Saturday, June 4, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
Week 12: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week
Post by Sunday at midnight.
=== AND BELOW ON THIS PAGE, THE COURSE UPDATE FOR THE REST OF THE SEMESTER ===
1. Mark Whitaker
2. Social Reproduction in the USA: Trends of U.S. inequality and marriage bodes poorly for social mobility in the USA
3. There are some social reproduction of stratification issues in the USA that worry me, that might increasingly pull the USA apart and create an even greater underclass. I said that the family framework, education, and the welfare state are all ways of either encouraging social mobility in an open system or creating potentially a form of closed, caste society by using these instituitons in a closed way. The U.S. for its underclasses have huge social reproduction of inequality and poverty for children and this author argues the main issue for social reproduction of inequality in the USA is the very different marriage rates that condemn the next generations to low financial, cultural, emotional, and social stability--making it difficult to have social moblity once this 'marriageless' trap is started, leading into social reproduction of inequality more than social mobility out of it. Many children in the USA are without the social, emotional, and financial stability of two parents; there are massive ethnic inequalities in marriage levels that bring out tensions as well in social reproduction; plus, women get the 'double discrimination' here particularly without financial standing outside of marriage, as well as continued discrimination in the workplace they are encouraged to join.
Just a few of the trends of the USA that bode poorly I think. I've additionally read that the UK and the US have the most social reproduction of class position in any industrial country. I think this article discusses one of the mechanisms why this is so, for the USA: broken families in the underclasses.
Think about what Wilkinson said as well, in his Chapter 9: the biological implications of inequalities, in this case, the lack of a two parent working income.
---------------
05-22-2011 15:03
Schwarzenegger just part of story of marriage woes
By Jay Ambrose
...It's now Arnold Schwarzenegger's media moment, something he earned by extra friendliness with household help, having a love child and finally telling Maria Shriver, his wife, about it. She has naturally enough separated from him, and some may think this one more message about an institution in deep trouble, though it is far from the heart of that story.
No, the Schwarzenegger tale mostly symbolizes how ambitious, driven, ego-centered men seem especially given to wandering off the ranch, the examples running the political gamut from John F. Kennedy in the 1960s to Newt Gingrich more recently.
These particular men, however, are upper middle class ― well, upper, upper, upper middle class. It's mostly poorer Americans with scant education who are most abandoning marriage, often not even giving it a whirl, as you can learn from Kay S. Hymowitz, a Manhattan Institute scholar and author of several books and some online writings I recently encountered.
She's full of reason, understanding and facts, and tells us among other things that all the news gab about the marital mayhem of celebrities can be very misleading.
Most educated, better-off folks are in fact growing more in love with marriage. When you catch a story such as a recent one saying three percent more married-couple families are celebrating 10th wedding anniversaries than in the 1980s, you can bet it's the most advantaged taking more advantage of this absolutely crucial institution.
Go back to the 1960s, and we were a marrying, stay-together nation. But then came the birth control pill, something called the sexual revolution and more widely respected rights and opportunities for women. Says Hymowitz, all of this caused many women to reevaluate the old idea that first comes love, marriage, then the baby carriage.
Divorce became a big deal with us, and still is, despite some decline over the past two decades. Very, very scary on top of that is that something more than a third of children are now born out of wedlock, if only a tiny percentage of them to college educated women. They've figured something important out. Marriage matters to children.
They get it that kids with two parents earning money are going to have more money coming in. They get it that having two married-couple parents means more training for the children, more guidance by example toward the kind of life that works best for families, more attention to academics. Those who don't get it are people with the least education ― often less than high school. Here is what single-parent homes give us on average: still no education to speak of in the next generation, still more poverty, still more single-parent moms.
Hymowitz skillfully takes on the people who argue differently, saying that it's the market economy or inadequate social programs that cause these difficulties or that poor women don't marry because there is no one out there for them, no acceptable male. She grants the market is increasingly less friendly to unskilled labor, but notes that marriage tends to engender education and skills in children.
She observes, too, that the women who don't marry often have live-in boyfriends. They have in fact located men they find suitable to have in the home. Hymowitz agrees that marriage may not be a panacea for poverty, but argues something bigger: It is the "sine qua non," that without which you get none of the rest of what it takes to climb out of it.
