If you’re bored of the Seoul torch relay violence stories, skip this post. If not, read on. If you’re a C-borg linking in, be forewarned: you won’t like what you’re about to read.
Chinese netizens aren’t too pleased to hear that the Korean government plans to arrest and deport violent Chinese demonstrators who attacked Tibet and North Korean human rights advocates during the torch relay, and they’re launching a PR counterattack with photos and Youtube videos. Circulating on the internet are collections of photos dissected to prove that Koreans are lying about allegations of violence by Chinese demonstrators. It isn’t only nutizen chatter. Some material appears to be sourced from printed newspapers, probably daily tabloids. The characters are simplified, so they may be mainland publications.
The image of members of a certain unnamed Chinese student association in a large southeastern port city in Korea attacking the man on the bicycle with their flags reminds me of this historic photo, but the Chosun Ilbo made a different connection.
It is actually the Chinese who appear to be doctoring photos by whiting out the face of one attacker and the name of the Chinese student association on the back of the t-shirt of the other attacker.
Near-sighted C-borgs apparently can’t tell the difference between Free Tibet demonstrators and those who advocate on behalf of North Korean refugees, branding anyone who protests against anything related to China as fanhuafenzi(反华分子), or “anti-Chinese partisans.” Those who are not with the Chinese government are against the Chinese people in the worldview of the C-borgs.
MH commenters aren’t the only ones who’ve noted that violent protest isn’t unusual in Korea. The Chinese have, too. And in the Chinese blogosphere, all your blog are belong to us (thanks, Elgin) as posts like the one titled “比CNN还卑劣！韩国媒体造谣中伤中国留学生” (More Despicable Than CNN! Korean Media Fabricates Rumors to Stab Chinese Overseas Students) have gone viral on dozens of websites.
I’d like to remind our fanhuafenzi commenters that C-borgs like those who attacked peaceful demonstrators and those who defend the attackers are not representative of the 1.3 billion people who live in China and that some Chinese students were injured in the fights. And Fanhuafenzis, take heart. At least you’re not KKK red neck thugs like Jack Cafferty.
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55 Comments
Well, haven’t seen this racial slur in a long time.
之杰 发表于：2008-04-29 10:27:15
该死的高丽棒子
Gai si de gaolibanzi
“Death to Koryo Gooks”
At the rate things are going, China is going to be one scary biatch of a country to deal with in 2050.
Sonagi, how do you upload pictures or comments to that China.com site? I’d like to add some Chinese fascist pictures of my own.
China-Korea-Japan region is ready to explode. With new-found wealth and pent-up inferiority complex in all three nations, soon a war will happen.
The Chinese want to pay back the Japanese for what happened in early 20th century. It is similar to Germany want to pay back France for imposing heavy burden after WWI. China is ripe for explosion.
Koreans? Just clueless. Cannot decide whom to fight.
NKs with prompting from China will attack Japan within several years. Maybe next year.
China is the poorest and the least educated among the three. NKs are not even humans.
China will start trouble. It doesn’t like the status quo.
Afte the olympic, it will turn ugly and belligerant.
Expect boom-boom soon. Next year with its economic hardship and pent-up anger should be an interesting year for China.
Actually, for all four countries including NK.
Man, there’s never a dull news day in Korea. Sometimes it seems this blog writes itself.
What a surprise! NOT.
Where have you been the last couple of years ForiegnHermit, for you not to heard of “Gai si de gaolibanzi”.
It’s been one of the favorite slogans for the Chinese nutizens for a while. They’ve been going ballistic for each and every perceived slights that they thought they got from Koreans - real or imagined (mostly imagined). The anti-Korean wave in China has been going on for a while. Now it’s going to get worse.
