eas97b

The Two Koreas

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 04:33:28 GMT

Amartya Sen Article [Joa]

Amartya Sen PDF 6-19 [Fanny]

Amartya Sen PDF 19(Freedom and Tolerance)-35 [Angela]

Cumings 1-15 [YY]

Cumings 16-28 [Jennifer]

Cumings 28(Ch.5)-45 [Betty]

Cumings 46-60 [Kareem]

Paul Connerton 1-23 [Cher]

Wang Ban 1-17 [Yifan]

Week 7: City versus Country

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 05:00:20 GMT

Odyssey Ch.2 [Fanny]

Shen left Chenzhou in 1917 and joined the Gan Army, who raised their own troops and made own laws. Would kill and form bandit gangs for money.
Shen's gift to posterity is that he recorded the web of obligations among his region's warlords
Began career as bodyguard to Zhang Xueji, who commanded the Second Army of the "united army for pacifying the nation" and needed protection from the First Army.
West Hunan was divided among commanders to use as defense districts so troops can live off the land and earn their keep by "pacifying the countryside." Zhang took Yuanzhou.
1920s militarism in China: soldiers taught to preserve national unity by obeying civilian authorities without questions. They were retarding, not leading, China's renewal.
1922: shen leaves military to seek scholarly career with values that lay above the state. Saw that his warlord career was not discipline but just violence. Wanted to reject both Nationalist and Communist solutions and just become a pacifist.
His work seemed to trace his own progress-- from attraction to military life to disillusionment
Soldiers did not do much and were too poor to use ammunition for practice. Went to market once a week. Opium was cheap and there was social pressure to smoke. Executions were entertainment. Low salary.
Secretary staff, Wen, responsible for turning Shen back toward civil career of scholarship: taught Shen to not only read newspapers, but also dictionaries for enjoyment.
Shen as clerk recorded confessions to capital offenses
"pacification campaigns": officers extorted money from accused and tortured them into making confessions. If they couldn't pay up, then their heads come off on market day.
Chongwen calligraphy style= revering culture.

Shen changed this to Congwen (dedicated to culture) that suggests civilian aspirations

Shen fell in love w/ a woman whose brother borrowed a debt that amounted to 1/3 of the Shen family estate. The young woman soon vanished and Shen lost face and started to flee to Peking but was intercepted by his cousin Haung Yushu in Changde and stayed there for 5 months. Learned how to live on credit, which will prove beneficial when he arrives in Peking. Drafted 30 love letters for his cousin to a girl the cousin liked and later married.
Draft of letters is prelude to Shen's later debut as romantic spokesman for freedom of young love in defiance of gentry values
Shen preferred fresh poetic images to classical allusions. Liked Li Shangyin and other lyric poets who dared write of subjective, even erotic, feelings. Uncle Nie also filled him with Tongcheng School's literary ideas, which stressed the lyric style of old Tang/Song masters and simple elegance of Sima Qian.
Had a taste for Ming-Qing vernacular fiction and preferred that to Classical Chinese prose
Thought that people were willing to devote themselves to a cause/person because of the "personal example of the commander, " chen Qu zhen.

Disciplined armies, allowed farmers to cash in on profits of opium growing, founded modern high schools, six factories, first modern bank of West Hunanm, instigated geological survey
Supported use of modern vernacular Chinese in media. Founded newspaper and magazine to sitr up enthusiasm for reforms
Shen looked up to Chen for his traditional values

At urge of more progressive coworker, Shen began reading more modern literature
Decided to become a New Intellectual in Peking, a scholar "in opposition" to the 'Confucian" establishment

Odyssey Ch.4 [Angela]

Odyssey Ch.5 [YY]
    Shen Congwen is known for his stories set in West Hunan, about his people and its history. His talent is largely underappreciated and his stories are retarded as Marxist or Nationalist morality tales, depending on the time, context, and need of the government/society in power. Many of his stories can be interpreted as warnings against the dangers of the high morality of civilization, and also the corruption and complexity of urban civilization versus the purity and simplicity of rural civilization. The country folk he wrote about were mostly of Miao [ethnic] roots, but somewhat assimilated into Han Chinese lifestyles; people he knew much about. However, he was very interested in the people who were purely ethnic Miao, although he did not know much about this group.
    Shen Congwen is a pantheist.
    Pay attention to Shen Congwen's descriptions about rural communities, and their relationship/differences/similarities/analogies to urban communities. He often utilizes stories in rural communities to highlight these differences or similarities to the characteristics of urban communities. He writes in pure and simple prose, not heroic and/or archaic, but elegant.
    Basically, country folk are purer, more naive, and less corrupted than city dwellers.
    Nature plays a big role in his stories, as a symbol of lack of confinement, but also as an ever-present danger [natural disasters].
    Shen Congwen cannot be considered a realism writer, because his tales are loosely based on fables and folklore, and can be considered fantastical.
    A lot of this chapter is literary analysis of Shen Congwen's works, and requires some familiarity with Shen Congwen's stories in order to understand his references and points. But the general points are summarized above.

Shanghai Modern pg3-36 [Jennifer]
Shanghai by 1930s was very much a modern, cosmopolitan city. Much of the writing about it, however seems to play up an unflattering image, both in the West (think of the phrase “to Shanghai” and in the East (China) where leftist writers saw the city as a “bastion of evil, of wanton debauchery and rampant imperialism.” But does this vantage point (Shanghai as evil) obscure our viewing of the very real changes that happened in Shanghai? What makes Shanghai modern? What constitutes its modern qualities in a matrix of meaning constructed by Western and Chinese cultures?

The author thinks that answer to this question may lie in studying material aspects of Western culture that entered Shanghai, especially the new public structures and spaces for urban cultural production and consumption, mostly in the concessions. In short we will study architecture to see how people’s lives are changed/changing.

The heart of foreign influence is the Bund, a strip of hotels and banks and consulates on the bank of the Huangpu river. Most of the buildings built by the British there were built or rebuilt in the neoclassical style, which was connected in their minds to Empire.

