Week 4: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week

Post by Sunday at midnight.

This is the link to the Malinowski film that we attempted to watch in our course on Thursday. It is optional, though I recommend you watch excerpts of #1 #3 #4 #5--at least the first few minutes of each, and perhaps the full #1.

Tales From The Jungle: Malinowski - Part 1 of 6
9:46


You find the other sections in the right column at the weblink, of course.


1. Mark Whitaker

2. Conflict in Stratification: This week Marxist views on stratification as economic conflicts, so a labor dispute highlighted and more (four articles on Korea--1 from SK; 3 from NK)

3. Korean labor movements versus Korean capitalists--a common theme to be seen in Korea--as well as in Marxist claims of the origins of stratification itself in private property, and biases culturally, economically, and in the family in various ways.

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03-27-2011 19:02
Labor conflict at Kumho Tire intensifies

By Kim Tae-jong

The conflict between the labor union and management of Kumho Tire has deepened as the country’s No. 2 tire maker’s plant closure has lasted longer than expected and the union plans to take collective action.

Union workers initially staged a one-day strike Friday as a warning, calling for the management to initiate talks on key issues such as pay raises and the improvement of working conditions. The management responded by shutting down its two plants in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, saying the collective move is illegal.

The following day, the company planned to resume operations by allowing the workers who submitted a written confirmation not to join in further strikes to return to the factories. But the union denounced the move, saying the firm is forcing unionists not to take part in the strikes, and asked all the union members not to return to work.

“We were intending to return to work after only a one-day strike, but the company not only shut down the plants but also manipulated unionists not to participate in further strikes, which is totally unreasonable. That’s why we asked members not to return to work,” a union official said.

They are considering more severe action, the official said. In response the company argued that the union is violating last year’s agreement between the two sides.

“The peace treaty is supposed to last for two years, but the union is violating it. It’s not right for them to demand new things just because there are newly elected executive members of the union,” Kumho Tire said.

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http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/03/113_83949.html


1. Mark Whitaker

2. Still stratification conflict in one party states that have claimed to abolished classes at one point in the Marxist fashion: North Korean stratification hierarchies

3. North Korea should figure in our discussions particularly since it claims to have removed class conflicts under a Marxist regime under "Chairman Kim." (Off "Chairman Mao" inspiration (international cultural prestige networks between North Korea and China then?) Some news on North Korean high life of the wealthy one-party elite of inheritable family status that maintain their position in this way.

03-25-2011 19:21
Defector belongs to N. Korea's privileged class


A grandson of a “people’s martyr” of North Korea, who belongs to the privileged class in the North, is included in a group of North Koreans who arrived at a southern port on a boat from China, a source said Friday.

His grandfather participated in the anti-Japanese movement with Kim Hyeong-jik, father of the late North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, said Pastor Kim Sun-eun of the Caleb Mission that aided the defectors cross over to South Korea Thursday.

In North Korea, there is a strict hierarchy, which you are born into. If a person becomes a “patriotic martyr,” he or she will enjoy various economic and social benefits.

Although the grandson, only identified by his family name Kim, was in the highest bracket, he decided to leave North Korea after being caught on charges of smuggling contraband.

Authorities have been questioning the nine intruders to verify their intention and nationality.

“If there are different nationalities within the group, we will handle it in accordance with regulations,” said Lee Jong-ju, vice spokesperson of the Unification Ministry. Lee added that if the three were indeed ethnic Koreans living in China, they would be deported back to China.

The government appears worried that the “planned defection” aided by the religious group may bring unnecessary tension between the two Koreas. Hours before their arrival in the South, the North agreed to hold talks with the South next Tuesday on potential volcanic activity on Mt. Baekdu in the North.

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http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/03/116_83868.html


03-27-2011 14:14
'NK citizens in blackout from Japan's quake for 2 days'


A photo of a street in Pyongyang posted on his blog by British Ambassador Martin Uden, which was taken during his trip to North Korea March 11-14

Martin Uden, Britain's ambassador to South Korea, said Sunday that markets in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, appear to be well stocked with reasonably large amounts of food, poultry and electronic products, despite the communist state's ongoing search for food aid abroad.

Uden, who traveled to Pyongyang and Wonsan, a port on North Korea's east coast, from March 11-14, said he witnessed plenty of chicken, fish and vegetables and an array of computer and camera accessories during his visit to the "Dong-il" market in the capital city.

In his travelogue that was written after his second trip to the North following the first in 2008 and sent to Yonhap News Agency, Uden said that overall, both the variety and quantity of food products available at the Pyongyang market were a "fair bit less" compared with three years ago, noting the absence of beef was especially noticeable.

