(Re)mapping the Yanggongju and the Camptown in Shin Sang-ok's Hellflower

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-66
Author(s):  
Laura Ha Reizman
Keyword(s):  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
Korean War ◽  
The South ◽  
Military Dictatorship ◽  
New Era ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Love Triangle

The Korean War (1950–53) changed the material and affective landscape of the Korean peninsula and ushered in a new era ruled by a military dictatorship dependent on US military power. With bases dotting the South Korean peninsula, former agricultural villages became camptowns that catered to the needs of American soldiers. This article focuses on the South Korean melodrama Chiokhwa (Hellflower, 1958), directed by Shin Sang-ok, which narrates a love triangle between two brothers and Sonya, a camptown prostitute or yanggongju. It examines the role of the postwar environment in constructing the spaces of the subject. Using the yanggongju figure as a technology of postwar memory, this work reevaluates the ecology of ruination left in the wake of the Korean War—as portrayed through Sonya, scenes of the city, the camptown, the base, and the surrounding fields and marshes—to explore the sense of loss and displacement of this period.

scholarly journals Estimating the carbon dynamics of South Korean forests from 1954 to 2012

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 5023-5052 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Lee ◽  
T. K. Yoon ◽  
S. Han ◽  
S. Kim ◽  
M. J. Yi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Korean War ◽  
National Forest Inventory ◽  
The South ◽  
Data Simulation ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Long Term Study ◽  
C Cycle ◽  
C Stocks ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Korean War

Abstract. Forests play an important role in the global carbon (C) cycle, and the South Korean forests also contribute to this global C cycle. While the South Korean forest ecosystem was almost completely destroyed by exploitation and the Korean War, it has successfully recovered because of national-scale reforestation programs since 1973. There have been several studies on the estimation of C stocks and balances in the South Korean forests over the past decades. However, a retrospective long-term study including biomass and dead organic matter (DOM) C and validating DOM C is still insufficient. Accordingly, we estimated the C stocks and balances of both biomass and DOM C during 1954–2012 using a~process-based model, the Korean Forest Soil Carbon model, and the 5th Korean National Forest Inventory (NFI) report. Validation processes were also conducted based on the 5th NFI and statistical data. Simulation results showed that the biomass C stocks increased from 36.4 to 440.4 Tg C and sequestered C at a rate of 7.0 Tg C yr−1 during 1954–2012. The DOM C stocks increased from 386.0 to 463.1 Tg C and sequestered C at a rate of 1.3 Tg C yr−1 during the same period. The estimates of biomass and DOM C stocks agreed well with observed C stock data. The annual net biome production (NBP) during 1954–2012 was 141.3 g C m−2 yr−1, which increased from −8.8 to 436.6 g C m−2 yr−1 in 1955 and 2012, respectively. Compared to forests in other countries and global forests, the annual C sink rate of South Korean forests was much lower, but the NBP was much higher. Our results could provide the forest C dynamics in South Korean forests before and after the onset of reforestation programs.

The Jeju April 3 Peace Park

2019 ◽  
pp. 37-68
Author(s):  
Suhi Choi
Keyword(s):  
Korean War ◽  
Jeju Island ◽  
Local Context ◽  
The South ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Tragic Event ◽  
Indigenous Spirituality ◽  
Unique Ability

The Jeju April 3 Peace Park was built in 2008 to commemorate the South Korean state’s atrocities toward civilians on Jeju Island before and during the Korean War. Situated in the distinctive local context of remembering, the park reveals its unique ability to manifest long-suppressed trauma through the meanings of both indigenous spirituality and materiality. A national commemorative event has activated the park even further to become a liberating theater of mourning for suppressed mourners. While it inevitably embraces the conventional aesthetics and rituals of the official commemoration, the park simultaneously facilitates the empathic recollection of the tragic event at the uncanny moments of symbolic work that have been mediated through such uncustomary media as mourners’ bodies, improvised props, and local dialects.

scholarly journals Postwar Korean Cinema

1996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hai Leong Toh
Keyword(s):  
Korean War ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
Korean Cinema ◽  
Class System ◽  
Economic Miracle ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Agrarian Society ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Korean Film

POSTWAR KOREAN CINEMA: FRACTURED MEMORIES AND IDENTITY IT IS generally agreed by South Korean film scholars that the Golden Flowering of Korean cinema took place in the turbulent 1950s after the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, amidst the rapid industrialisation and modernisation of a predominantly agrarian society based on a highly stratified class system. Like its highly reactive Hongkong counterpart, South Korean cinema acts as a sensitive reflection of the constant changes and upheavals -- both socio-economic and political. These include the liberation in 1945 from Japan, the Korean War, the 1970s economic miracle and the current traumatic transformations that are shaping this troubled peninsula. This year, the astute Asian programmer of the 20th Hongkong International Film Festival, Ms Wong Ain-ling introduced a total of 12 "Rediscovered Korean Classics," with 6 of them set in the 1950s and 60s, emphasising the important role of Korean women during these...

