Before Prohibition in America, which took the form of the18th Constitutional Amendment in 1919,
went into effect 1920, and was enforced till 1933 (4 years before the first anti-cannabis laws were written into law)
till it was replealed by the 19th Amendment – before all those LAWS FOR PROFIT AND MARGINALIZATION
which still continues till this day (VOTE YES on PROP 19)

The site of the currently dry and paved LA River near Downtown LA, running alongside Broadway Ave.
was VINEYARDS!  Acres upon acres of grapes growing, specifically for the production of WINE. 
This area, near present day Chinatown, formerly Little Italy, at the start of the 20^th Century was wine country.

  
                                                                                                                          Santo Cambianica

In 1917, Santo Cambianica, an Italian man from the northern Italy province of Lombardy, immigrated to Los
Angeles and started the winery at its current location. Hoping for good luck, he dedicated the winery to Saint
Anthony (in Italian: San Antonio) by naming it as such. When Prohibition was enacted in 1920, Cambianica
asked for permission from the Catholic Church to continue operating his winery for communion wine. Granted
such permission, he continued the winery's life. The winery has been declared as historical monument #42 in the
city of Los Angeles.  (from wikipedia)

Since 1917, the Riboli family has operated the San Antonio Winery, same location, same bottling factory,
same onsite restaurant, tasting areas. Today, their grapes are grown mostly in Northern California,
before they are trucked down to the Winery, still located at 737 Lamar St. in Los Angeles, where the
wine is made in oak casks, then bottled, boxed and sold.


                                                                                            My mother, my brother and the tour guide

What set the Riboli family apart from the others – the many wineries that once lined the LA River near downtown –
is the fact that when Prohibition went into effect, ALL the wineries were shut down, except for the Riboli’s winery. 
They were allowed to continue to make Communion wine for the numerous Catholic Churches around California –
all the historic Mission Churches needed wine.  And for that, only ONE winery remains in Los Angeles. 
And that is: The San Antonio Winery.

Viva Italia!  I recently had a brunch at the San Antonio Winery after mass with members of the
Italian Catholic Federation. , a group that my mother belongs to, so I go along with her to their conventions and
meetings and polenta dinners.  That's Amore!  That's a spicy meatball!




Last week I gave a speech at an ICF meeting about my Culturebook. I talked about briefly about culture shock
and then counter-culture shock; that is, when a person returns to their home country and their own culture
shocks them. 

My culture shock after coming back to America, after living in SKorea for only one year, was quite substantial. 
I physically couldn’t enter a person’s home WITHOUT removing my shoes. It just felt wrong. 

Also, it is customary in SKorea and North Asia, that when a younger person hands something to an elder,
even by one year, the younger person always uses TWO HANDS out of respect.  I found myself doing that subconsciously,
without effort.  Physical memory and whatnot.  Like saying excuse me when someone sneezes. 
In SKorea, when somebody sneezes, nobody says nothing.  Culture and customs are all learned behaviors.

But, the biggest SHOCKER about American culture for me whenever I'd return to America was how RUDE
young people were.  How little regard the youth paid to elders.

I used that Seinfeld bit as an example, that scene when Elaine is dating that British man and after Elaine says,
“What?” Brit replies, “In England, it’s proper to say ‘Pardon’. We find 'what' rude.”  The episode
eventually pokes fun at Brits, but I remember thinking, "Brit's right!  'What' is rude!  Ever since 1998 and
first seeing that episode and after hearing my nephew and other youths say, “What?” I’ve said ‘Pardon’. 
Saying 'What?' as a reply when you don't hear somebody clearly IS rude. 

As is using pronouns to refer to someone the room, especially someone older.  In England, if I'm talking
about my mother and my mother is in the room and I say 'she', someone might quip,
"WHO'S SHE, THE CAT'S MOTHER?"

Young people are very rude these days in comparison to how we were before, generations ago. 
Now, everyone wants to be on a first name basis; there's no sir or ma’am anymore, or standing up
when adults enter a room.  It's a Sign of Times, like Formerly known as Prince.

That’s what the Culturebooks are all about. Culture.  Attaching meaning when and where it seems necessary. 
Happy Chinese, that is Lunar New Year 2010, MMX to Romans, the Year of the Tiger to all Asians and asiatics and asiaddicts as well. 

My family and nephew's friend Alfonzo, a.k.a. Alfatso, at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown on Chinese New Year 2010, February 14th, aka Valentines Day.