The percentages of unwed mothers among poor whites, blacks and some other minority groups are over half, and if we are going to fix what ails us, we have to fix this. I am dubious about the role of politics, though some good examples and good preaching might help.
I do believe that cultural values count, as opposed to the politically correct social scientists, some of whom were saying in one news account that talking about wrong values amounts to blaming the victims. No, it's blaming the culture, including the social scientists who help form it. We need a new revolution, and wise thinkers like Hymowitz can help us get there.
---
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2011/05/160_87418.html
========================
FOR THE REST OF THE SEMESTER, we meet only THREE more times beginning on May 30, 2011, because there is a holiday on one Monday June 6. So the last three days:
[1]
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sernau. (excerpts, ignore the U.S. centric examples, I'll introduce important terms once more)
a. Chapter 4: Class Privilege
b. Chapter 7: Status Prestige
c. Chapter 8: Power and Politics
42. Smythe, Hugh H. 1952. “The Eta: A Marginal Japanese Caste.” The American Journal
of Sociology 58(2), September:194–96. Http://www.jstor.org/stable/2772191.
43. [Japan] Kaplan, David E., and Alec. Dubro. 2003. Yakuza Japan’s Criminal
Underworld. Berkeley: University of California Press. Xi – 27.
[2]
Wednesday, June 1, 2011: THREE TOPICS INTERRELATED, TODAY Ascriptive Discrimination: The Gordian Knot of Race, Class, and Gender AND its Spatial Consequences: Spatial Discrimination in Environmental Justice/Injustice, Environmental Racism; spatial discrimination in gender as well); and Material Stratification: Raw Material Regimes Built From These Social Inequalities of Gender, Ethnicity, Ownership/Class
[a]
49. Sernau, Scott. 2011. Social Inequality in a Global Age. Third Edition. Los Angeles,California: Pine Forge Press.
a. Chapter 5: The Gordian Knot of Race[Ethnicity/Cultural Differences in Hierarchies], Class, and Gender
51. Chang, Mariko Lin. 2004. “Growing Pains: Cross-National Variation in Sex
Segregation in Sixteen Developing Countries.” American Sociological Review 69(1),
February:114–37. Http://www.jstor.org/stable/3593077.
[Cultural Stratification by Region in the Chosun Dynasty: Jolla-do in Koeran History] 58. Yu, Eui-Young. 1990. “Regionalism in the South Korean Job Market: An Analysis of Regional-Origin Inequality Among Migrants in Seoul.” Pacific Affairs 63(1), Spring: 24–39. Http://www.jstor.org/stable/2759812.
[b]
Environmental Racism and/or Environmental Classism, Inequalities of
Regions
56. Robinson, Deborah M., Ph.D. 2000. “Environmental Racism: Old Wine in a New Bottle.” Http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/jpc/echoes/echoes-17–02.html#1. (9 pages,
in packet)
53. Romero, Mary and Eric Margolis, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing.
a. Pellow, David Naguib. “Chapter 7: Environmental Racism: Inequality in a
Toxic World,” 147-164.
[c]
The Political Power of Materials: Whether We Think of Them as a Form of Repression, Acceptable Clientelism, Unacceptable Clietelism, Choice, Lack of Choice--they are always forms of Stratification: "Raw Material Regimes" Versus Other Materials in Their Social Choice Groups (a PPT for this issue)
Cambell, Fiona. 2003. “The Cotton Club,” The Ecologist (October): 36-37. [consider
this short article as a case of what the above article describes.]
Whitaker, Mark. (Manuscript). Raw Materials and the Division of Labor (on cotton, wool, and worsted stratification compared) [PPT/Lecture as example]
[3]
Wednesday, June 8, 2011: What I Think About Stratification Ideas, Judged and Tested from my Comparative Historical Research: Putting it All Together in "Trialectics" Instead of Dialectics in Stratification and Inequality: Putting It All Together; Common Cross Cultural Positions of Power, Their Dynamics, Their Alliances, and Their Overall Historical Processes of Stratification Change in History
60. Whitaker, Mark. 2009. Ecological Revolution: The Political Origins of Environmental Degradation and the Environmental Origins of Axial Religions; China, Japan, Europe. Cologne, Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing. [small excerpt, major PPT lecture]
[reposted for Yin, because she had difficulty posting this:]
1. Yin Yashuo
2． Do we need City Administration in China?
