Psst . . . Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami

Even the Mike is Green

There was this great big screaming capitalized MOMENT OF INSPIRATION:

In 1978 Murakami was in the bleachers of Jingu Stadium watching a baseball game between the Yakult Swallows and the Hiroshima Carp when Dave Hilton, an American, came to bat. According to an oft-repeated story, in the instant that he [i.e., Dave Hilton] hit a double, Murakami suddenly realized that he could write a novel. He went home and began writing that night.

The story almost seems to say a man of great screaming . . . or do I mean great scheming?

Sun-Ae slightly injured in fall . . .

Dangerous Floor!
Japan a Safe Country?
Google Images

My wife and two children are in Japan for four days, and I received an alarming email about 12:30 a.m. Saturday:

Daddy, Mama slipped on the bathroom floor and got a fracture on her right arm (wrist). We managed to get her to the emergency center at a nearby hospital and now she has a bandage cast. Also, she's taking painkillers. Nothing too serious, but inconvenient for Mama since she has to have a cast on for 6 weeks. Anyway, I'll take good care of her, so don't worry too much.

That was from my elder child, but I answered immediately to Sun-Ae:

I am worried. I hope the pain is not bad. I wish I were there to take care of you. I hope your trip is not ruined. I am going to bed and hope to hear tomorrow that you can still enjoy the trip.

I wrote again around 5:00 p.m. Saturday, worried that I'd heard nothing all day:

How is your arm? . . . [Are the kids] taking good care of you? . . . Let me hear from you . . .

About 8:30 p.m., an answer came, first from the younger:

Mama is okay. We got up at 12:00 PM . . . [and are] taking good care of Mom.

Then from the elder:

Actually, Mama is taking so good care of herself that I keep forgetting the fact that she can't use her right arm. She even uses chopsticks with her left hand. I guess this proves that she's the most talented (not sure if this is the right term) in our family. Anyway, nothing to worry about! Hope you have a great time enjoying the two days left by yourself.

I now sign off here to answer there . . .

Terminator Machines?

Terminatress?
The Star Online

In my Rhetoric and Composition course, we're currently reading about Japanese robots as a possible solution to Japan's demographic problem, its low birthrate, but the article is about five years old and therefore out of date in such a fast-moving field, so I was gratified to see this recent article on Japanese robots: June H. L. Wong's "When humans need not apply" (The Star Online, May 20, 2015):

Robotics is now the biggest thing since the Internet. Japan, described as the world's most robot-savvy nation, wants to lead the charge. Last Friday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe launched the Robot Revolution Initiative, partnering with the private sector . . . . The Japanese are, admittedly, rather unusual in their ready acceptance of humanoid robots in their midst but I don't think other people are that far behind . . . . Like the Industrial Revolution more than 200 years ago, the robot revolution is bringing about great changes but perhaps with unimaginable consequences . . . . [for] the human mind be replaced by the mechanical mind in many jobs . . . . Yuji Honkawa, a 47-year-old equities trader at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, lost his job after 20 years because automated traders could file orders much faster than him . . . . If I thought my profession was safe, I was wrong. There are robot journalists too. According to the Humans Need Not Apply video, bots can write about anything. One company claims its artificial intelligence platform can create "narratives that rival your best analyst or writer, produced at a scale, speed and quality only possible with automation" . . . . [H]umankind could well face its worst enemy in 14 years. That is the predicted date - 2029 - when artificial intelligence overtakes human intelligence and achieves "the singularity", the point when men and machines converge, with machines ultimately taking over . . . . Which company is most single-minded in pursuing this singularity? The answer is Google, which The Guardian has described as "assembling the greatest artificial intelligence laboratory on Earth" . . . . Google’s near dominance of almost every facet of our digital lives from ground up to sky down has spooked many who have likened it to The Terminator's Skynet, the military artificial intelligence system spread out over millions of computer servers that became self-aware and wanted to kill and enslave humans. Don't believe me? Just Google it!

Well, that'll certainly solve everyone's demographic problem. A final solution.

Also for reading the atmosphere of a too quiet classroom in Korea . . .

Have some nunchi?

Illustration by Rose Wong

NYT

In "Looking Another Culture in the Eye" (NYT, September 13, 2014), Erin Meyer tells of a recent educational experience she had in Tokyo:

While traveling in Tokyo recently with a Japanese colleague, I gave a short talk to a group of 20 managers. At the end, I asked whether there were any questions or comments. No hands went up, so I went to sit down. My colleague whispered to me: "I think there actually were some comments, Erin. Do you mind if I try?" He asked the group again: "Any comments or questions?"

Still, no one raised a hand, but this time he looked very carefully at each person in the silent audience. Gesturing to one of them, he said, "Do you have something to add?" To my amazement, she responded, "Yes, thank you," and asked me a very interesting question. My colleague repeated this several times, looking directly at the audience members and asking for more questions or comments.

After the session, I asked my colleague: "How did you know that those people had questions?" He hesitated, not sure how to explain it, and then said, "It has to do with how bright their eyes are."

He continued: "In Japan, we don't make as much direct eye contact as you do in the West. So when you asked if there were any comments, most people were not looking directly at you. But a few people in the group were looking right at you, and their eyes were bright. That indicates that they would be happy to have you call on them."

Ms. Meyer goes on to note that an absence of this ability to spot what people want has a name:

In Japan, there is an expression popular with young people: "kuuki yomenai." Often shortened to "K.Y.," it refers to someone who is unable to read the atmosphere.

This inability is the opposite of what the Koreans call nunchi (눈치, pronounced "noonchi"), an ability to read the atmosphere of a situation. But Koreans also have an expression for the inability to read atmosphere: nunchi eoptta (눈치 없다), meaning "nunchi is lacking."

The next time I inquire whether my Korean students have any questions, I'll remember to look for the shining eyes . . .

A Thousand Falls . . .

Amazon

A couple of years ago, I read a review of David Mitchell's Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and asked myself, "A Writer I Ought to Read?" Convinced that the answer should be affirmative, I did read, but I started with his earlier works and read my way up to the reviewed novel above, which I bought for myself Saturday afternoon during my late-stage Christmas shopping. Based on my experience reading his other works, I'm very much looking forward to this, albeit with some trepidation after reading the second paragraph of the "author's note":

Throughout the novel, the lunar calendar is used to denote Japanese dates. The lunar calendar could be anything from three to seven weeks "behind" the Gregorian calendar, depending on the year. Thus "the First Day of the First Month" corresponds not to January 1 but to a varying date between the back end of January and the rear middle of February. Years are referred to by their Japanese era names.

This means that I'm never really going to know what time it is -- not that anyone else really cares, least of all at twenty-five or -six to four as I type these words -- but which can be an annoyance for a precise sort of fellow such as myself. I know, however, from my above-noted experience, that the extra trouble will be repaid in literary pleasure, so I'll forge ahead. Besides, since Mitchell does provide the Western year in which the story begins, there's likely a record online giving equivalent dates in the West's Gregorian and the Japanese lunar calendars.

Speaking of Mitchell, I am awaiting a nearby showing of Cloud Atlas in Seoul, whenever that might be . . .

Dokdo Shown as Korean Territory in Japanese Textbook?

Dokdo in Japanese Textbook?

Korea Herald

Any expat who's spent a bit of time in Korea -- say, five minutes -- has already heard an earful on the Dokdo issue, those two rocks in the Sea of Japan (known to Koreans as the East Sea) that are claimed by Japan but possessed by Korea. Both countries point to maps as proof of valid possession, but the maps are often obscure and the arguments convoluted. Officially, my position is that Dokdo belongs to Korea. Unofficially, how would I know? I'm no expert. But to my relatively uninformed mind, Korea has a stronger claim, and for two reasons.

First, when Japan officially declared Dokdo (which they call Takeshima) to be Japanese territory in 1905, they did so on the basis of terra nullius, namely, that the rocks were land unclaimed by any state, evidence that Japan was not basing its official claim on longstanding Japanese possession.