Country of China is simply a dangerous country. They are not like every other country. Americans, the West, Japan, Korea, the free world, should not treat them like any other country. They are bullies and thugs. And they are big. We shouldn’t help them to get bigger and stronger - it’s just lunacy and it would be signing our death sentences. If China ever replaces the United States as the world leader, that would be the end of mankind. You might as well kiss earth good bye. Boycott China. Boycott the Olympics. Boycott Chinese products wherever you can.
I’d be cautious to make assumptions on all Chinese based on what is written by a few extremists and crackpots. Sure, there is no shortage of people who lap up CCP propaganda and ask for seconds, but 1.3 billion people means 1.3 billion different opinions.
You may not realize how true that is.
“Koreans? Just clueless. Cannot decide whom to fight.
China is the poorest and the least educated among the three. NKs are not even humans.”
Baduk…you rock!!!! lol.
“what is written by a few extremists and crackpots.”
Hmmm… do you really think it’s just few extremists and crackpots? Why don’t I believe that?
In 2002, flag-waving Koreans hit the back of my head twice with a broomstick-sized flagpole during the Korea-US match - even though I was cheering on the Korean team. I guess you could draw the same conclusions about them as well.
correct me if i’m wrong, but in some of the pics linked to “collections of photos dissected,” weren’t the koreans holding those “weapons” as evidence of what the chinese students used?
On certain topics like Tibet, 1.3 billion people and one opinion. A lot of the stuff I see on the net isn’t written by extremists and crackpots but young, educated people, some of whom are fluent in English. In personal conversations, Chinese friends have expressed similar views in less flaming language. Nevertheless, I would like to see commenters refrain from general China-bashing.
@seoulmilk:
Yes, I believe so but didn’t have time to scour the Korean media for the original pictures.
that cartoon by chosun is low.
# 1,
By 2050, there will be what? Three Chinese men to 1 Chinese girl? That will mean there will be two extremely frustrated Chinese men! Hummm… what do all these surplus, frustrated, angry men do???
While yes, it seems some student got out of hand that day, I don’t find any of this very unusual or surprising.
And the Korean indignation cannot be completely separated from already-existing strong anti-Chinese sentiment. Acting like this is some affront to the nation in terms of its nature or level of vehemence is pretty unusual against the recent backdrop of dung-slinging, frozen water bottle-throwing, and general violence that goes with anti-FTA protesters that is just the norm, or with the group of anti-FTA farmers who assaulted a Swiss man who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (he wasn’t a representative of the other side, but just a guy walking by), or the way the Swiss had their main soccer (?) web site shut down by crazed Korean netizens launching denial-of-service attacks and other nonsense for the Swiss “crime” of having won the game along with a questionable call.
Point is, sports nationalism can get ugly — nasty Korean jeerers throwing beer cans and yelling racial slurs during the USA-Poland match, or being physically threatened for cheering for the US side in any public game (several friends and colleagues have relayed such incidents both personally and in taped interviews conducted back when I was really making progress on my dissertation).
And if Koreans (or anyone else) can get that way during the World Cup, imagine how that would be for one’s national “coming out” party in the Olympics. For the Chinese, this is Seoul 1988 — and it seems strange that the historical amnesia surrounding Koreans themselves launching massive protest under Chun, along with members of the international community question human rights issues in a Korea technically being run by a dictator who murdered his own people and was in the middle of its own questionable human rights issues — the silence here is pretty deafening.
No, this doesn’t excuse any fools getting a little out of hand at the protests. And yes, they are techically guests here, and yes, North Korean repatriation doesn’t equal Tibet. But it boils down to the great national and personal stakes being held by something like Beijing 2008 or Seoul 1988 — Koreans and Chinese at either time weren’t all so different at all.
The gesticulations of sudden shock and horror on the Korean side, given Korea’s own fractured experience with runaway Olympic pride in the face of widely expressed concerns about human rights, combined with the fact that nothing went down that day that seemed much different from the antics of the run-of-the-mill Korean protester, all seem a bit disingenuous to me.
