Tragedy + Time = still tragedy. Korean War Prisoner Massacres finally coming to light

From the Chicago Tribune --

The truth about South Korean prisoner massacres during the Korean war is finally coming out.
(source: Mongdori newsfeed)

I feel sick.

Crappy Cameraphone's last day in the sun (and a game of spot the unintentional pun I discovered on proofreading, and decided to leave in)

Heck, let's make it into a contest.

If you can spot the unintentional pun and name it first in the comments, you get to choose the topic for my next post. I reserve the right to veto topic suggestions that are beyond reasonable boundaries of privacy, length, and good taste (this is a blog, not a game of truth or dare, you know), but if there's something you'd like to know about Roboseyo, or Roboseyo's Korea. . . get out your fine-tooth.

Inwang mountain: the last mountain I climbed before buying a real digital camera.

Inwang mountain is the mountain just to the west of the blue house (where Korea's president lives).  There's a neighbourhood between them, but it's a very nice mountain.

This guy enjoyed the peak a lot.


The mountain looks down on a really charming little village that, due to lack of access, has remained a little less gentrified, commercialized, and uglified than the apartment-block mausoleums in other areas of Seoul.  Would you believe that a twenty-minute walk from this view, in the opposite direction, is Seoul's finance district, City Hall, and the epicenter of every protest?


I wound around the side of the mountain, on the north side of the six hundred year old wall that the old kings built to protect the palaces from raiders and invaders.  I'd just head uphill, and wind around to the next side street when I hit a dead end, and I stumbled into this sleepy little huttish area that could have been untouched since 1930 (judging from the people I saw living there, with no new neighbours since then, either).  How these little bastions survive without either turning into tourist-trap self-recreations or getting bought out by developers, I'll never know. . . but I'm glad they don't.

I picked my way through their tiered gardens (another OOoooold Korea method), and came upon this trail, which led up to the defensive wall.  Again, just to re-state: this scene was a 40 minute walk from Jongno Tower.  (50 if you go slow)
More layered houses, winding up the mountainside:

a view from a lookout point on one of the side-streets a little closer to the town-ish area (where lookouts were obscured by vegetation) -- some nice, rich-looking, gated-garden type houses were there as a buffer between the city and the little grandmother villa I walked through.  The views there were nice.
Inwangsan was great.  Here's the defensive wall; on the other side of it are a bunch of military defensive structures, lookout towers and stuff, as well as signs, "don't you effing dare enter" warnings, and certain directions you ought not point your camera.  But it's also pretty darn beautiful up there.

As you can see, despite the sleepy villa on the approach, we're just THAT close to the big-ass city.  (The mountain you can see in the distance with the blurry, crappy cameraphone tower white smudge on it, is actually Namsan, with Seoul Tower.)


Went back to the same place again this weekend, and took more pictures: the 능소화 (Google Translate says they're "Neungsohwa" flowers) were out in full colour today; they're one of girlfriendoseyo's favourite flowers, so we had a real nice walkabout.

Girlfriendoseyo likes gardens.

A little too much.  (She pretended to climb the wall as a joke; that gave me a good laugh, so she posed like this. . . she's not ACTUALLY Girlfriendoseyo the B&E artist. . . as far as I know.)


The fallen petals are also fantastic.





Girlfriendoseyo says these flowers' name means, in the original Chinese, "the flower that mocks the sun" -- that is, the flower so beautiful, it even taunts the heavens.


Maybe somebody else tried to climb this wall too many times.  A lot of barking dogs on this lane, and the most unfriendly wall I've seen south of the Demilitarized Zone and outside of the military bases.

This seems like a perfectly lovely fusion restaurant. . . until you pronounce the name like a Korean would, switching the "R" out for an "L".



Finally, at the bottom of Inwang Mountain, in Puk'ak Dong, there's a heavenly coffee shop.


It actually felt like being back in the Pacific Northwest, between the look, the smell (beans roasted on site) and the atmosphere.  The specialty hand-drip coffees were obscenely tasty, for a very reasonable price.

