(Part 2) Top products from r/korea

Koreans right now? I'd be hard pressed to find someone in my vicinity to openly profess a nostalgic desire for uh... Let's call it reintegration, but yes, during the colonial period ([1910-1945] and the decades immediately before) there were many who throughout the course of Colonization that either 1) professed loyalty to the empire or 2) believed in a (retrospectively Ill-conceived) pan-Asian unity. Since I'm no longer as familiar with outright collaborators I'll just deal with the latter.

As an example, the first modern novel '무정/Heartless' was written by Lee Kwangsu. In Korean historiography he is viewed in several ways. National history courses may just leave it at that but depending on who you speak with he's either a collaborator or, a 'cultural nationalist.' That is to say as a cultural nationalist, he and other like minded individuals fell short in demanding sovereignty or even autonomy for that matter and pushed for at least recognition for Koreans in partnership with the Japanese.

Lee however was caught up in the idea of a 'New Rome' in the East. This is important since ideas of pan-Asian solidarity (not to be confused with the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere) were in contention with aggregate nationalist waves of thought. Instead of Korean or Japanese state, the idea of 'Daito/Daedong' or The Great East was tinged with social Darwinist conceptions of human division. The New Rome Lee envisioned was a grand struggle among the races of the world, and using Japan as a vehicle, Koreans would survive.

This lineage of thought is further tracked back to Sin Chaeho and even further back to Liang Qichao in China.
And..even the famous (in Korea at least) assassin of one colonial governor-General Ito Hirobumi. Yes, Ahn Joongun was not a nationalist by any definition. He was claimed in nationalist historiography to be a one dimensional nationalist but acted as he did because of sense of betrayal of the pan-Asian dream by Japanese particularism. You can read or Google this from Ahn's 아지아 평화론/동맹설(I don't remember, it's been a while).

Can write more but getting tired. If you're interested read Andre Scmid's "Korea Between Empires" or articles by Tikhanov on Korean pan-asianists.

BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Korea-Between-Empires-Andre-Schmid/dp/0231125399

REVIEW OF BOOK:
" A groundbreaking and border-crossing work in modern Korean intellectual history. A dazzling combination of rich textual analysis, sustained argument engaging the latest historiography and theoretical literature, and limpid, elegant prose, it lays bare the genealogy of twentieth-century Korean nationalist identity and consciousness and challenges the embedded colonizer/colonized binary of much previous scholarship by situating that genealogy in a universalizing discourse which simultaneously embraced both Korea and Japan.

(Cater Eckert, Harvard University) "

Books like The Book of Questions and If... might have some questions you can use to spark a conversation. There's a good chance you'll be able to get them from your local library, so check that out. Otherwise, browse some of the stuff that gets posted to r/askreddit and use what seems appropriate. You could do a search for 'best icebreakers' or 'get to know someone' type posts to narrow the subject matter down a bit, too.

Depending on how favorably she takes to it, maybe ask some questions about her childhood. "Did you have/want any pets when you were younger?", "What did you like the most about your elementary school best friend?", "What class did you enjoy the most?", "Who was your favorite singer/group in middle school?" etc.

I took a trip to Korea, visited a museum and saw Admiral Yi Sun Shin's sword a long time ago. They talked about the Kobukson, the famous turtle ship, from this trip as well, that it was an armor-clad naval vessel fully 300 years before the Monitor and the Merrimac used in the American Civil War.

Many years later, I tried to find out as much as I could about Admiral Yi, his life and death and accomplishments during the Japanese invasion of Korea in the late 1500s. I've read through his diaries, as much as I could get through, and several books by Steven Turnbull.

Absolutely fascinating.

His life could easily become a Hollywood movie. There are some parallels in his life to that of the popular recent k-drama, 도깨 비, Goblin's main character, Kim Shin - specifically around how the King would listen to his court sycophants and the subsequent treatment of his loyal military leader. The recent movie, The Admiral, only focuses on one battle, but from 1592 - 1598, there were some amazing tactics that he developed and employed, winning 33 naval battles while severely outnumbered.

