How to Make Gochujang (and Dwenjang and Soy Sauce)

Dear Korean,

If you were unable to get the gochujang in the ready-made container, would you be able to make it using some more common ingredients, say ones found at your average health food store? Do you think it could be approximated by mixing soy miso and hot harissa?

Jennifer

First of all, a huge, honking NO to the abominable recipe involving miso and harissa. You may as well be working on getting dogs to mate with cats. Good lord, have you no respect for the natural order of things?

The other question, however, deserves more attention. Can one make gochujang with common ingredients found at a regular health food store? This may surprise people, but the answer is yes--as long as you have several months to spare. In order words, obtaining the ingredients is not the hard part; it is the skill and patience it takes to create the finished product. 

Even if you only buy gochujang from the store (as vast majority of Koreans do,) it would be helpful to know just how that sauce is made. A lot of people, for example, do not know that gochujang and soy sauce are related. If you didn't know that either, read on; you might find this interesting.

Meju: the Daddy

Everyone who has had gochujang knows that it is a type of paste. But what is the paste made out of? Answer: beans--fermented soy beans, to be more precise. Thus, in order to make gochujang, you have to start by fermenting some beans. Through long historical experience, Koreans developed the best way of fermenting beans. This is done by creating meju [메주], a block of ground beans. Both dwenjang and gochujang are made from meju, which makes meju the daddy of them all.

To make a meju, start by soaking soybeans in water for 12 hours or more. After the soybeans are soaked, boil them in high heat until the water comes to boil, then in medium heat, for approximately two hours until the beans are soft. Drain the beans until they are dry. While the beans are still warm, bring the softened beans into a mortar, and mash them with a pestle.

Mashing the boiled soybeans into paste
(source)

With the mashed soybeans, form a solid block. This block is called meju. A meju can be as large as a big brick, but it can be smaller. Koreans would usually use a frame, in which the mashed soybeans are stuffed, to create a block. But it is fine to just use your hands. (Aside: meju is also an old timey slang term for an ugly face.)

Monks and visitors of Daeheung Temple, making meju. One can see the
frame for making meju out of the soybean paste, which is in the tub.
(source)

Once the blocks are made, they have to be dried. Place the meju at a sunny location with plenty of ventilation, and dry them for seven to ten days. Then comes the exciting part--the fermentation. Place the dried meju in a warm room (around 77 to 83 degrees) for around two weeks, which is usually enough time for the mold to grow on its surface. Ideally, you want to use straws made from rice stalks to place the meju, as the microbes that make the best meju tend to live in those straws. 

Meju with fresh mold beginning to grow on the surface
(source)

It takes time for meju to fully ferment. Traditionally, Koreans would hang the meju with mold from the roof, and let it ferment for several months. Fresh soybeans are harvested in the fall, which means the meju hangs and ferments throughout the winter.

Hanging the meju to ferment.
(source)

Intimidated by this process? You should be. Like many other fermented foods like wine and cheese, this process requires delicate care. One misstep and the batch can be ruined. The process is so delicate that traditionally, Koreans had a series of elaborate rituals surrounding the sauce-making. A traditional Korean family would select a day of good fortune for making the sauce. For three days before the sauce-making day, the lady of the house would not leave the house, and refrain from having sex. For three weeks after the sauce-making day, the household members were not allowed to attend a funeral.

But if you live in Korea, you're in luck--all this can be skipped because there are many places that sell meju powder, i.e. powder made up of meju blocks that already finished fermenting. Although if you really didn't want to invite your date upstairs, you can always say: "Sorry, I am making gochujang tomorrow."

(More after the jump.)

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

Them Fighting Koreans

Dear Korean,

How did the Korean expression "Fighting!" get so popular? I am curious to know whether or not it was first used by a very influential person, came from a popular Korean series or used for some sort of political propaganda to encourage Koreans to think positive.

Li San

That would have been a heck of a story, but it doesn't look that way.

Sample Korean usage of "Fighting"
(source)

First of all, the definition of the term first. "Fighting" is one of the most classic Konglish words: a borrowed word from English that barely makes sense. Koreans use the word to signify positive encouragement, like "Let's go!" or "Way to go!" 

To be sure, the use of the word "fight" in this context is not completely ridiculous, since there are some occasions when the English language use of the word is at least somewhat close. For example, the refrain for "Texas Fight," the official fight song for the University of Texas Longhorns, goes: "Yea Orange! Yea White! Yea Longhorns! Fight! Fight! Fight! Texas fight, Texas fight, yea Texas fight!" But of course, no Anglophone would yell "fighting," and it is not very clear how Koreans came to say "fighting." 

The popular theory is that the Japanese are fond of saying "huaito" (Japanese pronunciation of "fight",) and the term migrated to Korea in an even more ungrammatical manner. TK's own theory is slightly different: based on the historical usage of the term, "fighting" is more likely a contraction of "fighting spirit." For example, an article from Dong-A Ilbo from September 5, 1926 carried an interview with a baseball umpire who oversaw a baseball tournament. In the interview, the umpire lamented that some of the teams lacked the "fighting spirit" [파이팅 스피리트]. Throughout the early 20th century, Korean newspapers spoke of the "fighting spirit," usually in reference to sporting events. 

Then around 1960s, Korean newspapers could be seen dropping the latter part of the phrase (i.e. "spirit",) and began using "fighting" as a shorthand for "fighting spirit." For example, an article from Kyunghyang Shinmun from September 21, 1962 speaks of a Thai youth soccer team that visited Korea to play Korea's youth team. The article describes the match:

Both the visiting Thai team and the Korean team are youth teams. However, as they are made up of players who are younger than 20 years old, their intensity and skill level are comparable to adult players. Indeed, in terms of stamina and fighting, a match of vigor that cannot be seen in adult matches is expected. As both teams include three to four players who are of the national team caliber, soccer fans are taking note.

