In the first part of the lecture, Dr Lewis spent much time reviewing various modern materials which discuss the importance of double-entry book-keeping. Humble bean-counters will be encouraged that some authors place the invention of double-entry book-keeping on the same level as the discoveries of Galileo, while other scholars claim that capitalism would be impossible without it. In the end, this was an interesting discussion but tangential to what the books and records contained.

What was revealed on Friday night at SOAS were some pages from some 18th century accounting records of a Kaesong merchant. But whereas you and I might think of a merchant as someone who buys and sells goods for profit, this particular merchant who kept his books so diligently was in fact a money-lender. Lewis explained how the typical purpose of a loan would be to fund the harvesting of ginseng by a third party. Whether or not double-entry book-keeping is necessary or sufficient for capitalism ^[1], surely capitalism cannot exist without banking.

Were these records double-entry book-keeping in the sense that a modern accountant would recognise? To be honest, we didn’t see enough of them to judge. We have a more complete set of books from the late Choson dynasty, and on the basis that what we have of the 18th century records seem to be identical in structure to the 19th century, Dr Lewis argued with some plausibility that we can use the 19th century records to talk about the accounting methods of the 18th.

But even in the 19th century records, the brief extracts we saw would not be sufficient for someone to control their business. Yes, there is a rudimentary concept of double entry: Cash comes in, liabilities go up (“ipsang”). Cash goes out, assets go up (“taego” or “chaegupha”). But if these are the only concepts the system used, this is a recipe for a ballooning balance sheet and no way of recording profitability. For cash coming in can also represent assets going down (repayment of a loan) or receipt of revenue (interest income). And cash going out can also represent liabilities going down or payment of expenses.

But if these records (including parts we are missing) do represent genuine double-entry book-keeping, the Koreans beat the Japanese to it by about 100 years, because the Japanese are said not to have introduced such methods until the Meiji era. And Dr Lewis also argued that the Korean records used methods and concepts which could be distinguished from Chinese methods of the time (though some Sinologists disagree).

Tantalisingly, the 18th century records documented the inception of a loan at 1.5% interest. We didn’t see, however, the entries made when the loan and interest is repaid. And we saw a loan ledger, not the other side of the entry in the cash book. Whether capitalism had a foothold in 18th century Kaesong, it is alive and kicking in the 21st century DPRK: the shady pedlar of antique Choson dynasty accounting documents is assured of plenty of future interest from foreign economic historians.

1. It was noted that the Rothschilds did not start using double entry book-keeping until the 20th Century

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Rayns is the UK’s longest established expert on Korean film, and organised a Korean film festival at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts almost 10 years before Jonathan Ross ever heard of Park Chan-wook. He knows many of the big names in Chungmuro personally, and has even conducted an interview with maverick director Jang Sun-woo half naked in a Korean sauna. So twenty minutes with critic and director, before the heartthrob actor arrived, was quality time.

Kim started by describing some of his influences in making the film. Clearly the film is a nod to Sergio Leone, but Lee Man-hee’s 1971 Manchurian western Break the Chain (쇠사슬을 끊어라) was of equal or greater importance. This is a film not widely known in the west and not currently available on DVD. According to Scott Foundas over at the LA Weekly, Break the Chain is

a roaring comic Western, set during the Japanese occupation of Korea, in which a spy (whose wardrobe consists of a zebra-striped fur coat and battered fedora), a “trustworthy” hired assassin, an acrobatic escaped convict and a no-nonsense barmaid traverse a desert expanse in search of the coveted Buddha statue that bears the names of anti-Japanese resistance fighters. Packed with exuberant barroom brawls, allegiances that turn on a dime and a rogues’ gallery of wily self-preservationists, the picture suggests Hawks by way of Leone. And if that doesn’t sound to you like something close to movie heaven, may God have mercy on your soul.

Not a million miles away from Kim’s own film, then. Kim recalled how he handed out videos of Lee’s film, plus Mad Max, Road Warrior and Ben Hur, and told his production team he wanted Nom Nom Nom to be “bigger and faster” than all of them.

Kim Ji-woon sported a poppy for armistice day

The 3 stars were carefully selected for their roles. The Good (Jung Woo-sung) apparently had to have long legs. The Bad (Lee Byung-hun) had to be able to sustain a more emotional, moodier persona, while the Weird (Song Kang-ho) would have to be a strong lead who could control the flow of the film. Kim said he tried to use different editing styles and camera angles for each character: Jung Woo-sung in general having longer shots and faster edits, Lee Byung-hun generally having slower edits, and Song Kang-ho benefiting from a mixture of techniques.