The Americans, entering the Bund scene as joined the leagues of the imperial nations, built their buildings in a more modern style that “exemplified the new American industrial power.” Examples include the Park hotel, churchs, hospitals, public buildings, and cinemas. Many of these were in the Art Deco style. “When ‘translated’ into Shanghai’s Western culture, the lavish ornamentalism of the Art Deco style became, in a sense, a new mediation between the neoclassicism British imperial power, with its manifest stylistic ties to the (Roman), past, and the ebullient new spirit of American capitalism. In addition to—or increasingly in place of—colonial power, it symbolized money and wealth.”

Art Deco architecture also pushes a new modern lifestyle.

In general, seems that people of Shanghai didn’t like skyscrapers—the tall hotels were literally and figuratively beyond the reach of the average man.

Department stores: Although hotels catered to foreigners, department stores had become attraction to the Chinese. These are located on or near Nanjing road…. “If the Bund was the seat of colonial power and finance, Nanjing road is the 5th avenue.”

Chinese can also afford coffeehouses, cinemas, cafes, and dance halls (not too expensive like hotels). Coffeehouse: French institution combines with British tea time…poor writes take advantage of reduced prices at this time to eat in restaurants, discuss stuff. haunt of upper-class Chinese, foreigners, writers, artists Dance Halls: lower in cultural prestige than coffeehouse, lots of prostitution, all classes of people; dance halls as necessary, although negative, backdrop for emergence of new public persona for women Public Parks and the Race Club: For a while dogs, bicycles, Chinese, not allowed in parks (also Japanese and Indians, except those wearing Western clothes). Admission charge. served functions of dance hall, café, restaurant, and park, place for trysts

Tram becomes one of the most frequently used forms of public transportation.

Life for most was played out in traditional homes, architecture. Chinese passed freely from private, traditional homes and Western, modern public spaces. Writers usually lived in cheap “pavilion rooms.” There was big difference between these small, uncomfortable spaces and public Western spaces, which encouraged writers to seek out the public spaces more. The writers imagined their connection to the city and the outside world b/c of their engagement in these public spaces.

Shanghai Modern pg36-67 [Betty]

Shanghai Modern pg67-96 [Kareem]

Women and Children:

Various kinds of images of women can be found in this magazine.
The pictures tend to follow a narrative of the same woman in different outfits.
The magazine depicts that the woman’s place in this new era is still at home with the children, but now the home is more developed and convenient.
New emphasis is placed on health and hygiene.
Ads from the time period indicate that Shanghai was caught up in the problems of STD’s, Opium smoking and contagious diseases in general.
Changes in women’s lives began to occur, such as freedom from foot binding.
The author discusses how magazine ads from the time depict the home as a safe and clean place, while the outside world holds potential evil and disease.
Ads also emphasized a connection between a beautiful body and a healthy body, with campaigns depicting more and more nudity.
This use of (apparently female) nudity disturbed some Chinese during this transitional period, and caused a general shift in perception as the author argues that this display became a topic of discourse in this modern world.

Advertising Modernity:

The author describes how the advertisements illustrate the routines of a modern family and their life. Also, picture campaigns depicting the modern city of Shanghai.
The magazine marks this step in Shanghai’s history as well as how it represents the progress and modernity of Shanghai.

Calendar Posters:

These calendar posters, which began as an advertising gimmick, started a trend of traditional Chinese painting techniques with modern design.
These items would depict women and advertise mostly tobacco products or medicine.
The author describes a specific calendar poster, advertising cigarettes while a woman sit by a pool of water. He discusses the imagery and how a particularly good calendar poster combines the real and the fantastic in imaginative ways.
The calendar portion of the poster juxtaposes the Western and the Republic of China calendar. This combination can be used to represent the culture of the time, of East and West meeting to create something new and useful, if a little more complicated.

The Urban Milieu of Shanghai Cinema

The author argues in this chapter that Cinema (which was new at the time), journals and other kinds of print media worked together to help form the unique cultural network of Shanghai at this time.
Apparently a large number of lavish theaters could be found in Shanghai, where movies could be watched almost as soon as they were released in Hollywood.
Many forms of advertisements were associated with these cinemas, such as billboards and magazines which were sold in the theaters.
Shanghai soon began producing its own films.

Movie Magazines and Movie Guides:

These publications mostly featured pictures of actresses or movie scenes, almost always containing women.
They would also rate films and would favor locally made films instead of Hollywood.
They would also quote ratings from American magazines.
Basically he keeps talking about going to movies and how there were Chinese films and American films in competition.
Many Chinese films were based on popular folk tales or romantic stories.
Liu, an artist who wrote about film discussed how the form and speed associated with film was what made it so enticing. This was labeled as ‘neo-sensationalsim’.

Popular Tastes: Film and Spectatorship

The author discusses how cinema had the new theme of a focus towards the female consumer and how female movie-stars embodied the notion of fashion and the modern woman.
There biggest different between the American and Chinese movement here, is that China did not focus on the sexuality of these female figures as the American press did.
The Chinese image of these beautiful women included the notion of intelligence and virtuosity as told by the articles.

Shanghai Modern pg96-119 [Cher]

Chinese Film Narrative: Hollywood Influences vs. Native Aesthetics
audience tastes were shaped by print culture, especially popular fiction
American films from Hollywood were very popular and more so than any other foreign country

lavish, "superior direction and technique"

"lived happily ever after" and "triumph of right over wrong" themes in Hollywood

European films were more realistic

films featuring social problems were not as popular because they went against Chinese teachings, ex. filial piety
many Hollywood films involving one woman pursued by two men related to contemporary Chinese culture which involved the same theme however one man was usually pursued by two women
1907-17 according to Hansen there was a shift from early to classical American cinema; this was defined by "the elaboration of a mode of narration that makes it possible to anticipate a viewer through particular textual strategies, and thus to standardize empirically diverse and to some extent unpredictable acts of reception"
focus on the characters -- birth of star culture
many different story lines that were interweaved with each other and moved towards a resolution; focus on the psychology of the characters
D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin films were well known in China
Chinese films were classified into two groups: wenren dianying, which were influenced by May 4th leftist literature and xiren dianying, which were influenced by traditional Chinese theater, particularly the wenming xi (civilized plays) which were a hybrid of popular drama with some modern content; the former began to dominate the Chinese market beginning in the 1930s: frivolous entertainment -> social criticism