People need to step back and chill, and ask themselves how different any of this really is, given Korea’s own behavior in the sports nationalism context, or many other countries, before pointing the finger of supreme condemnation at “the Chinese.”
Important addendum: I meant to say “students.” I know there were more than one, and that little typo might make it seem like I’m not aware that there were more than one out-of-hand person in question.
Boy, the Chosun Ilbo is playing with fire with that cartoon.
1. how many of you got on me for saying the koreans needed to restrict immigrants from china? hmm, how many times? this torch relay is proof that the chinese cannot be trusted and do indeed represent a fith column in korea.
2. korea cannot allow another nation to dictate the size and variety of it’s weapons’ arsenal. korea needs ballistic missiles and damn those who say that it doesn’t. as i’ve said many times before, china is the new menace to the world and korea nedds to be prepared for this new menace by ensuring that it can inflict heavy damage to any chinese city east or west of xian.
3. marmot said that the recent chinese behavior in seoul shows chinese contempt for koreans and i must say i agree. the chinese are not only contemptuos, they’re also jealous that koreans arenow ahead of them. the teacher becomes the student. lol.
4. i have thrown away all of my chinese martial arts film.
5. the metro’s indignation is spot on for it’s indignation. koreans protesting in their own country is just like chinese protesting in a country that isn’t their own. man, this man’s indignation is so tiresome.
ps metro, 1988 is over twenty years ago. get over it. ok?
Mr. Koehler, thanks for the reminder. You are doing a great job teaching me how to think.
Minus the Tibetan contingent, of course…
From #16:
Bump to Metro’s point above. I tried to express the same idea anecdotally, but probably should have been more clear. Metro, never one to limit himself when communicating his thoughts in a blog, did a better job of it.
“Pawi” wrote:
Good lord, I almost had a milk-shooting-out-of-my-nose moment with that one. That is a bit silly “Pawi”.
What I find amusing as well is that even Bruce Lee has been co-opted by mainland China; Lee was born in San Francisco and did not like Communism at all but, suddenly, once again, history is flexible. Please do not throw out your Bruce Lee films; the man is fabulous.
It is more than regrettable as to politics in general.
“ps metro, 1988 is over twenty years ago. get over it. ok?”
20 years isn’t so long ago…not that you’d understand since you weren’t born yet.
“No, this doesn’t excuse any fools getting a little out of hand at the protests.”
Oh my God. Oh my f-ing God.
Did Metro say “a little out of hand”?
Had any of the things that happened to the Tibetan, Korean or Canadian protesters happened to you, the rant you’d have churned out would be so long that it would bring the Internet to a grinding halt if anyone clicked on it.
‘Had any of the things that happened to the Tibetan, Korean or Canadian protesters happened to you, the rant you’d have churned out would be so long that it would bring the Internet to a grinding halt if anyone clicked on it.’ user 81
lol!
‘20 years isn’t so long ago…not that you’d understand since you weren’t born yet.’
yes, and they were the same thing too. one was about democracy and one was about national pride. one had players from within and one had players from without.
gee, someguy, you sure are swell!
Songjon waeja/matsuda wacko
松田倭子/송전왜자
OK, I’ve stepped back, chilled, and… nope, still the same. Deport them.
Not to defend Korea’s occasionally spirited sports nationalism, but at least they keep that shit within their own borders. I don’t recall watching gangs of Koreans wandering the streets of foreign capitals looking for political opponents to intimidate and assault.
It’s funny you should say that, because I had been comparing Beijing 2008 and Seoul 1988, but was more struck by the contrast. The Seoul Olympic Games were preceded by the Summer of ‘87, when mass demonstrations brought down the military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan who, like the CCP, had been quite successful in delivering rapid economic development at the cost of political liberty (and one major massacre). Fast forward to 2008, and you have Chinese students on the streets of foreign cities — quite possibly with the support of the Chinese government — browbeating those who injure the Pride of the Chinese People ™. In my book, that’s a MAJOR difference… and a potentially disturbing one.
