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Post by eoribeori on Feb 19, 2007 5:45:24 GMT -5
There was a heck of a lot of great acting in Seoul 1945 and I do not want to smear the actors, who have to make a living by reading scripts given to them. I last watched this drama about 6 months ago and sorry, but I forgot some characters' names. My chief complaint about Seoul 1945 is that KBS, following the Roh government's KBS purges and threats to various TV networks and print media to not criticize his government or, interestingly, the Kim Jong-Il government, wrote their own version of the Japanese Occupation and the Korean War in this highly pro-North script. The reason? To sway the electorate for the next election, which has been discouraged about the Uri Party's unswerving affection for the North. It is on record that the Executive and Legislative branch were under URI Party control, but they did amazingly little in the way of legislation to better the lives of the underprivileged or workers. Rather, they focused on alignment and apeasement of the North, including amazing statements by Roh like "I am assured that the North's weapons are not pointed at us." Other important initiatives included plans to move the government capital to a rural area at the cost of tens of billions of dollars, the creation of an "autonomous" Jeju government with its own "open immigration policy" that potentially opens the island to foreign takeover if enough immigrants (ie., PRC, Russian mafia, etc.) come in, and other measures that seemed only to reduce the effectiveness of the ROK government authority. Another important focus was on tracing the role of so-called pro-Japanese Koreans during the Occupation. This difficult subject, interestingly got sort of sidetracked when it was learned that a whole lot of Uri Party officials are themselves children of former "collaborators." It was a Joe McCarthy-like witch-hunt that got called off when the witchhunters found out that they were the witches too. Why have the Uri Party and Roh administrations done nothing to help the poor in So. Korea? Because they NEED internal unrest in the ROK in order to destabilize the South. They need to run down the South. They want people to be so desperate that they'll protest and cops will be shown dragging them off. If this sounds queer, it is. But this is how communists work in democracies. Their greatest enemies are the real reformers and progressives. The Roh/Uri period was one of the most notable disappointments for progressivism that one could find in any democracy where a supposedly progressive administration came in. The reason is that they only are stalking horses for the North. It has taken the electorate in the South a few years to see that, and that's why they have horrifically low voter ratings. So shows like Seoul 1945 were, I think, attempts to turn things around. Rewrite history and you rewrite the future. You see, these guys do not want to elevate the ROK. Even though Korea has the best democracy in Asia, flawed as it is, but with opposition candidates being routinely elected to the Presidency and legislature, a multi-party system, and a healthy judiciary, South Korea just isn't the North, and for that reason they will drag the ROK down, smear it, and of course lie to the people. This is what communists do. They thrive in democracies where they wrap themselves around many groups that are socially progressive, and then they strangle their efforts. (Read Orwell in "Homage to Catalonia.") There are just too many details that are pro-North in this drama. We could say that perhaps having "ugly" Park Changju and the lady pianist as pro-ROK and "attractive" Choi Oonyuk and Han Eun Jung as pro-North is clear enough of a bias. But let's be more specific to facts. Just a few really big specific lies or misleading representations in Seoul 1945: 1. the role of Russia is very conveniently hidden about its planning and provocation of the Korean War. No pictures of Soviet MIG pilots, Russian soldiers, or North Korean Communists sitting quietly and taking orders from Russian and ethnic-Korean Soviet commissars. Instead, this war is shown as almost entirely a self-generated crusade by freedom-fighting Koreans who, happened to be communists. 2. Earlier, when Oonyuk goes to Russia, first crossing the border, everyone is pretty friendly. There is no secret police at the train station, only a kind and helpful stationmaster. But during the Japanese occupation, Koreans were considered Japanese subjects and during WWII they would have been shot, jailed, tortured, etc. - not allowed to come and go on the Siberian Railway wherever they pleased. (If you doubt this, please look at the sad history of the largely apolitical ethnic Koreans who settled in the Soviet Far East, many to escape starvation and some to escape the Japanese. They ended up being deported by the hundreds of thousands (!) to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and even to the Ukraine, because Stalin considered them all potentially hostile Japanese subjects. Of course, for Stalin, everyone was always subject to execution or deportation - it was a widespread fear that permeated the entire country. This is never shown in Seoul 1945.) 3. Hardly anyone under Communist rule, either in the North or in the communist-occupied cities of the South, are executed. Yeah, there are some scenes, just too unavoidable to omit altogether, of "re-education" camps and sloganeering, but even these are usually shown as potentially socially beneficial, where previously lazy men had to pitch in and where some obnoxious female characters had to work harder too. The real life in a Stalinist "war communism" environment is never shown. In northern Politburo meetings, there are tensions amongst some of the members, but we aren't shown the reality of the insanity of communist dictatorships in action, where people get shot all the freaking time. Instead, what Seoul 1945 mostly shows us is a sort of gentlemanly exchange of opinions - a free give and take of ideas. This might have been the way things were among students in the immediate post-Liberation period, and the way that they are in current South Korea in the universities, but it was not the way things were actually done under communist rule or how they are done in North Korea to this day. You disagree with me? You're dead. Period. 4. You practically never see American soldiers in any scene. You hear that MacArthur invaded, but you never see Americans fighting side by side with ROK soldiers against North Korean and Chinese Communist troops. Of course you do not see pictures of Koreans happy to see US troops ousting North Korean troops from their cities and towns. This is a quite surreal rewriting of history, but let's let this go... What you do see is actor Kim Hojin training in the USA with the US Army, wearing US Army uniforms, being a CIA agent, driving in a US MP jeep, and taking orders from an American boss (in real life the actor's a German who is now a Korean citizen named "Charm Lee"). This is a very convenient and subtle portrayal of the pro-ROK character, allowing an image to the Korean viewers, normally very proud of their Koreanness, that the only true Koreans were the communists, while the ROK-loyalists were really only American lackeys. While Kim Hojin's character is allowed to show some backbone from time to time, possibly because viewer ratings and criticism of the show was demanding more of a balance, overall, he is a petulant yangban momma's boy who is vastly more socially privileged than most of the Korean viewers today could ever be, and therefore this character, although handsome and tragic, is also a jealousy and hate-object. Choi Oonyuk, however, by contrast, might not be the man you want your daughter to marry, but only because she'll likely be widowed young, for he's shown as a sincere, Christlike and tormented suffering and genuine patriot... who of course wears the uniform of the North, although he doesn't agree with *everything* that the Politburo says. How nice that the Politburo would be so open-minded to make him an officer and to keep him as such to the end -- again, this is deeply contrary to the way things were. He would have been shot before he ever got a uniform on, precisely because his views diverged from those of Kim Il Sung and the Soviet bosses. 