Because, Japan.

[Corinthian]

Mr King, have you seen the movie Sushi Girl?

[chino]

deleted for bad taste.

Edited February 23, 2015 by chino

[Mr King]

Mr King, have you seen the movie Sushi Girl?

 

No sir I have not. Should I make an effort to?

[Corinthian]

Depends. Try Google. It is not Japanese, but it is somewhat Japanese themed.

[JasonJ]

 

 

 

Screw the Japanese market, Korea is ready for the world... spread some lemon on that egg and suck it while driving an Elantra. No kowtow for post-crisis, post Fukushima Japanese buyers.

1. For an economy that is built around exporting, the Japanese market would be very beneficial to them. More importantly, it would expand Korean soft power further.

 

2. That aside, are you saying that Takeshima is not Japanese because of international laws? I countered Nobu a year or so ago on this point saying that international law doesn't matter. I didn't realize how important international laws are in maintaining the status que and having countries accepting the status que and work with it. If this point does not matter, then that would justify Putin supporting the seperatists in East Ukraine.

 

3. And what is your understanding of comfort women? Do you think "200,000 women were forced by the Japanese military" is the truth? How much of those words are true? Does it cover the full truth? Why do you think other countries have gotten passed this with the comfort women but not South Korea? Is South Korea acting on true history do you think?

1. Yeah, but is not like they depend on the Japanese market or anything. And if those rocks really have some natural gas around, fuck the tourists who don't even tip.

 

2. I'm saying i don´t care much about it. But for my humble opinion, Japan is always the bad guy in East Asia, pirating, conquering, looting, annexing, massacring the living shit outta everybody else. So, in my book, stick it to Japan every chance you got, just for the karma points. Sorry if i sound too sincere...

 

3. I doubt the Japanese took in so many mouths to feed, officially. Prolly they just kept a few rolling bordellos for officers in permanent capacity. Methinks they, Koreans, are conflating the numbers with rape victims, female prisoners, and the probably not low in number war-time prostitutes. And yeah, Koreans are acting in true history... roughly five centuries of it. The latest issues are but the new packaging of really old grievances.

toysoldier,

 

I'm just going to go to point 3. Maybe we can go to the other points later. First in point 3, the "5 centuries" is incorrect. First was the Japanese invasion launched by Hideyoshi from 1592 and ending in 1598. The two countries restored relations in the early 1600s. The next act of violence against the Koreans was during the Imperial age around the 1870s. So adding those two up, giving 15 years to include grievances and time spent standing back up after the Hideyoshi invasions and during Imperial Japan, 75 years of early aggression, battles, colonization, and up to its end (1870-1945). That makes 95 years total.

 

For economic damage and exploitation of Korean workers, compensation was agreed to between the two countries in 1965 in order to restore diplomatic relations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Basic_Relations_between_Japan_and_the_Republic_of_Korea

 

The 1,200 pages of documents show that South Korea agreed never to make further compensation demands, either at the government or individual level, after receiving $800 million in grants and soft loans from Japan as compensation for its 1910-45 colonial rule.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2005/01/17/SKorea-discloses-sensitive-documents/UPI-38131105952315/

So on to the comfort women..

I posted this fact in the China thread already but here it is again.

Bruce Cumings, Korea's Place in the Sun, page 179

...

Here we begin to understand the true horror of the "comfort women" issue, why it was covered up by Japan and also left alone for so many years by the South Korean government: to open up inquiry on this sexual slavery would be to find that many women were mobilized by Korean men. Japan fractured the Korean national psyche, pitting Korean against Korean with consequences that continue down to our time.

...

 

I highlighted the second part because, to me at least, the greatest thing that Japan could do for Korea today is permit a strong Korean identity to flow through Japan because of that highlighted portion.

Next will be some quotes from the prologue of another book .. The Comfort Women, C. Sarah Soh, 2008. Just the prologue, this is a recent book that I bought so I haven't made much progress in it. But the prologue gives a good sense of the full picture that is to come. Keep in mind this book was made in 2008, so its fairly new. Italics in quotes are as it is in the book.

page xii

This approach is in stark contrast to the existing English-language literature, which defines the Japanese comfort system as sexual slavery and refers to the personal ordeals suffered by individual women as evidence of Japan's war crimes. This study of Korea's comfort women will cast new cultural-historical light on the structural violence in patriarchal societies, especially against poor women who have customarily answered men's desire for nonprocreative, recreational sex outside the matrimonial bed, which I will call "public sex."

 

page xii

This is the first book-length treatment in any language to provide an anthropological interpretation of this victimization of young women in light of both Japan's colonial economy and the centuries-old sexual cultures of Japanese and Korean patriarchy.

