Category Archives: Uncategorized

Kim Jong Un’s Wifey

The rise of Kim Jon Un, the new supreme leader of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) has created tensions for the U.S and South Korea. After all, the prodigal son is a mystery; no one knows what his intentions are and who he is really is, people ultimately anticipate him making rash decisions because of his youth… and that’s exactly what he’s doing.  Kim Jong Un threatened the U.S AND broke the armistice between the North and South. In international politics, breaking an armistice is a pretty big deal.

Even in his abrasive behavior, he hasn’t stopped entertaining us. He never bothers reading the angry letters or signing any treaties that the UN or other intergovernmental or nongovernmental organizations throw at him. Even if he hasn’t communicated much with the outside world, Kim Jong Un has shared many interesting moments with Dennis Rodman.

As of last year, Kim Jong Un was pronounced a married man to the people of North Korea. Ri Sol-ju is the new wife of the great leader of North Korea. She’s been seen many times in the media trailing behind Kim Jong Un, yet she’s never been heard. It’s not very surprising that she never gets to talk, Kim and his announcers do most of the talking.

Him getting married is a wonderful political strategy. Kim Jong Un’s marriage has earned him respect in the public eye, now the Korean people can relate to him. Not only that but with their marriage comes the next heir, another addition to the line up of ‘great leaders’. In fact, Ri Sol-Ju has already given birth to a baby girl. Apparently Dennis has seen the baby girl and can attest to her cuteness.

Ri Sol shines under an interesting light. Despite the country’s difficulty with creating a sustainable economy and scarcity of provisions for citizens, Ri Sol is very fashionable. Her clothes look a lot like western designer trends, in comparison to the other men and women featured in headlines who wear simple and plain solid-colored suits, she appears quite vibrant. Ri Sol was even spotted sporting an $$1000.00 purse that is probably impossible for the average person in North Korea to purchase.

Although her attire might just be knock-offs, as are most of the hand-tailored clothes in North Korea, this breakout in fashion is one of the first in North Korea. Ri Sol-Ju is making a statement to all the North Korean women who see her.

We can all hope that the first lady of the DPRK is a closeted reformist, but for now we can settle with her style encouraging more freedom of expression in the oppressed minds in North Korea.

South Koreans and Christianity

As I learned from watching the 2012 film 21 Jump Street, nothing is more inspiring than ‘Korean Jesus’. 

Where I live in Bergenfield, New Jersey you can drive around the neighborhood and spot several Korean churches. This actually is not uncommon, I realized that throughout my life I have seen many Korean churches. It is the same with Jewish and Hindu temples or Islamic mosques; where there is a large population of a certain demographic in a township you will often see places of worship in accordance to the specific people. This made me think about Korea’s religious affiliations.

In East Asia, some of the prominent religions are Confucianism, Taoism and Shinto Buddhism. An Italian missionary brought Roman Catholicism to South Korea in 1603. Christianity  didn’t really catch on until the 1940s, but even then the population of Christians in Korea at that time was only 2%. But in the 1990s that percentage grew significantly: 34% of Koreans were Protestant and 11% were Catholic. The “conversion boom” happened somewhere around the 1980s and Korea had the most conversions in the shortest amount of time more than any other country.

File:Rev. Sun Myung Moon speaks, Las Vegas, NV, USA on April 4, 2010.png

I believe that Protestantism sparked a movement within Korean culture. After all, Protestantism was able to compete with Catholicism and Buddhism. Influential Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon had a lot to do with the shift. Sun Myung Moon was more than a religious leader, he was a business magnate, media mogul and a father, one could argue that he was also a politician. Moon founded a Unification Church and wrote a family-oriented book about divine principles, giving his two cents about looking at the bible through a new down-to-earth perspective.  This perspective appeals to the middle class, youth, intellectuals and the urban population.

Another factor in the rise of Protestantism in Korea would be the influence the religion has in education. Christians started many schools, including three of the top five universities in South Korea.

Before the Korean War, from 1910 to 1945, Korea was under Japanese rule. The Japanese imposed Shinto Buddhism onto the Korean population and they rejected it as more and more missionaries brought Christian ideals into the country. Christianity sparked the conversation of social change and the importance of human rights, unlike the original Korean society that was based on Confucian principles where women had no say in society and young people were completely subservient to their parents.

The South Korean government’s constitution promotes ‘freedom of religion’ and ‘separation of church and state’, the government even regards Christianity as ideological protection against communism. Today, Korea is home to the biggest church ever…. As of February 2013 the Yoido Full Gospel Church had close to one million members. Over 200,000 people attend their services, not to mention the thousands of people watching on TV. At some point, South Korea also had the most missionaries in the world, a staggering statistic if you consider the population of the country.

