Korean Sociological Image #45: Modernizing Traditional Korean Clothes
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For all my love of Korean culture, I’ve never really understood the appeal of modern hanbok (한복).
Primarily, because of their impracticality: after performing the ancestor worship rites known as cha-ryae (차례) in mine at my parents-in-laws’ house on various Korean holidays for instance, I find it very difficult to eat the traditional breakfasts that follow with such baggy sleeves getting in the way, especially at the low tables that most Koreans use. It also has no pockets, no zipper, and can get uncomfortably hot very easily, especially during Chuseok (추석) when the weather can still be quite warm. And my wife has similar problems with hers too, adding that women also seem to find their slightly more elaborate version more uncomfortable than men do theirs.
For those reasons, I fully expected the Wikipedia article on hanbok to mention that despite popular perceptions, only the small elite known as the yangban (양반) ever really wore them historically, who were notorious for being resolutely opposed to performing anything that smacked of physical labor. Was Koreans’ pride in their “national dress” a little misplaced then, and just another invented tradition like the kilt in Scotland?
Alas, it doesn’t say, although it does seem reasonable to suppose that practical considerations were undoubtedly more important for the bulk of the population. But what the article does demonstrate though, is that the hanbok has as rich and varied a history as, say, the Western suit (it was naive of me to be surprised at that), and the frequent changes in the various forms and usages of the garment over time indicate that its role as a signifier of class, status, and occupation was much more complicated than I first thought.
Still, I can’t think of a more unflattering garment for women.
No, I’m not so unsophisticated as to think that women can only be attractive in clothes that are form-fitting and/or show some skin. But then from the neck down, the hanbok is almost like a burqa in that it’s impossible to tell if there’s a man or woman under it, and I certainly can’t imagine anyone ever describing as a woman as sexy in it, nor a woman feeling so in one. See for yourself at Flickr, or in the hanbok sections of recent Miss Korea pageants in the video below:
Of course, possibly I’m being too harsh, and by all means feel free to disagree with me: these two bloggers here and here certainly do for instance (Update: in turn, I disagree with this blogger’s assertion that being traditional means that the clothes shouldn’t be sexy, and that only “a non-Korean male writer” would ever think that they aren’t mutually exclusive. I’d also point out that so-called “traditional” hanbok were once considered everyday clothes, so they can certainly be judged by criteria other than how well they now “honor [one's] tradition and culture”). But regardless, hopefully now at least you can understand why I did a double-take when I saw the following new hanbok designs last week:
( Source )
Unfortunately, the only information about them are in advertorials direct from the company that makes them (see here, here, here, and here), and rather clumsily-written ones at that, but at least they do explain a little about the logic to the new designs. Here’s my rough translation of the first of them, which incidentally also has the best quality version of the image on the left(!):
아찔한 초미니 한복 / Giddy Ultra-miniskirt Hanbok 2010-07-07 12:09
한국의 아름다움을 오롯이 담고 있는 우리의 옷, 한복. 복을 부르고 화를 쫒는다는 뜻을 담고 있는 한복은, 인생의 중요한 순간마다 반드시 갖춰 입어야 하는 우리 생활의 일부이자 소중한 문화유산이다.
The hanbok is the item of clothing that completely and harmoniously shows Korea’s beauty. It has the meaning of bringing good luck and dispelling anger, and at every important event in your life you should wear this vital part of our cultural inheritance.
한복을 아름답게 입기 위해서는 속적삼과 속치마는 물론이고 긴 치마와 저고리까지 제대로 갖춰야 하지만, 시대가 변하고 젊은 층의 안목도 새로워지면서 한복은 어느새 고리타분하고 촌스러운 옷으로 전락하는 듯 했다. 그러나 명품 한복 브랜드들을 위시해 전통한복을 계승하고 퓨전한복과 한복 드레스를 내놓으며 젊은 층은 물론이고 나아가 세계인의 시선까지 사로잡는 상품을 개발함으로서, 한복은 다시금 아름다운 우리의 옷으로 발돋움하고 있다.
