David Fedman identifies what’s laudable and what’s borrowed in the DPJ’s ‘New Asianism’

Cloaked in the mantle of former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s elevated yu-ai, or fraternity, rhetoric, Japan has poured sugar on its regional relationships, especially with China. But what concretely has Japan done to demonstrate its commitment to rapprochement with its neighbours?

Not much. Aside from bolstered dialogues, envoys and high-level cabinet exchanges to South Korea and China, the DPJ hasn’t really shown a radically different diplomatic tack.

The real story here is what the Japanese government under the DPJ hasn’t done – namely, incense its neighbours with acts of historical contempt. So far, and to Hatoyama’s credit, there has been no Toshio Tamogami moment. No Yasukuni hullabaloo. No gaffes and guffaws.

To the contrary, history has been addressed candidly in the intervening months since the DPJ’s ascension.

Perhaps most sensational are whispers of a historic exchange of contrition between Japan and China: the Japanese prime minister to Nanjing and Chinese President Hu Jintao to Hiroshima. If carried out this would mark a watershed moment in high-level contrition. Set against the perennial historical rows that have beset bilateral ties for decades—textbook protests, Yasukuni shrine visitations, and so forth—this exchange is mind-blowing in scale.

Indeed, the DPJ has shown an impressive commitment to rein in the historical contretemps that have long roiled ties with Japan’s neighbours, and in so doing has opened the door for unprecedented progress. It is perhaps too early to tell if this trend will continue uninterrupted, but Hatoyama did his part to set expectations for his government and court goodwill.

Hatoyama first articulated this initiative in his address before the UN this past northern autumn: ‘Given the historical circumstances arising from its mistaken actions in the past, Japan has hesitated to play a proactive role in this region. It is my hope that the new Japan can overcome this history and become a ‘bridge’ among the countries of Asia.’

Notably, Hatoyama reaffirmed his commitment to the Murayama Statement, a landmark apology offered by former prime minister Tomiichi Murayama in 1995, made on the 50th anniversary of Japan’s surrender. He also made it clear that he would avoid visiting the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. The coalition government has even been playing around with the idea of a secular alternative site to Yasukuni that would surely do much to shore up support and goodwill from those frustrated with Yasukuni and the formal visitations.

Whether or not this desire to mend ties reflects a calculated, long-term strategic realignment in East Asia remains to be seen. It could very well spring from a more viscerally driven desire to return to a normal status quo between Japan and its neighbours.

Some analysts have interpreted this new diplomacy as a repudiation of the LDP’s failed China containment strategy, one which was founded on a series of strategic hedges in the Asia-Pacific that sought to box in China’s influence and growth. No longer, say many in the DPJ, party kingpin Ichiro Ozawa foremost among them. ‘In the view of DPJ policy advisers,’ writes Sneider, ‘this pseudo-containment strategy is doomed to failure.’

It isn’t exactly clear where this priority was born. Some point to Ozawa, who has long cultivated ties between China and the DPJ, and demonstrated an interest in mending Sino-Japanese ties since well before he defected to the DPJ. His mission to China this year with 143 DPJ lawmakers in tow certainly underscores this point.

Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada also seems to be at the crest of the wave of New Asianism, and has done his part to cultivate closer ties and move beyond the corrosive historical rows of the past. During a recent visit to South Korea, he offered a frank and unequivocal apology for Japan’s past actions. He also backed the creation of a joint history textbook by China, Japan and South Korea.

The real question is whether or not the Japanese defence establishment is on board. They are likely the greatest source of opposition and will doubtless raise legitimate concerns about the long- term security implications of these policies. It’s no accident that Toshio Tamogami came from the military establishment in Japan, where revisionist thinkers are in no short supply.

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Filed under: Academia, East Asia, Politics Tagged: china, dpj, ichiro ozawa, japan, Korea, new asianism, prc, rok, yukio hatoyama

Since I made this video, my landlord okayed me putting in new furniture, so I will give you another tour when I have it fixed up!

