When news of the latest "Final deal" regarding the Comfort Women came out on December 28, I wasn't as excited as a few of my Facebook friends. Sadly, my initial "Wait and see" reservations proved correct as the story soured faster than milk and pickle juice.
This topic is overwhelming to write about, because writing about any one aspect causes every single other thing to rush out for inclusion as well. It's like drinking a cup of jello: poke. Nothing. Poke. Nothing. Bigger poke. Omygoodnesseverythingiscomingatoncewhatwasithinking? Plus, no matter how carefully I write this piece, everything I omitted for simplicity or brevity will get thrown in my face in the comments anyway. It's daunting, and I'm frustrated at yet another apology doomed to be rejected both by Korea's and Japan's publics, followed by further recriminations, deepening grievance and apology/insincerity fatigue that will make it harder for both sides to offer and accept the next (hopefully final) apology, when or if it ever comes.
I wrote a term paper on this topic last semester, focused on the Korea Japan situation and I'd like to share some of the things I learned, or concluded, from that.
The basics: from 1910 to 1945, Japan made Korea into a colony, as part of an imperial plan to become in Asia what modern European colonial powers had become in other parts of the world. It went badly for Korea. Along the way, and especially during the Sino-Japanese war and World War II, some horrific things, like torture, human medical experimentation and forcible recruitment of Korean women to be sex-slaves to Japanese soldiers, came to pass.
This series is not discussing those historical facts: those have been documented and debated elsewhere. This series IS discussing the political realities of apologies between these two nations. So if you want to dispute facts. This isn't the blog you're looking for.
During a certain period in the not too distant past, Japan, following a mistaken national policy, advanced along the road to war, only to ensnare the Japanese people in a fateful crisis, and, through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations. In the hope that no such mistake be made in the future, I regard, in a spirit of humility, these irrefutable facts of history, and express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology. Allow me also to express my feelings of profound mourning for all victims, both at home and abroad, of that history.
Many subsequent apologies have basically repeated the language in this apology.
Here is a series of posts from Ask A Korean! explaining why those apologies have been rejected.
The Murayama apology was made by a progressive government with a weak minority in the Diet, and was controversial in Japanese civil society at the time: after the apology, a string of Japanese government ministers visited the controversial Yasukuni shrine, which honors convicted war criminals along with Japan's war dead, and symbolizes Japan's reluctance to confront and particularly, disown, its colonial past. (NYT: Japanese Apology For War is Welcomed and Criticized) (Apology "Not enough"). It's the same shrine Prime Minister Abe visited in this latest news cycle.
On and off since then, other Japanese leaders have continued to visit Yasukuni shrine, publishing houses have continued to publish textbooks white-washing Japan's war aggressions, public figures have continued to say stupid things about comfort women, and Japan's presiding president considered revoking the 1995 apology, to appease his far-right nationalist supporters. At the grass-roots level, denialist netizens say whatever shit they want pretty much with impunity. So yes, it was an apology, but since there was no break from past behavior, from leadership OR the public, it hasn't come across as very sincere to Koreans.
The question of what WOULD be a "sincere" enough apology is an important one, and we need to have an answer that has broad support among Koreans - enough that asking for more could be seen as unreasonable... to most Koreans. Otherwise that complaint about moving goalposts won't go away, but incentive for another apology will (if it hasn't already). We also don't want the impression to develop that the aggrieved have more invested in being victims, than in moving on. Some argue that is already the case, and that would be a shame, because Korea and Japan have a lot to gain from a better relationship in areas like economy, diplomacy, and security.
Political Economy
The key to the clickbait title lies in the political economy of international apologies. Political economy is a simple enough idea: in the same way financiers look at incomplete information and make educated guesses about how to profit, politicians choose actions to maximize political gain. A sane politician won't make an action or comment or support a policy that will clearly cause them to lose approval points, votes, and reputation, (their political capital) compared to their rivals. Given that politicians decide to issue these kinds of apologies, let's ask, what do politicians risk, and what do they gain from apologizing to another country?