In order to beautifully wear the hanbok, of course you need to the undershirt, petticoat, long skirt, and top and to properly wear them, but as times change the hanbok is become old-fashioned and rustic in young people’s eyes. However, the hanbok is currently taking a big step in becoming all Koreans’ beautiful clothing again by the entrance on the market of a new brand which has developed a fusion style of traditional hanbok and long skirts that will appeal to everyone from the young generation to globalized people.
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한복 알리기와 보급에 주력해 온 명품 브랜드 <안근배 한복 대여> 역시 초미니 한복 드레스와 퓨전 한복 등, 차별화된 디자인과 소재 개발로 고객들의 다양한 요구를 충족시키고 있다. 최근 2010/2011 신상품 70여개를 출시한 <안근배 한복 대여>는 높은 퀄리티의 전통 한복뿐만 아니라 파격적인 초미니 한복 드레스와 퓨전 한복등을 선보이며 화제를 모으는 한편, 우리 고유의 멋을 계승하며 신세대 고객들의 입맛까지 사로잡았다는 평가를 받고 있다. 특히 <안근배 한복 대여>는 전통 한복의 아름다움은 그대로 살리면서도, 더운 여름철에 쾌적하게 한복을 입고 싶어 하는 고객의 구미에 맞는 상품을 전략적으로 출시해 눈길을 끌었다.
Angunbae Hanbok Rentals (AHR) is a company that has concentrated on supplying and letting people know about this new style of hanbok, and in addition to having one fusion type with and ultra-short miniskirt, is differentiating its designs and materials in order to satisfy the varied demands and requirements of customers. Recently, AHR has launched 70 new designs for the 2010/2011 season, and these have been attracting lots of attention not just for their high quality traditional forms but also their fusion with unconventional ultra-short miniskirts, and have been gaining a lot of praise for their coolness that satisfies customers’ modern tastes. In particular, AHR has been noticed for strategically providing customers with hanbok that, while showing off the garments’ traditional beauty, are also a comfortable choice for their summer tastes.
<안근배 한복 대여>는 초미니 한복뿐만 아니라 전통 한복과 한복 드레스 등 다양한 상품으로 인기몰이중이며, 업계 1위의 브랜드답게 전문화된 콜센터 운영과 홈페이지 운영으로 고객들을 만족시키고 있다. 특히 공식홈페이지 www.hanbokrent.kr에서는 7월 한 달 간 진행되는 신랑 신부 커플 한복 20% 할인 행사 안내와 다양한 신상품들을 확인할 수 있다.
AHR doesn’t just provide hanbok with ultra-short mini-skirts, but is also popular for its traditional hanbok and hanbok dresses and so on, and provides a wide variety of products to rent; as the top brand in the business, it operates a call center staffed by experts and a homepage to make sure to fully satisfy customers’ needs. And please note: any couples about to get married, visit www.hanbokrent.kr to get a 20% discount on couple hanbok and/or a variety of new products.
( Sources: left, right )
Is 300,000 won reasonable to rent the first ones? Regardless, see many more examples at the “Fusion” section of AHR’s website, and I’m all for changes to any popular item of clothing that make it more comfortable, cooler to wear in the summer, and a little sexier and more elegant too.
But this post wasn’t intended to be only about hanbok. In fact, the humble podaegi (포대기), or traditional Korean baby sling, may ultimately be much more interesting:
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Quite simple to put on once you get the knack, it’s very easy to see why Korean mothers would use these while working in fields, or even just the kitchen (scroll down here a little for a picture). Hell, if I had to carry a baby for hours while doing manual labor, then I’d probably choose something that comfortable and tight too, and so I wasn’t surprised to hear from my father’s Nigerian colleagues that my wife’s was just like Nigerian ones, where they’re called (naturally enough) “wrappers”, and the act of wearing one “backing” (thanks to reader eccentricyoruba for the terms).
