This article introduces Korean gay space, place, and identity in Japan, as revealed in Tokyo’s Korean gay bars that emerged at the start of Japan’s Korean Wave in the 2000s. It focuses on the intersections of race and sexuality in interactions among the actors that produce and consume these establishments, exposing racialized spaces of desire besides those limited to white Westernness. It presents an overview of Korean gay identity against the backdrop of Koreaphobia in Japan and homophobia among zainichi, along with an examination of the Korean Wave, its impact on the queer diaspora, and the gay commodification of Koreanness. The study comparatively analyzes racial groupings in the bar, seeking clarity on the representations of self and other among gay Koreans and with gay Japanese. A series of conclusions are made: (1) Korean gay men’s experience in Japan is shaped by having to contend with separate closets for race and sexuality, compounded by racism and homophobia from within their own communities dissociated from “Japan.” (2) The Korean Wave has created a new category of desire among gay men through a middle ground or third space around a borderless, hybridized community of communities. (3) Korean gay bars simultaneously function as consumer spaces for what the author terms “proximate opposites” with Japanese, and as community centers for racially one yet ideologically divided Koreans. The study sets out to recover and preserve a history that would otherwise have been lost from memory with decades of scholarly inattention to its existence.
{"title":"Riding the Wave to Ni-Chome: Tokyo’s Korean Gay Bars in the 2000s","authors":"Albert Graves","doi":"10.1353/ks.2018.0038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2018.0038","url":null,"abstract":"This article introduces Korean gay space, place, and identity in Japan, as revealed in Tokyo’s Korean gay bars that emerged at the start of Japan’s Korean Wave in the 2000s. It focuses on the intersections of race and sexuality in interactions among the actors that produce and consume these establishments, exposing racialized spaces of desire besides those limited to white Westernness. It presents an overview of Korean gay identity against the backdrop of Koreaphobia in Japan and homophobia among zainichi, along with an examination of the Korean Wave, its impact on the queer diaspora, and the gay commodification of Koreanness. The study comparatively analyzes racial groupings in the bar, seeking clarity on the representations of self and other among gay Koreans and with gay Japanese. A series of conclusions are made: (1) Korean gay men’s experience in Japan is shaped by having to contend with separate closets for race and sexuality, compounded by racism and homophobia from within their own communities dissociated from “Japan.” (2) The Korean Wave has created a new category of desire among gay men through a middle ground or third space around a borderless, hybridized community of communities. (3) Korean gay bars simultaneously function as consumer spaces for what the author terms “proximate opposites” with Japanese, and as community centers for racially one yet ideologically divided Koreans. The study sets out to recover and preserve a history that would otherwise have been lost from memory with decades of scholarly inattention to its existence.","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84677861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The claw crane—an arcade game that invites its players to remotely grab a prize with a “claw”—has undergone a long process of development from an eye-catching “steam shovel” to a calculated gambling machine across amusement arcades, train stations, and traveling carnivals. Recently, the claw crane has become a common transmedia object in various consumer outlets around the world, serving today’s “kidults” who are willing to play and be playful with toys as grownups. Especially in South Korea, the claw crane now rewards its players with cutified character plushies, which arguably reflects and resonates with the local sociocultural conventions. In this mixed-methods study, we deconstruct the claw crane as a historical artifact that promotes diverse forms of human interaction and engagement in the techno-cultural and social context of South Korea. The claw crane (or in South Korea, rather the “toy crane”) is investigated by means of historical design analysis, a review of contemporary South Korean media texts, and field observations in Seoul. We suggest the claw crane to serve as a multipurpose medium for playful interactions beyond the act of play itself—and in South Korea, having become a means for playful courting and emotional support, which at times of anxiety, stress, and uncertainty may contribute to one’s confidence and belief in the future.
