Japan | Muninn

The Kimchi Museum and An Older Kimchi War

Yesterday I made a visit to the Kimchi Museum in Seoul, or as it is officially known the Kimchi Field Museum (Korean site has much more content). To get there, take Line 2 of the subway to the COEX shopping center at Samsŏng station. Walk through the mall and take the escalators down a floor to the museum’s entrance.

The museum is actually quite small, but nicely done, and you can get a reasonably good feel for it through their online exhibition page. All the signs are available in both Korean and relatively decent English, and many displays have small Japanese translations as well. The history of kimchi, displays of common types of kimchi, a discussion of their ingredients, etc. are among the highlights. One long narrow passage, which we might call the “hall of propaganda” has cartoons on all of its walls extolling the endless virtues of kimchi for one’s health. We rushed perhaps a little too fast through this section but were trying to outrun an army of older Japanese tourists who were being guided through the museum behind us.

In the last room there is a kimchi tasting room (the “field work” part of the museum?) and a number of computers set up where you can view, in Korean, Japanese, or English, movies showing you how to prepare kimchi from all regions of north and south Korea.

On one wall of the computer room there were two interesting articles posted from Western newspapers. One of them was particularly interesting article by Calvin Sims from the New York Times February 5, 2000 edition. Here is the opening:

Kimchi, as the cabbage is known, has been a staple of the Korean diet for centuries, and in recent years has become an increasingly popular and lucrative export — particularly to the Japanese market. But now, the Korean kimchi industry is seething because Japanese foodmakers are increasingly marketing their own copycat kimchi (pronounced KIM-chee) — and worse, calling it kimchi.

The Koreans have even brought their complaint to international food regulators, accusing the Japanese of subverting the value of authentic kimchi. A favorable ruling for the Koreans could force Japanese makers of kimchi to call it something else.

Japan has countered that Korea has no monopoly on the term kimchi, any more than Mexico can lay claim to tacos or India to curry. But that argument does not fly with the Koreans.

“What the Japanese are selling is nothing more than cabbage sprinkled with seasonings and artificial flavorings,” said Robert Kim, assistant manager for the overseas sales team here at the Doosan Corporation, a South Korean food manufacturer that operates the world’s largest kimchi factory. “This debate is not just about protecting our market share. We are trying to preserve our national heritage.”

Apparently some 90% of kimchi exports at the time were going to Japan and a map in the museum showed clearly that the stats for Japan were huge in comparison to all other nations. Unlike the more recent Chinese kimchi scare in Korea, according to the article what was seen as especially frustrating to the Koreans was the specific ways that kimchi were made:

In a reversal of the traditional pattern in which Korean manufacturers often copied popular Japanese products at lower cost, competitors in Japan, using cheaper and less time-consuming production methods, are homing in on South Korea’s biggest kimchi export market.

Many Japanese producers skip the fermentation and add artificial sour flavoring using citric acid and gum. The Japanese sometimes use rice paste to give their kimchi a gluey consistency similar to that found naturally in the Korean version.

Critics of the Japanese kimchi say it lacks the depth of flavor and health benefits of its Korean counterpart and that Japanese cabbage contains more water and is not as crispy.

The South Korean government has petitioned the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Codex Alimentarius commission to establish an international standard that would require products using the name kimchi to be fermented according to the Korean tradition.

In negotiations with representatives from South Korea and Japan, the Codex commission is drafting a kimchi standard that is scheduled to be ratified next year by the 150 member countries of the organization, which sets codes for food processing to ensure minimal health standards.

So far, neither the Japanese nor the Koreans seem satisfied with Codex’s draft standard. It defines kimchi as a “fermented” product but permits the use of citric, acetic and lactic acids, none of which are used in the traditional kimchi process.