Second, Japan actually seems to have considered the islets as Korean possessions, according to an article in Wednesday's Korea Herald, "Japan's old textbooks show Dokdo as Korean territory" (August 29, 2012):

Japanese textbooks from the late 19th century, written and published by the country's Culture Ministry at the time, indicate Dokdo as Korean territory, the Independence Hall of Korea announced on Tuesday[, noting that these] . . . textbooks -- mostly from the 1880s and some from the early 1900s -- prove that Japan's current claim over the islets is false . . . . "These books were written and published by the Japanese government at the time," said the Independence Hall of Korea institution, after unveiling five textbooks and two sets of maps of Japan to the public . . . . "This shows that the Japanese government did not consider Dokdo as part of their territory before Japan took over the islets during the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. This is another clear proof that Japan stole Dokdo even before it annexed Korea."

I'm a bit perplexed, however, by the map shown above, for its English caption reads as follows:

A map in a Japanese textbook published by the nation's Culture Ministry in 1896 shows Dokdo as belonging to Korea. The shaded areas around the Korean Peninsula indicate Korean territory and Dokdo is shown within them.

The Korean caption, however, uses the date 1887, which left me wondering if that were the actual date given for the textbook in the photo. Both dates are before 1905, of course, and either date would therefore establish Korea's prior claim -- if the tiny easternmost island depicted on the map represents the Dokdo islets (very likely) and if the shaded areas do indicate possession (entirely plausible) -- but carelessness never inspires confidence. I tried contacting the Korea Herald with the following query:

Dear Ms. Lee,

In the online article on Dokdo:

Here.

I see two different dates beneath the map: 1887 in Korean and 1896 in English.

I am intending to post a blog entry on this textbook, so I need to know which date is correct.

Also, does the textbook explicitly state that the shaded areas are national territory?

I ask not to challenge (since I side with Korea on Dokdo) but to clarify.

Best Regards,

Jeffery Hodges

In return, I received this from the "Postmaster" at the Korea Herald:

Action: failed

I tried from a different email. My wife then tried from hers. All three failed. So much for the Herald's openness to its readers. Meanwhile, the JoongAng Daily, in an article by Kim Hee-jin, "Old Japanese textbooks state 'Dokdo is Korea's'" (August 30, 2012), seems to clarify the date as 1887, for apparently the same map is depicted. Neither map identifies the island, so far as I can see, though the island definitely looks correct for Dokdo's position.

But I'd still like to know for certain if the Japanese textbook with this map explicitly states that the shaded areas are national territory . . .

A Proverbial Saying on Wine?

Li Bai Chanting a Poem

Liang K'ai (13th Century)

Wikipedia

I came across a 'proverbial' saying yesterday, or it seemed, though I had my doubts as to the proverbial provenance of these words:

Such is the rapture of wine, that the sober shall never inherit.

I read it, did a double-take, then read it again, and again. And again. Something was wrong, and I don't mean the enthusiasm for drunken imbibing of the Dionysiac spirit. Something was wrong with the grammar. After a few moments' reflection, I managed to see the problem. The first clause sets up an expectation that the rapture of wine will do something in the second clause, that something will result from that rapture. Instead, we find the sober as subject, and the sober were not doing something! As if the rapture of wine somehow caused the sober not to inherit. An odd result, that!

I checked around on the internet and found this, the final two lines being what I sought, more or less:

A Vindication

If heaven loved not the wine,
A Wine Star would not be in heaven;
If earth loved not the wine,
The Wine Spring would not be on the earth.
Since heaven and earth love the wine,
Need a tippling mortal be ashamed?
The transparent wine, I hear,
Has the soothing virtue of a sage,
While the turgid is rich, they say,
As the fertile mind of the wise.
Both the sage and the wise were drinkers,
Why seek for peers among gods and goblins?,
Three cups open the grand door to bliss;
Take a jugful, the universe is yours.
Such is the rapture of the wine,
That the sober shall never inherit.

A bit more checking located the author, the great 8th century Chinese poet Li Bai (701-762), who often wrote verse in praise of wine. But who had provided what seemed to me an awkward translation? More searching uncovered the answer: Shigeyoshi Obata (1888-1971). Here's the book this Japanese man published in English of Li Bai's Chinese poetry, though the name is transliterated as "Li-Po":

The Works of Li-Po, The Chinese Poet: Done into English Verse by Shigeyoshi Obata, With an Introduction and Biographical and Critical Matter, Translated from the Chinese (London and Toronto: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1923)

The use of the definite article before the first reference to wine seems odd, and would be awkward in prose, but it's not impossible, especially in a poem. I should also note that I don't know what "Wine Star" and "Wine Spring" refer to, though this is no fault of the translator, simply pure ignorance on my part (although some footnotes would be helpful). But what's this about "the sage" and "the wise"? Are they different? The two words "sage" and "wise" are synonyms. And "gods" and "goblins"? To seek peers among the gods would be an overweening ambition, but would anybody desire to seek peers among goblins? And should "turgid" be "turbid"? The word "turgid" is placed in contrast with the term "transparent" two lines above, but that better fits a contrast with "turbid." There must be some degree of inadequacy to this translation of what appears to be an intriguing poem. As for my initial puzzlement, I see the solution: Replace "That" with "Which," for the second clause is not an adverbial result clause but a nonrestrictive relative clause. The first clause now points not ahead but behind, to words that promise wine's ability to rapture the drinker to the heights of the universe, where one is lord of all one surveys! The word "Which" in the second clause would probably refer not to "the rapture of wine," but to possession of the universe (i.e., "the universe is yours"), a possession uninherited by the sober, who never "Take a jugful."

The title is nicely done, however, being a subtle pun on wine: "A Vindication."

Grave News about Jesus in Japan . . .

Christ's Grave Notice

Photo by Andrew Pothecary

CNNGO

Graphic designer Andrew Pothecary, an occasional photographer, took the above photo for a CNN report offered in an article, "Did Jesus Christ live and die in northern Japan?" (CNN Global Experiences, February 16, 2012). The short answer, of course, is "No" -- and the long answer is "Hell No!" -- but this 'grave' notice begs to differ:

When Jesus Christ was 21 years old, he came to Japan and pursued knowledge of divinity for 12 years. He went back to Judea at age 33, and engaged in his mission. However, at that time, people in Judea would not accept Christ's preaching. Instead, they arrested him and tried to crucify him on a cross. His younger brother, Isukiri casually took Christ's place and ended his life on the cross.

Christ, who escaped the crucifixion, went through the ups and downs of travel, and again came to Japan. He settled right here in what is now called Herai Village, and died at the age of 106.

On this holy ground, there is dedicated a burial mound on the right to deify Christ, and a grave on the left to deify Isukiri.

The above description was given in a testament by Jesus Christ.

I suppose I should try to figure out precisely how this legend came about, but I lack the time and energy. Supposedly, according to Pothcary, "a local Shinto priest came across the 'evidence' now housed in the museum in 1935." I think Pothecary means that the Shinto priest came across some document in 1935. I suspect that the Shinto priest read some Gnostic writings, for a few Gnostic texts speak of Judas Iscariot (i.e., Isukiri) as being crucified instead of Jesus. The identification of Judas as Jesus's brother might stem from the Gospel of Thomas, which -- if I recall -- refers to "Judas Thomas" (a different Judas) as the brother of Jesus. The name "Thomas" is Aramaic, by the way, and means "twin" (rendered in the Greek version as "Judas Didymus," i.e., "Judas the Twin"). Somebody has undoubtedly looked into all this, so I need not do so.

As for the 'grave' notice, I like how Judas "casually" takes the place of Jesus on the cross -- I can just imagine Judas walking up to the arrested Jesus and saying, "Hey, Bro, I'll take it from here, 'cause I'm feelin' kinda guilty 'bout betrayin' you an' all . . ."

Swept Away . . .

"The Man Who Sailed His House"
GQ October 2011

True Story of Hiromitsu Shinkawa
By Michael Paterniti

Illustrations by Yuko Shimizu

"Later, lost far at sea, when you're trying to forget all you've left behind, the memory will bubble up unbidden: a village that once lay by the ocean . . ."