Unfortunately, there have been a few tax evasion scandals in the Christian pastoral community. Even Sun Myung Moon was found guilty of filing false tax returns!

References:

http://www.religion.ucsb.edu/?page_id=872

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Korea

Arirang Mass Games Festival

There is this event that began in North Korea in 2002, they call it the Arirang Mass Games Festival. It’s this huge compilation of mass gymnastics that tell the entire history of North Korea, mainly Jim Il-Sung and his successor Kim Jong-Ill.

As you can see in the picture below, there are hundreds of people participating in this show. Even the huge painting elevated as the backdrop is comprised of thousands of disciplined school children holding up cards that create a colorful and complex mosaic. This performance is all for the glory of Korea, the Great Leaders and their ideologies.

When ever tourists do manage to stumble into the North through the ‘back roads’ of Shengyang, China they get to experience North Korea’s obsession with the handful of crazy talented youth being harvested within the city of Pyongyang. From a young age children who show even a little drop of talent are nurtured into super athletes in exclusive private schools. You can often see videos of these talented toddlers and teenagers efficiently playing a variety of instruments, each act is just as amazing as the next, if not better. The participants in the mass games can be five years old and older, in most cases this would be their entire career until they retire. With a mind blowing amount of precision, thousands of freakishly gifted men, women and children passionately perform this Guinness World Record breaking show.

Performers participate in the Arirang mass games in Pyongyang, North Korea. (As you can see in the picture below this text, there are hundreds of people participating in this show. Even the huge painting elevated in the backdrop is comprised of hundreds of people holding up cards that create a picture.)

So who are actually allowed the privilege of seeing this event? From past interactions in North Korean media, you can already guess that the average North Korean ‘Joe’ cannot attend these events. Usually, the Arirang Festival’s audience contains handpicked families and individuals: military generals or soldiers, government higher-ups, people of other important jobs within the government, and the families of the people participating in the acts. Lets not forget about the Great Leader himself, he gets a front row seat.

I see these gigantic events as display of North Korea’s skill to the rest of the world. They don’t exactly want to seem as though they are falling behind. North Korea cannot participate in the Olympic games mainly because their government refuses to uphold any past and or current non-proliferation treaties it made with the U.N. Let’s face it, their government is not on good terms with any other nations except for Russia. I guess this is their way of showing that they can compete with the rest of the globe.

The games are a couple hours long, but as they go on you begin to see the tremendous amount of time, effort and planning that is choreographed into every selection. Performers participate in the Arirang mass games in Pyongyang, North Korea

The nationalist personality of the North Korean people is something so unique in the sense that they are all unified under the Juche ideal. Another thing to keep in mind is the amount of visual perfection that goes into everything Koreans do. I believe this is also a reflection of the Korean culture’s attention to detail when it comes to ‘saving face’; the importance of first impressions, precision and perfection are common in other Asian cultures especially in Japanese and Chinese traditions (although one could argue that the Chinese are a bit more down-to-earth).

Famine in the North

In 1994, most people in North Korea were starving to death.

OKAY, I know this is another negative post, but I promise I’ll write about something happier next time.

Why were they starving when most of the rest of the world enjoyed the 90s? In the 80s the Soviets were going through a reformation period so they decided to collect some money from the North Koreans and they could not afford it. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea survived on Soviet aid (A huge clump of which went to Kim. Shortly afterwards, the Soviet Union economy collapsed and North Korea came tumbling down with it. As a result of the collapse, the North’s agriculture died simply because the government was not flexible enough to bounce back from the hit.

A testimony from a North Korean woman on TED talks revealed the hardship of living in North Korea during the famine. She said that her family received a letter from their friends saying that they were laying on the floor of their living room just waiting to die. Famine forced many people to go to extremes such as leaving the country, and we all know how dangerous it  gets if you try to cross the border.  A large part of the population only survived by eating insects and tree bark.

A North Korean family living in Pyongyang in the 90s.

A survey by North Korea’s Public Security Ministry suggests that 2.5 to 3 million people died from 1995 to March 1998(Wikipedia). It is just so hard to believe that something this preventable happened at such a large scale and it is all thanks to the DPRK government’s poor decision making and a line of consecutive failures in their systems. In a perfect world, the North Korean government would have reached out to the International community to ask for economic assistance however, as I mentioned before, they live by the Juche idea. What is the point of self-help  when you cannot even actually help yourself?

Another fascinating point to make about this famine would be the role females in North Korean society. Women made up most of the workforce in DPRK in the 90s, which is more than any country in the world at that time. That is a pretty big deal, and it’s also a change of scenery for women in society compared to the rest of human history. During the famine, the women were in charge of doing everything from labor, bringing home food, water and fuel.