Though I really don’t know what methods were used in its production, it is true that I have often been left unsatisfied with the cheaper supermarket kimchi I have found in Japan when I lived there. It had less of a garlic taste, felt less “meatier” and so on. However, higher quality stuff can always be found at higher prices. I have to admit that, to some extent, I’m sympathetic to the following kind of argument raised in the article by the Japan Pickle Producers Association as the article continues:

“Should the same standard be applied to curry?” said Toshio Ogawa, an adviser to the Japan Pickle Producers Association, which represents several Japanese kimchi makers. “Everyone knows that curry was invented in India, but the curry that Indians eat is quite different from the curry that Japanese eat.”

On the other hand, at least part of the problem here isn’t about Japan taking Kimchi, throwing in some natto and calling it kimchi. Instead, there is at least something to be said for the idea that a product of significantly less quality is being produced. I think it is certainly reasonable to establish, at the private level, some kind of international standard, and let products which meet that standard carry some kind of mark on them. However, just because there is a rich tradition behind kimchi, there shouldn’t be any kind of legal monopoly over the name “kimchi.” I don’t know how this developed since the article was published in 2000 but the existence of other dangerous precedents of this kind are not comforting. Don’t we have enough problems with intellectual property rights run wild?

Update: One of the other precedents for this kind of national monopolies of a kind of food I had never heard of: Feta Cheese. For more on this read an interesting post by Kerim on the subject.

English Parody of Japanese National Anthem

I came across this article in the Korea Times the other day. Apparently Japanese who protest the singing of Japan’s national anthem, 君が代 (J) have created an English parody of the song. The pronunciation is said to be similar enough not to be noticed when students sing it. The Guardian also picked up the story. Both refer back to the right-wing Sankei report on this which can be read here. The lyrics of the song are also reported to make a reference to comfort women.

I read the article while in a subway station in Seoul. I asked Sayaka what the lyrics for 君が代 were again and she proceeded to sing the song. She did this three times, struggling each time to remember the words, before it suddenly occurred to me that it probably isn’t such a good idea for a Japanese person, in a Korean subway station, to be singing the Japanese national anthem out loud. I stopped her and reminded her that her father had explicitly emailed her before she left for Korea and issued her a very formal and detailed warning on how not to provoke the Koreans by, for example, bringing up sensitive historical and territorial issues. He had neglected to tell her not to sing the Japanese anthem in crowded public places.

As you might expect if you have read any of my previous postings, I’m sympathetic to those who want to resist the reintroduction of flag and anthem rituals in the Japanese schools and find it unfortunate that the government affirmed both officially in a 1999 law. On the other hand, from a tactical standpoint, I really don’t think this fight is worth the effort. I don’t think it is possible in the current global and Japanese climate, to make any progress in a movement to oppose the national anthem and flag—even when it evokes images of a troubled national past.

I understand, however, that for younger students, this is one of the only issues where they may personally get involved. They can feel the exhilaration of refusing to sing an anthem which celebrates the Japanese imperial reign and thus get their first taste of civil disobedience. Though far less controversial than their early predecessors, they can join in a long tradition dating back to that historic moment when the Christian Uchimura Kanzô refused to bow at the reading of the Imperial Rescript on Education.

Instead of disrupting school ceremonies, refusing to show, or remaining silent, I think a humorous parody of the anthem is a wonderful idea. If translating the US anthem into Spanish is enough to get US nationalists all wound up, then a witty parody of the Japanese anthem if students are able to get away with singing it. I can almost see their devious chuckles as they sing it. Unlike the provocative Danish cartoons, which I think were simply a bad idea on pragmatic grounds and not problematic in principle, this is highly unlikely to cause violent riots in, say, Kagoshima.

Then I read the lyrics:

Kiss me, girl, your old one.
Till you’re near, it is years till you’re near.
Sounds of the dead will she know?
She wants all told, now retained, for, cold caves know the moon’s
seeing the mad and dead.

What the…?! Oh no…is it possible that my favorite T-shirt company was commissioned to write the lyrics of the parody?