Pickowicz however charges that there was a close connection between the May 4th films and the popular melodrama of the 1920s; he defines the new leftist filmmaking as a coming together of the classic melodrama with elementary Marxism -- the laboring masses and the sympathy for it; Nick Browne hypothesizes that the emotional force comes from the melodrama, which according to him was a popular form that embodied combined the traditional ethical system and the modern state ideology; Pickowicz furthers the argument by defining melodrama's purpose as a means for putting the insecure masses in touch with the essential conflict between good and evil that was just below the surface of daily life -> appealed to the low-brow, non-intellectual consumers of popular culture

author agrees to a point but contends that the leftist movement had less to do with the rise of Chinese cinema
collaboration of print and film culture -- leftist writers began to write elaborate scripts, Marxism seeped in through the new narrative mode that used the image of the petty city dweller living in a limited urban space as a symbol of social hierarchy and the theme of the city and country as contrasting worlds of evil and good
Hansen argues that classical Hollywood offers viewers a chance to peer into the fictitional world without these characters knowing that they are being watched; Hollywood provides an illusion of reality; various shot angles to manipulate the audience's feelings -- thus sort of film footage was expensive and largely absent from Chinese films
Ma Ning, a mainland film scholar, studied leftist films through a close reading of the film Malu tianshi in his article "The Textual and Critical Difference of Being Radical: Reconstructing Chinese Leftist Films of the 1930s" -- incorporates the journalistic and the popular
Chinese films had diverse elements from different films and cultural genres, for example, stylization of silent films with spoken parts; role of the camera -- focuses on the downtrodden characters
role of the audience in governing the choices of the filmmakers: sugar-coated social points to make the film more interesting, dramatic, emotional impact
women who went to the theater challenged the idea of public/private spaces for women -- liberation of the woman's gaze
watching a film was equal to going to the opera today
there were also second-run theaters strictly for Chinese films found mostly in the northern areas under the rule of the Japanese

Jameson: Third World [Yifan]
Nationalism appears over and over again in third world literature
These “non-canonical”, or non-original masterpiece, works cannot live up to first-world literature in the eyes of first-worlders; they are looked down upon
But is this avoidance of anything but a small selection of “canon” masterpiece texts good? It limits our experiences and dealings w/ different lives.
Interesting point: the third world novel is already read, “We sense, between ourselves and this alien text, the presence of another reader, of the Other reader, for whom a narrative, which strikes us as conventional or naïve, has a freshness of information and a social interest that we cannot share.” (3)
We would prefer not to know that Other reader or his interpretation and world.
Fragmentation of world, we need to face it. Third-world refers to those who suffered under colonialization and imperialism, vs. capitalist first-world and socialist second-world
Third-world countries are all different, but they are tied by their struggle against first-world capitalism, or euphemistically described as modernism; they see us from the outside view.
Capitalism is new idea built on old culture.
To see modernism in action, look at development of older cultures at moment in contact w/ capitalism. Two types: tribal (Africa) and huge bureaucratic (Asian)
Author’s argument: all third-world literature are “national allegories”
First-world literature has split between private and public, sexuality and politics/economics, Freud v. Marx; third-world literature about private is always more than that, is a national allegory that extends to the public, and this makes first-world readers very uncomfortable
Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary”: is not meant to be read like a Freudian, is existentialism - writing to explore reality and fiction, cannot be rationalized on the surface, supposes some pre-existing knowledge, the Other reader must have lived in a mentally trapped situation like Lu Xun to fully understand the story
Jameson makes a really odd note: sex is linked with eating in Chinese so Lu Xun’s story really ties politics and sexuality together.
In Lu Xun’s “Medicine”: child dying of illness is to be saved by “cure” of steamed bun dipped in criminal’s blood, again intersection of eating and political prisoner
“Ah Q” is another allegory: he is the China beaten down by foreigners, his persecutor is the China of “A Madman’s Diary”
Role of the protagonist is always a political intellectual; in Lu Xun’s Preface, that intellectual faces a politically impossible task
Narrative closure: in Madman, two distinct endings: his own call to save the children and the “reality” in the preface that he has been cured; this allows true projection onto future
Note: culture needs to be placed w/I history, not just ideologically examined; and third-world national allegories are alive and self-conscious
In Africa, because independence was given to them instead of taken through violence, writers are like Lu Xun, want revolution but have no constituents for action
Ousmane wrote The Money Order, Islamic alms giving is picked clean by capitalist free-loaders, cannibalism in a way
Analogy of slave and master: slave has materialistic knowledge because he labors for his master, master just enjoys blissful luxury; America is master, third-world is the slave

Ahmad [Joa]

In this article, Aijaz Ahmad basically criticizes Frederic Jameson’s claim that “all third-world texts are necessarily…to be read as…national allegories.” Ahmad’s discourse is divided into eight parts:

Ahmad argues that there is “no such thing as ‘third-world literature’ which can be constructed as an internally coherent object of theoretical knowledge.” He points out that the few foreign writers who happen to write in English become “representative” of a race, continent or even “third world” when in fact such valorization is too high. He also notes that Jameson defines the third-world in terms of its “experience of colonialism and imperialism,” a statement that has issues when one considers the idea of the definition of a nation.
Ahmad is critical of Jameson’s “world” labeling. More specifically, in the Three Worlds Theory of “the capitalist first world,” the socialist bloc of the second world” and “countries that have suffered colonialism and imperialism.” He points out that some countries are not easily placed into one of these categories (i.e. India).
Ahmad criticizes “Jameson’s haste in totalizing historical phenomena in terms of binary oppositions (nationalism/postmodernism, in this case)” because it “leaves little room for the fact, for instance, that only nationalisms in the so-called third world which have been able to resist US cultural pressure and have actually produced any alternatives are the ones which are already articulated to and assimilated within the much larger field of socialist political practice” (8).
Ahmad thinks Jameson too easily categorizes third-world texts as necessarily “this or that” because doing so says that “any text originating within that social space which is not this or that is not a ‘true’ narrative” (11).
Here Ahmad argues that “allegorisation is by no means specific to the so-called third world” (15). As he observes, “It is not only the Asian or the African but also the American writer whose private imaginations must necessarily connect with experiences of the collectivity” (15).
Ahmad expresses his difficultly with Jameson’s description of “third-world literature” as “non-canonical,” not really understanding what he means by this, and also pointing out that “certain writers from the ‘third world’ are also now part and parcel of the literary discourse in the US” (16-17).
Here Ahmad brings up the issue of the terms “nation” and “nationalism” and problems it presents when one tries to define certain places/countries/entities as such.
Ahmad expresses his difficulty “with the way Jameson seems to understand the epistemological status of the dialectic…the proposition that the ‘third world’ is a singular formation, possessing its own unique, unitary force of determination in the sphere of ideology (nationalism) and cultural production (the national allegory)” (22). He states that a text is the product of several ideological conditions, not one, and that many texts cannot simply be placed “within this or that world” (25).