With these words begins the story of Hiromitsu Shinkawa, a man who, two days after the Japanese tsunami, "was found, alone, riding on nothing but the roof of his house," nearly ten miles out at sea. I remember reading of this man in the news at the time, something like the rumor of a distant miracle, the report of a very lucky man who had survived the tsunami, but Paterniti retells the tragic tale as though it were our own poignant memory.

Hiromitsu Shinkawa's home survived the earthquake, as he and his wife discovered in returning from work immediately after the shaking had ceased, and they had sufficient time to head for higher ground, but did not, trusting that their property lay far enough up from the sea to be safe even if a tsunami should strike, which it does, a wave so large beyond all expectations that it comes to sweep everything away, even us:

And that's when you know you've been caught out, that you've squandered what time you had, that you must trust this house of concrete you've built to stand up to the sea. Your wife joins you on the second-floor terrace, reporting that she, too, saw the neighbor's house wash away. "We should run," she says, but you say, "It's too late." And then: "We'll be fine." Her arms circle your waist and lock there, while you stand stock-straight, gazing at the mountain, without daring to look back at the sea. These will be your last words to her -- We'll be fine. And you've already departed your body when everything seems to break beneath your feet and a roaring force crashes over you.

You never see your wife again, as you, improbably, survive. I owe a hat tip to my friend Malcolm Pollack, without whose link I would probably never have read this "almost unbearably poignant tale of the Japanese tsunami."

Sam Anderson's Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami

Photo by Nobuyoshi Araki

New York Times

If you want to read some good writing on a good writer, go to Sam Anderson's long piece for the New York Times Magazine on "The Fierce Imagination of Haruki Murakami" (October 21, 2011). It's clever, humorous, and eminently readable. Also imminently readable if you just click here. I had my daughter Sa-Rah read it aloud to me for her English lesson the other day, and she commented that it was fun to read even if it was supposed to be educational. We both remarked on this passage by Anderson describing Murakami's decision to become a writer:

His career as a writer began in classic Murakami style: out of nowhere, in the most ordinary possible setting, a mystical truth suddenly descended upon him and changed his life forever. Murakami, age 29, was sitting in the outfield at his local baseball stadium, drinking a beer, when a batter -- an American transplant named Dave Hilton -- hit a double. It was a normal-­enough play, but as the ball flew through the air, an epiphany struck Murakami. He realized, suddenly, that he could write a novel. He had never felt a serious desire to do so before, but now it was overwhelming. And so he did: after the game, he went to a bookstore, bought a pen and some paper and over the next couple of months produced "Hear the Wind Sing," a slim, elliptical tale of a nameless 21-year-old narrator, his friend called the Rat and a four-fingered woman.

That passage flows so well. But it also describes something inexplicable and worth knowing about, an anecdote to relate at dinner parties among erudite friends or beery sessions with aimless youth. How does Murakami himself remember the moment? Read here:

I remember that Yasuda was pitching for the Swallows. He was a short, stocky sort of pitcher with a wicked curve. He easily retired the side in the top of the first inning, and in the bottom of the inning the leadoff batter for the Swallows was Dave Hilton, a young American player new to the team. Hilton got a hit down the left field line. The crack of bat meeting ball right on the sweet spot echoed through the stadium. Hilton easily rounded first and pulled up to second. And it was at that exact moment that a thought struck me: "You know what? I could try writing a novel."

That's from Murakami's book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, but I read it in the New York Times interactive on "Murakami's Tokyo," which accompanies Anderson's article.

I need to read more by both Anderson and Murakami . . .

Yi Gwang-su: Pro-Japanese?

Yi Gwang-su

(Image from dosan.org)

Professor Kim Seong-kon published another interesting article in the Korea Herald today, "Humans between angels, demons" (September 7, 2011), which again lamented the Korean tendency toward extremes:

Koreans tend to think that the world is made of left-wing progressives and right-wing conservatives only, and do not realize the existence of neutral liberals and moderate traditionalists.

Kim finds this tendency especially characteristic of the Korean left:

Historically, leftists have always been extremely exclusive and hostile toward non-leftists. And they always want a scapegoat they can condemn, so they can be immune from criticism and look honest instead.

For that reason, suggests Kim, Koreans -- especially Korean leftists -- are harshly critical of Yi Gwang-su:

Perhaps this is why Korean leftists began condemning Yi Kwangsu in the 1970s and 1980s as an unpardonable pro-Japanese intellectual. There were so many pro-Japanese Korean intellectuals during the Japanese occupation. Why, then, does only Yi Kwangsu have to be blamed and condemned so severely as if he was an unpardonable sinner?

Obviously, Korean leftists chose Yi Kwangsu, the father figure of modern Korean literature, as a scapegoat, so they could be safe and looked absolutely righteous and truthful. Besides, leftist writers surely wanted to deny the authenticity of modern Korean literature by claiming that it was wrong from the beginning and thus invalid, because it was tainted by unpatriotic activities of its leader Yi Kwangsu.

Then, they wanted to replace authentic Korean literature with left-wing literature, which they thought was the absolute truth. Once again, the "we're always right; all others are invariably wrong" mentality prevailed in the ruthless leftist campaign to criticize Yi Kwangsu.

This is an intriguing argument concerning bias among literary critics. I'm too ignorant of Korean history and Korean literature to hold a firm opinion, but Kim's point is plausible. Perhaps the Korean left did attack Yi Gwang-su not merely because he was pro-Japanese (though the degree to which he was pro-Japanese is disputed) but also because he was the founder of modern Korean literature, which needed -- or so leftists thought -- to be replaced by socialist literature. I'd be interested in knowing more on this point. At any rate, Kim goes on to mount a defense of Yi Gwang-su by drawing upon Lee Joong-o's psychological analysis and citing Yi Gwang-su's own words:

In his insightful, thought-provoking book, "Apology for Yi Kwangsu," Lee Joong-o, a psychiatrist and professor emeritus of SUNY/Buffalo points out that . . . [the "either/or" mentality of excluding others] is, in fact, a mental disease that requires therapy. Intellectuals and writers should say, "No!" when all people say "Yes!" However, many Korean intellectuals and writers do not seem to have the courage to speak up and thus remain silent, even though they know something is seriously wrong. Other people, who are opportunistic, choose to join the trend and collaborate with the leftists in condemning Yi Kwangsu, which heightens what Lee called "the national frenzy."

Granted Yi Kwangsu was undeniably pro-Japanese, we still need to listen to what he had to say. In "My Confessions" Yi writes: "When I returned to Korea at the age 30, I dreamed of being a Gandhi for my country. Therefore, my pro-Japanese activities had nothing to do with my own personal benefits, safety or political power. Naively, I thought I did it for my people; I wanted to save the 38,000 Koreans whose name was on the Japanese colonial government's elimination list at the cost of my honor."

I wouldn't go so far as to label the mentality of "either/or" as a "mental disease," nor would I entirely trust Yi Gwang-su's confessional self-justification, but I do have some empathy for the man after a year-long struggle editing his novel The Soil, which my wife translated. Based on that novel alone, I wouldn't consider him whole-heartedly pro-Japanese, for his depiction of the Japanese is mixed. I realize that he changed, however, and became more of an apologist for Japan in the latter 1930s, though I know too little about that transformation to evaluate it properly. The man is a difficult case. See the Wikipedia entry on Yi Gwang-su concerning this complex issue of his fluctuating politics. Even during his nationalist period, he was strongly critical of Korea and Koreans, so a common thread might be traced through all his political changes. We should probably recall that he had been an orphan raised by followers of the Donghak religion, which carried out guerrilla attacks against the Korean government beginning in the 1892, the year he was born, so his earliest memories would have been of conflict with the Korean state several years before the Japanese colonial period.