5. Syngman Rhee is shown endlessly to be a dottering, senile puppet of the US (when in fact he was a long time Hawaii-based nationalist during the Japanese Occupation and was frequently prickly with the US during the war.) Amazingly, in the very long drama, there is not one episode that I can recall featuring even two minutes of Kim Il Sung! Why? The blood on the hands of this man and his son and his followers is just too bloody. Also, in my opinion, portrayals of Kim Il Sung would be controversial among southern leftists - many of whom do think that, maybe at least some times, he sort of, you know, made a mistake or two. It's too volatile a topic. The writers might have want to have shown a great hero, but considering the millions of Koreans dead, starved or in forced labor camps, even today, it is best to show a glimpse at a Politburo meeting and then get the heck off the subject. Instead of focusing on the stalinist cult of Kim Il Sung, the writers show us mostly Prof. Moon, the kindly teacher of all the main men in the story, except the satanic Park Changju. He is the Communist self-image in the hearts of all leftist students in democratic countries - the bold scholar, kind, thoughtful, dedicated to the Revolution because it will help "free" the people. Yeah, there's contradictions in the Revolution, but Marx embraces contradictions - sort of "don't think too hard that communism doesn't make sense - ride with the contradictions. By avoiding the psychotic Kim Il Sung, and using Prof. Moon as his placeholder, the Korean audience is lulled into thinking that only reasonable, good people would and should follow the Communists. (Note: post 1989 KGB dossiers reveal, however, that Kim Il-Sung was not, as his supporters claimed, an anti-Japanese freedom fighter, but rather just some farmer born in and living in Russia who was chosen for this puppet regime and plopped into North Korea after the Soviet occupation. He reportedly had problems even speaking Korean correctly.) 6. Russia in Leningrad before and during the Nazi siege is shown as a romantic, artistic place where one could relax, study, have a good meal, enjoy nice piano recitals, etc. I can't criticize this portrayal strongly enough. This was Stalinist Russia. There was no food, pianos were largely seen a bourgeois and might have been used as firewood rather than a gift to a visiting Korean pianist. Three Koreans in Russia would not have been able to get along very well there. Nobody got along very well there, but Koreans in Leningrad during the Japanese occupation period would not have been befriended by the locals, but rather they would have been turned in to the Secret Police and then tortured, imprisoned or shot. (How screwed up is this ahistoricity? I mean, this is so f_'d up, it's unreal. But this is really how the writers of Seoul 1945 think: communist states are kind, friendly and love artists and intellectuals; democratic capitalistic states are the opposite.) My theory is that "Seoul 1945" was written the way it was largely as a means to sway the electorate in order to win the next presidential election. Why do I think this? Because the arch-villain is a guy named Park Changju, who started out as a pro-Japanese police officer during the Occupation, and after the Liberation rose through the ranks of the ROK to a heartbeat from the country's leadership. Who does this sort of sound like? Hmmm. Let's think a second. No. Let's read the actual news headlines during 2006: "Government launches an investigation into the families of Japanese collaborators and compiles a list of alleged collaborators...." Hmm. Wait a minute! Here's a familiar name: "Park Chung Hee." Say, isn't he the father of leading GNP opposition candidate, Ms. Park Geun Hye? And wasn't he a lieutenant in the Japanese Army at the time of the Liberation? Hmm. Could it be that Park Changju is *sort of* a symbolic representation of the presidential candidate's father? You know, if you hate the TV character, you'll hate his real-life daughter. Hmm. Why that would be stretching the truth, wouldn't it? And isn't the history of communist regimes in every country all about telling the truth? (heavy sarcasm here.)
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Post by Lucy on Feb 19, 2007 12:16:08 GMT -5
eoribeori, I am going to delete your duplicate comment in the other thread. This is in the interest of not having duplications, rather than an instance of your being silenced in any way. Just wanted to let you know.
Lucy Moderator
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Post by CaptainVideo on Feb 19, 2007 14:04:10 GMT -5
I have to admit that I haven't read your entire post (due to time restraints at this very moment) but I plan on studying it carefully later today. I'm glad that you have decided to put this out because I have been watching this series and wondering, "Up until now, I don't see why the North has received such a bad rap".
Just so I know that we're on the same page here, does Rho=Rhee? Perhaps after the end of the series I might do some reading on the subject, but until then, this is my only source of information. In the meantime, thanks for the enlightening post and welcome aboard.
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Post by teacher on Feb 19, 2007 14:08:16 GMT -5
I have watched this show diligently, and have always been troubled by the fact that it differed so much from what I remember from having lived through this period. Granted, I lived in Chicago and not Korea, but had close friends in the Armed Services fighting in Korea. So many things in the story just seemed counter to what I remembered. Thanks for helping me to feel that my memories were not totally screwed up.
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Post by Lucy on Feb 19, 2007 14:57:15 GMT -5
No, Roh is not the same name as Rhee. Rhee's name is the same name that is given variously (for other individuals) as Yi or Lee; it's just the spelling he used. I believe eoribeori is referencing Roh Moo Hyun, president of Korea (South).
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Post by Candylover on Feb 19, 2007 17:10:55 GMT -5
I do not mean to be aggressive, but ...
(1) Seoul 1945 is a drama, not a documentary. (2) Seoul 1945 is 'Seoul 1945', not 'PyeongYang 1945'. If you want to see Kim Il-Sung more and more, you'd better urge KBS to make 'PyeongYang 1945' (3) Korean people are not fooled by a Korean drama. American people are not fooled by an American drama. (4) Eoribeori could find some American dramas used as propaganda of President Bush too.
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Post by mikey on Feb 19, 2007 18:40:44 GMT -5
I’m afraid that most of us Americans aren’t familiar enough with the ROK’s current political situation to participate in that side of the discussion. Certainly, I’m not. So, I’ll have to just look in on the discussion amongst our Korean friends and learn what I can from them.
As for “Seoul 1945,” I personally did find the fictional Marxist intellectual Oon-hyuk to be credible, simply because I knew people just like him in my college days. And, especially prior and during World War II, people of the world (outside of Russia) did tend to look perhaps over-idealistically at the then-untested theory of communism. Even in the United States, I recall reading how Time and Newsweek seemed to sometimes have an almost ridiculous admiration for Josef Stalin - at least, right up until VJ day.
Of course, during the war Stalin was officially our ally, and perhaps we Americans were confusing the very praiseworthy heroism of the Russian/Soviet people on the battlefield with the marginal virtues of the communist system that had been imposed upon them.
I do agree with eoribeori that the portrayal of wartime Leningrad was perhaps the drama’s weakest point. Oon-hyuk’s eyes were - at least partially - opened up to the dark side of communism during the occupation of North Korean occupation of Seoul, but this is something he most certainly SHOULD have noticed earlier during his visit to Leningrad. Here we are, under the darkest days of Stalinist tyranny, and we’ve got Suk-kyong playing the piano - as an employee - in what appears to be privately-owned nightclub?
Given what I know about Stalinist-era Russia, that’s a pretty tough one to swallow. Stalin had forcibly collectivized all the peasant farms in the 1930’s, leaving a few million Ukranians to literally starve to death. It’s tough to imagine that a privately owned nightclub would have been tolerated right in the middle of Leningrad.
Be that as it may, I really liked “Seoul 1945,” but yes, I still suspect that it had a bit of a left-wing spin, especially in the early going.
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Post by dreamie on Feb 20, 2007 2:21:12 GMT -5
Seoul 1945 is most definitely slanted, and don't think I haven't wondered about such things. I am not particularly interested in boiling this show down to politics, I am bored just posting this. But, since I enjoy this show for other reasons, I might as well.
