Pen/Insular_Notes

The Hankyoreh English edition reports on a development that I’ve been hearing about from some people here in London recently: the arrival of North Korean ‘defectors’ (or “saet’omin” in the new politically correct terminology) from South Korea seeking asylum in the UK. These are people who have left North Korea as refugees and been resettled in South Korea under the government programme there, but then left again after finding life difficult in the South.

Apparently there are now some 300-350 North Koreans in the UK awaiting decisions on their asylum applications and it seems that this may be causing some tensions within the established (South) Korean community in south west London, where many of them are living. It will be interesting to see how far they get with their applications, since I imagine that the UK government will see them as claiming asylum from South Korea rather than North Korea. On the other hand, I have no doubt that their difficulties in living in South Korea are absolutely real and they have a genuine desire to escape from the second-class status they are lumbered with in the South by making a fresh start in a third country. If our government is at all serious in its condemnation of North Korean human rights abuses and concern for the plight of North Koreans then it ought to welcome them with open arms.

I wonder whether far right Tokyo governor and professional crow-hater Shintaro Ishihara may fall foul of the UK’s new law against ‘glorifying terrorism’ on his next visit to London? It seems he has written and produced a new film - titled ‘For Those We Love’ - on the kamikaze pilots of WWII, that is rather keen to show them in a good light as patriotic heroes (thus helping to overcome Japan’s terrible tendency toward masochistic history^tm). As the Hankyoreh notes:

…the film’s political message is simultaneously suggestive and clear, with lines like “We shall meet in death at Yasukuni Shrine,” or “We were right to start a war to liberate Asia from the whites.”

The Guardian’s arts blog has something to say about it too, and points out that:

Hearteningly, For Those We Love seems to have had the opposite effect: despite a strong opening weekend, in which it trailed only Spider-Man 3 and Kitaro, a local kiddie fantasy, it has not only provoked disquiet among both younger audience members and those who lived through the Japanese defeat, but has also drawn uncomfortable parallels between its heroes and the similarly unquestioning, ideology-driven suicide bombers of today.

Somehow, I have a feeling it’s not going to be winning any prizes at Cannes.

UPDATE: An illustrated version of Kim Do-hyeong’s Hankyoreh article is up at the Japan Focus site.

I have a confession to make dear readers. I went to see Korea v Greece at Craven Cottage (home of Fulham FC) last night. To be honest it wasn’t a great game and neither team looked up to much, but it was fun nonetheless and I managed to retain a suitably internationalist distance and not start singing 필승 코리아! ^^

Actually, after a very chilly and lacklustre 60 minutes or so, things did warm up a bit halfway through the second half, first with the crowd and then with the Korean team. And then came Yi Ch’onsu’s superb free kick, straight in the back of the net from a wicked angle.

The most exciting moment of the evening came in injury time when there was a pitch invasion by what looked like two Greek anarchists, complete with black hoodies. Of course they could have been absolutely anyone as I couldn’t read the banner they held up in Greek. Shamefully, I didn’t get any pictures of that, but I did spot this time-traveling Korean soldier in the crowd.

UPDATE: I just noticed that the Korea Times had a reporter on the scene.

A good piece on the Asia Times site today explaining why so many South Koreans are against the Korean-US FTA that has been under negotiation since March of last year (I’ve posted on the protests here before and Jamie has also covered this very well). The focus here is on the US desire to get their beef back on everyone’s dinner plates (or perhaps more accurately their kalbi broilers), and the reluctance of the Korean public to submit themselves as the experimental subjects of US industrial agriculture:

Beef has been central to Korean disdain for the FTA. The issue here has been less about protecting Korean cattle ranchers than preserving public-health regulations and the democratic rights of South Korean citizens. South Korea, like Japan, banned US beef three years ago after an outbreak of mad-cow disease in the United States. To reopen the South Korean market to US beef, Washington made lifting the ban a precondition to even beginning trade talks. Seoul conceded, allowing boneless meat imports. Since that time, however, it has returned three beef shipments containing bone fragments. The US beef industry, backed by influential members of Congress, reacted by demanding that South Korea’s market be fully reopened before talks end.

On a related note, I caught the second half of a programme on BBC4 the other night which was looking into the eating of dog meat in Korea. From what I saw it did not resort to the usual angle of “look at these funny/exotic/barbaric people and their strange ways” and looked at the subject from a few different angles: the mistreatment of dogs, the attitude of dog farmers, dog meat consumers and Korean dog lovers. Interestingly, in one scene the presenter visited a Korean cattle farm which was used as an illustration of the fact that cows are well treated in Korea, presumably unlike dogs. The presenter ended up refusing to eat dog meat himself, but arguing that the dog trade should be fully legalised and regulated so as to ensure that dogs are humanely treated. (Some pics here.)

