Korea-Japan Relation Saga, Part III – WWII

See other posts in this series: Part I Part II Part IV Part V

This post is a particularly difficult for the Korean to write because, after all, he received a good amount of education in Korea, especially when he was young and impressionable. It is difficult for the Korean to be objective, but he will try his best.

We are still dealing with the question as to why Koreans hate Japanese so much. If you only read one post out of this series, the Korean recommends this one. Although there is plenty of bad blood that goes back thousands of years (as the Korean illustrated in earlier posts,) the old bad blood only comes back because the modern relation between the two countries was so incredibly bad.

First, some historical background. By early 20th century, Japan was emerging as a world-scale superpower both in terms of its economy and military strength. Its status was simply unrivaled in East and Southeast Asia, which produced no other nation that measured up to Japan. Subsequently, Japan began colonizing Korea and China. Korea was annexed to Japan in 1910, and was not liberated until 1945 after Japan had lost World War II.

It is important to realize that the nature of Japan’s 36 year rule of Korea was brutal and exploitative, in a way that was fundamentally different from most European colonization. European countries colonized areas that were not exactly “nations” in a modern sense, like India and sub-Saharan Africa. In India, for example, there was no shared sense of nationhood between Bengalis in the north and Tamils in the south. (In fact, they don’t even speak the same language, and to this day must use English to communicate.)

On the other hand, Korea had a very strong sense of nationhood that lasted for thousands of years; furthermore, Korea had despised its island neighbor for its lack of cultural achievements. Japan’s rule over Korea was therefore completely unacceptable to Koreans everywhere, and Koreans rebelled in a scale that was incomparable to any other colonized regions in the world. In reaction, in order to maintain its colony, the Japanese colonial government was constantly on surveillance, and its brutality escalated over the period of colonization, peaking at the end of World War II.

When one (especially a Western one) hears the words “Atrocities of World War II”, the first response would always be “Holocaust.” And there is no doubt that it is a good answer. On the other hand, such a focus on Holocaust tends to blind us from other atrocities of World War II. And it is a historical fact that many of those atrocities were committed by Japan, upon Korea and China. This is not to diminish the horror of Holocaust. There certainly has not been any mass murder that was as wide-scale, efficient, and systematic (and therefore horrific) as Holocaust. The atrocities committed by Japan are smaller in scale (because they didn’t quite kill 10 million people) and less systematic (because some of them essentially involved soldiers running amok while the government didn’t do anything, e.g. the Rape of Nanking, whereas the Holocaust was actively organized by the government.) But the Korean believes that the Japanese atrocities are at least as depraved as the Holocaust, if not more. It’s like trying to compare Timothy McVeigh and Charles Manson. McVeigh killed a lot more people after a lot more preparation, but Manson tortured his victims.

Here is the list of atrocities committed by Japan to Korea. They are organized by the Korean’s subjective ordering of least depraved to most depraved. Read on, and see if you agree with what the Korean said so far. For the things for which Wikipedia has an entry, the Korean provided a link. That does not mean that the Korean thinks the Wikipedia entries are entirely correct; they are there just for the sake of reference.

Various Cultural Affronts – the biggest thing under this category would be Japan’s attempt to change Korean names into Japanese style names, known as Chang-ssi-gae-myeong. As the Korean explained before, family name is extremely important to Koreans, and forcing to change them is an intolerable insult. Japan also stole innumerable treasures from Korea, such as porcelain products, paintings, old books, and so on.

Another affront was more subtle. The Japanese colonial government turned the main palace of the Korean Emperor into a zoo. Many palace buildings were torn down – the most notable is Gyeong-bok-gung, half of which was torn down to make way for the colonial government building. Still another is borderline hokey. The colonial government drove in hundreds of steel shafts into major mountain peaks in Korea, under the belief that doing so will cripple the spirit of the land. The shafts were still being dug out in Korea to this day.

Murder of Empress Myeong-Seong – Empress Myeong-seong was a strong-minded wife of Emperor Go-jong. She was a shrewd politician and a diplomat, who often tried to use other superpowers (mostly Russia) in the region to check the rising influence of Japan upon Korea. A Japanese lieutenant general (with or without the backing of the Japanese government is unclear) commissioned what is essentially a band of Japanese thugs to enter the imperial palace in broad daylight and stabbed the Empress to death. Her body was carried away into a corner of the palace and burned by the same band. This historical fact was recently recreated in a musical “Last Empress”, which played in the U.S. in 1998. Read the Wikipedia article here. (Scroll down to “Eul-mi Incident.”)

Kanto Massacre – in 1923, there was a massive earthquake in Kanto, Japan, which killed more than 50,000 people. In the aftermath of the earthquake, the Japanese government declared martial law, and issued a special advisory that Koreans were conspiring to commit murder, rape, arson, and poisoning the wells. This created a mob riot and massacring of Koreans living in Japan. Up to 6,000 Koreans are believed to have been killed. Read the Wikipedia article here. (Scroll down to “post quake violence”.)

Forced Labor – As World War II intensified, Japanese government drafted Korean men for its war efforts. The number ranges anywhere between 300,000 to 1 million. They were mostly put in hard labor, usually in mines or factories. Quite a few of them (estimates range from 20,000 to 200,000) were killed or injured in mines or factories with substandard (to put it nicely) labor conditions.

Torture and Massacre – Japanese colonial government liberally tortured those who were arrested on the suspicion of independence movement for Korea. The most well-documented case is that of Yoo, Guan-soon, who was a 19-year-old student of Ewha School when she played a key role in organizing the March 1st Movement, the largest mass-protest against the Japanese rule in 1919. Yoo was arrested and died in prison; her teachers at Ewha were able to retrieve her body because Ewha was established by Americans and Principal James Fry of Ewha threatened diplomatic actions if the body was not returned. The returned body of Yoo was in six pieces; her scalp was missing; her nose and ears had been cut off, and all of her finger and toenails were plucked off.

Brutal suppression of independence movement was not limited to individuals. In response to the March 1st Movement, in April 5th, 1919, Japanese military police marched into a village of Je-am-li, a village known for its Christian-based independence movement. The police rounded up roughly 30 Christians in the village into the town church, locked the doors and set the building on fire. 22 died trapped in the building, and 8 were shot outside of the church as they tried to escape.

Comfort Women – As World War II raged on, the Japanese military, directly and indirectly, rounded up between 100,000 and 200,000 women to be used sex slaves, euphemistically called “Comfort Women”, for the Japanese soldiers. These women were usually raped 20 times a day, and as many as 40 times a day, according to accounts from survivors. The women were mostly Korean and Chinese, but there were also a few Dutch and Australian (read: white) women kidnapped from Dutch Indies and various Pacific islands. Read the Wikipedia article here.

Unit 731 – this one is so incredibly depraved that the Korean can’t even go into describing it. He will only say that it was a secret medical unit of the Japanese military, conducting various human experiments. The Wikipedia entry is here. Just read it.

So, why do Koreans hate the Japanese?

How can they not?

-EDIT Oct. 21, 2008 7:07 p.m. EST- While the Korean put this part of the Korea-Japan saga as a representative sample, please remember that this is only one part of a four-part series. The Korean has been noticing that many of the comments here could have been addressed simply by reading other parts of the series. Therefore, please read all four parts before expressing any opinion. The Korean believes his readers are intelligent: waiting to grasp the full picture before opening one's mouth is the least that an intelligent person can do.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

For Crying Out Loud, Grow a Sense of Humor

[NOTE: Sorry readers, Blogger is acting up again. Click the title of the post to pull up this post only in order to watch the hilarious videos of Joe Wong.]

KoreAm magazine blog recently carried a post by Emil Guillermo, discussing a rising stand-up comic named Joe Wong. Here is Joe on the Late Show with Davie Letterman.

The Korean laughed. Laughed really, really hard. The Korean is an immigrant himself, and everything that Wong did was spot-on. The Korean showed the clip to the Korean Fiancee (also a first generation immigrant,) and she also laughed really, really hard. The Korean went on Youtube to find more clips, and Wong did not disappoint. Here is another clip:

Then the Korean read the post below it, and was disappointed. Unlike the Korean, Guillermo did not find Wong to be funny at all. After lobbing a few unnecessary low blows toward Letterman, Guillermo takes aim at Wong:

Blacks certainly wouldn’t welcome a modern reprise of racist pick-a-ninny jokes nor the second coming of Stepin’ Fetchit-type humor. So why should Asian Americans? That’s the trouble with Letterman selling Joe Wong as the face of Asian American comedy.