For an apology to be successful, it need to be issued by a country's leaders. It needs to be supported by the population, it needs to be accepted by the other country's leaders, and that acceptance needs to be supported by that population. Those are actually a lot of moving parts already. Things complicate further if both countries have democratic systems, more or less healthy free speech, civil societies, and political oppositions. Things complicate further still if both countries have citizens who can read the other country's language, and even more again if both countries have strong currents of nationalism.
Scenarios: [Update: this used to be a big long thing about two imaginary countries. I'm gonna take a moment to simplify it, because it's about two actual countries.]
Let's imagine three scenarios. Japan's leaders and their people, and Korea's leaders and their people are trying to negotiate an apology that will allow both countries to move forward into better relations.
Scenario A: Strong Apology
This is how you apologize to Comfort Women.
More info here and here. Photo from here.
Or... the way Koreans seem to want it to go:
Swap out Willy Brandt and the gates of the Warsaw Ghetto, and put in Prime Minister Abe at the feet of the surviving Comfort Woman: this apology is everything Koreans have ever wanted. But Japan's political climate is pretty closely balanced: any move by one side is hotly contested by the opposition party.
It's direct and contrite: it expresses responsibility as well as remorse in clear, unambiguous language. It is backed up by substantive action in various arenas: politicians are banned from going to Yasukuni Shrine until the War Crimes display is erected, at which the text has been composed by a joint team of Korean, Japanese and Chinese scholars and historians. War criminals' names are expelled from the shrine, or moved to the new "hall of ignominy." Those same historians and scholars have a free hand to suggest amendments to museum displays, history textbooks, and general school curricula pertaining to the entire colonial period and Pacific War. Japanese lawmakers contact Germany to discuss the ins and outs of Germany's ban on Holocaust denial, with an eye toward a similar law for Japan's internet. The apology and reparations to the surviving comfort women are negotiated with full input from the surviving comfort women and they are compensated out of Japanese government coffers, documented in a way that expresses clear culpability, paired with an apology they helped write.
Japan's ruling party immediately faces a domestic backlash (even Willy Brandt was criticized for kneeling), and the prime minister is crucified in the media and civil society by the usual suspects. "They are humiliating their country in the international arena!" Out come the black vans, a few Korean-owned shops in Osaka get trashed by a few drunk Japanese denialists whose nationalist rage-on is in full swing.
Korean media (of course) covers this backlash (extensively). During the next hotly contested Korean election cycle, one of the parties makes a play for those easy nationalist votes by claiming the apology wasn't enough and promising to overturn Korea's acceptance of the apology.
This, in turn, causes a backlash in Japan: "They were never going to accept any apology" which hurts Japanese politicians supporting the apology in the next election... leading to other politicians seeing an advantage to be gained by promising to walk back that apology. If they win, they walk back that stuff about changing national museums and textbooks, and defang any Holocaust denial-ish laws that were passed. Now there is a backlash in Korea too, agains politicians who accepted that apology. "They're not really sorry, and you're suckers for accepting it."
The deepest bow on google image search. Source
Japan: "We can never bow low enough."
Korea: "Your bow has no meaning anyway"
Japanese leaders who made the apology lose even more political capital, and frustration grows nationally that even a strong, good-faith attempt to fix things, failed. There is less incentive than ever before for any future apologies, and an increasing political disincentive, given how apologizing led to a backlash against the last folks who did it.
Nothing's settled and nobody's happy. Ill will between the countries has probably increased, as long as civil society in Japan has too strong a faction opposing apology.
TL:DR: The apology that would satisfy Korea's people would lead to a backlash in Japan. That backlash would lead to Koreans no longer being satisfied by the apology anyway.
Scenario B: Weak/Qualified (Non-)Apology - the Nopology
Let's say Japan makes the apology its domestic political climate, with that slim majority, can bear. It issues a cautious apology carefully worded, in order to avoid sacrificing too much face. Japanese leaders are protected from domestic criticism.
But over in Korea:
The apology is quickly derided as insincere and unsatisfying. We've seen this happen. Opportunist Korean politicians line up to criticize it and demand a "REAL" apology (and if South Korean politicians don't, North Korea will be quick to say the South is rolling over like a lapdog or somesuch). Protestors line up outside the Japanese embassy. On the other side, Japanese politicians and civilians accuse Koreans of moving the goalposts, or being implacable: "They don't really care about apologies: they just like to play victim."