3. The resources of the article:
中国能不能不要“城管”？
这里说的“城管”是狭义的，老百姓望文生义条件反射般想到的，是专门对付街边巷尾地摊或游动小贩（广州话“走鬼”）的那种“大盖帽”。
广义的“城管”即“城市管理”，行政机构全名是“城市管理执法局”。我这两天读新闻，广州番禺市城管局负责人称会江村居民“5000人联名意见书只能算一张反对票”，被网民“拍砖”，始知垃圾焚烧厂选址这种事也归“城管”管，我还想当然以为这是市政规划或环保部门管的事呢。
“城管”发展到今天，与“强拆”并列为两大热点新闻源，隔三差五就有搅动舆论沸沸扬扬的事件发生。
这些事件若以戏剧为喻，大体有三类。一是悲剧：沈阳下岗工人、街头摆摊卖烧烤的夏俊峰刺死两名城管队员案二审，正受到社会广泛关注；当事双方的家庭都由此陷入困境。
二是悲喜剧或正剧：如这些天被传为佳话的，成都街头，一个卖杨梅的老大爷，杆秤被城管折断，杨梅也撒了一地，一群路见不平，挺身上前挡住执法车，坚持要城管协管员向老大爷道歉。谁说中国人冷漠呢？三是喜剧：城管与摊贩的猫与老鼠游戏，每天都在上演。通常城管人员奉行“穷寇勿追”的原则，吓跑就收手；“走鬼”互相关照“打游击”；路人也有帮他们通风报信的。 所谓“人心向背”是不言而喻的。何以“人民城管为人民”，“人民”却不领情，这帮大学生还跟着起哄？
这样的场景，使我想到城市的“市”，本来就是集市，水陆码头给人们做交易谋生形成的。至于“城”，除了皇上住的紫禁城，也应该是有市坊的；集市固然没有“城管”，那么《清明上河图》所描绘的首都开封城里，有“城管”吗？
好像也没有呀。
为什么世界大多数国家，可以没有“城管”，而我们必须有呢？如果用成龙大哥“关于中国人就是要人管”的话为“城管”的存在辩护，是没有说服力的，因为我们的老祖宗并没有“城管”。
是不是，因为我们从单位制、人民公社和计划经济时代过来，已经没有了社会自治，没有了对社会自治的信仰？是不是因为我们被文化批评家朱大可所说的“权力美学”浸染的太久，太过看重整齐划一和表面秩序，而将“看上去很美”看得高于底层人的生存权？
这是一个值得探讨的问题。如果社会自治的思路（并不排斥政府作用，黑帮占“码头”收保护费之类就要靠政府强力取缔）被否定了，那就尽快出台《行政强制法》，规范“城管”的执法行为吧。
-----------------------------------------------------
4. The summary of the article
Recently, there are two heated news resources in China: the city administration and the Forced evictions. This article asked us a question: Do we need the city administration in China?
The city administration has two meanings: narrowly speaking, it is a department that takes charge of the people who are doing street vendors and ask the stall disappeared in all kinds of street fiercely. Generally speaking, it is a department that takes charge of the city development and urban environment. Here, what we related is the narrow meaning.
It seems so common that the city administrator quarrel with the stall owners or they fight with each other. Because the ways of the administrator are powerful and force the stall owners always can not accept or obey their control. Therefore, there also exist three extreme but common phenomena in the street: one is the stall owners killed the administrator, the second is the administrators hurt the stall owners, the third is the stall owner escape from the expelling of the city administrators.
No matter what effects, common people always hate the city administration department.
-------------------------------
5. There is no doubt that the generally meaning city administration is necessary for our society. However, the common people are questioned the necessary of the narrowly meaning city administration. Some people asked why we Chinese people need the city administration while many countries in the world don`t need this kind of city administration?