Jameson: A brief response [Cher]

disregard about 95% of what i say....

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:16:51 GMT

but my knee jerk reaction to "hakka" being "round house" is not off the mark....

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Snail_pit_tulou.jpg

"The Hakka were originally immigrants from northern China who settled in the southern provinces. From the 17th century onwards, population pressures drove them more and more into conflict with their neighbours (called punti in Cantonese). As rivalry for resources turned to armed warfare, the Hakka began building communal living structures designed to be easily defensible. These houses, sometimes called tulou, were often round in shape and internally divided into many compartments for food storage, living quarters, ancestral temple, armoury etc. The largest houses covered over 40,000 m² and it is not unusual to find surviving houses of over 10,000 m² "

clearly someone should be writing her paper....

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:10:57 GMT

Leo Ching 34 - 56 [YY]
- Decolonizing and the Vanishing of the Empire
    Fanon claims that decolonizing is a process that "cannot become intelligible nor clear to itself except in the exact measure that we can discern the movements which give it historical form and content."
    Starting after WWII, many of the European countries began relinquishing their power to the natives of the regions that had been colonized. Sometimes these "decolonization" processes were peaceful, and some were violent. For Japan, the Potsdam Declaration meant loss of all its colonies, which meant Japan now ruled the lands limited to Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku. However, when the European powers were decolonizing, it often became a major domestic issue, whereas this was not the case for Japan. Due to the events prior to decolonizing [loss of WWII], Japan was forced to quickly withdraw power from its colonies, providing no time for transition of power.
    Because Taiwan was under Japanese rule for about half a century, reverting back to Chinese rule was an uneasy period, especially since the Taiwanese natives were no longer considered "Chinese" enough. This is also partly because the Japanese way of colonizing included strong "assimilation", with very little tolerance for the native culture. Thus, when Japan was in power, much of the Chinese culture and heritage was wiped out or discouraged, resulting in a widening gap between the Taiwanese culture and the mainland Chinese culture. When the mainlander's general, Chen Yi, ruled Taiwan, he governed it as an occupied territory instead of a liberated province. The accumulating tensions between the native Taiwanese and the mainlander Chinese, with the stress of the post-WWII economic collapse in China, resulted in the bloody 2.28 incident in 1947.

The Epistemology of Decolonization
    Basically, this section discusses if colonization is a phenomenon from the West, does decolonization undermine the power/philosophy/ideology of the West?

From Postcoloniality to Subordinate Imperialism
    In most postcolonial countries, decolonialization is followed by neocolonial practices, even though they are considered political autonomous. Japan's defeat after WWII and the US's intervening actions prepared Japan for a transition from autonomous imperialism to accepting subordinate imperialism where the US guaranteed Japan the opportunity to prosper under a capitalist economy. The Americans put up funds and economic plans to help Japan get back on to its feet, as well as support surrounding Asian countries.

From Imperialist Nation to Snow Country
    After WWII, America projected a feminine and helpless image on Japan; it was to become the new "snow country", a country devoid of militarism and the memories of past aggression.

Entangled Oppositions
    Inauguration of doka: assimilation policy of Japan, relating to Taiwan. Assimilation in Taiwan included a period of "political movement" [seiji undo], "social movement" [shakai undo], and "nationalist movement" [minzoku undo]. Due to the rapid industrialization within urban areas and the backwardness of the large agrarian population in the countryside, the class discrepancy between the rich and the poor was becoming more prominent. The dominant anticolonial movements in Taiwan intersected with Liberalism and Marxism. These ideologies helped define how autonomy would be achieved and maintained. Liberalism provided the political ideology for people to demand liberation and self-determination in executing their goals. Marxism provided the grounds for total liberation of the oppressed and the route to self-determination for the colonized. It insisted on class struggle and formulated an internationalist and class-based politics of anti-colonialism. Basically, Taiwan's anti-colonialism developments were inevitable.
    The point of the assimilation policies in Taiwan implanted by Japan were to sever the cultural and historical relationship between Taiwan and China and to orient Taiwan as a strategic point in South Asia for Japan. Taiwan, thus, by the end of Japanese occupational rule, was between Japanese colonialism and Chinese nationalism, thus becoming a nation of multiple identities.

Week 5: Colonialism and Oppositional Politics

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:41:59 GMT

Offspring of an Empire 40 - end [Cher]
landlords with excess capital, options to help offset the loss in rice revenue

fourth option - investment in the nonagricultural sector, including industry, for example the cotton textile industry; European withdrawal from the Asian market created huge profits and an unparalleled boom for the Japanese cotton textile industry
the colonial government that established Korea in 1910 had a policy that maintained Korea as a simple agricultural colony and market for Japanese manufactured products, so only industries that served the needs of agriculture, for example railroads and rice mills, were allowed to develop (source of cheap agricultural raw items, especially rice, for Japan); no change in this colonial policy came until 1919
ethnic racism among businessmen - blocked native entrepreneurship in favor of Japanese businessmen

neither Korean nor Japanese private investment was sought or encouraged during this period; thery were restricted by the Company Law of 1910 which required all new companies to be officially licensed by the Government-General; foreign companies, including Japanese ones, who wanted to open branch offices in Korea also had to receive official permission from the government and strict rules; law was revised twice and finally abolished in 1920

economic pressure from World War I necessitated revision of the Company Law because Japan was unable to meet the sudden overwhelming demand for various products; 1917 a Japanese owned cotton spinning and weaving company was established (Choson Spinning and Weaving Company) in Pusan

the War changed Japan from a debtor to a creditor nation and created a wealth of surplus industrial capital which needed an outlet - oversea capital markets, including those of its colonies; from 1917 private Japanese industrial investments began to expand in Korea and Taiwan

abolition of Company Law
adoption of a system of routine legal regulation of companies, similar to the system in Japan
tariff barriers were largely eliminated after the war which permitted a free flow of Japanese goods into Korea (modern machine factories)
limited industrialization was also encouraged because Korea was also becoming a major stepping stone for Japan's growing and increasingly aggressive imperialist ambitions on the continent - Korea, Taiwan, eastern China, Manchuria, Sakhalin Island
The Bank of Choson allowed Japan to penetrate further into Manchuria and begin to do business with them (Korea's position between China/Asian mainland and Japan) as well as cotton exportation from the Kyongsong Spinning and Weaving Company

