_SjCjSmLjeRx_9bl6XfSbdsDIpdQG-Zt9IFRSHlb_I9bhayyxaCE8fBHEh-afGAmxRPEBjl/s1600/%25EC%259D%2580%25EC%2588%2598%25EB%25AF%25B8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="1000" height="367" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijBebm-8vfDwThp6k0ZdVVM4LEV-sVrwoXtHlZky2xUafiSecfPJ1d58h77kh_X_SjCjSmLjeRx_9bl6XfSbdsDIpdQG-Zt9IFRSHlb_I9bhayyxaCE8fBHEh-afGAmxRPEBjl/s640/%25EC%259D%2580%25EC%2588%2598%25EB%25AF%25B8.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">National Assemblywoman Eun Su-mi of the Democratic Party,<br />
delivering filibuster speech that lasted ten hours and 18 minutes. (<a href="http://totalog.net/2200#.Wt1G1MgvxaQ">source</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The filibuster lasted nine days, or 192 hours and 17 minutes. Thirty-eight liberal National Assembly Members—29 from the Democratic Party, four from the People’s Party, four from the Justice Party and one independent—rose up one by one to speak against the legislation. The highlight of the filibuster was Assembly Member Eun Su-mi, who appeared third in line to speak for ten hours and 18 minutes. Overcoming the conservatives' boorish heckling, the tiny, bespectacled Eun spoke at length about the torture that she received as a democracy activist. After days of being beaten and having her head pushed into water at what is now the NIS, Eun Su-mi suffered through pneumonia and tuberculosis, and had to remove more than 20 inches of her small intestine. The filibuster concluded with Lee Jong-geol of the Democratic Party, who set the record by speaking for 12 hours and 31 minutes. </div>
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In the short term, the filibuster failed. After nine days, the Democratic Party stopped the filibuster, and the majority Saenuri Party passed the Terrorism Prevention Act, albeit with the most noxious provisions removed. But for those nine days, the Korean public were glued to the television for the unfolding political drama. The gallery for the National Assembly was packed; the National Assembly TV, Korea’s equivalent of C-SPAN, had record ratings. The public opinion on the Anti-Terrorism Act shifted by more than 10 percent, going from 46.1 percent in favor to 48.9 percent against in just a few days. For the first time in years, Korea’s liberal leaders made a positive impression on the country by fighting in a way that moved the hearts of the people. </div>
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<b>III. <u>Pride, Then Fall</u> </b></div>
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The filibuster should have been the blinking red light for the conservatives, a warning sign that they may be in trouble with the National Assembly election just two months away. Yet looking ahead the presidential election in 2017, the Saenuri Party made the same mistake that every group in power eventually makes: an intramural squabble. </div>
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Like a mirror image of the two factions in the liberal camp, Korea’s conservative camp is also made up of two factions: wealthy corporate executives and old, rural people with dictatorship nostalgia. Lee Myung-bak, the former CEO of Hyundai, was the leader of the first faction, while Park Geun-hye was the leader of the latter. In early 2016, the leader of the Saenuri Party was Kim Mu-seong, who led the corporate faction. (Kim is the guy whose arrogantly smooth no-look pass of his luggage on his way out of the airport <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D86ySwLHiPY">went viral.</a>) The Korean public all but assumed that Kim would be the next president of the Republic; but once again, they underestimated Park Geun-hye’s venality. </div>
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Unlike the US, Korea’s political parties do not run a strict primary for each district in the National Assembly. Each party is free to set up its own system of slating candidates for the elections. The major parties usually offer a combination of a primary election and a “single recommendation” to determine the candidates. Although this determination is a fractious process every election, the 2016 Assembly elections slate for the Saenuri Party was particularly fishy: it had far too many pro-Park Geun-hye faction cronies receiving single recommendations, while many of Kim Mu-seong’s entourage had to suffer through the primary election. Park’s faction went so far as to push two of Kim’s most heavyweight colleagues—Yu Seung-min and Lee Jae-o—from seeking re-election in their districts, which caused Yu to leave the party in late March. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvyI-BSiWqYHScqQBpco4UJXA3nIuajo0QKSrMhyuc_XsuR9nUMKvicWs-lUX6iBGMuRsf2Ds03u_jphtISv8F5J1lbfBHtZilm4DNTnSxEBKFd8C6_pcac3GhyrB6zxQ0Xs41/s1600/%25EA%25B9%2580%25EB%25AC%25B4%25EC%2584%25B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="353" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvyI-BSiWqYHScqQBpco4UJXA3nIuajo0QKSrMhyuc_XsuR9nUMKvicWs-lUX6iBGMuRsf2Ds03u_jphtISv8F5J1lbfBHtZilm4DNTnSxEBKFd8C6_pcac3GhyrB6zxQ0Xs41/s1600/%25EA%25B9%2580%25EB%25AC%25B4%25EC%2584%25B1.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kim Mu-seong, looking forlorn in Busan. (<a href="http://news.joins.com/article/19780616">source</a>)</td></tr>