 

page xvi

A major aim of this study is to demonstrate the Korean comfort women tragedy as a prominent instance of gendered structural violence emanating from the social dynamics of power, resistance, and violence. My discussion thus intervenes in the transnationally dominant humanitarian paradigmatic story of the comfort women by shedding light on the variety of personal circumstances -- within the larger social and historical conjuncture --- that pushed these women away from home and into the grossly exploitative comfort system. Their biographical narratives reveal not only the unbelievably wretched life conditions of the poor in colonial Korea, but also remarkable levels of agency, aspirations for autonomy, life-affirming perseverance, and resilience -- characteristics that have been ignored or downplayed in most studies. Nonetheless, the lifelong suffering of survivors proves to be deeply rooted in the political economy and traditional cultures alike. That is, the abuse and maltreatment of daughters and wives in the patriarchal system, with its long-standing masculinist sexual culture, contributed as much as did the colonial political economy to the ready commodification of these women's sexual labor. I challenge the categorical portrayal of Korean comfort women as victims solely of the Japanese military and colonialism, a view that ignores the complex historicity that entangled the lives of men and women of colonial Korea and imperial Japan.

 

One more against the ultra nationalists in Japan.

 

page xviii

Finally, I must warn strongly against the rightists and militant nationalists in Japan and elsewhere who might abuse and take any portion of this book out of context to promote their own partisan positions.

For the number of comfort women, the author says that the estimated wide range is from 50,000 to 200,000 with the great majority being Korean.

 

There's a map in her book on page 138 showing all of East and South East Asia showing the locations of comfort stations that were 1) cited by veterans 2) cited by survivors and 3) shown in official government documents. Looks to be 100-200 stations on the map.

 

The whole system was a collaboration on both the Japanese side and the Korean side for what was seen as normal use of poor Korean women and young women. They had no rights in that culture, both the Japanese and Korean culture.

 

So Japan did express apology about it numerous times and they recognized it as wrong and many Japanese have donated funds to surviving comfort women victims. But the Koreans have demanded a higher degree of apology. They are making it a diplomatic condition. The Koreans have to recognize the situation as it was fully and also admit that it was culturally wrong. It is an old culture issue as well that both countries have by large grown past in regular public life. Granted, research into comfort women has been delayed so initially when the comfort women issue surfaced in the 1990s, its hard to find fault in Koreans getting angry about it. The information was just not available yet. But now the individuals that invested themselves so deeply into "Japan is fully responsible and must make an official apology from the PM with government money" and erecting comfort women memorials throughout the US, etc, have to change their ways now.

 

The present comfort women issues is tightly connected with what is called the "Kono Statement" made in 1993 which apologizes for more than what Japan should have to apologize. It was probably made to just help keep relations smooth sailing with the unexpected emergence of this issue. But now Abe is pressured to maintain this exaggerated statement. One can imagine how bat shit nuts the Kono statement must make the ultra nationalists, of course, no sympathy to them. But it does raise their activity which is not good.

 

So its about time for the comfort women issue to fizzle out. Its been the center of international relations between South Korea and Japan for too long and if it continues to be politicized, it will continue to be an unnecessary hindrance (and insult to comfort women themselves) in restoring relations between the two. At least someone that cares about seeing relations improve and cares about the real history being acknowledged, put to rest, and treated appropriately, will be interested in all these details. For those that don't care, then could they not dump gasoline into the fire that those who do care are trying to extinguish? If your going to throw gasoline, pardon my for taking that gas tank away from you. Or if you try this using a water hose, maybe I'll feel more willing to spend some time getting to know Cuba better.

Edited February 24, 2015 by JasonJ

[toysoldier]

Ok, not 500 yrs, 400+ yrs. Gee, talk about nitpicking. In any case, what about them wakos, terrorizing coastal Korea continuously, not just for 95 years? That has to leave a mark in the psyche. Why do you think Spaniards hated and feared moors for centuries after the end of the Reconquista? Barbary pirates ring a bell? Besides, its there, black and white, on the damn history book, the cold facts: Japan invaded Korea... twice. Count or ignore how many years of actual occupation, doesn't matter, its the frigging iteration that damns you. They can forgive the Chinese, btw Vietnamese also forgive the Chinese, because after all the Chinese had this amazing culture that gave them so much... but what has Japan given to Korea but misery, repeatedly?

Just deal with it, Japan is the boogeyman.

And about the comfort women... do you really expect Koreans to acknowledge and assume war time collaborationism? Really? Have the french? Have the Italians? Have the Rumanians? Is that your hope, Korea to forgive Japan because some Koreans helped the Japanese invaders? thats nothing but more salt in the wound, that compounds the humilliation.