Result: The apology is rejected. Ill will between the countries increases. Those attempting the apology lose a lot of political capital, and likely even decline to follow through with it. Those stoking anti-sentiment in both countries gain political capital. Nobody is happy except the rabble-rousers, whose positions are more entrenched than before.
Scenario C: Semi-Weak Apology
Same as Scenario B, except the apology is a little more strongly worded: takes more responsibility, or is backed up with the promise of more concrete action. Not as much as Scenario A, but more. Now, in Korea, there is some support for accepting it. But don't forget that Korea is a democracy with protected free speech, so opposition politicians and commentators, whose job it is to oppose things, still argue that the apology isn't enough.
Because of them, fallout is the same except: Some people deride the apology instead of everybody; opposition Korean politicians criticize the apology, instead of ALL Korean politicians (some try to take the high ground, and talk about the long view... which might work, but might get buried under emotional arguments when everyone's nationalist juices are flowing, if the opposition's demagogues are at it.)
Once the Japanese public sees the mixed reaction, their reaction is pretty much the same as in Scenario B, and the end result is more or less the same.
The results in these three scenarios are actually worse for relations between Korea and Japan than the status quo: low grade resentment with the occasional flare-up when a dumbass politician or textbook publisher gets punchy.
TL:DR
For now:
The kind of apology that would be supported by Japan's public won't wash in Korea.
The apology that Korea wants wouldn't wash in Japan.
Half-assed or qualified apologies make things worse.
A full apology shouldn't be attempted until those who would reject even that in Korea, or those who would oppose issuing one in Japan, are small enough minorities that they are politically radioactive, or at least irrelevant.
There is no point in adding another Japan apology, that Korea will also reject, to the list of apologies that have already been rejected, and politicians have strong disincentives to do so, as it generates public ill will and burns political capital for no benefit.
In the political economy of international apologies, politicians are calculating the above three scenarios, and in none of them does the cost/benefit end in the positive, because pleasing nationals of some other country (who don't vote in your election) isn't worth it unless you can please your OWN country's voters at the same time.
And that is Why Japan Shouldn't Apologize To Korea (right now)
Do I think Japan should apologize? Yes. But only one more time, for the last time, in such a way that everyone is satisfied that it will be the last time.
Part 2 coming eventually.
Some useful readings from the paper I wrote, that informed my logic on this topic:
Cooney, Kevin J., and Scarbrough, Alex. 2008. “Japan and South Korea: Can These Two Nations Work Together?” Asian Affairs: An American Review. 35.3: 173-192.
On the troubled relationship between Korea and Japan: a history of attempts to patch things up, and a clear demonstration that domestic opinion can strongly affect international policy and diplomacy.
Glaeser, Charles L., Berger, Thomas U., Mochizuki, Mike M., and Lind, Jennifer. 2009. “Roundtable Discussion of Jennifer Lind’s Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics.” Journal of East Asian Studies. 9: 337-368.
A great panel discussion in which Jennifer Lind raises the point that a badly done apology, or one that isn't seen as sincere enough, can actually worsen the situation between two countries. Charles Glaeser highlights Jennifer Lind's discussion of the lack of other apologies we'd expect to have happened (see upcoming)
Lawson, Stephanei and Tannaka, Seiko. 2011. “War memories and Japan’s ‘Normalization’ as an International Actor: A Critical Analysis.” European Journal of International Relations. 17.3: 405-428.
Contains a very good history of Japanese apologies, and why they were seen as inadequate.
Here is part 2 of this series.
Here is the table of contents.
I got an e-mail from a buddy named Shannon, who's a heck of a lady, and who's associated with the "House of Sharing" home for comfort women.
On Sunday, December 4, from 2-4pm in the theatre of Jogye Temple, one street over from Insadong, there's going to be a screening of a documentary film about the lives of these women, which I think you should go and see.
‘Comfort women’ tell their story in a documentary film
The documentary film “63 Years On” will be shown at a free screening at Jogyesa Temple Theatre on Sunday, December 4th 2011.