The place had some reputation, too: we actually had to wait for a table!




Other pics: the receptionists at my workplace are hilarious and charming.  I took a picture of them together that didn't turn out well, so I said "Sorry.  Bad picture.  One more time." and they both did that, because of the "One More Time" song I wrote about before, but can't justify posting as a clip a second time.  This is called the "ET Dance."

Finally (and these, in case you haven't noticed, were taken with the new, good camera). . . a bit of goofy Korea:


>Are you sure we're in the MEN's shirts' section?  (why Korean men wear pink shirts)
(Hooray for Bean Pole)

The store and the brand's name is FUBU, standing for "For Us, By Us" (citation) -- it was a company started by African-American entrepreneurs when they noticed that most urban clothing marketed toward African-Americans was made by white-owned companies.  The company has since become very successful.  Now, I must defer to other bloggers and experts on the topic of black culture without black people (for example, Korean rappers flashing gang signs and talking in weird mixes of Konglish and Ebonics -- Kebonics? Ebonglish?), but I realized the name FUBU is a bit of a misnomer in COEX mall in Seoul, because there just aren't enough people of African descent who shop at COEX, to keep this store in the black.  I suggest a name change: FKBU -- For Koreans By Us.
Here's a video featuring a Korean hip-hop stars, Crown J, at the end.  Brian thinks he's a poser and a douche; agree or disagree?  Discuss amongst yourselves.   Decide for yourself also whether something like hip-hop culture is such a liquid concept that it can be separated completely from the culture that created it, and still keep some kind of legitimacy, or whether it's been totally co-opted and exploited. . . along the way, you can listen to an awful English rap in this one, count how many other reference to American culture are. . . um, raped, and pick out which singers use pitch-correction, before Crown J throws down his badass gang signs at the end.


You can listen to this other Crown J track, for more information, and decide what you think about him.  All I'm gonna say is, I don't watch Korean MTV.


Interesting as cultural artifacts and examples of fusion culture. . . but not quite enough to a spot next to the pink shirts on my page.

Dance the Candlegirl! (Anticlimax. . . or I left too early)

Well, I went, and there were lots of people, but nothing too out of sorts, compared to other days. The counter-protest fizzled (relatively speaking), however, I did spot a few dance troupes (or maybe the same one in two places) out starting what I think will explode into the next dance craze.

Ladies and gentlemen, after an intense editing session, I present to you:

The Candlegirl! Get busy learning those steps: it's gonna be tearing all the clubs in Hongdae a new one in no time!


(Update: For the sake of giving credit where it's due, Scott Burgeson, whom I met at the protest, was the one who had the conversations with the "V For Vendetta" masqueraders, and discovered that they didn't know the meaning of their symbolism.)


Update: ROKDrop (thanks for the link love) has more info about the creators of the candlegirl -- move over, JYP! The activists are breathing down your neck! GIKorea also reports that there were no clashes or violence last night, and a pretty unimpressive turnout, compared to June's protests, so I don't feel bad about leaving at about 12:00.

Thanks also, Zenkimchi, and Seoul Eats for the link love.

Update: There's an interesting discussion going on between Gord Sellar and Scott Burgeson, the long-time expat with whom I walked around the protests, and who talked to the "V for Vendetta" protestors, over the actual and intended meaning of their symbolism, and whether we should give them a break for misunderstanding the real (anarchist) meaning of the "V for Vendetta" symbolism, or hold them to account for running so far with a ball like "V for Vendetta" when they didn't realize it was actually a pineapple. Scott suggests that this pulling of random issues and symbols into the fray, when they don't belong there, is crass and distasteful, while Gord (coming into his own in his new position as the K-Blogosphere's top protester apologist) defends their symbolism, saying that they're transmitting the symbols basically in the same context that they were received. See here and here and the comment board on this post for more.

If anything's gonna happen, it's gonna happen tonight.

And I'm bringing my camera.