Firstly, we're not really seeing negative portrayals of communists in mainstream fiction as you'd think in a post cold war world. I am Bulgarian, myself and well aware of the progress of communism after WWII. To be honest, I see this as generally more aesthetic than political. In the West, people think such topics are dreary. People tend to think of those who lived in communist countries as having lived in a black and white movie ... where nothing is interesting or colorful, which is so wrong. I can see you falling into the same trap yourself, though your post does outline some other interesting and valid points.
However, your post does deal with the idea of appeal, so I know you understand this, even though you're approaching this in a different way.
I disagree with your portrayal of Soviet Russia, specifically point #6. It is vile and wrong. I would love to have the time to explain why with many points and references, but I just don't. It would also be a waste of my time, as I can pretty much guess from reading this post that you are nationalistic and just don't like foreign thought, which is, ironically, the polar opposite of the purpose of this board.
But back to the show and I can't stress enough that we are watching a drama. When Oonhyuk is being romanced by a nation and ideology, it is naturally overdone for effect. Seoul 1945 is a cariacature.
I can't much speak to the current administration of Korea. But I can comment on timing. Just because a group of people decide to discuss something out in the open does not mean it is propaganda. NK vs SK is obviously something on peoples' minds. Did the makers of Seoul 1945 want to put a new twist on an old topic to broaden the appeal of a program? Or are they pawns of a political movement? I don't know but I would guess the former, just from a practical point of view.
Personally, if I were Korean in Korea I would be most concerned with your point #5. But you see? Again the cariacature and glossing over for a drama.
Don't get me wrong, at the moment we are seeing people question the motives of the current season of 24 on Fox as being far right propaganda. These are things we have to discuss when they present themselves.
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Post by eoribeori on Feb 20, 2007 2:52:09 GMT -5
The ratings in Korea were not too good for Seoul 1945. This kind of subject should have blown the roof off the ratings, but instead it was a mediocre-to-low viewer rating from week to week. I tend to think that such was due to the way the subject was presented, because the acting, themes, cinematography, and most of the writing was excellent. So I agree when you say that the Korean people are not fooled by Korean dramas. In fact, I think that the low ratings might have caused the hard-left bent in Seoul 1945 to change some storylines and characterizations. What started out as more singularly pro-North screed, started by the end to show that everything wasn't perfect in the DPRK and that *maybe* some very tragic mistakes were made, such as starting the war in the first place.
I disagree with you about "Seoul 1945" not needing to cover Kim Il-Sung, because the title is "Seoul 1945." The title is just a title, but the story is about Korea, all of Korea. It could just have easily been called "Hamheung 1945" since the first quarter of the show took place in Hamheung. Seoul was only one locale, but Korea and the 1935-1955 period was the subject. Hamheung characters ended up in Seoul and in other places. This is supposed to be about those tragic years for Korea and Koreans, not just about one government or one place. So when showing Rhee Syngman for episode after episode, it is a very notable thing to leave out his counterpart. If we were to only limit the characters to ROK characters, then there'd be no story of Choi Oonyuk, Prof Moon, and all the others. Of course they were crucial to this story, and leaving out their insane DPRK leader is EXTREMELY NOTEWORTHY. It reduces the Korean War and the 3 million left dead to a tragedy caused by some confusing miscues and overreactions, rather than as part of a plan by Russia and its stooge, Kim Il-Sung, and his stooges.
There are a couple of weird scenes in Pyeongyang at a Politburo meeting where they lay blame on the error of the invasion of the South on the overoptimistic expectations of a southern Communist leader who supposedly said that the country was ripe for revolt. This stuff would be a riot of laughter if it weren't so dangerously ahistorical. Should anyone really believe that the Soviets and Kim Il-Sung really launched the war due to comments from one leftist leader in the South? This looks like a great example of rewriting history in such a way to place blame anywhere else but on the Kim Il Sung/ Kim Jong Il clan.
Interestingly, they show Oonyuk saying that it would be a terrible error to make war. Well, this is perhaps is the writers' conscience speaking. Everyone in the audience knows it was a mistake, and if they showed Oonyuk pledging 100% support for war, virtually everyone in the audience would have shut off their TV's for the duration of the series. In reality, if Oonyuk had questioned this decision, he would have been shot, not been made a military commander. This war was a move that Russia wanted and it saw to it that its North Korean DPRK tools followed to the end.
Some leftists, North and South, might have supported it on nationalist grounds, because nobody thought that Korea should have been divided, as it was an occupied state by the enemy Japan. Germany was divided because it made war on the world. Division was a tragedy imposed on Koreans by the Russians (who told FDR that he'd enter WWII in the last days of Aug 1945 if Russia could occupy down to the 48th Parallel), by the USA (that allowed Russia to do this) and, by Japanese diplomats that recommended that Korea be divided, not Japan, because Japan supposedly was too important to be allowed to "go communist."
For the record, I can't talk about US television or movies, since I don't watch American TV or movies. I haven't for years. The acting is usually pretty bad, and the American "entertainment" themes are usually bombastic, disgusting, racist, or inhuman. I am American, not Korean, but I feel a kinship to Koreans because I have known many very wonderful Koreans and I feel more comforted in my day by watching Korean TV, movies, and listening to Korean music. I want to see Korea do well, and it is for this reason that I am upset with Roh messing around with Korean democracy, freedom of the press, the stability of the South Korean state, and, yeah, screwing around with KBS. I hope that the next election in South Korea brings good changes, or, at least, takes the Commissars out of the editing rooms.
