[Laura Huffman]

From the video and accompanying readings, I was surprised to learn that Japan has a constitution that has gone the longest since being amended, and that while Japan is a democracy (albeit one with an Emperor!) politicans are essentially inheriting seats from their parents. I'd be interested to know the extent to which women have inherited their family's political supporters to serve in the Diet, in a country where a woman cannot inherit the actual Chrysanthemum throne.

Another aspect of Japanese culture I'm curious about is its conservatism. While we saw in the reading from the Social Science Japan Journal the (surprising, to me anyway) number of children born out of wedlock in Western countries, this is extremely rare in Japan. What is the source of this conservatism? Is it religious? Social? Whereas out of wedlock pregnancies were frowned upon in the West especially in Catholic countries for along time, Christianity is not a factor here. Is it considered 'immoral' along Confucian lines? I'd be interested to hear more about this. Thank you.

[Laura Huffman]

From the readings and the video, it seems that the Japanese refusal to value women aside from as mothers is not only detrimental to the economy, but also to the future of the country, and it is a message coming right from the top. By refusing the change the law to allow a woman to inherit the Chrysanthemum Throne (although there was historical precedent, apparently), the message is clear: men matter. Women do not. Even women making more than about $10K a year can adversely impact tax status for a married couple. To expect a conservative government to make changes that support a more progressive stance regarding women is unrealistic, and has therefore failed to date. It seems that the change Japan needs moving forward in order to increase its birthrate and help its economy is two-fold, and more cultural than anything else: accepting immigration into the country to increase the workforce and provide childcare, and changing the paradigm of men as workers supported by women as caregivers - of the men, the children, and the household. I was surprised to see that Japan even had paternity leave, but not surprised to see that fewer than 2% take advantage of it. Why? Culture. I'm also curious as to what role, if any, grandparents play in providing childcare that may allow women to work. This seems like a significant problem (and one shared by Korea, now dealing with the whiplash of discouraging fertility to now trying to encourage it) without any easy fixes. Perhaps the best place to start is to recognize what hasn't worked, and try something different? Is Scandinavia a possible model, or are the cultures far too disperate?

[Laura Huffman]

I've been teaching world history for over 20 years, and while I teach my students about the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration, women have been sadly missing from the conversation. This lecture provided so much rich content that I've been wanting/needing for years! It has changed my thinking on the role of the United States and the granting of women's suffrage after the Second World War. I had no idea that the women's movement was diverse enough in Japan to have disperate branches. Ultimately, I am grateful to Professor Faison for sharing this new (to me!) content, which I will share with my students from now on.

[Laura Huffman]

The issues or ideas raised in the seminar that are of greatest relevance to my courses and my students would be the relationship between political and social history, modern Korean culture (Kdramas and films), and the distinction between a nation’s leadership and the lives of the people. Korea is an perfect case study to look at so many different forms of government over a relatively short span of time between 1900-2000: from kingdom, to colony, to a nation divided by war, then splitting into a communist dictatorship in the north and a military dictatorship in the south, which then evolved into a capitalist democracy. For one nation and one people to see that much change societally, economically, militarily, politically, and culturally makes it ideal for study in a survey course, like my Advanced Topics: World History II course that I teach, which culminates in the AP World History: Modern exam. As this seminar dealt with the Two Koreas following the Korean War, I would be able to incorporate any/all of the readings into a curriculum project based around this idea of the Korean Century.

 

I knew from the beginning of the seminar that I wanted to do something with a century-long case study, but the assignment that really solidified how I’ve chosen to fashion my idea came from the film review assignment. I choose Ode to My Father, in which we see the history of South Korea from the Korean War to the present through the experiences of one man, who really becomes the embodiment of the (South) Korean evolution from divided, devastated wartime nation to global economic powerhouse. For my curriculum project, I plan to have my classes write a series of film treatments for a  K-drama about one extended (fictional) Korean family from 1900-2000, living first under a monarchy, then under Japanese occupation, then divided by the Korean War. Finally, we’ll see the two sides of the family, one living in the DPRK and one living in the ROK. This will allow students to use Korean history as the case study mentioned above, and do it through a relatable lens (Netflix!) while also implementing the College Board’s Historical Thinking Skills of contextualization, causation, comparison, and continuity and change over time. It will also allow students to see the connection between political events/forms of government and the impact they have on the lives of everyday people, the fictional family the students will create (along the lines of Ode to My Father, which I may choose to show the class once the project is done). Just as we stressed during the seminar, what matters most when studying different societies and cultures is really the shared humanity of the people, something we’ve seen, for example, in how North Koreans are portrayed in more recent films and Kdramas like Crash Landing on You. My hope is that by studying the history of Korean’s turbulent twentieth century, students will achieve not only a greater understanding of the various forms of government and Korean history especially, but also be able to see the impact of historical events on everyday lives, and how they can then make the connection (hopefully!) to their own.