The protests in Gwanghwamun are still (STILL!) running almost nightly, as the numbers dwindle, the extremists have gotten more violent in order to keep people's attention, newspaper buildings have been attacked, police buses have been destroyed, hundreds have been injured, and Korea has a whacked out protest culture (seriously, follow this link: it'll blow your mind), and while things have been less bat-shit insane this time than previously, if it's going to go overboard, tonight's the night it will.

There are counter-protests to go along with the protests, involving beef supporters, North Korea-supporters (as in, "People are dying, and you're mad about BEEF IMPORTS? Get a phunking GRIP!"), and the protest groups are hoping tonight will be another peak, for some reason or another (maybe because their support is flagging, and they're in the process of showing their colours as primadonnas and attention whores?)

Anyway, gonna be an interesting night, and I'm bringin' my camera!

Here's how I imagine the players (anti-protesters, pro-protesters, police, ring-leaders, etc..) are getting ready for the big throw-down:



Here are the very worth-reading thoughts of Scott Burgeson, or King Baeksu, a fellow who lives right next to the epicenter of the protests, and has attended almost every night.

Blogoseyo goes multimedia! (Food porn)

Short of figuring out a way for your computer to waft clouds of special Roboseyo fragrances (pavement after rain, acacia trees, car exhaust from downtown Seoul), this is about as multimedia as I can get:

I learned how to create videos on my new mac. Gee, this is fun.

In other news, I have a youtube video channel now, to go with my flickr account. All can be found under my usual moniker, Roboseyo.

Wheee!

This is a dish called Dalk Galbi.

The song is KC Accidental, by Broken Social Scene.

Gosh, I'm pleased with myself right now.
How do you like that, Zenkimchi?

For the Joshing Gnome

Joe, over at the Joshing Gnome, is writing a really interesting series of posts about the Korean idea of "jung" -- a mythical connection between humans that only Koreans share with each other.

Debunkadunk!

He brings together the ideas of Amoral Familism (explained in other places on his blog) with the Korean concept of Jung, in a really interesting way that you may or may not agree with. . . but it's sure thought-provoking.

And just to be a tease, (Bajung Gadung Dung), he's publishing it in parts, one day at a time, so that we have to wait in suspense for each new installment..

(Links as they become available)
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

This guy knows a lot about Korea, and has a very interesting take on the country. More about him later. . . for now, Joe, here's a video that perhaps illustrates a bit of what you're talking about.

I know this video's nothing new: it's made the round on the K-blogosphere before, but here you go.

Wait for it: forty-three seconds in, something happens that. . . well, I better not say too much.




while I'm posting way-after-the-point clips anyway, let's take a moment to kick it in Geumchon.





Have a good day.

the joys of kopseulmori (curly hair)

Happy Canada Day, all.

Before the rest: a lovely Konglish T-shirt.

I had a little fun with my naturally curly hair (YES, IT'S NATURAL, DAMMIT!) [sorry: twice a week an old lady asks me where I got my perm] today at work, stuffing pens in there.
The receptionists thought this was high comedy.
I had about ten stuffed up there, stuck between locks.  I'd almost forgotten my hair could do that.
Ten, however, was nowhere near my record: back in high school, when I let my hair grow out for about ten months (twelfth grade yearbook photo, minus personal info):

I once went into a Chemistry 11 final with an entire pencil case stuffed with pens and pencils.  All through the final, I surreptitiously slid pens and pencils into my natty mass of hair: it was long enough then, that they were completely hidden inside my mop.  Then, when I finished my final, I stood to hand in my exam, and when I handed it in, I held my head back, and then threw it forward in a (fake) sneeze.

About fifty pens and pencils flew all across the floor at the front of the classroom.  Got a decent laugh. . . though it isn't my ONLY final exam hijinx story by a longshot.  (If by a longshot you mean two.)

If you want to know the other two, you'll have to ask in the comments.

Until then:

a couple more pictures:

Didn't know pets were recyclable.

(eating dog joke goes here)

More from Jongho(from the previous post)'s ad agency:

Hey Jong-ho! I'm tired of thinking up funny and clever ads to sell phones.