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Post by Sorry2BoreU on Feb 20, 2007 6:38:04 GMT -5
First of all, one posting above described me as a "nationalist" and that, as such, I am to be categorized as some kind of bad person who taints with nasty politics the discussion of high art such as a TV drama. Sorry, but KBS needs to be criticized. KBS is a Korean public broadcaster, supported by Korean taxpayers (not me, by the way, unless you consider my Dish Network satellite subscription to KBS as a tax) and supposedly for the benefit of the Korean nation. But if the current administration does not believe in fair and balanced media, then their anti-intellectual political bent carries over to news, documentaries, histories, and other distorting stories that affect a country and educate or miseducate its people. Yeah, it could affect TV dramas. But what really matters is the news media, which the Roh administration seems to have problems with. Fox News cranks out a whole lot of stuff that is contrary to facts, but at least officially, it is not taxpayer supported, and it is not yet the official national public TV broadcaster. Please understand that South Koreans live under a constant threat of the DPRK regime, that uses assassination, espionage (including one university professor believed to have been a "conservative"), counterfeitting, nuclear blackmail, labor stoppages in the South, and probably worst of all - the hostagetaking of over 20 million Koreans in the North - to achieve their goals. South Korean men have to spend over 2 years in military service to defend the country against the Kim Jong Il clan, and the nation expends a huge percentage of its budget on this defense - all needless if NK only would be civil. In a dream scenario, my friend, one could only pray that NK could, some day, be governed as Bulgaria was in its worst, most oppressive days. That's how bad things are and how they have been. I do not see NK as black and white, my friend. I realize that there are different streams of thought in their government and that the lives of the 20 million people have moments of joy, laughter, and every other shade of experience and emotion in addition to jackboot terror. Malnourished babies, parents starving themselves or foraging for grass to survive. People in Gaeseong Industrial Complex having to turn over 90% of their wages to the NK government. Yes. I see their lives across the spectrum. But being conscious of the supporters of this genocidal oppression - isn't this really more important than any "ism?" Isn't it more important than one's TV entertainment??? "Sorry to disrupt your TV viewing, but tonight's show is brought to you by the good folks at KBS, some of whose Governing Board members are apologists for a genocidal regime. Now back to the show..." I just feel that it's useful to support the struggle of Korean people and to fight those persons, foreign and domestic, who hurt them. They are my enemies. But I would hate them if they hurt Bulgarians, Macedonians, French people, Americans, Nigerians, Tibetans, Peruvians, Egyptians, or any other people. Some things are just more important than TV or dramas, my friend. Dictators and those who love them or excuse them are always my enemies, and if they are hiding, I am happy to let them explain their positions, rather than sneak around in editorial offices or screenwriters' lounges. A TV drama that is biased is not as important as is the poisoning of Korean democracy. That is my concern, not that a work of fiction is left-leaning. I have read and enjoyed books by people said to be leftists (GarcĂa Marquez, George Orwell, F. Garcia Lorca, Guenter Graas) as well as works by people said to be rightists (VJ Naipaul, Jorge Luis Borges, George Orwell). I know how to pick and choose things and I can see that intellectuals and artists can have useful things to say, even if some or all of their political ideas are not mine. But "Seoul 1945" isn't intended to just be a drama about a few families from Hamheung and how they all get caught up in the 1935-55 traumas. That is the part that I find compelling, beautiful and touching. "Seoul 1945" is more than that though - it's clearly intended by its creators to be a sort of settling of scores, a rewriting of history, and an attempt to influence the electorate not just on the future of South Korea but also on the way that the ROK government will deal with North Korea. It's no wonder that some Korean political scientists say that one of the major South Korean political leaders is Kim Jong Il (earlier Kim Il Sung). Korea is quite different from Bulgaria and even from West Germany. There is a thriving and growing democracy in South Korea, but at the same time that there is a very powerful fifth column of NK supporters (maybe 5-10%). Some of them are in the open, some are undercover. I know this sounds like a 1950's Joe McCarthy red-baiting thing. I don't mean it to be. It just is. The West Germans really didn't care that much that there was an East Germany, because Germany only existed as a unit between 1871-1945, but Korea has been one country since Shilla unified the country, I think around 600 AD. So yeah, teenagers in Seoul aren't thinking about NK every moment of their lives, but very few people in the ROK or in NK think of there being 2 countries. And since Korea has really bad enemies in Japan, China and probably still Russia, and sometimes the USA, it's quite normal for Koreans to think that everyone's out to get them. (There's no safe neighbors!!!) As a result, I think that many Koreans rather forget or not discuss some of the things that I've written in this thread. It's not that everyone's a commie. It's that there's just too much pain and it's hard to get by thinking of half of your nation living in starvation or in work-camps. For the Left, they just want to think that NK is filled with Choi Oon hyuks - kind intellectuals that just get hurt by capitalists. I'm not worried too much about these people. It's the ones that want to exploit the others that bother me - the ones that go out of their way to lie and to protect their "Dear Leader" and his regime. One person wrote that the Koreans aren't easily swayed by TV. I agree. But that doesn't necessarily stop a Korean or American politician (right or left) to lie on TV or in the press. Commies frequently misjudge public opinion. In 1984 Andrei Gromeyo got on TV in Italy and told the Italians that if they voted to allow US Cruise missiles, Italy might end up nuked. That blunt comment actually caused the so called "anti-nuclear movement" in Europe to fizzle out, because, after all, who would be doing the nuking but the USSR? So if we even try to defend ourselves, you'll have to nuke us? Great public relations. Similarly, Kim Jong Il uses stuff like this every day. What bothers me is that a public medium such as KBS has been taken over by people who are so willing to chuck history out the window to serve their own purposes. The reason for overthrowing dictatorship in So. Korea was so that there could be a "normal" country in Korea, where facts, not ideology and the illogic of most ideology, would prevail. If "Seoul 1945" were a right wing attempt at slanting the Japanese Occupation and Korean War years for their own purposes, I would criticize them equally as harshly. My friend who called me a "nationalist" might be surprised by a few things. I am not Korean. I am American. All of my ancestors were, to my knowledge European, and they started coming to this place from 1636 until the end of the 19th Century, from 5 different countries. I am American, too deracinated to be able to take any hyphenation with a straight face. I have travelled to about 46 of the 50 states. I have also studied numerous European languages, about 6 of which I could still speak or at least read or understand. I read newspapers daily from over a dozen countries. I am struggling to find time to learn Korean properly. I do business with people on 6 continents on a daily basis, and I am far from what you probably would call a nationalist. I don't even know what you mean by that phrase. In the Bulgarian context, especially pre-WWII, a nationalist probably meant not just someone who loved Bulgaria and who wanted the country to do well, but someone who dreamt of a "Greater Bulgaria," maybe taking a piece of Macedonia or some other country, right? That ain't me. I happen to love Korea. I also happen to love democracy and freedom of speech. In Korea, I find solace that there are still some countries where it is still possible for free speech, fair elections and for democracy to all exist. I don't like bigots, I don't like fascists ("nationalists" like the Japanese, PRC or Russian govt leaders), I don't like communists or religious fanatics, or anyone who is boldly stupid or who is lying to my face or behind my back. When a country like South Korea goes through decades of dictatorships and its people - left, right and centrists - fight for democracy, I am happy to encourage them in any tiny way that I can. North Korea is one of the most intensely oppressive regimes on earth. It is far worse than Bulgaria ever was. If you disagree with the govt, not only are you sent to a forced labor camp or shot, but your WHOLE FAMILY is given that same fate. So when you see a soccer stadium filled with NK people apparently showing undying love for Kim Jong Il, it's because they're scared to do otherwise. So when you see some idiot reporter with CNN or the BBC saying how much public support the "NK people" have for Kim Jong Il, the reporter is wrong - it's because these people don't want to die. I don't want that way of life in NK, South Korea, America, Bulgaria, or in any other country. (Please note that in NK the radios are designed to only receive NK stations - something that the Soviets or Cubans, etc. never tried to do.) Don't you think that this kind of regime deserves some special concern or scrutiny? When you see underweight babies in North Korea, doesn't it rile you that there are leftists in the South who somehow, amazingly, AT BEST have a hands-off policy to comments on the NK regime, and AT WORST are activists in promoting positive spin about that killing regime? Some news links regarding criticism of bias in "Seoul 1945" and alleged historical inaccuracies: times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200606/kt2006060917334710510.htmtimes.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200607/kt2006070718061511960.htmSome news links below regarding the "packing of the KBS Board" with pro-Roh administration officials, especially the appointment of Jeong Yeon-ju, former chief editorial writer of the [left-wing] Hankyoreh newspaper. This person has no broadcasting experience, and all of his efforts in his career have dealt with pro-North or anti-ROK editorializing. A few months ago, the Roh Administration came out with some policy, again quite amazingly anti-democratic, that actually levies a tax on broadcasters and newspapers that tend to be anti-Roh, and that feeds this revenue to minor publications that tend to be pro-Roh and pro-NK, such as Hankyoreh. They didn't say this openly. The official line was that the most popular newspapers and broadcasters were unfairly making too much money, and that there needed to be some way to redress this "injustice" by nourishing "minor media"(those that are generally unpopular with the public), but when asked specifically which media were to benefit, they ended up being publications that supported his Administration and that frequently were seen as NK supporters. If you feel that pointing out that there is bias in "Seoul 1945" is unfair, because it is only a drama, read this: english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200304/200304250019.htmlenglish.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200308/200308110013.htmlenglish.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200611/200611270011.htmlI think that the communists were good at speaking about the internationalization of Revolution. I prefer to think about the international struggle to defend Democracy, be it in the USA, Korea, or in any country. One unfree country is one country too many that's unfree. I think that there is a "domino theory" that works regarding democracies - if one falls, others fall. I really wanted to not comment any more on this matter, but I guess that I couldn't leave things as they were.