Ignore baduk at your own risk. That man’s “connected”.
Personal aside to the oracle: Let me know when it’s time to short-sell the KOSPI.
Metro completely misses the point…not much of a surprise… Theres no real comparison between 1988 and 2008. Koreans didnt attack others abroad in 1988, they didnt stage massive clashes in capitals of countries that criticized them. 1988 was infact a catalyst for change in Korea. 2008 seems to be a catalyst for the hardening of the status quo in China. perhaps instead of staring at feet he should start thinking. Though Im sure metro would take anything, including the criminal behavior of CHINESE to take a swipe at Koreans. That chip on your shoulder is really getting a bit big there, Metro.
Great, Marmot, but speaking as someone who’s felt the crack of a flagpole against the back of his head, I’m not seeing much of a difference.
China has internal problems that should keep them from starting wars outside their borders. China has Muslim problems that you don’t read about in the news as China suppresses bad news. As for a war, yes, a Chinese civil war.
I read Metro. My response? Give me a fucking break!
I think this blog needs to remember that these sites/flames are pretty much just written by people who have discovered newfound wealth. Do you really think the vast majority of China gives a rats ass about china.com, forums, cnn, or western bias? heh Isn’t China the country with 70,000+ violent demonstrations a year?
When people don’t have water, land, or freedom, they don’t care about the Olympics.
Beijing banned advertisements for “luxury apartments” for a reason.
To be honest, I have a feeling we’re going to see a lot of ‘peasants’ trying to get into Beijing during the Olympics. They won’t be coming to say “fuck cnn”, they’ll be coming to say “our lives suck shit”.
Download “Unreported World Chinas Olympic Lie” on the Piratebay.
I agree.
Although I find some of his views a tad 할아버지 같은 and antiquated, he seems to have a knack of correctly predicting events and circumstances related to Korea and the Korean collective psyche.
He’s a wise bloke for a grumpy old fart!
(I mean that as a compliment - just following on from Andy’s inference yesterday that Aussies aren’t polite)
The overseas Chinese are vigorously defending the actions of China riot Seoul 2008.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY3_tibj7Uo
I was on the campus of Yonsei and the streets of Seoul in 1987 and at the 1988 Olympics.
Seoul 1987 resembles (and was a factor in inspiring) Beijing 1989, obviously with dramatically different endings. But 1988 to me looks like the opposite of where 2008 may be going.
After the momentous June 1987 turning point in the political situation in Seoul, the hard left/NK-manipulated factions of students held some violent protests against the Olympics as an imperialist plot to keep Korea divided. (Late in the game, North Korea tried to maneuver to host an ‘88 event after Kim Jong-il’s jetplane bombers failed to disrupt them).
It is probably largely forgotten, but one subplot of the ‘88 Olympics boxing scandal — not the related, later Roy Jones travesty, but the initial incident in which South Korean coaches threw chairs at the refs and a Korean boxer staged a sit in to protest a call against him — bore a resemblance to what we are seeing ahead of Beijing 2008. Whereas the Korean media deliberately played down or ignored the bad behavior of the boxer and coaches, NBC showed that spectacle in its entirety and there were accounts of “death threats” etc against NBC staff, who were ubiquitous and easily identified by their peacock baseball caps. The NBC camera crew guys I knew simply took off their caps and stayed away from Itaewon. (I’m going on memory here, but) I don’t think there were any real incidents. Lack of the Internet at the time no doubt helped.
As fate would have it, I was also on the ground for the events of 2002 and the World Cup and THERE I do see some similarities with what the Chinese are doing now that Koreans should reflect on before going overboard in their criticism:
–The nation and its media’s handling of the Anton Apollo Ohno dispute was very close to what we’re seeing the Chinese state/media/”intelligentsia” do with CNN, protesters etc.
