Apparently, I’m being a little hard on my students. Do you think so?
For the record, two of you did question 3, two did question 4a and two did question 5.
Category Archives: Korea Since 1700 (Spring 2010)
Final Exam posted
I realized during class that I hadn’t actually posted the final exam online, though I’d given you paper copies. Here it is, just in case you lose your handouts.
North Korea in Pictures
Here’s a Foreign Policy photoessay from 2009 (registration required) by a photographer whose speciality is still-Communist societies after the fall of the Soviet Union and most other Communist states. Here’s his latest, on an unabashedly Maoist town in China.
Reparations and Remains
Japan Focus has a round-up of articles about current issues in Japan-Korea historical reconciliation. I’m particularly interested in the Ahn Jung-geung articles: I understand why he’s considered a hero in Korean history, though I do think there’s some oddity in the current push to raise his profile.
North Korean Pavilion at Shanghai Expo
We now have pictures and a brief description of the soon-to-be-open North Korean pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai. I don’t think it’s actually going to change many minds about North Korea….
Heir Apparent Appears
Kim Jong Il’s third son, Kim Jong Un, hasn’t been seen in public by the West in a decade or more, but Japan’s Mainichi Shinbun thinks they spotted him. More importantly, he’s starting to take the positions that Kim Jong Il did before he took over from Kim Il Sung. So, maybe.
South Korea’s Suicide Rate
The Washington Post reports on the relatively recent and dramatic rise. It’s worth noting that ‘stress’ is not usually considered a factor in suicide risk assessment, no matter how easy it would be for journalists if it were. Nor does the internet actually increase suicide risk, though the ‘contagion’ factor of famous cases might have some basis in actual science.
Colonial Ethnography
Sayaka Chatani at Frog In a Well has an interesting post on anthropological and folklore studies in Colonial Korea, particularly about one ethnographer who seems to have taken a surprisingly sympathetic and marxist view of his subject.
Were Koreans interned with Japanese in WWII? No.
According to Wayne Patterson — the foremost scholar in English on Korean immigration — Koreans on the US mainland were exempted from evacuation and other restrictions by the Justice Department, which very carefully wrote Korean exceptions into their anti-Japanese regulations and orders. (The Ilse, p. 196) In Hawai’i, however, the military governorship there considered them Japanese nationals and they were formally subject to the same restrictions as other enemy aliens; in reality, many of the restrictions were not enforced, but the Korean community lobbied hard with the government, the military and the press to get their anti-Japanese stance officially recognized. Due to some concern about possible infiltration and shady individuals within the community, military intelligence balked until late ’43, about half a year before military rule in Hawai’i territory came to an end. (pp. 181-206)
North Korean Studies
The NYT has a review of several new books on North Korea.