[Laura Huffman]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/obituaries/charles-jenkins-north-korea-defector.html

 

 

[Laura Huffman]

Beautifully said. I love the idea of comparing North Korea to fictional dystopias; I think students would be shocked to learn about what life must be like for the average North Korean, and can make parallels to ones they've already read about. Since they're predisposed to rooting for Katniss Everdeen or Tris Prior, that empathy would hopefully extend to the real-life heroes and heroines trying to survive in a real-life dysfuncational and oppressive society like the DPRK.

[Laura Huffman]

Tom,

Great post! It brings to my mind three things:

1.) I, too, remember watching M*A*S*H reruns as a kid, and, if memory serves, didn't Klinger, the one who kept trying to go home, end up being the one who stayed at the end, because he married a Korean woman? There's probably a whole post just in analyzing that!

2.) You make an important point about how the United States is portrayed in North Korea, too. I believe it was you who told us about the Hot Nights/Cold War screening yesterday, and in the Songs from the North film it does show some of the anti-American propaganda in addition to asking the question, What if the United States was different?

3.) What a insightful comment about movie marketing! I'm reminded of an article I read about how American films were edited for the Germany audience from 1933-1941 to ensure they could be sold/shown there when you talked about how making China the villan would certainly close a very lucrative market, indeed. Making North Korea the villan in films they won't see anyway (especially now that Kim Jong Un is not the cinephile his father was) seems like a prudent choice from a profit-margin standpoint.

[Laura Huffman]

How is North Korea seen by outsiders?

The great challenge of presenting North Korea to outsiders is that the presentation can only come, really, in three forms: 1.) what the DPRK chooses to share about the country to the outside world, including visitors to the country itself and trips abroad by Olympic athletes and musical groups 2.) what we learn from defectors/refugees, who by the fact that they are in whatever way able to defect may demonstrate that they are not an 'average' North Korean (I'm thinking here about having the contacts/money to be able to get out) and 3.) what we can fictionalize/surmise based on those accounts. Of course, as with any representation of any country/culture in human history, context/historiography is key: what is the relationship between the DPRK and the country representing it through any type of media (even if it is the DPRK itself). I'm reminded of the 'sourcing' question for my AP World History students on DBQs for each primary source: what is the historical context? Audience? Purpose? Point of View?

So it makes perfect sense, then, that as those relationships between the Koreas and the outside world evolve, so too do the representations of North Koreans and depictions of North Korea itself. Whereas we learned in Dr. Jung-Kim's lecture about how Bond spent time in a North Korean prison camp in Die Another Day, released just as the Cold War was ending and perhaps it was more prudent to use the DPRK as the enemy rather than the uncertain status of the crumbled USSR/Eastern Bloc, we've also seen how, as the threat of the DPRK was seen as less threatening over time it could be portrayed comically in the west, as seen in Team America World Police or The Interview. While I openly admit that I haven't seen The Interview, knowing the plot makes me wonder if the Sony hack that followed was more about the film portraying the assassination of Kim Jong Un, or the mocking of him, which, it appears, would almost be considered an equivalent offense.

I also think about how North Korea is portrayed in South Korean media. While it has already been mentioned that the Sunshine Policy had an impact on a softening of the response to North Korea in the popular culture created during that time, two works that were created after the end of the Sunshine Policy continue to portray North Koreans as sympathetic individuals worthy of humanity and respect. Many have already mentioned Crash Landing on You, which portrays the non-villanous North Koreans as likeable, funny, caring Koreans equivalent to their brothers and sisters in the South. After seeing that film and developing a substantial crush on Hyun Bin (who plays Captain Ri), I sought out other films/Kdramas that he appears in, which included Confidential Assignment (available on Amazon Prime!). In that film he also plays a North Korean, this time paired with a South Korean detective in the South to retrieve some plates used for counterfeiting American currency. As in CLOY, he is portrayed as honorable and heroic, making what Westerners would consider 'good' choices. This remind me, again, of something Dr. Jung-Kim said about reunification, while it was something older Koreans sought, younger Koreans now look for peaceful coexistence with the North. How better to facilitate that peaceful coexistence than by fashioning in popular culture the ultimate 'frenemy': while the regime is an enemy to the South, its people, humanized through film, kdramas, third-person accounts like Barbara Demick's and first-person accounts like Hyeonseo Lee's book and Ted Talk.