I suppose the crucial question to consider in reflecting upon the critics of Yi Gwang-su is which Yi Gwang-su the critic is talking about. I don't think that we will get a rounded picture of the man until Koreans come to terms with the fact that "[t]here were so many pro-Japanese Korean intellectuals during the Japanese occupation," as Kim points out, and that rounded understanding will require Koreans to develop a less exclusivist "either/or mentality."

Haruki Murakami: "Reality A and Reality B"

United Airlines Flight 175

I often post on articles from the New York Times, but that's because I read the International Herald Tribune, which I started reading in the mid-1980s, back when it still contained articles not only by the New York Times but also by the Washington Post. Since 2003, however, it's been owned solely by the New York Times and has thus become "The Global Edition of the New York Times," or so it describes itself. And that's what I read.

Recently, within the past week -- last Friday, to be precise -- my copy of the paper included something titled Global Agenda 2011 and calling itself the International Herald Tribune Magazine. I don't yet know if this is a weekly, a monthly, or an end of the year special, but I was pleased to receive it.

This edition has a number of interesting articles, but something that especially caught my attention was a passage in the article "Reality A and Reality B" by the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. I then wondered if the article might also appear online and indeed found it along with the contents of the entire magazine posted on the "Opinion Pages" of the New York Times. Here's the passage from "Reality A and Reality B" that struck a chord in me:

When I hear the word "chaos," I automatically picture the scenes of 9/11 -- those shocking images that were shown a million times on television: The two jumbo jets plunging into the glass walls of the Twin Towers, the towers themselves crumbling without a trace, scenes that would continue to be unbelievable after a million and one viewings. The plot that succeeded with miraculous perfection -- a perfection that reached a level of near surreality. If I may say so without fear of being misunderstood, the scenes even appeared to be something made with computer graphics for a Hollywood doomsday film.

We often wonder what it would have been like if 9/11 had never happened -- or at least if that plan had not succeeded so perfectly. Then the world would have been very different from what it is now. America might have had a different president (a major possibility), and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars might never have happened (an even greater possibility).

Let's call the world we actually have now Reality A and the world that we might have had if 9/11 had never happened Reality B. Then we can't help but notice that the world of Reality B appears to be realer and more rational than the world of Reality A. To put it in different terms, we are living a world that has an even lower level of reality than the unreal world. What can we possibly call this if not "chaos"?

I wouldn't call our world "chaos," but it is a far more disorderly world than the one that I expected after the fall of communism, when the musings on the "End of History" by another Japanese writer, Francis Fukuyama, held rather more appeal to me than Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations."

"Reality A" is Huntington's world, and "Reality B" is Fukuyama's. I don't doubt that we're living in the former, but it does seem less 'real' than the latter. I still vividly recall watching United Airlines Flight 175 enter the glossy surface of the South Tower to the World Trade Center -- first on television that night in Osan, South Korea after arriving home from teaching my evening class at Hanshin University, then in my mind's eye as I tried to sleep later that night but couldn't as I tossed and turned with no place to turn -- and all those times that I watched this scene replay, it always felt unreal. My mind reeled then, and still does.

Murakami goes on to imply that our less real "Reality A" poses a problem for novelists, for "[i]n an age when reality is insufficiently real, how much reality can a fictional story possess?" I won't dispute his point that writing about our time is hard, for I've been writing with unease about the aftermath of 9/11 since the morning of 9/12, but I think that a far larger problem is posed for how we are to live in this 'unreality'.

If our time is characterized as by the clash of civilizations, what does this description mean? Each civilization equally? What is our civilization? Still what it used to be? Whose civilization are we clashing with? Really what it claims to be? How will we know if we've won? Exactly what'd winning be? Perhaps most importantly, who, or what, will we have become by the time this is all over? Something that we'd want to be?

No wonder our time seems unreal. Our questions are about our identity in this world, and we're not even certain what either is any more.

In this flux of identity in a changing world, we find perhaps even ourselves unreal.

David Mitchell Presents: An Unexpected Korean in Ueno Park

Shinobazu Pond

Ueno Park, Tokyo

(Image from Wikipedia)

I'm now reading David Mitchell's novel number9dream. Don't ask me why the title lacks interlexical spacing and capitalization. I don't know the answer.

The story so far (by page 133): Eiji Miyaki is searching through Tokyo for the father he's never met.

That's about it.

Well, not quite. He's already had several unusual adventures, not all of which occur in video games or his hyperactive imagination. One recent nonvirtual chance meeting with a certain Yuzu Daimon the previous eve has subsequently led him to an unexpected encounter in Ueno Park near Shinobazu Pond with the hostess from that evening, who had gone by the name "Miriam" in her place of employment but who perhaps has a different identity by day and apparently does not much care for Mr. Yuzu Daimon:

Her finger curses me as she hisses. "Tell him to go f**k himself! Tell him to sell his elopement fantasies to his squeaky schoolgirls! Tell him he is worth nothing! Tell him my country stopped being a Japanese colony at the end of the last war! Tell him if he tries to call I'll change my number! Tell him if he shows his face at my apartment I'll drive a fork into it! Tell Yuzu Daimon to slime away and die! And all of this applies to you, too!" (Mitchell, number9dream, page 133)

Hmmm . . . . "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." But she goes beyond protest to physical assault on Eiji Miyake's manhood, then adds insult to injury by coldly stating:

"I know exactly who you are, Eiji Miyake. You are a leech who tells lies for a living. Exactly like your father." (Mitchell, number9dream, page 133)

Well, this promises to get interesting for the reader . . . and for Eiji Miyake, too, if he can ever find Miriam again and persuade her to guide him to his anonymous father. Perhaps he will locate her, as soon as he's recovered enough to try. She's dropped a library book with a clue to her identity:

What book is it? I can't read a word -- it is in Korean. (Mitchell, number9dream, page 134)

Korea again. Didn't you already notice it in the "Japanese colony" reference? Mitchell may have spent his Asian years in Japan, but in his literary world, he often returns to Korea, and that makes his writing even more interesting for me.

Incidentally, the asterisks are my substitution, this being a family-oriented blog . . .

"Toward a Culture of Discussion," The Philosophy & Poetry Journal (Summer 2010)

East Asia

Spreading a Culture of Discussion

(Image from Wikipedia)

I learned this week about the publication of my article on the necessity for a culture of discussion in Asian societies (or anywhere, for that matter). It can be read online at the journal itself in my wife's Korean translation or here on Gypsy Scholar in my original English. For anyone interested, here's the journal information, with the link:

Horace Jeffery Hodges (호라스 제프리 하지스), "Toward a Culture of Discussion" ("토론 문화를 위해서"), The Philosophy & Poetry Journal (애지), Vol. 42 (Summer 2010), 25-38.

And here's the first paragraph of the Korean version:

1997년 싱가포르에서 '사고Thinking'를 주제로 한 제7차 국제회의가 열렸다. 여기에서 싱가포르의 철학자이자 외교관인 키쇼어 마흐부바니Kishore Mahbubani는 "아시아인들도 다른 사람들처럼 사고를 잘 할 수 있는가?"라는 상당히 도발적인 질문을 던졌다. 일 년 후에 그는 미국의 '내셔널 인터레스트National Interest'잡지에 "아시아인에게 사고는 가능한가?"라는 더욱 도발적이고, 거의 '모욕적인' 제목의 글을 기고했다. 이 글은 같은 해에 그가 동일한 제목으로 발간한 책의 일부를 차지하게 된다. 하지만 이 글은 저자가 의도했던 만큼 큰 반향을 불러일으키지 않았다. 3년 후에 2판을 찍어내면서 그는 이렇게 썼다: "무엇보다 실망스러웠던 것은 이 글이 발표된 후, 왜 아시아 사회와 문명이 유럽 문명보다 몇 세기 뒤쳐져 있는가 하는 질문이 아시아인들 사이에서 토론의 쟁점이 되지 못했다는 사실입니다."