But looking at it from the big picture, everyone suffered equally, regardless of their age or sex or occupation. Even if you or your sons and daughters were in the military, you would still be starved like the rest of the country (except for the Great Leader and his staff).

Even in the modern world of today North Korea continues to struggle with terrible famines due to droughts, flooding and just poor decision making on the government’s part. Kim Jong Un spends a ridiculous amount of money trying to get rockets to blow up while generations of North Koreans suffer from malnutrition, children are stunted. No country wants to give them aid because they’re breaking a million-and-a-half of those nuclear proliferation treaties that the global community holds so near and dear. In addition to all this, during the famine the North Korean government hid the truth, saying that the Chinese and South Koreans were suffering in worse conditions in an effort to prevent rebellion among the population.

The times are changing, more and more cell phones, DVD dramas from South Korea, and books are being smuggled into the North. People are going to start realizing (if they have not already) that the government is lying and that there is a more free world out there.

 

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine#Arduous_March_terminology

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2012/11/12/the-political-consequences-of-famine-in-north-korea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_in_the_United_States

Plastic Surgery in Seoul

For some reason a large amount of Korean girls and women tend to get plastic surgery, in fact, 1 in 5 women in Seoul have had some type of work done. It is actually not uncommon for High School girls in Korea to get plastic surgery; it’s actually a popular graduation present.

The most basic of procedures are the double-eye lid which is when a crease is created that most Koreans naturally don’t have and the nose job, which is basically the making the bridge of the nose straighter and more narrow. In addition to that, there is even a procedure where the shape of your mouth is cut so that it looks as though you are constantly smiling; this is popular among flight attendants or hostesses (jobs where you directly serve customers). Some girls have their jaw sawed down for a rounder looking face. Other girls get rounder or bigger eyes. Strangely enough, many Koreans call this ideal face a ‘Westernized’ look; I believe South Koreans have a stronger desire to look like celebrities more than any  other culture in the world.

Getting plastic surgery in Korea is like buying a new hand bag; getting a new nose and bigger eyes is now just a part of the norm. I see this as Korean culture adapting to advancement of new technologies. As plastic surgery became more efficient and safe, it also became more common and affordable. From the very beginning, a large part of being successful in Korea correlates with how you look. In Korean culture, a pretty face is worth much more than your personality or your skills. Living life in Seoul is more generous when you’re beautiful and it’s all about flawless perfection.

The Korean Wave or Hanryu is probably the culprit behind the obsession to look like the perfect Korean human being. The Korean Wave began in the late 1990s when a couple of journalists from Beijing realized China’s new demand for Korean culture. The spread of Korean pop culture thus followed suit; K-Dramas (Korean tv-dramas) and K-Pop (Korean Pop) to kimchi and fashion. From a global perspective, this popularization of Korean culture can lead to the acceptance of Koreans in general, which leads to a more exports to other countries or economic growth.

The Miss Korea 2013 contestants were mocked in the media for looking so similar — with suggestions that some had had plastic surgery.
Look at all these contestants for Miss Korea… They all look the SAME!

Is this the new standard of beauty? What does this say about the Korean women’s psyche? Why must all these girls look like copies? Why?

What about the girls who just want to keep their natural faces? Surely this facial reconstruction boom has an impact on them. I’ve read that in Korea it is harder to find a job with a natural face. Some movie directors and fashion designers in South Korea say that it’s difficult to find a girl who has not had any plastic surgery. Fortunately, there are still many who appreciate the natural Korean physiognomy and of course the older Korean generation prefers a natural beauty. 

 

References:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/plastic-surgery-in-south-korea-keeps-people-grinning/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wWKjxxM6q8

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/plastic-surgery-that-forces-you-to-smile-uncontrollably-is-a

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Wave

North Korean Gulags

Between 150,000 and 200,000 North Koreans live in prison camps surrounded by electrified fencing. This is not your average incarceration, the prisoners in these camps are doing hard labor while on the brink of starvation! Men, woman and children and being starved, tortured and worked to the bone (literally). Despite the layers of evidence (escapees, defectors, and Google Earth), the North Korean government has denied all accusations of having prison/death/labor camps. Prisoners experience mutilation, severe living conditions, malnutrition, intense labor and much more.

(The next couple of paragraphs are graphic.)

With no trial and no explanation North Koreans are shipped away to these concentration camps, similar to Soviet Union gulags or the Nazi’s concentration camps. Maybe detainees spoke out against the government in public, or maybe they are guilty by association. If one person speaks out then the entire family is detained. Sometimes children are born at the camps through arranged marriages (rewarding prisoners for their hard work). In some other camps, pregnancy is forbidden and if a women is caught while pregnant the prison guards proceed forcibly cut out and kill the fetus; the execution of the mother follows shortly afterwards.  Prison camp sentences could last anywhere from a couple of years to an entire generation;  in 1970 Kim Il-Sung said

“Factionalists or enemies of class, whoever they are; their seed must be eliminated through three generations.”