– Korean media reporting on the schoolgirls deaths was filled with innuendo about the US soldiers deliberately crushing the girls and then laughing afterward.
–Korean media continuing to tell their country the United States had not apologized for the accident even after a dozen different US apologies at different levels — then writing editorials asserting that these apologies were “not sincere” because… um..
–Bad sportsmanship by fans (and of course the team) whenever the US was on the field. I sat near the VIP box at Taejon for the US-Mexico match and watched the well-dressed, well-healed supposed elite of Korea boo the US team at every second of their possession. Even the Mexicans were nonplussed at that.
I know a lot of non-Koreans of many nationalities who soured on Korea over that, and quite a few haven’t fully gotten over that uneasiness or antipathy because there really was no sign of reflection and no assurance that adult behavior will prevail if such things happen again. (Some in Korea seem to recognize the resulting folly of electing RMH and the Uri gang based on the emotions of the time). I’m more mixed but retain a very harsh view of the Korean media, as my comments over the years reflect.
I hold the industrialized, OECD democracy of Korea to a much higher standard than China, which is a whole different, potentially more ominous kettle of fish. I don’t see in China any checks or balances against the hateful nationalism and one-sided propaganda that’s being whipped up surrounding Beijing 2008, with or without official connivance. The Chinese media all fall under ruling party or state control in various forms, and though more diverse than imagined outside the country on social and economic issues, on political matters their only role and value is as Party mouthpieces. Chinese scholars have more scope to add nuance, but are not free or independent as we understand those words.
As Sonagi points out (with her caveats about how representative this can be of 1.3 billion people. China has jailed at least one person for saying human rights is more pressing for the country than the Olympics.) Even commenters with crisp, articulate English and no doubt successful careers in the West parrot the logic and the lines and even the language of the Beijing regime. These are people who can and should be aware that there is more than one side of the story on Tibet or any issue and must know how similar the current anti-Western, anti-Western media and anti-Tibetan invective is to every other nasty mass political campaign the PRC has conducted over the years since 1949 — movements that tend to end up with China’s interests and image getting hurt and setbacks or stalemates to needed social reforms. And yet what we’re seeing is far more a Chinese Storm Front mentality or an outbreak of mass false consciousness than a confident nation waiting to host the Olympics.
I favor picking an island like Malta and a mountainous, wintry place like Iceland and making permanent sites for the summer and winter games.
Sorry that USA-Mexico football match was in Chonju, not Taejon.
cm, the guy that made the video you posted is a nutter. Trying to demonstrate the innocence of Chinese students and then reserving the right to act in a way that is not non-violent and destroy people is cognative dissonance.
It’s probably not worth giving him airtime.
Well it’s getting a lot of air time now. It won’t be long before it’s 2 million plus views.
Read the comment sections coming from all the Chinese. It’s amusing, if not disturbing. Do they really believe this, or are they denying reality?
http://www.youtube.com/comment.....Y3_tibj7Uo
I’ve made that point several times on several threads and in the OP and a comment on this thread.
@#37:
Slim, you’re usually pithy; it’s good to see you take the time to write a longer post that synthesizes your Asian experiences.
Sonagi you are an odd one. By all accounts from your posting history, I consider you to be an internet agent provacateur and find your claims to “rational discourse” somewhat suspect in light of your fondness of throwing rhetorical bricks through windows.
I think you enjoy mucking up the waters and reading people’s responses to controvercy. Not that I mind, I do too!
Too bad I don’t read Korean, anyone feel like translating the juiciest bits from Netizens over at Naver?
@Jing
Hot topics are not inconsistent with rational discourse as long as one justifies one’s position and listens to others. I throw bricks, but not recklessly; I pick my targets carefully. And BTW, the title came directly from a Chinese newspaper, which called Koreans “running dogs of CNN.”
You must admit, Jing, that reading and commenting at TMH can be a helluva lot more engaging and entertaining than parlour room chatter about 成语 and the trials and tribulations of getting a mobile phone account in China at the apolitical Sinosplice.
