“Return to Seoul” (리턴 투 서울, Retour à Séoul) Now Playing in Korean Cinemas

Estimated reading & viewing time: 5 minutes.

Now, the most important thing to take away from this post is to appreciate what good taste I have. For *I* decided I liked this film, and booked a ticket, weeks before it became cool.

Next most important is the secret of how I learned of it: by subscribing to the YouTube channel 문다무비. Focusing on trailers of arthouse films with limited runs, and/or of repeat screenings of popular movies, if you live in Korea then it’s an absolute must.* How else, after all, can you persuade your dates that you’re smart and sophisticated? Other than by showing them selfies of you in empty theaters that is?

Unfortunately for my otherwise carefully-crafted persona, I am an alcoholic, so was much too busy to post about the film while it was still under most people’s radar. Fortunately for you though, it’s only just been released, so there’s still a week or so to see it. Also, in addition to glowing reviews by overseas critics, as well as a surprising amount of coverage in the Korean media, there’s Jia H. Jung’s Korea Times interview of Korean French adoptee Laure Badufle, co-writer and inspiration and inspiration for the film, which will do a much better job of persuading you to watch the film than I ever could have.

Especially when I haven’t actually mentioned the trifling detail of what the film is actually about yet:

Again unfortunately for my persona, I can’t hide how giddy with excitement I am to learn that Laure Badufle was born in the small town of Sacheon in South Gyeongsang Province before she was adopted, where I taught from 2001-2003; that will likely feature in the film, while neighboring Jinju, where I lived, definitely will. Also, because of the mixture of English, French, and Korean used, I’m relieved to see that Korean subtitles will be used, which will frankly make watching it much easier for me (I don’t know of anywhere with English subtitles sorry).

Yet despite all the recent attention, there’s still only 6 CGVs screening the film in Seoul, only 1 in Busan, and, ironically, none at all in Jinju. My fellow sophisticated Busanites at least though, will appreciate the perks that come with their fine tastes—in the form of an exclusive 44-person theater, with luxury armchairs!

*Update: I’ve just discovered artninecinema/아트나인 (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook), which is even more focused on arthouse films, and also hosts various related events. Unfortunately most for Return to Seoul are already over, but on Tuesday the 16th there’s a screening with critic Jeong Seong-il in Seoul.

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If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

“Yoni Garden” Exhibition Opens in Gwangalli Tonight!

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes. Image sources: (@gallery_gwangan) left, right.

Sorry for the last-minute notice for tonight’s opening from 6 to 8pm. But fortunately the exhibition itself, about “women’s sexuality and life stories reinterpreted through traditional Buddhist lacquer (통 옻칠로 재해석 된 여성의 성 그리고 삶 이야기),” will be held at @gallery_gwangan until Wednesday May 10. All are welcome, and tonight will also feature free wine and food!

Unfortunately, I’ve been having trouble finding any more information about artist Gabby Chu (가비추) and her work.* But presumably she’ll be there tonight, and she will also be present at the gallery for the entire exhibition (note the opening hours in the blue poster). On Saturday the 6th, she will be giving a talk (in Korean) about exhibiting overseas too.

See you there!

*Update: Gabby’s Instagram can be found at gabby_chu_ottchil, and her personal website at Gabbychu.com. I can also confirm she’s every bit as amazing and creative as I expected, and is very happy for you to visit and chat in English or Korean about art, feminism, and/or sexuality :)

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If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

Unpopular Opinion: “Kim Jiyoung: Born 1982” Didn’t Hit Hard Enough

Kim Jiyoung: Born 1982 scores points for its raising of numerous feminist issues, but its treatment of them is frequently quite superficial. Here’s how one scene should have been handled differently, shattering stereotypes and suggesting solutions in the process.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes. Photo by Gabe Pierce on Unsplash.

I didn’t like the novel Kim Jiyoung: Born 1982 much at all. There, I said it.

It’s basically a Korean Feminism 101 compendium, which means it didn’t really teach me anything new. Its constant shoehorning of facts and statistics into the narrative ruined it as a work of fiction too. But the biggest flaw was Jiyoung’s constant, infuriating lack of agency, with its flipside that author Cho Nam-joo didn’t really offer any solutions to the numerous hardships she faces either.

That doesn’t mean those hardships aren’t well-described. Like I said in my earlier review, I don’t think it’s a bad book at all. If you personally learned a great deal from it, and/or laughed, cried, and seethed in anger alongside Jiyoung, then I’m hardly going to claim that my own disappointment and frustration mean I’m somehow a much better, more knowledgeable feminist than you.

