The Paradox of Postcolonial Korean Nationalism: State-Sponsored Cultural Policy in South Korea, 1965–Present

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sang Mi Park
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Policy ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
South Korean Government ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
The North ◽  
Korean Nationalism ◽  
Cultural Experiences

Abstract This paper examines the process by which the South Korean government revived Japanese forms of cultural policy to mobilize the populace in support of state goals, thus reproducing colonial cultural experiences in postcolonial times. Facing threats to their authority from the North Korean communist alternative, the inequalities of rapid economic development, and the questionable legitimacy of their unelected military governments, successive South Korean regimes expanded cultural policies to create a shared sense of national identity. While placing particular emphasis on Park Chung Hee’s adaptation of Japanese cultural projects to uphold the legitimacy of his regime after the normalization of diplomatic relations in 1965, I also underscore how later regimes managed many colonial cultural experiences to create their own national cultural policies. My discussion of continuities and discontinuities in cultural practice between these two East Asian nations contributes to a better understanding of the transnational exchange of the ideals and structures used to facilitate state goals.

scholarly journals Toward Cultural Policy Studies on Mobility: Reflections on a Study of the Hong Kong Working Holiday Scheme

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Ho
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Policy Studies ◽  
Arts Policy ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Labour Policy ◽  
Cultural Experiences

Cultural policy is predominantly, and practically, considered the sum of a government’s activities with respect to the arts, humanities and heritage. Thus, cultural policy encompasses a much broader range of activities than was traditionally associated with an arts policy. Critical cultural policy studies, then, sees a distinction between ‘explicit’ cultural policies that are manifestly labelled as ‘cultural’, and ‘implicit’ cultural policies that are not labelled as such, but that work to shape cultural experiences. This article considers this explicit/implicit cultural policy distinction through John Urry’s idea of ‘social as mobility’, suggesting that some public policies regarding mobility (such as immigration, international trade and labour policy) have led to specific cultural consequences and therefore qualify as implicit cultural policy. Using Hong Kong’s working holiday scheme as a case study, this article explores how an economic policy on temporary immigrant labour involves a deliberate cultural agenda as well as ‘unintentional’ cultural consequences and problematises the fact that cultural policy studies are largely framed by the idea of ‘social as society’.

Constructing a New Image. Hallyu in Taiwan

2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sang-Yeon Sung
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
South Korean Government ◽  
Negative Image ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The People ◽  
Historical Past

AbstractThis paper discusses how hallyu—the recent influx of Korean popular culture in Taiwan—has transformed the image of South Korea among the people of Taiwan. South Korea and Taiwan share a similar historical past. Nevertheless, the Taiwanese did not have a positive image of South Korea after 1992, when South Korea broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan in order to establish diplomatic relations with mainland China. This work is based on ethnographic research done in Taiwan and South Korea from 2001–2003 and 2007–2009. It explores how hallyu has contributed to the rebuilding of the image of South Korea in Taiwan. It discusses Taiwanese perceptions of this image and the role of the South Korean government in improving it. It focuses on how a once-held negative image of South Korea has been transformed. The hallyu boom inspired many Taiwanese to remark on the influence of South Korean dramas and pop music in renewing their relationship with South Korea. It has provided an opportunity for Taiwan and South Korea to build positive relationships after the break-up of their diplomatic relations. Through hallyu, South Korea became a country that Taiwanese want to emulate, a model nation for Taiwan today.

Forge a strong, Independent Nation! : The Role of the Discourse of Autonomy in Creating Internal Repression in North and South Koreas from 1945 to 1979

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Choi
Keyword(s):  
Educational Policies ◽  
South Korean Government ◽  
Japanese Occupation ◽  
Kim Il Sung ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The North ◽  
Park Chung Hee ◽  
Korean Identity ◽  
North And South

This paper compares how the North and South Korean government from 1945 to 1979 used a rhetoric that emphasized individuals’ autonomy and unity with their nations to create internal repression. This rhetoric, which the paper terms as “the discourse of autonomy”, emerged during the Japanese Occupation when politicians posited Korean identity as a unique and homogenous entity. By analyzing the speeches, autobiographies, as well as economic and educational policies published by the North Korean president Kim Il Sung and South Korean president Park Chung Hee, this paper illustrates how self-strengthening movements in agricultural and educational sectors punished individuals who failed to conform to societal standards. Because of the division between two nations, the discourse of autonomy further repressed members of South and North Korean societies whose occupations bore association to their enemy nation.

The marketization of childcare and elderly care, and its results in South Korea

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 1260-1273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongho Chon
Keyword(s):  
Birth Rate ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
South Korean Government ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Care Services ◽  
Care Systems ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Low Birth Rate

To cope with a low birth rate and an aging population, some East Asian countries have actively reformed their care systems for children and older people by adopting policies for the marketization of care services. This research aims to explore the recent implementation of marketization of childcare and elderly care services by the South Korean government, and to examine the outcomes of the implementation of such policies. Owing to the marketization of services, a number of positive and challenging results have been reported. Similarities and differences have appeared in the processes and outcomes of the marketization of care between child and elderly services.

