Comments on: What a difference a region makes http://londonkoreanlinks.net/2006/03/31/what-a-difference-a-region-makes/ English language resources for Londoners (and others) interested in Korean culture Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:19:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc By: D’log » East Asian creative industries http://londonkoreanlinks.net/2006/03/31/what-a-difference-a-region-makes/#comment-95 D’log » East Asian creative industries Fri, 09 Jun 2006 15:56:24 +0000 http://londonkoreanlinks.net/?p=134#comment-95 [...] A short report on the ‘East Asian popular culture currents and counter-currents’ symposium, at Birkbeck College, March 2006… “[In the] Korean animation industry … animators work in sweatshop conditions, paid by the page (rather than the hour) regardless of the complexity of the artwork, to do the most boring "in-between" frames … The industry is primarily an outsourcing service, doing the dirty work for the US and Japanese animation industry … there was no suggestion that Korea had a creative force to rival Miyazaki” [...] [...] A short report on the ‘East Asian popular culture currents and counter-currents’ symposium, at Birkbeck College, March 2006… “[In the] Korean animation industry … animators work in sweatshop conditions, paid by the page (rather than the hour) regardless of the complexity of the artwork, to do the most boring “in-between” frames … The industry is primarily an outsourcing service, doing the dirty work for the US and Japanese animation industry … there was no suggestion that Korea had a creative force to rival Miyazaki” [...]

]]> By: Philip Gowman http://londonkoreanlinks.net/2006/03/31/what-a-difference-a-region-makes/#comment-79 Philip Gowman Wed, 07 Jun 2006 09:21:16 +0000 http://londonkoreanlinks.net/?p=134#comment-79 I started a thread at Koreanfilm.org with a link to this post. I got the following comments: ------------------------------------------------------ 1) From Q: Philip, Thanks for the excellent coverage. In my opinion, THE PRESIDENT'S LAST BANG was not a good example for an in-depth discussion of Korean cinema's take on colonial experience. (Im Sang-soo making the KCIA character shouting President Park's Japanese name is not, in my opinion, shocking or anything to many Korean viewers. The prevalent denial among Koreans that the colonial experience only concerned some biggiewiggies in politics or big business is the real problem, which I don't think PRESIDENT'S BANG addresses at all) Indeed BLUE SWALLOW would have been a much better example. <an agonising as to whether the subject matter was best approached from the perspective of a cultural studies person doing regional comparisons, or an area studies person looking at popular culture> This makes perfect sense... this "agonistic reflection" is currently sweeping academia in the States as well. It requires a lot of investment (both dollars and manpower) to cultivate a really good regional specialist, regardless of the discipline he or she works in. Most often, though, such a specialist tends to be locked into a particular national/nationalist tradition and lack in comparative perspective. Conversely, a cultural studies/popular culture specialist faces the danger of his or her scholarship being deemed "shallow" by those who dig deeper in one particular cultural/national territory. The obvious ideal situation is for these two groups to collaborate extensively, and build numerous networks through which they can compare data and debate findings. Which is always easier said than done. But the conference you have just described seems to be a step in the right direction. Certainly a proper understanding of Hallyu will not emerge from considering it only from (non-Korean) consumer's or (Korean) producer's perspective. A well-traveled path has no gate/A tongue has no bones ------------------------------------------------------ 2) From nkw88: Yoon Ae-Ri's article on K animation is interesting. It seems that K animation does not find any solution but remains the subcontract production.</an> I started a thread at Koreanfilm.org with a link to this post. I got the following comments:

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1) From Q:

Philip,

Thanks for the excellent coverage. In my opinion, THE PRESIDENT’S LAST BANG was not a good example for an in-depth discussion of Korean cinema’s take on colonial experience. (Im Sang-soo making the KCIA character shouting President Park’s Japanese name is not, in my opinion, shocking or anything to many Korean viewers. The prevalent denial among Koreans that the colonial experience only concerned some biggiewiggies in politics or big business is the real problem, which I don’t think PRESIDENT’S BANG addresses at all) Indeed BLUE SWALLOW would have been a much better example.

This makes perfect sense… this “agonistic reflection” is currently sweeping academia in the States as well. It requires a lot of investment (both dollars and manpower) to cultivate a really good regional specialist, regardless of the discipline he or she works in. Most often, though, such a specialist tends to be locked into a particular national/nationalist tradition and lack in comparative perspective. Conversely, a cultural studies/popular culture specialist faces the danger of his or her scholarship being deemed “shallow” by those who dig deeper in one particular cultural/national territory. The obvious ideal situation is for these two groups to collaborate extensively, and build numerous networks through which they can compare data and debate findings. Which is always easier said than done. But the conference you have just described seems to be a step in the right direction. Certainly a proper understanding of Hallyu will not emerge from considering it only from (non-Korean) consumer’s or (Korean) producer’s perspective.

A well-traveled path has no gate/A tongue has no bones

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2) From nkw88:

Yoon Ae-Ri’s article on K animation is interesting.
It seems that K animation does not find any solution but remains the subcontract production.

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