One bad thing about this programme though is that it won’t do anything at all to dispel the immediate connection that most British people seem to make between Korea and dog eating - can we not please have something about Korea on UK TV that does not involve either North Korea or dog eating?

I have to add this as a footnote to my previous post. It really is amazing how frequently the words ‘police’ and ‘cleared’ appear next to each other in a news headline. Do a Google News search. Surely this mysterious phenomenon is begging for some serious scientific research to provide an explanation.

Just today we have:

Police cleared in Forest Gate shooting

Police cleared over death in custody

And a couple of weeks back:

Officers cleared in tube shooting

I confidently expect the future Korea Herald headline:

Police cleared of any wrongdoing in death of Posco protester

K-Punk turns an analysis of England’s defeat on Saturday into an attack on empiricism. Excellent.

I mean it’s about time there was a backlash against football nationalism in Korea, not it’s about time that I wrote something here (although that’s true too). Earlier this week the Korea Times reported that an alliance of citizen’s groups (NGOS basically) have got together in Korea to express concern about the way in which World Cup fever in Korea distracts attention away from important social, and political issues. We’re not talking here about a serious analysis of sports nationalism and capitalism, but still I’ve got to admire them for trying. I’d be more than happy to see some prominent organisations and people here in the UK who had the balls to mount such a campaign.

As if that wasn’t enough, there’s also been something of an internet backlash over the behaviour of Korean fans at the team’s friendly with Ghana in Scotland last Sunday, where they played the kwaenggwari (small noisy cymbal) during the Ghanaian national anthem. The article also picks up on the uneasiness that football fans feel about the commercialisation of football and the way no opportunity is wasted to try to sell something to the captive audience of flag-waving fans whether they’re sitting at home or forming red waves in front of Seoul’s city hall.

This has interesting tie-ins with what is happening here in England/UK (confusing distinction for many people at times like this). On the one hand the fact that the South Korean team was up against Ghana is interesting to me as there are quite a lot of Ghanaians around where I live and the flags have been very much in evidence (particularly since they squashed Korea 3-1 on Sunday!). Of course there are lots of England flags being flown from cars everywhere you go but also others like Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire and Portugal. In fact I’ve seen two cars in the last few days that were flying both England and Ghana flags, one on each side. So our multicultural community actually gives you twice the chance of being on the winning side.

Having said that, I do get a sense that there might be the slightest hint of a backlash here too, even before the World Cup has begun. The problem, as in Korea, is the massive and overwhelming commercialism of the event. I mean people have long complained about the commercialisation of sport but this has reached epic proportions - finding a brand name or a piece of advertising that is not using the England flag or at least a reference to football is almost impossible. This kind of overkill can only drive sane people slowly round the bend and must make people question what the hell it’s all about. The BBC reported that there has been some controversy about flying England flags, although it mainly centres around health and safety issues or the possible negative environmental effects of using more petrol when you have a flag on the side of your car (really).

Anyway, I expect that Korea and England are not peculiar and capitalism is having its wicked way with football nationalism in every one of the 32 competing countries (ok, perhaps not the US as they don’t care about ’soccer’ and prefer colonial wars to whip up nationalist sentiment). It’s one of those classic paradoxes of capitalism eating itself - I think the logic goes something like:

“Football nationalism is good because it unites everyone, makes the workers forget about their rubbish daily lives and distracts people from all the dodgy things going on in the world that they might be worrying about otherwise. In other words football nationalism is noble and lofty and it suits us down to the ground…. But we’re going to shit all over it anyway by trying at the same time to use it as a way of selling people all sorts of things they don’t want and can’t afford (new tellys) or stuff that’s just plain bad for them (Maccy Ds, Mars bars and Coke).”

[For readers of Korean, who want something a bit more coherent, in-depth and politically clued-up on the subject of football nationalism, the latest edition of Ta Hamkke has a two-page special on the subject.]

I’m slightly bemused to discover that someone in Britain has started a blog dedicated entirely to getting the BBC to show the hit Korean historical drama (사극), Taejanggŭm (大長今). I’m really not sure how likely this is considering the considerable barriers to comprehension for a British audience, even with well-translated subtitles. But I suppose it has been a huge hit in many parts of Asia (the Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan etc etc) and I can just about imagine this sort of TV series being shown on the BBC’s high-brow, low audience channel, BBC4. Which incidentally is where they have shown the epic, arty German mega-series Heimat which a commenter on the blog compares with Taejanggŭm.

