BALANCE of CULTURE

B-52s Over Korean Peninsula

From the US Embassy in Seoul: "B-52 bombers fly over South Korea, once again demonstrating the depth of the alliance."

The US military held training flights over the Korean peninsula after South Korean banks and broadcasters were hit with a possible cyberattack from Pyongyang today. 

Is anybody truly surprised about Pyongyang's latest provocations coming just after the Schmidt/Richardson and Vice/Rodman visits to the DPRK this year? Of course the threats from the North aren't wholly because of these meetings, but high profile visits from Westerners ultimately empower the dictator and regime.

North Korea's Unha-3 Rocket Launch

North Korea ended up launching their rocket on Wednesday, after weeks of rumors that the launch would be delayed. South Korea, Japan, and the US are looking to China to step up its involvement in the matter. 

For whatever it's worth, China's official statement expressed "regret" for the launch--a term their spokesmen have never used before when referencing their neighbor's provocations. But they still have not clarified how such action is a violation of UN resolutions. And while these test launches indicate a possible path toward a nuclear warhead, so far it looks like the North Koreans do not have a nuclear weapon that is small enough for a missile to properly carry. 

Look for more of these attention-grabbing events from the DPRK in 2013 as long as their food aid remains cut off from the West. 

Designers Rise Above Ongoing Territorial Disputes

Fashion icons Junko Koshino (Japan), Zhang Zhifeng (China) and Chang Kwang-hyo (S. Korea) put on a lavish fashion show at the Beijing Hotel yesterday, intent on proving that their respective governments' territorial tensions shouldn't affect the integrity of their industry, unlike the recent auto industry issues in the region.

The event was sponsored by China's Ministry of Culture. It's always comforting to see how ordinary citizens can come together on an issue even when their governments can't. 

Ai Weiwei's "Gangnam Style"

Artist and political dissident Ai Weiwei has angered the Chinese government again, this time with his very own "Gangnam Style" parody, handcuffs and all. His version is titled "Grass Mud Horse Style" and was intended to insult China's internet censors as a homonym to a vulgar slur in Mandarin. 

The (Korean) Bill Gates of Japan

After reading the news of Japanese telecom giant Softbank buying 70% of Sprint yesterday, I learned that Softbank's CEO Masayoshi Son is a Zainichi Korean who was educated in the US! He apparently graduated from UC Berkeley, where he connected with all sorts of video game and tech people (often attributed to his success later on). 

My own family has some personal history and connections within Japan so I'm always interested in these "temporary" Korean-Japanese citizens. Zainichi Koreans are the second largest ethnic group in Japan and are known to have settled in Japan in the early 20th century during the Japanese Imperial Period (basically 1910-1945). They are distinguished from other ethnic Korean-Japanese who migrated there later, mainly in the 1980s. 

Softbank has recently expanding their influence in Japan by getting involved in aiding recovery after the earthquake/tsunami disaster of 2011--investing in solar energy as well as paying for 1,200 of the hardest hit families' living expenses and relocation.

The company's humanitarian angle certainly makes Son's nickname, the "Bill Gates of Japan," pretty understandable. 

Russian K-pop Magazine

K-pop is apparently alive and growing in Russia. Just a few weeks ago at the Korean Cultural Center in Moscow, five young Russian hallyu fans launched the first issue of K Plus, a magazine devoted to Korean pop culture. 

The editors plan on including peripheral content from other Asian countries in future issues, such as Japan and Thailand. K Plus' inception undeniably coincides with Psy's global popularity, which makes me wonder how many other K-pop oriented projects "Gangnam Style" will inspire this year. 

Irish Perspective on The Korean Peninsula

Although Irish culture can be readily found around South Korea at this point (that's a popular restaurant in Seoul in the photo), this sounds like a first: a five-person delegation from Ireland will arrive in Seoul to discuss North-South relations with senior officials at South Korea's unification ministry next week. 