"This March, I saw no beef and a tiny amount of pork. But plenty of chicken of all sizes, both cooked and uncooked, and some duck. Large amounts of good-looking fish and plentiful root vegetables," the British diplomat said in his travelogue that offers insights into the daily life of ordinary Pyongyang citizens.

"In terms of the food aid that the DPRK is seeking at present, it's worth remembering that even if this one market appeared reasonably stocked, it's not possible to draw wider conclusions from that," he said, using the abbreviation of the North's official name.

Uden said he arrived in Pyongyang on the second Friday of March, the day of a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, but was kept in the dark about the disaster until Monday, when the state news organizations carried reports about it. He called the incident an eloquent example of information control by the government.
"In (North Korea), you can only know what the state wants you to know," he said.

The diplomat also described monotonous roadside landscapes between Pyongyang and Wonsan, a challenging life environment facing Western diplomats in the North's capital and experiences of contact with North Korean officials in his four-part travelogue.

The following is the full text of Uden's travelogue.

Visit to Pyongyang. The Program -1

I try to get to Pyongyang once a year. It's such an important part of my work in Seoul, that I find it enormously helpful to see the reality of life in the DPRK. I'm lucky in that I can stay with my colleagues in the British Embassy up there.

Most of my EU colleagues in Seoul are accredited to both North and South Korea, and when they travel up there they have to stay in a hotel and rely on the DPRK government for transport and arrangements for their visit. It's a lot easier for me since the British Embassy can arrange the program, and we have our own transport to allow us to move around with more freedom.

I'm going to post a short series of blogs on my visit there. Apologies that it's taken a while to get this written, but the terrible crisis in Japan has of course been an enormous preoccupation. I also make no claim to particular or fresh insights. Nobody just travelling there for a weekend can claim that.

The UK established diplomatic relations with the DPRK just over 10 years ago, and we opened an Embassy not long after. We have our office and residential buildings in the German Embassy compound, and the Swedes also share the office building. The compound itself is in a larger diplomatic area which is closed to normal North Koreans, but our diplomats can travel throughout Pyongyang and to a small number of North Korean towns (Nampo and Wonsan) but anywhere else needs permission from the DPRK government.

Life for my colleagues in Pyongyang is undoubtedly challenging. There are a few shops and restaurants that take only foreign currency and, therefore, can pretty much only be used by foreigners. But there is virtually no social interaction with North Koreans, other than with the local Embassy staff provided by the DPRK government, and only a limited number of restaurants in Pyongyang that will serve foreigners.

So life is very circumscribed and restricted, as well as somewhat oppressive in such a state-controlled environment. We make sure they get away regularly and their postings are shorter than, say, in Seoul.

I went with some colleagues from London (eases the load on the Embassy) and travelled in and out on Air China. (EU concerns about Air Koryo mean we don’t use it as a rule.) Apart from meeting all the UK and DPRK members of the Embassy, we saw other EU Heads of Mission, the Chinese Ambassador, representatives of international organizations and NGOs, the English-language specialists who work at Pyongyang universities as well as DPRK officials at the Foreign Ministry and the Workers’ Party of Korea. More on all that to follow.

Worth recalling that we were there just after the terrible events in Japan. The earthquake happened on Friday afternoon, local time. Even on Sunday, our interpreters knew nothing about it, nor did the (British) English-language specialists we saw on Sunday night. Why the state news organizations kept this news back until Monday, I've no idea. But it's an eloquent example of the effects when control of the sources of information is completely in the hands of government. You can only know what the state wants you to know.

Visit to Pyongyang. Shopping -2

So many parts of everyday life in Pyongyang are opaque to the foreigner (to say the least).

We find that our Embassy interpreters are happy to answer our questions about their daily life, but we don't want to put them in any embarrassing position by asking awkward questions, and indeed sometimes they don't know the answers to our questions.

There is an overall Lowry-esque feel to Pyongyang, with innumerable stick people (you hardly ever see a fat North Korean) bustling from one place to another in drab clothes, much like the work of Lowry when he painted industrial Lancashire. The fact that much of the transport is trams and trolley-buses, and buildings too are box-like and grey all adds to a rather anachronistic feel.

Unless you read Korean it can be hard to make out the shops and service centers that often make up the bottom storey of blocks of flats. But there are plenty of barbers, repair centres, cafes and shops. Foreigners really aren't too welcome, but it is clear from the outside that the selection of goods on offer is small.