But Jiyoung’s lack of agency, and Cho’s lack of solutions, are absolutely a hill I’m prepared to die on. One scene in the film set in a subway toilet, albeit not mentioned in the book, illustrates both very well.

In it (55-56:00), Jiyoung (played by Jung Yu-mi) has to get off the subway to change her bawling infant daughter. Once that’s done, she realizes she needs to pee herself, but struggles in the narrow cubicle to hang up her heavy bag with her daughter strapped to her chest. Then, before she attempts again, she eyes the walls and lock nervously, remembering a recent molka (spycam) incident at the place she used to work. The scene then shifts to her home, implying she gave up and went there instead.

At first viewing, it’s difficult to find any fault here at all. Given that the burden of childcare falls overwhelmingly on women, then more men—or, indeed, more unsympathetic childless women—sometimes really do need to be literally shown just how much effort that actually involves. So too, do more men need to realize how stressful it is having to worry about being secretly filmed literally every single time you used any toilets outside of your home, as well as the potential health consequences if you understandably chose to avoid them.

Admittedly, that may seem like a lot to ask of a one-minute scene. Yet with just a little tweaking, it could have achieved those aims very effectively and forcefully. Instead, it largely fails, for three reasons.

The first is because, ironically, guys can relate to the practical difficulties. The indignity of using a cubicle while wearing a suit and carrying a backpack, desperately trying to prevent either from touching all the urine and smokers’ spittle on the floor, is absolutely no joke. As for childcare specifically, my ex-wife would naturally take our daughters with her to the female toilets when they were young, but it’s not like I wasn’t often in just as awkward and uncomfortable situations with them in other cramped locations.

Devoid of any wider context then, which I’ll provide myself in a moment, men’s own issues with using cubicles can mean women’s complaints fall on deaf ears, let alone calls to make women’s toilets bigger than men’s. (In fact, some men even consider the proposal to be reverse-sexism.) This lack of sympathy is misguided, of course, but I can understand it—unless men are flat out told or shown why not, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that more cubicles in place of urinals suffice for women’s need to sit down. That women somehow still have to queue nonetheless, delaying everyone? Pop culture reveals that’s just their own fault, thanks to all the primping, preening, and gossiping that really goes on in there.

Next, the scene doesn’t do enough to convey the visceral fear of spy cameras. This is indeed much harder for men to relate to, because they never have to think about them when using public toilets. So, something much more forceful than Jiyoung’s brief nervous glances was required.

Best would have been a tweak to an earlier scene, which I’ll outline in a moment. But as an emphasis in this one, a more realistic cubicle should have been shown, with every nook, cranny, screw, bolt, and indent jammed with toilet paper and gum. Rather than the toilet the scene was actually shot in, which, complete with a rare heater, was easily the most pristine in Korea, seeing what it’s actually like in women’s toilets would surely have rammed home just how big of a problem spycams are in Korea—in a way that abstract news reports never could.

Image source: The Fact.

That earlier scene (44:30-47:30) is where Jiyoung’s former coworkers discover a spycam had been set up in one of the female toilets, and that their male coworkers had been sharing the videos, followed by meeting Jiyoung in a coffee shop to let her know. In hindsight, it’s all over surprisingly quickly. Whereas in the book, the incident is dealt with over three pages, and among the many grave consequences the coworkers reveal in those is that one victim overdosed on meds—possibly intentionally. This is omitted entirely in the film, but fits with the film’s much more kid-gloves, family-friendly tone overall (In particular, Jiyoung’s husband, played by Gong Yoo, is a vastly more sympathetic and likeable character than in the book. Perhaps a truer portrayal was rejected as harmful to his image?). In its place, the coworkers are not so much in tears as almost laugh off the affair, one joking about borrowing Jiyoung’s daughter’s diapers from now on.

Not only would I have absolutely kept that line about the coworker’s potential suicide instead, I would have devoted a minute to visiting her in hospital too. Was that not worth it to show that spycams have very real, devastating effects on people’s lives?