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Kim could see the writing on the wall: Park Geun-hye was trying to push him out and install one of her favored cronies as the next presidential candidate. Rather than taking this sitting down, Kim Mu-seong pulled one of the most ridiculous stunts in Korea’s democratic history: he refused to give his approval to his party’s slate of candidates, putting the Saenuri Party at the risk of not being able to put any lawful candidate for the National Assembly. After he declared his refusal, Kim left Seoul to his hometown in Busan, where he staged a series of emo photo ops to display his agony. Because of this extraordinary rebellion, Park Geun-hye compromised to let Yu Seung-min and Lee Jae-o run again. </div>
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On April 13, 2016, the Republic of Korea voted on the National Assembly members for the next four years. On this day, Korea’s conservative began the long free fall. They are still falling today. </div>
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The exit polls were brutal enough: Saenuri would likely lose the majority, while the two liberal parties—Democratic Party and the People’s Party—would likely combine for the majority. The actual results were even more crushing for the conservatives: out of the 300 seats, the Democratic Party won 123 seats, becoming the largest party in the Assembly. Even Park Geun-hye’s hometown of Daegu produced a Democratic Assemblyman. The brand-new People’s Party strongly carried their regional base, winning 38 seats mostly based on the southwest. With the progressive Justice Party winning six seats, Korea’s liberal block collectively won 167 seats, a decisive majority. Saenuri grazed the lower range of the exit polls, winning 122 seats. </div>
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It would be wrong to conclude from this result that both conservatives and liberals messed up, but conservatives messed up more badly. Rather, liberals won by turning into a positive all the events that appeared to be a negative. Ironically, Park Geun-hye’s disbandment of UPP ended up insulating the remaining liberal parties from the conservatives’ favorite rhetorical weapon: the slander that the liberals were all communists. With the far-left party gone and its members forced out of politics, there were no more reasonable grounds to claim the liberals were communist. (To be sure, there are plenty of Koreans who unreasonably conclude all liberals are communist—but still, there are enough people who could be persuaded.) </div>
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Although the liberals split into two parties, each party ended up doing improving its position by focusing on its strength. Ahn Cheol-su left the Democratic Party complaining Moon Jae-in had too much power, a charge with more than a little truth. But with that power, Moon did much to remove the dead wood within his party and recruited a number of fresh faces—which included several heavyweight conservatives who served in the Park Geun-hye administration but were disillusioned by Park. The result was the newly energized, more professional Democratic Party that encompassed a broader ideological range. Meanwhile, the People’s Party gave a meaningful alternative to the disaffected voters in the southwest, who were tired of voting for the Democratic Party but could not bring themselves to vote conservative. </div>
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With the National Assembly victory at hand, the liberal spirit was finally on the upswing. But even for the most hopeful, no one in Korea was prepared for how spectacularly Park Geun-hye administration would self-immolate.</div>
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<i>Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at</i> askakorean@gmail.com.</div>
T.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.com9