Tour: My Studio from Jamie Lomazzi on Vimeo.

I know that I am officially back in Korea because once again I am shitting red.  Thankfully, this isn't the result of some unwanted blood in the mix, but rather a by-product of the gochu-jang (red pepper paste) that is liberally slathered upon a good deal of the dishes served up here on The Peninsula.  I've plunged straight into the healthy joy of Korean food during my first few days back - going at the spicy and pungent fare with gusto.  A month of American stodge was a lovely diversion, but give me Asian cuisine at the end of the day.  It easily slides through the pipes and is head and shoulders above our grub when it comes to variety of tastes and textures.  Cuisine wise, I'm quite happy to be back.

You could say that I'm happy to be back all-wise, really.  America was great and perhaps the most to-the-core "recharge" vacation I've taken since moving here, which says something, since I've enjoyed a lifetime worth of not working since shipping off to this strange little rocky appendage to Asia major.  Some folks asked me, "Are you bummed to be back?" to which I answer, "Hell, no."  I'm actually stoked, if the truth be told.  I like it here.  I've said it before and I'll say it again.  I love Korea and Korea loves me.  I'll take this Pollyanna-ism while I can get it, for no doubt within two months my inner foreign cynic will rise again and I'll be once again ranting online about the local spitters, starers, sidewalk blockers and dog eaters.  But for the time being I just want to give all of them a hug, in their prickly, garlic-munching glory.

I awoke at 6 a.m., the result of jet lag, and made my way down my perilously steep little loft stairs (not recommended for the truly drunk), followed by my cats, Motgol and Myeolchi.  I poured myself some iced coffee that I brewed the day before, read the entire internet (it's overrated), slipped on my running shoes and red bandana and went for a jog in the morning rain.  The summer monsoon is at its tail end; I missed the main show while soaking up the Northwest sun at home, but the clouds are pissin' away today, so I grabbed a small umbrella and my cheap MP3 player (not an ipod, I = LUDDITE) and jogged away, the wails of Morrissey and jangles of Marr pushing me forward through the cooling mist.  When I hit the Oncheon River - the site of a running and biking path - the reek of raw sewage slapped me like an angry whore.  It seems the rain was flushing the toilet of the whole city of Busan into the unfortunate little stream.  The sad little waterway usually smells poo-ey, but today it was just foul, a not-so-subtle reminder that Korea - while standing in the ranks of the developed nations, still has at least a toe in the third-world.  Things like sanitary sewage disposal act as barometers for this sort of thing.  The Special K just ain't there yet, in that regard.

I arrived on Sunday night, after one of the most painless trans-Pacific journeys I've yet logged, mainly thanks to the lorazepan and red wine cocktail imbibed on the plane.  I slept for a good six of a ten hour flight to Tokyo.  The final leg to Busan was also spent in dreamland (I missed my final meal!).  By the time I arrive I felt reasonably alert and not the itchy-eyed, bloated fart-man that I usually turn into after long plane rides and several shitty airline meals.  I met Minhee at my house and settled back into my Korean life seamlessly.  I'm getting good at this.

Monday saw me back at work - albeit an abbreviated vacation schedule - and that night I met Angry Steve for grilled pig meat, later joined by Scott Evans, Jim, and the incomparable Nick Bibby (Graham Greene-like in his summer linen suit, complete with Panama hat) for a few harmless beers at Ol' 55.  Yesterday was some more work and an early crash, which brings me to today, which is free, barring one housewife class that requires my presence in precisely forty minutes from now, so I best get my move on.

Today is a writing day, rewarded with chicken and beer tonight, provided quotas are met.

That is all.  Move along now.

There are so many issues raised by 18 year-old Kim Hyuna’s (김현아) performance of her infamous “pelvic dance” (골반댄스) on last week’s episode of Quiz That Changes The World (세상을 바꾸는 퀴즈) below, that it’s difficult to know where to start.

