In her interview with Korea.net, Professor Jung-Kim talked about the Korean revival of traditional clothing. This sparked a possible teaching idea to engage young students, students that are typically far more interested in fashion than old wars from the 1950s.

Korea.net: In one of your video lectures for KCCLA titled, “Korean Language & Culture Series (Ep.7: Korean Attire),” you mention that BTS’s Jungkook likes wearing Saenghwal hanbok or “lifestyle” hanbok (Korean attire). Jungkook wearing hanbok has increased hanbok’s popularity in Korea and worldwide. I have noticed that Koreans tend to don hanbok during special events rather than in their daily lives. When and what influenced this shift in clothing preferences in Korea?

Jennifer Jung-Kim: “Whereas formal hanbok can be uncomfortable to wear, the “lifestyle” hanbok is more comfortable, more affordable, and also show pride in Korean culture. Jungkook really brought a lot of interest to this style of hanbok, and some retailers reported that their websites crashed and they quickly sold out because of the interest that Jungkook has generated.”

Traditional clothing has also made a comeback amongst young Chinese where the style is called Hanfu (汉服). See attached

The clothing revival has also sparked a Chinese-Korean online controversy over “who invented these styles & who is copying whom”.

Questions

What does the Chinese & Korean revival of traditional clothing signify?

Does wearing traditional clothing signify rising cultural & historical pride?

Does it suggest rising nationalism?

What does the China-Korea controversy over clothing mean? Does it reflect the traditional power relationship between China and Korea?

Is traditional clothing considered “material culture”?

Would you teach about this topic? Think about it and leave your comments below  

References

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-08-07/Hanfu-The-controversies-behind-the-new-trend-IWhcJDcH9S/index.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanfu.  

Professor Jennifer Jung-Kim described the Korean war as being multi-dimensional and therefore complex (see video 2, 2:00-3:00). The conflict can be viewed as an internal civil war, a US-USSR proxy war, and an international war involving 23 countries overseen by the United Nations.

She emphasized that the Korean War is not over: the 1953 armistice was a truce and not a peace treaty, so the US is still technically at war with North Korea and the PRC.

This raises the question of why the war is not yet over?

One way to answer this question is to carefully review each of the dimensions of the war as noted in the lecture by Professor Jung-Kim. That is what follows. Read to the end and see the “surprise answer” to the question.

Tood, this is a really fun course that looks at the globalization of Korean popular culture in the forms of Korean popular music (K-pop), dramas, cinema, webtoons, food, beauty products (K-beauty), sports, and e-sports. The course is framed as a writing-intensive course that teaches students to write critically. But I do think students get more when they have some understadning of modern Korean history instead of just looking at popular culture by itself. 

I'm not sure, without reading the diplomatic History deeply: but think the word 'enabling' sounds better than 'promoting'.  It sounds like the Anglo-Japanese Treaty and some US diplomacy of the period makes subsequent Japanese imperial aggression possible, in the first half of the XXth century, without necessarily 'promoting' it-this is the disitnction between a motive cause of some historical event and an enabling background condition.   When we enable and tolerate something, in international affairs, does this slide into 'promoting' certain outcomes ?  One would have to dig deeply into the language of the treaties and diplomatic communications of the period, and of their underlying agendas/motives, to answer...To the extent that thinkers in the early decades of the XXth century embraced some sort of Social-Darwinist view of International Affairs, then perhaps Roosevelt, an unapologetic imperialist himself in some ways, enabled and perhaps even promoted Japanese aggression in the Pacific in the early half of the XXth century- but the negotiations of the Treaty of Portsmouth as well as the Open-Door Policies might be counterexamples to the way of looking at it your proposed.   

Professor Jung-Kim's first video for this week's session featured a useful overview of the so-called 'comfort women,' which was a WWII phenomenon but which-as mentioned in the video-  seems to have predated WWII in Japanese imperialism, and probably elsewhere too around the same period and region.   She mentioned that the Comfort Women were not a focus of, for example, the Tokyo Trials; and one reason she mentioned for this abscence was that rape (and sexual exploitation) was not typically legislated in what body of International Law existed at the time.   That is an interesting observation : so, similarly, it would be useful to learn more about the History of the recognition of this sort of crime in International or National law in our next seminar, if anyone has more to say about this.  It had not occured to me that sex-crimes in times of War were probably not discussed or legislated in the books or codes of International Law which predate WWII.  The general point seems to be that moral thinking about 'Just War' (Jus in bello) has evolved much in the XXth century in step with the emancipation of women in most parts of the World, the elaboration of Human Rights by the UN, and as a reaction to atrocities of the first part of the XXth century.  Perhaps it's interesting to consider a contemporary apologist for the Japanese' perspective, according to which sex-crimes really were not considered to be 'crimes' at the time either in law or morality.  Full disclosure: I know very little about any of these issues.  

I am very interested in the Korean War. Having been to South Korea, I talked with older adults there who believed the war might not end in their lifetime, but thought it would for sure be done and they would reconsile with North Korea within their children or grandchildren's lifetimes.

Dr. Jung-Kim's second video was a wonderful overview of the events of this civil war (which is still ongoing). Thank you so much for the detailed overview! It was very interesting to learn how much interaction South Korea has had with America throughout this cold war with North Korea.

I looked over both Files, and really interested in the Lee, J.'s October article about North Korea and America ending the war. I believe that thanks to the "Korean Wave" and the influence of Korean soft export of culture (music and movies becoming popular in America) has put more pressure on the American government to focus on Korea and the soft culture has energized the American population.

The article stated, "...Washington does not yet appear willing to consider Seoul’s proposal with the sense of urgency and seriousness it deserves" (p.2). This was refering to the opportunity that Biden's administration has to continue with the Trump administration's work with North Korea and continue to make plans and talks to end this conflict. With this in mind, I was not surprised that Lee's conclusion was that Republicans need to continue their work with North Korea to build our relationship and reunite the Korean Penninsula.

Besides the "Korean Wave", the North Korean acts of weapon testing is also bringing more international attention to this conflict and this area of the world. The article starts out by describing a recent North Korean weapons test. I remember being in Japan in 2011-2012 when North Korea was weapon testing and the Japanese government was building anti missle weapons in order to fend off any missle attacks from North Korea, and this was a big worry I had since it was heavily mentioned in both Japanese and American media at the time. 

These are my thought while listening to the lectures of Dr. Jung-Kim and reading Lee's article.

What does the Chinese & Korean revival of traditional clothing signify?

Koreans do wear traditional clothing for lunar new year, weddings, and more, so I wouldn't say it's exactly been "revived," unless you mean the "everyday Hanbok" that you see worn in a more everyday sense. 

Does wearing traditional clothing signify rising cultural & historical pride?

I think it definitely reflects pride, but I don't know that it's rising.

Does it suggest rising nationalism?

Ditto.

What does the China-Korea controversy over clothing mean? Does it reflect the traditional power relationship between China and Korea?

There is controversy over everything, from history to food to popular culture, so it doesn't seem odd that clothing is also controversial. 

Is traditional clothing considered “material culture”?