Thoughtful piece on the “People’s War” (which does not involve Korea):
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JD30Ad02.html
“The overseas Chinese are vigorously defending the actions of China riot Seoul 2008.”
From the video (thanks, cm):
But Korean people, please try to understand, those Chinese students got angry FOR A REASON. (5:11)
Well, that’s not ominous and threatening.
All those red Chinese banners remind me of Bruce Banner: “Mister McKim, don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
http://www.tvacres.com/char_banner_david.htm
If we anger China, the gentle and studious PRC will morph into a giant green red hulk (they’ve already accomplished the “incredible” part). And whatever happens next will be our fault.
The video tries to show how the Korean and Japanese media distorted what happened in Seoul, saying that it was the supposedly ‘non-violent’ anti-China protesters who started everything.
But then at 5:26, they reveal what’s really going on: Someone attacking our ‘unity’ deserves a violent reaction:
Very honest, we Chinese people will not behave “non-violent”, when someone dared to challenge our national unity.
If that’s the way you and many other Chinese feel, YouTube videographer, I doubt your version of events where the Tibetan and North Korean protesters struck first.
And then there is this at 5:33:
1.3 billion Chinese people guarantee the world, whoever plots to split China apart with whatever “beautiful” excuses, will be destroyed.
Nice.
You can email the creator at speaker_cn@live.com. Just leave MH out of it.
user-81, and anyone tempted to follow up on his request to e-mail the video creator - in my experience, discussing with the types of people who make these videos is hard work and takes a real time commitment. It’s a bit like trying to persuade an alcoholic to give up drinking. Chipping in with the occassional “abusing alcohol is bad for you, you shouldn’t do it” doesn’t do much good.
cm, don’t tell me this is the first time you’ve been disturbed by comments on youtube. The comments section of youtube has to be one of the worst places to refer to when trying to find rational responses.
I know, I know, I’m only making more people click on the video by posting about it. In a nutshell what I’m trying to say is that anyone who needs to speculate whether all Chinese people are assholes, has either been extremely unlucky, or doesn’t know very many Chinese people.
IMO why do you people even bother to argue with the Chinese?
I think some of you missed my point. I’m not saying ‘88 and ‘08 are same-same, nor am I saying the Chinese students were right, nor all rational.
But what I’m saying that given the excitement that comes with a major Olympics match marking the coming out of a nation, mixed with national pride and sentiment comes a lot of problems such as these, and that the human rights issues being masked by nationalism are worthy of comparison. A look at the documentary “Sanggyedong Olympics” is a great example of this.
And the main point is that this isn’t quite a rational response from the Korean side, since the expressions of anger and urge to “deport ‘em all!” are as rooted in deep-seated anti-Chinese sentiment as they are a mere response to punk students who got out of hand, or even frustration of a pattern of that being the case because of the upcoming Olympics.
In short, calling this the “new Red Guard” or acting like this is foreboding sign of doom and the cause of a new form of Red Scare is overreacting. Same criticisms I’ve always made about the dangers of nationalism apply, to Koreans or Chinese.
And to whomever posted about me being assaulted by protesters and making an issue of it, I was assaaulted by Korean protesters and taken to the ground. I blogged about it. I moved on. Chips? The only ones I see are those who keep trying to dredge up obvious distaste for me or a blog post I wrote a year ago every time I show up here.
Read what I said and respond to it. If you wanna project what you think I’d do in a situation, or try to pull up other topics I wasn’t talking about, that’s more talking out of the side of your neck, adding to the chips YOU seem to have.
Simple point — anti-Chinese sentiment has been here and building for years, and is the flip side of the coin several of you seem to think isn’t a legitimate thing to talk about. I do, and think it needs to be pointed out. Disagree with me? Move on. I said what I needed to say, too.