Still, note that the shoulder straps are a recent adaptation carried over (no pun intended) from Western baby harnesses, and there weren’t many versions with them available in 2006 when my first daughter was born; wearing a version like this without them then, my wife’s back got tired quickly, and she speculates that perhaps that would have been less of a problem had she been bending over in a field in it like her mother and grandmother did (she eventually got a Western-style baby harness). Also, as you can imagine they can get extremely hot in the summer, which is why these modern mesh types are now available (and I’m sure ones with shoulder-straps are available too):
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Clearly then, podaegi manufacturers are also quite capable of adapting their products to modern tastes. But still, one big, possibly insurmountable problem with them remains.
Men usually refuse to wear them.
( Source: unknown )
At this point, I should probably mention that I don’t wear anything to carry either of my 2 daughters myself: when Alice was born in June 2006, I was working long hours and my wife became a housewife, so it was only natural that she carry her while I carried groceries and so on; when Elizabeth was born in August 2008, my wife carried her whereas I had Alice to walk with me, chase after, and/or only briefly carry when crossing roads. Sometimes I wish I had used a Western style baby carrier though: both daughters refuse to sleep or be carried in my left arm, often crying until I put them in my right one, and I’m sure that I now have a slightly crooked spine as a result.
Still, of course I did wear my wife’s poedagi at home sometimes, especially when she was out and I had to put them to sleep in the way that they were used to. But in public? Never, for I think I’m safe in assuming that the vast majority of Koreans consider the podaegi as inappropriate on a men as a bra, and which is why you’ll only ever see pictures of them in podaegi if they’re posed in comical situations like the above.
Western-style harnesses however, you’ll see plenty of Korean men wearing them, which leads me to a question I’d like to throw open to readers: are podaegi then, in a sense an impediment to changing people’s beliefs that childcare is only a women’s job?
Yes, of course popular perceptions of clothes and senses of appropriate fashions are constantly changing, and of course there are also a myriad of reasons why Korea has the highest number of housewives in the OECD that are compltely unrelated to clothing. But recall that throughout our daily lives, we are in fact constantly bombarded with subtle messages that reinforce the notion that parenting is women’s job, so it doesn’t seem unreasonable to suppose that this may also have an impact.
Alternatively, look at it this way: if you were a woman expecting a baby soon, which style would you buy if you wanted your male partner to take equal responsibility for carrying the baby after it arrived?^^
Update: See FeetManSeoul (or The Marmot’s Hole) for a post about upcoming fashion shows featuring Jung Jun Hong and Lee Young Hee, the latter of whom:
…is considered the greatest living hanbok designer. And her stuff is smoking, every season. It’s one of the classiest shows of the season, consistently. She really does hanboks like they should be done — who knew hanbok style was still evolving, and evolving quite stylishly? The former, designer Jung, has a more modern take on the hanboks and always has some of the most colorful shows out there.
Korean Gender Reader
( Se7en, via Omona! They Didn’t )
With so many stories this week, I’ve decided to organize them by categories to make it easier to keep track.
Pop Culture
1. Social change through comedy?
Not a fan of dramas, normally I’d pay little attention to the news that yet another one is about to premiere. But I did a double-take when I read the following description of Nanun Jonsol Eeda (I am Legend; 나는전설이다) at DramaBeans:
Kim Jung-eun (김정은) plays Jeon Seol-hee (전설희) who leaves her society-wife identity behind after a divorce to front a rock band.
These photos picture her in the early part of the drama, when her character is the put-upon wife of a prestigious lawyer. Jeon Seol-hee was once the popular singer in a band when she was in high school, but over the course of her unhappy marriage, she has learned to speak quietly and act in a manner befitting her uppity in-law family.