Probably most notable however, is the surrealism of having observers explicitly acknowledging the dance’s sexual nature, only then to implicitly deny that nature by their subsequent actions. For while the men whoop and comically feign arousal while watching it, looking more like they’re in a strip club than on a talk-show, actually the heterosexual women display a similar enthusiasm, and later a mixed group goes on stage to parody it. Finally, a 12 year-old girl in the audience is brought on to similarly thrust her crotch at the camera, much to the delight of all.

Naturally, I have already discussed the issue of the media projecting, exploiting, and yet simultaneously denying female sexuality like this many times before, but after recently reading the The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It by M. Durham (2009), I realize now that I was rather naive in ever thinking that that was unique to Korea. Nevertheless, there are some features of the Korean media and social landscape that certainly exaggerate the phenomenon here at least, such as:

• the slave-like contracts musicians have with their entertainment companies (did Hyuna want to dance because it was “empowering” in a sexual and/or feminist way, or because she felt compelled to?)
• “sexy dances” being synonymous with Korean talk shows, and overwhelmingly performed by 20-something women
• stereotypes of married and/or 30-something women as asexual
• a huge prostitution industry
• a reluctance to publicly acknowledge that Korean teens (and even 20-somethings) have both sex and sexuality, both cause and effect of an almost complete lack of sex education and reflected in a huge abortion industry
• extreme ambiguity about the age of consent, with public perceptions that it is 18 at odds with rulings in recent court cases that it is in fact as low as 13

And hence my plan with this series is to demonstrate just how extreme the “lolita effect” really is in Korea by analyzing the episode using Durham’s book, hopefully gaining some new insights into representations of sexuality in Korean popular culture in the process. I’d also like to pay special attention on how her strategies for confronting the lolita effect can be applied to the Korean context.

But first, you need to see the episode for yourself:

And then you need some background, as there may be a few things about Korean talk shows that you are unaware of. In particular, even the conversations in them are by no means as spontaneous as they are made to appear (let alone the dances), and so to both illustrate this point and give you a greater feel for the show, let me devote the rest of this introductory post to yet another “scandal” from as recently as the preceding episode, in which After School (애프터스쿨) leader Park Ga-hee (박가희) said that she doesn’t like dating guys under 183cm tall:

As noted in numerous K-pop blogs and forums (see here, here, here, and here), Korean netizens unfairly compared that to the infamous “Guys under 180cm are losers” comment by a college student last year. Rather more disturbing and bizarre however, but not unexpected in light of the above, is what happened next:

With Ga-hee’s statement, the other male guest appearances on the show had felt embarrassed. So as to not make them feel bad and hurt, Ga-hee presented a set of sexy dance routines on the show, much to the delight of the other star appearances and the TV viewers.

Which in turn has led to a great deal commentary at those above links, which I’m glad to say is overwhelmingly critical. Yet for all the virtual ink spilled on it, unfortunately it’s not actually true, that internet meme starting from a misinterpretation and/or mistranslation at KBites. In reality, she was neither encouraged to dance for that reason nor stated that that was why she was doing so, but rather supposedly did it on a whim because “she hadn’t seen the hosts for such a long time.” Korean speakers, listen for yourself from 1:49 to 2:03 to confirm, but regardless of your ability it’s really quite easy to see that it was preplanned:

In that vein, was it just coincidence that the men on the last show happened to have cushions to hide their erections with while watching Hyuna, or curvaceous cushions to squeeze and fondle?

Update: Before completely finishing with Ga-hee however, a point to ponder by babochureum, a commenter at allkpop:

…it’s ok to say you like tall guys? What if a guy went on there and said he only likes girls with bra sizes bigger than C? It’s just ridiculous to say that you only like a certain sized person…

Filed under: Body Image, Gender Roles, Gender Socialization, Girl Groups, Korean Children and Teenagers, Korean Feminism, Korean Media, Korean Sexuality, Korean Talk Shows, Sexual Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, Teenage Sexuality Tagged: 4Minute, 김현아, 포미닛, Kim Hyuna, The Lolita Effect