March 1, 1919 Korea's independence movement - nationalism

between 1905 and 1918 this kind of demonstration of nationalism was on the rise
by 1919 two harsh, militaristic colonial regimes had succeeded in alienating the Korean population
March 1 movement started out peacefully but was confronted with violence on the Japanese side - one million from a population of 16 million took part in various demonstrations around the country; as many as 50,000 were killed and 20,000 were arrested
Saito Makoto took over colonial rulership in Korea in an effort to reform the policies that created the need for such a demonstration - the old policy of authoritarian "military rule" was rejected in favor of a new "cultural/enlightened" policy of conciliation and many reforms were announced; the post of general-governor was in principle open to civilians as well as to the military, a regular civilian police force was formed, more Koreans were supposed to be recruited into the bureaucracy, and Koreans were supposed to publish their own privately owned magazines and newspapers, police were forbidden to carry swords or rifles in public, government bureaucrats no longer wore uniforms; despite these changes, it did not signify a change in Japanese objectives; security measures were increased and the government continued to deal harshly with the Koreans who continued to defy the power of the state - despite these reforms Koreans remained aware of the possible threat of the Japanese military
participation in the March 1 movement had reached all the way into the aristocracy; bourgeois and merchant (money and education due to family background) shopkeepers closed their shops in support of the demonstrators; boycott of Japanese goods in favor of native entrepreneurship
"divide and conquer" Japan expected Korea to follow in its path - nationalism would give way to increasing internal class divisions and struggles as industrialization became more prominent - however, Korea was different because it was Japanese capitalism rather than an internal movement that was initiating industrialization; "the class divisions in Korean society could develop to Japan's benefit only if a Korean bourgeoisie was somehow brought into the development process as a kind of junior partner" - this would be beneficial to both the Japanese and the Koreans because it would "secure native assistance in constructing [the] economy" and it would "promote class differentiation and conflict in Korean society" which would destroy future nationalistic movements
"Japanese Korean harmony" - cooperative capitalist development
Government-General's industrial commission of September 1921 - a comprehensive conference of high-ranking bureaucrats and businessmen that set the agenda of development for the following decade
the language used to promote this "harmony" like "coexistence" and "co-prosperity" are identical to the language of the future Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

the Government-General's major move towards industrialization came later after the establishment of Manchukuo in 1932 and the outbreak of the second Sino-Japanese War in 1937; even so, Korea's industrialization by 1945 was not yet complete

Korea's somewhat industrial economy raised it within the empire among the other colonies
industry counted for about 40% of the economy by 1940, much of this production however towards the end of the occupation were war related industries concentrated in heavy and chemical uses
Korea's colonization must be looked at from two separate point of views: the loss of a nationalistic identity by the conquered people and the benefits/development that came about as a result of being used as a means for Japan's goals
many barriers existed to Korea's capitalistic growth, but they started to fall beginning in 1919; local Korean landlords tried to finance native nonagricultural industries - the late 1930s was a good time for wealthy landowners to invest in native industries due to the want of products for the war; by the end of the colonial period at least 10% (doesn't take into account unincorporated businesses, high debt-equity ratio companies, or joint Japanese-Korean companies) of the paid-in industrial capital of the country was Korean which suggests that the Saito administration's strategy of cooperative capitalistic development had been implemented and maintained by future regimes
later when Korea's ndustrial plans required huge amounts of zaibatsu capital from Japan, the Government-General often insisted that Koreans be included as stock-holders in zaibatsu projects and be given seats on the board of directors of new companies
after 1920 many landlords and wealthy merchants began to invest in small scale factories, especially in ares such as cotton spinning and weaving, knitwear, rubber goods, alcoholic beverages, and rice cleaning and polishing; by 1937 there were over 2,300 Korean run factories and about 160 of them employed over 50 workers (Samsung and Hyundai had its foundings here ^_^) - growing native bourgeoisie class
Kim Songsu and the Kyongsong Spinning and Weaving Company - exported to Manchuria, northern China, Peking/Beijing, and central China; offices in Korea, China, and Japan; between 1919 and 1945 production rose from 250,000 yen to 10,500,000 yen, from 100 to 1,080 looms, and spinledge increased from 21,600 in 1935 to 30,200 by the end of the colonial period; under the guidance of his younger brother, Yonsu, the company began to manufacture ball bearings, rolling stock, and fishing nets, as well as to supply gas, hydroelectric power, hemp spinning and weaving, brewing, gold mining, banking, international commerce, real estate and development, transport, shipbuilding, the aircraft industry, metal refining, oil refining, heavy and chemical industries, and railroads
chaebol - business group similar to the zaibatsu (Mitsubishi, etc.)

Week 5: Colonialism and Oppositional Politics

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 05:32:41 GMT

Leo Ching (57-76):

The Movement for the Establishment of a Taiwanese Parliament: Very visible, non-violent political and social enterprise of this period. The movement gained widespread support, even from some of the Japanese public. Due to its attachment to Taiwanese customs, it was considered nationalistic, and some feared it would lead to independence. Therefore, despite it’s rather conservative approach the colonial government suppressed and contain its activities.

This government then determined that the motivation behind this rebellious attitude of the Taiwanese was due to “ethnonational consciousness”, their “political status” in the colony and their “latent and particular tendency to revolt”. It seems as if the colonial government believed the Taiwanese at the time felt a deep attachment to southern China and the Han people. A report determined that the Taiwanese had a single determinant: the notion of “the change of heavenly mandate” embedded in their psychology.