(TK's emphasis). It appears that the word "fighting," by early 1960s, came to mean something similar to "enthusiasm" in Korea. Around the same time, Korean people can be seen using "fighting" as a cheering slogan. 

Korean people are fully aware that "fighting" does not actually make sense in English. In 2004, the National Institute of Korean Language attempted to push people away from using the word that makes no sense, suggesting the exclamation "aja" as a replacement. That campaign failed completely, like many other ham-fisted efforts by the Korean government to change the national culture from the top down. Although "aja" is (and has always been) commonly used, "fighting" is very much alive in everyday Korean parlance, and it's not about to go away any time soon.

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

50 Most Influential K-Pop Artists: 7. Han Dae-su

[Series Index]

7.  Han Dae-su [한대수]

Years of Activity: 1974-present (most recent album in 2006, most recent single in 2013)

Discography (Studio Albums Only)
The Long, Long Road [멀고 먼 길] (1974)

Rubber Shoes [고무신] (1975)

Infinity [무한대] (1989)

Amnesia [기억상실] (1990)

Conversation of Angels [천사들의 담화] (1992)

Age of Reason, Age of Treason [이성의 사대, 반역의 시대] (1999)

Eternal Sorrow (2000)

Agony [고민] (2002)

Hurt [상처] (2004)

Desire [욕망] (2006)

Representative Song:  Give Me Some Water [물 좀 주소], from The Long, Long Road (1974)

물 좀 주소

Give Me Some Water

물 좀 주소 물 좀 주소

Give me some water, give me some water

목마르요 물 좀 주소

I am thirsty, give me some water

물은 사랑이요 나의 목을 간질며

Water is love, tickling my throat

놀리면서 밖에 보내네

Teasing me, sending me out

아! 가겠소 난 가겠소

Oh I will go, I will go

저 언덕 위로 넘어가겠소

I will go over that hill

여행 도중에 처녀 만나본다면

In my travels, if I meet a girl

난 살겠소 같이 살겠소

I will live, I will live with her

물 좀 주소 물 좀 주소

Give me some water, give me some water

목마르요 물 좀 주소

I am thirsty, give me some water

그 비만 온다면 나는 다시 일어나리

If only that rain comes, I will get up again

아! 그러나 비는 안 오네

Ah, but the rain is not coming

Translation note:  Like his music, Han Dae-su's lyrics tend to be vague and abstract. All the words in the lyrics--water, hill, girl, coffee--are easy, but collectively they form a jumble from which many different meanings may be drawn. It is difficult to translate while doing justice to the deliberate indeterminacy of these words.

In 15 words or less:  K-pop's first hippie; a mad genius.

Maybe he should have been ranked higher because...  Is there any other artist in the history of Korean pop music who has a 40-year body of work that always stays at the cutting edge?

Maybe he should have been ranked lower because...   When was the last time his songs were popular? 20 years ago? 30 years ago?

Why is this artist important?

1968 was an important year in Korean pop music history, not the least because it was the year in which the 20-year-old Han Dae-su made his debut in Korea. Han was a young man, but with experience: growing up in New York, Han had already played in a garage band and obsessed over Elvis Presley. 

And young Han Dae-su would have his own Elvis moment: on a variety television show, Han Dae-su would play an acoustic guitar and a harmonica, swaying his long hair that would have done proud his hippie friends back in America. The collective head of the conservative Korean society exploded. Han's mother was so embarrassed of the way her son looked on TV that she broke down in tears. Letters flooded the TV station, demanding to know if Han Dae-su was a man or a woman. Some of the letters demanded that Han leave Korea immediately. 

That was the moment that Korea's counterculture began. Han Dae-su's music, while cutting-edge, was never extremely popular. It was avant-garde and subversive, thumbing its nose at the suffocating mainstream. The suffocation would come in many different forms. First it was the dictator Park Chung-hee, who decided that pop music was hurting Korea's national discipline, and began putting pop musicians in prison based on trumped-up drug charges. Then it was the stupid, cheap pop music that the mindless society always loves. And it was always his personal demons, the gnawing emptiness that led him to the bottles and his two broken marriages. 

His musical response was much like the opening of his signature song, Give Me Some Water--a jolting shock to the system, unexpectedly dropping his gravelly voice without any care for a conventional prelude. This attitude would continue to pervade his musical journey for the next four decades. Han's music searched both outwardly and inwardly: reaching far and wide for the new type of sound, while digging deep inside to give his music sensitivity and Korean-ness. 

Han Dae-su was never broadly popular, although some of his songs (most notably To the Land of Happiness [행복의 나라로]) did become iconic. Han's contribution, instead, was toward the underside of Korean pop music, the dark shade that allows forms to take shape in the light.

Interesting trivia:  Han Dae-su initially moved to the United States shortly after he was born because his father, a nuclear physicist, went to Cornell University to study in 1948. Seven years into his U.S. life, Han's father suddenly disappeared for ten years. When Han Dae-su finally found his father at age 17, Han's father was living in Long Island under a different name, married to a white woman and running a printing company. Although he recognized his family, he completely lost ability to speak Korean, knew nothing about nuclear physics and said nothing about what had happened in those ten years while he disappeared. Han Dae-su suspects that CIA brainwashed his father because his father came to possess important secrets regarding nuclear weapons.

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

I'm Still Here

In spirit, at least.

TK is very sorry that the last substantive post on the blog is nearly a month old. He is going through some significant changes in his day job, which is throwing everything out of the loop. Expect him to be back some time in mid-October. Thank you for reading, as always.

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

Daddy's Back

TK rises from the dead. You can't hold him down, Facebook!

