[Angelique Callicoat]

Again, real interesting reads this week. I am also currently watching "Mr. Sunshine" on Netflix. It's amazing. I ended up going down the Internet Rabbit Hole last night after episode 2 in order to find out more about the Joseon Period and Dynasty and the 1871 American expedition to Korea that went horribly and tragically wrong (I think it's been called Shinmiyangyo, which translates to The Western Disturbance). I'm surprised Korea ever traded with America after our country's gross misunderstanding and violent reaction. What I'm trying to say here is that "Mr. Sunshine" is beautifully filmed and well-worth a few hours of your time. It's an excellent period drama. 

Next, the excerpted chapter "The Girl with Seven Names". Was this fiction or a memoir? I appreciated getting a glimpse into what it is like to prepare for one of N. Korea's pageants, which are called "The Games". The card exercise under the threat of a "single slip" is fascinating, especially being a school teacher and understanding the challenge of coordinating lots of kids to do anything collectively and with flair. Also, I really need to know what was the item that burned up in the house fire of the main character/speaker, the thing that could have led to her family being dangerously implicated with illegal activity? The excerpt left us with quite the cliffhanger. 

The North Korea Girl Band Moranbong. It's interesting that Kim Jong Un entered the K-Pop trend with his own highly political female version. And the lead singer Hyon Song Wol seems to have a personal relationship or at least an influential relationship with Kim Jung Un, considering the rumors and the delegation she led to South Korea to find a concert venue for North Korea's Art Troupe. I forget which text intimated that Kim Jong Un is trying to impress the world with not only his nuclear strength, but also his country's musical aesthetic, but I find this idea so fascinating. And I wonder if he spreading this message to his own people through propaganda. 

And Jennifer, your chapter or piece about South Korean films during the Sunshine Period was a nice surprise this week. As a teacher who is currently introducing her IB diploma students to a long-term, research-based inquiry project, your chapter is a perfect example of an academic exploration of a topic through a well-organized argument structure, replete with footnotes, referenced works, and bibliography. I would like to talk more tonight about South Korean citizens' attitudes toward the US Military and its bases there in South Korea. I'm sure there's an awful lot of historical baggage when it comes to our American soldiers being stationed there. The other aspect of your paper I'd like to know more about is its exact focus. Are you looking at how S. Korean films starting changing their depictions of N. Korea BECAUSE of the Sunshine Policy or are you looking at how S. Korean films changed the way S. Korean citizens viewed N. Korea WHILE the Sunshine Policy was happening? And maybe these two directions aren't even mutually exclusive in your paper. 

Looking forward to tonight's discussion.  

 

[Angelique Callicoat]

Thanks, Duane. 

[Angelique Callicoat]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/business/south-korea-makeup-plastic-surgery-free-the-corset.html

[Angelique Callicoat]

This week's lecture, readings, and discussion were really engaging. I didn't think I would be as interested in South Korean culture as I was in North Korea's mysterious one. My initial motivation in taking this online class was mostly based in learning more about North Korea. But, as a high school teacher, I think I could build stronger classroom connections between South Korean themes and texts. 

For instance, I am planning to update my unit on The Definition of Beauty with some South Korean informational texts. I particularly like the Holliday and Elfving text about the lengths people will go to--distance and financial--to meet a definition of beauty. I think my students would really enjoy learning about the innovative yet complicated beauty regimens, along with the changing definitions of masculine beauty and feminine beauty, especially when compared to their American counterparts. 

I really wish I had asked about the history of the Korean (North and South?) spa culture and if perhaps the South Korean fixation with beauty can be traced back to this. Given that both genders have traditionally used and benefitted from such regimens--scrubs, soaks, steam, massage, exfoliation--perhaps this is why there's not a whole lot of stigma surrounding elective, vanity precedures. 