The Sankei article tries to help us understand how on earth this resembles the anthem enough to go unnoticed:

歌詞は、本来の歌詞と発声が酷似した英語の体裁。例えば冒頭部分は「キス・ミー・ガール・ユア・オールド・ワン」で、「キー（ス）・ミー・ガー（ル）・ヨー・ワー（ン）」と聞こえ、口の動きも本来の歌詞と見分けにくい。

I’m sorry, this is just pathetic. The song does bear some resemblance to the sounds of the original lyrics when you pronounce the English words in their Japanese katakana equivalents, but it is neither humorous nor does it make any sense. This is nowhere near the talented work that lies behind something like Hatten är din (Flash).

I suggest we help these students by giving them something better to work with. Any volunteers to help?

Here are the original Japanese lyrics:

君が代は
千代に八千代に
さざれ石の
いわおとなりて
こけのむすまで

The pronunciation:

きみがよは
ちよにやちよに
さざれいしの
いわおとなりて
こけのむすまで

Romanized:

Kimi ga yo wa
Chiyo ni Yachiyo ni
Sazare ishi no
Iwao to narite
Koke no musu made

Remember, if we make alternate lyrics, our satirical bite will be limited somewhat since we have to make the new version sound as phonetically close as possible to the original. Also, since it will be sung by young Japanese students, we should avoid English sounds that are difficult for Japanese to create. Post your recommendations in the comments! Finally, like the original Japanese attempt we should keep in mind that the Japanese pronunciations of English words aren’t always what you might expect.

Book First in Shibuya

Going to bookstores when I’m back in Japan is one of my favorite things to do. Along with going to my favorite ramen noodle shops, hole in the wall cheap udon shops, and meeting friends, bookstores are right at the top of my Tokyo to-do list. Today I took a fellow historian and my host while I’m here to lunch in Shibuya. I spent most of the afternoon studying in a coffee shop and then went to the large Book First bookstore nearby.

Sometimes though I leave the bookstore with really mixed feelings. In fact, I feel a rant coming on… The sections of the bookstore I spend most of my time in (Modern Japanese history, Modern China/Korea history, and the 文庫 paperback section) inevitably have a range of offerings that just disgust me. I can’t help feeling like Shibuya Book First’s selection has gotten worse since when I lived here last in 2004.

Book First is not like the more heavily populist/right-wing smaller bookstores and does have a decent selection of materials. Today I bought the new introduction to modern history of East Asia (『未来を開く歴史』） written cooperatively by historians from China, Korea, and Japan who are trying to develop educational materials for the future. I was also pleased to see several volumes of a new series of books published by the joint Japan-Korea history group with some great looking articles in them (a bit pricey, I’ll get them at the library). Today there was even a full display dedicated to Edward Said translations which included some kind of showing of a documentary about him.

On the same floor though, as you approach the history books, I couldn’t help but notice a whole slew of new editions of Nitobe Inazô’s Bushido and various silly books on how contemporary Japanese should recover their Bushido warrior spirit and a pride in their people.

For the love of Lugalbanda, why can’t the nation just roll over and die…please…doesn’t the 21st century have enough to deal with? What I would give to be alive the day when we can all tear up our passports and laugh at how nonsensical the whole national project was. Those of us who wish to destroy the nation find ourselves continually narrating its violence in the tragic mode, but no one has mastered the tragic mode better than the nationalists themselves. At some point we have to embrace the comic mode and highlight the resounding stupidity of it. We have to move from celebrating the creative and imaginative nature of these communities to a more focused effort at reminding ourself of its farcical core. When it is someday finally severed from the state and that unholy union is finally broken, leave it be…but until then I say spare it no satirical sting; offer it no shred of credibility.