TK's new Facebook page is here. If you were TK's Facebook friend or follower, please do me a favor--follow this page and let other people know. Thank you much.

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

Rut Roh

The good folks at Facebook finally caught up to the fact that TK has been using a pseudonym for his Facebook page. Looks like TK's Facebook page cannot even be accessed. Until he can figure out what's going on, TK will not be on Facebook. Sorry, all.

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

More Cowbells Loudspeakers!

South Korean soldiers set up loudspeakers along the DMZ.
(source)

Dear Korean,

I was reading about the loudspeaker broadcasts being used by South Korea directed at North Korea and wondered if you had any thoughts regarding their effectiveness. Do these broadcasts really work to either encourage people to defect or allow the spread of news/information/propaganda to the north? I imagine that the soldiers who patrol the border are the most loyal the north have and less likely to spread the information. Are there regular citizens living within hearing range or do people sneak down to listen to the broadcasts and report back?

Or, is this all really an effort to simply antagonize the other side?

Louie

Tensions have been running fairly high in Korean Peninsula for the last few weeks. For those who had been missing out, here is the background:

Some people are surprised to find out that both South Korea and North Korea regularly send armed patrols through the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), But that is true--DMZ does not mean there is nobody inside the zone. Both South Korean and North Korean military patrol inside the DMZ to detect any hint of invasion, although they usually keep close to their own sides for obvious reasons.

On August 4, two South Korean soldiers lost their legs after having stepped on land mines, which were buried right around the gate through which South Korean patrols would enter the DMZ.

Site of the land mine explosion. The mines were buried inside the red circles.
Lower portion of the picture is South Korea; across the fence is the DMZ.
(source)

On August 10, South Korean military announced that North Korea was behind the landmine attack, and began the loudspeaker broadcast as retaliation. This measure of retaliation caused some snickers. Really? Two South Korean soldiers lost their legs, and they retaliate by . . . shouting through the loudspeakers?

But here is the thing: North Korea really hates those loudspeakers. How much do they hate them? On August 20, North Korea fired several artillery shells toward South Korea. (Three in the southern end of the DMZ, and one past the DMZ.) The shelling was followed by an announcement that unless South Korea silenced the loudspeakers, North Korea would begin military action in 48 hours. (Military heads of South and North Korea met afterward and came to an agreement five days later, and South Korea did stop with the loudspeakers.)

(More after the jump.)

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

Sorting Through Shinzo Abe's Dog Whistles

August 15, 2015 is the 70 year anniversary of the end of World War II. With it, a fresh round of tension builds in East Asia over Japan's recognition of its past. Every year around this time, the Japanese Prime Minister would issue a statement, China and Korea would react in anger, each side would engage in a war of words, only to repeat the next year. This tends to bewilder the observers outside of East Asia. To the people who only occasionally pay attention to East Asia, Japan's annual statements sure look like an apology, and Korea/China appear petty for questioning the sincerity of the apologies.

This outlook comes partially from the fact that the occasional observer lacks the historical context of the rhetoric being used in the apology. As George Orwell eloquently noted, it is common in politics to use coded language to disguise the true meaning of a statement that is deeply offensive. In the U.S., these code words are known as "dog whistle"--ordinary people cannot hear them, but those who are familiar with the context react to those words.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
(source)

Shinzo Abe, Japan's right-wing prime minister, is a master of dog whistles. His statement yesterday, commemorating the 70 year anniversary of the end of World War II, was rife with coded language. For those who are not familiar with those codes, TK will reproduce the entire statement below, and point out exactly where the dog whistles are.

Before we jump in, it would be helpful to know how the Japanese right wing, including Prime Minister Abe, recalls the history of Japan in the first half of 20th century. Below is the summarized version:

In the late 19th century, Western nations began the trend of imperialism, in which they invaded and subjugated the rest of the world based on the idea of white race's superiority. To defend itself against these forces, Japan modernized quickly and formed the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, made up of neighboring Asian nations in the spirit of racial solidarity. Other empires attempt to suppress the rise of the Japanese empire by choking Japan off of the vital natural resources that it required. Japan tried to break the deadlock by attacking Pearl Harbor, which led to World War II. In the end, Japan was defeated.

Note how in this alternative telling of history, Japan is not the aggressor but a victim. Japan did not colonize its neighbors and murdered their resisting people; it organized them into a larger unit to fight against the onslaught of Europeans and Americans. World War II did not begin with Imperial Japan's cowardly attack on Pearl Harbor, but with other empires trying to put down the ascendant Japan. Japan did nothing wrong, other than to lose the war.

This vile revisionist history is what the Japanese right wing, including Shinzo Abe, firmly believes in. And the view of history is obviously displayed in Abe's statement yesterday, if one only knew where to look.

Full analysis of Shinzo Abe's statement,after the jump.

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

Blurred Knives, Do You Want Them?

Dear Korean,

I've started watching K-Dramas recently and now I have a question. What's the deal with blurry knives? (Imagine I said it in my best Seinfeld voice) When characters use knives as weapons they always mosaic the knife, but not when they are uses a tool (say in a kitchen). More curiously other hand held weapons (like say a gun) are not blurred. Even other bladed weapons (like swords) are never blurred. Why only knives? Why only when they are used as weapons? Have I just not watched enough shows to find the ones where this is not the case?

Brennan "Confused About Knives" Jordan

Short answer: the TV stations are following the regulations set by Korea Communications Standards Commission, which decides what may show up on television, and what may not. Rule 81, Art. 37 of KCSC Rules states: 

The following items, which may convey excessive shock, anxiety or disgust to viewers, may not be broadcast. There may be limited exceptions if such depiction is unavoidable in discussing the content; even in such cases, expression of these items must be approached cautiously.