I traveled to Daejeon with friends on a five hour bus ride from Busan. We went to enjoy One Drop East, Apollo 18, Burning Hepburn, Whatever That Means, Seoul City Suicides, Hwanan Gom, Ska Sucks!, Attacking Forces, G-Jay, Vidulgi Ooyoo, The Army, Dirty Gangnueng, Kickscotch, No Eazy, etc. for free.

Apparently there was supposed to be over 300 vendors from around the world selling international food, beer and wine. I could only spot about a dozen of these vendors. I enjoyed a 8,000 Won Chinese beer and extremely small 4,000 Won kabob.

I was enjoying the rock music, even if I didn’t understand the Korean bands. Then, around midnight, the show was shut down by the police because of noise complaints. Yeah, just try to piece that logic together.

After a barrage of text messages and scrambling (aka running our asses off) for a taxi, my friends and I made it to downtown Daejeon to see One Drop East bring down the house.

I took KTX back the next morning and was home within two hours. I think that will be my last trip away from Busan for a bit.

Once again, Korea has gotten the lowest score of all high-income countries in a recent survey of gender-equality worldwide. And, at 104th out of 131 countries surveyed, it was bested by numerous much poorer countries at that.

Given that record, then it’s very easy to focus on Korea’s shortcomings when talking about gender issues. But that can mean that we can easily miss the positive developments that are occurring though, and sometimes right in front of our very noses.

Take what this humble-looking subway ad for instance, and what it ultimately represents. First, a translation:

부산 해바라기 여성 • 아동센터

Busan Sunflower Women & Children’s Center

여성 성폭력 피해자와 가정폭력 피해자, 학교폭력 피해자들을 돕고 있는 부산 원스톱 지원센터와 아동과 지적장애인 성폭력 피해자 전담센터인 부산 해바라기 아동센터가 2010년 1월 1일부터 부산 해바라기 여성 • 아동센터로 통합되었습니다.

From January 1, the Busan One-Stop Support Center, which helps female victims of sexual abuse, victims of family abuse, and victims of physical abuse at schools, and the Busan Sunflower Children’s Center, which helps children and mentally handicapped victims of sexual abuse, have joined together and become the Busan Sunflower Women & Children’s Center.

( Source )

여성부, 부산광역시, 부산지방경찰청에서 지원하고 동아대학교병원에서 수탁운영하는 여성 • 아동 폭력피해자 전담센터입니다.

With support from the Ministry of Gender Equality, the Busan Metropolitan City Council, and the Busan Metropolitan Police Agency, Dong-a University Hospital has been given the responsibility of operating the center, which provides consultations for female and child victims of abuse.

가족폭력, 성매매, 학교폭력, 성폭력 피해를 입은 여성과 아동을 보호하고 지원하고 치료합니다.

Women and children who are the victims of family violence, sex trafficking, school violence, and sexual abuse can receive protection and treatment at the center.

의사, 간호사, 임상심리사, 심리치료사, 성폭력 • 가정폭력 전문상담원, 여성 경찰관 등 각 분야 전문가들이 상주하고 있어 위기상황에서 가장 전문적이고 질 높은 상담, 의료, 심리치료, 수사, 법률 서비스를 무상으로 제공합니다.

Experts in many fields such as doctors, nurses, clinical psychologists, psychological therapists, family and sexual violence consultants, and female police officers and so on will be permanently stationed at the center, and when you are in a crisis you can receive the best professional and highest quality consultations, medical treatment, psychological counseling, legal advice, and assistance with launching criminal investigations. All these services are provided free of charge. (end)

( Source )

In my experience, usually the amalgamation of two government institutions in any country is in response to cost-cutting. Fortunately however, there’s a great deal of indirect evidence to suggest that that isn’t the case here.

First, note that the ad is actually quite dated, mentioning that the amalgamation was effective from January the 1st for instance (although the center didn’t officially open until February the 9th), and in particular that the Ministry of Gender Equality has a supporting role in it, whereas the Ministry actually reconverted back to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Affairs (여성가족부/MOGEF) back in March. Presumably then, the ad has already been posted on Busan subway trains once before, probably late last year or early this one.

Why suddenly post the same ones again in late September then? What has changed to prompt that?

As Matt at Gusts of Popular Feeling has well-documented, what has changed is the public perception that there has been a sudden and dramatic increase in the numbers of sex crimes against children, whereas in fact they have remained steady (but appallingly high) for years:

There is not a “recent series” of such sexual crimes – this is always happening. It’s just that the media has decided – as it does whenever a particular case angers people – to highlight these cases, which would usually either not be covered or covered by perhaps only one or two media outlets, and which are now linked together in articles in order to point to a great problem that exists. To be sure, there have been several laws passed since the murder of Lee Yu-ri in March (and the Yeongdeungpo case in June), and it’s great that the issue has finally gotten enough attention to get things moving (see here for a brief history of the slow pace of change since 2006). I’m not entirely sure that the solutions being offered are always the best ideas, however, and public fury (and worry) whipped up by this media coverage may be putting pressure on politicians to act first and think later.