This is an opportunity for both the Korean and International communities to further engage with the ‘Comfort women’ issue and to support the continuing fight for justice.
A brief Question & Answer session will take place after the film, an opportunity for those who wish to share their thoughts on the film and ask any questions to members of the House of Sharing’s International Outreach Team.
In this film, award-winning Korean director Kim Dong Won presents the harrowing experiences of 5 international survivors of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery during World War II. The very personal telling of their experiences is supported by excellent research and archival footage to create a powerfully honest, determined, and often heartbreaking documentary. While this gripping film may evoke great sadness and anger, the bravery displayed will truly inspire all who see it.
The House of Sharing’s International Outreach Team works to raise awareness of the issue of Japanese military sexual slavery during World War II and to support the survivors, called Halmoni, in their on-going struggle for historical reconciliation and justice. The team is composed of both foreign and local volunteers who lead English tours to the House of Sharing and the onsite Museum of Sexual Slavery by the Japanese Military.
The House of Sharing’s International Outreach Team also works to highlight continuing crimes against humanity, including the form of sexual violence during war and international sexual trafficking, that women and children across the world continue to experience on a daily basis.
This screening provides a window to an episode of Asian and International history which has been willfully ignored by so many for more than 63 years. You are invited to join the House of Sharing and show your support to the survivors who continue the fight for justice.
Soundtrack: Bobby Kim.
Wifeoseyo LOVES Bobby Kim, and once took me to a concert of his. I actually like him quite a bit too... this is one of the songs on his latest; not my favorite, but I couldn't find that one on youtube.
However, here's something really cool that I wanted to share: Wifeoseyo first mentioned it - a news story that brought tears to her eyes.
Many of my readers already know who the "Comfort women" are -- during the colonial period, and through World War II, young Korean women (and women from other Asian nations) were brought along with Japanese armies, to provide sexual services to Japanese soldiers. It is alleged that some, maybe all, of them, were kidnapped from their homes. They were called "comfort women" - which is the gentlest way you can say "sex slave." More at Wikipedia. (Warning: don't take the Wikipedia as gospel truth: Wikipedia has become a battleground for competing national narratives in Asian historical controversies... but it should give you the broad strokes well enough.)
The days, a few of Korea's former sex-slaves are still alive, some of them living in a group home in Hyehwa. Many lived tough lives, as their history as sex slaves left a mark on them that made it hard for their families, or society at large, to accept them, and what had happened to them.
Every Wednesday, these women stage a small demonstration in downtown Seoul, demanding Japan's leaders apologize, take full responsibility for the things done to them when they were young, and pay reparations to them -- a kind of blood money for the shitty lives some of them have lived.
This lady's holding a sign that says "Koreans in Japan, and Japanese citizens: All of you be strong!" (image from here)
If anyone had the right to talk shit about Japan, it was these women -- not the nationalist demagogues who like playing historical guilt cards to gain political points -- but rather than come out in bitterness at the things done to them, these women had grace and class.
Talking about Japan, here in Korea, can be tricky, and I'll share two reasons why today:
1. Even as Koreans love Japanese comic books and cartoons and cute toys, there are a few historical grievances, which translate into modern-day controversies and problems involving a few territories and history textbooks. These topics can be really emotional - I even once wrote a blog post (way back when nobody read me) titled, "Do not talk about Dokdo"
Many of us expats have stories about a student, or a friend, taking a few minutes to tell us how much all Koreans hate all Japanese... and sometimes something really sad pops up, like these "hate Japan" pictures that were drawn by elementary school kids, and posted in a Korean subway station, during a wave of particularly strong Anti-Japanese sentiment... I also once had a student write "When I grow up, I want to be a general like Lee Sunshin and kill Japanese like him." Editorials like this cast Korea in an ugly, vengeful, ungracious light.
And it can be hard to have an honest discussion about these topics, when there are so many emotions on a hair-trigger. I've had conversations before where midway in, I figured out that the person I was talking with didn't really want to hear my opinions. He wanted to hear his opinions about Japan (which were disappointingly, stereotypically negative) coming out of a foreigner's mouth. I don't see the point in getting involved in conversations where my actual thoughts aren't welcome, and the purpose for starting into the topic is not communication but validation.