1.  Graphic depiction of beheading, strangulation or dismemberment.
2. Direct depiction of the moment of suicide, or depiction that implies the method of suicide
3. Graphic depiction of killing or maiming with firearms, knives or other tools
4. Depiction of mangled corpse or body parts
5. Graphic depiction of killing of an animal
6. Other depictions that are similar to the above

The spirit of the rule is intuitive enough. Obviously, there has to be some decency rules as to what may or may not appear on television. But of course, application of any rules in the real world tends to be messy--especially when the rules are about expressions. In the American context, George Carlin described the absurdity in his infamous "Seven Dirty Words" bit. In Korea, blurring knives is part of the effort to comply with Article 37. There is plenty of inconsistency if one looks for it, but the same can be said about pretty much any application of the law. (Just think about how routinely people violate the speed limit without getting punished.)

But it is fair to say that the blurring can get a bit too patronizing. Such hyperactive blurring, in some cases, does limit the fuller depiction of reality. For example, the critically acclaimed 2009 drama Friend tracked the lives of Busan-area gangsters who grew up together as childhood friends. In order to create realistic fight scenes without getting caught in the blur machine, the showrunners studiously avoided having their characters wield actual weapons like a knife or a lead pipe. Instead, the show depicts them using household items, such as a wooden club that Koreans in the 1960s for laundry. But no matter--the censors still blurred the oh-so-harmless wooden club, causing annoyance with the viewers. 

Example of a cigarette being blurred. This tends to happen when a TV station shows a movie.
(source)

Blurring on Korean television can get hyperactive in other areas. Depending on how the censors are feeling, cigarettes are sometimes blurred. Product labels are usually blurred, unless they were specifically authorized to appear pursuant to an agreement for product placement advertisement. This can also get pretty annoying, as the types of products that the characters use can indicate their personality and their surroundings. But thems are the rules.

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

Gay Marriage in Korea: Coming Sooner Than You Think

Dear Korean, 

Given that U.S. just legalized same-sex marriage for all states, how is gay marriage progressing in Korea?

Gwyneth

It has been nearly eight years since TK last touched upon the issue of homosexuality in Korea in this blog. Considering the major step that the United States took in legalizing same sex marriage, it is high time to revisit this issue. This is not because TK thinks that whatever America does just matters more. He is fully aware that more than 17 countries around the world, including Canada, South Africa, much of Europe and much of South America, have legalized same sex marriage before the United States did. 

But if one focuses on the prospect of same sex marriage in Korea, the fact that U.S. legalized same sex marriage does matter more. Because of the historical peculiarities of South Korea--a country that was, in many ways, created by the United States--Koreans have always looked to U.S. as a model of modernity and democracy to emulate. When debating social policies in Korea, the argument that "This is how Americans do it" tends to carry a great deal of weight.

In fact, America's legalization of same sex marriage puts Korean opponents of same sex marriage in quite a pickle. Like most other democracies, Korea has conservatives and liberals, and Korea's conservatives tend to be more pro-U.S. Some Korean conservatives are so rabidly pro-U.S. that, when U.S. ambassador to Korea suffered a knife attack, they organized a show of music and dance wishing for his speedy recovery as if they were trying to appease an angry god. (To be sure, most Koreans and Korea's media, including even the pro-American ones, roundly mocked these people.)

Dance performance by a conservative group
following the knife attack against Ambassador Mark Lippert
(source)

The trouble, however, is that a sizable chunk of Korea's conservatives are also Protestants who strenuously oppose gay marriage, and homosexuality in general. The fact that their totemic guardian U.S. of A. has legalized same sex marriage has put them in a very awkward position. For example, because the U.S. Embassy in Korea has formally expressed its support for Korea's Pride Parade for the last several years, these conservatives groups were forced to (reluctantly) denounce America.

Christian group stages protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul.
The placard says: "We denounce U.S., spreading the bad culture that is homosexuality."
(source)

Indeed, the same "crazy group dance people" organized the same dance show to show their opposition against the most recent Pride Parade in Seoul, which fortuitously happened the day after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Obergefell v. Hodges decision. The irony was particularly delicious because Ambassador Mark Lippert, for whose health that these people prayed as if he were a demigod, was in attendance to support the Pride Parade.

Opponents of homosexuality puts on a protest performance.
(source)

Aside: apparently, the drum beats of the anti-homosexuality people were so vigorous that some of the Pride Parade attendees had a better time dancing to them instead of the official music showcase.

(More after the jump.)

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

Seoul Notes, 2015

Let's get back to blogging! TK visits Seoul nearly every year, and every year there is always something different and new, partly because Korea is a fast changing place, and partly because TK has never noticed them before. Some of the things he noticed in the last go around:

- Good beer is now completely mainstream. If anything, Korea's craft brew market is a little over-saturated at this point. Even the regular Korean beer has shown marked improvement.

- Things are expensive. Things in Seoul have been getting gradually more expensive over time, but now it is really beginning to hurt the wallet. To be sure, there are still plenty of cheap options if one decides to grunge it up. But the prices are high for items that are even slightly nice. For example, a casual lunch at a Chinese restaurant (not a hole-in-a-wall, but not a super fancy place either) located in the central business district, for three people, cost nearly US $100. This was not the case even a year ago.

- To make a broader point: income polarization is even more significant. Slightly nicer things are really expensive in Korea because Korea's upper middle class can afford them. On the other hand, cheap things are still very cheap because the rest of Korea relies on those products. It is as if there are two completely different economies within Korea. Not a great sign.

- When you ask for water in Korea, it is only a 50-50 proposition that you actually get water. In the other 50 percent, you would get some type of tea. If you don't like boricha, it's a tough place.

At the airport leaving Korea.
The sign below the attendant said: "Please take off your mask."
(source: TK's own)

- By the time TK got to Korea (end of June through early July,) there were no real public signs that people were truly concerned about MERS. There would be perhaps one mask-wearer in a given subway car. But there certainly was latent anxiety about it; people were talking about it.