I'll leave you with 2 quotes from his Wikipedia page and a link to a humorous and NSFW recounting of his accomplishments:

Admiral George Alexander Ballard of the Royal Navy considered Yi a great naval commander, and compared him to Lord Nelson of England:

"It is always difficult for Englishmen to admit that Nelson ever had an equal in his profession, but if any man is entitled to be so regarded, it should be this great naval commander of Asiatic race who never knew defeat and died in the presence of the enemy; of whose movements a track-chart might be compiled from the wrecks of hundreds of Japanese ships lying with their valiant crews at the bottom of the sea, off the coasts of the Korean peninsula... and it seems, in truth, no exaggeration to assert that from first to last he never made a mistake, for his work was so complete under each variety of circumstances as to defy criticism... His whole career might be summarized by saying that, although he had no lessons from past history to serve as a guide, he waged war on the sea as it should be waged if it is to produce definite results, and ended by making the supreme sacrifice of a defender of his country."

Admiral Togo regarded Admiral Yi as his superior. At a party held in his honor, Togo took exception to a speech comparing him to Lord Nelson and Yi Sun-sin.

"It may be proper to compare me with Nelson, but not with Korea’s Yi Sun-sin, for he has no equal."

Bad Ass of the Week NSFW

Krys Lee's Drifting House is highly regarded -- although is more about Koreans in America and North Koreans. Also, it is a bit depressing (good, but rather serious).

Giacomo Lee apparently has a new book coming out about modern Korea, called Funereal. Naomi Foyle's Seoul Survivors is a science-fiction novel set in Korea that I've seen some good reviews for (but haven't read myself).

I totally second EatYourNut's recommendation of that Korean Modern Literature series.

For something older, Katsuei Yuasa's Kannani is really excellent. It's about the March 1 Movement, in 1919, but from the eyes of a Japanese child living in Korea. The history that goes with the short story (in the book I linked to) is also fascinating.

Hey I have quite a few books from that period that could help you!
The first is Elites and Political Power in South Korea.
If you want a book about the Park Chung-Hee period and the elites at this time maybe read Korea's development under Park Chung-Hee.
If you want to read about the elites and political climate during the democratisation period perhaps read From transition to power alternation..
Finally if you want a book that discusses the general climate and to see how elites are viewed give Democracy and authority in South Korea a read.

Hope this was helpful :) Sorry if the books are a bit expensive...I got them free from my library so I didn't realise how much most of them cost. You said you wanted detailed analysis and these are very detailed.

Edit: Just wanted to add it is a very interesting period and topic, I read alot about it myself if you couldn't tell ;)

I'm going to get downvoted for this, but there is a translation issue here. The video never mentions "Comfort Women" (위안부/慰安婦), but instead talks about Teishintai (정신대/挺身隊), or volunteer corps. These were mostly girls, mostly Japanese, who "volunteered" (and in 1944 were recruited) to help out with the war effort in factories and military support roles, in some ways similar to women in wartime in the US and the UK.

Now, I'm almost 99% percent sure there were women who were duped into prostitution via the volunteer corps, but there's a lot of confusion and debate between Korea and Japan between 정신대 and 위안부, the former being generally innocuous, although it does raise some major issues about gendered mobilization in wartime in general. You can read about it in Japanese here and C. Sarah Soh's book on the comfort women, one of the best sources on the issue in my opinion, problematizes this confusion.

My point is, yeah this JAV is in super bad taste, playing off some weird kind of historical nostalgia, but translation and subjectivity are important to consider and from the producers' viewpoint, it's probably not specifically targeting the Comfort Women.

Edit: A word

I recommend you read Camp 14 (https://www.amazon.com/Escape-Camp-14-Remarkable-Odyssey/dp/0143122916) if you haven't already. You will realize how little you actually saw, compared to harsh realities many people face.