Why my interest? Because it sounds a little like the 1996 movie The Adventures of Miss Park (박봉곤 가출 사건), which on the surface was an average romantic comedy, but actually had a radical message for its time. As So-hee Lee notes in her chapter ‘The Concept of Female Sexuality in Korean Popular Culture’ (pp. 141-164) in Under Construction: The Gendering of Modernity, Class and Consumption in the Republic of Korea (ed. by Laruel Kendell, 2002):
…unlike the convention of most films in the genre, this one ends with a women running away from a domineering husband, achieving her dream of becoming a singer, and finally entering into a happy second marriage, “thus subverting a traditional morality that expects the runaway wife to come back home to restore everyone’s happiness and family security”. (p. 156)
And as such, Lee notes the film director was concerned about how a conservative audience might respond to the uncommon story and its unexpected ending, and hence in many ways the movie was a guerrilla attempt to sneak a serious social message into Korean cinema by presenting it as comedy. Not that Nanun Jonsol Eeda necessarily will attempt to of course, but I’ll keep an eye on it. Meanwhile, see my post Women Getting on Top: Korean Sexuality in Flux in the 1990s for more examples and an analysis of “sexually subversive” popular culture from that era.
2. Common Tropes in Korean Popular Culture
Again by Dramabeans, this new and ongoing series is not just indispensable for understanding dramas, but much about Korean daily life and gender roles too. For starters, try the posts on the meanings of adults giving each other piggyback rides, and then when and where to use jondaemal (polite language) or banmal (informal language). As you might expect, men are allowed to use banmal to women much more than vice-versa, and Korean broadcasters often repeat that practice when dubbing or adding Korean subtitles to foreign movies and dramas too, even though no such distinction is made in the original language.
( Source: Dramabeans )
3. Feminism through Translation
Via Korean Modern Literature in Translation, I’ve found a review of Theresa Hyun’s Writing Women in Korea: Translation and Feminism in the Colonial Period (2003), which begins thus (my emphasis):
Theresa Hyun’s Writing Women in Korea: Translation and Feminism in the Colonial Period takes up the intriguing and fresh theme of the woman translator in colonial Korea. Although it is commonplace to argue that Western notions of feminism were translated into Korea at the turn of the twentieth century, this is the first study to examine this process through the historical figure of the woman translator. Translation here is no metaphor, but a material practice through which women transform themselves and Korean writing. Women, the author argues, made a decisive contribution to the development of modern Korean nationalism and feminism through their translation activities and their own fiction writing, which developed in correlation with their translation practice.
4. The Millennium Trilogy
Not strictly related to Korea, but naturally I became very interested in buying these books after reading the following review at The Global Sociology Blog:
Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy should be required reading in any sociology of gender course because it is a strong demonstration of the way patriarchy works at all levels of society: individual, interactive, institutional, structural and cultural.
The whole trilogy is a fictional demonstration of what happens to women who don’t know their place and won’t conform to patriarchally-established gender roles and even worse to those who fight back against patriarchal control….
Have any readers read them? I’d really appreciate hearing from you before I buy them!
( “The Woman Who Shaves”. Source )
Body Image
5. Leg Shaving
From Drifting Focus, a blog by a former teacher in Korea:
Women are constantly told by the media, our mothers, and our friends that men don’t like women who don’t shave their legs. “You won’t find a man that way” they say. I call bullshit.
I would have predicted that it would have been men who had problems with my lack of leg-shaving. Presumably, they’re the ones we shave for, right? Nope. No man I have ever dated has had much, if any, issue with my shaving preferences. It’s possible that they’ve just been nice, but from more in-depth conversations I’ve had about that habit with them, that does not seem to be the case. They simply don’t really care as long as it’s not “totally out of control”.
So where does this “huge amount of flack” that I’ve gotten over the years come from? Well, that’s the surprising part: other women.
Read the rest here. With the proviso that Northeast Asians don’t tend to have as much body hair as other ethnicities, would readers say that that is also the case in Korea?
6. “What? Use some NORMAL-sized models??? I quit!”