Ok, where was I? The history section seemed to have gotten a bit worse. Maybe it is just me but the selection for nationalist revisionists seems to have expanded somewhat. While not a very scientific measure, to give you an idea, in the standard “Nanjing incident” (Nanjing massacre) section, 4 out of 12 books were of the “what massacre?” variety. This despite the fact that three of the remaining volumes were compilations of interviews with Japanese soldiers who admitted participating in the slaughter (two of them) and of interviews of victims. I have written about one of these important works here at Muninn. I just cannot understand how, with such excellent empirical material out there, any major publisher can still put out such crap. What made it worse was that both of the books about the Nanjing occupation out on display were of “what massacre?” variety. One was a whole book dedicated to talking about the problematic pictures of the massacre (there are indeed many pictures used in Chinese materials about the massacre which have nothing to do with the occupation of Nanjing in 1937 or are otherwise problematic), and the other was a work discussing KMT party archives showing how they mobilized propaganda to spread anti-Japanese sentiment in the aftermath of the occupation of Nanjing. I don’t have any problem with either of the central claims at work in these two prominently displayed books (that there are many problematic pictures about the massacre and that the Nationalists and later Communists milked the massacre for all its propaganda potential) – it is just that neither of these facts prove a damn thing in the face of a mountain of evidence about the widespread slaughter.

Another really well-done right-wing book out by the fascist PHP publishing company I saw prominently displayed was a guide to “Must-know history facts about modern Japanese history” This book was essentially a well-organized manual for those sympathetic to any and all Japanese nationalist silliness. Divided into about fifty short and very concise chapters, it covers all the most controversial themes in modern Japanese history (with bonus chapters on the Dokdo/Takeshima crisis, all of Japan’s other “indisputable” disputed claims, etc.) There was about as much nuance and balance in these books as there is blue in the Japanese flag. Unfortunatley, unlike the many other babbling works by various nut jobs out there, what I think makes this kind of book highly effective was its “executive summary” approach – kind of a briefing booklet. For example, to take the Nanjing massacre chapter as an example, it provided nice one-paragraph summaries of the key arguments of the opposition and counter-arguments so that the defensive nationalist reader will be well-prepared for any debates they might get into with “masochistic” and unpatriotic countrymen. For example, it had one paragraph with pre-war Nanjing population estimates (to prepare the reader for a triumphant take-down when Chinese casualty estimates are shown to be higher, no mention of course of the swelling population of the city due to refugees), it counters the “Safe Zone” violation arguments with the classic “Chinese soldiers were throwing off their uniforms and pouring into the zone [Implied follow-up: so what was the poor Japanese military supposed to do if not charge in and start grabbing/killing males at random]” Of course, there is no mention of the fact that captured soldiers were gunned down by the thousands (Of course, if they had to admit this fact, which many Japanese soldiers there at the time do, they would respond with the classic and feeble, “But we had no food to feed them, and no resources to detain them indefinitely…it is the Chinese military which must take responsibility for leaving its forces in Nanjing to die while its commanders fled.”)

It is so exhausting to see this kind of crap. I’m so tired of it. It is so distracting. I wish I could just ignore it, as I usually do, but the fact that this kind of material reaches a growing audience, in ever more effective formats means that it would be irresponsible not to keep myself relatively familiar with the kinds of vacuous claims being made. Of course, the best way to deal with this is not always to get into the trenches and lower ourselves constantly to their level of repetitive and simplistic discourse, but it remains important for historians in our field to issue the occasional royal smack-down. I am happy to report, however, that what I saw today confirms that they don’t seem to have produced any significant new material other than their regular score of long-ago refuted or irrelevant nonsense. The demand for their drivel though, seems to continue unabated, and I suspect it will grow if nationalist sentiment continues to grow. Ultimately, any time spent thinking about this distracts those of us interested in Sino-Japanese relations history or wartime/colonial history in modern East Asia from the more challenging and, I believe, important work of moving beyond the huge shadow of some of these (non-)controversies. It is not just for the sake of reconciliation in the region, but because the violence of war goes well-beyond a few symbolically important events. There are so many questions to ask, so many issues worth addressing and I so wish we could finally get to the stage where the study of violent wars and imperialism can move beyond the perpetual national mudslinging and nationalist whitewashing that continues today.