{"title":"From Claw Crane to Toy Crane: Catching, Courting, and Gambling in South Korea","authors":"Veli-Matti Karhulahti, K. Heljakka, Dongwon Jo","doi":"10.1353/ks.2018.0037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2018.0037","url":null,"abstract":"The claw crane—an arcade game that invites its players to remotely grab a prize with a “claw”—has undergone a long process of development from an eye-catching “steam shovel” to a calculated gambling machine across amusement arcades, train stations, and traveling carnivals. Recently, the claw crane has become a common transmedia object in various consumer outlets around the world, serving today’s “kidults” who are willing to play and be playful with toys as grownups. Especially in South Korea, the claw crane now rewards its players with cutified character plushies, which arguably reflects and resonates with the local sociocultural conventions. In this mixed-methods study, we deconstruct the claw crane as a historical artifact that promotes diverse forms of human interaction and engagement in the techno-cultural and social context of South Korea. The claw crane (or in South Korea, rather the “toy crane”) is investigated by means of historical design analysis, a review of contemporary South Korean media texts, and field observations in Seoul. We suggest the claw crane to serve as a multipurpose medium for playful interactions beyond the act of play itself—and in South Korea, having become a means for playful courting and emotional support, which at times of anxiety, stress, and uncertainty may contribute to one’s confidence and belief in the future.","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88632801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:In the last 60 years the typical Korean family has dramatically changed its size due to a drastic drop in the national fertility rates, which plummeted from 6.2 in 1960 to 0.98 in 2018. This transformation was actively supported by population policies that promoted not only a change in behavior but also in values and cultural perceptions on childrearing and family size, mobilizing all sorts of communication media for that purpose. Families with multiple children were associated with negative connotations such as backwardness, poverty, unhappiness, and lack of education or parental responsibility, making of it an abnormal, and later on invisible, reality. Since the mid-2000s however, following the rising concern of government officials for the decreasing fertility rates and coinciding with the enactment of childbirth encouragement policies, there has been an increasing visibility of multichild families (two or more children) in local media and popular culture. This paper examines the multi-child family representations involved in these reactions to population policy by identifying patterns of representation and critically analyzing their cultural meaning. Specifically, it focuses on how these representations confirm, contradict, contrast, or interact in complex ways with existing discourses on family and parenting and with new policies.
{"title":"The Discourse on Multi-Child Families in South Korea's Media and Popular Culture","authors":"Irene Yung Park","doi":"10.1353/ks.2022.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2022.0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In the last 60 years the typical Korean family has dramatically changed its size due to a drastic drop in the national fertility rates, which plummeted from 6.2 in 1960 to 0.98 in 2018. This transformation was actively supported by population policies that promoted not only a change in behavior but also in values and cultural perceptions on childrearing and family size, mobilizing all sorts of communication media for that purpose. Families with multiple children were associated with negative connotations such as backwardness, poverty, unhappiness, and lack of education or parental responsibility, making of it an abnormal, and later on invisible, reality. Since the mid-2000s however, following the rising concern of government officials for the decreasing fertility rates and coinciding with the enactment of childbirth encouragement policies, there has been an increasing visibility of multichild families (two or more children) in local media and popular culture. This paper examines the multi-child family representations involved in these reactions to population policy by identifying patterns of representation and critically analyzing their cultural meaning. Specifically, it focuses on how these representations confirm, contradict, contrast, or interact in complex ways with existing discourses on family and parenting and with new policies.","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85133890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Since its founding in 1948, the North Korean state has devoted considerable resources to the development of ideological and historical narratives across media to imbue its people with the ethos of collectivity through spectacle. Especially noteworthy is how sound has functioned to resuscitate the memory of the Korean War and in the process unify those of disparate generations and occupations into a coherent national community. Adopting an intermedial analytical lens, and informed by participant observation undertaken in Pyongyang, this paper examines three retellings of the Battle of Incheon (1950): the 1952 short story "Burning Island," the 1982 film Wolmi Island, and the 2017 revolutionary opera Three Days of Wolmi Island. While the short story used the sounds of explosions to trigger a shared sense memory of the Korean War, the film used music and sound to universalize the heroic role of the Wolmi Island defenders across all sectors of society, and idealize self-sacrifice in a new era. Then, as tensions between the United States and the DPRK reached a boiling point in 2017, North Korea revived the story as a revolutionary opera to remind all citizens of the devastation of the Korean War, and their obligation to defend the nation from imperial aggression. In examining the transference of sound across these media, we shed light on how North Korean writers and artists have employed various forms of sonic culture in increasingly affective ways to enhance an in-group mentality and emphasize the need for unwavering commitment to the Korean Workers' Party.