The Korean translation of my entire article is a bit edited and thereby somewhat abbreviated, but here is the full, slightly longer English original:

Toward a Culture of Discussion

Horace Jeffery Hodges

Ewha Womans University

Introduction

In June 1997 at the 7th International Conference on Thinking, held in Singapore, the Singaporean philosopher and diplomat Kishore Mahbubani asked a singularly discomfiting question: "Can Asians think as well as others?" A year later in the National Interest, he followed up on this question by publishing an essay with the even more provocative, potentially insulting title, "Can Asians Think?" This essay became part of a book by the identical title that same year, but it failed to have the effect that Mahbubani intended, for as he writes three years later in the second edition, "My main disappointment with this essay is that it has not yet triggered a discussion among Asians on how and why their societies and civilizations fell several centuries behind European civilizations."

Mahbubani might not have triggered the discussion that he desired on the question of why Europeans rather than Asians experienced the Renaissance, Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution, but the topic of critical thinking among Asians was being broached by some Asian thinkers. For instance, the Thai philosopher Soraj Hongladarom presented a paper in 1998 on "Asian Philosophy and Critical Thinking: Divergence or Convergence?" that addressed Asia's lag behind Europe and noted several characteristics of Asian cultures that "prevent the full realization of critical thinking skills." Prominent among these are "the beliefs that teachers are superior and [thus] always right" and "that social harmony is to be preferred rather than asking probing questions." In short, discursive hierarchy and social harmony trump genuine discussion and critical thinking. Far from being dismissive about these things, Hongladarom holds that Asian societies perhaps once had valid reasons for deciding that "social harmony should take precedence over critical argumentation and open debates." In today's competitive, globalized world, however, he argues that Asian societies need real discussion and critical thinking.

Perhaps these interconnected issues deserve some discussion, and this discourse will necessarily be discursive, winding its way through such interrelated concepts as discussion itself, communicative action, discursive community, critical discourse, mockery, insults, free expression, critical thinking, self-irony, and various other correlatives of a culture of discussion.

What is Discussion?

But what is real, genuine discussion? In "Visions for Cities: Public Truth and Public Spaces," the Belgian philosopher Bart Verschaffel offers this rather stark answer, arguing that "discussion is a war game fought with questions and arguments to find out if somebody is right or not" based on "evidence or clarification and argument." But his metaphor of "war" is dubious because war is a zero-sum activity in which one side gains at the expense of the other, the object being to defeat the other side. That might better fit as metaphor describing the practice of competitive debate, where each side aims to win by vanquishing the other side, for those two sides are bellicose opponents, enemies. Discussion need not be debate in this sense of pitting mutual antagonists against one another. Since the aim is to attain truth, rather than to destroy an enemy, discussion can be a mutually beneficial 'game.' The metaphor of "game" also appears inadequate for the dialogue that takes place during discussion because "game" implies an artificial situation set off from the more serious business of life. As such, players follow the rules during play but eventually finish the game and walk away from it . . . until the next time to play. But discussion of the sort under consideration here proceeds according to rules that apply to all of life. One ought to have reasons and evidence for one's positions. The 'game' never really ends.

Perhaps the views of Jürgen Habermas on communicative action in his Theory of Communicative Action better express the role of discussion as a social activity that, ideally, pervades an entire culture because rationality in the form of argumentation is a capacity intrinsic to language. Granted, discursive argument is not the only sort of discourse, nor is culture defined solely by discourse, but Verschaffel seems to think of discussion as a more narrowly circumscribed activity of the sort that takes place in seminars. Yet even Verschaffel recognizes that discussion is a "dangerous game" because it, again ideally, poses questions about everything and gives every discussant an equal role. In principle, nothing is sacrosanct, and nobody is the final authority. It therefore transforms individuals and even society, and is thus potentially a destabilizing activity. One can readily understand why some societies have traditionally chosen to favor social harmony over rigorous discussion, as Hongladarom notes.

How Broad the Discursive Community?

Modern societies have decided that discussion is necessary, albeit threatening, but how free should expression be? Should free speech be accorded only statements that follow rigorous rules concerning reason and evidence? An interesting case arises with another theorist writing on a culture of discussion, the sociologist Alvin Gouldner, who described this sort of discourse in The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class. He referred to it in rather formal terms as the "culture of critical discourse" and held it to be specific to a new class of intellectuals. This discourse is characterized as "relatively more situation-free," meaning that it "forbids reliance upon the speaker's person, authority, or status in society to justify his claims." The ideal of such discourse is "one word, one meaning" for everyone always.

Gouldner saw this culture of critical discourse as the 'language' of a new intellectual class encompassing the sciences as well as the humanities. One wonders if critical discourse's rigorous ideal of "one word, one meaning" might not make discussion rather stilted if strictly applied to every term uttered in a discursive argument, but Gouldner was largely restricting his culture of critical discourse to the narrowly designated, new intellectual class that he had identified. In a genuine culture of discourse, however, the communicative group would need to be broadened to include, potentially, everybody in a society. But to do so would require loosening Gouldner's criteria a bit and noting the critical discursive actions that intellectuals share with other members of any society characterized by a culture of discussion. Fundamentally, this means the right of everyone to pose questions about anything with the expectation that answers should offer reasons and evidence.

Dealing with Mockery?

One intriguing question that arises, and not merely incidentally, is how one should respond to insulting mockery. The mocker perhaps does not accept the rules for a culture of discussion in a strict sense and offers not reasons and evidence but satirical insults. What ought one do if mocked? Should one follow the example of Gouldner himself? According to the noted essayist Scott McLemee in "Wide-Stance Sociology," Gouldner developed an antagonistic relationship with a doctoral student at Washington University named Laud Humphreys. When a satirical poster appeared in the sociology department depicting Gouldner as a bird of prey that feeds on personalities rather than on ideas, Gouldner suspected Humphreys as its author. The irate scholar sought out Humphreys in his graduate student office, struck him down with a blow to the face, and kicked him as he lay on the floor.

Confronted by insulting mockery, Gouldner seems to have believed that honor stained called for physical violence. In an earlier age, perhaps he would have challenged Humphreys to a duel. Did Gouldner betray his own principles, the rules of his very own culture of critical discourse? Whether or not Gouldner broke with his own theoretical system in attacking Humphreys, insults should in fact be protected speech in a culture of discourse because feeling 'insulted' is a purely subjective reaction. For example, some might feel insulted by the application of critical principles to the study of religion, but that cannot justify any right to physically attack the one applying such principles. Moreover, even calculated insults play a role in literature and the arts and ought to be protected speech.

A Miltonic Excursus

Turn therefore to one of the greatest of literary artists, John Milton. In his famous defense of what we would today call free expression, Milton utters a plea in Areopagitica for what he considers the most basic freedom: "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties." Why allow him that? Because he believes that through untrammeled utterance, truth will win, as he reminds his readers concerning truth only a few lines later in his text: "Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter." What should interest contemporary readers is that Milton apparently meant for this "free and open encounter" in the interest of truth to include polemics and even personal attacks.

One sees this sort of polemical, personal attack in Milton's insults of Anglican bishops in Book 1 of his Reason of Church-Government Urged against Prelaty, for he bluntly accuses them of habitually resorting to malicious slander and sophistry when their weak arguments fail them. Whether Milton be right or wrong in the substance of his accusations, he is being decidedly polemical in leveling personal attacks and even insults. He accuses others of slander. He might well be accused of it himself. Certainly, his opponents could well feel themselves insulted. Consider the polemical tone in his attack upon Anglican bishops with words that slur the Irish and the Catholics. He calls the Irish "murderous," designates them as "the enemies of God and mankind," and refers to them as the "cursed off-spring" of the Anglican bishops' "own connivance." The Anglican hierarchy, claims Milton, "maintains and fosters all papists and idolaters as tolerable Christians," a toleration that Milton deplores. Milton blames the bishops for an indifference to the souls of those under the sway of English rule, an indifference that left the Irish in their Catholic faith, but Milton also clearly has disdain for the Irish themselves, as well as for Catholics generally and (of course) for 'idolaters.' Obviously, Milton is hardly above slander, insults, and polemics generally, and he therefore must have felt himself free and justified to speak in insulting terms.