I would also like to know more about how migrant brides assimilate into the South Korean culture. Are there organizations that help these women find resources like social and support groups, language education, job training, and cultural education? And I'm sure there is someone out there writing from the perspective of a mixed-race child born in South Korea--maybe a memoirist or a novelist. Any suggestions? My final question, and I should have asked it tonight, is what is the direct translation of the South Korean term for "migrant bride"? I imagine there is a colloquial version of that term, just like Americans have terms like "war bride" or "mail-order bride", with just a tinge of derogatory judgment. 

I really enjoyed the discussion and texts this week. Happy Tuesday, everyone. 

 

[Angelique Callicoat]

I just picked this book up from a bookstore over this past weekend. It's gorgeous and meditative. And the translation--like the translation work in The Vegetarian is so strong and vibrant. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/books/review/han-kang-white-book.html

[Angelique Callicoat]

Each of the Kim leaders desire their own path or to make their own mark on North Korea. I think this desire is common to most world leaders, dynastic or elected. And given the public personalities of Donald Trump "The Great Negotiator", Moon Jai-in, a former human rights lawyer and determined mediator, and finally the authoritarian, very pro-Communistic Xi Jinping Kim Jong-Un is undoubtedly attempting to figure out how to be who he wants North Korea to be. Does Kim Jong-Un want commerce? Does he want international fame? Does he want trade? Does he want nuclear domination? 

I'd like to know more about Kim Jong-Un's influencers, like his mentors and education and activities (I know, I know...basketball). Could those reliably give us some insight into his goals for North Korea? Does he read or listen to outside news sources? Does he understand what nuclear aggression would lead to?

I have more questions than comments this week. I am looking forward to the discussion tonight. 

 

[Angelique Callicoat]

I teach Ayn Rand's Anthem, Orwell's Animal Farm and his "Politics and the English Language" and this week's reading connects so nicely with those texts, not to mention several of the texts that my colleagues teach: Hunger Games, Handmaid's Tale, and The Road. Up until now, I've only thought to build historical and current event connections to the US and European countries, but learning about North Korea's famine, the unofficial economy, and the ingeniuity of the citizenry in rapidly deteriorating living conditions followed by a rapidly loosened system makes me think I need to broaden my supplemental text selection. 

I would like to know more about the "Military First" theory of "Immortal Sociopolitical Body" and how that ideology was rolled out to a population who remembered and lived within Kim Il Sung's juche ideology of "self-identity". The militiary-first approach seems likes the absorption of the self into the state. Rather than finding the self within the "most correct Marx-Leninist-oriented guiding philosophy", the "military first" philosophy gives (or does not give) immortal life to a citizen. The timing of this new philosophy, with the country reeling from millions of famine deaths and a collapse of the national economy and industry, is so interesting, and I just want to know more about the how and why. The KWP no doubt had lost a great deal of emotional credibility with the famine and nation-wide industry breakdown, so replacing the entire thing with military grandeur and strength not only gave way to better in-country optics, but also offered up some pretty strong intimidation to countries like China, US, Japan, and Russia. 

I would also like to know more about how the Sunshine Policy from South Korea was met by North Koreans military leaders internally. With Kim Jong Il finally consolidating his power in his own way, how did the three olive branches from South Korea shake up the fairly new regime? Who was all for building stronger connection with South Korea and who was resistent?

 

[Angelique Callicoat]

There's so much to respond to with all of these texts: the 4 readings and the lecture. What I appreciated about all of them was meeting terms in one text and then having those terms explicated in another text. For instance, juche or "self-reliance". Thinking about building a modern country around the idea of absolute self-reliance--in word, if not deed--on its dynastic leaders and its people is fascinating. What happens when a country eschews all outward commerce with other countries? What happens to a society when all good ideas find their origins with Kim family? I want to know what happens to juche in a laboratory or in a hospital. As a secondary ELA teacher in the West, I want to draw a connection from NK's extreme practice of self-reliance to Emerson's idealistic essay "On Self-Reliance". Emerson wrote, "the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness and independence of solitude," and while we're at it, why not Donne? Donne poetically declares "No man is an island, entire of itself." What I'd like to find is texts more substantial and mature than the two children's books with which to build a text set on the different modes of self-reliance (though those children's books no doubt give way to some interesting adult texts). Speeches, maybe, or poetry or song lyrics, like the ones praising the family state and comradely love in "North Korea's Partisan State". It might even be nice to analyze a few different cultures' experience with self-reliance--like China--all through speeches or poetry. 