However, you don't see the long lines that you might associate with old communist stores. In Pyongyang people rely on the state system of distribution for their staples, above all rice, but there are also markets both official and unofficial. I visited the Dong-il market when I was there in November 2008 and was keen to go back.
There was a very clear difference in terms of the food on sale - largely dictated by a change of season in a way that has fallen out of habit in consumer societies used to large-scale imports of food. In 2008, there was plentiful pork and a fair amount of beef - at a time when farmers would traditionally have been slaughtering their livestock in preparation for the winter.

This March, I saw no beef and a tiny amount of pork (one woman with four unappetising bulging plastic bags). But plenty of chicken of all sizes, both cooked and uncooked, and some duck. Large amounts of good-looking fish (don't ask me what sort) and plentiful root vegetables - potatoes, carrots, radishes - but little green vegetable. No Chinese cabbage (but there wouldn't be - it's all made into kimchi in the autumn) and just a few savoy and red cabbages.

Overall, a fair bit less in variety and quantity compared to 2008. From the attention paid by the throngs of customers, I guess that the prices were within reach of their pockets. In terms of the food aid that the DPRK is seeking at present, it's worth remembering that even if this one market appeared reasonably stocked, it's not possible to draw wider conclusions from that. How much this situation is reflected out in the countryside, or even in other parts of Pyongyang, I can't say.
Another difference from 2008 was the electronic goods available. Just about everything will been produced in or imported through China. In 2008, there were a few computer accessories (computers themselves aren't sold in markets like this) but noticeably more this time and of higher spec. It was just computer mice before, but now some flash drives, although I don't recall seeing any DVDs, either blank or recorded. The level of digital cameras available has certainly gone up.

Not just the standard palm-sized shiny simple model, also the black sophisticated camera with multiple settings, as well as spare batteries and flash drives. Lots of cell-phone accessories, but also no cell-phones here.

Sadly this is the sort of place where there are sensitivities about photography. Foreigners are allowed in and can make purchases, but trying to take pictures would be a step too far.

Visit to Pyongyang. Wonsan -3

It was unseasonably warm while I was up in the DPRK(Democratic Peopls' Republic of Korea). In mid-March it can easily not get above zero, but in the middle of the day on Sunday 13 March in Wonsan it was 19°C. Wonsan - on the opposite side of the peninsula from Pyongyang - is one of the few places diplomats from Pyongyang can go without prior permission from the Foreign Ministry. So we took two cars and drove the 200km to Wonsan.

There is a pretty good paved 4-lane road all the way, with occasional potholes but generally a good surface. In contrast to South Korea, the striking thing to me about the road is its utter sameness. By the side of the road are 6 or so lines of trees which, if they aren't meant to impede photography out of a car window, certainly do a good job of it.

Then the fields behind, stretching to the nearest line of hills, are flat and growing rice or wheat. On steeper terrain there may be fruit orchards, but by and large that's the extent of the agricultural diversity. No poly-tunnels; no market gardening. Going across the entire width of the country, we go up and over the mountains that run down the spine of the peninsula, and over the whole country it's clear that no speck of cultivable land is left untilled.

The only places where the trees lining the road are absent are where a river or some other geographical feature makes it impossible or along two long, flat stretches which (from seeing just the same expedient used in the south) are clearly designed to be used as emergency airstrips.

But travelling through South Korea, the vibrant tourism industry is ever with you. Every few miles there will be a signpost to a temple, museum or just another town. I didn't keep careful count, but on the 200 kms, we saw one pagoda by the side of the road, took one stop at the only wayside station, and there were very few junctions off the road.

Indeed, it was clear that any nearby villages were protected from view by earthworks, which also obscured any locations of military significance.

To give an idea of the state of the countryside from Wonsan to Pyongyang, we made a rough count of the livestock we saw over these 200 kms. There were:

- About 25 herds of goats, each of 20-50 goats;
- Over 100 oxen, most of them pulling ploughs or carts;
- About ten tractors (but only one on the way to Wonsan in the morning);
- Over 20 stalled vehicles awaiting attention by the side of the road;
- Three pigs;
- Six dogs;
- Four excavators;
- Perhaps 100 vehicles in total on the road;
- Simply thousands of people working in the fields.
It's easy to see that with thousands of people working and only ten tractors between them, there's an awful lot of manual labour going on.

Visit to Pyongyang - The Embassy -4

My visit up to Pyongyang typifies in a small way the reason we have an Embassy there, but also the limitations of what we can hope to achieve. Without some means of engagement, we have no chance of influencing North Koreans, slim as the chances may be for a true dialogue.