[Laura Huffman]

Same, Jane! I remember how kind you were to me in Orlando! Hope you're doing well. 🙂

[Laura Huffman]

Jane - you make an excellent point about the contradiction to between Confucianism's filial piety and the treatment of the elderly in South Korea. When I was in rural South Korea last summer, I remember learning that some modern urban Koreans will pay caretakers to perform the ancestral rites at the graves of their ancestors in rural areas. And yet, one could argue, that caregiving could be better served on the still living, suffering in the heat!

[Laura Huffman]

What are society and culture like in South Korea today?

Modern South Korea is a fascinating study in contradictions. One the one hand (mostly economic and technological) it's been progressive: going from being a debtor nation to a contributor, seeing its economy grow from one that was lacking compared to North Korea during the 1960s to the 11th largest economy in the world today. It's 5G technology gives it the fastest internet in the world; and it is the largest producer of Semiconductors in the world today. It's used its Hallyu soft power of Kpop and Kdramas to spread Korean culture globally. It's been able to use the 4 Ts of Track, Trace, Test and Treat to have one of the most enviable responses to Covid-19 in the world today (I recently read that South Korean cinemas have even reopened!). But behind all the remarkable economic growth and technological advancements, South Korea today remains a socially conservative society, one where LGBTQ+ people receive no protections (much less the ability to marry) and gay men completing their mandatory military service are targets for harassment. Kpop and Kdramas both reinforce traditional gender roles of dominant men (regardless of their sweet, clean-shaven 'flowerboy' image, which is shown to be just another form of hyper-masculinity) and submissive hyper-sexualized women in a culture that expects many women to choose between motherhood and career and 'many young Korean women aspire to become YouTube makeup coaches." (Kuhn, NPR). The dark side of Korean culture and society has recently come to light through the #Metoo and 'escape the corset' movements, in addition to 'sextortion' cases, which reveal a deeply embeded patriarchy in which men from police officers to teachers have participated in the mistreatment of women. What appears to have mattered most is just that: appearance, which, as Holliday and Elfving-Hwang argue, is tied not only to relationship 'success' in finding a partner, but also professional, as job applications feature a photograph and "physiognomy, a prominent form of 'Korean' divination, has been enthusiastically embraced. Around half of all Koreans believe that one can 'read' a person's character by looking at their face," (p. 70) resulting in Koreans getting plastic surgery not to look 'western' but to look like a more successful Korean.

While Kdramas may present South Korea as a wealthy 'promised land' for North Koreans able to see black market episodes on smuggled thumb drives, it is also one in which the elderly are increasingly impoverished and where at least one North Korean defector and her son even starved to death (https://www.npr.org/2019/09/17/761156048/in-south-korea-anguish-over-deaths-of-north-korean-defectors-who-may-have-starve). At the forefront culturally with kdramas on Netflix and Amazon Prime, BTS and Blackpink performing in a Korean/English hybrid on American TV shows, and Kpop 'stans' even trolling the American President's rally in Oklahoma, it is still a nation where tourists may travel for medical procedures and plastic surgery, but where South Korean women cannot get a technically legal abortion.

It's this dichtomy of South Korean culture I find most fascinating. Another element that makes it so interesting to study is the fact that while Kpop and Kdramas can reinforce traditional gender roles, I've also noticed that those same Kdramas and films are also starting to cast a wider net culturally: both the film Ode to My Father and the recent Kdrama Chocolate presented married couples with a Korean husband and a Vietnamese wife. Itaewon Class had a gay character, a transgender character, and a Black character, and also showed some of the discrimination those characters might realistically face in modern Korean society. Just as with the #metoo and 'escape the corset' movements, this willingness to hold up a mirror to its traditional and conservative society will hopefully allow South Korea to create a society as progressive as it economy and technology sectors have already proven to be.

[Laura Huffman]

How has Kim Jong Un forged his own path for the Kim dynasty?