Sociological Images looks at the issues raised when designer Mark Fast decided to use four plus-size models (US sizes 8-10) in his catwalk show at London Fashion Week in February, which prompted his stylist and creative director to quit, leaving him just three days to find replacements. As they explain, it is “possible that they thought being associated with the show could hurt their chances of success in a very competitive career,” but on the other hand it says a great deal about an industry “that stigmatizes fat so powerfully, ” that “it might be terrifying indeed to be seen as endorsing it.”
Can anybody think of any similar initiatives and/or reactions in the Korean fashion industry?
7. Koyote’s Shin-ji has no plans to go on a diet
Nice to see a positive role model for a change:
As is evident through K-pop’s many girl groups, Korea’s entertainment industry consists of a long line of ridiculously thin girls. (It doesn’t help that netizens are hawks when it comes to capturing the slightest bit of belly fat). In a recent interview, Koyote’s (커요태) Shin-ji (신지), who is known in Korea for being more on the chubby side, was asked if she was ever saddened by the harsh comments and jokes she received regarding her weight.
Shin-ji answered:
“I feel blessed to be a singer that older audiences like. In the past when I was thin, many said that it was unattractive. Now, I don’t plan on going on any diets. It really damages your body. Since I debuted when I was in my teens, I received a lot of stress regarding diets. It really weakened my health. These days, if I were to diet I would not be able to endure.“
Read the rest at allkpop. Admittedly the image above is a little old (source), but then much thinner celebrities are also regularly criticized for their weight: see #28 here for instance).
Sexuality
8. Queer in Seoul
The 3 Wise Monkeys pass on a rare 2005 overview of the evolution of the gay community in Seoul over the last few decades. As explained there, “Gabriel Sylvian, the founder and torch-bearer of the Korean Gay Literature Project at Seoul National University, recommended it for all readers to get an idea of the LGBT life in the capital.”
9. Queer in China
Over at The Peking Duck, Richard discusses an article entitled A modern tragedy: Pressure on Chinese gays to marry that he was surprised to see in his local Arizona(!) newspaper. Meanwhile, Gender Across Borders provides a review of Backward Glances: Contemporary Chinese Cultures and the Female Homoerotic Imaginary by Fran Martin:
…Exploring popular media produced during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, author Fran Martin addresses the ways in which same-sex love between women is commonly depicted, and the ways in which those depictions simultaneously reinforce and challenge the conventional discourse on homosexuality in China.
On the surface, many of the novels, television dramas, and films Martin analyzes do not appear to be particularly transgressive. A common theme among the media she explores is memory; stories of same-sex desire between women are often presented as a fleeting childhood fantasy, something that perpetually exists in the past and can never be fully realized by adults in the present…
10. Snakes are victim of men’s search for sexual prowess
See The Korea Times for the current mania for snake soup in Korea, openly praised by some celebrities despite snake soup restaurants being illegal and many of the snakes endangered spaces.
While I usually try to avoid generalizing and stereotyping, I can’t help but always be simultaneously amazed and appalled at how virtually anything that’s phallic is considered an aphrodisiac in this part of world.
11. Korea’s Low Birth Rate Continues to Decline
When even government-propaganda channel Arirang begins to report the following, things must indeed have reached crisis proportions (paraphrased slightly):
…according to the government’s internal assessment report on childcare policy, new measures lean too heavily towards childcare support and fail to address other major issues such as the disadvantages women face at work after taking maternity leave. Fear of discontinuities in their careers is currently the second biggest reason why Korean women refuse to have more than one child.
The other major problem with government policies mentioned is that financial aid is heavily targeted towards low-income families, with little funds left over for middle-class families that comprise 65% of the population. This is discussed in more depth in a Chosun Ilbo editorial.
Crime
12. Possible serial killer of sex-workers in Pohang
See Korea Beat for the details.