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

Viral Like MERS

Dear Korean,

Me and a friend of mine have everything booked. Flights, hotells, and more. But due to MERS. How safe is it to enter the country?

Tina

TK does wish that there was a viral disease that selectively destroyed grammar errors and poor spelling.

But onto MERS. Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome is no laughing matter. Korea is now second in the world in the number of those who tested positive for MERS, clocking in at 138 patients, 14 of whom passed away. More than 3,600 people are under quarantine after having come into contact with MERS patients.

A wedding photo that will go down in history.
(source)

Is it safe to visit Korea? This is one of those questions that you should really ask your country's government rather than a random Internet stranger with a blog. In the case of the United States, Center for Disease Control issued a Level 1 advisory regarding MERS outbreak in Korea, essentially advising that it is ok to travel as long as one takes usual precautions like washing hands regularly.

This seems more or less correct. Although the number of the infected is high, Korean government has done a fairly decent job in actually tracing exactly how each patient came to be infected, for the most part. As can be seen from this kinda-awesome, kinda-terrifying infographic from KBS News, in nearly all cases the patients contracted MERS from a hospital. Vast majority of those who passed away were over 70 years old and in poor health. 

So it seems that as long as you are in good health and you have good hygienic habits, you would be more or less fine in Korea. Says a random Internet stranger who has absolutely no expertise in these matters. It might not be a bad idea to take a mask.

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

We Did Nothing Wrong, and They Destroyed Our Stores

(source)

I.

If you don’t tell your own story, someone else will.

Your story, told through someone else, is stolen. The stolen story is no longer yours; it is theirs, twisted and disfigured to augment their story, like a piece of metal hammered into form a small piece of a suit of armor. Our story can only be ours if we tell it. Only then can we imbue our own experience with the sovereignty that it deserves.

So here is our story.

(source)

II.

Last month, a black man named Freddie Gray died in Baltimore while being arrested by the police. Gray suffered multiple fractures in his spine in the course of the arrest. Gray’s death was a tragedy; he should not have died.

People got angry at this senseless death—the latest one of the many senseless deaths of black men at the hands of the police. The anger turned into protests. The protests turned violent. In the course of the protests, numerous Asian American businesses were destroyed:

What the rioters didn’t steal from Hyo Yol Choi, they destroyed, or tried to. When it was over, Beauty Fair, in a squat, unattached brick building that Choi leases, was ankle-deep in ruined inventory—in torn-down shelves, racks and counters; in stomped-open bottles, jars and tubes. The marauders took wigs, leaving dozens of bald mannequin heads scattered along the walls. Brushes and mirrors, ribbons and barretts, costume jewelry and women’s hosiery were strewn from front to back, and the floor was a swamp of bergamot grease, argan butter, tea tree oil and leave-in hair mayonnaise.

The story of West Baltimore can be told through life at one intersection [Washington Post]

At least 42 other Korean American businesses were destroyed. When the store owners tried to defend their business, they were beaten. Were Asian businesses targeted for being Asian-owned? There are some indications pointing that way. Witnesses say black-owned businesses were spared from looting. But that doesn’t matter. The fact that other businesses remain standing doesn’t magically pick up the destroyed merchandise from the floor and put it back on the shelves, fully restored.

Really, who cares about those other stores? For immigrants, your store is your universe. It is everything you own in the world, everything you experience about the world, rolled into a dingy strip mall storefront. You poured down all the money you had, plus a staggering amount of debt, just to own that shitty store. There, in that store, you spend your entire life—sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, for ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years. You barely know what other stores exist around the block, much less around the city. You barely know the weather outside. The only people you see are the customers, who don’t give a shit about another chink, another dot head, another Ay-rab manning the cashier at yet another deli, liquor store, nail shop, beauty shop, bodega. The store, its inventory, the people who come in and out of it, are the only things the immigrant knows about the world.

The Baltimore rioters destroyed our universes. Forty-two of them, at least. That’s our story.

(source)

III.

Please, if you can just shut the fuck up. Didn’t I just say we will tell our own story? Our story is not yours. It is certainly not for you to pick up as a rhetorical cudgel, used to beat up people who are justifiably indignant with all the shittiness around them.

Nor will we countenance the well-intended, but tone-deaf, counsel to shut our story down for some kind of greater good. We did nothing wrong, and our stores were destroyed. And we are mad as shit about it.

Yes, I know Asian Americans enjoy privileges that African Americans do not. I’m not stupid. We did not go through the same historical suffering; we don’t have the same disadvantages today. I also know that when it comes to racial discrimination, Asian Americans hardly have clean hands. I know all about the petty racism that Asian Americans engage in, against whites, blacks, Latinos—better than you will ever know. It's a stain on our people. I have invested my own time and money addressing that, while you lazily decry Asian racism in the cesspool that is the Internet comment section.

I am still waiting to hear why any of that justifies the fact that our stores were destroyed. 

Don’t bother telling us that the riots were some kind of “forest fire,” a natural reaction to the greater oppression, because this disaster was no fire. This disaster had human faces, human hands that smashed the bottles, human feet that kicked us into submission when we were desperately trying to protect our stores. Don't ask us to extend understanding to those humans while we are still nursing our burning injuries. Bearing the brunt of this disaster gives us a view of those humans that are not kind and understanding. Because when our stocks are spilled on the ground, when a punch to our gut knocks our wind out, when our world is disintegrating before our eyes, we cannot understand how, just how, we deserve any of this punishment that those humans are raining down upon us, because the police killed a black man. We cannot understand why we deserve to watch our lives burn, helpless.

IV.