In the government’s perspective the Taiwanese people tended to one of two tendencies. Some believed that China would grow and become a world power once again, in the hopes that they would reclaim Taiwan as its colony once again. While others would only wish for the embetterment of Taiwan and its people, regardless of who ruled.

“The Taiwan/China divide that emerged under Japanese colonialism remains crucial in current Taiwanese political discourse.” Also, the Japanese rule has had a deep effect on the differentiation between Taiwan and continental China.

Historian Wang illustrates that the Taiwan factions should be defined as ‘mild’, ‘moderate’ and ‘reform oriented’ policies against the colonial authorities. Wang goes on to discuss the wealthiest and most influential supporter of the movement to establish a Taiwanese parliament: Lin Hsien-tang. Lin refused to speak Japanese or wear Japanese clothing, all the while attempting to preserve classical Chinese beliefs in Taiwan.

For those who aspired to Taiwanese independence, they saw that due to their history of colonialism, they had formed their own identity separate from mainland China. Another perspective is viewed by Sung Tse-lai, who accuses Wang of distorting the Taiwanese consciousness. He argues that the ethnic and national consciousness is dependent on its objective economic condition. According to him, the movement of the Taiwanese independence movement reached maturity during the Japanese colonial period. In comparison, the author decides that “Wang idealizes the Han Chinese ethno-national consciousness, while Sung fetishizes a particularistic Taiwanese consciousness.”

Now the author moves on to discuss Shih Ming and his writing on Taiwan’s history. Shih discusses how despite the Taiwanese obviously descend from the South of China, they are natural and historical factors that keep the two societies estranged. Taiwan modernizes under Japanese rule that help separate it from Han China. Shih ends his argument that by the end of WWII Taiwan’s origins from China are practically meaningless. “In Shih’s argument, the rapid pace of capitalist development under Japanese rule played a decisive role in the formation of a unique Taiwanese consciousness.”

Offspring of an Empire 20 – 40:

Enterprising Landlords
-Kims made wise economic decisions, which enabled them to build a great fortune in the rice industry
-They moved from Chulpo from Kochang as ~5% of the Kunsan export trade in rice was passing through Chulpo (most of this coming from Kochang)
-After WWI, rice prices went up (partly due to inflation)—reached its peak in 1919
-Owning rice land was profitable, incentive for landlords to increase profit from their estates
-Kims collected maximized rents from tenants
-frequently changed tenants each year, usually at higher rent, and required peasants to name guarantors who would pay the rent in case tenant does not
-tried to shift the burden of the land tax onto the tenants
-family strove to implement a fixed rent system (as opposed to sharecropping) on its lands—this is more profitable and tenant usually pays the land tax
-hired stewards as middle men between themselves and tenants
The Fruits of Enterprise
-questionable as to whether money was acquired through renting land or from Chong (father in-law)
-Kims probably purchased official posts before the official abolition of the traditional examinations
-2 sons inherited a fortune –Japanese imperialism led to their great fortune

CHAPTER 2
-1919 known for March First independence movement against Japanese domination
-Korea experienced its first great surge of industrialization, and although it was Japanese capital that was given the starring role, Korean capital was also assigned a minor part in the development process
-emergence between 1919 and 1945 of the country’s first industrial bourgeoisie
Earlier Industrial Efforts
-Kabo reform in 1894, government finally takes more positive attitude towards industrial development
-Kyongsong Cord Company=halfway mark between the old and new Korean industrial production

The Transition to Industrial Capitalism
-new generation of Koreans who were imbued with nationalistic and progressive ideas of economic development and had both the means (inherited) and the skills (acquired largely in Japan) to put them into practice
-change in economic conditions—land investment less attractive and industry appealing
-change in colonial development policy

The New Generation: The Kochang Kims
-more Western education as opposed to Confucian
-greater Japanese influence

Week 5: Colonialism and Oppositional Politics

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:01:27 GMT

Excorcising Hegel's ghost [Fanny]

Summary of Hyon Kilon's Shadow and Substance published in 1986
- A scholar publishes a historical study of diving women in Cheju Island that recounts uprising against official colonial divers' union in 1937
- The scholar's book becomes an instant hit and plans to honor the women as "ideal traditional females" and to erect a statute in their name take place
- Complications arises: former leader of the woman group writes to newspaper that it was a spontaneous thing, not a show of nationalism, and that it was just a response to repeated poaching in the divers' territory by pirate Japanese fishing vessels
- Reporter finds out that the scholar lied. Scholar now met with hostility
- Story ends 8 months later with unveiling of sculpture and award ceremony for the old woman, who refuses the honor and declines to appear

Hyon's story is tells of the power and pervasiveness of nationalist intellectual discourse in Korea
- Nationalist paradigm so rooted in mental life of community that it became a priori discursive framework for interpreting historical events: to think differently is to challenge
- Nationalist historical discourse buttressed by strong vested interests throughout community
- Imperviousness to contrary empirical evidence: what matters is correct ideology, not facts
- Price that must be paid for avoidance/distortion of truth: accurate history is not only casulty, but also old woman's humanity when she's reduced to a caricature

Any interpretation that lies outside of nationalist framework is ignored as unimportant, especially with historical accounts of the Japanese occupation from 1905-1910
Hegel regarded nation-states as vehicles of reason and freedom in universal progress of world history. No nation-state meant no freedom and no history
Late Choson goal: transform dynasty into strong nation-state along Western/Meiji lines and to encourage nationalism status
Japanese occupation was a blow to Koreans because J has always been the inferior country
Nationalism soared as Japanese oppressed the Koreans more and more
Nationalism used to legitimate state power and functioned as kind of state religion in post-colonial nation-building process
Political partition of country along ideological lines in 1945, cemented by bitter/destructive civil war in 1950-1953 further narrowed range of permissible historical writing in both Koreas. Not enough to just have nationalist perspective but also ideologically correct.
Pluralism in writing of history implies recognition of multi-dimensional quality of human life and societies
Writing inductively implies accepting reality of history
Historian needs to be objective
Aim of liberal historian in postnationalist era is to discover persuasive interpretation in mass of evidence rather than to impose one from the outside
Do not let passion lead you into writing one-dimensional history
2 good passions: fundamental/intellectual passion for finding out about history itself. Passion for historical interpretation being put forward
Morality of historian is humanistic: a fearless commitment to knowledge of the human condition in all its complexity, a factual, honest and richly detailed exploration of things human beings have done, why/how they did it and impact on human life