Makes sense--not only are the Irish familiar with living a divided existence both physically and politically (Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland), Koreans have been casually referred to as the "Asian Irish" for quite some time now (though I've also heard of other comparisons such as the "Asian Italians" and recently even the "Asian Dutch"). The reasons for these comparisons, especially the Irish example, extend from similarities in the food/drink culture to geopolitical parallels. 

No doubt the Irish peace agreement from the 1990s will be utilized as an important reference for the delegation, but Irish ambassador to Korea Eamonn McKee stresses that a key point for his delegation's approach would be to refrain from extending examples from other international conflicts on to the Korean peninsula's situation by simply presenting "what we did." I think this approach reveals a certain level of sophistication in terms of context. 

On my first trip to Ireland I decided it's one of the most beautiful (and underrated) countries in Europe and even the entire world. The people there share a vigorous sense of humor very similar to Koreans which will only aid in the sharing of perspectives on unification. This is an important conversation as both Ireland and South Korea have relatively recent, dramatic political and economic experiences. 

Different Takes on K-Pop's Cultural Technology

One of my favorite bloggers Xeni Jardin has a great post today commenting on a recent New Yorker piece titled "Factory Girls," which looks at the "cultural technology" of South Korea's global K-pop machine. 

The New Yorker article is, according to Carl Hamm (radio/club DJ who regularly spins K-pop), "one of an endless stream of articles I have read that sort of 'warns' of a pending K-Pop invasion. But the fact is, it's already happened." 

This FP blog had a similar but slightly altered take on the subject, stating that the West is "actually late" to the K-pop party, which is enjoying considerable success throughout Asia. 

While most music lovers heard of Psy only this year through his hit "Gangnam Style," he's been around for some time now. The first time I heard Psy on regular mainstream radio was months ago in Hawaii on KISS FM, probably a few weeks before KIIS FM started to play it in Los Angeles. 

But when was the last time you heard K-pop on the radio before the horsey-dance hit the web--or any foreign song, for that matter? 

McPsy is Lovin' It

Psy's "Gangnam Style" video (which has 282,944,140 Youtube views as of this morning) may have inspired some recent "branding" by entities like McDonald's (a cleverly-timed spoof), a Major League Baseball team, and Thai Airlines to name a few, but just wait until this Halloween: retailers are busy anticipating that the Psy costume "will be the costume." 

Women Olympians Busy Making Headlines Before Opening

Women athletes from different parts of the globe are garnering plenty of media attention during this year's Olympics. Some are calling 2012 the "year of the woman," partially because for the first time in history, both the US and Russian teams are majority-female. In addition, Saudi Arabia has sent its very first female pair of competitors to London (one who will compete in judo without a hajib!), while Malaysia actually has a female shooter who will compete while nine months pregnant!

A rather unfortunate development ticked off the North Korean women's soccer team--right before their match against Colombia, event organizers mistakenly displayed the North Korean players' introductions alongside the South Korean flag! The ladies from Pyongyang ended up beating Colombia 2-0--perhaps fueled by the embarrassing indiscretion. 

While we're on the subject of embarrassing, this week Greece had to kick off triple jumper Voula Papachristou from the country's Olympic squad due to her racist African jokes published on Twitter. She has since apologized, but only after getting more defensive on the social network first. Hopefully she'll realize that her personal entertaining skills do not have much of a place in her role as representing Greece on the world stage!

Lastly, for now anyway, the US beach volleyball team will continue to wear their bikinis during games despite new rules that finally allow women to wear frumpy tees and shorts while playing. To them, like many Southern Californians, swimwear is simply more comfortable and not a big deal.

It's been a rough week in the States, and a rough economic few years for everyone internationally as well. Compounded with the presidential election coming up in a few months, US citizens have been busy reevaluating our social, political, medical, and educational systems. The Olympics will be a brief respite from all of this--plus a fun way to reconnect with our neighbors around the globe and see how they present their own athletes and cultures. And with the increasing inclusion of more women Olympians (um, finally?!), the worldwide celebration seems to be evolving into the relevant affair that it should be.