More Athletes

Last summer, when I was heading on to Norway after a summer of study in Seoul, my fellow passengers and I found ourselves on the plane with the North Korean national soccer team. On Monday I began a repeat of last summer’s travel and next week I’ll begin a second summer of Korean language study at SNU’s program in Seoul. When I boarded the plan from Chicago to Tokyo (where I’m now hanging out for a week before traveling on to Korea) I found myself surrounded by Japan’s national wheelchair basketball team. One of the players was in my seat when I got there, and I got to see a performance of his amazing arm strength as he proceeded to move, with the use of his arms alone, from my seat to the one behind me.

I didn’t talk to any of players and kept my Japanese language ability “to myself,” but perhaps somewhat sneakily read over the shoulder of the team’s trainer sitting next to me. During our 12 hour flight the trainer spent several hours on two tasks: 1) He seemed to be contemplating game strategy for the team by writing notes feverishly on the back of his notepad, and evaluating the performance of the team in their last game (against Germany’s team it seems, guessing from the game performance worksheet he was filling out). 2) He spent a lot of time filling out daily workout summaries for the team. The detailed worksheets he filled out had some fascinating details. Under the category for “Morning” he wrote what they had for breakfast, and had the option of putting check marks next to two options for “A stroll” (散歩) and “Stretching.” He also detailed other meals the team ate during the day, and there was space on each worksheet for details of up to 5 daily workouts or “team gatherings” (集合) which he seemed to fill up with ease.

Most interesting was the fan mail which was, of course, none of my business, but which I read along with him nonetheless (He saw me staring at the letters but probably assumed I was a curious foreigner fascinated by all the funky Japanese characters rather than actually reading them). If any of you are fans of the Japanese wheelchair basketball team you can rest easy, your mail appears to be getting read. One particularly touching letter came from a Japanese junior high school student, who was a really dedicated fan (closing her letter with “Go Japan! Go Go Go Japan!”). After seeing its somewhat personal contents, I started feeling guilty about my reading and drifted off to sleep again.

A Few Anecdotes

I’m writing this on my way back from a short trip to Japan where I presented at a conference held at Waseda. It was a great trip, and I got good feedback both at the conference and later directly from my old advisor from my two years spent as a research student at Waseda. I’ve collected a few anecdotes and thoughts from the trip which I thought I might post here.
Continue reading A Few Anecdotes

Asian History Carnival 2

Welcome to the 2nd bi-monthly Asian History Carnival. Thanks to those who offered submissions to the carnival. I think we have an excellent spread of region and time period but my choices reflect the range of submissions I received for inclusion and the limits of my own online reading. Remember, if you feel your region was neglected or that excellent postings went unmentioned, consider nominating them for the next carnival, to be held February 2nd, 2006. If you are interested in hosting the next asian history carnival, please contact me at konrad [at] lawson.net. We will post information on the next hosting at the carnival’s homepage as soon as we have a host.

And now for the postings:
Continue reading Asian History Carnival 2

Google Maps Japan

The street map searching feature works for Japan now! Here, for example is the street map of Lucky House where I lived for most of my almost two years in Japan 2002-2004 (My Waseda friend Andrew is now living there). It even shows many of the convenience stores I came to know so well… Unfortunatley the satellite picture for just this particular section is horrible, but since great satellite images of nearby areas are available perhaps this will get better. Of course, lots of similar mapping sites in Japanese but great to see Google add this with its convenient live scrolling feature.

NOTE: In case anyone was wondering, Dokto/Takeshima is not included in the Japan collection of street maps (even islands without roads have their names conveniently labelled) which seems to imply Google is siding with Korea on this one. However, the “Northern Territories” above Hokkaido, which are disputed with Russia, are labeled, though no roads are shown for them. If there emerges any uproar from Japan or Russia regarding this, can you imagine if Google were to try to include China and Taiwan in its global mapping scheme, or any of the many other disputed territories on the planet? UPDATE: I should really add, however, that Google probably just took whatever maps were supplied to them by the (presumably) Japanese company which provided them and thus we shouldn’t read any kind of thought out “google policy” into this. However, I think it serves to show the difficulty in providing maps services with global audiences. We may see the appearance of National Geographic-style “disputed” labels eventually.