The Right to Insult?

Should such ad hominem attacks be permitted? As already maintained above, yes. Strictly speaking, personal attacks stand mostly outside a culture of discussion, for they are usually poor arguments for or against a substantive position. But they should be protected speech because the defensive wall constructed to guard free discussion needs to be at least as encompassing as the wall built around the Torah in Rabbinical Judaism. Absent that wall of protection, even a substantive statement could be taken as an insult, so if insults are not protected speech, substantive arguments could be forbidden. In a hierarchical society, for example, the substantive words of an individual lower in the hierarchy could be taken as insulting if such words merely question the views of someone higher in the social structure.

In Korea, Japan, and China, for example, with their strongly hierarchical social structure, precisely this sort of problem arises, such that the substantive disagreement of a 'junior' with a 'senior' can be taken as an insult by the latter. Critical arguments are thereby suppressed, and truth (as Milton would say) often suffers. This has been trenchantly discussed by the scholars Ho-Chul Lee and Mary Patricia McNulty in their article "Korea's Information and Communication Technology Boom, and Cultural Transition After the Crisis." In this article, they note that Confucian hierarchy stifles free expression because debating or criticizing individuals of higher rank is considered impolite. Korean culture therefore teaches people not to raise probing questions or to offer critical opinions, but to express themselves ambiguously rather than with a clear yes or no. This hinders Koreans from developing the culture of discussion fundamental to democracy and also to modern business. They attempt to save face, both their own and that of their interlocutor, thereby stifling free discussion and debate. Confucian values put priority on social etiquette over substance. The younger are supposed to respect and obey the older, just as the lower-ranked must respect and obey the higher-ranked, and this deference acts as a barrier to free expression.

From the research by Lee and McNulty, one sees just how subjective the sense of 'feeling insulted' can be. In East Asian societies shaped by Confucian values of hierarchy, any open expression of a contrary opinion can be taken as an insult by a higher-ranking individual, and the awareness of this by lower-ranking individuals can too often suppress uncomfortable truths. Without the right to insult, a free and critical culture of discussion can therefore not be achieved, and since the latter is necessary to the pursuit of truth, then 'insults' must be accepted as legitimate, legally protected expressions.

Core Critical Thinking

Insults might need to be protected speech, but at the core of a culture of discussion lies the ideal of critical thinking. What, however, is "critical thinking"? The consensus of approximately 200 experts has been summarized in "Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Counts," an article written by the philosopher and educational theorist Peter Facione, who notes the importance not only of skills but also of dispositions.

These experts say that in terms of skills, the ideal critical thinker consciously engages in self-regulated judgments about opinions held and actions needed. This requires several subsidiary skills, among these being the closely interrelated skills of interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference. Interpretation involves comprehending and expressing the meaning of what is being judged. Analysis involves identifying the logical relations among expressions stated. Evaluation involves assessing the credibility of statements made and the logical strength of the relations among these. Inference involves drawing reasonable conclusions and conjectures based on statements and evidence. Another subsidiary skill is explanation, which involves presentation of cogently stated reasons and clarification of the bases upon which a judgment is formed. Clearly, there is a lot 'involved' for rigorous critical thought.

But skills, as already noted, are not sufficient. The experts cited by Facione also identify various dispositions characteristic of the ideal critical thinker. According to them, a critical thinker should as a matter of course be curious, informed, rational, open-minded, flexible, fair, honest, prudent, reflective, clear, organized, searching, reasonable, focused, and persistent. Such a list of dispositions, and also of skills, is open-ended, for one could likely think of others to add, but the list as it stands summarizes the dispositions suggested by the experts and can serve, along with the skills, as a convenient statement of a complex ideal.

Because critical thinking is a powerful resource in personal and civic life, one aim of education in a culture of discussion should be to develop critical thinking skills and nurture the dispositions that can provide valuable insights and serve as the discursive core of a rational, democratic society. Producing critical thinkers would not be an educational system's sole aim, of course, for good thinking involves other things, such as ethical reasoning and creative imagination, but critical thinking is also relevant for these other aspects of thought as a pervasive, self-regulating phenomenon. Education alone cannot reform the discursive culture of an entire society, and perhaps relatively few individuals will develop the skills and dispositions to develop as outstanding critical thinkers, but an ideal of critical thinking can serve as an aim, and particular individuals can come to serve as its potential exemplars.

Conclusion

Facione's skills and dispositions, like Gouldner's culture of critical discourse, are rather technical elaborations of the reasoning intrinsic to a culture of discussion. What their explications generally have in common with those of Verschaffel and with Habermas is an emphasis upon reasons and evidence rather than upon the social position of the speaker. If a society wishes to develop a culture of discussion, then discursive hierarchy will require flattening and social harmony will need to be a possible consequence of discussion rather than a normative condition imposed at the outset. Hongladarom remarks that "Cultures, like humans, often make decisions which later are amended or revoked, with new decisions made, when things are not the same any longer. Decisions to prioritize one set of values over another are not etched in stone." But transforming an entire culture takes time. For example, the decision to construct a Confucian Korea may have been reached early in the Joseon Era, but the actual process took several hundred years and never fully succeeded against the more deeply entrenched Buddhism. A 'decision' to inculcate a culture of discussion will likely have faster results in the contemporary world, given the globalizing pressures that push individuals in this direction and the material rewards that are promised to follow, but the process, even so, will not be easy. Not only will one need skills in critical thinking, one will need the right disposition, and since a culture of discussion implies a right to insult, then that disposition will necessarily include a sense of self-irony. If such skills and dispositions are developed, Mahbubani might yet experience the wide-ranging discussion that he desires.

References

Facione, Peter A. "Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Counts." Insight Assessment.
Gouldner, Alvin W. The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class. New York: Seabury, 1979.
Habermas, Jürgen. The Theory of Communicative Action. Translated by Thomas McCarthy, Cambridge: Polity, 1984-1987.
Hongladarom, Soraj. "Asian Philosophy and Critical Thinking: Divergence or Convergence?" Third APPEND Seminar on Philosophy Education for the Next Millennium, May 6-8, 1998, Chulalongkorn University.
Hughes, Merritt Y., editor. John Milton: Complete Poems and Major Prose. Hackett Publishing Co., 2003.
Lee, Ho-Chul and Mary Patricia McNulty. "Korea's Information and Communication Technology Boom, and Cultural Transition After the Crisis." Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), April 18, 2004 .
Mahbubani, Kishore. Can Asians Think? Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2004.
McLemee, Scott. "Wide-Stance Sociology." Inside Higher Ed, September 12, 2007.
Verschaffel, Bart. "Visions for Cities: Public Truth and Public Spaces." Productivity of Culture, ECCM Symposium, October 17-21, 2007.

Well, there it is, my latest effort at 'thinking' things through to the end. At least it got published, so perhaps somebody will read it . . .

Japanese Nihonjinron an Influence on Korean Hanguginnon?

Robert N. Bellah

(Image from Robert N. Bellah)

Over the past decade or so, my old UC Berkeley advisor Robert Bellah has been writing his magnum opus, a deeply thought-out work on religious evolution that applies a Durkheimian-inspired, comparative, diachronic analysis to the several great world religious systems. I've read every chapter and offered some suggestions (mainly editorial), and therefore could let the cat out of the bag by revealing all of Bob's secrets . . . but I'll stay mum.

I can, however, reveal that he's nearing completion. Just yesterday, I read his 135-page chapter on India and admired his skill in analyzing the characteristic details and synthesizing the systemic features of a religious civilization that he freely admits approaching as an scholarly outsider. That chapter is his final one focusing on a single religious civilization. Basically, he needs only to write a conclusion, and the entire work will be finished, though he tells me that he's working on a preface and touching up one of the earlier chapters.

