Things I know or think I know & probably don't about Korea



-- because of recent events -- the news reporters on Japanese TV seemed slightly worry/wary whereas elsewhere things seemed maybe happy (unguardedly?) / but anyway any reporting re: Korea on here's TV has to be scrutinised for bias/ subtle (sometimes not-so) hatred, a strong word, but it often seems present beneath the surface . . .

things &c (blog title ↑)

1・ it (the peninusla in question) is to my right sort of from where I sit now typing this (so is Qatar, enough peninsula, just further)

2・ the jeju uprising, during Korean war (maybe before america went in) a sort of massacre of men women children by koreans on the (what would become) south side / so the victims of that would be on the north side (though the location of this is an island south of main korean end coast i.e. south korea) (this is becoming confusing, but why shouldn't it) so "North" side is not to be automatically assumed "baddies"

2・1 - a "zainichi" (japanese citizen, korean refugee said war, wrote book about this, and is not allowed to visit south korea) ("zainichi" is sort of discriminatory term and indeed a discriminated-against group in japan) and I can't find this book yet nor this other one about writing in japanese "the infection of language" or something. Maybe his books are discriminated against here so hard to find...?

3・ In Gene Wolfe's (who fought in Korea) (in the war, not just like on his own) Book of the New Sun mysterious "navigator" Jonas speaks Korean.

4・ The terrifying ferry sinking incident -- don't listen to your "elders" unquestioningly, or maybe better not at all.

5・ It has been claimed during an anti-Japanese "protest"(odd word in this context, maybe "demonstration" is what I mean) in Korea a dog was beheaded as a symbolic act (not really symbolic as its head was actually beheaded?) (symbolic as in the dog was meant to represent "the" Japanese -- what all of them? I assume they simply could not procure a Japanese person in time or something?) (it is a metaphor but no it is a dead dog).

6・ Tokyo has a "Korean Town" Shinokubo, just beside the station is a tiny little shrine for all animals killed in wartime. I met a nice cat there once. An alive cat.

7・ A schoolgirl from Osaka became sort of infamous for louding shouting very racist genocidal things during an anti-Korean "protest" I mean "demonstration" -- there is youtube footage somewhere. Probably of (5) also.

// brief summation so far// -- so relations are sort of symbolically not good though also there is co-existence and nothing is straightforward.

And the potential harmonising of relations between north and south Korea has hard-to-predict consequences in Japan, at least, in heads, of some Japanese peoples, and its government. The wariness.

William Burroughs said: once a problem appears in the world it can never be "solved" / "disappear" be removed from the world. I always thought of this as being like an annoying cord that is always never straight and has a bent bit that maybe you straighten but then another bent bit results. Or Pac-Man, i.e. it cannot be "completed" as such, level 256 (the last I think) is sort of utterly bugged, because the makers did not think people would ever get that far, or, some memory problem, I can't remember. Though people still manage anyway a workable route that results in the world record hi-score. Though there is no beyond. Right?

So harmony somewhere results in dis-harmony elsewhere, always. Because we are not a "ONE"

Oh, there is a Charles Olson quote related to this somewhere. I will find it, for potential Part Two, of this, which here ends, as a Part (now aptly) One.

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