Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Asian America after the Atlanta Shooting
Tuesday, December 01, 2020
Rescuing Our Parents from the Conservative Brain Rot (and Introducing The Blue Roof)
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Diagram by "National Alliance for Tunnel Security", claiming to show the configuration of North Korean tanks under the Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul, infiltrated through a secret network of underground tunnels. (source) |
Dear Korean,
Help! I need a recommendation on people/show/clips or anything in Korean that can counter all the Fox News parroting Korean news that my mom watches all the time on YouTube. If they’re a Christian, that would be a bonus since most of the videos she watches are sent by church people and thus she thinks are truth.
Rim
Dear Rim,
I'm sorry to say I can't be very helpful. If I knew the solution, I would be consulting political parties around the world how to unscrew the people's minds warped by the conservative online media, which is more of a systemized disinformation campaign rather than journalism. To be sure, there are good and popular liberal Youtube channels and podcasts that cover Korean news. (Allileo by Yu Si-min comes to mind.) But it would be pointless to recommend them, because your parents will never watch those commie channels. The problem is not the lack of good and rigorous material; the problem is the deliberate refusal to seek the truth.
I am writing this post primarily in order to let the world know that your problem is very common among younger Korean Americans. Virtually every day, I receive emails from people in your exact situation - asking for resource on how to reverse the brain damage caused by our parents' destructive Youtube habit. The rotting of our parents' minds in fact began much earlier, because Korea faced the problem of the conservatives' institutionalized disinformation campaign earlier than the United States. Before any American could contemplate the possibility of Russians putting up fake Facebook posts to sway US voters, the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration from 2007 to 2012 was using Korea's spy agency to run a domestic psy op generating millions of message board replies and fake tweets. Among older Koreans, it is an accepted truth that President Moon Jae-in secretly hoarded a 1,000 tons of gold (to a point that an armed robber attacked Moon's office before he was the president, looking for the gold) and North Korea has 1,620 tanks hidden under Seoul through an elaborate network of tunnels.
The issue became much more visible recently as the disinformation campaign went international. A few years ago, I was bewildered that second generation Korean Americans, whose politics in the US was firmly within the mainstream, began parroting some wild-ass talking points about Korean politics - then I realized they were getting all the Korean politics news from their parents who were undergoing the brain rot. But in the past year or so, the second generation Korean Americans began noticing that something was off: even if they knew nothing about Korean politics, they could tell something was wrong their parents started saying COVID-19 was not real. This issue became more visible to the younger Korean Americans because South Korea's conservative Youtube channels would pick up the bullshit from US conservative media, such that the parents started spouting a more recognizable form of bullshit.
After getting hundreds of questions and requests similar to Rim's, I did come up with one response: with a team of like-minded people, I started a website/newsletter that focused on South Korean politics. If you follow me on Twitter (@askakorean), you probably already know about The Blue Roof: www.blueroofpolitics.com. We started TBR for many reasons, but speaking for myself, one of the major reasons was because there needed to be some kind of a resource for Korean Americans who are dealing with their parents' Youtube habits. I have no grand hope that this will be the silver bullet; your parents likely will not be persuaded to read TBR's coverage of South Korean politics. But at the very least, you can have some frame of reference with which to gauge how far off course your parents have gone.
Again, I am sorry I cannot do more for this truly serious problem. But I can guarantee that our team at TBR is producing a high quality publication. The site only three months old, but we count among our subscribers virtually every international media outlets with a presence in Korea as well as many diplomats and academics. And atoning for my sin of very infrequent posting on this blog, I am committed to producing TBR every week without fail. It might not get your parents off the right-wing Youtube channels, but at least you will now be able to hold a conversation with them.
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
Thursday, May 21, 2020
The Hater's Guide to KBO
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Darius I is concerned that Persians are listening to K-pop. (source) |
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(source) |
Yet you’re here, because you’re desperate. You’re so desperate for baseball that you’re up at 2 a.m. watching AAA-level baseball (that’s being generous) being played in an empty stadium. Because the rest of the world is on fire, and by having a competent response to the coronavirus pandemic, Korea is inadvertently on its way toward a culture victory.
But strike that—you’re not here because you miss baseball. Or at least, baseball qua baseball is not what you miss. What you miss is the baseball experience. What you miss is the experience of being a fan. The quality of the play on the field is secondary to the fact that you belong to a fandom, and have the sense of camaraderie arising from the shared interest. Above all, what you miss is the sweet, sweet taste of sports hate.
Therefore, with a hat tip toward Deadspin (RIP) and Drew Magary, Ask a Korean! presents: The Hater’s Guide to the KBO. Why pick your KBO team based on the dead metrics like number of championships, when the object of your true desire is another group of people who sports-hate the same way you do? Let the hate wash over you, and find the hate-vibe that fits yours, among these fine ten KBO teams.