If Joe Wong taps into some universal truth, it’s stupidity. But when you’re barely represented in the media and stupid is all people see, an image problem is created. No one thinks all white people are like the Simpsons. Besides, they’re cartoons drawn in Korea. But for many, the only Asian they might see could be Joe Wong. When people laugh at Wong, an Asian immigrant lost in American society, they are laughing at and glorifying the everyday examples of racism.

To be fair, Guillermo sees value in self-deprecating jokes. But he thinks that such jokes do not suit Joe:

Certainly, self-effacing, self-deprecating humor can be useful. For Congressman Norm Mineta, it was standard to open every speech with a self-deprecating joke. But when you’re one of the most influential Asian Americans in Washington, you can afford the self-deprecation. Besides, the audience always saw it as charming.

But when you’re lowly Joe Wong, the self-deprecation is merely a re-affirmation of your lowliness. And Wong takes every Asian American down with him. With this everyman, we’re all the butt of the joke.

Guillermo closes with a reflection on Asian American comedy, and by essentially branding Joe as a traitor to his race:

Lately, I’ve come to appreciate the gifts of comedienne Margaret Cho. The comic genius continues to boldly shock and challenge cultural assumptions. Another Korean American, Tina Kim, never stoops to the stupid accent.

The correspondents’ dinner in Washington should represent quite a contrast. The Obama administration has done much to raise the Asian American profile. But all it takes is one Joe Wong in such a high-profile venue to imprint a new negative image within American pop culture. We no longer have to worry about white shock jocks doing accented ching-chong comedy bits anymore. (Hey, that’s racist.) Now, we have one of our own all too willing to debase us.

Authentic? No, just pathetic.

Strong words they are. The Korean does not shy away from strong words either. So here is the Korean's message to Emil Guillermo: "Get a fucking grip man, and grow a sense of humor."

First of all, Guillermo simply does not get Joe's jokes, and why they are funny. Take the joke about washing hands that Guillermo cited his post. The joke works in two stages -- the "inspiration" part, and the "children" part. The inspiration part is very clever. It focuses on a part of the commonplace language on which we rarely focus, and exposes a possible incongruence between the language and the purpose of the language. Then the joke proceeds by bridging the incongruence in a deliberately false manner.

Overall, that joke works a lot like Mitch Hedberg's "Yoplait" joke, which goes like this:

I opened-up a yogurt, underneath the lid it said, "Please try again." because they were having a contest that I was unaware of. I thought maybe I opened the yogurt wrong. Or maybe Yoplait was trying to inspire me. "Come on Mitchell, don't give up! PLEASE TRY AGAIN!! An inspirational message from your friends at Yoplait." Fruit on the bottom, hope on top.

(The Korean could not find the video of this joke for the life of him. Too bad, because Hedberg's delivery takes it to another level.)

(-EDIT 3/16/2010- Thank you, commenters Marten and Sungik. The Yoplait joke is at the 1 minute mark of the updated video.)

But Wong takes his joke one more step, in a pitch-perfect manner: “I wash my hands every time I use the bathroom, so my children don’t have to.” Now this joke is not only clever, but also has an element of sweetness to it. The joke now exploits the deliberate false cognition at full speed, and brings in a stereotypically Asian and immigrant concern for children. Many different things are at play here. The deliberate false cognition is funny. Father's concern for his child is sweet, but funny when it veers into something that does not seem to deserve that concern. (This is a huge appeal of Stuff Korean Moms Like, for example.) This concern packs an additional punch due to Wong's sincere delivery, made believable by the stereotype about Asians/immigrants and their concern for their children's future.

Guillermo does not understand any of this. Instead, he chalks up the reason for the laughter to such canard like the laughers' "need to feel superior" or Wong's "stupidity," playing the part of "the dumb Asian immigrant." Please! There is not a single dumb joke in Wong's bits shown on his two appearances on Letterman. All of Wong's jokes are incomparably better than the crude and unfunny ching-chong jokes. In fact, a good portion of Wong's jokes are not even about being an Asian immigrant. (For example, the "parallel parking" joke, the "blueberry vs. strawberry" joke, "baby on board" joke.)

In fact, Guillermo belies that it's not just Joe Wong that he does not get -- Guillermo does not get stand-up comedy as a whole. "Blacks certainly wouldn't welcome a modern reprise of racist pick-a-ninny jokes"? Really? Then how does Guillermo explain one of the most iconic black comedians giving this bit?

Fat, black women don't give a fuck what you think. She's going out on Friday night. She got an outfit on. That shit match. She got the pumps on, and the pump fat coming out the pump. That's right. It looks like they baking bread in her shoe.

"Baby, your foot ready yet?" "I'll just sprinkle some cinnamon on it!"

That's right. She got an anklet on, and that anklet's holding on for dear life. Black women don't give a fuck. She's like, "I'm sexy. I am sexy, yes, I am! I am the sexiest motherfucker here tonight! Yeah, I got a gut. There's some good pussy under this gut! That's right. You want some of this so you can "livin' la vida loca!"

Was the thunderous laughter for Chris Rock only came from the white people sitting in the Apollo Theater?

It is actually funny that Guillermo cites approvingly of Margaret Cho. Mind you, the Korean LOVES Margaret Cho. But we are talking about a woman who launched her career by (and drew a lot of flak for) talking about how her mother, complete with Korean accent, would call her daughter "moron" in a screaming manner. What about that routine "boldly shock[s] and challenge[s] cultural assumptions," as Guillermo puts it?

But the problem is not simply that Guillermo does not have a sense of humor. The larger problem is that Guillermo represents a certain mindset that is downright harmful to Asian Americans.

(More after the jump.)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

50 Most Influential K-Pop Artists Series: Introduction & Brief History

[Series Index]

It’s finally here – the much-anticipated 50 Most Influential K-Pop Artist Series.

This series will be about the influence on pop culture that K-pop artists had, not about who is the “greatest,” “most popular,” or “most innovative.” Of course an artist can be influential by being original, but originality alone is not the determinant of where a particular artist ranks. Rather, the rank of a particular artist will depend on the answer to this question: “How much influence did the artist(s) have on Korean pop culture?”

The influence can be both direct and indirect. The artist can be influential by being directly in the public consciousness for a decade, or by being influencing other artists who collectively changed the faces of Korean pop culture. In other words, this ranking has room for a short-lived innovator who was little known among Korean public, as long as the innovator influenced many other artists who in turn influenced Korean pop culture. This ranking also has room for a hugely popular K-pop artist whose music might be considered cheap and banal, as long as that popularity influenced Korean pop culture somehow.

Important part is that “influence” can be generated not simply from performing music, but also from other music-related activities. This is very significant for a number of people who are ranked, because they exerted influence on Korean pop culture as producers, composers, radio and TV show hosts, etc. However, for completely arbitrary reasons, the Korean limited the ranking to people who actually did some singing. (One can argue that the greatest Laker ever is the team owner Jerry Buss, but most people would think of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Kobe Bryant first.)

Before we get into the actual rankings, some history lesson is in order because K-pop in the current form that is popular around the world (and therefore mostly known to AAK! readers) revolves around boy/girl bands. In fact, the word “K-pop” at this point may have come to mean only Korean boy/girl bands instead of Korean pop music in general. But for the purpose of this series, K-pop is used to mean “Korean popular music,” i.e. commercially recorded music for the purpose of being consumed by the general public, which would exclude Korean traditional music or classical music.

At any rate, K-pop is much, much more than boy/girl bands. It has a short but rich history that acutely reflects Korea’s modern history. In fact, the history of K-pop as a whole can be fascinating narrative of how cultural transplantations operate, and how creativity flowers even in the face of constricting forces – be it political, social, or commercial.

Brief History of K-Pop

K-Pop Genre Influence Chart

Here is what will be known as the Korean’s most important contribution to K-pop critique. Introducing… K-Pop Genre Influence Chart.

First, about the technical details. Each decade (except for 1960s) has three columns, which stands for “early,” “middle” and “late” decade. In other words, the first column under 1990s means “early 1990s.” There are 20 rows, which each row representing roughly 5 percent. So if “hard rock” in the late 1990s takes up two rows, it means that hard rock had about 10 percent influence out of all available Korean pop music at that time.

This chart is necessary in order to put a given artist’s place in history in perspective. The Korean can talk about the greatest Korean heavy metal band of the late 1980s, but what does that mean? How does the greatest Korean heavy metal band of the late 1980s compare to the greatest Korean rapper in early 2000s in terms of influence?