We have to tell our own story. Because if you don’t tell your own story, someone else will. And this is our story: we did nothing wrong, and they destroyed our stores.

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

Brand New Koreans!

Dear Korean,

What is the tradition for new babies? My son and daughter in law live in Seoul and are expecting their first child. When they married the bride’s mother bought items and set up their household for them. Does this carry over to babies as well or is there a different tradition. Do they have baby showers?

Vicki S.

A quick tangent first:  TK usually tries to put a relevant picture in the post right away. Then he went to Google and found that people keep Tumblr and Pinterest pages titled "Korean babies." Uh, no. Creepy people.

Koreans generally do not have baby showers. The hip Korean women have begun to take in the party, but it is not a general phenomenon yet. The same is true for "push presents"--although the idea is starting to trickle into Korea, it is not a widespread thing. (However, Korean euphemism for gifts for new mother is arguably more comical than the term "push present"--it's "diaper bag," as if the new mother is going to carry diapers in a shiny new Louis Vuitton bag.)

Koreans do have a strong tradition involving pre-natal care called 태교 [taegyo], i.e. education of an unborn child. Pregnant mothers are encouraged not only to eat healthy, but also look at beautiful things, listen to calming music, speak with the child, etc. But this stuff is not communal--it is between the parents and the child.

Probably the first communal baby tradition that kicks in is Geumjul [금줄]. Geumjul is a ritual twine rope that is hung on the front door when a child is born. Ordinarily, Korea's twine is created by twisting to the right, but the twine for Geumjul is twisted to the left. In the twine, white pieces of paper and charcoal is slotted in, as those items ward off evil spirit. If the baby is a boy, dried red pepper is also slotted in.

Geumjul hangs on the front door for three weeks, during which the visitors know not to enter the house. 

Geumjul
(source)

Today, few Koreans actually hang a Geumjul. But the mystical significance of the three week period after the baby is born (much of which does have scientific basis) tends to remain in Korea. In the first three weeks, no visitors are allowed other than the immediate family, nor would the new mother and child leave the house. The house is to be quiet--no hammering of a wall, for example. Family who just had a child would not attend a funeral. The new mother would wait four or five days to take a shower. And of course, the new mother would have tons and tons of seaweed soup. (Discussed in this post.) Today, many Korean new mothers check into a kind of postpartum spa-care, in which much of these things (and other essential lessons that new mothers should know) are taken care of for them.

After a child is born, there are two significant celebrations: 100 days, and the first birthday. Both days essentially celebrate the same thing: the child survived through those days--which, in the bad old days in Korea, was hardly a given. Previously, the two celebrations were equal in stature, but in modern Korea, the 100 days celebration is much smaller and usually among the immediate family only. But the first birthday, known as 돌 [dol], remains a significant event in which a huge party is thrown, with extended families and friends are invited. The friends and family usually pitch in to give gold rings to the birthday girl/boy.

Birthday boy going through doljabi [돌잡이]
(source)

The highlight of the first birthday is 돌잡이 [doljabi, literally "dol-grab"]. The child is set in front of a variety of objects, such as money, strings (representing long life,) bow and arrows, brush, and so on. The thing that s/he grabs is supposed to show the child's future.

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

TK on Price of Nice Nails

Dear Korean, 

Could you please comment on the New York Times' article "The price of nice nails?" 

Brian N.

For those who have not read the article, here is the link. It is a great piece of journalism; TK highly recommends it.

As to TK's own impression: how is any of this a surprise? Seriously, have people never been to a nail salon? You are willfully blind if you ever stepped foot into a nail salon and did not detect the hints of rampant labor exploitation. Although the article is absolutely valuable in that it collected and curated what goes on in New York's nail salons, pretty much nothing in the article breaks new ground. Really, I'm surprised that you're surprised. 

The eternal truth of the consumer society is: if it seems cheap, someone is getting exploited for it. And that someone usually belongs to the lower rung of the social, economic, and racial ladder. In all likelihood, your shoes are made by young overworked children in a Cambodian sweatshop, and your iPhone is made by Chinese workers who work so long hours under such shitty conditions that some of them would rather kill themselves. Outsourced workers in the Philippines subject themselves to PTSD by reviewing thousands of beheading videos and pornography every day, so that you won't have to see them on your Facebook feed.

None of this is to say we should surrender our efforts to make our world better. It is definitely not to say that Korean Americans or Asian Americans are blameless because everyone does it. It is only to say that we should be clear-eyed about just how much is wrong with the things around us. 

If you are concerned about what you read, please consider donating to the Urban Justice Center. When TK was living in New York, he handled several pro bono litigation along with the UJC, suing to make sure Asian restaurants were paying their workers minimum wage. TK is proud to say that he was part of the effort that led to the shutdown of several Asian restaurants in New York. If this New York Times article leads to a wave of bankrupt Korean nail salons across New York, so much for the better.

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

AAK! PSA: Support Ask a North Korean!

Among the many "Ask" blogs that AAK! inspired, TK feels the proudest of Ask a North Korean by NK News. Within the English language Internet, it is absolutely the closest to hearing the perspective of ordinary North Koreans on a regular basis. 

So TK is happy to announce the new Kickstarter campaign by NK News, which will be used for hiring two new Ask a North Korean writers. There is a number of swag available for your donation, including eBooks about North Korea, coffee mugs and custom t-shirts bearing Unha-3 rocket or Taedonggang Beer logo.

The Kickstarter page for NK News is here. 

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

Blogging About Blogging

(Back from vacation! Thank you all for waiting.)

(source)

TK recently had an occasion to speak with a close friend, who was thinking about starting a blog for his start-up company that would mix the business and the personal. AAK! is not much, but it's not nothing either--and in the near-decade that TK has been running this blog, he has gleaned a few pointers that might help one's voice be noted a little more. 