13. Vietnamese bride killed by mentally-ill husband after only 8 days in Korea
Like the original Dong-A Ilbo report from Monday says, since 2002 the man had been hospitalized or treated for depression and mental illness 57 times, so whether whether the matchmaker had prior knowledge of the man’s condition is crucial for determining wider responsibility. But however unethical, would the matchmaker actually have committed a crime?
Possibly: Extra! Korea mentions that police are investigating, but an editorial in The Chosun Ilbo also says that only from November must they “unveil records of previous marriages, health conditions, occupations and criminal histories of both the brides and grooms,” so the issue of criminal fault remains a little unclear. Regardless though, there will still be no way to check the validity of information about grooms provided from November, and the industry as a whole remains very unregulated, with virtually anyone able to open an international matchmaking business: 44% of the 1250 companies in Korea are staffed by just one person (and 33% by husband and wife teams), the ensuing intense competition not exactly encouraging companies to make their clients look any less marriage-worthy.
On a slight positive note though, the government now requires all prospective Korean grooms to attend “marriage ethics” classes before heading overseas to find wives (image source).
( Source )
14. Curbing Sex-Offenders
From The Korea Herald, an update (see #3 here) on moves to enact retroactive legislation aimed at sex-offenders in the wake of a perceived spate of sex crimes against children and teenagers:
Prosecutors will be able to request that sex offenders who were not already given an electronic anklet be electronically tagged after a legal revision takes effect Friday.
The revision allows authorities to retroactively apply the anklet to criminals convicted before the law took effect in 2008.
However:
Some, however, argue that the anklet is not the answer.
Earlier this year, a convicted rapist cut off his anklet and escaped, though he did not commit any other offense before he was apprehended.
The ministry will introduce stronger anklets by the end of August, said officials.
The new law has met some criticism for the retroactive application of the anklet system.
Meanwhile, KBS announced that the police are also going to enlist the (volunteer) help of community leaders to protect youths, and last month a law for allowing chemical castration as a possible punishment for child sex offenders was passed in South Korea. See The Marmot’s Hole for more details.
Work & Economy
15. Young People Face Continued Employment Crisis
Further compelling young Korean adults to live with their parents until marriage, recent improvements in the economy that have meant that more than 10 million Koreans are legally regular workers for the first time have largely bypassed those in their 20s or 30s, the only demographic still losing jobs. And to add insult to injury, not only was the minimum wage only raised 8 won (US$0.01!) last month, but 4 in 10 young people stuck in irregular and part time work weren’t even getting that anyway.
Hell, no wonder they have to be specially taught to smile at customers (source).
16. “More college girls work part time at massage parlors performing sexual services”
And who can blame them considering the above?
17. S Korea posts lowest employment rate for educated women among OECD countries
See here for details. Also recall from this book that in 1998 at least, the more educated a woman was the less likely she was to be employed, the only country in the OECD in which this phenomenon occurred. As far as I am aware, this is still the case today.
18. Korea lags behind in economic opportunities for women
Not unsurprisingly in light of the above, compare Korea’s latest dismal figures from the Economist Intelligence Unit’s survey with the UNDP’s “gender empowerment measure” last year also (see #2 here), both of which demonstrate that despite living in a developed country, in fact women in many developing countries have far more political and economic power.
This is both cause and effect of Korea being one of the rare exception to the worldwide “mancession”, which prompted headlines like “Is female dominance a success for feminism?” in many US feminism blogs. Also see The Wall Street Journal‘s report on Japan for an alternative sense of perspective, as it is a country with many of the same structural and ideological impediments to women’s employment; as you read how bad it is there, bear in mind that unfortunately the Korea situation is actually much worse!
19. Korea lacks gender-parity in education
This graph came as a big surprise, as I’ve frequently read that the equal provision of education to both sexes was one of Korea’s crowning achievements of the post-war period:
Originally found via Surprises Aplenty, the graph comes from Marginal Revolution, which unfortunately has only a minimal discussion of it. Assuming that the result is accurate (Korea is the green dot at the top left), then what do you think accounts for the gender difference?