Each one of Kim’s films has been in a different genre. Kim modestly said that he’s trying to find out which genre he’s best at. On his to-do list are a spy movie, a Blade Runner style sci-fi movie, a dark thriller and a Coen Brothers style comedy.

The quality of questions from the floor reflected the growth of Film Studies as a discipline and the wider and deeper interest in Korean film in this country. When Park Chan-wook introduced Lady Vengeance to a London audience at the Curzon Soho a couple of years ago, questions from the floor – and indeed the chair – were embarrassingly shallow, showing little knowledge of Park’s back catalogue or the rest of Korean film more generally. This time around there were some diligent students who seemed to have selected Kim Ji-woon as a topic for an undergraduate project. At least one of them was digitally recording the session for his subsequent researches.

Rayns gave us the benefit of his long experience of the Asian film industry, for example recounting a story of chairing a discussion with Miike Takashi (“I make five films a year”) and Kim Ji-woon (“I make a film every five years”) about Miike’s remake of Kim’s Quiet Family.

In fact it was noted that four out of Kim’s five films have been, or are being, remade ^[1]. Kim was diplomatic about his attitude to remakes. Not having seen The Uninvited (the remake of Tale of Two Sisters) Kim wouldn’t comment specifically, but he suspected that the mood would be different from the original. Todd Brown at Twitch is less restrained.

Tony Rayns, Lee Byung-hun, Kim Ji-woon and translator

Other students asked about the importance of the family in Kim’s films and why Korean film directors seemed particularly attracted to classical themes such as fairy tales and stories of revenge. Kim didn’t really answer these questions, though he said something non-committal about the importance of the family in Korean society. Maybe he didn’t agree with the premise of either question (he wouldn’t have been alone), and Rayns suggested the latter one would be better directed to a Korean film critic. Indeed, some people thought we were straying too far into the realm of next week’s essay topic for the film studies class, and were relieved when a fan asked Lee Byung-hun to sing us a song. (He declined).

The Q & A in fact offered something for everyone. Rayns helpfully provided background for the novice and asked some good mainstream questions of both actor and director, while fans and students alike were given the opportunity to pursue their own line of interest. And bloggers and roving photographers were able to record it for posterity. Thanks to the Korean Cultural Centre and the Barbican for making the evening possible.

And thanks to Jo Seong-hee for the photos.

Links:

• Lee Byung-hun on being the bad guy - an account of the part of the Q & A focusing on Lee Byung-hun

1. Quiet Family (1998) remade by Miike Takashi again, Happiness of the Katakuris (2001); Tale of Two Sisters (2003) remade by Charles & Thomas Guard in the confusingly titled The Uninvited (2009); Bittersweet Life (2005) in an unauthorised Bollywood remake and an upcoming remake by Fox; and Nom Nom Nom remade by Miike Takashi, Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)

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With sponsorship from the British Council and the UNDP, there was to plenty support Director Lee’s claim of “widespread ownership” for the exhibition. But of course there is a Korean angle. Korea has had the experience of extreme poverty within the living memory of half its population. Indeed, One of Lee’s earliest memories was of an overnight visit from a burglar who raided his kitchen for food and then washed the dishes afterwards.

Myung-duck Joo (주명덕): Cheonggye Stream 1977

With a Korean as secretary general of the UN, Korea is now putting itself behind the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, and the VIP statement at the front of the current exhibition’s catalogue by Kemal Derviş, UNDP Administrator, highlighted Korea’s role as an “emerging donor”. The wall of LCD screens at the KCC which face on to Northumberland Avenue were displaying a slideshow of aid programmes funded by KOICA – Korea’s overseas aid agency.

Yao Lu: Panorama of Waste 2006-8

As for the photographs in the exhibition, they come from a wide range of Korean and international photographers. In the course of the panel discussion Professor Colin Jacobson described how a photo editor can flick through thousands of images before seeing one that means something special, and no one person will necessarily pick the same one. All of the images in this exhibition had been though a stringent editing and curatorial process but nevertheless a viewer is not going to find every single image to be 100% impactful. For me, the most meaningful images were those by Myung-duck Joo (주명덕) of life by Seoul’s Chonggye Stream in the 1960s and 70s before it got built over (above), and the heavily photoshopped images by Yao Lu (left) which from afar look like traditional Chinese landscapes but up close the mountains reveal themselves to be rocks covered in green netting (left).