But if I only had an extra minute’s grace, I would use it to shift Jiyoung’s toilet scene to a few years earlier in her life, before she stopped working to have her daughter. She would be in her smart workclothes and high heels at a hweshik, an (effectively mandatory) after-work dinner with her boss and coworkers, and have to go to the toilet as everyone was preparing to leave to go to a second round at a bar. She would take longer than many of the men would like, because—and herein lies that context, as explained by Sora Chemaly in Time. Because, yes, it really does need explaining, as it’s not at all just about sitting vs. standing:

Women need to use bathrooms more often and for longer periods of time because: we sit to urinate (urinals effectively double the space in men’s rooms) [note also, “Women empty their bladders more frequently than men and take longer – an average start-to-finish time of 60 seconds for men, but 90 for women”—James], we menstruate, we are responsible for reproducing the species (which makes us pee more), we continue to have greater responsibility for children (who have to use bathrooms with us), and we breastfeed (frequently in grotty bathroom stalls). Additionally, women tend to wear more binding and cumbersome clothes, whereas men’s clothing provides significantly speedier access. But in a classic example of the difference between surface “equality” and genuine equity, many public restrooms continue to be facilities that are equal in physical space, while favoring men’s bodies, experiences, and needs.

So when Jiyoung did rejoin the group, one of those impatient men could have made an all too common complaint or joke about holding everyone up for the sake of putting on her lipstick. To which she could have angrily pointed out it wasn’t her fault, for any number of the above reasons she could have chosen to highlight (and/or by having to spend time ramming toilet paper into all those potential camera holes, would have killed two birds with one stone). She could have followed that the obvious solution of “potty parity”—mandating 2:1 or 3:1 female to male toilet size ratios in all new building plans, and/or building more shared toilets—wasn’t at all reverse-sexism, but would benefit both women and the men who had to wait for them.

Indeed, this scene would not be unlike the—MILD SPOILER—final scene in the film, in which Jiyoung actually does confront a guy who accuses her of being a “mom roach,” living the high life gossiping in coffee shops, a parasite on her rich husband and the hard workers who pay the taxes for her holiday of maternity leave. Which is a rare credit to the film, and certainly a better alternative to her just slinking away in shame like in the book, then getting gaslighted by her husband when she complains about it. However, as it’s the conclusion to what’s actually an extremely saccharine-feeling film overall as discussed, it’s somewhat underwhelming as a climax—SPOILER ENDS.

With an extra minute still, I would also add a scene of her as a teenager, suffering from bladder and dehydration problems that her much fawned-over brother avoided, because he could obviously better endure Korean schools’ notoriously dirty and outdated toilets. But I digress. The point is, Jiyoung in the subway toilet with her daughter is just one scene of many that could have been dramatically improved. I curse having read the book Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-made World by Leslie Kern (2020) in particular, which means I can just no longer unsee the flaws in the scenes in either the book or film. Although, given the former’s popularity, now I do appreciate the value of seeing one’s own lived experiences represented in print, even if Cho neither presents Jiyoung as a role model nor offers any potential solutions to what she faces.

Those responsible for the film however, could have and should have responded to the backlash by taking up that mantle, exploiting the potential of the new visual medium to shock and shame. Instead, they wasted the opportunity by making it as saccharine as possible, all for the sake of people who had probably never actually read the book and were even less likely to watch the film.

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If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

“Hashtag activism found in translation: Unpacking the reformulation of #MeToo in Japan”—Zoom Presentation by Ms. Saki Mizoroki, Friday April 28, 5:30-7pm JST

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes.

Do any of you reading this in Korea volunteer for a local feminist organization?

As a Western male feminist, or feminist ally if that’s your jam, frankly I’ve never seriously considered it. I’ve always just assumed my presence would be more awkward and complicated than helpful, and probably quite rightly so. There’s visa restrictions against non-Koreans participating in “political” activity too, even for permanent residents.

But are my assumptions correct? Or are they really just excuses?

Because I’ve recently become more interested in contemporary Korean feminist activism than ever. Perhaps, the day I get off my armchair and test those assumptions will come sooner than I think.

If you do ever see my bald head pop up on mutual Instas we follow then, blame Ito Shiori’s Black Box: The Memoir That Sparked Japan’s #MeToo Movement. Not just because because it well deserves its seminal title, but because I was shocked to learn just a few weeks later of the relative failure of that movement compared to South Korea’s. Why? What are the similarities and differences between #미투 and #KuToo? What mutual lessons do they offer for each other? I have to know.

Naturally then, I’ll be all over next Friday’s presentation below (note the open access accompanying article). I’ll also soon be cracking open my copy of Flowers of Fire by Hawon Jung (of course), but first will have to try the more specialized but older (2014) Practicing Feminism in South Korea: The women’s movement against sexual violence by Kyungja Jung while it’s hopefully still relevant.