In my opinion, it is a problem that we need to pay much more attention to think about it. Why common people always criticize the administrator and have mercy on the stall owners? Because the stall owner is the vulnerable groups of our society, because they have no other choice to make a living, because the control of the administrator is not human.
I think we can not neglect the conflict between the weakness and the strength, we should not only condemn who is right or who is wrong. What we should do is ask the origin of the phenomena, why the stall is so common? On one hand, the development of the city also needs the existence of stall because it is convenient to some degree. On the hand, these people have to make a living depending on the stall. Yes, how to solve the deep problems is more meaningful than punishment and control.
--------------------------------------
http://bbs.huanqiu.com/thread-673352-1-1.html
=== AND BELOW ON THIS PAGE, THE COURSE UPDATE FOR THE REST OF THE SEMESTER ===
1. Mark Whitaker
2. Social Reproduction in the USA: Trends of U.S. inequality and marriage bodes poorly for social mobility in the USA
3. There are some social reproduction of stratification issues in the USA that worry me, that might increasingly pull the USA apart and create an even greater underclass. I said that the family framework, education, and the welfare state are all ways of either encouraging social mobility in an open system or creating potentially a form of closed, caste society by using these instituitons in a closed way. The U.S. for its underclasses have huge social reproduction of inequality and poverty for children and this author argues the main issue for social reproduction of inequality in the USA is the very different marriage rates that condemn the next generations to low financial, cultural, emotional, and social stability--making it difficult to have social moblity once this 'marriageless' trap is started, leading into social reproduction of inequality more than social mobility out of it. Many children in the USA are without the social, emotional, and financial stability of two parents; there are massive ethnic inequalities in marriage levels that bring out tensions as well in social reproduction; plus, women get the 'double discrimination' here particularly without financial standing outside of marriage, as well as continued discrimination in the workplace they are encouraged to join.
Just a few of the trends of the USA that bode poorly I think. I've additionally read that the UK and the US have the most social reproduction of class position in any industrial country. I think this article discusses one of the mechanisms why this is so, for the USA: broken families in the underclasses.
Think about what Wilkinson said as well, in his Chapter 9: the biological implications of inequalities, in this case, the lack of a two parent working income.
---------------
05-22-2011 15:03
Schwarzenegger just part of story of marriage woes
By Jay Ambrose
...It's now Arnold Schwarzenegger's media moment, something he earned by extra friendliness with household help, having a love child and finally telling Maria Shriver, his wife, about it. She has naturally enough separated from him, and some may think this one more message about an institution in deep trouble, though it is far from the heart of that story.
No, the Schwarzenegger tale mostly symbolizes how ambitious, driven, ego-centered men seem especially given to wandering off the ranch, the examples running the political gamut from John F. Kennedy in the 1960s to Newt Gingrich more recently.
These particular men, however, are upper middle class ― well, upper, upper, upper middle class. It's mostly poorer Americans with scant education who are most abandoning marriage, often not even giving it a whirl, as you can learn from Kay S. Hymowitz, a Manhattan Institute scholar and author of several books and some online writings I recently encountered.
She's full of reason, understanding and facts, and tells us among other things that all the news gab about the marital mayhem of celebrities can be very misleading.
Most educated, better-off folks are in fact growing more in love with marriage. When you catch a story such as a recent one saying three percent more married-couple families are celebrating 10th wedding anniversaries than in the 1980s, you can bet it's the most advantaged taking more advantage of this absolutely crucial institution.
Go back to the 1960s, and we were a marrying, stay-together nation. But then came the birth control pill, something called the sexual revolution and more widely respected rights and opportunities for women. Says Hymowitz, all of this caused many women to reevaluate the old idea that first comes love, marriage, then the baby carriage.
Divorce became a big deal with us, and still is, despite some decline over the past two decades. Very, very scary on top of that is that something more than a third of children are now born out of wedlock, if only a tiny percentage of them to college educated women. They've figured something important out. Marriage matters to children.