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Post by Candylover on Feb 20, 2007 18:02:59 GMT -5
Eoribeori(or Sorry2BoreU), I have to admit that at first I thought you might be an anti-Roh government Korean who speaks fluent English, on the basis of your screen name (I'm sure it's a Korean word) and the background knowledge on which your opinion on Korean politics is based. Now that I know you're not Korean but American, as a Korean I appreciate your concerns about Korea and its people. But at the same time, I'd like to comment on the Korean newspaper articles you referred to.
Among the three major newspapers in Korea, two were created during the Japanese occupation period, and they are not free from the original sin of collaborating with Japanese occupiers. The Chosun Ilbo, one of them and currently the largest newspaper in South Korea, was an anti-Japanese newspaper when it was created in 1919, but it turned into a pro-Japanese newspaper since it was bought by today's owner, the Bang family. Things like "Hurrah! Your Majesty(Japanese Emperor)!", "Go to the sacred war against Yankees!" were what Koreans read on the first pages of Chosun Ilbo on a daily basis in that time before 1945, and when many air fighters, artillery, machine guns, and other arms were donated to be used against the US soldiers in the Pacific, and many Korean young men and women were forced to go to the front as soldiers or "comfort women", the contributions of the ardent pro-Japanese propaganda of Chosun Ilbo during the Pacific War were, by far not small. So, to the major newspapers who collaborated with Japanese occupiers before 1945 and always want to say "There's no progress if you stay attached to the past," dramas like Seoul 1945 which directly deal with pro-Japanese collaborators problem must have been, without question a major threat of losing their status of ruling news media.
In my opinion, the Chosun Ilbo articles you referred to tend to be another propaganda of a newspaper company to hide its dishonorable past. They have every reason to release such articles from time to time to protect their hegemony from "dangerous left wing". The "unfair" tax issue they raised, too was just an issue of taxe, not a polotical issue, as far as I understand. They even dodged so much tax before the Roh government, and were indicted for tax evasion, but they are still trying to interpret everything politically on the basis of their benifit.
I appreciate your concerns about Korean politics, but firstly, I hope the English versions of some major Korean newspapers will not be the only sources of news about Korea for you. And secondly, we must try to read between the lines when we read news articles. Let's suppose Barron Moon in Seoul 1945 released a pro-Japanese newspaper, did everything to flatter Japanese occupiers at the sacrifice of his fellow Koreans during the occupation period. After WWII, unfortunately the newspaper survived and his daughter Suk-Kyung is still the owner. When Suk-Kyung comes across a drama like Seoul 1945, she will definitely hate it, and want to see articles defending her father and her newspaper company. Sad to say, that's what's happening in Korea.
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Post by eoribeori on Feb 21, 2007 0:57:10 GMT -5
Dear Candylover, It's funny that now that you know I'm American, you really are making great efforts to try to make Americans reading this thread to hate Koreans, and especially to hate anyone in the press who dares to criticize Pres. Roh. If the Japanese of 2007 are supposed to be allies of the USA, why on earth would you think that their friends publishing propaganda pieces in 1942 wouldn't also be our friends? Haven't you ever heard of forgiveness of another's sins? Sorry, I'm not taking the bait. Quoting headlines from Japanese occupied Korea in 1942? Are you just naive or are you deliberately trying to make Americans hate the ROK at any cost? Sorry, but why should such headlines shock anyone? What do you expect people in a police state like Hirohito's Japan (including Korea) would write about? Are you really this naive? Is that why you are actually resorting to using the "Seoul 1945" characters as some proof of anything? Or do you know no real history and do you believe that leftist re-writes of history really are true? How about quoting headlines from the free world press about the cruelty and horrific suffering of Koreans living under the leftist, one party state in 2007 of North Korea - you know, the "democratic" (!) "people's republic"(!!) of Korea? By the way, who do you think will win the next election in North Korea? Oh yeah, they don't have elections. Why is that, by the way? I mean, since the South is supposed to be so darn bad, filled with the collaborator spawn that you claim, why can the South still elect leftists like Roh but the DPRK doesn't even try to have an election? Is it that Kim Jong Il's really so popular that he doesn't need to be elected? I am going to surprise you again. Here goes: watching from the sidelines in the last election, I sort of was rooting for Roh. Why? Well, the GNP was stodgy, full of itself, and still too interested in conglomerates. Their candidate was competent - a mayor of Seoul, I think - but I liked Roh's biography better. A guy who passed the bar exam without attending law school - just studying the law. Really impressive. I understood that he might have been a bit left of center, but I thought that his presidency could have been good for Korean democracy, as was the election of Kim DaeJung - a former jailed political prisoner. In addition, Roh's supporters came heavily from the Cheolla provinces, and the way that Korean politics tended to go was for presidents to come from Kyeongsang (Busan area) and to favor people from there, at the expense of Cheolla people. GNP used to say, "Never elect Cheolla people, because they're so angry at being left out, that they'll take retribution!" For the sake of de-emphasizing regionalism, I thought that Roh might have been good. Roh's administration has been, unfortunately, a tremendous disaster for Korea. He has done a great job of driving away foreign investment, slowing the economy, and the only successes have been due to long time civil servants, such as Ban Ki-Moon (now UN Secy General, former Foreign Minister of the ROK) and people in the Trade Ministry. Otherwise, left alone, he appears to be an unravelling nutcase and an incompetent. He reminds me of Richard Nixon in his last days - blaming everyone but himself, blaming conspiracies of the press, blaming "disloyal" compatriots or staffers, etc., etc. He likes to say that he's like Lincoln, but he is clearly Nixon's mirror image. Maybe a minor benefit of Roh in the long view is that it showed that the Left can rule Korea and that they could also screw it up. Another contribution, I think, is that it probably made the Korean electorate wiser. I don't think that it's enough to be a "new party" with a new party T-shirt and new slogans or using the internet to politic. I think that after this dark period, they want to see competence and substance. And jobs. My main objection is that he and his Uri Party people lied big time to the electorate. They weren't "Our Party" (Uri means "our") but really Kim Jong Il's Party. What do YOU do, Candylover, when you see pictures of your fellow Koreans in the DPRK starved to death because they did not show adequate loyalty to Kim Jong Il? Do you do what you did in this post, start referring to fictional TV shows as historical backing to "prove" your ideological distortions of what crimes are being forgiven by the Korean Left TODAY? Thank you for your comments, some of which has truth, but only in part. However, you are falling into an ideological trap or perhaps deliberately misleading people when you try to make people believe that every story that shows Roh and the Roh Cabinet as inept or that weirdly the Roh Administration is filled with people who, if asked in parliamentary hearings or in interviews if they find ANYTHING wrong with the DPRK, they very blatantly evade the subject. What are they afraid of? Why can they not be honest? Even if your suggestion that every possible reporter