The other thing I'd like to discuss and ask about further is the idea of "reliable history". From Lankov, it seems that the people of NK are not brainwashed nor overly-concerned with the government’s control of information, and yet the most prevalent major in college work is history of the leaders in an educational system that is severely limited in both funding and accurate resources. How do NK citizens think about and pursue the idea of “truth”? I’m reminded of Russia’s state-run newspaper Pravda or “truth”, which most of the citizenry recognized and tolerated as propaganda for the state’s benefit. They were able to participate in Orwellian group double-think. What do NK people want to know about? And is the “truth” a necessary quality of that knowledge?   

As I listened to and thought about South Korea’s reconstruction after the war, I was both impressed and overwhelmed by all the changes that such a new country was able to handle: from all those republics and new constitutions to students protests and assassinations. I think about someone who currently lives in SK, someone who was a child during the Korean War and remains there today. How would this person describe the SK’s first 50 years? How did the protests and economic struggles up until the 70s affect that person’s young adult and middle age years? What was schooling like? Where were SK’s doctors and scientists and engineers educated? What was the workforce like? Consumer goods--what sorts of things did the citizens of this new nation want to work toward? Reading the Je-Yeon Yuh text about the countless lives that were shattered by the war made me really want to find about more about what living during the reconstruction was like. 

The New York Times has a series called Op-Docs and there is one particular installment about South Korean children who were adopted in countries like the US and Australia. These first-hand video accounts of what it was like to be separated from their birth families and absorbed into very different cultures are moving. They connect well with the “Beyond Numbers” piece we all read. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeIC1detnD8  Are all the adoptions considered part of the "brutality of the Korean War"? I also want to know why so many adoptees come from SK, both then and now. Is there an under-served part of the population that struggled/es with the consequences of all the post-war changes and upheavals?

Looking forward to talking with everyone tomorrow night.

[Angelique Callicoat]

Thank you so much for that succinct introduction to the two Koreas. My knowledge of the the two Koreas is both narrow and vague, so I appreciate the K-Pop entry point. Each year I have 2-3 students who write their IB Extended Essays on K-Pop related topics. These papers have taught me so much about the contagious popularity of the genre, not to mention extolling the talents and influence of BTS. Here's what surprised me about the intro:

1. The Korean War is not over for the two Koreas. For the USA, it ended in the early 1950's. I'd like to learn more about how and why the USA is still involved in the guarding of that border or penisula. 

2. The South Korean economy and GDP is so much larger than I assumed. And it's happening within a geographic space no larger than Indiana. I do wonder about North Korea's exports though: all those knitted and clothing products and seafood. I'd like to know more about how these products are manufactured and/or seafood. 

3. Is the cuisine similiar for both Koreas? And are there noticeable dialect differences? 

4. With women being at the purchasing and investing helm of South Korea, what are advertisement campaigns like? How are women treated in the banking and investment world? Are they catered to fairly and without condescension? And am I the only one who wants more background of the Vietnamese women's struggle in South Korea? Do all immigrant women in South Korea face social inequalities?

See you all tomorrow night. 

-A.

[Angelique Callicoat]

Hello from Las Vegas!

My name is Angelique, and I'm a high school ELA teacher and my high school's IB Diploma Coordinator. I love teaching primary source analysis and extended research arguments. The other thing I'm really loving right now is the weather: Las Vegas has finally dropped below 100 degrees. Fall is officially here. 

I am looking forward to learning about Korea's past and present with all of you. 

[Author]

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