Of course, like everything else on this blog, this chart is arbitrary and capricious to the Korean’s whim. Everything on the chart is the Korean’s estimates and nothing scientific. Also, the six genres represented in the chart may be too broad and crude. For example, it does not include electronica/techno, and instead folds the genre into different broadly defined categories, mostly depending on the target audience.

BUT, that does not mean the chart is completely off the reservation. The Korean generally knows what he is talking about, and much thought and research (via Internet, books and asking the Korean’s friends) went into creating this chart. The Korean is confident that while people may quibble with details of the chart, the broad strokes of the chart are correct.

With the chart in front of us, let us dive into the brief history of K-pop by decade (with videos!), after the jump.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Ask A Korean! News: Prince Fielder's hereto unknown Korean connection

Dear readers, the Korean is currently borrowing the Korean Girlfriend's laptop in order to report this amazing news of significant consequence.

On Friday, the Korean was watching the New York Mets versus Milwaukee Brewers baseball on his newly acquired HD TV, and the current major league home run leader Prince Fielder stepped into the box. Fielder is in the Korean's fantasy baseball team, the Inland Empire 66ers, so the Korean paid close attention.

Then the Korean noticed something so improbable that at first the Korean disbelieved his own eyes. The Korean reached for his remote, desperately hit "rewind" and "pause" on his DVR over and over and again, but it was there. So here is the news, reported for the first time here at Ask A Korean!:

Prince Fielder has a neck tattoo that says wangja ("prince") in Korean on his left neck. See the picture below.I mean, what the hell. Seriously, who the hell gets a tattoo in Korean? (Unless there is a good reason to, like Hines Ward who has his name tattooed in Korean because he is half-Korean.)

The Korean has no idea how to feel about this. On one hand, it could be seen as evidence that Korea is becoming more recognized in the U.S. in various ways. Formerly, East Asia consisted of China and Japan, and Korea was kind of an afterthought. But tattoo in foreign language is usually done because it is considered "exotic", so the Korean is not sure if this is the case that Korea is more known in the U.S.

The overwhelming feeling that the Korean experienced (especially upon looking at the picture again) was how stupid neck tattoos look. The Korean always thought neck tattoos were silly, but seeing one in letters that the Korean can recognize was really the clincher. Even if neck tattoos were in English, they are usually done in some Olde English font so they are not readily readable. But Prince Fielder's neck tattoo is written in plain, legible Korean. It is as if some regular Korean dude was hanging out and drinking with Prince Fielder one night, then Fielder passes out, and the Korean dude picked up a marker and wrote it on his neck as a joke. (Like poor Zach Braff here in Garden State.)

Did anyone else notice any Korean tattoos on people? The Korean would love to hear your story. Please write on the comment, or email the Korean.

Got a question or comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com

50 Most Influential K-Pop Artists: 48. Dongmulwon

[Series Index]

48.  Dongmulwon [동물원, "Zoo"]

Years of Activity:  1987-2003

Members:

Regular Members
Yoo Joon-Yeol [유준열] - Vocal, guitar
Park Ki-Yeong [박기영] - Vocal, keyboard
Bae Yeong-Gil [배영길] - Vocal, guitar

Temporary Members
Kim Chang-Gi [김창기] - Vocal, guitar
Park Kyeong-Chan [박경찬] - Vocal, guitar, keyboard
Lee Seong-Woo [이성우] - Vocal, guitar
Choi Hyeong-Gyu [최형규] - Drum
Kim Gwang-Seok [김광석] - Vocal

Discography:

Regular Albums
Dongmulwon [동물원] (1987)
Dongmulwon Second Collection of Songs [동물원 두번째 노래 모음] (1988)
Dongmulwon Third Collection of Songs [동물원 세번째 노래 모음] (1990)
Dongmulwon Fourth Collection of Songs [동물원 네번째 노래 모음] (1991)
Dongmulwon 5-1 [동물원 5-1] (1993)
Dongmulwon 5-2 [동물원 5-2] (1993)
Dongmulwon 6 [동물원 6] (1994)
Dongmulwon Seventh [동물원 일곱번째] (1997)
Dongmulwon Eighth Story [동물원 여덟번째 이야기] (2001)
Dongmulwon Ninth Footprint [동물원 아홉번째 발자국] (2003)

Special Albums
Dongmulwon in Concert [동물원 in Concert] (Live, 1994)
Dongmulwon Revisited [다시 가본 동물원] (Compilation, 1996)
Dongmulwon Best [동물원 베스트] (1999)

In 15 Words or Less:  The amateur representative of Korean folk rock.

Representative Song:  Hyehwa-Dong, from Dongmulwon Second Collection of Songs.

혜화동

Hyehwa-dong

오늘은 잊고 지내던 친구에게서 전화가 왔네

Today, a phone call came from a friend I had forgotten

내일이면 멀리 떠나간다고

Tomorrow he is going very far away

어릴적 함께 뛰놀던 골목길에서 만나자 하네

Says let us meet at the alleyway where we ran and played as children

내일이면 멀리 떠나간다고

Tomorrow he is going very far away

덜컹거리는 전철을 타고 찾아가는 그 길

The way over, taking the rumbling subway

우린 얼마나 많은 것을 잊고 살아가는지

How many things have we forgotten as we live

어릴 적 넓게만 보이던 좁은 골목길에

The narrow alleyway that seemed so wide when we were young

다정한 옛친구 나를 반겨 달려오는데

My good old friend runs to greet me

어릴적 함께 꿈꾸던 부푼 세상을 만나자 하네

Says let us meet the beautiful world we dreamed together as children

내일이면 아주 멀리 떠나간다고

Tomorrow he is going very far away

언젠가 돌아오는 날 활짝웃으며 만나자 하네

Says someday when he comes back let us meet with big smiles

내일이면 아무 멀리 간다고

Tomorrow he is going very far away

덜컹거리는 전철을 타고 찾아가는 그 길

The way over, taking the rumbling subway

우린 얼마나 많은 것을 잊고 살아가는지

How many things have we forgotten as we live

어릴 적 넓게만 보이던 좁은 골목길에

The narrow alleyway that seemed so wide when we were young

다정한 옛친구 나를 반겨 달려오는데

My good old friend runs to greet me

랄라 랄라라 랄라랄라라 라랄라랄라라

Lala Lalala Lalalalala Lalalalala

우린 얼마나 많은 것을 잊고 살아가는지

How many things have we forgotten as we live

Translation Note:  Hyehwa-dong is a district in the center of Seoul, with many colleges, theaters and coffee shops.

Maybe they should have been ranked higher because...  Actually, this is about as high as this band could possibly go.

Maybe they should have been ranked lower because...  See the discussion below.

Why is this band important?

The Korean can already hear the objections of those who are conversant at K-pop. Clazziquai at 49, but Dongmulwon at 48? Dongmulwon never once had a number one song on the charts. It never had a huge media presence, nor did it ever attract a screaming horde of girls. It was not even very musically talented, as it was a band made up of a rotating group of amateurs. Their songs do not require a huge range of voice, nor do they require a particular skilled hand at the guitar. Perhaps at that point the objectors might recall that this list is subject to the Korean’s arbitrary and capricious whim, and stop reading altogether.

But the Korean’s ranking is not completely off the reservation. The Korean believes his placement of Dongmulwon at 48 is justified, because of the significance of folk rock as a genre in K-pop history, and Dongmulwon’s significance within that genre cannot be discounted.

Let us ask the basic question one more time: What is K-pop? The Korean defined this term earlier as popular music of Korea, recorded for commercial purposes. While this definition does a decent job at defining what “pop music” is, it has a glaring deficiency – what does “music of Korea” mean? Does this mean that the music has to be sung in Korean language? Does this mean that the singer of the music have to of Korean ethnicity?

Implicitly, the Korean so far has been employing a broad definition of “music of Korea” – music of artists who were/are primarily active in Korea, such that their music operates within Korean popular culture. But perhaps a different definition can be used – a definition that refers to Korea as not merely as a geographical location, but as a cultural and spiritual sphere. Under this definition, “music of Korea” would simply mean: music that reflects “Koreanness,” the emotional core that characterizes Korea.