This mean that enemies of the government will be imprisoned…. for three generations. This ‘three generation’ law is still active today.

As I mentioned before, all of the prisoners are malnourished. Some escapees have testified to being fed three handfuls of rice a day. North Korean Prison camp survivor Shin Dong-hyuk says that he was always hungry. Being born in one of the prison camps, Shin grew up eating anything he could find, from rats to frogs or insects. One day he had the rare opportunity to try BBQ chicken and ever since that he made the choice to escape. Shin did not even know if the earth was round or square, all he knew was that outside the prison camp there was wonderful food like BBQ chicken. During their escape, Shin lost his companion to the electrified fence, however Shin was able to make it across. After his escape Shin made it across the Chinese border and sought asylum in a South Korean embassy.

North Korean prison camp survivor: Shin Dong-hyuk

Even after crossing the border in China a North Korean refugee isn’t safe. If caught by Chinese police defected North Koreans will not be accepted as refugees, they are immediately interrogated and repatriated. Defected North Koreans in China would have to bribe their way through countless checkpoints before they can reach the safety of an embassy that will accept them.

I’ve read about the many horrific things that happen to the North Koreans held in these prison camps; every story told is as terrifying as the next. There are several testimonials from the few incredibly lucky  inmates that managed to escape, although it’s hard to call them lucky since they will forever be scared with memories of the atrocities they have witnessed. One refugee that was interviewed said that she believed that North Korea would only get worse. However, many defectors like Shin Dong-hyuk believe that maybe in the near future, with the right amount of action and at the right time the system that imprisoned him since birth will be brought down. 

References 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/a-life-of-torture-starvation-and-executions-inside-north-koreas-horrifyingly-cruel-prison-camps-8777170.html

http://4umf.com/secret-prison-camps-in-north-korea/#.UjvvdcZ6ZN8

www.cbsnews.com

North and South

Let’s start this blog off with a fun brief history lesson:

Before the Korean War, North and South Korea were one whole Korea. They had a bunch of political differences that they could not solve over paper and discourse; it created a horrible tension between the countries resulted division. They still attempted to go through diplomatic resolutions, but the skirmishes along the border (38th Parallel) that divided north and south still continued. Eventually, the ‘Democratic People’s of Korea’ (North) invaded the ‘Republic of Korea'(South) and started a war that lasted about 3 years. Yes, the U.S. supplied 88% of the international soldiers that fought along side the South Korean forces who were able to push their enemies back to the other side of the 38th Parallel. North Korea also had buddies, China and the Soviet Union sent some soldiers too.

The official division happened in 1954 and ever since then the two countries went their separate ways, though the North Koreans were understandably a bit bitter. In the 70s, North Korea tried to scrape up some resources in China to start another war with South Korea. China said no, and they have been trying to find a big stick ever since while aggressively blaming the U.S. for the division of the country.

Because of their very different governments and economies North and South Korea live two completely different ways even though they share the same language and culture. The Global Powers played a huge part in the sustainability and growth of the South Korea we see today. It is very much a ‘free country’; the people there get to vote, speak freely, play video games, take vacations and buy iPhones. They have a vibrant culture full of self expression and a swarm of some of the most creative innovations that are vital in our everyday lives, for example the first portable MP3 player and a plethora of talented quirky boy-bands that teenie-boppers all over the world go crazy for. In addition to all that, South Korea’s economy is slowly becoming one of the largest among the world powers.

North Korea today is almost completely isolated and because of that all their culture and traditions have been interestingly preserved in this strange post Korean War time capsule. Many appalling and fantastically outrageous events go on beyond the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone).  More than half of the North Korean population live in the capitol (Pyongyang). The people there can’t legally purchase cell phones, there is no Google or God; it’s just them and their ‘Great Leader’ Kim Il-Sung. The North Koreans live by the self-reliance principle of Juche, which was invented by the Great Leader himself.

Now that the history lesson is over we can get to the fun stuff. There are lots of questions to ask : After being separated, why did North Korea become the evil twin? Why do so many young South Korean girls get plastic surgery? Why are so many Korean-Americans into Christianity? What is so fascinating about Gangnam Style? Why are the babies born in North Korea lighter and shorter than the babies in South Korea and why (although this is pure speculation) is Kim Jong Un the only person in North Korea with a double-chin? These are only a few of the topics I plan to look into in the course of this blog. The expansion of Korean culture is imminent and I want to know as much as possible in order to better my understanding of the near future.