Korea? Korea!

2010년 10월 18일 월요일

Hallyu - Korean Wave (1)

(1) K-Pop

The biggest appeal of "K-pop," or popular Korean music, can be found in great songs, dancers and stage effects. Korean pop idols' fast tempo music mixed with Asian rhythms appeals greatly to many young teens in China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other parts of Southeast Asia.

Other singers moved into R&B, hip-hop and electronica, and even "trot" songs. Trot is originally a Korean style of triple or quintuple-time mix-music, popular with the older generations. It developed before and during the time when Japan occupied Korea. New style trot returned with a faster beat and tempo.

(left)Lee Hyo-ri, female singer (Photo: Yonhap News), (right)Wonder Girls, girls band (Photo: Yonhap News)

Some big names in the Korean pop music world now are TVXQ, Se7en, Lee Hyori, Shinhwa, Wonder Girls, Epik High, Super Junior, Big Bang, SS501, Girls' Generation. All of them are busy entertaining the fans with concerts, TV appearances, fan meetings and festivals both at home and abroad.

In China, the boy band H.O.T. was already making their presence known even before the popularity of Korean TV dramas and movies in the late-1990s. Also during the same period, the muscular male duo Clone was all the rage in Taiwan, selling 450,000 records that year, the second highest number for a foreign record after the soundtrack of the movie "Titanic".

BoA, female singer

On the other hand, Korean music already showed some success in Japan much earlier, with a handful of Korean musicians since the 1970s and 80s including Cho Yong-pil, Gye Eun-sook and Kim Yeon-ja belting out trot songs. Then came a different genre of music with Korean pop idol BoA, who saw her album selling in the millions in Japan. She won six consecutive number one albums on the Oricon Chart and also undertook coaching in English, Chinese and Japanese to continue her move to go global.

Park Jin-young, head of the JYP Entertainment (Photo: Yonhap News)

Park Jin-young, a multi-talented singer, songwriter, choreographer and now CEO of his own successful music production company JYP Entertainment, has produced over 27 hit singles and 19 number one albums in Asia. His company has not only given birth to many new Korean celebrities, but also produced music for many other Asian singers including F4, Jacky Cheung, and AI. With the successful launch of a branch office in the United States, Park has now also produced music for Will Smith, Mase and Cassie.

Rain, singer and actor

In 2006 Rain appeared on "Time" magazine's website as one of the "100 Most Influential People Who Shape Our World" and also performed in New York's Madison Square Garden in February of the same year. In 2007 Rain made it to "People"'s list of the world's "Most Beautiful People." Lately, he is stepping up his acting career, appearing in the action film "Speed Racer" (2008) by the Wachowski Brothers and "Ninja Assassin" by Warner Bros.

2010년 9월 11일 토요일

BIBIMBAP

2010년 9월 3일 금요일

U.S. Demands Apology for 'Comfort Women'

- U.S. Demands Apology for 'Comfort Women' -

The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a non-binding resolution demanding that Japan apologize for forcing women into sex slavery during World War II. U.S. Rep. Mike Honda of California talks about why he sponsored the resolution.

CHERYL CORLEY, host:

I'm Cheryl Corley and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Michel Martin is away.

Coming up, life lessons and a mortuary and the Mocha Moms weigh in on food and friendship.

But first, they were called comfort women, the name given to the roughly 200,000 girls and women who were forced into prostitution by the Japanese military during World War II. The Japanese government has never officially apologized for the sexual enslavement of women from Korea, China and the Philippines and other areas. However, the United States House of Representatives demanded one yesterday, passing a non-binding resolution by voice vote. Congressman Mike Honda was the main force behind the resolution and is with us today. Congressman, welcome.

Representative MIKE HONDA (Democrat, California): Thank you very much.

CORLEY: Well, Japan says it's already apologized, did so in 1993, and also established a fund which collected private donations and offered payments to some of the women involved. In your opinion, why isn't that enough of an effort?

Rep. HONDA: Well, let me make three points. Number one, the word prostitution is probably a misnomer. They were forced into sexual servitude, but it was a systematic military operation where they did in fact capture, kidnap, coerce girls and young women into sexual slavery. And the government of Japan has been insisting that they have apologized several times over.