To be sure, the two definitions are not mutually exclusive. Generally, music that survives in Korean popular culture does so because it contains some measure of “Koreanness” that appeals to its fans, i.e. Koreans. But in discussing influence – which, again, is what this chart is intended to measure, not popularity, talent or fame – the Korean thinks it is fair to give a higher mark to artists who did a better job at reflecting “Koreanness”. This is so because the popular music that survives in the minds of the public (i.e. becomes influential) is the one that reflects the essential zeitgeist of the times.

In fact, this is exactly the reason why pretty girl/pretty boy artists across the world receive no respect for the aesthetic quality of the music they perform. Pretty people exist across the space and time. So do banal and saccharine love songs. They simply do not reflect any essential quality of their life and time. Accordingly, Bob Dylan’s music survived the times and remains influential, but Britney Spears’ did not.

Korean folk rock is the most significant K-pop genre because it is the genre that did the best job at reflecting the life and times of Koreans. For all of Clazziquai’s considerable talent, there is not much about techno/electronica that reflects the emotional core that is particular to Koreans. Same with heavy metal, and even less so with ballad or generic dance music. (A more serious case might be made for trot or rap, which will be discussed later in the series.) This is so because folk rock is a message-driven music. The music itself in folk rock is never complicated – many of the times it only involves a single guitar. The main focus of folk rock is always about the message carried in the lyrics, contained the simple and flexible vessel of its melody.

Dongmulwon is important because it is one of the finest representations of what folk rock in Korea is all about. The band was made up of rank amateurs, friends from high school and college. It was no more than a hobby, and except for a few members who left the band to become professional musicians (among which the most notable was Kim Gwang-Seok, who later became a legend,) everyone had a day job. None of their songs involved sophisticated tunes or particularly outstanding singing. But they nonetheless managed to put out nine albums over 15 years, exactly because they did such an outstanding job reflecting exactly how Koreans were feeling at the time of their music.

In fact, Dongmulwon’s most representative songs are all about certain recognizable places. Other than Hyehwa-dong that was translated above, their most popular songs were On the Street [거리에서] and At the Subway Station in front of the City Hall [시청 앞 지하철역에서]. Because the places are familiar to their listeners (although not necessarily for non-Koreans or Koreans of later generations,) the emotions that are evoked by those places are also familiar.

Since late 1980s through 1990s, Korea was a fast-changing place that left every Korean feel rushed and hurried. As the dictatorship was ending, Koreans were freer but not too free; as the country industrialized, Koreans were not poor but not too wealthy. Hyehwa-dong is a beautiful representation of the zeitgeist of such times – vague sense of loss and fatigue caused by changes, but small joys that spring up regardless. The friend is leaving, but they will see each other one more time. The alleyway now seems small, but it carries fond memories.

Dongmulwon was never the most prominent figure in K-pop history. But the band is important because decades later, people will turn to their songs to reminisce how things were in Korea at the time. More popular or more talented musicians might fade into history, but Koreans will keep singing Dongmulwon's songs.

Interesting Trivia:

- The band is named "Zoo" because the members thought that they were being caged, both by the stiffness of the society and ideology-driven college culture at the time. But the first suggestion for the band name was "Ballad for Ewha Students" [이대생을 위한 발라드], based on the jocular calculation that simply selling albums to Ewha Woman's University students would let them sell at least 1,000 copies.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

The Lee Jung Hee Hoax

Dear Korean,

I am curious about your thought on the Lee Jung Hee scandal that happened earlier this year, since it is so bizarre and apparently trending in the various social media. Could you please share some words about the scandal?

Eugenia

TK really, really did not want to get into this one, but it was simply ridiculous how many of you asked this question. So let's go.

The Lee Jung Hee scandal began with a sensational allegation made on a website late June this year. The full version of of the allegations is available in English here. The short version of the allegation is this:  

A woman named Lee Jung Hee, who is in her 40s and has two teenage sons, claimed that she and her sons have been subject to decades of sexual abuse at the hand of her husband. Lee was forced to marry her husband, who was a pastor, in her 20s, after having been raped by him and got pregnant. Since then, Lee's husband forced her into prostitution for 20 years, during which she was forced to partake in orgies while being drugged. Her sons were also forced into the orgies after they became older. All told, Lee was raped by "around 1,000 people" for 20 years, and her sons "around 300 people." The orgies were filmed, and the participants of the orgies sold the videos and shared the profit.

Lee finally escaped in 2014 and called the police on her husband, but there was minimal investigation as the participants of the orgies were politically and socially powerful men. Instead, the police committed one of Lee's sons to a mental institution, where he developed psychosis.

This story started going around the Internet in Korea, because it had all the sensational elements--a twisted mixture of sex, power, religion, denial of justice. Lee and her sons repeatedly made their case on the Internet, writing more testimonials and filming Youtube interviews. Eventually, the story was translated into various languages. The #helpleejunghee hashtag campaign began; there was (and is) a Facebook page also. A change.org petition garnered more than 37,000 signatures. 

Lee Jung Hee and her two sons, from their Youtube interview
(source)

As we know now, this was all a hoax. The monstrous former husband, who was supposedly blocking the police investigation because he was so well-connected with powerful people, was no more than an old pizza delivery man living in a crappy studio apartment. Lee led to the journalists to a rural village, claiming that her perpetrators lived there--not just one or two of the perpetrators, but according to Lee, the whole village was a sex colony that raped her and her sons. (But why would these allegedly rich and powerful men who assaulted her and her sons live in a crappy rural village?) The police did investigate the former husband when Lee initially claimed sexual assault to the police. After four months of investigation, the police did not find any nefarious orgy picture or video, nor did they find any sign of drug use from the former husband.

The real story was simpler and made much more sense. Lee and the former husband were indeed married, and were in the process of divorce. The former husband did beat Lee and the children, which resulted in a favorable divorce for Lee. It was when the husband appealed the decision by the divorce court that Lee began claiming sexual assault. Her story fell apart as soon as the more serious Korean media began their investigation. Earlier this month, Lee was arrested on the charges of malicious litigation and child abuse; Lee's children were separated from their mother and were placed in protective services.

TK stayed away from this story from the beginning for a simple reason: it smelled funny. The story did not make any sense internally. Who would pay to have sex with one woman and two young boys, along with a bunch of other men? Maybe that could happen once or twice, but over 20 years? Really? Who would even pay to watch the video of that happening? Have you even seen what kind of porn is available on the Internet nowadays? But because very unlikely things do happen in real life, TK was willing to let the story play out, and see what the more serious people would have to say about this topic. And as soon as the media scrutiny came in, the story crumbled entirely.

The lesson from the hoax is an enduring one: Internet justice campaign is for gullible idiots. Tens of thousands of people bought into this transparent bullshit because . . .  well, I don't know why. I don't know why people feel compelled to put their name down on something without knowing what is going on. I don't know why people put their name down on something while having no way to know what is going on. (This applies especially to non-Korean people who cannot access regular Korean media.) I don't know why people think putting their name down on some corner of the Internet helps in any way.

The Lee Jung Hee scandal shows once more that this kind slacktivist campaign is no more than a cheap moral masturbation, a blind dog wandering aimlessly and biting anything that gets in the way. The only way to make your sense of justice meaningful is to think critically, and act. Do not just get indignant at bad things, but actually study them, so that you grow the ability to discern what is really a bad thing, and what is a caricature of a bad thing. When you are reasonably confident that bad things are happening, take action instead of talking. Invest your time, put in your money, give your expertise. Protest in the streets, serve the needy, sue the powerful. Much of the world's problems would be no more if people did these things as often as they signed another meaningless Internet petition.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Ask a Korean! News: Currency Reform in North Korea (Part 2)

(Continued from Part 1 of the series. Original article in Korean here.)

Mission: Impossible, and North Korea's Utter Failure

There is little possibility that prohibition on foreign currency use, issued as a follow-up to the currency reform, would continue to be implemented. (*In fact, as of February North Korea gave up on the enforcement of the prohibition.) North Koreans who possess foreign currency right now are simply sitting on it, waiting for the time when the exchange rate stabilizes. (*The same today, which is about two months since this article was written.) They absolutely do not think that it would be impossible to use foreign currency in the future.

Another North Korean sources said on January 8: "It has been more than a month since the currency reform, but even today the exchange rate goes up and down by 100 percent so it is impossible to know the exact exchange rate," and added: "It will not be until March when the exchange rate between North Korean money and foreign currency would stabilize. Right now there are few transactions." (*The fluctuation in exchange rate is still great enough to cast doubt as to whether the exchange rate will stabilize in March. The stabilization may come in April.) To this reporter who raised doubt about the possibility of being able to continue using foreign currency under the regime's control, the source boasted: "There is no problem at all. It is not as if we have been using foreign currency because the government told us to use it."