Indeed the meetings we had with DPRK diplomats and at the Workers' Party followed a familiar pattern. It only takes a straightforward question to set the DPRK side off on what is clearly a carefully scripted description of their position, with plentiful ideological explanation, but also taking anything from 20 to 40 minutes.

I can't help but be enormously impressed at the patience of our Ambassador there. Sadly the basic message from them on dialogue between North and South Korea was very similar to what I hear from their counterparts in Seoul - that the basis of trust (expressed as a lack of "sincerity" on the other side) needed for any progress does not exist at present.

Being there can also give some insights into what life is truly like in Pyongyang. It would be easy to see the DPRK as populated by ideologues and automatons, but speaking to the city's inhabitants it becomes easier to realize that while some are indeed part of the machine, others - including those thousands toiling in the fields - are doing little more than trying to earn their daily bread. And some of the insights, even if only about what's in the shops or what the road to Wonsan looks like, can only come from personal observation.

Of course we do more than that as an Embassy there. We have had an English language program there for some time, in which our specialists work in Pyongyang universities trying to improve the level of English taught there. There's no doubt that these days access to external sources of information can only come with a command of English. We also keep in touch with the international organizations, non-governmental organizations and other Embassies there, seeking their views on, for instance, the food situation in the DPRK.

As opportunity offers, we can also find other ways to ensure that a true picture of the outside world is seen in Pyongyang. That might be the "Bend it like Beckham" film we got shown at Christmas on DPRK TV. Or it could be bringing DPRK officials to London when we can and where appropriate. Trying to show that the world is not ranged against the DPRK or its people is well worth it. But so long as they are denied the chance to have access to external media, and so long as any kind of dissent is seen as treasonable, it will be a long, hard job to chip away at the atmosphere of isolation and fear that the regime needs to justify the harsh conditions that North Koreans have to endure. (Yonhap)

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http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/03/113_83901.html


03-27-2011 16:31
NK leader stoned by people in nightmare: lawmaker

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il thinks the reclusive communist nation's people dislike him and has even had a nightmare of being stoned by them, a Seoul lawmaker said Sunday, citing conversations between Kim and his late father.

Kim made the comments in meetings with Chung Ju-yung, the late founder of Hyundai Group, in Pyongyang between 1998 and 2000, Chung's sixth son, Mong-joon, said during a local TV talk show.

The Hyundai founder initiated various joint projects with North Korea, including a sightseeing tour to scenic Mount Kumgang on the North's east coast, through three meetings with the North Korean leader between 1998 and 2000. He died on March 21, 2001.

"My father had meals and a lot of conversations with Chairman Kim during trips to North Korea. I was told that Chairman Kim once said, 'When I go somewhere, many residents come out to welcome me. But I am well aware that those people actually do not like me,'" Chung said, using the official title of the North's leader, chairman of the powerful National Defense Commission.

"When I sleep, I dream that I am being stoned. I dream that Americans hurl stones first, second are South Koreans and third are North Korean residents," Kim was quoted as saying.

It is unclear whether Kim was serious in talking about the dreams or if he was just joking.

Chung, however, construed Kim's remarks as showing that the leader knows the grim reality facing the 24 million people in the impoverished country.

Meanwhile, Chung, a senior ruling party lawmaker said to be a potential presidential candidate, hinted at his ambition to run in the 2012 presidential elections.

"I have the thinking that I should be well prepared all the time," he said. (Yonhap)

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http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/03/113_83919.html


03-23-2011 16:28
NK leader's love of strip shows found true



“One day, Kim Jong-il ordered a group of dancers to perform naked and told senior officials to dance with them,” said the North Korean leader’s former chef Kenji Fujimoto in an interview with a local media outlet. He explained that Kim was trying to “recreate the strip shows in the West.”

Photos which back up his story have been circulating on a Chinese website. One is one black and white photo of dancers in the 1970s at a “pleasure party” for the late Kim Il-sung, while two others are of a private dance performance along with Kim Jong-il’s face edited on to them.

The older photo portrays dancing one may see at a luxuary hotel or a nightclub.

However, the two recent ones are very different -- starting with the outfits the dancers are wearing. They wore see-through Korean traditional jackets and short skirts that are open in the front. Their underwear can be clearly seen which makes them like any other strippers in the West.

Fujimoto also claimed that Kim classified his female dance troupes into four categories according to their height (155cm, 160cm, 165cm and 170cm) and had them compete against each other.

“Kim Jong-un, the heir, became wide-eyed with fascination whenever he saw the North Korean dancers perform,” the ex-chef said.

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http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/03/113_83689.html