"Here's what we can do, Chul-soo:"





"We can use sex to sell it!"

"Brilliant! That's why you're the idea guy, Jong-ho! Let's leave work early today."

next ad in the series:




Gallery Here (warning: Buuuuuh-keeee-neeeeez. That's bikinis. A lot. And Jessica Gomez. Yurp.) These posters are all over downtown Seoul, and every girlfriend in Jongno is getting madder and madder, and every boyfriend is on thinner and thinner ice, every time he walks by a phone shop with his lady.

Review of Crossing: The Desperation of the North, and the Hypocrisy of the South

Crossing is a movie about North Koreans fleeing to China in desperation. Once in China, North Koreans are in danger of being caught and repatriated to North Korea, where they will be sent to a work/death camp for their treachery against the great leader/god Kim Il-Sung (by the way, how are those Olympics going, Beijing?) They must either get into another country's embassy and claim refugee status, or travel secretly through China, and escape either to Mongolia or head south, and claim refugee status in a southeast Asian country -- Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, etc., and hope that Seoul will take them.

The preview


Here's a summary from Koreanmovie.com and a synopsis from the site:

In the film, Yong-su (played by Cha In-pyo), a North Korean living in a mining village in Hamgyeong Province, crosses the northern border with China to get food and medicine for his ailing wife, only to find himself on the run. His 11-year-old son (Shin Myeong-cheol) also risks his life to trace his father in China.

Now, Korea loves melodrama -- I'm not going to theorize on why, but let's just say this, is a TYPICAL, not an exceptional Music video:



Anyway, because of this propensity toward bombast, my expectations weren't TOO high, heading into Crossing, because I knew the topic ran risk of veering wildly into melodrama, but it managed to treat its subject with at least a modicum of grace. This was good. Even when we saw that Yong-su has a dog, and everybody who knows Korea thought, "Heh. This is Korea. . . I know what's gonna happen to that dog". . . they managed to treat Whitey's mysterious disappearance as a sad surrender to poverty, without overdoing it until it became a punchline.

As with most sad movies, the first thing they do is show you some people living a basically happy life, and you see enough of them to decide you like them, and want good things to happen to them, before bad things start happening to them (cf Dancer in the Dark). In reading up for this post, I learned here that the film was written after extensive interviews with North Korean defectors.

At first, I was a bit cynical, thinking things like, "I like this character too much. . . she's definitely going to die." But, when bad things start to happen, the filmmakers mostly told the story, and didn't spend TOO much time telling viewers how to feel. Mom coughs. Later, she passes out during the town meeting. Turns out she's pregnant and has tuberculosis from malnutrition. Medicine for pregnant women with TB is hard to come by in North Korea, but Yongsu, the father, has a friend who is a trader bribing his way back and forth to China, who is also surreptitiously handing out bibles. Then other bad stuff happens, and some more bad stuff, until Yong-su has to go into China himself to try and get medicine. . . and then he'll come right back! But then other stuff happens, so that he might not be able to come back, and his son has some bad stuff happen to him (no more spoilers today!) and needs to cross into China to try and find his father. My favourite character was Misun, the cute daughter of the bible-smuggling trader. We see her at the beginning, and then we meet her again later, and her character arc is one of the sadder ones (though nobody's going to quite out-tragedy Yong-su).

I won't say the film is completely without melodrama: I'm sure one entire round of auditions for the actor who plays Joon (the son) consisted of nothing more than, "OK. I'm gonna point a camera at you, and I want you to cry convincingly, and say these words while you're crying". . . but the use of slow-motion and echoing shouts of despair as the world falls silent didn't slide into overkill, nor did the silent montages of "remembering the happier times," and frankly, the movie was touching, and the ending was very appropriate. The acting, too, was well done, and the two children especially impressed me, given that making bad things happen to children in a movie is the fastest way to generate pathos, but also runs the greatest risk of slipping into bathos (mawkishness), but the kids never quite went too far, nor did the filmmakers.

