Sun, 27 December 2015
South Korea maintains a complex relationship with the United States. While many South Koreans remain grateful for their liberation from Japanese rule in 1945 and consider proximity with the United States a proven catalyst for security and prosperity, others believe the U.S. often behaves as a condescending hegemon, and that its military presence is preventing Korean reunification from ever taking place. As a result, South Korea is a country where several anti-American demonstrations took place but where at the same time, U.S. ambassador Mark Lippert received outpours of support when he was assaulted by a knife-wielding man in March 2015. To make sense of this dichotomy, we had the pleasure of hosting for this episode David Straub, the author of the recently published book: Anti-Americanism in Democratizing South Korea (Brookings Institution Press), which focuses on anti-American protests between 1999 and 2002.. David Straub is the associate director of the Korea Program at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He retired in 2006 from his role as a U.S. senior diplomat after a 30-year career focused on Northeast Asia. He worked over 12 years on Korean affairs, first arriving in Seoul in 1979. Among various distinguished postings, Mr. Straub served as head of the political section at the U.S. embassy in Seoul from 1999 to 2002 during popular protests against the United States, and he played a key working-level role in the Six-Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear program as the State Department's Korea country desk director from 2002 to 2004. He also served eight years at the U.S. embassy in Japan and received his final assignment as Japan country desk director in Washington from 2004 to 2006. David Straub taught U.S.-Korean relations at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies in 2006 and at Seoul National University’s Graduate School of International Studies in 2007. He has published a number of papers on U.S.-Korean relations and is fluent in both Korean and Japanese - as well as German. |
Sat, 19 December 2015
Historical disputes between South Korea and Japan revolve around one key issue: how much, and in what fashion should Japan apologize for its colonial past. Many Koreans argue that Japan has never authentically and honestly apologized for the crimes it committed during the Imperial era. An increasing number of Japanese believe, to the contrary, that South Korea is using the “apology business” as a political bargaining chip, and that no amount of apologies, however heartfelt, will ever be enough. To make sense of this complex situation and see past the underlying politics, we had the pleasure of interviewing Professor Alexis Dudden about her book Troubled Apologies Among Korea, Japan and the United States (Columbia University Press, 2008). Professor Dudden is our first returning guest: we had a great conversation back in Episode 28 about Imperial Japan’s attempts to provide legal and moral legitimacy to its colonization of the Korean Peninsula, based on her first book, Japan’s Colonization of Korea: Discourse and Power, published in 2005 (University of Hawai’i Press). Professor Dudden is Professor of History at the University of Connecticut; she received her BA from Columbia University and her PhD in history from the University of Chicago. She has published in various academic journals and news outlets, including the Journal of Asian Studies, Dissent and The New York Times. Professor Dudden is currently working on her third book, Islands, Empire, Nation: A History of Modern Japan, under contract with Oxford University Press. |
Sun, 13 December 2015
According to the PISA education ranking, Korean pupils perform significantly better than most OECD students in all categories tested (namely: math, reading, and science).Yet this success comes at a steep price: the Korean school system is often described as nothing short of brutal. Its students are among the least happy and most stressed worldwide. At the core of this system is the Suneung (수능) examination which determines university admissions. Because only a fraction of Suneung takers will ever be admitted to the best colleges, competition is fierce. Desperate to give their children an edge, parents invest in evening schools, private tutoring and bootcamps, fueling an entire industry now worth several billion dollars. For this episode, we had the pleasure of interviewing Steven Dhoedt, who co-directed Reach for the SKY, a documentary that premiered at the 2015 Busan International Film Festival and was selected for the DOK Leipzig festival in Germany. Reach for the SKY tells the story of several students, their families and teachers, as they prepare for the dreaded Suneung. Steven Dhoedt is a Belgian filmmaker, producer and cinematographer. He studied film at the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound (RITCS) in Brussels and worked for several years in Hong Kong as a freelance producer and director. He founded VISUALANTICS in 2003, a Brussels-based independent production house; his films have screened in numerous festivals worldwide and have been broadcasted in over thirty countries. He is also the director of State of Play (2013), a documentary that follows several South Korean professional video gamers. |
Fri, 4 December 2015
While Italy’s Sicilian Mafia, Hong Kong’s Triads, and Japan’s Yakuza may well be some of its best known examples, organized criminality is present in every country - and South Korea is no exception. Yet, while this is a popular topic for Korean movies, in practice the general public knows little about this criminal underworld – and even fewer can speak about it from personal experience. We were lucky to interview Jonson Porteux who spent a year doing research in the company of both gang members and law enforcement officials. Jonson Porteux is Assistant Professor at Hosei University in Japan. In his dissertation he explored how the Korean state and criminal gangs interact, and how the former tolerates and even utilized the violence offered by the latter. We spoke about his personal experiences, the historical origins of the Korean government’s cooperation with criminal gangs, and the modus vivandi of these criminals. Professor Porteux completed his B.A. in Economics at the University of California, Berkeley and earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of Michigan. |