BALANCE of CULTURE

Burning Korans in Afghanistan

[Update 2/22: The violence continues to escalate.]

As American celebrated a long three-day weekend for Presidents' Day, the US developed quite a messy PR problem in Afghanistan: 2,000 angry local Afghani demonstrators have gathered en masse at the American base, hurling stones and chanting anti-foreigner phrases. And this is all happening because of an extremely shortsighted and utterly stupid mistake made by some of our American troops.

Apparently some US soldiers improperly disposed copies of the Koran (or "Quran") by burning them and then tossing them in the trash. Why they did this is still vague. The local workers who regularly take care of the garbage discovered the remains and reported the findings to outside contacts.

Why would American soldiers screw themselves like this?!

Burning the Koran is an unmistakeable crime in not only Afghanistan but around the Muslim world. This concept isn't so hard to understand. What is difficult to grasp here is why these soldiers would even think this would be a safe thing to do regardless of the reasons behind doing so. Burning an American flag is not something these soldiers would probably like, so why would they choose to burn a holy book while stationed in a nation based upon that text? And how does this reflect upon the entire American presence in the Middle East? Not very positively, that is for sure.

Understandably, General John Allen, head of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has quickly apologized: "When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them. The materials recovered will be properly handled by appropriate religious authorities. This was NOT intentional in any way."

Too bad the apology has done little to appease the local anger, which is shared among laborers to local Afghan Taliban to NATO's top general in Afghanistan. Surely our soldiers get some kind of cultural/educational training (advice at least?) before being stationed abroad, though whatever they do receive obviously isn't enough (and I've recently seen some footage of interactions between soldiers and local Afghans that would very clearly demonstrate this lacking). They can be against the Koran all they want, but burning a country's holy text within its borders is a weak and senseless act that only downgrades our already contentious and precarious occupation in the Middle East overall.

 

Photo: REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

China's Next President to Ink Hollywood Joint Venture

This week much of US political news has been focused on Xi Jinping's official state visit from China. Xi is China's current vice president and heir-apparent.

Xi met with President Obama in the Oval Office, where Xi was approached with a candid welcoming discussion on subjects like a balanced trade flow between the US and China as well as America's commitment to recognizing critical human rights issues.

But Xi isn't leaving for home after DC: he is schedule to visit Los Angeles on Friday to ink a new joint venture between two Chinese media groups and DreamWorks Animation (DWA).

This will be a huge deal for both sides: production studios will be built in Shanghai for China's cinema market, which is the fastest growing in the world: with a growth rate of three screens a day, China is set to be the world's largest cinema market within 10 years.

Hollywood media will be able to infiltrate the spendy and increasingly relevant Chinese film market with less restrictions, a sort of victory in its challenging adaptation to the dwindling global movie market in recent years. Meanwhile, China's role in international film culture will finally expand beyond its state-owned sensibility (though to what extent is still difficult to measure). At any rate, the soft power angles here are undeniable, and both Hollywood and China could use a little sprucing up in terms of global taste anyway.

Xi is expected to become China's president in 2013.

Asian Artists in the Middle East: Murakami & Guo-Qiang

Takashi Murakami honors Qatar with new works in his first Middle East exhibition for the Qatar Museum Authority (QMA) titled "Ego." The show is located in the Al-Riwaq exhibition hall at the Museum of Islamic Art on Doha's Corniche and is open from February 9 through June 24, 2012.

While Murakami remains a hugely iconic "pop" artist, "Ego" looks to celebrate the 40 years of diplomatic relations between Qatar and Japan -- albeit in a manner that is undeniably Murakami-esque: a 20 ft. Takashi blow up doll greets visitors at the entrance of the exhibit, while a massive wrap-around landscape painting commemorates the tsunami tragedy in Japan last year.

QMA's diplomatic art initiative seeks to "promote and support local and international art, foster conversations about artists and popular culture, and build bridges between cultures." Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang's "Saraab" is also on view at the Arab Museum of Art until May 26, 2012:

I absolutely love the concept of having these prominent Asian artists exhibit in the Middle Eastern context of diplomatic relations. Consider yourself lucky if you have the chance to see either of these exhibits this year!

K-pop Behind the Scenes/Soft Power Impact

"If you want to be cute, you have to be very cute. If you want to be sexy, you have to be very sexy." (Typical Korean approach to pretty much everything, isn't it?)

Perhaps (not so) coincidentally this week, I met a couple of women -- one Thai, one Vietnamese -- who were keenly interested in my Korean background, especially when they found out my love for Southeast Asia. The Vietnamese gal even gave insisted on giving me her banker sister's contact info in Ho Chi Minh for my next trip to Vietnam, saying that her sister is obsessed with Korean culture (she's currently learning her 4th language: Korean) and would love to show me around the city.

I was surprised because we had literally just met, but if that isn't a simple and direct result of Korea's growing soft power, please show me what is! I'm far from your typical K-pop fanatic but I'd be straight up lying if I denied seeing the influence that this divisive music genre has had on my interactions with people lately -- which is why this video of the darker K-pop reality is worth a look:



Grueling schedules and tricky contracts, allegations of prostitution and corruption…Al Jazeera goes behind the scenes of the K-pop world, interviewing artists (both well known as well as anonymous) and their "people," a plastic surgeon, "Dr. Music," and others heavily involved backstage. South Korea's soft power push for foreign fans around the world and the seedier parts of the industry are discussed.