They get it that kids with two parents earning money are going to have more money coming in. They get it that having two married-couple parents means more training for the children, more guidance by example toward the kind of life that works best for families, more attention to academics. Those who don't get it are people with the least education ― often less than high school. Here is what single-parent homes give us on average: still no education to speak of in the next generation, still more poverty, still more single-parent moms.
Hymowitz skillfully takes on the people who argue differently, saying that it's the market economy or inadequate social programs that cause these difficulties or that poor women don't marry because there is no one out there for them, no acceptable male. She grants the market is increasingly less friendly to unskilled labor, but notes that marriage tends to engender education and skills in children.
She observes, too, that the women who don't marry often have live-in boyfriends. They have in fact located men they find suitable to have in the home. Hymowitz agrees that marriage may not be a panacea for poverty, but argues something bigger: It is the "sine qua non," that without which you get none of the rest of what it takes to climb out of it.
The percentages of unwed mothers among poor whites, blacks and some other minority groups are over half, and if we are going to fix what ails us, we have to fix this. I am dubious about the role of politics, though some good examples and good preaching might help.
I do believe that cultural values count, as opposed to the politically correct social scientists, some of whom were saying in one news account that talking about wrong values amounts to blaming the victims. No, it's blaming the culture, including the social scientists who help form it. We need a new revolution, and wise thinkers like Hymowitz can help us get there.
---
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2011/05/160_87418.html
========================
FOR THE REST OF THE SEMESTER, we meet only THREE more times beginning on May 30, 2011, because there is a holiday on one Monday June 6. So the last three days:
[1]
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sernau. (excerpts, ignore the U.S. centric examples, I'll introduce important terms once more)
a. Chapter 4: Class Privilege
b. Chapter 7: Status Prestige
c. Chapter 8: Power and Politics
42. Smythe, Hugh H. 1952. “The Eta: A Marginal Japanese Caste.” The American Journal
of Sociology 58(2), September:194–96. Http://www.jstor.org/stable/2772191.
43. [Japan] Kaplan, David E., and Alec. Dubro. 2003. Yakuza Japan’s Criminal
Underworld. Berkeley: University of California Press. Xi – 27.
[2]
Wednesday, June 1, 2011: THREE TOPICS INTERRELATED, TODAY Ascriptive Discrimination: The Gordian Knot of Race, Class, and Gender AND its Spatial Consequences: Spatial Discrimination in Environmental Justice/Injustice, Environmental Racism; spatial discrimination in gender as well); and Material Stratification: Raw Material Regimes Built From These Social Inequalities of Gender, Ethnicity, Ownership/Class
[a]
49. Sernau, Scott. 2011. Social Inequality in a Global Age. Third Edition. Los Angeles,California: Pine Forge Press.
a. Chapter 5: The Gordian Knot of Race[Ethnicity/Cultural Differences in Hierarchies], Class, and Gender
51. Chang, Mariko Lin. 2004. “Growing Pains: Cross-National Variation in Sex
Segregation in Sixteen Developing Countries.” American Sociological Review 69(1),
February:114–37. Http://www.jstor.org/stable/3593077.
[Cultural Stratification by Region in the Chosun Dynasty: Jolla-do in Koeran History] 58. Yu, Eui-Young. 1990. “Regionalism in the South Korean Job Market: An Analysis of Regional-Origin Inequality Among Migrants in Seoul.” Pacific Affairs 63(1), Spring: 24–39. Http://www.jstor.org/stable/2759812.
[b]
Environmental Racism and/or Environmental Classism, Inequalities of
Regions
56. Robinson, Deborah M., Ph.D. 2000. “Environmental Racism: Old Wine in a New Bottle.” Http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/jpc/echoes/echoes-17–02.html#1. (9 pages,
in packet)
53. Romero, Mary and Eric Margolis, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing.
a. Pellow, David Naguib. “Chapter 7: Environmental Racism: Inequality in a
Toxic World,” 147-164.
[c]
The Political Power of Materials: Whether We Think of Them as a Form of Repression, Acceptable Clientelism, Unacceptable Clietelism, Choice, Lack of Choice--they are always forms of Stratification: "Raw Material Regimes" Versus Other Materials in Their Social Choice Groups (a PPT for this issue)
Cambell, Fiona. 2003. “The Cotton Club,” The Ecologist (October): 36-37. [consider
this short article as a case of what the above article describes.]