{"title":"From McArthur's Landing to Trump's Fire and Fury: Sonic Depictions of Struggle and Sacrifice in a North Korean Short Story, Film, and Opera","authors":"Alexandra Leonzini, Peter Moody","doi":"10.1353/ks.2022.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2022.0004","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>Since its founding in 1948, the North Korean state has devoted considerable resources to the development of ideological and historical narratives across media to imbue its people with the ethos of collectivity through spectacle. Especially noteworthy is how sound has functioned to resuscitate the memory of the Korean War and in the process unify those of disparate generations and occupations into a coherent national community. Adopting an intermedial analytical lens, and informed by participant observation undertaken in Pyongyang, this paper examines three retellings of the Battle of Incheon (1950): the 1952 short story \"Burning Island,\" the 1982 film <i>Wolmi Island</i>, and the 2017 revolutionary opera <i>Three Days of Wolmi Island</i>. While the short story used the sounds of explosions to trigger a shared sense memory of the Korean War, the film used music and sound to universalize the heroic role of the Wolmi Island defenders across all sectors of society, and idealize self-sacrifice in a new era. Then, as tensions between the United States and the DPRK reached a boiling point in 2017, North Korea revived the story as a revolutionary opera to remind all citizens of the devastation of the Korean War, and their obligation to defend the nation from imperial aggression. In examining the transference of sound across these media, we shed light on how North Korean writers and artists have employed various forms of sonic culture in increasingly <i>affective</i> ways to enhance an in-group mentality and emphasize the need for unwavering commitment to the Korean Workers' Party.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138534626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The starting place for the papers in this special section is music. Music is not bound to material forms as is painting and sculpture or to language like literature and poetry. It travels as waves with kinetic energy through space. Music is governed by organizational principles, to be sure, but the porosity of its delivery and the purported universality of its form — no prior knowledge is required to experience it — makes music one of the most effective conveyors of human emotion.
{"title":"Introduction to the Special Section Music That Moves: Sonic Narratives in Modern Korea","authors":"Dafna Zur, Susan Hwang","doi":"10.1353/ks.2022.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2022.0001","url":null,"abstract":"The starting place for the papers in this special section is music. Music is not bound to material forms as is painting and sculpture or to language like literature and poetry. It travels as waves with kinetic energy through space. Music is governed by organizational principles, to be sure, but the porosity of its delivery and the purported universality of its form — no prior knowledge is required to experience it — makes music one of the most effective conveyors of human emotion.","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77973099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
mobile subjects legible as foreigners and aliens while competing for identifying bordered subjects as “our” people. And the Tumen Valley showcases a critical borderland that evinces the contested borders and sovereignty experiments through the case of mobile Koreans who had been subjected to the multiple sovereignties—China, Japan, Russia, and Chosŏn. June Hee Kwon California State University, Sacramento
{"title":"Top-down Democracy in South Korea by Erik Mobrand (review)","authors":"Myunghee Lee","doi":"10.1353/ks.2022.0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2022.0015","url":null,"abstract":"mobile subjects legible as foreigners and aliens while competing for identifying bordered subjects as “our” people. And the Tumen Valley showcases a critical borderland that evinces the contested borders and sovereignty experiments through the case of mobile Koreans who had been subjected to the multiple sovereignties—China, Japan, Russia, and Chosŏn. June Hee Kwon California State University, Sacramento","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87908655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:In 1982, a group of activists gathered at a remote house in Kwangju. Evading the watchful eye of Chun Doo Hwan's military regime, the group clandestinely recorded "March for the Beloved" (Nim I wihan haengjin'gok), a song written to honor the "marriage-in-death" of two late activists Pak Ki-sun and Yun Sang-wŏn. Born in a city that witnessed a brutal massacre be transformed into the most consequential civilian uprising of the authoritarian period, the song moved vastly beyond its original intent of commemorating the union of Pak and Yun. Over the following decades, the song emerged as a central piece in South Korea's repertoire of resistance, resurfacing during some of the most politically contentious events in Korea and throughout Asia. As this article aims to demonstrate, "March for the Beloved" was instrumental in transforming the victims of state violence into martyrs and the subalterns of an unlawful state into political subjects of a morally righteous counter-state. In turn, this transformation enabled minjung [the (oppressed) people] to emerge as the most privileged category of collective resistance and persist as such through the 1980s. This article examines the cultural practices of resistance and the minjung traditions that gave birth to the song, analyzing the performative and affective dimensions that turned the song into an anthem of the counter-state. In conclusion, the article reflects upon the bizarre twists and turns of the song's afterlives as an occasion to think about the meaning of Kwangju and the perpetual struggle over its signification in contemporary South Korea.