There are a few sad conversations about heaven prompted by the missionary character and his daughter: "a place where I won't be hungry?" "I hope they have still rain there" and by the end of the movie, heaven's function is mostly just to be the place where certain characters can finally see. . . certain other characters. . . again, if ever. In fact, that seems to be what's playing behind the ending credits: all the characters in the movie are eating and playing by a riverside, including the ones who wouldn't be able to attend an earthly riverside picnic. There's also one angry speech asking, "Why does Jesus only help the South? Is God's help also only for the rich?" Those questions remained unanswered in the film, and yeah, the hope of heaven is mentioned, but in the face of thousands of starving people who need FOOD, too much talk of heaven would become problematic, and the filmmakers were wise not to dwell on it.

But this is the puzzling thing:

I'm going to talk about this movie in my classes next week, and see how the response is: so far, the times I've sent out feelers, most South Koreans seem not to really want to see this movie. Too much of a downer.

I'm of two minds here:

In one way, I think South Koreans kind of think of North Korea the way one might think of a deadbeet brother who, every time you send him a christmas card, writes back asking if he can borrow money, or insults your kids. Yeah, he's family, but it's too frustrating, costly, and draining to expend mental energy toward him. I've sensed this kind of dissociation toward the North, even just in the time since I've come here, people in the south feel more ambivalent, less connected, with the north. Less willing to help. And yeah, if your brother either insults you or ends up costing you money every time you see him, wouldn't YOU dissociate yourself, too?

on the other hand, I'm also outraged that Koreans can be so complacent about SUCH a desperate situation, so close, to people who are their great-uncles and second-cousins. It's only by a trick of geography that South Koreans were lucky enough to be here instead of there when the Military Demarcation Line was drawn. . . how can you write off your own kin? In my darker moments, I think that South Korea's apathetic attitude toward what's happening in the North (other than insofar as Kim Jong-il might have weapons that threaten the south) is the ultimate refutation of Koreans' claim to have that mystical "jung" -- some deep connection between humans that only Koreans could experience or understand. How could you claim "jung" -- some deep, humanizing connection between Koreans, when many of your own are starving to death and eating dirt just to remember the feeling of having something in their stomachs, and you won't even go to a damn movie about it (prefer watching schmaltzy music videos where the tragedy's fictional, I guess)? The filmmakers had a hell of a time even finding funding for their movie, because South Koreans keep NK at SUCH an arm's length. Investors didn't think the film would make any money. No jung, gentle readers. No urgency? No feeling of need to have this story told? No jung.


It's not often I feel it quite THAT strongly, but those are the two extremes.

But the fact is, every Korean I've mentioned this movie to so far has been somewhere from passively reluctant to actively resistant to seeing it, and Girlfriendoseyo also told me that most Koreans probably WON'T see it, because they don't like to think about North Korea (which, in my mind, is EXACTLY why every Korean SHOULD see this film.)


And that's the puzzle of North Korea.

(PS: articles from 2001 and 2003 on human flesh for sale in North Korea's black market.)




(all photos from google images)




(Update: thanks, Joshing Gnome, for the link and the kind write-up)
(Update 2: after bringing "Crossing" into my conversation classes this morning, it's been about a 50/50 split between students who want to see the movie and ones who won't. Had to mention it, for the sake of fairness and full disclosure.)

Some videos and no commentary whatsoever.

Freddie Mercury

Another One Bites the Dust

This completely unrelated Korean ad was on approximately every five seconds in 2006.
Every single student I had could sing the song.


(must. . . not. . . make. . . commentary)

Elton John

I'm Still Standing

Sunkist Lemonade: a Korean ad that really sticks in your head.



Liberace, baby! (sweet mercy I wanted to post this one, but embedding was disabled)


Barrel Polka

Finally, the topper: these are members of the big-time Korean pop-bands Super Junior and Girls' Generation.


finally, in another completely unrelated link, Korea Beat, debunking a widespread (though not as widespread as before) myth some foreigners are told about Korea.