Actually I must admit that I haven’t seen much of this drama. It was the big hit last time I was in Korea more than two years ago but I only saw a little bit of it, most of which seemed to involve food (no doubt part of its appeal in Korea!). I certainly wouldn’t object to seeing it on the BBC (however unlikely that may be) so I did my bit and signed the petition.

Anyway, to prove the point about the widespread popularity of this series, here’s a picture I posted back last year of the window of a Chinese shop in Seattle with no less than 3 posters advertising Taejanggŭm:

Just discovered that there’s a fairly comprehensive Wikipedia entry.

I’ve been meaning for a while to mention the BBC’s recent coverage of the second anniversary of the tragedy in which 23 Chinese migrant workers died in the sands of Morecombe bay in northwest England. The BBC actually provided some excellent coverage of this story, which coincided with the culmination of a criminal case against one of the ‘gangmasters’ involved in hiring the workers. There was even a programme on BBC 1 which provided dramatised reenactment of the terrible day when the cockle pickers died in the fast-rising tide.

I found Rupert Wingfield-Hayes’ interview with the wife of one of the dead men particularly interesting. Her husband, like almost all of the victims, was from Fujian Province and the article brings home both the real human tragedy of the story but also the bigger picture - the economic and social impact on an area like Fujian that seems to be a sort of incubator for migrant workers:

Despite such stories, and the tragedy of the Morecambe Bay drownings, the flood of young migrants leaving this part of south-east China continues unabated.

In a nearby house, Mrs Li takes me to see her husband’s uncle. Unlike Mrs Li, Lin Yiming lives in a spacious three-storey house.

On the sofa his wife is cradling a tiny baby, only five months old. “This is my grandson,” Mr Lin tells me with pride.

“He was born in Japan but last week my daughter-in-law brought him back to stay with us.”

It turns out Mr Lin’s son and daughter-in-law are both living in Japan illegally.

“They work very hard,” he said. “My son often works two shifts in the factory, the day and the night. That way he can make more money.”

Mr Lin himself spent 10 years in Japan working in factories and restaurants.

“That’s how it works round here,” he said. “Young people go out for 10 to 15 years and save enough money to come home and build a house like this one.”

The evidence is all around the village. Mr Lin’s house is modest compared to some.

There was also recently an excellent comment piece in the Guardian. The author, Hsiao-Hung Pai points out that there is little to stop such a tragedy happening again and lays the blame squarely at the door of New Labour’s asylum and immigration policies:

With asylum rights curtailed and manual-labour migration discouraged, the workers resorted to cockling. In some cases they were looking for better-paid jobs to send money home; some moved from job to job because of the casual, seasonal nature of work demanded by multinational retailers; others were driven out of urban centres into higher-risk occupations by fear of police raids as a result of their vulnerable immigration status.
…
Lin Liangren blames “bad luck” for the Morecambe Bay tragedy. But Li Jinyun, the widow of one of the victims, believes otherwise: “It’s the working conditions in Britain that killed our loved ones.” Yang Shangjin - a Morecambe Bay cockler who had earlier worked on construction sites in Shanghai - told me he blamed the brutality of capitalism for the tragedy.

Incidentally, I noticed that the author Hsiao-Hung Pai will be standing as a Respect candidate in Newham, East London in this Thursday’s local elections. I hope she’s one of those elected to represent the very diverse community of the area, including of course, its historic Chinese community.

So it’s that time again. It doesn’t seem like another whole, bloody year has passed since thousands of us around the world marched on the second anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.

Today’s anti-war, anti-occupation demo in Seoul, one of hundreds that were held around the world this weekend, in the biggest show of force from the world’s second superpower(tm) in a long time. The march in Seoul was similar to those around all over the world in calling for an end to occupation and calling for no attack on Iran. More specifically it called for the withdrawal of the so-called Zaytun Division of Korean soldiers stationed near Irbil in northern Iraq. In true Orwellian style the troop division is named with the Arabic word meaning olive - a reference to the olive branch of peace. Surely the Arabic word for imperialism would be more appropriate. (Pictures from here.)

I like these slogans carried by members of the Democratic Labour Party. The one of the left reads “No War, No Muhyon” a bilingual pun on the name of the South Korean president. The one on the right simply says “Don’t even dream of attacking Iran.”

Julie Felix entertains the masses at Trafalgar Square.

In London it was freezing but a great march nonetheless. We got thousands of people to sign the submission to Kofi Annan calling for an official tribunal to look into war crimes in Iraq. Lenin’s Tomb also has a good picture report on the day. As with Lenny, one highlight of the event for me was the speech from Hasan Zargani, overseas representative of the Al Sadr Movement. Hearing it clearly was difficult with the translation and the general noise, but his final sentence did stand out loud and clear so I’ve used it for the title of this post.