2. The other reason it's hard to talk about Japan (as an expat, with other expats) is the echo chamber effect.
Lately, I've been looking at a lot of the memes that have been circulating in the K-blogosphere for a while... (most of which were thoughtfully collected by Kushibo here -- in a post that made an impression on me when it was satirized at Dokdo Is Ours)...
and at DIO, the phrase "echo chamber" comes up -- see, I've been noticing lately that a lot of K-blogs go over similar territory. Nothing wrong with that, especially as many of them are documenting similar experiences (what percentage of the Korea Blog List do you think is comprised of blogs about the first two years of teaching English in Korea? At least a quarter. Maybe more than half). Nothing wrong with that at all... but anybody who doesn't think it gets a little self-referential from time to time is fooling themselves, especially when these bloggers start addressing each other, or an expat audience, rather than their folks back home.
And when people are gathering their information from other blogs, and when those blogs are getting their information from older sources, and especially when commenters come in and bring out the same set talking points whenever a particular topic comes up... impressions and ideas tend to crystallize... and as you and I both know, comment boards aren't conducive to nuance.
And you get some crystallized stereotypes and ideas about Korea and Koreans that either aren't accurate, or that used to be accurate, but are no longer... or that might still be partly true, but to a much lesser degree, or true of a much smaller proportion of Koreans, than they used to be.
A perfect example of this is the stereotype of the Dokdo finger-chopper -- that happened ONE time, but how often does the finger-chopper, or bee man, or the pheasant chuckers (all of which date back to 2005), come up, when Dokdo is on the blogs? Pretty much every time, right? What happened outside the Japanese embassy, regarding Dokdo, last month, or the month before? Finger chopping makes a great story, but it doesn't reflect on the current state of a country that changes as quickly as Korea does, to dredge up something that happened in 2005.
All that to say sometimes the echo chamber needs to revisit some of these tropes, and update them, and some people commenting within the echo chamber, when their own information sources are mostly hearsay, and they don't have the language chops to get across the barrier themselves... they'd do well to qualify a bit.
I haven't heard somebody actually try to tell me there are no gays in Korea since 2004. Why are people still bringing that up? And there are lots of Koreans who can think creatively, too.
And another big one? In my own experience, attitudes toward Japan over the last few years have become a lot more thoughtful, balanced, rational, and positive. I don't doubt public opinion surveys would bear that out. Koreans still think Dokdo's an important issue, but there's less "let's cut off the heads of pigeons" and more "let's be strategic about this," and I've heard less open, unqualified hostility toward Japan lately than I used to. Hopefully this means fewer people are teaching their children to hate Japan, too.
I'm just one dude, but this gives me hope. This post is just one snapshot... but it's a heartening one, so put that in your pipe and smoke it, and if you're one of the ones making blanket statements about all Koreans hating Japan... maybe revisit that. Sure, there are some Koreans whose minds remain closed, and always will. The same can be said of expats.
Prayers for Japan, and everyone connected to those struggling with this unimaginable tragedy.
During the World Cup, 2006, I was talking about the Korea/Japan rivalry with a mixed crowd of Korean and Western friends. I jokingly said, "Korea and Japan should play a soccer game, and the winner gets Dokdo!" My Western friends all laughed.
My Korean coworker looked at me with a sour, hairy eyeball, and emphatically answered: "But Dokdo is ours." Wasn't a single bit funny to her. In fact, it pissed her right off.
Koreans take this pretty seriously: if you're new in Korea, you will underestimate how seriously. Be warned. Eggshells, my Korean-adult-teaching friends. Eggshells.
From the Korea Herald's March 20th editorial:
"Recognition of the status quo of Dokdo should be the starting point of any new "partnership" between Korea and Japan."
Translation: "We're willing to let Dokdo become the pyre on which we immolate diplomatic relations with Japan. It's that important to us." (To English teachers: that means they're also willing to let it be the sticking point on which they decide to hate you. It's that incendiary an issue. Korea needs Japan more than they need you, dear conversation teacher friend, and they're ready to make a fuss there, too.)