Do you have a picture of the slaves? I'd like to see that..sounds fascinating.

Also, in South Korea, there is nothing stopping anyone from visiting the some of the poor rural areas, some of which can be viewed from public trains. I got drunk one night in Seoul and wandered into some pretty nasty areas north of the river...that was pretty eye-opening.
That is a major difference between a free country and a fascist (or whatever word you want to use) one.

Just sayin'...anyways I'm glad you got a lot out of your trip and appreciate you sharing with the reddit community.

This is awesome, you would really like the book by Charles Jenkins. He was housemates and later, neighbors with Dresnok for 30+ years in North Korea. He is the one of the 4 known defectors that actually made it out of NK, the other two died and Dresnok I believe is still there.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Reluctant-Communist-Court-Martial-Imprisonment/dp/0520259998/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335149060&sr=8-1

Great find, I appreciate it!

Agreed, you brave soul. Currently reading the book below and it similarly recounts what you're saying. (Waiting for part 2 of this book though)

https://www.amazon.com/Park-Chung-Hee-Modern-Korea/dp/0674659864

Spirit of the Mountain, by David Mason. It's about the mountain spirit, Sanshin, who just has all this cool mythology around him as part of traditional Korean 무속. His website is here.

I'd also recommed Korea: A religious History, and Myths and Legends from Korea, both of which are written by James Grayson, who I promise is unparalleled by anyone when it comes to this subject.

I recommend this one if you're looking for a broad perspective: http://www.amazon.com/History-Greenwood-Histories-Modern-Nations/dp/0313332967/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1377734467&sr=8-9&keywords=korean+history

For reference, if you go online in America and check the price of a S10 5G, they start at $1300 USD.

You can get a factory unlocked Samsung Galaxy S10 with 512GBs and U.S. warranty for $745.49 on Amazon, but it's color is Flamingo Pink. Other colors cost more.

Here's another book of questions. It might be floating around out there somewhere on the internets in pdf form.

> I completely disagree with all your points other than the last one. I'm Korean, but I tried to write that from an international perspective. Honestly I didn't put a great deal of thought into the 'unpatriotic' implications because I think we should start moving past the 'OMG KOREA IS THE BEST OMG OMG' narrative that comes from most story concepts written by Koreans that take place in Korea.

Except it's not being written by Koreans.

> The main reason I began with a Japanese protagonist was because I wanted to open with the Sino-Japanese war. I also felt that opening with a Japanese character would be much more marketable to American (the biggest game market) audiences as they are much more familiar to Japan and then gradually introduce Korea as an independent country with significantly different culture. Having a foreign protagonist learning about the country is a tried and true method of doing so. I felt this would be a more appropriate way than to just ram gamers into a completely unfamiliar background leaving them confused.

This is also the same line of reasoning that led to the complete cast white washing of The Last Airbender, 21, Dragonball Evolution, and the upcoming Akira live action film.

It's also a very pathetic trope rooted deeply in racist colonialism.

> I also made the protagonist half-Japanese as I didn't want to drive home a narrative full of racial hate. I want the story to focus more on the evil Templars who (fictionally) took control of the Japanese government and call to attention the fact that evil is not racial, but societal, and that everyone has power to change it. Call that white-washing if you want. Personally I think it's a better way to stop this racial circlejerk bullshit.

I don't understand this line of thought. All it does is continually relegate the poor, beleaguered natives as sheep that can exist only to be controlled or freed upon the whim of the oppressor.

> I had also just finished reading Korea's Fight For Freedom by Fred McKenzie this very morning which is the main reason I was compelled to think of a story with this background. Among other things it outlines in some detail why the Japanese were so interested in the peninsula, and briefly goes into the Sino-Japanese war (which I see as the most significant event during that era).

Why can none of this be shown from a Korean perspective? I'd recommend another book: A People's History of the United States. Assassin's Creed is about freedom for those who live under oppression.

