Cartoonist Lee Won-bok, who has published a popular series of comic books (one of which I own) that teaches young people about different countries, has done a three-part series on the United States. Reading the Chosun piece on it, however, I was more than a little struck by this:
Seemingly conscious of growing anti-American feelings and public demand to take a new approach to a long-time alliance with the U.S., Lee is very careful in analyzing the U.S. in the book. “I tried to exclude my personal views of the United States as much as I could. In the case of the Iraq War, rather than focusing on the war itself, I tried to provide a big framework for American foreign policy through such things as analyzing U.S. strategy in the Middle East and the influence of Jews behind those policies.”
One can only wonder if the Jews will get the same treatment the Japanese (who were invariably portrayed as short and bucktoothed in the book I have) get — I can just imagine Lee drawing frames of hook-nosed Jews in yarmulkes counting diamonds in New York while plotting the deaths of little Iraqi children in Falluja.
No mention was made in the piece of the role of the Masons, Illuminati or Knights Templar play in U.S. foreign policy.
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“No mention was made in the piece of the role of the Masons, Illuminati or Knights Templar play in U.S. foreign policy.”
I’m sure that was a simple oversight.
Since we’re on the topic of racism, I have a question. I often hear Koreans use the phrase “pure blooded Korean” to describe themselves… does that phrase have any significance in racial terms for Koreans? ie, pure blooded korean = ubermensch?
Nor any mention of the Kim Mafia. Robert Kim and Jay Kim.
Heil minjok!
Un-fucking-believeable, even for Korea. Now that the link to this story is in the inbox of the President of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the story is sure to get even more fascinating.
Korea shoots itself in both feet and expects everyone else to bleed. Stay tuned for the boycott.
I don’t think it’s fair to say Korea “shot itself in the foot” because one guy decided to write something stupid. Obviously, what Lee has said here (and to be fair, I’m going only by what he himself told the Chosun Ilbo) is dangerous given that his books are quite popular and many Koreans, for reasons that should be plainly obvious, are not familiar enough with Jews to see that Lee’s biases are nothing more than anti-Semitism. But I’d prefer to keep the critism centered on the asshat in question rather than making sweeping generalizations.
Marmot - I know you’re a translator at the “stanky Chosun” and probably have little control over content or what they ask you to translate. But among the many things that bother me about the daily’s website is how many stories are dedicated to jingoistically promoting Korean writers, athletes, movie stars, TV shows… If they are sucessful overseas, great, but such fame should be self-evident. Do we need to be told of that in an English NEWSpaper website? Do media outside Korea see a “Korean Wave” or is it the figment of a nationalistic mind?
to comment #6– perhaps an inferiority complex and so the korean wave ?
To be honest, you see a lot of the same sort of nationalistic cheerleading in Canadian newspapers. If some guy leaves Canada and succeeds in the States, one of our newspapers will feel obliged to report it stressing Canadianness, even if the person has lived in America for 40 years. Whenever the spaceshuttle is mentioned it is almost obligatory for a Canadian journalist to insert the phrase “with the Canadian-built ‘Canadarm’ aboard”…etc etc
It’s not as frequent as in Korea, but it’s there. And yes, it comes from an inferiority complex.
On the whole, though, Canadian stars become world stars (through Hollywood or the recording industry) known by all, celebrated by many — Jim Carrey, Dan Akroyd, Michael J. Fox, Neil Young, Celine Dion*, the Weakerthans, Bruce Cockburn, Joni Mitchell — although I grant that their Canadian origin may be too often unfairly overlooked. My beef is that in turning to the Chosun website for news and views In English, we are inundated with puffery about people whose only claim to attention would seem to be that they they are “Big in Japan”. To me, at least, that’s different and far less useful than introductions to people who are hot/noteworthy in Korea in various fields and who are worth exploring on their own merits. If this puffery aims at making Koreans feel good, it probably should be in the Korean language. I think the Chosun English addition needs to adjust its angle…
*author does not intend to endorse Celine Dion or hold Canadians responsible for her music’s role in causing that young couple on the Titanic to jump into the icy Atlantic.
I’ve looked through a couple of Lee’s comic books and found some racist insinuations in them, so the comment on Jews is not surprising.
I own and have read his book on the Netherlands, and found it to be entertaining and educational at a low level, that is to say that the book used nationall characteristics in a very broad-brush and generalising manner to explain to kids who Dutch people really are. At times that became irritating.
Yeah, why can Lee Won-Bok stick with more safe topics about America, like those evil kyopos that are mentioned so much on Western expat blogs?