Anyway, I wrote him a note thanking him for letting me read the India chapter and apologizing for my six-month delay in doing so. As part of my explanation for being so tardy, I mentioned my own recent Daesan readings and scholarly writings, which have kept me busy above and beyond my teaching -- including my essay on Korean identity, which I linked to for him to take a look at. He read it quickly, and responded:

Your piece on Korea was interesting, especially since I have never really studied Korea. My only comment is that the recent ethnocentric nationalism that you describe is an almost exact copy of what is happening in Japan, where it is call nihonjinron, the theory of the Japanese, also unique, homogeneous by blood, and going back long before the imported religions. I wonder if the exposure of Koreans to Shinto, the religious expression of ethnocentric nationalism in Japan, did not influence the Koreans to develop their own counter version, that turns out to be structurally just like the Japanese.

I've heard of nihonjinron but know little about it. Bob's remark reminded me of the thesis proposed by Brian R. Myers concerning North Korean ideology, namely, that it is a blood-based fascism modeled upon Japanese fascism.

Be that as it may, I searched for a scholarly article on the question of Korean nationalism's debt, if any, to Japanese nationalism, and I found a paper by Han Kyung-Koo (Han Gyeong-gu), a professor in the Division of International Studies at Kookmin University. The paper is titled "The Anthropology of the Discourse on the Koreanness of Koreans" (Korea Journal, Vol. 43, No.1, Spring 2003, pp.5-31) and can be read online by clicking the underlined title.

Han's article looks at what is called "hanguginnon, the discourse on the Koreanness of the Koreans or hanguk munhwaron, the discourse on the Koreanness of Korean culture in modern Korea," and an entire section bears the heading 'The Influence of Nihonjinron on the Making of Hanguginnon' and states in its opening paragraph:

Many Korean writers of hanguginnon have been heavily influenced by nihonjinron in one way or another. Hanguginnon writers of the late Joseon period and of the colonial period tried to respond to Koreans' deepest desire for independence and modernization. In the process of supposedly defending Koreans' minds and souls in the age of imperialism and colonialism, they found it useful to adopt, consciously or unconsciously, many of the points and arguments of the nihonjinron writers of prewar Japan, which were also the outcome of Japan's troubled search for a new identity as well as the struggle against the West to regain self-confidence. Thus, in challenging Japanese colonialism, many Korean intellectuals ironically ended up consciously or unconsciously emulating the arguments of nihonjinron writers.

The article, at least in part, answers Bellah's question, as to whether "ethnocentric nationalism in Japan . . . influence[d] the Koreans to develop their own counter version," by offering a complex affirmative.

I'll leave the rest of the article for the interested to read, for it's a relatively brief and easy paper.

Park Wan-suh in Colonial Modernity in Korea

Colonial Modernity in Korea

(Image from Amazon.com)

In ranging about the internet yesterday in search of Pakchŏk Village, Park Wan-suh's birthplace, I came upon an article about another of her novels, this one in the book pictured above, Colonial Modernity in Korea, edited by Gi-Wook Shin and Michael Robinson. The article, by Kyeong-Hee Choi, is titled as follows:

Neither Colonial nor National: The Making of the "New Woman" in Pak Wansŏ's "Mother's Stake 1"

Note yet another variant on the romanization of her name: Pak Wansŏ. This sort of problem happens all the time with Korean names, and one must remain alert to possible variants on a name or else miss out on translated books and literary-critical articles. I'll stick to Park Wan-suh except when quoting.

At any rate, the novel treated -- Mother's Stake 1 (Ômma ûi Malttuk 1, 엄마의 말뚝 1) -- is the first in a trilogy, each volume of which is distinguished merely by a number: 1 (1980); 2 (1981); and 3 (1991). I note it here because it seems to be much the same story as Who Ate Up All the Shinga?, albeit perhaps more 'fictionalized'.

Anyway, Kyeong-Hee Choi makes the observation -- obvious also to any reader of the Shinga book -- that Park Wan-suh's trilogy hardly mentions any Japanese characters. Park seems not to share the intense nationalism with which so many Koreans now look back upon the colonial period, seeing constant oppression everywhere, but rather presents a more complex picture of colonial Korea. Choi cites Anne McClintock at the onset of her article, perhaps as representative of Park's apparent neglect of Korean nationalism:

All nationalisms are gendered, all are invented, and all dangerous . . . . Nowhere has feminism in its own right been allowed to be more than the maidservant to nationalism.

Park, however, also isn't explicitly feminist, at least not in Who Ate Up All the Shinga?, though her autobiography -- and moreso many of her fictional works, apparently -- leaves room for feminist interpretations.

I suppose that one could even frame Park's oeuvre in nationalist terms if one wished, but that would take a more nuanced nationalism than many Koreans are willing to concede when looking back upon the colonial past.

But I'll leave things at that for now.

Won Joon Choe on Korean Politics

Roh Moo-hyun

Asking for trouble . . .

. . . and he got it!

(Image from BBC)

The photo above comes from Kate McGeown's article "Raking over S Korea's colonial past," which appeard in the BBC News Online five years ago (August 19, 2004), when Roh (pronounced "Noh") was president of Korea and pressing for "investigations into the widespread collaboration which took place during colonial rule, and the repression of the military regimes which followed." President Roh insisted that "those whose ancestors collaborated with the colonial power -- or with the military governments in the 1960s -- must not face punishment." His critics retorted that Roh's proposal had "little to do with recording an accurate version of Korea's past -- and much more to do with discrediting his opponents." Roh's Uri (pronounced "ou-ree") party rejected the accusation, but one early consequence showed -- albeit ironically -- that the critics were right about the potential for Korea's past to discredit individuals today:

The chairman of the Uri Party, Shin Ki-nam, resigned on Thursday [August 19, 2004], becoming the first casualty of the campaign.

An enthusiastic supporter of Mr Roh's plan to investigate collaborators, Mr Shin even backed the setting-up of committees to name and shame those who worked for the Japanese.

When it was revealed that his own father had served as a sergeant in the colonial police force, Mr Shin felt he had little choice but to go -- even though he claimed the revelation was as new to him as it was to everyone else. (Kate McGeown, "Raking over S Korea's colonial past")

The fact that Shin Ki-nam had to resign shows how punishment for the sins of Korean fathers are visited upon their sons . . . even for the father's 'sin' of having been a mere sergeant in the police force under Japanese rule.

Our new friend Mr. Won Joon Choe -- who has commented recently on the Korean language as well as upon the ideas of Leo Strauss -- contributed an article, "South Korea's retrograde politics," to Asia Times around the same time (September 4, 2004) as the BBC article, and he commented upon President Roh's 'truth commission' investigation into Korea's colonial suffering as well as the impeachment proceedings launched against Roh that same year:

[M]any Western observers have misinterpreted the meaning of these events. Lacking a firm grasp of the historical and cultural context within which these events transpired -- and sometimes even ignorant of the basic facts about these events -- Western observers have crowed that the impeachment and its aftermath signal the ascension of the rule of law in South Korea and exulted that the proposed truth commission heralds a new era of openness.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The two events taken together, viewed in their proper context, teach a sobering lesson about the difficulties inherent in establishing a genuine liberal democracy atop an authoritarian and communal political culture, a lesson that those intoxicated with "regime change" elsewhere should heed. (Won Joon Choe, "South Korea's retrograde politics")

Mr. Choe reveals that what is really going on is more of less what went on in Korea during the late Chosun Dynasty:

Politics in Korea's last monarchy, the Chosun dynasty (1392-1910), was a vicious "winner-take-all" affair. The losers faced confiscation of their property, exile, and often execution. In a Confucian culture that elevated the rule of men over the rule of law, everything was permissible for those in power. Further, the sins of the fathers were not only visited on the children but on the grandchildren as well, as three generations of family members were enslaved or exterminated. Unfortunately, in spite of the glib rhetoric about South Korea's "vibrant democracy" in the Western media, South Korean politics today resemble the politics of the Chosun dynasty. (Won Joon Choe, "South Korea's retrograde politics")

I'll leave to readers the enjoyment of perusing the article themselves, which is very informative on Korean politics -- with its rule "by" law rather than rule "of" law -- and which is just as relevant now, five years later, but I will quote Mr. Choe's interesting conclusion, which offers a broader application than merely a perspective on Korea:

The persistence of the past and the absence of a genuine liberal political culture in South Korea are deeply troubling. South Korea has a robust economy with a large, well-educated middle class. Its popular culture is inundated with Americana. And if liberalization in such a country is only skin-deep, then one must ask: What hope is there for nations such as Iraq? (Won Joon Choe, "South Korea's retrograde politics")

Indeed. Well, we will certainly see about Iraq, whose tribal, ethnic, and religious divisions make Korean politics look like child's play. Moreover, Mr. Choe's remarks should help put to rest the suspicion in America that Leo Strauss was the intellectual godfather of Neoconservatism's drive to promote democracy everywhere, even at the price of American military intervention, for the 'Straussian' Mr. Choe appears to be profoundly skeptical of such efforts.