Ring Derivatives

Korea and Japan both have really led the way in the whole genre of horror which appeals to a new generation of youth, especially women. America and Hong Kong are following behind, translating and redoing some of these movies (Ring, Grudge) or making others in the same vein (White Noise, the Eye) but many of them have a very derivative feel.

Of course there is lots of borrowing the other way as well, and much of it to great effect. The beautifully filmed Korean movie “A Tale of Two Sisters” (which I highly recommend despite many contradictions and loose ends) borrows heavily from US movie plots, and comes off as a combination of “Sixth Sense“, Japan’s “Audition“, “Identity” and a few other psychological thrillers. This sort of mixing and matching of ideas is what creating culture is all about.

Some of the stuff coming out though is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. The Korean version of the Japanese “Ring” was really awful. The Japanese mini-series version of the story also sucked. The sequels got a bit too scientific and Darwinian in their message. Other Japanese and Korean movies coming out recently are also trying to capitalize on the bizarre but terrifying example of the “Ring” have made ridiculous versions of a similar concept.

Many of these movies involve some kind of object (like a cellphone, or a stereo and its white noise) being cursed or otherwise being connected to the world of the dead. Today I saw one example of how bad it can get. A horror movie showing on SBS here in Seoul this evening is clearly a knockoff of the same idea. In the “Ring” (I know this sounds stupid but the Japanese movie is really a classic) a cursed video, when watched, shows a bizarre female figure. Those who watch the movie are cursed (mostly school girls) and the frightening long black haired female figure kills them a week later or something. Long black-haired ghosts seem to be a consistent theme here, but they will be familiar to anyone who has read old Japanese ghost stories or seen the movie Kwaidan. In tonight’s movie, instead of a cursed video, the school girls are slain by:

A cursed sticker-picture vending machine

When their picture gets taken in the machine, a mysterious and horrifying female figure is seen behind them in the picture, foreshadowing their impending death.

Gender Free Wonderland Japan

Sayaka posted about the recent statements made on gender in education made by Minister of Education Nakayama Nariaki. He is the same minister who last November was pleased to report that in this year’s history textbooks, “it is good that such terms as sex slaves of the Japanese Imperial Army and forced Asian labor were less frequently mentioned in school history books.”

He apparently believes (link in Japanese) that “gender neutral [lit. gender free] education and extreme sex education are running rampant. There are those who might say that this is wrecking Japan.” His comments apparently continued to critique Japan’s gender neutral education system.

Sayaka points out that this is one of many similar comments by the minister and laments the fact that no one seems to have gotten across the message to the Japanese minister the importance of the foundations of an education system.

She also talks about the bewildering “return to Confucian values” movement in Japan. There is a movement to change or get rid of article 24 of the Japanese constitution which states that:

Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis. 2) With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes.

Opposition to this comes in the form of those who argue that, “Japan has gone too far in promoting individual rights and should return to the duties of family, community and nation.” Fortunately, however, there is a counter campaign against an effort to alter the clause.

UPDATE: Jae over at Tianan saw Sayaka’s posting and decided to look up the related clause in the Korean constitution. Read more on his blog.

Japan Survey on China

According to a survey reported in the Asahi today including some 808 responses, some 71% respondents “can’t understand” China’s demand that Japan face the question of its historical conciousness of the war. On the other hand, 48% reported that they believed Japanese prime ministers should stop visiting the controversial Yasukuni shrine (36% say he should continue), which is a 9% increase over last November. About 51% of respondents believed that China’s own history education system was a “large influence” on China’s anti-Japanese sentiment.

In a separate brilliantly stupid move, Koizumi cited Confucius in defence of his Yasukuni shrine visits which include the Class-A war criminals, “Condemn the offense, but pity the offender.”