Bruce Cumings 69 - 73 [Fanny]

Japan and US as colonizers have instituted much needed legal reforms, cleaned up filthy cities, improved infrastructure, reorganized institutions of life in harmony w/ sci principles
Colony is a way of organizing territorial space in modern world system to orient the colonial economy toward monopoly controls and monopoly profits
Legacy is something that appears to be a follow-on to the different historical experiences of colonialism
Nationalist point of view: no such thing as good colonial legacy; contribution of imperialism to growth is zero
Koreans assume Japan aborted their drive for modernity rather than merely distorting it
Taiwanese tolerated Japanese because it was an efficacious interlude between ineffectual Qing and rapacious Chinese nationalist rule.
French colonized Vietnam but Viet did not experience post-colonial success like that of TW or K
Nations had different precolonial experiences
SK and TW got benefits of postcolonial American hegemony but Viet and NK got all the drawbacks of being objects of postcolonial American hegemony
Korea, especially Seoul, was already pretty advanced before Japanese occupation
Colonising refers to establishing Euro presence, spread of political order that inscribes social world a new conception of space, new forms of personhood and new means of manufacturing experience of the real
French spent little money on colonial development.
Japanese were imperialists, capitalists, colonizers, modernizers but their game backfired because it created competitors (Korean-owned textile mill in Manchuria)

Bruce Cumings 73 - end [Joa]

Much of what I have here is excerpted directly from areas of the text I thought should be highlighted.

Chapter 3: Colonial Formations and Deformations: Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam

- there has been an emerging debate about the sources of economic growth in South Korea and Taiwan: Did it begin around 1960, when both had miniscule per capita incomes but somehow launched themselves onto a trajectory of export-led growth, or do the origins of growth go back further, into legacies of colonial rule?

- Cumings argues several things:

1. differing colonial experiences of Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam made a big difference in their postwar development

2. the “East Asian model” of capitalism has deep historical roots and cannot be understood merely as an outcome of salutary policy packaged that encouraged “export-led development”

3. it is in many ways an East Asian adaptation of the nineteenth-century European conception of the state and its relation to the national industrial economy

The Modern and the Colonial

[see Fanny’s section above]

Japan’s Most Important and Most Recalcitrant Colony: Korea

- major difference between Korea and Taiwan with regards to colonization: Korea has millennium-long history of continuous, independent existence within well-recognized territorial boundaries, ethnic homogeneity and great ethnic, linguistic and cultural difference from its neighbors

- in general, after WWI, Japan had less repressive colonial policies in both Korea and Japan

- Japanese viewed Korean industry as integral to overall planning done in Tokyo, one that needed protection

- More heavy industry in Korea than in Taiwan

- Korean industrial boom during last fifteen years of Japanese rule; development oriented toward needs of empire

- Postwar South Korea not an anti-colonial entity in that it contained virtual replicas of Japanese forms in industry, state policies (economic), education, police, military affairs

- North Korea, on the other hand, was anti-colonial: in denial of everything Japanese, however, it created mirror-image institutions

Japan in its Model Colony, Taiwan

- Taiwan (unlike Korea) was a less intrusive state, more light industry, more small-business and family enterprises, continuous export-led development, more egalitarian distribution, less nationalism, less hatred of the Japanese

- Taiwan’s dispersed and rural character seen as key reason for its quick growth

- Good example of an export-led industrialization after 1960 as well as during colonial period

- Japan taught colonies how to export while protecting domestic market

- Taiwan industrialized through peasant labor

- Financing of industrialization mimicked Japan and Korea: emphasis on state’s financing and harnessing of investment for industrial boom

- Hardly any nationalism and resistance to Japanese in Taiwan

- Taiwan gets same ubiquitous national police system that Korea got: colonizer as rigorous administrator rather than conqueror: police became backbone of regional administration- Taiwan’s Chinese settlers appreciate reforms

- Ultimately, colonial Taiwan seen as project that American academics could applaud in heyday of modernization theory

- In many ways, Taiwan still a colony after mainlander debauch in late 1940’s

- Nationalists monopolize government and political positions and take over many state-owned enterprises

Vietnam: Colonization without Development or Modernity

- French take a long time to colonize Vietnam

- French colonization incidental to their desire for a southern point of entry to China

- French encourage extractive economic activity

- Vietnam’s extensive riverine landscape made canal building and dredging much more cost-effective than networks Japanese built in Korean and Taiwan

- French policies introduced money economy without much else

- Small colonial government obsessed with cost-effective administration leaves villages mostly self-sufficient and autonomous, unlike with Japan

- French maintain rural order with periodic punitive military campaigns, unlike Japan, which had constant military presence

- Instead of central colonial budget, French had local budgets and state’s revenues extraction much lower than in Korea or Taiwan

- French emphasis on monopoly control and coercion without corresponding investment in human capital; many public works project

- Uneducated and unskilled labor force in Vietnam

- One period of real development in Vietnam: “roaring ‘20s” when French piled capital into Indochina

- French do not see colonial state as very important, more like appendage of metropolitan French interests

- In 1930’s, Vietnamese communist and nationalist organizers gain popularity

- French paid little attention to education in Vietnam, unlike Japanese

- French colonialism tends to preserve hierarchy of social relationships rather than foster development and differentiation of Vietnamese society

- French inhibit small business, unlike what is seen in Taiwan

- Peasant revolution promoted because of political economy in Vietnam

- Vietnam faced “colonial nonindustrialization” in complete contrast to way Japanese used its colonies to industrialize itself out of depression

Northeast Asia’s Modern/Colonial/Developmental Project

- high rate of growth in Taiwan possibly due to wide backlog of unexploited new production opportunities

- What is the East Asian “developmental model”? Consider that postwar economic successes in northeast Asia have roots going back before “take-off” in early 1960s. Sketch of regional bureaucratic-authoritarian industrializing regime:

1. A bureaucratic state

2. Education of the masses

3. Effective surveillance of those same masses by every means necessary

4. Metaphysical ideology of national essence

5. Political economy of administrative guidance and neo-mercantilism

6. Involvement in closely linked regional political economy

Conclusion: Staatswissenschaften, or Sate Science of Late Industrialization

- Central experience of northeast Asia this century has not been independence wherein reigns autonomy and equality, but enmeshment in another web: the hegemonic web.