Wednesday, March 04, 2020
The Forgotten Neoliberal Man of Parasite
Friday, January 31, 2020
Book Review: A Team of Their Own by Seth Berkman (2019)
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
Friday, December 27, 2019
Hoya is Looking for a Home
Friday, December 20, 2019
Taking K-pop Seriously in the 2020s
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Seo Taiji and Boys, c. 1993 (source) |
Modern K-pop began around the late 1980s, fresh off South Korea’s transition into democracy in 1987 and the successful 1988 Seoul Olympics. This means at the year’s end in 2019, modern K-pop is finishing its third decade. Each decade of modern K-pop carried its own characteristics that built up to the Korean pop music that we know today.
The first decade of modern K-pop began in the 1990s, with its bannerman Seo Taiji and Boys [서태지와 아이들] debuting in 1992. In what came to be known as the Golden Age of K-pop, the “New Generation” [신세대] of Koreans—richer, more sophisticated, and more international than ever—set off an explosion of pop culture, creating a pop music scene with a variety of genres and styles including rock ‘n roll, hip hop, R&B and electronica. The first decade of K-pop set the basic contours of K-pop’s artistic bent: a no-holds-barred mixture of genres and styles and emphasis on choreography. Emblematic of this period is Seo Taiji’s Hayeoga [하여가]: an avant-garde mixture of rap metal with guitar and taepyeongso [태평소, a high-pitched traditional woodwind] bridges, to which Seo Taiji and Boys danced.
The later part of this decade also saw the inchoate form of K-pop’s “industrial revolution”: production companies putting together “idol groups,” a highly curated group of good looking young men and women who underwent a rigorous training program to maximize their appeal. Emblematic of this trend was H.O.T., a mass-produced simulacrum of the Seo Taiji experience. Powerful production companies like SM Entertainment and YG Entertainment that tightly controlled its trainees, churning out idol stars like Hyundai Motors produced automobiles. Meanwhile, the Hongdae indie scene began booming in Seoul, and underground hip hop groups like Garion was experimenting with rhymes in the Korean language.
The second decade, beginning around 2000s, was when the “industrialized” K-pop became international. In 2000, BoA debuted almost simultaneously in Korea and Japan, eventually topping the charts in both countries. Recruited at age 12 by SM Entertainment, BoA underwent rigorous training that included singing, dancing and language lessons, all geared toward making her blend naturally into both Japan and Korea. With stars like BoA and TVXQ (who replicated BoA’s model in China,) K-pop began to attract notice as an international phenomenon, although primarily centered in Asia.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
On Impeachment Eve
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Cheon Gwan-yul (source) |
Korea-Japan and the End of the '65 System - Part VI: Taking Stock
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Moon Jae-in (left) and Abe Shinzo, c. 2017 (source) |
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Korea-Japan and the End of the '65 System - Part V: the End of the '65 System
The ’65 System was a flawed one, based on an imperfect set of treaties that papered over the fundamental disagreement between Japan and South Korea. Yet it continued to survive thanks to opportune alignments in the domestic politics of Japan and South Korea. The ’65 System was born when Park Chung-hee, a former officer of the Imperial Japanese Army, replaced the former independence activist Syngman Rhee, negotiated the ’65 treaties, and violently suppressed the Korean people’s objections. It peaked in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when both Japan and South Korea had relatively progressive politics. Even as Abe Shinzo attacked the ’65 System in the early 2010s, Park Geun-hye’s willingness to kowtow to Abe’s demands kept the system running. And above all, the United States was there as the backstop whenever the ’65 System showed signs of wear.
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Moon Jae-in and Donald Trump meet at the White House. c. 2018 (source) |
By late 2016, however, the good luck would run out. Abe Shinzo continued to lead Japan, well on his way to becoming the longest serving prime minister in Japan’s history. Park Geun-hye was not as fortunate: she was revealed to have engaged in a bizarre corruption scandal involving a daughter of a shaman who claimed to speak with her dead mother. Koreans responded with a massive series of Candlelight Protests that drew over a million protesters for months. In March 2017, Park was impeached and removed, and liberal Moon Jae-in won the following snap election and took office in May 2017. Meanwhile, in November 2016, Donald Trump would be elected as the US president with a healthy assist from the Russian spy agency.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Korea-Japan and the End of the '65 System - Part IV: The '65 System's Decline
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Abe Shinzo visits Yasukuni Shrine, in which Class A war criminals from World War II are memorialized. c 2013 (source) |
Friday, September 06, 2019
Korea-Japan and the End of the '65 System - Part III: The Rise of the '65 System
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Japan's student protesters tussle with the riot police in Shinjuku, Tokyo. c. 1969 (source) |
(More after the jump.)