East Asia & Overseas Koreans
20. Twenty-three percent of female homestay students from East Asian countries reported being sexually abused in Canada
Much more complicated than that headline suggests however, see Extra! Korea for an excellent summary for a summary of all the newspapers on the topic, and The Marmot’s Hole’s post for its typically vociferous (but often informative) comments thread.
21. Japan split over granting married women the right to their maiden names
A big difference with Korea, where married women retain their names, unfortunately the Democrats’ plans to allow this have stalled in light of recent political setbacks. See The China Press for more details.
( Source: Korean Lovers Photoblog )
Enjoy the rest of your weekend folks!
Prosecutors will be able to request that sex offenders who were not already given an electronic anklet be electronically tagged after a legal revision takes effect Friday.The revision allows authorities to retroactively apply the anklet to criminals convicted before the law took effect in 2008.
Sex as Power in the South Korean Military: A Follow-up
( Source )
As I discussed back in March, the first ever survey on the issue of sexual violence in the Korean military discovered endemic levels of abuse, with roughly 15% of 250,000 conscripts each year experiencing it as either victims or perpetrators. A hugely important socialization experience for Korean men, this had grave implications for Korean society.
On a slight positive note however, I was happy to also read that much of the researchers’ data was obtained by interviews with soldiers in their barracks with the official cooperation of the Ministry of Defense. A sign of changing attitudes towards acknowledging and dealing with the problem?
Alas, I’ve just discovered that that was far too optimistic, as the military still remains one of the least transparent institutions in Korea:
When the Cheonan sank [in March], the initial reaction was shock and sadness, which quickly gave way to rage: with a government accused of dragging its feet, but also with a military that seemed unprepared for a North Korean attack.
But anger with the military runs deeper than over a single event. Mistrust of the institution is widespread because it has failed to open itself up, using the excuse of national security, while the rest of the country has embraced democracy.
South Korea’s military dictatorship may be a thing of the past, but the North’s constant saber rattling in the form of nuclear tests, missile launches, spy incidents and the occasional skirmish continue to give Korea’s men at arms an immediate relevance – and an excuse to conceal things from the public. That right to secrecy is enshrined in the National Security Law, which places restrictions even on regular citizens’ freedom of speech for the sake of preventing enemy subversion, but is even more of a cloak for the armed forces. It’s the legal manifestation of the bubble in which the military operates, isolating it from the massive changes the rest of Korean society has undergone. To date, for example, no civilian has ever been named defense minister.
Every year, a report is quietly released titled, “Military deaths caused by accidents.” In 2008, there were 134 names on that list, including 75 suicides. The suicides are usually explained by a “failure to adjust to military life.”
That explanation is unacceptable for Joo Jong-woo, whose son, Pvt. Joo Jung-wook, committed suicide in 2001 at age 22…
Read the rest at The JoongAng Ilbo, including about “its emphasis on tight ideological control of its conscripts” resulting in its banning of left-wing books like the works of Noam Chomsky, and the expulsion of military legal officers for “arguing that the military’s regulations are unconstitutional”. Meanwhile, the Korean military still refuses to recognize conscientious objectors and so imprisons them (see here also for a podcast on the development of the concept of conscientious objection in the West), the National Human Rights Commission is ineffective, and the maintenance of the conscription system as a whole is one reason why the Korean Military remains “a 1970-vintage force structure, designed around a 1970-vintage threat, equipped with 1970-vintage weapons.”
( Source: anja_johnson )
As for the images of mascots, please note that I post them not to be facetious though(!), but rather to show how facile such attempts to soften the image of institutions like the police and military are in light of reports like this. But nothing against the mascots themselves of course, and see here, here, and here for more information about Podori (포도리) in the riot gear!^^
Update, October 2010: Unfortunately, this recent incident demonstrates that little progress has been made since this post was written.
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