Legalized Pot-Stepping

Dear Korean,

I've recently been getting into Korean dramas and picked The Moon Embracing the Sun as my first. In an early episode, they try to find an eligible girl for the prince to marry. In one scene they have a line of young girls entering through the palace gates and stepping on this wooden or stone thing with their right foot as part of their entry pathway. If this is part of real traditional process, why do they do this? I was thinking it might be to test their grace, as girls who slip would be instantly eliminated?

A new Drama fan.

Enough with the depressing North Korea news. Here is an obligatory installment of AAK! where the Korean, bound, gagged and with a gun pointed to his head, is forced to answer a question about Korean dramas.

The drama in question is 해를 품은 달, and this is the scene that the questioner is referring to:

(source)

What are the women stepping on? It is actually the lid of a very large, cast-iron pot. In a traditional Korean kitchen, it is common to have a giant pot, about two feet wide or larger, in which the rice for the whole family is cooked. The women are stepping on the lid of such a pot.

This custom was not limited to the royal court, by the way. The pot lid also made an appearance in a wedding for the noblemen. The new bride would be carried from her old family to her husband's house in a carriage, and the carriage would stop inside of the walls of the house. The pot lid would be placed at the ground next to the carriage, such that the new bride would step on the lid first before stepping on the ground.

Why? There are two theories, and either or both may be true. The first is the theory that the questioner guessed--to test the grace and balance of the women who will eventually be the queen. The grace and balance are not just for the sake of physical appearance; it was believed that a graceful walk over the lid would lead to a smooth, peaceful marriage. In the drama Queen Myeongseong [명성황후], the princess-to-be is seen slipping from the lid, portending a rocky marriage. (Remember folks--this is just a drama. There is no record as to whether Queen Myeongseong actually slipped from the lid.)

The second theory is more directly connected to superstition. The lid, for obvious reasons, represents the kitchen and the spirit residing there. By stepping on the lid, the new bride is making an acquaintance with the spirit of the new kitchen, in which she will undoubtedly spend a great deal of time. (Don't shoot me for the sexism here. The Korean is just a messenger.) Considering the more widespread custom involving the noblemen, this is probably the truer purpose of stepping on the pot lid. In fact, in case of a wedding of a noble family, the bride uses two hands to lift up the pot lid three times before leaving her house, as a way of saying farewell to the old kitchen spirit.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Can North Korea Back Out Now?

Dear Korean,

Are things so dire in North Korea that war is the only way out?

Paul R.

Normally, the Korean only accepts questions via email and not through Twitter, Facebook or other channels. But this question was just so spot-on that the Korean could not resist.

(If you have a problem with this, please refer to the AAK! Policies. It is my blog, and I will do whatever the hell I damn well please with it. Don't be surprised if you visit this blog tomorrow and suddenly run into a foot fetish porno site. You just never know.)

Let us elaborate the question just a little bit. As North Korea escalates the tension, there is a fear that Kim Jong-un is putting himself into a position from which he cannot exit without some kind of military action. The thought is: if Kim Jong-un threatens to use force, he can't not use force if he wishes to maintain any level of credibility.

Is this true? It may well be, but no one really knows. But here is the question we can actually answer: does this have to be true? For that question, the answer is a resounding no--because North Korea previously backed off after having taken even closer step toward the brink: it actually killed American soldiers at Panmunjeom.

(More after the jump.)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Yes, this actually happened. In August 18, 1976, 11 soldiers--six Americans and five South Koreans--were overseeing a gang of five South Korean workers in the Joint Security Area near Panmunjeom. The South Korean workers were trying to cut down a large tree within the JSA that obstructed the sight line between the two watch posts.The tree was near the edge of the South Korean portion of the JSA.

The American soldiers and the North Korean soldiers have been engaged in low-level physical scuffles and yelling arguments for about a month prior to this incident. Several times, North Korean soldiers attempted to kidnap the U.S. soldiers from the post nearest to the Armistice Line. In one occasion, Capt. Arthur Bonifas, Joint Security Force Company Commander, had to cross the Armistice Line and force the North Korean soldiers to release a group of American soldiers, whom the North Korean soldiers held at gunpoint.

Map of the JSA, August 18, 1976. The tree to be cut down is in the bottom left corner.
Across the "Bridge of No Return" is North Korean territory.
(source)

On August 18, 1976, the rising tension came to a head. When the South Korean workers began cutting down the tree, a number of North Korean soldiers appeared and demanded the work to be stopped, claiming that the tree was planted by Kim Il-sung himself. Capt. Bonifas, supervising the work, ignored the North Korean soldiers and ordered the work to be continued. Then the North Korean soldiers suddenly attacked with clubs, hatchets and pickaxes, aiming for the American soldiers. Captain Bofinas was bludgeoned to death. All but one person out of the 11 American and South Korean soldiers were severely wounded, and one American soldier--First Lieutenant Mark Barrett--died from his injuries. This is now known as the Panmunjeom Axe Murder Incident.

Three days after the killing, the U.S. implemented the Operation Paul Bunyan--the operation to cut down the tree, while being escorted by an overwhelming show of force. The U.S. military operated at DEFCON 2 during the operation. (DEFCON 1 is the state in which nuclear war is imminent; it has never been called.) More than 800 American and South Korean soldiers formed a task force to cut down the tree. Behind them were 27 helicopters, 20 F-111 fighters, 24 F-4 fighters, and three B-52 bombers. Aircraft carrier Midway was moved to just off the coast of Korean Peninsula.