Tuesday, September 03, 2019
Korea-Japan and the End of the '65 System - Part II: The '65 System
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Japan's Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru signs the Treaty of San Francisco, c. Sept. 1951 (source) |
It was the character of Japan’s colonization of Korea that complicated the matters. Japan’s normalization with Korea was going to be a much more daunting task than normalizing relations with the Southeast Asian countries. Imperial Japan invaded the Southeast Asian countries, but it never colonized them. Japan’s occupation of Southeast Asia began in the early 1940s as World War II was unfolding, and lasted only a few years until the end of the war. When the war was over, the Southeast Asian countries—including Burma, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam—were considered a part of the victorious Allied Powers, participating in the Treaty of San Francisco as signatories. Normalizing ties with these countries only involved actually implementing Article 14 of the San Francisco Treaty: “Japan should pay reparations to the Allied Powers for the damage and suffering caused by it during the war.”
Indeed, the US initially had planned to include South Korea as an Allied Power. But less than two months before the treaty was signed, the US suddenly reversed position—precisely because Korea was a Japanese colony. The US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was concerned that Koreans would upend his carefully planned conference by taking a strong position against Japanese imperialism. Also, Japan insisted that inclusion of Korea as an Allied Power would mean that nearly a million Koreans living in Japan would received status as citizens of an Allied Power, receiving the benefit of the treaty.
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Korea-Japan and the End of the '65 System - Part I: Colonial Times
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Newspaper illustration showing An Jung-geun's arrest after shooting Ito Hirobumi (source) |
The first prime minister of modern Japan was Ito Hirobumi, who took office in 1885. Ito is remembered as one of modern Japan’s Founding Fathers. With an illustrious career that spanned four decades, Ito was the face of Japan to the contemporary world, similar to how late 19th century Germany was remembered as the time of Otto von Bismarck. Ito shaped and molded virtually every corner of modern Japan, setting the foundation of Japan’s modern constitution and the basic framework of Japan’s diplomacy with the world powers. He was also Japan’s first Resident-General of Korea, which Japan made its protectorate in 1905.
Ito died in 1909 at age 68, when Korea’s independence fighter An Jung-geun shot him in Harbin, China.
An was a son of a wealthy landowner in Korea’s Hwanghae Province, which sits between Seoul and Pyongyang. He came from a devout Catholic family and had a baptismal name of Thomas. After Korea became Japan’s protectorate, An formed a volunteer army to fight the invading Japanese forces. Eventually he moved his base to eastern Russia, and successfully killed the chief of Japanese imperialism over Korea.
Until his death, An maintained that he was a prisoner of war rather than an assassin, and demanded to be executed by a firing squad if he should be executed. Japan did not recognize An’s claim that he represented a foreign country, and hanged An as it would have executed any Japanese criminal.
That, in a nutshell, is the modern Japan-Korea relationship.
Modern Japan began with Meiji Restoration in 1868, when Japan’s political system consolidated under the emperor. With Meiji Restoration, Japan rapidly industrialized and sought to join the ranks of world powers. The first step of doing so was to colonize Korea. The seikanron (征韓論, “the Case of Invading Korea”) debate began in the early 1870s, and gained steam through the following decades.
Seikanron was Japan’s own mixture of lebensraum and “the white man’s burden”. Japan’s conquest of Korea was necessary, the argument went, for the sake of Japan’s security; it was also a humanitarian mission for the inferior race trapped in the decaying Sinosphere. In 1894, Fukuzawa Yukichi exhorted: “There is nothing better than bullets and gunpowder to destroy [Korea’s] illusion of China-worship.” Because Korea is “always extended toward Japan’s heart like a sharp dagger,” argued Okakura Kakuzo in 1904, “if our adversaries conquer the Korean Peninsula, they can easily advance toward Japan.”
(More after the jump.)
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
Monday, June 03, 2019
Korea's Nine Years of Darkness: Part VI - The Candlelight
A. The Choi Soon-sil Scandal
Given how well the Choi Soon-sil scandal came to be known around the world (with a little help from yours truly,) only a brief summary of the scandal would suffice. Park Geun-hye turned out to be feeble in her mind, and outsourced much of her presidential duty to Choi Soon-sil, the daughter of a shaman Choi Tae-min who became close with Park because he claimed he could speak with Park’s dead mother. In addition to running the country on behalf of the president, Choi Soon-sil used her power as the shadow president to collect bribes, siphon government budget and dole out favors. (For additional detail, please refer to three massive posts that I previously wrote about the scandal: one two three.)
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In a photo circa 1979, Choi Soon-sil, Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak are sitting in a row at a function. The hold that Choi has had over Park was an open secret within South Korea's political circles for decades. (source) |