This is also why in Assassin's Creed: Liberation, most of the Assassins you encounter are actually former black slaves. You pretty much reverted this message by making your protagonist Japanese. The half Korean part doesn't do much because he never had a Korean identity to begin with.

> Also, you do realize how barebones that storyline was right? I skimped on describing Japanese atrocities as I've seen enough of that on this subreddit. Yes, my grandmother (who I currently live with) also speaks Japanese and has countless horror stories. She still uses Japanese terms for cooking ingredients. I even have a great aunt who apparently committed suicide in the 70s because of PTSD from being a comfort woman. I too feel the 한 when it comes to Korean history, but I think enough is enough. Every time Japan comes up in this subreddit I see a fuck ton of bashing. Does it really need to be mentioned in every gory detail every time?

What gory details did I mention? What was I bashing? I just thought it was surprising that in your barebones storyline, the most important details were about concubines and queens and not the injustices that were happening at the time when civil oppression is a hallmark of the franchise. AC3 devoted a lot of time to the ambiguous moral conflict between the colonists and the Indians.

It's strange that you didn't think the brutality of the Imperial regime was something worth mentioning in your stripped down storyline.

> For this fictional story, in my mind, 유관순 was more the product of love between two charismatic characters rather than a bastardization of history. In my mind she was the product of a father that had committed an unforgivable crime (the murder of Empress Myeongseoung) trying to redeem himself, and a mother that managed to overcome seeing that sin and loving the man instead, producing a daughter that could look past petty racial differences and focus on the issue of colonialism (From what I learned in public school about 유관순 she was different from a lot of her contemporaries because she didn't focus on hatred of the Japanese which was an easy narrative to sell, instead she tried to incite a hunger for actual independence of the Korean people).

Let me draw an analogy. Perhaps it will shed some light on why what you are suggesting is off base.

Imagine if Ubisoft made an AC game set during the British Raj and historically revised Gandhi's heritage so he's actually the bastard of a British noble and an Indian concubine. Does this sound like a touching commentary on overcoming petty racial hatreds to you?

> As for your last point, yeah, the 'going native' tool is common because it's a good tool for introducing an audience to an unfamiliar setting without a fuck ton of confusion. It might be overused, but it sure is effective.

Did Assassin's Creed need some English crusader to "go native" with the local Arab culture to portray what life was like in the Holy Land during the 1100s? Did Assassin's Creed 3 need to pull a Last of the Mohigans?

This trope exists because it panders to ethnic superiority fantasies, not because it allows a foreign audience to connect better to an exotic setting.

Just a little taste of the huge amount of literature about this subject.

"As time went on, the labor needs of the land holders continued to grow, and desperate to cultivate the land, they were loathe to let go of their bond servants and the bondsmen and bondswomen’s children (whom they kept in bondage for a legally defined time as well). In the mean time, a growing American peasantry was proving as difficult to govern as the European peasantry back home, periodically rising up in riot and rebellion, light skinned and dark skinned together. The political leaders of the Virginia colony struck upon an answer to all these problems, an answer which plagues us to this day.
The Virginians legislated a new class of people into existence: the whites. They gave the whites certain rights, and took other rights from blacks. White, as a language of race, appears in Virginia around the 1680s, and seems to first appear in Virginia law in 1691. And thus whiteness, and to a degree as well blackness, was born in the mind of America.

As of the 18th century whites could not be permanently enslaved as they sometimes had been before, and black slaves could never work their way to freedom.

This has resulted in a system where centuries later race is still how class is lived in America."

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/5/6/1382872/-Matters-of-Race-and-Class-How-Whiteness-is-One-of-the-Greatest-Scams-in-Modern-History

https://www.amazon.com/Invention-White-Race-Oppression-Control/dp/1844677699

https://www.amazon.com/Working-Toward-Whiteness-Americas-Immigrants/dp/0465070744