When the U.S.-South Korea task force began cutting the tree, between 150 and 200 North Korean soldiers with assault rifles and machine guns took their position. It took more than 40 minutes to cut down the tree, after which the task force withdrew. As the task force was cutting the tree, the South Korean soldiers were loudly taunting the North Korean soldiers to cross the line and stop them. Later that day, the North Korean soldiers shot at an American helicopter circling over Panmunjeom, but no one was injured.

This moment is almost certainly the closest that the two Koreas approached the Second Korean War. To be sure, one can make a solid argument in favor of other moments. The U.S.S. Pueblo Incident in 1968 was close. So was 1993, when U.S. seriously considered a surgical strike against North Korea's nuclear facility, or the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island by North Korea in 2010. But in none of those cases did U.S. mobilize its forces and had them face off eyeball-to-eyeball with North Korean forces, as it did with the Axe Murder Incident.

At the moment, in 1976, it would have been fair to wonder if Kim Il-sung painted himself into a corner, such that a war was the only way out. But thankfully, the situation did not escalate from there. Incredibly, North Korea issued a half-apology, expressing regret over the incident and pledging not to engage in provocation.

So, to address the question. Will Kim Jong-un go to war? No one knows, and no one can know. Personally, I think that when North Korea shut off the Gaeseong Industrial Complex, the risk of war went from "trivial" to "small". But is Kim Jong-un in a place where he has no way out other than a war? No. It is not even close: his grandfather backed off from an even greater indignity. There is room for Kim Jong-un to back off. The million-dollar question is whether he will.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Korea Fact of the Day: Gaeseong Industrial Complex

Gaeseong Industrial Complex (GIC) is an industrial complex in Gaeseong, North Korea, which is developed jointly by the two Koreas: South Korea supplies the corporations and capital equipments, and North Korea supplies the workers and the land. Every day, hundreds of South Korean workers--usually middle- and senior-managers--enter and exit North Korea to oversee the operations at the GIC.

As a part of its attempt to raise the tension in the region, North Korea has forbidden South Korean managerial workers from entering North Korea for the last six days. (South Korean workers who were at the GIC, however, were allowed to return home.) Yesterday, North Korea announced that it will shut down the GIC and withdraw all of its workers. Shutting down the GIC is probably the highest level of threat that North Korea may issue, short of actually attacking South Korea. This is because since its founding in 2005, the GIC never closed--not in the face of, for example, the shelling of Yeonpyeong-do in which North Korea actually attacked South Korean territory and killed four people.

Here is a collection of all relevant charts regarding the GIC, created by South Korea's Ministry of Unification. GIC hosts 123 corporations, which manufactured $460 million's worth of products in 2012. It employs over 53,000 North Korean laborers. Last year, nearly 246 vehicles crossed the Armistice Line from South Korea to North Korea every day to deliver supplies to the GIC.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

"Anonymous" Hacking of NK Website Leads to McCarthyian Witch Hunt in SK

The "hacktivist" group "Anonymous" made news by hacking into North Korea's propaganda websites, and seizing control of North Korean propaganda machine's Twitter and Flickr accounts. (One important note here: regardless of what they claim, it is extremely unlikely that Anonymous hacked into North Korea, as North Korea's propaganda sites are based out China.)

Anonymous demands that Kim Jong-un resign and install direct democracy in North Korea. At the same time, apparently in order to prove that they indeed hacked into North Korea's propaganda site, Anonymous released the information of the membership of that website--the email addresses, date of birth and other personal information of more than 9,000 members of the propaganda site.

Well, these self-proclaimed freedom fighters probably did not anticipate what would have followed. It was apparent from the email addresses that many of them were of South Korean origin. For example, more than 1,400 email addresses ended in hanmail.net, a large email servicer in South Korea. Out of the 9,000 email addresses, more than 2,000 appear to be of South Korean origin. Seizing upon this, the South Korean far-right wingers engaged in a campaign of Internet stalking to indiscriminately reveal actual names, addresses, occupations and phone numbers of the South Korean individuals who joined the North Korean propaganda site.

As of this moment, there is simply no guarantee that the email addresses that Anonymous revealed in fact belong to North Korean sympathizers. From the emails, the opposite is more likely to be the case, as many of the emails belong to South Korean news organizations. The email addresses even include South Korean National Assembly and the conservative New Frontier Party. There is also the concern that the email addresses were fake or misappropriated. Some of the emails, for example, belong to the email of the webmasters that are publicly on display on large-scale websites.

But such subtleties are completely lost on South Korean right-wingers, who consider North Korean sympathizers to be the absolute evil that must be destroyed at all costs, even if the cost include basic civil liberties for democracy. Already, several South Koreans received a flood of emails and phone calls, shouting obscenities and death threats. South Korea's Supreme Prosecutor's Office vowed to investigate the South Korean members of the site as well, turning this episode into a veritable witch hunt.

Partly because the tyranny of North Korea is so horrific, it is often lost on people that South Korea's own fascist tyranny in the recent past was not much better than North Korea's communist tyranny, and the traces of such fascism still exert strong influences in South Korea. So we might soon see the tragicomedic spectacle of more than 2,000 South Koreans lined up to be prosecuted for daring to browse through a North Korean website.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.