Kim Jong Un has forged his own path for the Kim dynasty in four ways: through a continuity of repression, a hybrid of military-first/Juche policies, emphasing the economy, and making diplomatic overtures with adversaries like South Korea and the United States. I've read in the past that Kim Jong Il rejected his son Kim Jong Chol as leader thinking him too 'soft,' - that is, he's not ruthless enough to lead North Korea. Kim Jong Un has shown repeatedly that is not a problem for him, even to the point of purging family members like his uncle and half-brother. One could argue that this is an aspect of his father and grandfather's interpretation of Juche. As his father Kim Jong Il wrote in 1974 when systematizing Juche through his list "Ten Principles for the Establishment of the One-Ideology System" 'most of the principles involved acknowledging the absolute authority of the surpreme leader and pledging total obedience to the state.' (Baek, Foreign Affairs, 36). In addition to utilizing this ideology, Kim Jong Un has been intentional in even looking like his grandfather Kim Il Sung, by maintaining a high weight and emulating his haircut, thus showing even physically a continuity in the line of succession from the 'eternal president.' In addition to continuing (reviving?) Juche, he's also combining it and continuing with his father's 'military-first' politics, as seen by his continual pursuit of nuclear weapons. Third, as Dr. Jung-Kim stated in her powerpoint lecture, Kim Jong Un appears to be placing greater emphasis on the economy. Following the famine of the mid-90s that basically ended the ration/government food distribution program, a grey market developed in the DPRK to the point where today's generation of youth have no memory of the government once providing for all their needs. The grey and black markets are necessary to feed a population that otherwise would suffer and starve under sanctions. Kim has made diplomatic overtures to the United States and South Korea and has used high-profile summits with Presidents Moon and Trump to bring greater prestige to himself and his power. As he is in total control of the media in North Korea, he can use these summits as opportunities to prove to his own people that he is not only in charge, he's also on the same, or even higher, platform than the leaders of China, South Korea, and the United States. By being in total control of both the message and the messaging, he's able to fashion his own Cult of Personality akin to his father and grandfather, playing an inexperienced and incompetent US leader with no foreign policy experience to suit and support his own needs and ends.

How worried should we be about North Korea?

I don't feel we should be worried about North Korea. Kim may be ruthless, but he's not stupid. He has some understanding of the West, having been educated in Switzerland. I don't see that he has any plans for expansion or world domination. Invading the South would only backfire, and I think he's wise enough to know that. I suspect that, like leaders who only kill their own people (Pol Pot, Franco, et. al.) the United States and other countries will turn a blind eye as long as North Korea's flexing of nuclear capability remains just that - flexing and testing. If they were to actually bomb Guam or Japan, that would be a different story, but considering what I wrote above about Kim's ability to control his messaging, he doesn't need to do that in order to demonstrate his own power over his people; a photo op with the US President is just as effective, and cheaper. All he has to do to get the photo op is test a scary weapon every now and then.

[Laura Huffman]

Alyssa,

The impression I got was that the Sunshine Policy was actually ended by the South Koreans because they felt they were not getting enough out of it for the amount of energy (and money) they were putting into it, not that it was ended by the DPRK, although I freely admit I could be wrong!

 

[Laura Huffman]

Tom - I wonder if you could flesh out a bit more your thoughts on Kim Jong Il's reasoning for deleting communism from the constitution. I didn't really get that, and it seems like you did. Would you be willing to elaborate?

[Laura Huffman]

How did Kim Jong Il ensure regime survival?

Kim Jong Il ensured regime survival the way species survive in the wild: through adaptation. Because he could not count on the support of his father's generation whose power was derived mostly from the KWP, he instead chose to make the military more powerful through his 'military first' politics to create a "Strong and Properous Great State" (kangsong taeguk). I'm curious about the extent to which he was influenced by the 1961 coup in the ROK, with the idea being that through the tactics of their enemies they will be able to surpass them. (I'm reminded here of Hitler's use of Fascist propaganda on the right right, modeled on the Soviet/Bolshevik propaganda of the far left.)  He also ensured that not only did he have his father's blessing as presumptive heir, he also had various positions (first vice chair of the reorganized National Defense Commision, Supreme Commander of the North Korean armed forces, chairman of the National Defense), approved of by those in power, prior to his father's death, allowing for smoother transition. In addition, apparently during the 1980s Kim Jong Il wrote a treatise entitled 'Theory of the Immortal Sociopolitical Body," in which he stated that 'immortal' political life is given by the Suryong (the brain or center of the body politic.) This makes me wonder if he thought of himself literally as the brains of the operation, the operation in this case being North Korea. He recognized that, like Napoleon, he could use the support of the army to his advantage. (Can you tell my background is in European history?), and so created not a state with an army, but an army with a state (like Prussia). Once in power, he replaced Juche with military-first politics, which "coincided with the peaceful transition of power from the father Kim Il Sung to the son Kim Jong Il with the blessings of a new revolutionary strategy developed by the succesor." (Kim, 63)

How did South Korea’s Sunshine Policy change international relations?

South Korea's Sunshine Policy changed international relations because it allowed other countries besides the DPRK's traditional allies (the former USSR, China) to diplomatically engage, to send humanitarian aid, to develop the city of Kaesong as a cooperative enterprise, and to attempt to create diplomatic normalcy between both Koreas for the first time in the armistice that ended the Korean conflict in 1953.

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