in Korea working in every capacity is corrupt inheritors of the Japanese censorship and propagandizing, the people who buy their newspapers are the majority electorate - many of the SAME PEOPLE who elected ROH MOO HYUN. Stop lying. How do I know such things? Is it from English language versions of former "collaborator" newspapers? No. I learn this by watching KBS News, with English subtitles. I learn this from the NY Times, the Washington Post, from the BBC, from the Guardian, from French, German and other countries' papers and magazines. I learn this from Korean friends who are not especially politically interested in either party but who translate for me what was being said in a newscast or in a presidential press conference. I learn this by analyzing poll results, in which Roh's popularity has plummetted to extreme lows, including the youth vote, that overwhelmingly elected him. so do you want to call them collaborators too? Is everyone who disagrees with you a collaborator? So you're blaming what? A Right wing conspiracy? Frankly, it's a crafty but cowardly trick to start slurring current Korean reporters, many of whom get hell from both Left and Right because they are good journalists. So you want to talk about the Korean press' origins? Well, Candylover, let's cover Korean history first a bit, shall we? Due to very bad but understandable misjudgment by the Chosun Dynasty rulers, in which they withdrew contacts with the outside world from approx. 1600 - 1880, Korea was horribly caught off guard by the Japanese, which since Admiral Perry, invested heavily in modernization and in armaments. The King tried to catch up, and some development was done (even streetcars in Seoul), but there was too much intrigue and too much to be done, too fast. In fact, many people that you might call "leftist intellectuals" actually supported Japan, thinking that Japan might "help" modernize Korea. Pro-China, pro-Russian, & Pro-Japanese factions clashed, and the Japanese took control of Korea, killed the Monarch, killed the Queen, kidnapped the Crown Prince, and effectively ended Korea as a state. They had done the same with the Okinawan kingdom only a few decades earlier. (So would you call Okinawans collaborators?) Koreans, including individual yangbans (aristocrats), middle classes, peasants, etc. rose up from time to time and there was nothing but brutal repressions and the Japanese's favorite avocations of looting, raping and trying to destroy any and all traces of Korean history and even the Korean language. The world sat by and watched "The Passing of Corea." In 1905 Japan formally annexed Korea, and step by step they attempted to utterly integrate it into Japan. Only the A-bombs stopped them, otherwise Korea would probably be like the Okinawan Kingdom - a secret motherland only existing in people's hearts, a place about which nothing could be done to revive the defeated people's state. Now, if you're a Korean and you have no country called Korea and all of your neighbors are your enemies and America, England, France, and every other strong country will do nothing to help you, how do you live? How many generations can afford to revolt? For how many decades or generations can one be considered a collaborator? How many Koreans alive today do you want to slur with the collaborator term, just to avoid the real crime that Roh's people are trying to commit: to keep people from thinking that TODAY's collaborators are those leftist Koreans who sit by while millions of Koreans are TODAY oppressed, starved, brutalized, or killed by communist Kim Jong Il's leftist regime? How do you feel that you do nothing? How do you feel that you cannot even allow that there are journalists in South Korea's democracy that simply report what happens accurately? What is wrong with you? Why are you collaborating with a dictator? Do you want to say that it's none of the ROK people's business what goes on in the North? What do you think of "journalists" in 2007 in Hankyoreh who write praises for Chairman Kim Jong Il and tell us how thankful that he permits a few sad old people to reunite, at great financial cost, at Mt Kumgang? Aren't you ashamed at your own support of collaborators in 2007 who are writing how it's wrong to criticize North Korea because of the "oppression" by the chaebols (conglomerates)? If you really think that life in South Korea is so bad as to want to take it down, you either need to grow up or stop lying to yourself and us. Maybe you should travel to other countries and see that it's not too bad. (Ever been to Glasgow, Scotland or Flint, Michigan? Seoulites are a lot better off.) Try to live in 2007 sanely first, before trying to take us into your twisted little time machine. Is every Apache or Mohawk living today in the USA a collaborator? Or what if a Cherokee serves in the US Army, because there are no jobs on the reservation? Is a Paiute who works for the US Post Office a collaborator? Is a Navajo who runs for US Congress and is elected in order to help his people as best as possible, and he has a US flag in his office a collaborator? Is an Ojibwa reporter on a TV station a collaborator? Are all African Americans "collaborators" considering that their ancestors were enslaved and brutalized in America? How long is one obligated to live under perpetual fear of death for you to accept them?? Are you so brave yourself to fight to the death for all of your beliefs? If not, then by your definition, you are a collaborator. If you're just a silly guy mouthing leftish slogans, please use your intelligence and think that maybe this stuff is as stale and vapid as was Confucianism that brought so much misery on Korea in its last days of the Chosun Dynasty. Do you see my point? It's easy for you (or me) to call other people "sellouts" or "collaborators" to a cause that we hold dear. But what if, realistically, there was no other option other than death? After 10, 20, 30, or 40 years of Japanese rule, which was not benign but utterly ruthless. (The population of Korea fell by 50% during the Occupation, because Korean rice was diverted to Japan, and Japan's population doubled.) At a certain point, most people just need to live. So from 1905 to 1945, is every Korean living under Japanese oppression, with NO HOPE IN SIGHT a collaborator? Is a person who establishes a bank, a business, and god forbid - a newspaper - not only a collaborator in that environment, but also his or her children and children's children and their children and anyone associated with them collaborators? "Seoul 1945" I believe might have accurately shown the desperation and hopelessness of being Korean in a place that no longer was allowed to be Korea. Everyone was obliged to take Japanese names. Everyone was obliged to participate in ceremonies honoring the f**k Hirohito. Everyone in school had to learn Japan's twisted island notions of history where the Japanese people sprang out of the heavens, rather than, as histoery and archealogy show, they were a hybrid nation formed out of island-hopping Korean Kaya and Baekje iron age horseriding conquerors with Austonesian and Ainu aboriginals. All Koreans were taught that Korea was nothing, even though the Japanese learned writing directly from Koreans (Wang In), ceramics from Koreans (Rei Sampei, among others), Buddhism (Son=Zen), architecture (Baekje pagodas), Sumo (Ssurim), and practically everything else. The Japanese occupation was not only oppressive, it did tremendous, long lasting damage to Korea and to Korean society and its self-image. It takes a lot to repair that damage. As much as I despise the fascistic crap emanating from the Tokyo govts recently, the real threat to Korea is Kim Jong Il's regime and those in the South who turn their backs. If you think that the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia was bad, wait until we see what really has happened in North Korea, and why its cities are depopulated and why people are scrounging around the countryside waiting to die, and why thousands are trying to "escape" to communist China, where they are further exploited, raped, robbed, and killed - just for a chance at reaching South Korea, the society that you guys love to hate. Sick!