Whitaker, Mark. (Manuscript). Raw Materials and the Division of Labor (on cotton, wool, and worsted stratification compared) [PPT/Lecture as example]
[3]
Wednesday, June 8, 2011: What I Think About Stratification Ideas, Judged and Tested from my Comparative Historical Research: Putting it All Together in "Trialectics" Instead of Dialectics in Stratification and Inequality: Putting It All Together; Common Cross Cultural Positions of Power, Their Dynamics, Their Alliances, and Their Overall Historical Processes of Stratification Change in History
60. Whitaker, Mark. 2009. Ecological Revolution: The Political Origins of Environmental Degradation and the Environmental Origins of Axial Religions; China, Japan, Europe. Cologne, Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing. [small excerpt, major PPT lecture]
[reposted for Yin, because she had difficulty posting this:]
1. Yin Yashuo
2． Do we need City Administration in China?
3. The resources of the article:
中国能不能不要“城管”？
这里说的“城管”是狭义的，老百姓望文生义条件反射般想到的，是专门对付街边巷尾地摊或游动小贩（广州话“走鬼”）的那种“大盖帽”。
广义的“城管”即“城市管理”，行政机构全名是“城市管理执法局”。我这两天读新闻，广州番禺市城管局负责人称会江村居民“5000人联名意见书只能算一张反对票”，被网民“拍砖”，始知垃圾焚烧厂选址这种事也归“城管”管，我还想当然以为这是市政规划或环保部门管的事呢。
“城管”发展到今天，与“强拆”并列为两大热点新闻源，隔三差五就有搅动舆论沸沸扬扬的事件发生。
这些事件若以戏剧为喻，大体有三类。一是悲剧：沈阳下岗工人、街头摆摊卖烧烤的夏俊峰刺死两名城管队员案二审，正受到社会广泛关注；当事双方的家庭都由此陷入困境。
二是悲喜剧或正剧：如这些天被传为佳话的，成都街头，一个卖杨梅的老大爷，杆秤被城管折断，杨梅也撒了一地，一群路见不平，挺身上前挡住执法车，坚持要城管协管员向老大爷道歉。谁说中国人冷漠呢？三是喜剧：城管与摊贩的猫与老鼠游戏，每天都在上演。通常城管人员奉行“穷寇勿追”的原则，吓跑就收手；“走鬼”互相关照“打游击”；路人也有帮他们通风报信的。 所谓“人心向背”是不言而喻的。何以“人民城管为人民”，“人民”却不领情，这帮大学生还跟着起哄？
这样的场景，使我想到城市的“市”，本来就是集市，水陆码头给人们做交易谋生形成的。至于“城”，除了皇上住的紫禁城，也应该是有市坊的；集市固然没有“城管”，那么《清明上河图》所描绘的首都开封城里，有“城管”吗？
好像也没有呀。
为什么世界大多数国家，可以没有“城管”，而我们必须有呢？如果用成龙大哥“关于中国人就是要人管”的话为“城管”的存在辩护，是没有说服力的，因为我们的老祖宗并没有“城管”。
是不是，因为我们从单位制、人民公社和计划经济时代过来，已经没有了社会自治，没有了对社会自治的信仰？是不是因为我们被文化批评家朱大可所说的“权力美学”浸染的太久，太过看重整齐划一和表面秩序，而将“看上去很美”看得高于底层人的生存权？
这是一个值得探讨的问题。如果社会自治的思路（并不排斥政府作用，黑帮占“码头”收保护费之类就要靠政府强力取缔）被否定了，那就尽快出台《行政强制法》，规范“城管”的执法行为吧。
-----------------------------------------------------
4. The summary of the article
Recently, there are two heated news resources in China: the city administration and the Forced evictions. This article asked us a question: Do we need the city administration in China?
The city administration has two meanings: narrowly speaking, it is a department that takes charge of the people who are doing street vendors and ask the stall disappeared in all kinds of street fiercely. Generally speaking, it is a department that takes charge of the city development and urban environment. Here, what we related is the narrow meaning.
