nanoomi

The New York Times published an article last week looking at the reaction to the film “Dogani” (“The Crucible”):

At an appeals court in the southwestern city of Gwangju in 2006, a school official was convicted of raping a 13-year-old deaf girl and sentenced to one year in prison. When the verdict came, an outraged middle-aged man, also deaf, let out an incomprehensible cry from the galley, signaling frantically with sign language.

“It was clear that the man was shouting, ‘This is wrong! This is wrong!”’ Lee Ji-won, a newspaper intern, wrote in her blog later that day under the subject line, “I saw the foul underside of our society.”

The man was forcibly removed for disrupting the courtroom. And that might have been the end of it. Except that the intern’s blog inspired a best-selling author, Gong Ji-young, to write a novel based on the sexual assaults at the Inhwa School for the hearing impaired, the school’s attempts to conceal the abuses and the victims’ struggle for justice.

Now, a film based on that novel — “Dogani,” or “The Crucible” — has roiled South Korea.

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The Korea Times reports that the Fair Trade Commission has taken action that “bans sexualizing teen stars:”

Government officials are attempting to prevent the revealing styles of teenage pop idols as they warn against the media’s portrayal of young women as sex objects.

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) Friday announced a new guideline for standard contract terms between production companies and artists, which include preventing underage singers from dressing in excessively sexual clothing. Management shouldn’t deprive the boys and girls in showbiz from their educational opportunities either, the FTC said, and needs to protect them from long working hours.

Well, announcing a guideline ought to put a stop to all of this. Now entertainment companies won’t have their teen stars wear skirts so short they show off their underwear, and the media will stop portraying “young women as sex objects.”

Such as this Joongang Ilbo article which was at the top of Naver awhile ago titled “Chinese netizens go wild over Son Yeon-jae,” which gave a matter-of-fact account of what Chinese netizens were writing about the girl known in Korea as the ‘gymnastics pixie’ (much as Kim Yuna was once the ‘figure pixie’). It was mostly stuff like “A Korean girl like a dream,” “absolutely perfect,” “a Korean body you can’t help but dream about.”

Much the same thing happened when Son appeared at the ‘LG Whisen Rhythmic All Star 2011′ gala show last Sunday, with Asia Gyeongje publishing a slew of photos from the show with titles like “Son Yeon-jae’s captivating look – her ‘pixie’ image disappears,” “Son Yeon-jae’s seductive beckoning,” “Son Yeon-jae shows off her S line,” and “Son Yeon-jae’s stand out s line“:

I suppose someone could point out she just turned 17 and that headlines like that might be inappropriate, but then, she is four years older than the age of consent, so perhaps it’s all okay after all. Besides, according to this, she may have wanted to get a reaction:

“I’ve always been seen with a cute and youthful image but now I want to show a transformed me.”

Mission accomplished. One wonders if that’s something she wants – or if its more her management’s idea. At any rate, being cute and known for your ‘S-line’ will probably ultimately mean more advertising contracts. As for the performance, the training video shows some ho-hum ’sexy’ dancing, but I’m more impressed by the ‘human windmill’ thing she does at 0:55.

You can read the original post at Gusts of Popular Feeling.

[Update - the YouTube video I embedded was taken down before I even finished the post! The one below has the sound out of synch.]

Awhile ago, I posted about elderly people telling off pregnant women for being in “their seats” (the seating reserved for the elderly, handicapped, and pregnant), and oddly enough, it was just an hour ago that I re-read Gord Sellar’s thoughtful response titled “Subways and culture” (and if you haven’t read it yet, do). And then, I came across one of the big stories getting netizen attention today (which is, of course, followed by media attention – 80 stories so far) about a video clip of an elderly woman ‘tussling’ with a teenage girl on the subway:

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According to the JoongAng Ilbo, corporal punishment is to be phased out in Gyeonggi-do schools.

In Gyeonggi, students who were to receive corporal punishment will instead receive “knowledge and virtue-based punishments,” such as writing book reports, completing community service projects or doing extra assignments.

They’re also to be phased out in Seoul schools as well, but no concrete steps have been taken in this direction. This is interesting:

Examination of students’ belongings without prior notice, regulation of hair length, verbal abuse and school violence will be prohibited. The teacher’s duty to monitor students’ dress code and conduct of behavior at school gates will be removed. Measures will be taken to raise awareness of student rights and student councils will be given greater autonomy.

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CCTV shot of the suspect. (From here)

Police have made public an image taken from CCTV of a man suspected of raping a 7 year-old girl on June 26 in Dongdaemun. As the Joongang Ilbo describes it,

The suspect, who is assumed to be in his 30’s, allegedly found the girl playing in the street by herself in her neighborhood in Jangan, Seoul, at around 12:30 p.m. and approached her on his motorcycle saying, “Let’s go play at your house.” After raping the girl, the man took off on his motorcycle with roughly $200 worth of gold rings and 10,000 won in cash he found in the apartment. The girl was later found crying outside the apartment by a neighbor, who called her mother. The girl’s father was the first to arrive on the scene and called the police at 1:04 p.m.

Police at the Dongdaemun precinct said the girl was brought to a hospital an hour after they received the father’s call, but she did not require surgery. The victim was born in Vietnam. Her parents came to the country five years ago and have been residing and working in Korea since.

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A few weeks ago I posted unification posters done by some of my students. In the comments, Ben Wagner noted the similarities between this poster…

…and this colonial era poster calling for 내선일체 (naisen ittai, or ‘Japan and Korea as one body’), which I posted here:

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The Joongang Ilbo and Korea Times report on a shocking murder of a 15 year-old girl by middle school dropouts. As the Joongang Ilbo describes it:

A gang of teenage dropouts took ruthless revenge on a member who gossiped, holding her hostage for four days as they beat her to death – all while the kidnapped girl’s parents made no effort to locate her.

The blanket-wrapped body of the 15-year-old, identified only by her surname, Kim, floated to the surface of the Han River last Thursday, eight days after police say her friends locked her inside a house and began their onslaught.

Police have arrested the leaders of the mob, a boy named Jung and a girl named Choi. Warrants have been issued for three others involved in the attack, as well as a 19-year-old man surnamed Lee who allegedly helped dispose of the girl’s body after it had been drained of blood to make it lighter to carry. All of the suspects except Lee are 15 years old.

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