Personally, I have only two things to say about Dokdo:
1. As with the recent American Beef fiasco, the question to ask is, "Who benefits if people behave as predicted?" -- with American beef, it was pretty easy to spot the Korean beef lobby and the left-wing anti-FTA hand in the media glove, and they aren't even hiding that any more. Roh Moo-hyun's old buddies are having a field day taking shots at Lee Myung-bak.
So. . .
When Korea gets upset about Dokdo, who benefits?
Nationalist Japanese politicians, who use video footage and reports of anti-Japanese demonstrations in Korea as evidence that "The whole world hates us. . . you need strong, nationalist leaders, like me, to protect Japan's interests!" That's who benefits. Nobody else wins.
That Korea responds so predictably, and emphatically, to the slightest provocation on this topic, means that Dokdo is now their go-to issue when they need to scare up some support. Think about it.
The fact Koreans look foolish internationally (and they do) when reports like this get on the news is just a bonus for them. This image was published on BBC's webpage in 2005, with the caption, "Protesters burn posters of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi during a rally against Japan's sovereignty claims over South Korea's Dokdo isles, in Seoul": the world is watching.Koreans are being manipulated, and the tin pot is so hot they don't notice that they're being played for fools by some cagey Japanese politicians.
2. I don't know enough about this situation to make any stance (and fear to do so, given Gary Bevers' experience), so instead, I'll say this:
Given Comfort Women (here and here), Goguryeo (here, here and here) and Dokdo/Takashima/Liancourt Rocks (here and here), the Nanjing Massacre (here and here), among other less-publicized things, it has become clear to me that China, Korea, and Japan all have startlingly different versions of the history of East-Asia. These conflicting histories are leading to controversies, and becoming politicized, rallying-points for unhealthy, ugly nationalism in each country (more picturesof protests). In the interest of finding a common ground and moving into the future, and to avoid further politically motivated distortions of history; in the hope of healthier intra-Asian relations, that are unhampered by historical grievances and disagreements, it is obvious that . . .
East Asia needs to form an international team of historians and scholars (no politicians), and write an apolitical history of East Asia. That's right. Get together a mixed group of Asia historians from China, Japan, Korea, as well as other countries, let each filter out the others' agendas, go back to the primary sources, and write an objective, non-politicized, (as) undistorted (as possible, given that historians are humans too) history of East Asia, and then agree together that all countries in question will hold to, and teach this propaganda-free history, and approach historical disagreements a little more rationally than has been happening so far.
That's my piece. I'm done on the topic, and frankly, tired of talking about it.
In 2003 a land-claim dispute between Korea and Japan started heating up. There are a couple of islands called Dokdo in Korea, and Takashima in Japan. I won't get into the whole story, but when Japan made a claim on Dokdo, Koreans responded with all the rage and resentment stored up from memories of decades of Japanese colonization, back before World War II.
Now I'm not saying Japan is in the right here; they did a lot of things that are nasty and ugly and disgusting and dehumanizing during the colonial times -- I've talked about the Comfort Women (see the posts about moral authority from November), and that whole episode is so totally reprehensible and tragic. . .
but responding with this kind of hatred puts Korea in the wrong, too: these are pictures drawn by elementary school kids, and put up in a subway station. Maybe the teachers were intending to show a little rah-rah-nationalism, but encouraging kids to draw this kind of poisonous stuff ought to lead to a day of serious reckoning for the teacher's union, abusing their influence over elementary school kids.
My old coworker once got an essay that read like this: "When I grow up I want to be a soldier so I can fight the Japan and kill many Japanese for Korea," and kids don't hate like that, unless they're taught to do so by someone they trust.
Not that there's anything wrong with nationalism, if it's a source of identity and belonging. That's totally positive. However, if it becomes a means to attack, marginalize, disparage or scapegoat another country or another people, well, that's ugly and wrong and sometimes dangerous. Korea's not the only country guilty of it -- right now the nationalist rhetoric is at a fevered and dangerous pitch in the good old USA, too, but it's just tragic when it comes to these kinds of displays.
This is where ideology goes wrong. . . I love Korea, but this kind of thing diminishes us all.