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Post by Candylover on Feb 21, 2007 6:44:33 GMT -5
My point in the preceding thread was that the Chosun Ilbo articles referred to as a ground for the opinion that Seoul 1945 is biased toward left-wing should be carefully dealt with, because Chosun Ilbo itself has some reasons to be biased on that problem too. I know that most people on this board is not so interested in the left and right issues in Korean politics, but I have some questions you might be interested in.
Since you are well acquainted with Korean politics, what do you think about former president Kim Dae-Jung? Do you think he is a leftist too? More specifically, do you agree to the Korean right wing's general opinion that the Roh government's policy for N. Korea was inherited from that of the former Kim Dae-Jung government?
What do you think about, for example, Nazi collaborators in France under German occupation (1940-1944)? Can you say, as you said in your preceding thread, "How long is one obligated to live under perpetual fear of death for you to accept them?? Are you so brave yourself to fight to the death for all of your beliefs?" to the French people who put blame on Nazi collaborator? I have just superficial information on American history, but I don't think Apache/Mohawk/African Americans issues are not proper as examples to be compared to pro-Fascist collaborators we are talking about. Do you mean that French people's blame on Nazi collaborators is OK since France has no communist brother, but Korean people's blame on pro-Japanese collaborators are problematic due to the existence of N. Korea? Or do you mean that both France and Korea should stop putting blame on their collaborators?
Is it impossible to put blame on both pro-Japanese collaborators and communists like Dong-Woo did? When one blames pro-Japanese collaborators, does it automatically mean that he/she is on the communist side until today? In the time period Seoul 1945 is set in, it must have been extremely difficult to blame both. But more than 60 years has passed.
And for your information some minor errors in your thread: "Their candidate was competent - a mayor of Seoul": Roh's rival from GNP was not a mayor of Seoul, but a lawyer. One of the promising GNP candidates for this year's presidential election is a former mayor of Seoul. "In 1905 Japan formally annexed Korea, and ...": In 1905 Korea was deprived of power to conduct foreign relations and turned into a de facto protectorate, but if you mean "formal" annexation including the dethronement of Korean emperor, and formal extinction of Korean Empire itself, it was done in 1910.
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Post by Lucy on Feb 21, 2007 11:22:09 GMT -5
Whether the North Korean regime is "leftist" is highly debatable, so please don't attempt to equate the American left with the Kims. It's an anomalous regime based not in left-wing principles (at least, in more than name only--and let's not get into the formal name of the country because it is just a name, not a reflection of reality) but in a cult of personality. The state equals Kim Jong-il. Both of you know much more than I about Korean politics, so this is as much as I will say, but I know the difference between a state run on collectivist principles and a regime that is sustaining itself through reliance on the iron-grip political power of one man and his allies.
Also, I'd like to say, as moderator, for the benefit of others reading this thread, that while the tone in this thread can be angry and adversarial, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. As long as the interlocutors don't get personal (and I would warn them that they've stepped a bit over the line once or twice already), I think a frank exchange of views is healthy. Let's try to keep it K-drama related, however. The subject of Korean politics in the 20th and 21st centuries is certainly what "Seoul 1945" is about, but let's not just use the drama as a pretext for a political argument. Remember the "Bamboo Grove" thread, which I had to close because people were getting angry and thought it had nothing to do with the drama.
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Post by eoribeori on Feb 21, 2007 11:54:15 GMT -5
Candylover, sorry about my errors. I was referring to Lee Hoi-Chang, another conservative-moderate candidate for President, whom I thought was Seoul mayor. Whatever. Yes, Officially, Japan formally annexed Korea in 1910, so Koreans were left hopelessly annexed for "only" 35 years, occupied for 40 years. They were effectively taken over by the Japanese in 1905, however. I give the example of native American nations - dozens of which I have personally visited - because like Korea in 1940, the peoples of these nations are all too aware that their countries have been stolen from them and all that's left is to try their best to maintain their nations as cultural entities. In this USA, not of their own making, they are caused to find ways of coping, surviving and advancing in a state whose history books still start with Plymouth Rock and Jamestown, rather than starting several tens of thousands of years earlier. I can't call these people collaborators. I call them heroes, because they are trying to use their skills and minds in some way, and because they are continuing their nation by existing and bringing forth new generations. I'm not capable of judging every single Korean living during 1905-1945, but for the most part, I am glad that they tried to live and advance in whatever society that was left them. I don't forgive Japan for what it did to Korea and what it caused Koreans to do to get by. I never will. But let's please keep a sane perspective, most of the people who were alive, thinking adults in 1945 in Korea, are DEAD in 2007. So if you want to do a Roh strategy and avoid your own duty to the Korean nation and forgive, comfort, excuse, or allow in 2007 unelected dictator Kim Jong Il to occupy half the Korean nation and to oppress and kill your Korean brothers TODAY, YOU are the collaborator TODAY. You are the sinner. You are the person who should be judged for your criminal attitudes. So you want to keep changing the subject? Very interesting. I guess it is easier to keep pointing fingers at me. First my crime was that I was a Korean who didn't like Roh. Then I tell you I'm American, so you then start suggesting virtually that Koreans where gung-ho trying to fight Americans (they were not). Then you suggest that I only get facts from "biased" Korean newspapers writing in English. So then i tell you that I read in US, UK, French, German, and other newspapers accounts, and now, what? You are trying to insinuate that I am easy on Nazis or on their French collaborators? Why, because I can read French and German? HOW STUPID ARE YOU?? I really don't want to keep repeating myself, but you REALLY have the wrong person to slur... again. Why don't you stop trying to figure out why I don't like North Korean dictators and JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION: why can't you handle the truth about North Korea's oppression by the Kim Il Sung/ Kim Jong Il clan and by its supporters in the South, who give it money and support in the billions of dollars? For your information - and this will be the last time that I will allow for your slick diversions: Unlike Korea, France was occupied, largely but incompletely, by enemy forces, and that was only between 1939-1945. In fact, initially during that time, there was incomplete German occupation, and officially the French state never collapsed. The country continued to be called France, people continued to speak German, and in varying degrees, the French Empire (with its own evil of controlling other countries) was allowed to continue under the collaborationist French government control. French collaborationists aren't a great comparison to Korean collaborationists under Japan rule, because Korea CEASED TO EXIST as a nation. Much of this had to do with it being a monarchical dynasty, not a "modern" state. So if you kill the king of Chosun (Joseon/Korea), there is no Chosun Dynasty, and there is no Chosun/Joseon/Korea, or at least no easily recognizable Korean state. And because many functions carried out by "modern" states, such as registration of births, deaths, marriages, etc., were actually carried out at the family level, such as family registry data, if a Korean state