It seems so common that the city administrator quarrel with the stall owners or they fight with each other. Because the ways of the administrator are powerful and force the stall owners always can not accept or obey their control. Therefore, there also exist three extreme but common phenomena in the street: one is the stall owners killed the administrator, the second is the administrators hurt the stall owners, the third is the stall owner escape from the expelling of the city administrators.
No matter what effects, common people always hate the city administration department.
-------------------------------
5. There is no doubt that the generally meaning city administration is necessary for our society. However, the common people are questioned the necessary of the narrowly meaning city administration. Some people asked why we Chinese people need the city administration while many countries in the world don`t need this kind of city administration?
In my opinion, it is a problem that we need to pay much more attention to think about it. Why common people always criticize the administrator and have mercy on the stall owners? Because the stall owner is the vulnerable groups of our society, because they have no other choice to make a living, because the control of the administrator is not human.
I think we can not neglect the conflict between the weakness and the strength, we should not only condemn who is right or who is wrong. What we should do is ask the origin of the phenomena, why the stall is so common? On one hand, the development of the city also needs the existence of stall because it is convenient to some degree. On the hand, these people have to make a living depending on the stall. Yes, how to solve the deep problems is more meaningful than punishment and control.
--------------------------------------
http://bbs.huanqiu.com/thread-673352-1-1.html
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
Week 10: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week
Post by Sunday at midnight.
Untouchable? - India
22 min.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5JkfYcxiQ8
As we finish looking at global stratification with the Bottom Billion conception, then we look at national levels of stratification and mechanisms of social reproduction or social mobility within them.
State policies, civil society, and institutional varieties can attempts to remove (or at least alter) the frameworks of stratification: here we have [1] education and [2] the welfare state frameworks and their institutional and policy differences worldwide. This is both Sernau and Esping-Andersen (The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (1990). I hope to get to that next week.
To prepare for class this next week, look over Sernau Chapters 9,10,11. There is a mistake in the syllabus the section on "Advanced Poverty Programs" is in Chapter 11 (not in Chapter 10 as the syllabus says).
Untouchable? - India
22 min.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5JkfYcxiQ8
A good film discussing the poverty trap in India: the dalits. We will soon start to think about the environmental inequalities, and family inequalities, and inter-generational poverty and inequalities. The dalits will serve as a good example, because it is so extreme. We move from global situations of stratification, back to state and cultural based stratification. How does a state's politics maintain inequalities or seek to demote them? On the one hand, there is the maintenance of inequalities by state politics: 200 million people in India want to get out of the dalit/untouchable caste situation, though few have any institutional means to do so. And even under a democratic system, upper castes run the country and have repressively demoted any self-organized dalit parties (death and violence shown in the later minutes of the film, so watch it with my warnings.)
As we finish looking at global stratification with the Bottom Billion conception, then we look at national levels of stratification and mechanisms of social reproduction or social mobility within them.
State policies, civil society, and institutional varieties can attempts to remove (or at least alter) the frameworks of stratification: here we have [1] education and [2] the welfare state frameworks and their institutional and policy differences worldwide. This is both Sernau and Esping-Andersen (The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (1990). I hope to get to that next week.
To prepare for class this next week, look over Sernau Chapters 9,10,11. There is a mistake in the syllabus the section on "Advanced Poverty Programs" is in Chapter 11 (not in Chapter 10 as the syllabus says).
Friday, May 6, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Week 7: No blog posting during mid-term week
No blog posting during mid-term week. No class sessions either. See syllabus.
The extra credit exam will be uploaded to the Kookmin website this weekend. It is due next time we meet. Print a copy of your answers and bring it to class, after mid-term week.
The extra credit exam will be uploaded to the Kookmin website this weekend. It is due next time we meet. Print a copy of your answers and bring it to class, after mid-term week.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
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.
---------------
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.
---
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.
---
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)
---
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)
---
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.
---
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/03/113_83689.html
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.
---------------
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.
---
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.
---
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
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Week 3: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week
Post by Sunday at midnight.