Metro, I don’t think anybody missed your point, they just don’t agree. The differences between Seoul ‘88 and Beijing ‘08 are not just there, they are ominous. The manipulation by authorities, the scale, the potential to spill over into more serious geopolitical matters, the punishment for not going lock-step with the party line, et cetera, not to mention taking it to the streets in other people’s countries… all different.
Korea in 1988 and in 2008 is no real or future threat to anyone, and its nationalistic spasms were not an ominous portent of some current or future threat. The same cannot be said of China. We should thank those students for the wake-up call.
Metro, your points were both articulate and valuable. I seem to remember news reports featuring gangs of English footie fans rampaging through Brussels or Amsterdam just a few years ago. But some very valuable counterpoints were made by Slim, Sonagi, and others. Repressive cultural attitudes no doubt contribute to people’s willingness to join potentially violent but officially approved demonstrations, yet anyone tracking Chinese affairs will note that there are many equally violent demonstrations directed against officially sponsored projects and/or policy. My experience has been that no group on earth is immune to anti-outsider manipulation, and once such flames are fanned, things can quickly turn ugly, whether in a Mayan market in Guatemala, the streets of Seoul, or Los Angeles. A key point here, though, is that some of these Overseas Chinese groups seem to have been mobilized or encouraged by persons connected to the official Chinese mission.
Koreans are just as nationalistic as the Chinese. However, Korea is not on the map, so to speak, like China is. There is far more international criticism of China than Korea; thus, there are far more opportunities for uncivilized clashes between Chinese people and foreign critics. It is evident from looking at the organized boycott of Carrefour, the organized torch defensive forces, and the confrontations at China-related forums at US universities that China is mobilizing its urban young college students and graduates to defend the 祖国 (조국; that word appears a lot in the media, in online forums, and on signs and banners)against fanhuafenzi, or China haters who criticize China on human rights or its role in the world economy. Some critics, like Lou Dobbs, are China haters, but the Chinese increasingly seem to view all critics as fanhuafenzi, enemies of China. Koreans aren’t any more receptive to foreign criticism, but Korea isn’t a world power like China.
“anti-Chinese sentiment has been here”
And this comes out of no reason? The amount of trash that comes out China that gets dumped on Korea.. I’m sorry.. but it’s understandable.
Well, actually, the origins of anti-Chinese sentiment aren’t merely recent, but have roots in the debates surrounding modernization and directions to take towards that end in the late 1880’s and 1890’s.
In the roots of burgeoning Korean national identity itself lies the ideological need to “distance” oneself from China, in terms of denying China’s dominance as former suzerain and the literal center of East Asia’s cultural map.
Stefan Tanaka talks about this process with Japan in “Japan’s Orient” and Andre Schmid applies this to the Korean case in “Korea Between Empires.”
In both cases, but even more so for a Korea looking more and more to the Japanese model of modernization, there was a huge need to decenter China, demoting it from the center of civilization to a backwards state in want of said civilization. Much is made of Chinese decline and the attributes that make Japan or Korea a desirable future modern state, and why China does not qualify as that.
Around this time is when you see the beginning of strong anti-Chinese sentiment in Japan, with Korea soon following Japan’s example to place its own new nation-state at the center of the cultural universe, with the origins of some of the then-contemporary negative Chinese stereotypes that were being created in the West, albeit for somewhat different ideological purposes: being indolent, lazy, inscrutable, and dumb. They lacked the potential for civility, they smelled, they were dirty, etc.
Point is, none of this is new, and recent anti-Chinese sentiment resurfaces these days, especially now that Korea finds itself threatened by its nascent rise to surpass Korea.
I could go on for quite a while about the many “dirty Chinese” jokes are floating around out there, how many nasty comments I hear at even the mention of a Chinese persoon from even the most seemingly reasonable Korean folks — all well before there were any Olympic-related incidents.