And see past Korean Gender Reader posts for more details of those and other sexual crimes. By coincidence, one of the most notorious of those – the murder of Lee Yu-ri – also occurred in Busan, and several of my coworkers here have reported seeing rooms like that on the right pop up in Busan public schools they teach at in the months since, although unfortunately they have no information on the quality of their staffing or how often they are utilized. Have any readers also noticed them, in Busan or elsewhere?

(Note that the English translation on it may be a little misleading though: a better one would be “Consultation Room [for] Mental Anguish [caused by] Sexual Harassment or Sexual Violence”)

Regardless, the point is that given the current climate then it would be wise for the government to highlight all it is doing to prevent sexual violence, let alone to continue or even increase funding to women and children’s centers. And however cynical and reactionary the motives, this is to be applauded.

Granted, the amalgamation was decided and instituted well before the public outcry over the supposed recent spate of sexual crimes against children. But that doesn’t necessarily imply it was the result of a reduction of funding: although it may receive little if any funding from MOGEF for instance, I find it significant that the Ministry’s assumption of old responsibilities came with a big increase in staff and 4 times larger budget (albeit from a base of 0.03% of the government total), so when the plans for the change were announced late last year there was already a political climate conducive to more funding for feminist causes.  Signs of a change of heart from President Lee Myung-bak also perhaps, who originally promised to abolish it before his election, only to back down and merely considerably downsize it in response to protests afterwards?

Alas, quite the opposite: in fact, he is using MOGEF to raise the dire birth rate by – wait for it – criminalizing abortion, as I explain in detail here. But to play devils’ advocate however, perhaps this blinds us to some of the positives that it has achieved?

One is its survey of teenage entertainers in August, which – among other things – revealed that many were pressured by their managers to wear revealing costumes, and which ultimately resulted in the National Assembly’s setting up of a committee (albeit under a different ministry) to further investigate MOGEF’s findings. And which after hearing evidence from entertainment company CEOs has just laid down new regulations for the treatment of minors in the entertainment industry (see here and here also for more background).

And finally, take the recent video produced by MOGEF below, which encourages people to pay more attention to the needs of immigrant women. Granted, it’s just a video, and again it may be just be in response to the recent murder of a Vietnamese bride by her husband after only 8 days in the country (see #13 here), but then it’s not like such efforts started only recently. One thing that instantly comes to mind for instance, is the above survey that was sent to all foreign spouses in Korea in August last year (see #3 here), in an attempt to better find out their specific needs.

Any other positives readers can think of, however minor, then please pass them on!^^

Update: As per request, here is what the voiceover in the video is saying (and I’ve put the additional text in brackets as it came up):

이주여성들을 힘들게 하는건 (부부갈등 상담 8, 452건)

The things that make it difficult for migrant women… (8, 452 consultations for married couples having difficulties)

어려운 한국어와 (가정폭력 상담 4205 건 [2009년 이주여성 긴급지원센터 상담통계)

...are difficult Korean... (4205 consultations over family violence/abuse [2009 Statistics from Migrant Urgent Help & Consultation Centers])

낯선 환경, 다른 문화

…the strange environment, the different culture…

그리고 우리의 무관심입니다. (국제결혼 이주여성 16만여명)

…and our indifference. (lit. international marriage migrant women 160,000 women [James: just in 2009?])

이주여성들에게 작은 관심은 큰 힘이 됩니다.

Just a little help and support helps migrant women a great deal (same in the text)

이주여성들의 힘이 되어주세요.

Please be strong and supportive to them.

이캠폐인은 여성가족부와 복권위원회가 함께 합니다. (이주여성긴급지원센터, 1577-1336)

This campaign is brought to you by MOGEF and The Lottery Commission. (Migrant Women’s Urgent Help & Consultation Centers: 1577-1366)

And by coincidence, something else positive that MOGEF has some role in: a seminar about women’s career development at my university tomorrow (stalkers, take note of which one). Things like this seem to go on there at least once a month or so.

Maybe this has something to do with that, which I only just noticed today:

Please let me know if anyone would like a translation of the first poster. Meanwhile, do any other Korea-based readers have anything similar at their own universities?