The vast majority of North Koreans who are sitting on foreign currency is party officials. The officers who should be in charge of control are actually the ones who most desire the foreign currency ban to be ineffectual. Therefore, it seems likely that the power of dollar and yuan in North Korea will remain strong. (*This prediction by the North Korean source is proving to be very wise at this point.)

國際先驅導報, a Chinese daily, reported on January 7 that Joseon Trade Bank, North Korea's bank that clears trades, set the exchange rate between dollar and the new currency at 96.9 won per dollar. But North Korea's externally posted exchange rate is meaningless. Customarily so far, the exchange rate between dollar and yuan in North Korean black markets was nearly the same as that in China. In other words, if a dollar is exchanged for 6.8 yuan in China, the same rate holds in North Korea.

In addition, even the currency exchange counters in various regions that are run by the government exchanges foreign currency based on the exchange rate in the marketplace. In other words, the externally posted exchange rate is literally for show; even the regime itself does not recognize that exchange rate internally. (*Recently there has been a report where a high-ranking North Korean official admitted to this. There is no need for Korean media to even discuss North Korea's official exchange rate.)

Interesting thing to note is that the value of foreign currency in North Korea tends to go together with the price of rice, which serves as the standard for the value of goods in the marketplace. The rice price, in turn, goes together with the price of rice in the regions of China close to North Korea. Although there is a seasonal factor, usually rice in a North Korean marketplace costs around 1.2 times the cost in China, reflecting the cost of transportation.

The currency reform devalued the money 100 to 1, but it is likely that the reform will become ineffective and the price of goods will revert to the price previous to the reform. (*Even after 100-to-1 devaluation, the price of goods has already climbed to 25 percent of pre-reform price.) For example, right before the reform, rice cost 2200 won for 1 kg and 1 dollar was 3800 won in old money. According to the spirit of the currency reform, 1 kg of rice should be 22 won and 1 dollar should be 38 won in new money. But only one month since the currency reform, 1 kg of rice sells at 200 won and 1 dollar exchanges for over 100 won. (*At mid-February, two months since the reform, 1 kg of rice sells for 500 won in northern North Korea.) Because everyone is hiding their foreign currency in the face of foreign currency prohibition, the exchange rates for dollars or yuans are fluctuating by hundred percent in the same day.

At this point, the marketplace continues to operate as it did before the currency reform. While they have no choice but to show up at marketplace in order to eat and survive, the merchants and the people are confused by the price that runs on a roller coaster several times a day. As the regime decided to pay the laborers the same face value of salary as it was before the reform, the price will likely continue to rise. (*This is actually happening.)

The merchants at the marketplace are the ones who are harmed the most by the currency reform, but farmers on the other hand received the most benefit. Some farmers find themselves rich overnight because of North Korean farms' distribution system. Unlike laborers who receive a monthly salary, farmers receive their entire year's worth of compensation in cash around December through the distribution process. The distribution amount differs depending on one's "effort count".

An "effort count" is a numerical count of the daily labor performed by a farmer. The distribution amount, following the effort count, also depends on the amount of production each farm generated. Therefore, taking North Korea as a whole, a farmer family receives anywhere between several tens of thousand won to several million won. Last December when the farmers received their distribution was when the price for grain and goods, counted in new money, was the lowest. Farmers who anticipated the exacerbating inflation and the rise in price attempted to turn their entire distribution money into goods and sit on them.

This atmosphere is vividly reflected on the January 3rd report by Joseon Shinbo, the official newsletter for North Korean-Japanese Association [TK: 조총련], which described the throng of people at Pyongyang Department Store No. 1. According to the report, the department store spent a week from December 22, 2009 to procure 440 types of items, four million items total, in preparation for the New Year's Day. It must have been a significant strain on the regime to procure this much. But because of the size of the crowd on the morning of the New Year's Day, the department store opened at 7:30 a.m. instead of its normal time, 10 a.m. Just in the morning, 155 televisions and 550 sheets of blankets were sold.

The newsletter said, "There were so many customers that there was hardly room to take a step in the department store. The store at one point had to cordon off the entrance around 3 p.m. because the crowd was simply too big." It added, "There are high-earning families among farmers or miners." It also added, "Lee Geum-Ok, a farmer in Hyeongje-san District, said she received 50,000 won in distribution, and she along with all the farmers in her unit will buy a color television." Also noted is "One farmer who visited the department store that day said his entire family worked at the farm and earned 1.45 million won as a family."

Farmers are convinced that within a few months, the price of goods that they purchased will jump by several times or several tens of times. In fact, except for a few government-run stores in Pyongyang, the price of goods at the marketplace is furiously rising every day. (*The farmers' actions are proving to be a wise move. The farmers who immediately sat on goods with their distribution money made a significant gain.)

The price rises in large part because of stockpiling, not simply by farmers but by everyone. There are many who support the currency reform among those who are able to stockpile. But they do not necessarily expect things to continue to be better simply because their life right now has improved a little. Stockpiling is a reflection of that mindset; they believe that actual goods are much safer than the untrustworthy North Korean money. Because the wholesalers are keeping their goods in warehouses, and regular people are stockpiling what little goods that the regime procures or the grain that come out into the marketplace, the shortage in North Korea is increasingly getting worse. This feeds into the vicious cycle that leads into the rise in price.

Therefore, unless the North Korean regime finds an ingenious way to pull out the goods that individuals are hiding, the social unrest can only grow. Right now the regime is trying to forcibly cut off the supply chain of individually-owned goods by eliminating the marketplace, but that measure has little possibility of success. (*As expected, it has been proven that there was no real ingenious way, and the situation ended with North Korea simply recognizing the presence of the marketplace.) North Korean people, through their experience from the last decade, know that a transaction can happen regardless of time and place as long as they hold the goods.

This round of currency reform also provided South Korea with certain food for thought.

Shortly after the news of currency reform broke, South Korean media was flooded with the sensationalistic news as if riots were impending in North Korea. However, this reporter who investigated North Korea at the same time heard that the public opinion on the currency reform was in fact significantly favorable. Despite this, the media that relayed the currency reform news only contained the voices of angry North Koreans. (*As I said previously, the favorable opinion has changed in the last month and a half.)

Of course, there could be legitimate reasons. The North Koreans who can speak on the phone with South Korea are likely to be the victims of the currency reform. It is reasonable to infer from their ability to communicate with South Korea that they received a lot of money in the process as well. But even more so than these reasons, this reporter detected the prejudice in South Korea that, "North Korea regime can never do anything that may be welcomed by the people, nor should it."

The news of currency reform was relayed mainly through North Korea-related NGOs that engage in anti-Kim Jong-Il activities. It is difficult to blame a politically motivated group for publicizing only the information that is necessarily for their goal. (*Naturally.) But I believe that the media should not jump into that fray, looking only for sensationalistic stories. As long as it was sensational, a report by a nameless Taiwanese media company -- which Korean companies did not even glance at, and has nothing to do with North Korea -- would be quoted in the front page of Korean newspaper and the main story of Korean television news. (*To give a neologism name, it is a typical pingpong reportage.) Truly embarrassing.

Another interesting point is that it is getting increasingly more difficult for the traditional media to maintain its lead in North Korea-related news. In the Internet age when an individual could be a one-man media through such channels as blogs, the traditional media's advantage is disappearing. North Korea's currency reform starkly exemplified this trend. North Korea-related organizations poured out news related to the currency reform, and the traditional media did no more than following them and taking notes.

In contrast, it was the North Korea-related organizations who were engaged in a competition to break news. While these groups sometimes provided incorrect information due to excessive competition, lack of experience and understanding with the press, their political leanings, etc., more notable was that South Korean media does not have the ability to sufficiently distinguish the worthy North Korean news from the worthless ones. (*There were actual examples of simply taking dictations of information that was hardly credible.)

The reportage on the currency reform was also a symbolic moment of the presence of North Korean defector organization, while providing an occasion to question the ability of government agencies (run with a massive budget) to collect North Korean intelligence. While the defector organizations made reports on real time basis, the government only repeated for several days that it could not confirm. There were also reports that Intelligence Committee of the National Assembly continued to chastise the lack of intelligence gathering in North Korea. While the defector organization cannot yet collect much high-level intelligence, it is undeniable that their information-gathering power is increasing.