Point is, from the news constantly reporting on fake Chinese goods to the threat of tainted imported food items, to the Chinese guy who murdered his Korean ex and dumped her body in a trashcan, the whispers among the Korean populace has been “Chinese people are dirty” or “dangerous” or just plain undesirable.
That’s all well before this whole thing happened. And yeah, while it is more organized than in Korea, and yeah, because China has been on the defensive, there are a lot more chances for pro-China cheerers and jeerers to get out of hand.
But to suggest that the heavily-negative, racial slur-laden, “deport ‘em” mentality one hears around these days from the mouths of Koreans, and justifying that knee jerk reaction with “well, Koreans never do it OVERSEAS, so it’s different” — as if there haven’t been organized groups of Koreans, from former comfort women to crazy people trying to set themselves on fire outside of Japanese embassies and or domestic offices, or organized labor groups organizing protests in the US, or all kinds of similar stuff that I’ve also seen Koreans do — give me a break.
In the end, it’s sports nationalism that is getting out of hand, and there are a lot more Chinese to get excited around it and put together a rally or counter-rally. Whether they do it in the home country or not, whether they are Koreans or Chinese, it isn’t much different.
When the Seoul City Government sent in its hired thugs to beat the living crap out of squatters eking out an existence on abandoned land besides the Olympic highway because it might be embarrassing for “foreigners to see any negative aspect of Korea,” the motivation was out of Olympic excitement, the needs of the nation. (Again, Kim Dong Won’s “Sanggyedong Olympics” is a reference here).
Or the Korean people’s willingness to change the names of foods, the extreme defensiveness and nearly Red Guard-esque thickheadedness with which columnists such as Ian Buruma were met in his commentaries on the game, or Koreans taking stories done by NBC on any Korean social issues as an “insult to Korea” — the extreme thuggishness and over-defensiveness and intense desire to overlook legitimate criticism of the country, the fact that Korea was still not really yet a true democracy in anything other than name, or that people were being brutally mistreated in the name of the Olympics — none of this is too different from the Chinese case in terms of its emotional warp and woof. It’s just that there’s a lot more Chinese around the world, and the issue of Tibetan independence has drawn a clear and well-defined culture of protesters and a specific set of events around which to plan counter-protests for the sake of national pride.
The differences cited by those so willing to see the Chinese behavior as CATEGORICALLY different are circumstantial and minor, in my opinion. Of course there are differences between Seoul 1988 and Beijing 2008, since they are different countries holding it at different times under a different set of specific circumstances.
But don’t go trying to convince me that 1) the backdrop of intense anti-Chinese sentiment has nothing to do with the response to the events last week, and 2) that Koreans were in any significant way different from the Chinese now in terms of an extreme defensiveness over nationalism. If there had been some series of specific anti-Korean protest going on around the world as the torch was passed, you can be sure that the move to plan a counter-protest would have been made. Except that there was no email nor web available to people at the time.
But that’s besides the point. If, for some reason, there was a “Down with South Korean dogeaters!” set of protests going on around the world, and Koreans knew they would be showing up to try and stop the Olympic torch from reaching Seoul, there’d be hell to pay, and everyone Korean with some pride would make it a point to not let that happen without a fight.
If you believe Koreans’ sports nationalism, intense pride over their former Olympic coming out party, or the propensity of some Korean protesters to get out of hand doesn’t exist and is something fundamentally different from the Chinese — we simply live in two different realities about this country.
#16: “And the Korean indignation cannot be completely separated from already-existing strong anti-Chinese sentiment.”
Yeah, well Koreans got pretty screwed the last time flag-waving Chinese marauders were in the country.
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[...] Those who can at least perceive the futility of denial turn to argumentum ad hominem: “you’re agents provocateurs,” and inevitably enough, “running dogs” and “fetid [...]
[...] Those who can at least perceive the futility of denial turn to argumentum ad hominem: “you’re agents provocateurs,” and inevitably enough, “running dogs” and “fetid [...]