CORLEY: Mm-hmm.

Rep. HONDA: Individuals have apologized such as Prime Minister Koizumi and the current prime minister, Abe. They have aligned themselves to the comments that was put together by then-Deputy Cabinet Secretary Kono, who, after two years of study when historians found documents proving that the (unintelligible) had existed, came out with this comment.

CORLEY: Mm-hmm.

Rep. HONDA: The comment that was originally made by Deputy Secretary Kono was a good one, but he had no force of law in terms of the position or the process. He was, one would consider, the equivalent of the chief of staff to the president.

CORLEY: So you're saying that these were personal statements. So why is it so important to get an apology some 60 years after the fact?

Rep. HONDA: The corollary I would draw would be the apology that the Japanese-Americans here in this country were able to get from our own government, who set aside our constitutional rights in 1942 when President Roosevelt had signed Executive Order 9066 that allowed the military to remove Japanese-Americans, citizens or non-citizens alike, from their homes, from the communities into American-style concentration camps. Sixty years later, we as a community debated among ourselves whether we should sue the government for an apology based on the setting aside of our civil rights.

We did. It took us 10 more years, but 1980, after the Congress had passed H.R. 442 and President Reagan signed it into law, did we feel that there was a unambiguous apology and setting the record straight. Japan has not done that officially. And they continue to double talk and white-wash the history of their activities and constantly attempt to change their history books in the junior high school and high school level. That in itself indicates that there is no sincere and historical responsibility being taken by the government of Japan. This is what we're seeking.

CORLEY: Mm-hmm. Congressman, what about the idea that this type of resolution puts a strain on the relationship between the United States and Japan, a country which is among Washington's closest allies?

Rep. HONDA: Well, there's no mistaking, there's no question that Japan is a strong ally and a very progressive country, a democratic country. However, the political leadership has not ever seen it fit under the current party, seeing fit to do so. The relationship will always be strong. The relationship is really dependent upon how they themselves will behave towards this issue and as a result of our own vote. The Japanese government is reeling under their own weight of their own behavior in Japan itself. So this has no or very little bearing upon our relationship between Japan and the United States.

CORLEY: Congressman Mike Honda represents California's 15th Congressional District. He was the main force behind a non-binding resolution which calls for Japan to apologize for forcing women into wartime sexual slavery.

Congressman, thank you so much.

Rep. HONDA: Thank you very much for this opportunity.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12372399

2010년 8월 27일 금요일

Comfort Women Ad

2010년 8월 26일 목요일

Comfort Women

This picture is used in the advertisement of

Washington Post in April 17, 2007

History of Japanese Military's Comfort Women

According to several documents, Japanese army built a comfort house in Shanghai in order to prevent soldiers’ frequent rape of civilians. However, according to a testimony that ‘the Army’s comfort house used the navy’s comfort house as a model’, we know that a comfort house by the Japanese Navy was already built in Shanghai before March of 1932.

Around 1932, comfort houses were built around occupied territories and their quality changed at the end of 1937. These places lasted until the end of the war. As there became more occupied territories, and the war was extended into a longer period of time, Japanese navy and army started an organized policy to manage the comfort houses. At first, the policy was at an expeditionary army’s level, but it became more organized and eventually became a policy of the army’s headquarters.

In 1937, as the China-Japan war intensified, the Japanese military began building more comfort houses. After the Shanghai accident was over and Nanjing was occupied by the Japanese, comfort houses were built and maintained by the military’s line of command. During this period of time, the Japanese military and police were involved in the systematic draft of comfort women. Women were abducted by the Japanese military all around Chosun (old Korea), China, Japan, Taiwan and other countries.

By the end of 1938, more than 70 comfort houses were built around China, and there were more than 1000 comfort women. Most of these comfort women were from Chosun. A secret document, “Chosun counter plan” which was written after Japan started the China-Japan war in July 1937, has a clause saying that “Unmarried women in Chosun shall be used to supply the military’s special business” along with a clause to take men from Chosun to Japan to make them work in mines and armor factories. It was a system that the Japanese military was leading and the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japanese government organizations and the government general were actively collaborating on.