“He’s a South Korean When He’s Running with You, and He’s a North Korean When He’s Running after You”

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-52
Author(s):  
Daniel Y. Kim
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Korean War ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
World War ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Racial Ideologies ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Korean War

Through a carefully contextualized analysis of Samuel Fuller’s 1951 film The Steel Helmet, this chapter illuminates several tropes that circulated in contemporaneous US depictions of the Korean War: an interracial group of US soldiers, a Korean orphan, and enemy soldiers who disguise themselves as refugees and routinely violate other rules of war. In this movie are the remnants of a prior racial ideology that had demonized the entire Japanese population during World War II and the emergence of a new one that emphasized lawfulness as the primary criteria that could distinguish between subjects of color—both American and Asian—who were loyal and those who posed a threat. As this film demonstrates, the integration of the US military, and particularly the incorporation of Japanese American and African American soldiers into formerly all-white units, became vital during the Korean War to US assertions of its own ethical superiority over the Communist enemy, as was its soldiers’ humanitarian commitment to protecting Korean civilians—especially orphans. Ultimately, this chapter demonstrates how The Steel Helmet both crystallizes the emergent racial ideologies of US Cold War liberalism—especially their legalistic aspects in regards to war and their espousal of military multiculturalism—and then shatters them.

scholarly journals Towards Archival Justice: The Case of Nogŭn-ri Massacre During the Korean War

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-27
Author(s):  
Young-Hwa Hong
Keyword(s):  
Korean War ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Oral Testimony

This paper discusses the social production of archives with a focus on the archive of the Nogŭn-ri Massacre, a case of mass violence against South Korean civilians by US forces during the Korean War. Recent scholarship has criticized views of archives as stable repositories for documents, and instead has shown the process through which archives are constructed through divergent social forces. Moreover, scholars have encouraged archivists to actively function as conduits for the voices of marginalized counterpublics. The archive of the Nogŭn-ri Massacre itself is shown to have been formed by survivors and activists who demanded an apology and redress from the US military for the massacre. This counterpublic archive was first formed of oral testimony, but increasingly accumulated a growing number of written US military documents repurposed by the activists in the service of archival justice.

scholarly journals Analysis of Developmental Chronology of South Korean Compressed Growth as a Reference from Sustainable Development Perspectives

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1905
Author(s):  
Sea Jin Kim ◽  
Woo-Kyun Lee ◽  
Jun Young Ahn ◽  
Wona Lee ◽  
Soo Jeong Lee
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Korean War ◽  
National Development ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
Developmental Indicators ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Economic Perspectives

Global challenges including overpopulation, climate change, and income inequality have increased, and a demand for sustainability has emerged. Decision-making for sustainable development is multifaceted and interlinked, owing to the diverse interests of different stakeholders and political conflicts. Analysing a situation from all social, political, environmental, and economic perspectives is necessary to achieve balanced growth and facilitate sustainable development. South Korea was among the poorest countries following the Korean War; however, it has developed rapidly since 1955. This growth was not limited to economic development alone, and the chronology of South Korean development may serve as a reference for development in other countries. Here, we explore the compressed growth of South Korea using a narrative approach and time-series, comparative, and spatial analyses. Developmental indicators, along with the modern history of South Korea, are introduced to explain the reasons for compressed growth. The development of the mid-latitude region comprising 46 countries in this study, where nearly half of Earth’s population resides, was compared with that of South Korea; results show that the developmental chronology of South Korea can serve as a reference for national development in this region.

On the Making of U.S. China Policy, 1961–9: A Study in Bureaucratic Politics

1972 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 220-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
James C. Thomson
Keyword(s):  
Korean War ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Bureaucratic Politics ◽  
China Policy ◽  
New Era ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
History Of ◽  
John Foster Dulles ◽  
To Come

When the history of Sino-American relations since 1949 is written in years to come, it will very likely lump together much of the two decades from the Korean War to the Kissinger-Chou meeting as a period of drearily sustained deadlock. Korean hostilities will be blended rather easily into Indochina hostilities, John Foster Dulles into Dean Rusk. The words and deeds of American East Asian intervention, of the containment and isolation of China, will seem an unbroken continuity. And at the end, under most improbable auspices but for commonsense balance-of-power reasons, will come the Zen-like Nixon stroke that cut the Gordian knot and opened a new era.

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