Below is some of the pointers. Please note that these are aspirational, and should not be taken to mean that TK actually has followed or is currently following all these pointers.

- You have to be a good writer.  This is a prerequisite; without good writing, you cannot hope to have an impactful blog. You don't have to be a good writer right now, but you must at least grow into one. There is so much writing on the Internet for people to read, and people will not spend their time deciphering a confused piece of article. Your writing should be well-organized and clear, with carefully selected diction and examples.

- You have to write a lot, regularly.  Keep writing, and write regularly, even when you don't want to do it. Writing regularly makes you a better writer. More writing means more content, which means more opportunity to be noticed through search engines, Facebook shares, retweets, and so on. Regular writing also means regular readers, who expect and anticipate what you have to say next.

- Nothing beats clickbaiting.  If all you ever wanted was to have a website with a lot of traffic, sell your soul and get into clickbaiting. There is a reason why so many of Buzzfeed, Upworthy, Distractify, and other garbage sites of their ilk exist--it is because when they publish a million pieces of trash, people click them a million times every time. Write fishing headlines, put out "listicles," put up cat pictures and set up search engine optimization. Write only about bullshit evergreen stories, like weight loss, interracial dating, and crap that what people should do in their teens to prepare for their deathbed.

If you prefer not to sell your soul, don't get discouraged just because a clickbait gets more traffic than your site. McDonald's will always sell more hamburgers than you, but it does not mean your burger tastes worse than McDonald's.

(More after the jump.)

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

The Sewol Tragedy, One Year On

Today, one year ago, the Sewol ferry sank off the southwestern coast of Korea, claiming more than three hundred lives. TK's series discussing the accident is below:

Part I:  The Accident
Part II:  Causes and Contributing Factors
Part III:  The Fallout

Based on the information that was uncovered since TK has written the post, Parts I and II contain some revision. The biggest revelation was that the Coast Guard responded negligently. For nine minutes after arrival, the Coast Guard was unaware that hundreds of passengers were still inside the ship. Because the Coast Guard made no effort to rescue the passengers from inside the ship in that precious time period, dozens of lives that could have been saved were lost. Kim Gyeong-il, the captain of the responding Coast Guard, was sentenced to four years in prison due to the dereliction of duty. 

*                 *                  *

There is no good way to respond to a sudden, and completely avoidable, death of more than three hundred lives, most of which belonged to young children. Even with the best response, the lost lives are not regained. But the striking part of the past year has been just how poorly Korean government, and in particular the President Park Geun-hye's administration, responded to the tragedy.

Imagine the United States, a week after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Information started appearing that the George W. Bush administration was utterly incompetent in detecting the threat by Osama Bin Laden, to a point that the attack really should have never happened in the first place. Families of the victims, outraged by the avoidable loss of their loved ones, began blaming the government. 

Now imagine if the Bush administration responded by shutting out the families, and planting CIA agents to monitor any subversive activities. The Republican faithful, sensing that their president was under attack, begin clamoring that the families should just get over it; all the mourning was putting a damper on domestic spending, hurting the economy. For the next year, the government does its best trying to pretend the 9/11 attacks never happened.

This is essentially what happened for the last year in Korea. The Sewol tragedy was one version of the 9/11 attacks, in that the entire nation saw hundreds of lives perishing real time on television. The collective trauma that Korea suffered was no less than the same that the U.S. suffered in 2001. Yet, facing this once-a-generation national tragedy, the Park Geun-hye administration responded to the tragedy in the worst way possible. The Park administration saw the social unrest following the tragedy as a threat to its power, rather than the natural expression of collective grief. Instead of taking active leadership to heal the nation, the administration did everything it could to paint the victims' family as greedy money-grabbers who were trying to profit from the deaths of their loved ones.

Incredibly, this shit worked. Korea's right-wing, which looks back on the dictatorship period of President Park's father with fond nostalgia, was happy to buy into the ridiculous idea that the victims' family were only too happy to wield their newly found power. Since the accident, nearly three-quarters of the Internet comments left on the Sewol-related news had been blaming the victims' family for asking money and other favors (which, obviously, were not true.)

Perhaps the lowest point came in late August of last year, when families of the Sewol victims began a hunger-strike to demand an investigation by special prosecutor. In one of the lowest display of sheer malice I have ever seen, members of Korea's largest conservative website organized a "gorging strike," mocking the families by essentially engaging in an eating contest of pizza and fried chicken.

Conservative Koreans engaging in "gorging strike" in front of hunger-striking families of the Sewol victims.
In the yellow test in the background, the families who lost their children were engaged in a hunger strike.
(source)

Aside from disgusting way in which the victims' families were marginalized, the most disheartening consequence of the events that followed was that no lesson was learned from the senseless tragedy. As the Sewol issue was increasingly seen as a political issue, ordinary Koreans grew tired of following the aftermath. The president and the administration played their parts, doing everything they could to pretend that the accident never happened. In a stunning display of tin-earedness, President Park Geun-hye went on a tour of South American summit meetings, declining to attend the anniversary memorial ceremony of the disaster. None of the cabinet ministers is visiting the memorial ceremony either.

As such, the most obvious lesson that should have been learned from the Sewol tragedy--public safety--has been completely forgotten. The administration established a new Ministry of Public Safety and Security, but it could not even get enough staffing to function properly. The victims' families, blinded by the pain of their tremendous wound, are stuck with protesting the government and demanding the ship to be taken out of the water. In the meantime, safety accidents on school grounds increased by 11 percent since 2014. On October 17, 2014, only six months after the Sewol tragedy, the grate covering a massive air vent at an outdoor concert venue collapsed, killing 16 K-pop concert-goers.