This reporter tried to avoid listing the current price in North Korea in this article. The price fluctuation and the regional differences in price are so great that, at this point, there is no such thing as a fair price. (*This situation is the same in February.) The North Koreans who were reported unanimously say: "Right now we just have no idea about what's what."

Truly, North Korea has now entered into chaos that North Koreans themselves have difficulty understanding. Even after more than a month since the reform, there is no sign of this chaos abating. (*At this point, three months after the reform, North Korea regime unconditionally allowed the marketplace to open in order to calm this chaos. In the end, the only solution for the chaos was to go back to where things were before the reform.)

That is the magnitude of the shock that the currency reform caused on North Korea. Can the North Korean regime stabilize this chaos and restore planned economy? Taking away the taste of market economy from those who already tasted them may be a Mission: Impossible. (*Conclusion -- Within three months, it has been proven that North Korea made an impossible challenge. It has also been proven that now, North Korea can never return to the planned and controlled economy.)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

(Before we begin – the AsianWeek magazine is now embroiled in a controversy because it published a column by an idiot named Kenneth Eng called “Why I hate blacks.” Since then, AsianWeek pulled the column, fired Eng, and issued an apology. The Korean can’t believe that people are pre-empting what he is about to write. The Korean hopes this post would help.)

Dear Korean,

So what is the relationship of Koreans and black people? Why the prejudice? Why do you think when a white man marries a Korean woman they are viewed as a cute couple, but if it is the same is for a black man they question the woman’s character?

Black man happily married to a Korean for 25 years, and no, I was not in the Army in Korea.

- William J.

Dear Korean,

Please explain Korean people’s strong prejudice against black soldiers (your words). My uncle, a black man, died in the Korean War. This is not an angry email, just an attempt to understand. Thank you.

- Kevin

Dear William and Kevin,

First, to Kevin. The Korean is deeply grateful for your uncle. The Korean is often flip in this blog, but he is most serious in this occasion. If it were not for American soldiers’ sacrifice in the Korean War, the Korean would probably be starving somewhere in communized Korea, writing for the BS website that the dictatorial government set up.

But the Korean is afraid that you misunderstood the earlier post. The Korean is certain that there was relatively less prejudice against black soldiers at the time of Korean War. But there is no question that since then, Koreans (and Korean-Americans alike) developed strong prejudice against black folks – and that is essentially why William’s question arose.

To put it bluntly, many Koreans and Korean Americans tend to be racist toward black people. The Korean wishes it were otherwise, but it is true. Below is the reason why.

Racism as a Heuristic

What is racism? As we all know, racism is broadly defined as passing a judgment upon an individual based on the individual’s race. And racism is an evil because we cannot control our race, and our race has an extremely poor correlation to our character.

However, see it from the judgment-passer’s point of view, and the reason why people become racists begins to make sense. Racism is a type of what cognitive scientists call “heuristics” – basically, making decisions based on analytical shortcuts. A simple example: our cognition tells us that “it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck.” Then our conscience concludes that “it’s a duck.”

Heuristics is a big part of the way humans deal with things, because humans don’t have the time to evaluate everything around them. It is effective to engage in heuristics because first of all, it takes too much energy to remember everything about a certain thing. Think of it from the perspective of evolutionary biology. Suppose we were out hunting, and our fellow was killed by a saber tooth tiger. Do we remember everything about that saber tooth tiger for a future reference? No, we only remember the most salient features of the animal, which would be its size, color, and the two fangs.

Heuristics is efficient because in most cases, humans don’t need a 100 percent right answer. Going back to the example, suppose while we are roaming the field hunting, we run into an animal that appears to be large, yellow-ish, and has two large fangs. Do we stay and completely evaluate whether or not this animal is in fact a saber tooth tiger and therefore dangerous? No, we run for our lives.

So heuristics work in two steps. First, when we encounter a new thing, we create a “tag” in our mind to associate with the new thing’s characteristics. Always, without fail, that tag is a highly visible and readily identifiable trait. Second, when we see that tag in another new thing, we draw conclusion that the second new thing is the same as the first thing. The process is hardly foolproof, but it’s extremely effective – it probably allowed human race to survive this long.

The application is the same in our modern life. We always create a quick tag to describe things around us, (e.g., “George W. Bush is an idiot,” “Southerners are conservative,” “Canadians are slow”) and for most things we don’t bother to learn more. We do it because we don’t need to learn everything about everything, and we can’t possibly learn everything about everything. The next step is the same too. For example, popular perception has created a heuristic statement of “blonds are dumb.” Once we have that heuristic in our head, next time we see a blond, our mind will point toward “dumb.”

So, as we consider Koreans and racism, we have to think in terms of heuristics – what the markers are, and what the conclusion is.

Racist Heuristic Step 1 – Markers

Heuristic markers are something that stands out very prominently. Then, what stands out more than how different black people’s appearances are from Korean people’s? The skin tone of a black person is something that no Korean has ever seen. But it goes beyond the skin tone. The question that the Korean gets asked most from his Korean relative and friends about black people’s appearance is: how do they manage their hair, especially if they are braided? Do they even wash it? If they do, how?

In short, black people are really, really foreign to Koreans – to a much greater degree than white people. At one point in Korean history (until shortly after Korean War,) white people were just as foreign. The Korean’s parents’ generation would talk about how white people have blond hair and a big nose. (One derogatory Korean term for a white person is ko-jaeng-i, roughly translated as a “noser” or “nosie.”) But several decades passed, American movies and TV shows steadily streamed into Korea, and Korean people got used to white people. Although white people looked different from Koreans, they seemed like a variation on a theme. (Do you now understand why colored people make such a big deal about how Friends had no black person in it?)

Racist Heuristic Step 2 – Conclusions

So when a Korean sees a black person, his/her skin tone, coarse hair, etc are the only thing that stays in mind. In some sense, it is already racist at this step because that Korean would not probe deeper into that black person’s character. But what makes Koreans really racists are the heuristic conclusions that they derive from the skin tone.

What are the conclusions? The same conclusions that the mainstream society gives to black people – lazy, dirty, prone to crime, addicted to drugs, closer to animals than humans. Why is that?

In part, it has to do with a bias within Koreans with regards to skin tone. Koreans are, being Asian, yellow. But actual skin tone of any given Korean in fact varies by a ton – nearly covering the spectrum of the whitest of the white and the blackest of the black. And among Koreans, there is a bias of favoring the light-skinned people, and disfavoring dark skin tones. Why? Because dark skin means that you are one of the peasants, out in the field and working all day under the sun. Light skinned people are the nobility – they can afford to stay at home and out of the sun.

Absurdly—evidencing that old habits die hard—this line of thinking still somewhat persists, and one standard for a Korean beauty is (in the Korean’s opinion) sickly paleness. Hot, sexy tan is fairly popular in Korea now, but that is an extremely recent phenomenon – no older than 7~8 years. (Largely thanks to this woman on the right. Her name is Lee, Hyo-ri, a very popular singer.) So between white people who are paler than noblest Korean, and black people who are darker than the commonest Korean, there is a built-in disadvantage.

Also, one cannot ignore the racism in the American mainstream. Whatever racism we have as a country, we indirectly teach it to the new immigrants to our country and to the whole world through our dominance in movies and television shows. No one in the world, and certainly no Korean, is dumb enough to not realize that in a movie, a black guy always dies. Especially in Korea where people have no chance to see a black person other than through mass media, there is no way for their racist perception to be corrected by actually knowing a black person.

But the Korean thinks it’s fair to say that, as Bill Cosby pointed out, at least some black people provide the fodder for those conclusions. (The Korean will leave the question of whether or not the mainstream society is responsible for the high rate of black crime, drug addiction, etc., to another day.) On this point, another factor to consider is that a lot of Korean Americans live in the ghetto, doing business right in the middle of it. Often they are victims of crimes, often perpetrated by black folks.

Especially in the 1992 LA Riot, the rioting black folks looted the stores in their neighborhood, most of them owned by Koreans. (The MTV documentary on the LA riot made in 2002 devotes a portion to the riot’s impact on Korean Americans.) Stories spread from Korean Americans to Koreans in Korea, and the reputation of the black folks was shot down further from the already low status.

Then again, heuristics being what it is, if there is a black robber robbing a Korean-owned liquor store, the only thing that the store owner will remember is the fact that the robber was black. And the racism perpetuates.

So, What Next?