If you have any other recommendations, please let me know. And I hope to hear your thoughts about next Friday’s presentation too! :)

Join Zoom Meeting https://sophia-ac-jp.zoom.us/j/99468537215 Meeting ID: 994 6853 7215 Passcode: 982771

In 2017, the MeToo hashtag spread across the globe. However, it showed limited success in the Japanese Twittersphere and instead inspired local initiatives such as #WeToo and #Furawādemo (“flower demo”). To understand this reformulation, we analyzed 15 interviews with Japanese social media users and 119 Japanese newspaper articles. The results corroborate the framework we label VTM (values, topics, media), suggesting that an intersection between perceived Japanese values, the topic’s gendered and sexual nature, and media affordances explain the movement’s local development. While perceived Japanese values clash against those associated with #MeToo, new formulations “soften” the protest by blending in values such as reserve and harmony. Overall, we show how perceptions of popular values rather than values as essential orientations shape activism. Finally, we discuss the study’s implications for understanding cultural variance in cyberactivism, highlighting how divergent notions of “safe space” shape such movements.

Saki Mizoroki is a doctoral student at the University of Tokyo and a visiting research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Her research focuses on feminist media studies, drawing on her extensive experience as a journalist. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Sophia University and a Master of Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley. She has worked as a journalist for a top-national Japanese newspaper, The Asahi, as well as internet media, BuzzFeed Japan.

This talk is organized by David H. Slater (Professor of Anthropology, FLA).

*Mizoroki, S., Shifman, L., & Hayashi, K. (2023). Hashtag activism found in translation: Unpacking the reformulation of #MeToo in Japan. New Media & Society, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231153571

Flyer (PDF): Download from here

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If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

For the Sophisticated Busanite Looking for Something to do Indoors This Rainy Weekend…

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes. Image source: object_hood.

…Allow me to recommend the “Love Story in Spring” art exhibition at Objecthood (오브제후드), a small gallery in Mangmi/Suyeong-dong, which unfortunately finishes on Sunday (not the 23rd like the website suggests).

Please see the exhibition description for more information (scroll down for English), the about page for a map, and here, here, and here for Objecthood’s Instagram and those of featured artists Kyung Hee Min (민경희) and Minzo King (민조킹).

Perhaps I’ll see you there on Saturday? If so, then please make sure to say hi—rest assured, the surroundings won’t at all make me feel too shy or embarrassed to talk! ;)

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

April Book Club Meeting: “Phoenix Extravagant” by Yoon Ha Lee, Wednesday 26 April, 8:15pm KST

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes.

A medley of steampunk, fantasy, and magic realism? And featuring multiple animal characters? Frankly, none of those I like at all, let alone when all put together. But, expanding my literary horizons was of the main reasons I started this book club, as was supporting more LGBTQ representation in Korean and Korean-American fiction. So I was already well sold on Phoenix Extravagant (2021) by American writer Yoon Ha Lee (Wikipedia; interview) for this month’s book choice, only then to be even further persuaded by the following excellent, quick review by a fellow club member (posted with permission):

The genre is new to me, a giant leap really. Lots of norm transgressions, in the best possible way. Is it Steampunk, SciFi- Fantasy, Alternative History, Parody…??? Or none/ all?

American-Korean author Lee is not just transgressive in genre blending, but in the themes and characters of his story here. Lee himself identifies an a trans man/ queer (choosing “him/ he”) and his protagonist here is a gender neutral “them/they”. This was less confusing than the anti-woke mob might presume when reading. Non traditional nuclear/ heteronormative families, relationships and people populate this story with disarming naturalness. The whole book eschews complicated narrative and linguistic features, offering an ostensibly straightforward plot and “young adult” level vocabulary (albeit with some rather clever invented vernacular for the world described).

But the themes and historical parallels it clearly (maybe too obviously for a Korean audience) makes to Korea’s colonial experience are also subtly transgressive. It questions the ideas of nationalism and independence (for whom), as well as whether a foreign tyranny is worse than an indigenous one. In historical parallelism, it also questions who or what a loyal citizen/ collaborator is, in the face of daily needs to survive. The role of art also arises, and whether the effects of art can be attributed/ blamed on the artist?

There’s escapism and juvenile fantasy too – if you chose to read it that way. Worth a read!

Please see LibraryThing, The StoryGraph, and/or GoodReads for further reviews, and then, if Phoenix Extravagant still appeals, I’d like to invite you to our meeting on Wednesday 26 April, at 8:15pm Korean time. Just a small, informal event, with a limit of 12 participants to help ensure that they remain as safe a space as possible, please contact me via email or leave a comment below (only I will be able to see your email address) if you are interested in attending. I will contact you to confirm, and will include you in the club reminder email with the Zoom link a few days before the event.

See you on Zoom!

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)