[Mario Galindo]

 

Having lived in Los Angeles my whole life I knew and remember the part of town that is now called Koreatown before it was what it is now. I had dozens of Korean friends growing up. As the neighborhood began changing I remember feeling the exoticness of not seeing any language other than Korean on businesses for blocks and blocks. I also remember the Korean flag and how I tried to get some of my Korean friends to explain to me the meaning of the black cut-up lines and symbols on the what seemed pristine white background. I never got an answer.

I bring this up because reading about the Korean War and the United Nations intervention in separating the country in two is all foreign to me. The clandestine operations and conspirarcy theory explainations are nothing like what Korea or Koreans have been for me since childhood. I do not recognize any of this. It is amazing and a bit shameful for me to realize this. How could such a violent and life shattering experience for thousands of people not be common knowledge in a city where there are so many people of Korean decent?

I had Korean teachers, have worked and played in what has become K-Town for decades, have Korean colleagues, and yet? Complete ignorance. Something is wrong. All I can think is whether it is a taboo topic to talk about this in Korean culture? Or, is it just all due to my personal ignorance? If, yes, I hope to make up for this because this lost feeling is definitely not bliss.

[Mario Galindo]

This article made me think out loud. Politics, death, patriotism, "Fake News", power, society, monuments, heritage. China's past and our 21st Century present are not that far off, I thought. Here's what I mean.

Hu Ying structures the piece under rememberance, imagining, and forgetting. How much of these are "truth" or propaganda? How much of history is just a "his" story recounted by the winners of society. I had not connected these parts they same way until this article made me. Similar ideas are argued by Jared Diamond and Howard Zinn, yet with them I had focused specifically to the United States's past or a greater "epic" spread of human history through millenia. With the specific application of "Nine Burials" my thinking went to the role of "policemen of the world", "freedom fighters", "liberators", through a kind of humanity lens where the focus was as complex as looking through a telescope toward the creation of a galaxy. The complexity of all this matter layering, infusing, and evaporating through regimes, political movements, historical "accidents" and unexplainable melding was the difference in connection.

Recently, the removal of Civil War era monuments and commenmorative statues of our own tiny history, for example. 242 years when compared to the history of East Asia I am beginning to understand is like a galaxy versus universe comparison, to build on my ananlogy. Is bringing down our stautues and memorials around the United States an example of what Hu Ying calls "erasure in the histoic narrative" like the disapeearance of a beheading of a rebelious Chinese poet activist? Is hiding the ugly, horrific past making it harder for contemporary peoples to understand the difference between real and "fake" news of our existence? Isn't it better to face the difficult, admit the mistakes of history, and allow a 21st Century mindset to grapple, fight, argue, or whatever comes from that, than white-wash, spoon-feed, and "protect" society from itself by hiding human history?

Yes, "Nine Burials" might turn into 10, 11, or 50. I think humanity deserves a chance at least to try and figure things out, though. Fearing what might, could, and probably will, happen is both part of the solution and the problem. Everything is at stake. That's the point.

[Mario Galindo]

The Revolution Shall not be stopped!

Manchu no!

In honor of our Female Champion of Mirror Lake. “We mortals must grapple with difficulties and dangers in order to show what stuff we are made of.”

Equalization of landownership, now!

[Mario Galindo]

Your response also made me think of "Ghost in a Shell" and the controversial casting by Holllywood. From the readings of both the 1st and 2nd sessions, the role of women in Japanese, South Korean and Chinese cultures could also fuel topics of gender roles, historical patterns and/or similarities to contempoirary Asian, American, Native, Latino, and Black cultures.

The whole "modern woman" aspect from Session 2's historical context: how women seem to need to re-create themselves and in the process distance themselves from "tradition" or expected cultural norms in order to experience better lives. Questions like: What is culture?, Who makes cultural norms?, How is positive change accomplished?, Does society, power, and individual activism shape our world equally?

This got deep quickly. But I hope I make sense? 

[Mario Galindo]

So, where to begin? Eventhough I have taught Language Arts for 20 + years, history, culture, and Ethnic Studies have always been part of my lessons. I have taken a number of single/two day classes from the US-China Institute over the years. This in-depth course will, I know, continue to whet my curiousity, which always ends-up in my life and school lessons somehow. Looking forward to meeting everyone and having an enlightening experience. Oh, I'm Mario Galindo.

[Author]

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