The Korean situation is merely a mirror to the larger problem of we have as a society. Korean people are no better or worse than anyone in world – everyone in the world relies on heuristics, and racism is such a strong force even to this day because of it. Even in America, which in the Korean’s opinion the least racist country in the world, plenty of people rely on racist heuristics.

For example, Fisher DeBerry, former Air Force football coach, when asked why his team was losing, remarked that it was because his team lacked speed because Air Force team did not have enough black people on it – all the while the equally black-player-sparse Brigham Young University was putting up a 9-win season. But then again, who has not thought about whether being black makes you a better athlete as s/he watched a sporting event?

The only way to combat racist heuristics is to make people aware that they are making a snap decision that is wrong, unfair, and evil. America has been trying to do this for the last several decades, and slowly it has been making progress. We must keep this up.

The Korean will end this in a hopeful note. In 1999, a Korean grocer, Mrs. Chung-Bok Hong, was shot and killed by robbers at the parking lot next to her store in South Central Los Angeles, heart of the LA ghetto. Her funeral was held in a catholic church in South Central, and hundreds of mourners packed the church, most of them black residents of South Central. Many of the mourners did not know her real name; everyone in the neighborhood just called her “Mama.” Here is a part of the story from the LA Times:

A few blocks away, graffiti writers had covered a wall outside her store with messages revealing a tangle of emotions. "Nothing but love for you, Mama," said one. … Jerrell White, an African American resident who has lived in the neighborhood for 34 years, said Hong was accepted in South-Central because she treated people with dignity, regardless of their station in life. "She didn't take no B.S. from you," he said. "But that was all right, because she was Mama."

Now there’s a woman who did not rely on racist heuristics, but consciously decided to look past people’s colors and into their character.

(If you would like to read the whole story, it ran on Feb. 12, 1999, byline Steve Berry, headline CALLS FOR JUSTICE MARK FUNERAL OF SLAIN GROCER.)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Can Non-Koreans be Korean Actors?

Dear Korean,

I have been doing some acting and modeling in Brazil, China, Thailand, etc. for some time now. I love acting and I'm planning in going to Korea to get a degree on acting there. How is the acting bussiness for Westerners in Korea? I know that Koreans are a little bit racist towards skin colour and some other things, so I think this could be a barrier for entering the business.

The Working Actor

Dear Working Actor,

Although it is true that Koreans can be racist, that is hardly a barrier for a non-Korean to get into acting. In fact, Korea's racism often helps a non-Korean find an acting/modeling job, provided that the said non-Korean is (or appears to be) white. Especially when it comes to modeling/acting for advertisements, the field is wide open for attractive non-Koreans.

Of course, whether or not this trend is
a good thing is a completely separate discussion.
(source)

If you can somehow get yourself to speak Korean fluently, you will have absolutely no problem finding gigs as an actor. After all, Korean dramas and movies occasionally feature non-Koreans, and decent-looking non-Koreans who can speak Korean fluently are hard to find. When the Korean was younger, there were exactly four non-Korean actors who ever showed up on TV -- two women and two men, playing every single role that required a white person in a Korean drama.

(If you are curious, the two men were Robert Holley and Charm Lee [born as Bernhard Quandt], and the two women were Ida Daussy and .... blanking on the other woman's name. She was older than Daussy. Does anyone remember?)

Of course, it is highly unlikely that a non-Korean will be a top star in Korean acting scene. In all likelihood, a non-Korean actor will be typecast into a minor role. It might be enough to make a living, but stardom is improbable. But there is at least one case where a non-Korean character was cast as a lead for a big-budget Korean drama. Tamra, the Island depicts a story of a British sailor who gets shipwrecked in Jeju island in the 17th century. The role of "William" the sailor was played by Pierre Deporte (also known as Hwang Chan-Bin), a French actor who cannot look more different from Koreans:

If you really need help, Deporte is the guy on the right.
(source)

Deporte's selling point, again, was his fluent Korean, acquired through his Korean stepmother. Although the show was unfortunately cancelled in the middle of the season, it had enough niche support for a DVD edition that contained additional episodes. So there is at least one precedent for a non-Korean actor to be a legitimate star in a Korean drama. Given that it took Asian Americans more than a century of living in America before there was a TV show about us (and a cringe-worthy one at that,) the Korean would say Korea is actually making a decent progress.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Korea's Presidential Election - Part I: Park Geun-hye

Dear Korean,

Can you explain a little bit about the current Korean presidential election, mainly about the candidates running today? What are the problems S.Korean citizens are most concerned about and should be concerned about as well as the candidates' positions on those issues. And who would you prefer, if you do care?

Paul K.

Korea's presidential election is now approximately 40 days away, and exciting times are ahead. First, if you are completely unfamiliar with the general landscape of Korean politics, the Korean would recommend reading this post first for an introduction.

Let's address Paul's question in reverse order. What are the biggest issues at hand for the upcoming presidential election? Interestingly, this election has been a relative anomaly because there has not been a big campaign promise that is dividing the electorate. For example, in 2002, the winning candidate Roh Moo-hyun promised that he would move the capital away from Seoul to promote balanced regional growth. In 2007, the winning candidate Lee Myung-bak promised that he would construct a Grand Canal that would make transportation more efficient. Each promise was controversial, and Korean electorate spent a great deal of time debating them.

This time around? Not as much. To be sure, there currently is a very strong policy demand from Korea's electorate -- namely, expansion of the welfare state. But the demand is so strong that even the conservative candidate, who might oppose such initiative under regular circumstances, is promising free childcare for children between ages of 0 and 5, increased welfare payments for the disabled, expansion of public housing, etc. While there are certainly differences in the specifics of the campaign promises from each candidate, it is fair to say that the campaign promises are at least directionally the same. Thus, the current election is driven more by the personalities of the candidates, and the standing ideologies that they represent, rather than any particular policy ideas. Which is just as well, because each candidate in the running are extremely interesting in his/her own way.

Thus, this series will examine the three major candidates currently running in the presidential election, and what the standing ideologies that they represent. As of now, the three major candidates are:  Park Geun-hye of the conservative New Frontier Party, which is the majority party of the National Assembly and the current holder of the Blue House; Moon Jae-in of the progressive Democratic United Party, the minority party of the National Assembly, and; independent candidate Ahn Cheol-soo, a Seoul National University professor who made a fortune through a start-up anti-virus software company. Then the series will conclude by giving the current state of play.

At this point, full disclosure:  the Korean supports Moon Jae-in of the DUP. Each part of this series will examine each major candidate. At the end of the series, the Korean will briefly explain why he supports Moon. First up is Park Geun-hye, after the jump.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Military Service Series: Part I - Mechanics of Military Service in Korea

Dear Korean,

What is it like in the Korean Army? At what point after these two years could they call you to actually have to shoot and fight people?

Nicky

Dear Korean,

I came across virtually no first-hand literature on the effects of the mandatory military enlistment of South Korean men once they reach a certain age. However, from what I've gleaned, it is nonetheless a truly transformative event. It is also a subject that I hesitate somewhat to breach with contacts. What do they go through in the military? What happens after? How are they “different”? Do they end up as “messed up” as some sociological literature implies?

Me

Dear Korean,

I'm a U.S. citizen and I recently just found out that all Korean Men citizen have to serve at least 2 years of military service, or they get imprisoned or banned from Korea. What would happen if a U.S. citizen immigrated to South Korea and became a citizen? Would they have to do military service?

A Teen


Dear questioners,

Full Disclosure: the Korean never served in the Korean military. He left the country before the eligible draft age, so he does not have to. This qualifies the Korean as a draft dodger in the eyes of a number of Koreans. Talking about Korean military as a draft dodger is a tricky business, because a lot of emotions on the part of Korean men ride on the military service. If you are a type of person who watches NASCAR only for the slight chance of a spectacular crash, this may be the post for you.

The Korean already wrote a bit about the military experience in Korea here. Of course, the takeaway from that post is this picture...



... which gives an idea of what Korean military experience is like. (That pose is called Wonsan pok-gyeok, which translates to "bombing of Wonsan." Wonsan is a port city in North Korea. This punishment is applied liberally for various causes, such as being slow in marching, losing a soccer game, or overcooking sarge's ramen.)

Military draft in Korea takes a long time to explain, so the Korean will have a three part series. Part I will describe the mechanics of actually serving in the Korean military as a draftee. Part II will describe the life of Korean soldiers in the military. Part III will describe the impact of military service in Korean society.