I hope most of the schoolteachers in Korea were sober-minded and responsible, and this was just the work of a few, ignorant, renegade ideologues. . . I hope. . . but this is all it takes to give a country a black eye: a few angry people who stop using their heads. These pictures made it into the news in Japan and they (along with other dokdo, comfort women, and assorted nationalist anti-Japanese rhetoric and protests) led to a drop in Japan's friendly attitude toward Korea from 69% of survey respondents in 2002 to 36%.
Sure, Japan did some bad stuff. . . but I feel like when humans do ugly things to each other, we should respond with grief, not with hate, and CERTAINLY not by teaching children to hate.
Little corners like this are littered through the side-streets in Seoul. I had a bunch of other pictures of the city at night, but my camera just can't quite hack it.
Here's another way Japan really desecrated Korea's culture while they colonized them (for which Korea still hasn't forgiven them, cheerfully forgetting that Japan also built a lot of infrastructure, like roads and institutions that have helped Korea reach its current state).
This is a temple on a mountainside. I have NO IDEA how they got it up there -- it wasn't an easy climb -- but there are some seriously impressive temples on mountainsides here. Make a special note of the rock on the left. You'll see it again in the next pictures.
A lot of temples in Korea are on mountainsides: mountains are holy in Korea, they carry great spiritual power (just climb a mountain -- see if you disagree when you're looking across an entire valley). Colonial Japan nailed iron spikes into big rocks like this, at the most consecrated places on the mountain peaks, as an attempt to ruin the geomancy (geographic energy -- kind of like feng shui on a macro scale) of Korea's mountains, and break the spirit of the Korean people. They also outlawed the Korean language. As we all know, threaten a culture's language if you REALLY want them never to forgive you -- French Canada still hasn't forgiven English Canada for Lord Durham's report in 1838.
Here's a close-up of one of the iron spikes. It's on the bottom corner of the giant rock above, and this rock is right next to one of the most important mountainside temples in Seoul -- where the king used to come for spiritual counsel.
Another thing Japan did was slightly move a lot of the palaces and important buildings in Seoul: the buildings' locations were also chosen by geomancy, so changing their dimensions or orientations poisons the energy flow through the capital. These days a lot of these buildings are being re-oriented to their original places, or rebuilt entirely, to put Korea's colonized past behind them.
Also. . .
Chicken feet, anyone?
Hey! What's that?
In the subway station. . .
Oh. Nevermind. Nothing special.
(p.s.: I'm famous. Just a little, though. See here also. Let the pictures on the homepage scroll. This is what happens to you if you stick around in Korea long enough, and have curly hair to the right person.)
This clown took up three spots. An old man was poking him with his cane, and he still didn't wake up. I laughed.
Here's another example, one that cuts both ways, from where I see it.
(Leading in:) After World War II, the US came clean on the Japanese internment camps they'd run, made reparations, made a public, official apology, and so made it possible to start healing. Germany did the same in Europe regarding the holocaust, making it possible to normalize relations between them and the other countries of the EU.
Over in East Asia, though, relationships between Japan, China and Korea are strained these days because Japanese history books and politicians are smoothing over, or flatly denying a pair of disgusting blots on Japan's wartime history. There was a huge civilian massacre in Nanking during the war, the seriousness, and the very veracity of which Japan has disputed, and Japanese soldiers also kidnapped hundreds or maybe thousands of young women out of their villages in the territories they occupied during the war (Korea, China, Indonesia, etc.), housed them outside the soldiers' camps, and basically forced them to be sex slaves for the duration of the war. They were euphemistically called "comfort women" because that sounds better than "sex slaves" or "rape-bunnies". Japan's politicians have been saying that these women went voluntarily, or that they were amply compensated. Nationalist Japanese politicians are grumbling "I'm about fed up with being asked to apologize" when nobody's ever owned up to it specifically, and Japanese history textbooks have been de-emphasizing or trivializing such events. The Japanese emperor made a number of blanket apologies and such after the war, but Japan has refused to make the kinds of reparations and official statements necessary to allow China and Korea to move on . . . and when they HAVE made apologies, they've often been loaded with vague words, and evasive qualifiers, not ratified by any official bodies, or (former Prime Minister Koizumi caught a lot of flack for this) immediately after apologizing, the apologizers went and paid respects at a war memorial that honoured, among the others, dead war criminals.