{"title":"From Victimhood to Martyrdom: \"March for the Beloved\" and the Cultural Politics of Resistance in 1980s' South Korea","authors":"Su-kyoung Hwang","doi":"10.1353/ks.2022.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2022.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In 1982, a group of activists gathered at a remote house in Kwangju. Evading the watchful eye of Chun Doo Hwan's military regime, the group clandestinely recorded \"March for the Beloved\" (Nim I wihan haengjin'gok), a song written to honor the \"marriage-in-death\" of two late activists Pak Ki-sun and Yun Sang-wŏn. Born in a city that witnessed a brutal massacre be transformed into the most consequential civilian uprising of the authoritarian period, the song moved vastly beyond its original intent of commemorating the union of Pak and Yun. Over the following decades, the song emerged as a central piece in South Korea's repertoire of resistance, resurfacing during some of the most politically contentious events in Korea and throughout Asia. As this article aims to demonstrate, \"March for the Beloved\" was instrumental in transforming the victims of state violence into martyrs and the subalterns of an unlawful state into political subjects of a morally righteous counter-state. In turn, this transformation enabled minjung [the (oppressed) people] to emerge as the most privileged category of collective resistance and persist as such through the 1980s. This article examines the cultural practices of resistance and the minjung traditions that gave birth to the song, analyzing the performative and affective dimensions that turned the song into an anthem of the counter-state. In conclusion, the article reflects upon the bizarre twists and turns of the song's afterlives as an occasion to think about the meaning of Kwangju and the perpetual struggle over its signification in contemporary South Korea.","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90625329","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
provoking contribution to the field and provides the academic community with a novel and stimulating text for further discussion. Through his research, we come to understand how “letter writing developed into the main discursive site in which major sociocultural change took place” (p. 29) in Chosŏn. His work is both accessible to the general reading public as well as the scholar and student of Korean studies, while also serving as a vital text that contributes towards global studies and critical enquiry into epistolary practices regardless of time, place, or culture.
{"title":"Sovereignty Experiments: Korean Migrants and the Building of Borders in Northeast Asia, 1860–1945 by Alyssa M. Park (review)","authors":"J. Kwon","doi":"10.1353/ks.2022.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2022.0014","url":null,"abstract":"provoking contribution to the field and provides the academic community with a novel and stimulating text for further discussion. Through his research, we come to understand how “letter writing developed into the main discursive site in which major sociocultural change took place” (p. 29) in Chosŏn. His work is both accessible to the general reading public as well as the scholar and student of Korean studies, while also serving as a vital text that contributes towards global studies and critical enquiry into epistolary practices regardless of time, place, or culture.","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87357914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Cost of Belonging: An Ethnography of Solidarity and Mobility in Beijing's Koreatown by Sharon J. Yoon (review)","authors":"Minjeong Kim","doi":"10.1353/ks.2022.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2022.0017","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75795900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"After the Korean War: An Intimate History by Heonik Kwon (review)","authors":"Hana Kim","doi":"10.1353/ks.2022.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.2022.0016","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43382,"journal":{"name":"Korean Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75585145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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