PRINTED READING PACKET IS AVAILABLE at the Bugak Gwan copy center, on the first floor. It is 'print on demand.' Ask for your copy. They will print one copy for you. We will talk about some printed readings next week, second session.
PRINTED READING PACKET IS AVAILABLE at the Bugak Gwan copy center, on the first floor. It is 'print on demand.' Ask for your copy. They will print one copy for you. We will talk about some printed readings next week, second session.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Week 2: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week
Post by Sunday at midnight.
CHECK THE KOOKMIN 'CYBERCAMPUS' WEBSITE. More readings have been posted.
CHECK THE KOOKMIN 'CYBERCAMPUS' WEBSITE. More readings have been posted.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Week 1: Opening Thread: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week
[YOUR READING MATERIALS FOR NEXT WEEK ARE ONLINE, RIGHT NOW. I put the digital readings online. They are at the website associated with the course. The Sociology office told me they put the files there. Get them.]
Hello Class: remember three things for Monday:
1.
Remember there are two assignments. Post on this blog by Sunday, and skim through Sernau 2011: Chapter 1, entitled "The Great Debate." Concentrate on his "Figure 1.1" in that text. Similarly, we will have our 'little debate' here on this blog.
2.
Remember you have to register at blogger.com to post to this thread. BY THE WAY, THIS IS AN IMPORTANT NOTE: if you post and are unable to see it, that is OK because I have to add manually your comment after I look at it. So don't worry if you post and can't find your post! I have it and it arrives in my email box for approval to add to the blog. I recommend you always save your post on another section of your computer and then paste it into the blog in case it is lost. Friendly advice.
3.
Remember to email me your email that you want associated with this course. When you email me, I will email you how to read the digital version of Sernau Chapter 1.
This is the pattern for the blog:
1. Your Name
2. A Title (Related to Social Inequality and Social Stratification Issues)
3. A comment: this is a short personal future scenario based on what you learned from the news article about a major trend, or what made you curious about discussing such a trend given the week's class content. However, it doesn't have to be about the week's content, only something related to proposing a future scenario or two.
4. Then put a long line ('-------------------)'.
5. Then cut/paste A SMALL PART of the article or topic you found. (This is because blogger.com now has a limit of "4096 characters" in blog comments. However, that should be enough to concentrate on your own comments, and provide an excerpt and a link to the original article. If you do want more space, and I encourage it, post a second time to get another "4096 characters".)
6. Then a small line '---'.
7. Then, finally, paste the URL (link) of the post.
Post for the first week on this thread. I'll set up a new main post each week, and then we will do the same.
Hello Class: remember three things for Monday:
1.
Remember there are two assignments. Post on this blog by Sunday, and skim through Sernau 2011: Chapter 1, entitled "The Great Debate." Concentrate on his "Figure 1.1" in that text. Similarly, we will have our 'little debate' here on this blog.
2.
Remember you have to register at blogger.com to post to this thread. BY THE WAY, THIS IS AN IMPORTANT NOTE: if you post and are unable to see it, that is OK because I have to add manually your comment after I look at it. So don't worry if you post and can't find your post! I have it and it arrives in my email box for approval to add to the blog. I recommend you always save your post on another section of your computer and then paste it into the blog in case it is lost. Friendly advice.
3.
Remember to email me your email that you want associated with this course. When you email me, I will email you how to read the digital version of Sernau Chapter 1.
This is the pattern for the blog:
1. Your Name
2. A Title (Related to Social Inequality and Social Stratification Issues)
3. A comment: this is a short personal future scenario based on what you learned from the news article about a major trend, or what made you curious about discussing such a trend given the week's class content. However, it doesn't have to be about the week's content, only something related to proposing a future scenario or two.
4. Then put a long line ('-------------------)'.
5. Then cut/paste A SMALL PART of the article or topic you found. (This is because blogger.com now has a limit of "4096 characters" in blog comments. However, that should be enough to concentrate on your own comments, and provide an excerpt and a link to the original article. If you do want more space, and I encourage it, post a second time to get another "4096 characters".)
6. Then a small line '---'.
7. Then, finally, paste the URL (link) of the post.
Post for the first week on this thread. I'll set up a new main post each week, and then we will do the same.
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