Dude, I'm not making gasoline rain on your parade, I'm making reality rain on your parade. The comfort women won´t go away. The only way is for Japan to kneel before the continental and southeast asian Untermenschen -don't go tell Japanese aren't racists, that shit don't fly among serious people-, and since that won´t ever, ever happen, there you have it.

oh, it really must hurt trying to be rational/reasonable, like you, in this world.

[JasonJ]

There were the Wako pirates. There were also Koreans that wanted to trade with the Japanese. Trade was heavily restricted by the Korean Kingdom. So the two cancel each other out.

 

Yes, I think the South Koreans are capable of more than said low standard for humanity. They did accomplish democracy through great pains and strive to maintain it. Given time and the chance, relations can be mended further. There will always be rivalry and some on both sides will hold onto the hate for endless time. But the majority masses can mend relations and have fair rivalry. Call me a fool if you must. But relations have been mended to quite an extent already to be honest. It has back tracked in the last 5 years but it is possible to turn around to forward progression again. It just takes work.

[toysoldier]

In all fairness, Japanese haughtiness is a force to be reckoned when it comes to diplomacy.

[JasonJ]

In all fairness, Japanese haughtiness is a force to be reckoned when it comes to diplomacy.

Care to post an example of such haughtiness?

[toysoldier]

[JasonJ]

Of all the countries in the world, Japan has exceptionally haughty diplomacy? You better back that one up.

[toysoldier]

[JasonJ]

Alrighty o

[JasonJ]

Anyway

 

Kara and Perfume

 

http://youtu.be/Zj2q2Ak74GA

[urbanoid]

Ok, not 500 yrs, 400+ yrs. Gee, talk about nitpicking. In any case, what about them wakos, terrorizing coastal Korea continuously, not just for 95 years? That has to leave a mark in the psyche. Why do you think Spaniards hated and feared moors for centuries after the end of the Reconquista? Barbary pirates ring a bell? Besides, its there, black and white, on the damn history book, the cold facts: Japan invaded Korea... twice. Count or ignore how many years of actual occupation, doesn't matter, its the frigging iteration that damns you. They can forgive the Chinese, btw Vietnamese also forgive the Chinese, because after all the Chinese had this amazing culture that gave them so much... but what has Japan given to Korea but misery, repeatedly?

Just deal with it, Japan is the boogeyman.

And about the comfort women... do you really expect Koreans to acknowledge and assume war time collaborationism? Really? Have the french? Have the Italians? Have the Rumanians? Is that your hope, Korea to forgive Japan because some Koreans helped the Japanese invaders? thats nothing but more salt in the wound, that compounds the humilliation.

Dude, I'm not making gasoline rain on your parade, I'm making reality rain on your parade. The comfort women won´t go away. The only way is for Japan to kneel before the continental and southeast asian Untermenschen -don't go tell Japanese aren't racists, that shit don't fly among serious people-, and since that won´t ever, ever happen, there you have it.

oh, it really must hurt trying to be rational/reasonable, like you, in this world.

 

What the Chinese gave the Koreans was a totally outdated political and social system, that made them (both) an easy prey. Before Japan got a protectorate over Korea, not to mention actual annexation, they tried hard to modernize the country, and the efforts to counter them were usually backed by the Chinese.

 

As for the Vietnamese:

 

I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life.

 

^ Those are Ho's words.

[toysoldier]

1. What the Chinese gave the Koreans was a totally outdated political and social system, that made them (both) an easy prey. Before Japan got a protectorate over Korea, not to mention actual annexation, they tried hard to modernize the country, and the efforts to counter them were usually backed by the Chinese.

 

2. As for the Vietnamese:

 

I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life.

 

^ Those are Ho's words.

 

 

1. You might want to drum up that obscure historical fact, real hard, for a decade or so, so the Koreans start giving enough of a fkuc to put it sorta like this in their history books:

"Dirtbag Japanese invaded us twice

and the Chinese were a drag the second time around."

 

2. hey, just compare cuisines... whose shit is bound to stink more, french or Chinese? In any case, i bet Ho´s words about the Japanese were un-quotable and went something like "i would love to shit IN the still beating hearts of Japanese newborns and wipe my ass with their mother´s spleens".

 

Anyhow, sure the Chinese were awful neighbors, they exerted hegemony over the whole region for millennia and are revisiting those exertions, but hey, they were the Romans of the region, fondly remembered civilizing mudderfuggers, whereas the Japanese are, well, the Huns...

Edited February 25, 2015 by toysoldier

[toysoldier]

So true i double posted

Edited February 25, 2015 by toysoldier

[JasonJ]

If it wasn't the Japanese the second time around, it would have been the Russians, or at least, a Russian Korea in the north and a Japanese Korea in the south, ensuring another war to take place between Japanese and Russians over Korean land. Korea was trapped in the world of big powers. It is going to take smarter thinking and smarter action than simpleton "They invaded us twice!" thinking to preserve their statehood and avoid the outcome of the many other ethnicities in history that lost their statehood. I'm not saying that they are irrational in having some anguish, but a look at the big picture and wise course of action is needed in their case. One wise thing is to let present materialism wash away the old memories and to allow that to create new opportunities of bond making.