But judge for yourselves: read Mr. Choe's article.

Expat Living: "Is Obama a Muslim?"

Barack Hussein Obama

In Garb of Shinto Devotee?

(Image from Protected Source)

My most-recent Expat Living article has appeared in the Korea Herald at a most significant time, mere hours before voting begins for this year's US presidential election between John Sidney McCain III and Barack Hussein Obama II. Appropriately, therefore, I deal with this election's central issue:

Is Obama a Muslim?

The U.S. presidential elections are upon us, and the crucial, pressing question facing every American voter is this: Is Barack Hussein Obama a Muslim? To answer this thorny question, we must attempt to establish the facts.

From Obama's own remarks, we learn that in a visit to Japan, a customs official at Narita Airport stamping his visa noted the name "Obama" and said, "I'm from Obama," clearly implying that they both hailed from the same hometown. As is well known, Obama is a city located in Wakasa Province of Fukui Prefecture in Japan.

Barack Hussein Obama was himself not actually born in the city of Obama but in Honolulu, Hawaii. We know from statistics that Japanese make up the largest ethnic group residing in Hawaii -- a whopping 16.7 percent, even higher than the 16 percent native Polynesians! I therefore suggest that Obama's father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., belonged to the immigrant Japanese population in Hawaii. This inference is strongly supported by the equally strong possibility that the paternal surname "Obama" indicates the city of ultimate origin.

This is not an unusual phenomenon among surnames around the world. Take the surname "Scott." This is a Gaelic surname of Old Irish origin indicating that the paternal family originated in Scotland. Or consider the surname of the famous Irving Berlin, who wrote the lyrics and music to "White Christmas," one of the world's most-recorded songs -- though it cheated a bit to reach that stratospheric level, for it was sung by the ever popular Bing Crosby in two wildly popular Hollywood musicals, the 1942 film Holiday Inn and the 1954 film White Christmas.

Anyway, the surname "Berlin" implies that one's paternal family stems from the German city Berlin. Irving Berlin could thus have declared, along with President John F. Kennedy in 1963, "Ich bin ein Berliner." Not that he would have wanted to do so, for the indefinite article "ein" can suggest that the word "Berliner" refers to a jelly doughnut. Most Americans do not realize this fact, but continue to flush with pride at what they consider Kennedy's staunch support for freedom. Of course, if Kennedy had been identifying himself with the people of Hamburg or Frankfurt, Americans might instead flush with embarrassment to recall a president who referred to himself as a "Hamburger" or a "Frankfurter."

I suppose that I should mention that Irving Berlin's birth name was Israel Beilan, but on the sheet music to his first song, "Marie from Sunny Italy," his name was misprinted as "I. Berlin" -- which looks remarkably like a claim to be not merely a Berliner but the city itself! Interestingly, the surname "Beilan" was a misspelling his father's surname Baline, which implies that Irving Berlin's family actually originated from the island of Bali in the country Indonesia rather than Berlin in Germany. My point, however, remains valid, namely, that the surname "Berliner" indicates that one's paternal ancestors stemmed from Berlin.

By precisely the same logic, Barack Hussein Obama's paternal ancestors must have stemmed from the city Obama, located in Japan, as previously noted. Japan's Muslim population stands at about 60 to 70 thousand, mostly foreigners, with only some 6 to 7 thousand of these being native Japanese. Since the surname "Obama" clearly indicates that Obama's paternal family originally stems from the Japanese city of Obama, which is about five hours by train from Tokyo and has only slightly more than 30,000 inhabitants, then Barack Hussein Obama is statistically very unlikely to be Muslim.

I therefore tentatively conclude that Barack Hussein Obama is not Muslim . . . though he might be Shinto.

Jeffery is a professor at Ewha Womans University and can be reached through his blog Gypsy Scholar at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com. The opinions expressed here are not necessarily representative of The Korea Herald. -- Ed.

Such is my conclusion, and I stand by it even though it might affect the imminent presidential election by reducing Obama's support among WWII veterans of the Pacific theater's wartime operations, for such old soldiers might still hold grudges against the Japanese.

I apologize, however, for not having sufficient time to deal with this election's other pressing question, namely, could Americans trust a man named after a foreign city not even located in the Northern -- let alone Western -- Hemisphere?! I refer, of course, to John Sidney McCain III.

Michael A. Launius: "A political analysis of Japan's Dokdo claim"

Michael A. Launius

'terra nullius homo'

(Image: Central Washington University)

Finally, I've read an article that makes sense on why Dokdo belongs to Korea and not to Japan.

Most articles that I read on this subject talk endlessly about maps from the past, but when I visited the Dokdo Museum, located on the larger East Sea (Sea of Japan) island of Ulleungdo (from where one can supposedly see distant Dokdo), I could not make sense of the changing names and locations on the museum's maps of the what was claimed to be Dokdo. I came away still to be convinced that the maps clearly show that Dokdo belongs to Korea. However, possession is nine-tenths of the law, or so says the proverb, so I was satisfied on other grounds that Dokdo is Korean land.

But Michael A. Launius has supplied a political argument that makes sense of Korea's claim by showing Japan's claim to be untenable. Japan asserts that it had already long claimed possession of Dokdo before 1905, but Launius shows why this claim cannot be taken seriously:

The political aspirations of the rising Japanese Empire made Dokdo an important issue in 1905 when the decision was made to formally annex the islets. The justification given was that Dokdo was terra nullius, meaning land claimed or administered by no other state. The claim was posted in Matsue City, an obscure provincial capital after a bill was introduced the preceding year in the Japanese Diet. Japan usually portrays this incorporation as unrelated to the overall imperial project upon which it had embarked; as if it were a mere coincidence that it was already in the process of extinguishing Korean independence and preparing for war with Russia for regional dominance.

It is obvious, though, to any impartial observer that Japan believed Dokdo to be Korean territory because of the manner in which it was seized; as terra nullius (meaning that Japan did not believe it was already theirs) and via publication in a backwater town out of public view. None of that would have been necessary had the Japanese government believed that Dokdo had been theirs historically.

The seizure of Dokdo was obviously part of the larger Japanese goal of colonizing the Korean Peninsula and advancing into China. After all, the immediate use to which Dokdo was put after the incorporation was as a naval communications post for gathering intelligence on Russian naval movements. This is critical evidence of the purpose behind the timing and method of its seizure as related to the Russo-Japanese War and the eventual annexation of Korea. These were all part of a larger act of imperial expansion. (Michael A. Launius, "A political analysis of Japan's Dokdo claim," The Korea Herald, October 13, 2008)

This argument makes perfect sense for two reasons. First, it places the annexation of Dokdo within Japan's imperial venture, thereby showing the annexation to be part and parcel of Japanese expansion. Second, and even more tellingly, it shows that the legal argument employed by Japan to annex Dokdo depended upon the island being terra nullius -- "land claimed or administered by no other state" -- which means that Japan clearly acknowledged that prior to 1905, it had held no claim to Dokdo.

Additionally, the fact that Japan announced its annexation "via publication in a backwater town out of public view" strongly implies that in making the claim, Japan had something to hide, namely, its knowledge that Dokdo belonged to another country, i.e., Korea.

At last, a solid argument to stand on.