Crossing Borders: Korean Nationalism and Contemporary Theatre

2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-378
Author(s):  
Yoo Kim
Keyword(s):  
Associate Professor ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
Contemporary Theatre ◽  
Contested Space ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Kim Jong Il ◽  
Korean Nationalism ◽  
Selection Of

In October 2007 South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun walked across the inter-Korean border for a summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il. Although adhering to the primordialist view of nationhood, this state-led border-crossing also indicates the effects of globalization. As the heavily militarized inter-Korean border is permeated by interaction between ethnic nationalism, the nation's anti-colonialist history, and the transnational forces, the image of border-crossing becomes a metaphor for a contested space of national unification. This article examines a selection of works by three contemporary South Korean playwrights who, from a post-nationalist perspective, have emerged to contest the contradictory aspects and trajectories of the past ten years of populist nationalism. Yoo Kim focuses on the ways these post-nationalist plays employ the motifs of border-crossing and borderland encounter to challenge the romantic and exclusionary narratives of the conventional nationalist theatre. Yoo Kim is an Associate Professor in English at Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Korea. His recent article, ‘Mapping Utopia in the Post-Ideological Era: Lee Yun-taek's The Dummy Bride’, was published in Theatre Research International in 2007.

A Cross-Border Life and Legacy: Zheng Lücheng

2020 ◽  
pp. 37-56
Author(s):  
Rowan Pease
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Lu Xun ◽  
Chinese Film ◽  
The North ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Southern Korea ◽  
Asian History

Zheng Lücheng (1914–1976) is famed in China as the composer of “March of the People’s Liberation Army” (C. Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun jinxingqu). Less well known, but of more interest to readers of this paper, is his “March of the [North Korean] People’s Army” (K. Inmin’gun haengjin kok), the official army march of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea until the late 1950s. Zheng was a transnational musician, crossing the shifting borders of Korea, Manchuria and China during turbulent years of war. Zheng’s is a fascinating story of revolution, migration, music, romance and diplomacy at a crux in East Asian history. In the 1930s, Zheng left southern Korea to join anti-Japanese forces in China; he studied and then worked in the Lu Xun Arts School in Yan’an—the crucible of Maoist cultural policy; he married a Han Chinese cadre; returned to North Korea to compose for the army, establish orchestras and conservatoires; was repatriated to China and almost immediately returned to Pyongyang with the Chinese forces. Finally, he returned for good to China as an army composer. A literate and wellconnected musician, he was adept at negotiating the power of nation states. Since Zheng’s death in 1976, his legacy has continued to cross borders. He is celebrated in a North Korean biographical film, The Musician Zheng Lücheng (K. Ŭmakka Chŏng Ryulsŏng; 1992) and in a Chinese film Going towards the Sun (C. Zouxiang taiyang; 2005). He is commemorated in exhibition halls, memorials and festivals in both China and in his birthplace in Kwangju, South Korea. Zheng’s story and music evoke nationalist sentiment, and at the same time are used in cultural diplomacy between these states. Drawing on interviews, archival documents and more recent materials, this examination of Zheng, who played such a central part in the creation of East Asian musical modernity in the mid-twentieth century, illustrates a fascinating interaction of nationalism, internationalism and, now, soft power.

“Asia for the Asians,” Bushido, and Japanese War Crimes in the Netherlands East Indies, 1942 to 1946

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred L. Borch
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
East Asian ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
White Race ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
Netherlands East Indies ◽  
Important Exception ◽  
Political Economic

The 300,000 Europeans and Eurasians residing in the Indies in March 1942 soon learned that the Japanese occupiers planned to implement political, economic, and cultural policies that would integrate the newly “liberated” colony into the “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.” This goal of “Japanization” was to transform everyone living in the Indies into loyal subjects of the Emperor, with one important exception: “Asia for the Asians” meant there was no place for the white race in the Netherlands East Indies (NEI). Additionally, the Japanese in the archipelago were true believers in the warrior code of Bushido, which led to widespread mistreatment of prisoners of war and spilled-over into the treatment of civilian internees. This chapter explains how the Japanese intended to eradicate Dutch civilization and how the “Asia for the Asians” philosophy and Bushido code of behavior resulted in the commission of horrific war crimes, especially against whites and Eurasians.

Fear of Crime among Female North Korean Defectors in South Korea

2021 ◽  
pp. 0306624X2199236
Author(s):  
Jaeyong Choi ◽  
Tay Hack ◽  
Julak Lee
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Acculturative Stress ◽  
Fear Of Crime ◽  
The United States ◽  
Korean Immigrants ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The North ◽  
North Korean Defectors ◽  
Smooth Transitions

Although some studies have focused on immigrants’ fear of crime in the United States, it is important to point out that the number of North Korean defectors to South Korea has rapidly increased since the 1990s. Therefore, understanding factors associated with fear of crime for North Korean immigrants, especially female defectors, is important for ensuring their successful transitions into South Korean culture. The present study used existing survey data from a sample of female North Korean defectors to explore factors related to fear of crime. Results indicate that the number of North Korean friends, language proficiency, and patriarchal attitudes toward gender were significant predictors of fear of crime for the North Korean female defectors. Findings are described and discussed as a potential source for policymaking to reduce North Korean immigrants’ acculturative stress and fear of crime and to encourage smooth transitions into new cultures.

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