At the same time as it refuses to come clean on its own war atrocities, Japan is campaigning to become a permanent member of the U.N. security council. Is there something wrong with this picture? Could anyone seriously trust Japan in concerns of world stability when it won't even play straight with its own history?
Michael Honda is the American politician who led a resolution through congress formally urging Japan to come clean, and he says, among other things (read the article) that "If you want to be a global leader, you have to first gain the trust and confidence of your neighbors."
Here are some pictures of former comfort womenI saw in a display outside Seoul's City Hall about the comfort women. Many of them were ostracized as "damaged goods" when they came back to Korea, and never married.
This next one especially breaks my heart because her face reminds me of my mom. It could have been anyone's mother -- that's the shocking thing about it.
Here's a painting that expresses the terror and degradation pretty clearly.
On the other hand, Korea has its own problems with moral authority: Koreans cry for an apology and compensation to the surviving comfort women (and their numbers are dwindling as many pass on from old age). It's a shame that Korea waited so long to begin campaigning for their vindication (the comfort women issue was hidden like a shameful secret until the 1990s), but the Korean agitation for an apology is toothless, in my opinion.
You see, the Korean government's refusal to enforce their own laws against prostitution cut Korea's protests to Japan off at the knees. How can Korea claim any moral authority, how can their criticism that Japanese soldeirs violated these young women's basic human dignity hold any water, when it's still common for Korean businessmen to visit "business clubs" and "massage parlours" and "barber shops" where the services for sale degrade the women forced to work there? Sure, there isn't a gun to these women's heads, but it doesn't wash for Korea to demand recompense for women who were degraded in the past, when Korea today STILL degrades their own women through the sex industry, and even the government turns a blind eye to it (after passing some token laws to divert international criticism).
Some links about prostitution in Korea from a site that translates articles in Korean newspapers.
It's common here for Russian or Indonesian or Philippino women to come to Korea to work in the lucrative sex trade: travelling to Korea and selling herself for a year will bring a woman enough profit to support her family back home for two more years! The "entertainment" districts are well known in Seoul (Mia, Chongnyangni, Yongsan, there was one in Bangi-dong where I lived before; there are many more), and range from places where you can pay for a woman to simply entertain you (a little like a geisha in Japan - she'll sing and converse and pour your drinks), to (in and) outright brothels. Though it's getting better in recent years, it's common enough that a few years ago, there was actually a campaign where an organization was handing out free movie tickets as an alternative to bosses taking their employees to "business clubs" for their Christmas bonuses. It's never spoken in polite company, but a student told me (and the male student who'd completed his military service turned red, but didn't deny) that when a Korean man is about to begin his military service, a common initiation custom is for his friends, or his senior soldiers, to take him to a brothel, if he's still a virgin, and make sure he loses his cherry before he goes out defending his country! Korea's stand on comfort women doesn't wash to me, because their own record for defending the human dignity of women over in Chongnyangni is pretty poor, while Japan's petition to become a permanent member of the security council rings hollow, too, because of their denial of the past.
All this is not to say that the speaker's character is the ONLY concern in discourse -- the fact Nietsche died in an asylum doesn't mean his ideas aren't worth serious consideration, and the fact some particular writer/poet/politician/artist was gay/a pedophile/rude/a plagiarist doesn't mean we can ignore their ideas completely (the ad hominem attack is an ancient, and petty trick). Shakespeare's sexual orientation has no effect on his genius, and more than a big nose would have!
But in certain arenas, especially those on a national and international scale, where practical action is required, and where a lot of people are affected by movers' and shakers' opinions and decisions, and especially in cases where the people effected by those decisions have little or no power, or voice, or wealth, I think one DOES need to look at the entirety of a group's choices and decisions, sniffing around for ulterior motives, in order to lend them credence. If Nike is planting trees to make up its carbon debt, that's good, but they're STILL running sweat shops in Cambodia. Megaphones and mufflers! I wrote in one of my notebooks in highschool (I'm not sure if I stole this from somewhere or not, but. . . ) "Our words show what we want to be; our actions show what we are."