The Mechanics of Serving in the Korean Military

This is the fact that is the most important in understanding how Koreans approach their military duty: Korea is still technically at war against North Korea. The Korean War ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. Therefore, the military administration in Korea operates on the assumption that there will be another war in the scale of Korean War, which killed several million soldiers and civilians.

One can say the military practice in Korea begins in high school, where there is a separate class for military drills, like Physical Education for example. However, military drills class has become less and less war-related in the recent years, getting to the extent that it now focuses more on emergency response than actual drills.

That aside, all Korean men between the age of 18 and 35 must serve a mandatory military duty. [-EDIT 8/16/2011- As of January 1, 2011, the upper limit for draft eligibility was raised to 37 years of age.] The length of the duty depends on where you go and what you do, but it used to be generally between 2.5 to 3 years. A new plan recently introduced would gradually shorten the length down to 1.5 years by 2014. Generally, Korean men elect to report for duty at the end of their second year in college, such that they may return to finish two years of the college. Usually you can defer enlistment as long as you are in school, up to age 24.

The question of “where you go and what you do” clearly is the most important one. Obviously military involves fighting on the frontline – and Korea has a long frontline against North Korea. To determine the assignment, all Korean men over the age of 18 must report to the local draft board to have a physical examination. The examination categorizes men into seven levels, and people below Level 5 do not have to serve in active duty.

Achieving Level 5 and below is fairly difficult; you really have to have some severe injury, such as a torn ACL, missing index finger, serious mental illness etc., to qualify. However, there are certain non-health related issues that would disqualify one from serving, generally described as “people who would create disharmony in the unit.” Interestingly, another group that falls into this category is people who have excessive tattoos, because tattoos are generally considered a sign for a gang membership.

Another group of people who are considered liable to create disharmony in the unit is non-ethnic Koreans or mixed heritage Koreans. Therefore, to answer A Teen’s question, no, naturalized Korean citizen would not have to serve. The Korean heard someone claim that naturalized Korean citizen may volunteer to serve, but he had not seen a policy that actually supports that claim.

Levels 1 through 4 must report for an active duty, which means they all go through 5 weeks of basic training. After the basic training, they are assigned to various posts throughout Korea. The Korean will list them from toughest to softest.

Instead of working as a plain soldier, draftees have the option of volunteering for tougher assignments such as the marines, paratroopers, Special Forces, military police, etc. Even after being discharged, these men tend to carry themselves with a lot of pride. (Read: “won’t shut up about it.”)

Then there is a regular infantry, most common in number. Part II of this series will describe their experience in greater detail.

But military is not just about going out to fight. Certain types of alternative service options, such as working as a part of the police force or the firefighting outfit, are also available. Also available are relatively less grueling positions, such as chaplain, judge advocate general, medics, interpreters, and assistant professors at the military academies. Obviously, a professional license is usually a prerequisite in getting such positions, which means some Korean men opt not to enlist in the middle of their college life and choose instead to study for the medical school, for example. There is even a semi-professional “military team” that plays as a part of sports leagues so that star athletes may continue playing during their service.

Probably the softest positions are the “defense industry” positions, in which eligible males would work for companies that contribute to the national defense for the length of the service. The process of being qualified for these positions – because it is perhaps the least physically grueling “military” experience – is somewhat shady. The companies that appear to be unlikely to contribute to the defense industry, such as KIS Pricing (a company that evaluates bond prices) or NHN, Inc. (holding company for Naver, Korea’s equivalent of Google), are allocated slots for the defense industry positions. Hiring for those positions are equally shady, as those positions are usually filled with the children of the wealthy and powerful.

Equally soft is the “Public Service Agents” positions, usually reserved for Level 4 people – those who qualify for active duty, but just barely. If you live in Korea, these guys are the men in green uniform working at a subway station or a local government office. Public Service Agents essentially work as a government clerk, and are subject to much ridicule by most other Korean men.

A bit of an anomaly is KATUSA, i.e. Korean Augmentation To U.S. Army. Draftees may volunteer for KATUSA if they score high on an English exam. Because there are usually more qualified applicants than available slots, there is a lottery process after the exam. As the name implies, KATUSA draftees serve their duty at USFK bases. KATUSA is also considered somewhat soft because you are allowed to go home at night and do not report on the weekends.

Of course, in addition to the draftees, there are career military men who enter the military academy or stay on after their mandatory service as a non-commissioned officer. ROTC is also a popular option, since you can enlist as an officer for your service.

After serving in active duty, Korean men are considered to be serving in an inactive duty. For eight years after the end of service, Korean men are supposed to report for a mandatory training up to 100 hours a year. In case of a war, Korean men in the 8-year period are drafted to fight. Also in case of a war, all Korean men between ages 18 and 45 are drafted for labor mobilization.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Military Stories

(If you are not familiar with the concept of Goon-dae, please read this post first.)

A reader sent the Korean this:

My daddy loves to tell his military stories! The most traumatic to me as a young girl (regretfully, his firstborn was a girl, and by over five years - although he adjusted by making me a badass) was the story about digging tunnels through snow in his underwear in the bitter Korean winters.

The most traumatic story about The War, which was always told when I would complain about my writing callus on my right middle finger, was that the Korean men who wanted to avoid being drafted into the war would cut off the top joint so as not to show that they were "learned." I think this story is a little questionable - but it was also echoed by John Irving in "A Prayer for Owen Meany."

Also, we used to torment my younger brother together by telling him to be tough because his military time was impending. This continued until my brother was about 14 or so and the weeping was no longer funny. Like I said - my daddy made me a badass.

Great column- informative and funny!

Korean Girl
Birmingham, Alabama

Honestly, the Korean is amazed by the fact that Korean people are alive in Birmingham, AL. The Korean's roommate in his freshman year in college is from Decatur, AL (which the Korean Former Roommate stresses that it is the fourth largest city in Alabama -- as if that means anything -- and home to the second largest Wal-Mart in America.) The Korean is invited to his wedding, and the Roommate told the Korean to bring a rope cutter, so that the Korean may get down from the tree after the Roommate's Klan friends attempt to hang him.

The Korean is certain that naked trench-digging must have happened during the Korean War. The Korean War was a low-tech, trench warfare, and the provisions for the Gook-goon ("National Army" of South Korea, as opposed to In-min-goon, "People's Army" of North Korea) were pretty crappy. So maybe not quite naked, but certainly in thin or tattered clothes.

But the callus part can't be correct; you need to cut off your index finger to avoid the army, so that you can't pull a trigger. (That is exactly what happens in Prayer for Owen Meany -- a good novel by John Irving.) The correct version of the story is this: during the Korean War, the learned men, who are the only people who developed a learning callus in their middle finger in those times, cut off their middle finger because the People's Army would kill anyone who is learned, because learned = no physical labor = rich = bourgeois oppressor.

But this is more of an urban legend. It is true that sporadically, the People's Army rounded up the landowners and learned men of a village and killed them all. But if the middle finger-severing was a common occurrence, there must have been a lot of old, learned folks missing a finger, and that is simply not the case. At best, it may have happened to no more than a few people, and the story spread due to its preposterous gruesomeness.

At any rate, thank you Korean Girl for sending in a Goon-dae story! Over the winter, the Korean hung out with some friends who finished their service, and again heard an earful of military stories. Here are the two funniest ones:

1. One friend of the Korean's friend served as a driver for a 3-star general. On the first day of his assignment, he was extremely nervous, because in the military, a general can punch out God. As he drove, military protocol required him to say "byeon-sok hap-ni-da!" ("switching gears!") every time he switched gears. Instead, he was so nervous that he ended up saying "byeon-sin hap-ni-da! byeon-sin hap-ni-da!" ("transforming! transforming!") After the unfortunate driver said that a few times, the general retorted, "hap-che-neun an-ha-nyah?" ("Do we also combine together?" -- a la Voltron.)

2. The Korean's friend served as a military photographer. One day, one sergeant was supposed to receive a medal from a 4-star general, and the Korean's friend was present to take the picture. Before the sergeant received the medal, he was supposed to first salute the general, then state "Byeong-jang, Kim Han-soo!" ("Sergeant Kim Han-soo!") Instead, he got so nervous in front of the general that he ended up saying "Byeong-jang, Kim Byeong-jang!" ("Sergeant Kim Sergeant!" -- this probably happened because in the Korean military, people address you by your last name, followed by your rank.)

The Korean is still waiting to hear hilarious Goon-dae stories, so please readers, email away!

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.