As with many Koreans, my mood at this one year anniversary is grim. There does not seem to be an upward trajectory. I pray for the souls of those who were so senselessly lost. I am angered that I cannot do much more.

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

Taxonomy of Korean Drinking Places

Dear Korean,

I recently stayed in Seoul for a while and was looking for a place to have some wine. However, my Korean friend told me I should careful about where I step into, because there are many different kinds of 'clubs' - there's the normal dance clubs for young people, and then there's hostess clubs/ host clubs, there are dallan jujeom  for businessmen only, then there's all the "bangs," like noraebang, PC bang, DVD bang. Could you give me a glossary of the different kinds of 'clubs' or 'bars' that's available in Korea, so I don't wander in by mistake? I saw a shop named "Bacchus" and wanted to go in for wine till my friend told me that it was "errm... for guys.... to sleep....."

Wandering Female in Seoul

What better way to come back after two weeks than talking about drinking?! 

Let's get right into it. Koreans drink, and they drink in all kinds of places. Here is a taxonomy of places where you can enjoy adult beverage in Korea. Like every attempt to categorize human society, the categories below are not hard-and-fast but are generalized groups.

Tier 1:  Hangouts with Alcohol

There are places in Korea where one can drink, but alcohol is not the main attraction. For example:

- Restaurants:  Nearly every restaurant in Korea sells alcohol, although one would primarily visit a restaurant to have a meal. The selections are usually soju and beer, and sometimes makgeolli. This is a very broad category that is particularly susceptible to a sliding scale. That is--some restaurants are closer to eating places, while other restaurants are closer to drinking places. Where a restaurant falls on that scale depends largely on the types of food it serves. Seafood restaurants, for example, would fall closer to the "drinking place" end of the scale.

- Convenience Store:  Korea does not have the silly public drunkenness laws that most places in the U.S. has, which means it is possible to drink virtually anywhere in Korea. One of the popular hangouts is the plastic table/bench in front of a convenience store. You simply purchase your choice of alcohol and food from the store, and plop your butt down on them chairs. Most convenience stores, in fact, sell packaged foods that are popular with drinkers.

Just like this.
(source)

Certain parts of Korea (e.g. Jeolla-do, or southwestern Korea) takes this concept to an entirely new level. Not only can one drink in front of storefronts, one can even order relatively high-quality cooked food. 

- Outdoors:  Outdoors? Yes, outdoors. TK means it: you can really drink just about anywhere in Korea. At the beach? Yes. On the river bank? Yes. While hiking on a mountain? Hell yes. In fact, if the weather is warm enough, there will be mobile vendors selling drinks while walking around those places.

- Sports Venues:  Simple enough. Baseball, soccer, bowling, pool--none of these places would be as fun as they are without alcohol.

(More after the jump.)

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

Lee Kuan Yew versus Kim Dae-jung: the Battle for Asia's Soul

(source)

Lee Kuan Yew, the progenitor of Singapore, has passed away. Lee was a singular individual with many interesting ideas, and Singapore likewise is a singular place with many interesting features. Plenty of ink has been spilled about how special Lee was and Singapore is in the last few days, and TK does not have much more to add on Lee or Singapore, by themselves.

What this blog can add is a bit of perspective about Singapore and Korea, and the two countries' leaders, as ideological counterparts. In 1994, Lee Kuan Yew engaged in one of the most important debates in East Asian political science--against Kim Dae-jung, who was at the time an opposition leader in Korea, and later, Korea's president and Nobel Peace Prize winner. The debate came in the form of Lee giving an interview with the Foreign Affairs magazine, and Kim responding to Lee's points several months later on the same magazine. For anyone who is curious about East Asian politics and the spread of democracy, these two pieces are must-read classics.

Go now, and actually read them--because they contain big ideas, and any summary of them will not do full justice. But very roughly speaking, Lee Kuan Yew and Kim Dae-jung were debating the relationship between East Asian culture and democracy. Lee Kuan Yew considered East Asian culture to be distinct from the Western culture; accordingly, East Asia and Singapore would not accept democracy--at least, not the kind that was being practiced in the West. Lee, for example, said because East Asia focused greatly on family, "a better system" would be "if we gave every man over the age of 40 who has a family two votes because he is likely to be more careful, voting also for his children. He is more likely to vote in a serious way than a capricious young man under 30."

(source)

Kim Dae-jung, on the other hand, believed that democracy was a universal force. To Kim, culture was important, but cultural differences were overrated. Instead, the commonalities of world culture--arising from the common human experience--uniformly pointed to democracy. In a key passage, Kim Dae-jung wrote: "Asia has its own venerable traditions of democracy, the rule of law, and respect for the people[,]" pointing to traditional Confucianism under the which the king is held accountable to the people, the civil service system that was based on meritocracy rather than hereditary inheritance, and the independent bureaus that were free to criticize the king's deeds--all of which happened centuries before Europe even had a seedling of democracy. East Asia already had all the trappings of a democratic culture; it simply needed to transplant the democratic institutions that would give expression to this culture.

It has been a little more than 20 years since the Lee Kuan Yew-Kim Dae-jung debate began. Incredibly, both men made a real-life case for their arguments in their respective countries. Under Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore enjoyed brilliant economic growth under socially restrictive rules, topping the charts in positive indicators across the globe. Under Kim Dae-jung, Korea oversaw opposition parties peacefully exchanging power like mature democracies do, and at the same time raised a host of world-class corporations while becoming a major player in the global soft culture.

Who will be proven correct? The implication of this debate is greater than ever. In the last 20 years, democracy in Asia has either stalled or regressed, depending on where you look. Most importantly, China is yet to democratize. If Lee Kuan Yew was right, the world's non-democratic superpower will never be a democracy. If Kim Dae-jung was right, a seismic change is afoot. Either way, the result of this debate will shape the next century of East Asia and the world.

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