Philippine President's New Korean Love

Interracial dating is still kind of a big deal for most Asians, especially South Koreans, so the news of Philippine president Benigno Aquino III's latest girlfriend will surely put the South Korean media in a frenzy -- as well as instigate even more dialogue on the Philippine's growing cultural relations (and present cultural obsession) with Korea.

China's TV Clampdown

Perhaps an attempt to address or redefine their cultural sensibility, the Chinese government has shut down the wildly popular TV reality dating show, "Take Me Out" in a nation-wide clampdown on what is categorized as "excessive entertainment." The state administration has cut out nearly 70% of entertainment TV shows from primetime so far.

Citizens aren't happy about this latest move. I think the government is conflating politics with entertainment here, since most people watching these shows are just looking to relax!

China Recognizes Soft Power Challenge

Comedian @ConanOBrien had a funny tweet for his followers this weekend: "As I look around at everything we have, I want to thank the one who makes it all possible: China."

While it's true that China has seriously strengthened its global economic and political influence the past decade, the one category the Communist nation hasn't received a 4.0 in is its soft power. Though so much of the world relies on Chinese manufacturing and products, the influence of worldwide Chinese culture is still in the early stages.

Last year around this time James Fallows published one of the best essays of the year, which quite frankly pointed out how despite China's impressive rise, most people would never want to be actual citizens of China. It's a simple idea but the example really puts the China context into an accurate equation: the country's success is great, but it has quite a lot of issues to work on before people view it as more than just a manufacturing/production system.

Like many people, I have anticipated something like this from the Chinese government for quite some time now…this is exactly what Balance of Culture is about: cultural influence/competition (soft power), ideology, and globalization. This cultural challenge is China's next giant hurdle.

The US v. China cultural see-sawing is kind of like a more au courant offshoot of Samuel P. Huntington's divisive yet prolific "Clash of Civilizations" theory...

 

The revolution continues to be tweeted in front of our eyes

This NYT article is a reflective look at how ordinary citizens behind technology like Twitter shockingly served the world's "elite" an inevitable wake-up call this year.

I'm also relieved that the writer addresses Malcolm Gladwell's painfully ignorant "the revolution will not be tweeted" thesis…until he makes his comeback, Gladwell's intellectual credibility continues to bleed in the public eye. It's disappointing but shows that even the most eloquent writing style simply cannot protect a theory so unfortunately -- and confidently -- confined and parochial.

2011 was the defining year when many of the world's "elites" started to realize that the joke (of their elitism, that is) is probably on them, whether they like it or not. This doesn't mean any of them participate in social media or tech communications one bit, and it doesn't matter if they ever do. But they're quickly being left behind in the dust, which is probably where they belong anyhow.

American in North Korea for Taekwondo

The man on the right is 53- year old George Vitale, the first American to obtain a doctoral degree in Taekwondo Studies in North Korea.

Vitale began studying taekwondo during the early 1970s in the slums of New York City. His father was an alcoholic and Vitale believes that taekwondo helped him develop "confidence and hope" as a depressed young boy. I can't help but wonder how many young kids who practice (and escape in) this sport have similar parental circumstances -- Korea has the second highest alcoholism rate in Asia, after Thailand, even though it ranks 13th worldwide (as of today).

He hopes to "encourage cultural exchanges between North Korea and South Korea as well as between America and North Korea," as he has already helped the North Korean taekwondo team visit South Korea in 2007 and 2011.

I've closely followed North Korea's political and economic issues and I'm noticing an increase in (often unlikely) foreigners who are interested in visiting, working -- and even living -- in the DPRK in the last few years…

China Meets Africa in New Documentary

During my research trip to Tanzania and Kenya a few months ago, I was bracing myself for the experience of a lifetime. And it certainly was, on so many levels -- especially the extent of China's influence on the region.

Reading about it is one thing, but to actually witness this in person was pretty trippy: Chinese vehicles (cars, trucks and busses), Chinese manufacturing equipment, Chinese tourists, and even a Chinese restaurant (that had been there for decades by a local Chinese family, I should add!) was in effect…all the way in East Africa! It was a real "Balance of Culture" trip for this Korean American chick!

So I'm super eager to watch this new documentary, “When China Met Africa,” made by brothers Marc and Nick Francis. In 2005 the Francis brothers encountered Chinese workers building a road in the Ethiopian countryside and were immediately interested as Marc had once lived in Shenzhen.

Strong Asian investment throughout Africa soon became apparent to them and they decided to track and film three men in Zambia who represent this "new" wave of Afro-Sino relations. (I should add that China is now Africa's largest trading partner but this relationship had been developing for decades, well before 2005!")

The Francis brothers were right when they felt that the Chinese workers building an Ethiopian road in the middle of nowhere was "the future." China, and Asia in general, is exerting its influence all over the world today -- even in lands and cultures most distant from them. This documentary is sure to have some fabulous footage for those who've seen this new meeting of cultures in person, as well as those who wish to someday experience Africa firsthand!

"When China Met Africa" is out on DVD now. Here's a great Q&A with the directors.