disappeared, families in Korea could still function as Kims, Paks, Lees, even if there was no Korean flag or Korean passport that citizens could carry. In a way, we could blame French collaborators more than Koreans, because for at least half of their occupation, from 1942-45, it was starting to look like France would LIKELY be free again, after the US invasions of No. Africa, Italy, Normandy, etc. There were daily radio broadcasts from London in French reaching France and telling people to stay loyal to Free France. General DeGaulle was heard on the radio every week and gave an image that there was a Free France and in fact a Free France Army. Allied planes were constantly seen in the skies bombing the Germans. In addition, throughout France, there was an armed partisan resistance that was capable of amazing feats despite the German army being all over the country and the Nazi SS asserting greater control of the state apparatus. Information about the outside world, including about German defeats in war were known immediately to the French. Tactics to take over cities and strategic points were constantly being relayed to partisans in France. You see, the French were NEVER allowed to think of themselves as "FOREVER DISAPPEARED" as a nation, as was Korea. Part of this was geographic, part of it was racist- white colonial powers did not care about Japan taking over other Asian countries very much, because Eng, Fr, Neth, and the US had themselves occupied Asian countries. Korea was cast off, leaving Korean freedom-fighters with few resources. By the way, since you refer to "Seoul 1945" for your historical analogies, isn't it interesting that they showed Dong-Woo's father also sending money to Korean liberation fighters in Shanghai and elsewhere? The fact that that was included in this leftist script was due to the fact that it was much more common than you want to believe possible. Clearly Dong-Woo's father did not have to do that, and if you are alleging that everyone who openly appeared to support the Japanese, why on earth would one do this, at their and their family's peril? Supposedly, that was even a point that could have made Mr. Lee blackmailed and in grave danger from the Japanese. So maybe your "collaborator class" wasn't as pro-Japanese as much as afraid and stateless. Yes, Lee and the exploitative mine owner Moon are shown to be "buying airplanes for the Emperor" but in their hearts they remain Korean. What was the main problem in 1942 is that Korea had ceased to exist for nearly 40 years already. There were virtually no radio transmissions into Korea from the outside world. That's why, in "Seoul 1945" they actually show Koreans completely shocked that Japan surrendered. They had no idea of Japan's weaknesses and nobody from the outside world particularly bothered to help them. There were no US flights over Korea dropping anti-Japanese leaflets. There were no bombings of Japanese installations in Korea by US airplanes. Only some Koreans conscripted by the Japanese occupiers of Korea and sent to individual battlefields as soldiers or as sex-slaves could have some news about Japan's vulnerabilities. But most of these people never made it back home alive, and back in "Peninsular Japan" (Korea) what was one to do? What did YOUR parents and family members do? Was everyone leading an armed resistance, or were they just trying to live their lives? How harshly do you really want to judge your fellow victims of the Japanese Occupation? The Japanese were the winners of WWII in a way. They kept the integrity of their national territory and their monarch. They kept their militarists from execution, but for Tojo. They kept their ideologies of racism and militarism in hiding, only again in Koizumi and Abe being taken out of the closet. And Korea ended up divided, with Korean and Chinese Communists overrunning the country, causing war that killed millions and that left the nation devastated. In 2007 the South is having to worry about nuclear destruction from other Koreans, while in the North, there is no freedom of thought, press, religion, nothing - just a need to express undying loyalty to the Kim Il Sung/ Kim Jong Il clan, with death and torture as the only option. Who's laughing in 2007, Candylover, do you think it's the ghosts of the dead Koreans whom you call collaborators, or is it the Japanese ruling elites who want Korea vanquished? Whose interests are Kim Jong Il and Roh, and you serving when you hurt other Koreans? How much of the North Korean population needs to die of malnutrition or by bullets for you to care to change your opinions and fight today's enemy, or, at a minimum, not cover for its crimes?? The French were never subjected as a nation to loyalty oaths to Hitler. Even French govt officials were only assumed to be giving lip service to Germany. So those in France who turned over Jews or resistance fighters to Hitler generally did so quite willingly. Occupation in France, compared to, say, Poland, was not too hard on the French, particularly on those who already had evil in their hearts. France was ultimately under Germany's boot, yes, but not in the entirely hopeless way that Korea, after nearly 40 years, was under Japan's boot. Nobody ever told the French, for example, that they had to take German names and nobody stopped teaching French in schools. Hitler might well have done these things in time. The Japanese were left alone to hurt Korea for 40 years!!! The Stalinist/Kim Il Sung/ Kim Jong Il regime has now been in control in the northern provinces of Korea since 1945, over 60 years. Do you have ANY comments about their behavior toward Koreans? Any comment at all? The facts speak for themselves. I cannot say enough how characteristic your Korean Left pro-North thinking is that, even if I write constant references to Your Partisans being collaborators, you cannot help but change the subject to America, France, Germany, Koreans 60 or 100 years ago - anything but referring to YOU COLLABORATORS with the anti-democratic MURDERERS Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il! Kindly stop playing games, Candylover. In my opinion, every person or nation that does crimes against another person or people deserves harsh punishment and scrutiny. I do not drive German or Japanese cars or buy German or Japanese products to this day, because those same companies used slave labor in WWII, so I am not forgiving. It might seem petty, but that's what I do. There is some difference, however, between direct involvement in murders, genocide and pillaging of nations, and people who live in a NON-EXISTENT state, a country that no longer exists and that, according to most Koreans by 1940, probably could not exist again, and who are just trying to get by. My hatred of Nazis and Nazi collaborators is as great as my hatred of the Japanese murderers of Asians, and of other world genocidal murderers, including Pres. Andrew Jackson, of the US, who made a career of murdering native Americans. At the time, there even were journalists in the US press that said that as a general he was creating wars and killing Indians to make a political career. Now his ugly face is on the US $20 bill, considered a national hero. Ugh! No, I don't forgive murderers. That is the same with Stalin, Hitler, Hirohito, and yes, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Please remember that unswerving obedience to Confucian thought is what stifled Joseon Era Korea to the extent that the nation was unprepared to handle its adversaries. Similarly, the damage that Kim Il Sung-thought or Kim Jong-Il thought and actions do to Korea only makes life and the future worse for Koreans living now and for those yet to be born. If you really care about Korea, rather than just mouthing other people's slogans brainwashed into your head, try using your intelligence independently, look at a calendar (it says "2007"), and don't be afraid any longer to ask yourself why you have been so afraid to criticize a dictator like Kim Il Sung (historical) and Kim Jong Il (today). When you finally have that answer, you will then realize that your assumptions were not based on honesty or facts but on what some people with evil agendas want you to think. In you they have a simple footsoldier, fodder for their goals. If you do not repent, you will lose your true soul, and you will be the worst Collaborator that your own soul will hate the most.
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