Edited February 25, 2015 by JasonJ

[JasonJ]

BTW, when the US led forces and South Koreans defeated the North Koreans and just about nearly reunited the country, it wasn't Japan that invaded with millions, saved the Norks, and preserved the division of Korea.

Edited February 25, 2015 by JasonJ

[toysoldier]

And yet they loath Japan the most... wonder what makes Japanese so... irksome.

BTW, just came out and say it... spare us the verbiage

 

I'm not saying that they are irrational in having some anguish, but a look at the big picture and wise course of action is needed in their case. One wise thing is to let present materialism wash away the old memories and to allow that to create new opportunities of bond making.

you really want to say it, loud and proud: Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere!

don't deny yourself the pleasure.

[urbanoid]

And at the same time the Japanese don't really give a fck about that, they seem simply bored by those hatefests that the Koreans seem to enjoy.

[toysoldier]

And at the same time the Japanese don't really give a fck about that, they seem simply bored by those hatefests that the Koreans seem to enjoy.

Bingo! that´s why they can´t let go of the hate!

[JasonJ]

And yet they loath Japan the most... wonder what makes Japanese so... irksome.

BTW, just came out and say it... spare us the verbiage

 

 

I'm not saying that they are irrational in having some anguish, but a look at the big picture and wise course of action is needed in their case. One wise thing is to let present materialism wash away the old memories and to allow that to create new opportunities of bond making.

 

you really want to say it, loud and proud: Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere!

don't deny yourself the pleasure.

It was the Japanese know-how that Park understood and used to get Korea up on its feet. And I recall that he kind of liked Japan as well. The hate is mixed with some respect in that they do know that the Japanese know how to get things working effectively. So they hate them for history. They also hate them since they are competition. But now, they hate is actually not as bad as you may think. They certainly don't shy from using the Japanese language to attract Japanese shoppers into their stores for sales. And I have seen plenty of Korean tourists in Japan. Once in Osaka castle, I asked for a photo with my GF in Japanese. "Ah, we are Korean but ok" After taking the picture for us, "gamsahamnida" I replied to them. Also after a stroll in a Bhuddist temple, I ate at a small outdoor shop. Four young men ordered in Japanese before me. When I sat and waited for my ordered, I heard them talking in Korean. It wasn't snarling sounding speech. 優しい韓国語で話した。I thought.. nice sounding Korean. When they finished they politely said thanks for the meal and the shop keeper like they always are, in Osaka dialect, thanked them. Civilized. How many car bombings committed by Koreans have you heard of in Japan? The old generation call the Japanese by all the derogatory words in the book. Well let them. But the younger generation do not have good reason yet like those before them to continue the hate trend. Same can be said to the Japanese side. The older ones will hate. Well not all, I know of a few older women at least that enjoy good Korean drama shows. The younger generation have little reason to continue the hate trend.

 

Compared to China, Korea and Japan are more open, have freedom of religion and expression, and breath materialism. Conditions are pretty good. But Korea still has North Korea to be sensitive about and certainly looking angry at Japan will get Korea some easy points with the PRC money bag. But would Korea risk losing their hard earned democracy and freedoms for more closeness with PRC? I think not. The Korean hate is also in some ways functional. Japan has very strong soft power and Korea will want to be sure to not let too much of it in. One more thing that upsets Korea is the Yasukuni Shrine. I can understand that. It's a present day issue that keeps dragging up feelings of the past. If the cemetery was themed differently, then it would be less offensive if a PM visited there.

Edited February 25, 2015 by JasonJ

[chino]

In the early 80's (or late 70's) my friend's father - ethnic Chinese Singaporean - visited S Korea for an exploratory trip as he was in the travel business. Back then Korea was backwards and thing like today. It was still martial law or something.

 

He said the Koreans generally showed him discourtesy - as he was clearly neither Korean nor Japanese. One even cross the street to yell abuse at him.

 

Yet, the hatred they have for the Japs was stronger than for the Chinese. (Though I am surprised Koreans actually still bought Jap cars though in much smaller numbers than elsewhere.)

 

They hate the Chinese for the Korean War, but the Chinese did not ill-treat or genocide the South Koreans. They were there to fight the South and the Allies and if they did kill Korean civilians, it was nothing compared to the opposing Koreans themselves or even the Americans, who did do a few massacres here and there of Korean civilians.

 

And the Chinese occupation of Korea in the medieval times was probably also a lot less brutal than that of the Japanese.

[sunday]

Bringing Communism to a country is not much different than practicing genocide.