In July 1941, Japan made a plan to recruit 20,000 comfort women from Chosun, and put the plan into action. As a result, along with the help from the government general, Japanese military abducted about 8,000 women from Chosun and sent them to North-eastern China. The abductors used various methods. One popular way was to promise a woman a job that didn’t exist. Once she agreed to go along, she would be put to work in a comfort house.

In December 1941, as the war expanded to the Pacific War, the establishment of comfort houses increased. It is not an exaggeration to say that at every single battle field, there was at least one comfort house.

In January 1943, there were about 100 comfort houses in Northern China, about 140 comfort houses in central China, about 40 comfort houses in Southern China, about 100 comfort houses in South eastern Asia, about 10 comfort houses in the southern sea, about 10 comfort houses in Saghalien, totaling to about 400 comfort houses. Every army division had about 5 to 6 comfort houses, and the comfort women at those stations were usually from Chosun or Japan. As the war expanded, it was impossible for the military to recruit enough Japanese prostitutes and regular women from Chosun so they started to abduct girls from Chosun using numerous methods and made them as sex-slaves.

In 1942, a large number of women from Chosun were sent to the southern regions. In 1943, according to documents by the Japanese Military, there were 20 comfort houses in Juk-jung lee, and in 11 of the houses, most of the comfort women were 18 to 19 year old girls who had no previous experience in prostitution.

By the end of 1943, because it had become harder to mobilize goods and manpower, it was impossible to build comfort houses using private companies. Japanese military started building more comfort houses around Okinawa and Indonesia, and the number of comfort women recruitment increased. On top of recruitment from Chosun, Japanese military also abducted women from occupied territories.

Japanese Army's Comfort Women...

'Comfort Women' are the women who were abducted by the Japanese military and raped during Japan’s colonization of Korea. In Korean, we call them “Jung Sin Dae.” “Jung Sin Dae” was a noun that described organizations that specifically provided manpower in order to strengthen Japan’s military under imperialism during the war. However, by the end of the pacific war in 1943, people tended to limit its use to indicate comfort women, and finally in August 1944, government issued “Female Jung Sin Dae Labor Statement.” Ever since, “Jung Sin Dae” was only used to indicate females who were mobilized during the war.

Comfort women who were organized under “Female Comfort Women Labor Statement” were organized to supplement labor due to the loss in labor during the war. Therefore, female labor Jung Sin Dae and Japanese military’s comfort women were fundamentally different.

Japanese government institutionalized comfort houses during the China and Japan war and the Pacific War. Comfort houses were a place where comfort women were confined and military troops came in groups in order to gratify their lust. The Japanese Military abducted countless women and sent them to the front line, and systematically forced them into sex slavery. The abducted women were stationed at different comfort houses, and repeatedly raped. They used to be called “Jong-goon we ahn boo’ (從軍慰安婦). However, that word assumes a voluntary action rather than a forced action; therefore it is not an appropriate expression. Internationally,

expressions such as“sex-slaves”and“rape victims” are used, and those are the words that most appropriately convey the essence of the nature. We currently address them as“Japanese Military’s We Ahn Boo(comfort women).”The word‘Jung Sin Dae’which is presently familiar to the general crowd via mass media means a military unit that sacrificed their bodies for the country. The word,“Jung Shin Dae”, used to be used with the same meaning as“Japanese Military’s We Ahn Boo”, and started to appear on newspapers in 1940s. During this period of time,“Jung Shin Dae”meant women who were working at factories that made products that were military-related. A lot of women who used to work at factories were abducted by Japanese military and used as comfort women, and that is why the word“Jung Shin Dae”was used to mean comfort women. However,“Jung Shin Dae”is necessarily not the same word as comfort women. We estimate that about 200,000 Korean women were abducted by the Japanese military as comfort women. Most of them died, and there are only 158 comfort women who have identified themselves as comfort women to the Korean government since 1992. Of these, about forty women died, and the comfort women who are still alive, including ones that are not included in the government’s statistics, total about one hundred forty one. Nine of them currently live in the House of Sharing, which is a registered social welfare organization.

From : http://www.nanum.org/eng/menu02/index.html