Offspring of an Empire 1 - 20 [Betty]

The Rise of Korean Capitalism

In the seventy years between the opening of Korea’s ports and Liberation, Korea had witnessed the birth and growth of a bourgeoisie.

· Many South Koreans find this difficult to accept because it indicates that capitalism and modernization traced their roots to Japanese occupation.

· Scholarship in both North and South Korea try to demonstrate capitalistic growth in the Yi Dynasty.

o The growth of monetization

o Rise of a new group of merchants

o Beginning of a free wage labor force

· However, Yi Dynasty was still controlled by a small aristocracy, and economic growth during this era was not accompanied by industrialization.

It is the period of imperialism and colonialism that many historians discuss in terms of socioeconomic development.

· Great extent of industrial growth during colonial period

· Colonialism did not prevent many Koreans from partaking in this industrial growth

Merchants and Landlords

The impact of imperialism drew Korea into an international market dominated by great capitalist powers, creating impetus for the accumulation of capital by certain social groups such as merchants and landlords.

· In the Yi Dynasty, aristocrats had control over the land, and there was no prerequisite for substantial accumulation of capital by other members of society.

· The dynasty also forbade private foreign trade, thus both internal and external market opportunities were limited in Yi Korea.

· The Kangwha Treaty of 1876 ended Korea’s isolation from the rest of the world. It became an export market for foreign-manufactured goods and an exporter of grains to Japan.

· Private Japanese business interests began to take note of the Korean market, and Japanese commercial establishments spread throughout the country.

· Korea’s merchants did not adjust well to the incorporation into the world economy. Those who prospered were closely connected to international trade in rice and manufactured goods (these merchants are termed kaekchu). Some poor peasants, like Pak Sungjik, were able to become wealthy merchants from acting as middlemen in international trades.

o The kaekchu invested their money in other enterprises such as modern banking.

o Faced with competition from Japanese businessmen, the kaekchu formed cooperative associations.

· Many of Korea’s entrepreneurs came from landlord families. Even more than the kaekchu, it was the landlords who reaped the benefits from the new international economy.

o The land acquired by the Japanese often came from peasants or owner-tenants, not the rich landlords.

o The Japanese tariff on foreign rice lead to a period of unprecedented prosperity for the landlords.

o Some initially less affluent landowning families, such as the Koch’ang Kims, were able to accumulate substantial capital from their eminence as industrial entrepreneurs.

Offspring of an Empire 20 - 40 [Angela]

Offspring of an Empire 40 - end [Cher]

Leo Ching 15 - 34 [Jennifer]
Taiwan is first Japanese colony.

Important to remember:
Getting Taiwan was not central objective of the Japanese imperial power
*Japanese aggression was about gaining power vis-à-vis the Chinese in Korea and southern Manchuria, no battle fought in Japan or Taiwan
*annexation of Taiwan is during period of imperialism by Western powers

Taiwan was not seen as economic boon for Japan---the war was expensive (China has to deal with this expense through reparations afterwards), and Japan spent a lot to control the colony, instead Taiwan is important more for its “effect on the perception of the Japanese nation as capable of undertaking the “great and glorious work” of colonialism, a task and responsibility previously belonging solely to the Western nations”

Ching emphasizes that although there are a lot of “historical and philosophical differences in methods of colonization,” “we must acknowledge that most forms of modern colonialism share a certain generality…the rule of force of a people by an external power.

His two main arguments:

(1) Japanese colonialism is interrelated and interdependent with the global phenomenon of capitalist colonialism

(2) The lack of the decolonization process in the break-up with of the Japanese Empire has prevented both Taiwan and Japan from addressing the colonial relationship. (In Taiwan the sudden void left by the Japanese was filled by the Chinese National Army…the graft and the corruption of the takeover Chinese has led the Taiwanese to reimagine their colonial relationship with the Japanese because of their anger with the mainlanders.---this point is not covered in depth in this section of the summary)

Argument 1 (really just counterarguments against 2 commonly held beliefs)

(1) People have argued that Japan doesn’t have “normal” colonialism according Lenin’s theory of imperialism (imperialism as the political superstructure of a specific age of capitalism in which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital has established itsef).
    Ching counter-argues----In fact, most Western imperialism does not work within Lenin’s model. Imperialism has not been a coming into being of particular nation-states in developing stages of capitalism, but rather about nation-states being rivals of each other. In other words, the economics of being an imperial power has had less to do with a nation-state acquiring a colony on which to force monopolies and their over-production of goods, and more to do with different nation-states competing with each other to make colonies out of the “open” territories of the world.

Argument 2

(2) People have argued that a difference between Japanese colonialism and Western colonialism is that Western imperialists were of a different race and had a different cultural heritage than the people in their colonies, while the Japanese shared a race and cultural heritage with the Taiwanese.
    Ching counter-argues---Though Westerners may have seen the Taiwanese and Japanese as sharing race and cultural heritage, the colonial regime differentiated the Japanese people racially and culturally from the rest of Asia, and claimed the superiority of the Japanese people.

    Ching then makes a separate and important point, that Taiwanese intellectuals tended to equate modernization with colonialization, since Japan was their one window to a modern nation. He points out that this is a similarity between Japanese imperialism and Western imperialism.

    Ching has thus far argued that the practice of imperialism by the Japanese was in fact very similar to the practice of imperialism by the West…he points out that a difference is the way it has been studied since, practically ignored by the numerous studies that have focused on colonialism and post-colonialism. He points out that this may be because of a Euro-centric view, because of the short duration of Japanese imperialism (relative to Britain for example), and because of the Japanese post-colonial identification as “victim” from the A-bombings and as a self-contained homogenous island nation.


Leo Ching 57 - 76 [Kareem]

Leo Ching 76 - end [Yifan]