Nam-hun Sung: The Aral Sea 2007

Also striking were the images of a dry Aral Sea (”Water Recedes, Life Recedes”) by Nam-hun Sung (선남훈) (right) and a series entitled “Lost in Transition” by Peter Bialobrzesky (below left).

The incredibly stimulating panel session chaired by Colin Jacobson and also including Heidi Bradner (who contributed the starkly atmospheric photographs of the Siberian Nenets to the exhibition), Jon Levy (Editor-in-Chief of 8 Magazine) (the fourth panel member was not named in the materials) addressed some of the issues facing modern documentary photography / photojournalism, in an age where we are bombarded with thousands of images every day, and where everyone now has a role in recording history (cf the frequent eyewitness footage screened on news channels, filmed using mobile phones).

Peter Bialobrzesky: Lost in Transition (2005)

How does a photographer manage to find an audience? What is the measure of a photographer’s success? Does it matter that a photo has been “staged”? How much when does image enhancement become image manipulation, and does it matter – how much Photoshopping is acceptable?

Almost all photographers present admitted to using Photoshop to enhance an image, analogous to the use of clever darkroom techniques when developing film. But the more radical use of software to move a subject or edit two photographs together was felt to be moving away from true photojournalism.

Paula Bronstein: The Vulnerable 2001-3

Questions such as the interaction of the photographer with the subject were discussed. At what point does the photographer become part of the story? To what extent do people act up for the camera? The importance of context and caption was stressed. One panellist said he would appreciate a paragraph or two describing how Paula Bronstein came to take her striking picture of a pock-marked girl against a pock-marked wall (right). What was Bronstein doing in Afghanistan? Where did she find the girl? How much (if anything) did she pay the girl to stand by the wall for the photo?

Jacobson noted how the viewer’s reaction to Robert Capa’s controversial photograph (left) of the loyalist militiaman in the Spanish Civil War (currently in an exhibition at the Barbican) is influenced by whether it is viewed as something that is staged or whether the image genuinely captures the moment of the soldier’s death.

With issues so complex, no real conclusions were drawn apart from the fact that in the end it’s the image and its impact that matters. Does it connect with the viewer and with something beyond the image? Photojournalism has not changed the world, but important images provide a reference point for discussion of a particular topic to coalesce. To return to Kemal Derviş,

exhibitions such as this one allow us all to connect on a human level to the people behind the Millennium Development Goals and remind us of the importance of keeping our promises to them.

Blight and Hope - Poverty Seen Through the Lens - runs at the Korean Cultural Centre until 4 November.

Links:

• Blight and Hope official website

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Take forty contemporary artists, a fervent independent curator, an unexpected art space, four floors of art works in throngs of media and genres, and a thriving spot by the Thames, and what do you get? A distinctive, cutting edge art show and a journey on a possible zeitgeist. Aside from the presence of this effortless multiplicity, ‘4482’ is also an opportunity to see what Korea has to offer the British art scene. The answer to this would be that to some degree, Korea is the British art scene. Over the past ten years or so, Koreans have increasingly come to Britain, in particular London or New Malden, primarily to study art in London’s prestigious arts colleges. Art from Korea is now occupying British art spaces, Chelsea College lecturers, the psyches of British based curators and the collections of British art buyers. As the audience, it’s your chance to experience art works made by Korean artists, and here, by Korean artists who have lived or are living in Britain, who have faced double the cultures, twice the art scenes and who may or may not choose to combine or hybridise these encounters within their art. The accompanying seminar was less about how living and working in Britain has affected the subjects of Korean artists’ art works and more concerned with how artists can make their art visible to the public eye in Britain.

L to R: Jari Lager, Sunhee Choi, Eunice Yu, Seahyun Lee

The seminar panel offered four different narratives concerning contemporary Korean art in Britain. Curator of 4482, Sunhee Choi, chaired the panel and commented on the views of the other panellists, assimilating their spoken experiences to inform the seminar topic of the promotion of Korean art abroad. Curator Jari Lager, whose Southwark-based Union Gallery held the exciting exhibition of young contemporary artists from Korea, ‘Give me Shelter,’ in 2006, represented the place of the non-Korean but well travelled curator; who discovers, shows, and thus ‘promotes’, Korean contemporary art outside of Korea. Lager has also worked on the Korean art circuit and described how gallery curators in Seoul tend to select a handful of artists with which to work regularly, making it difficult for most young artists to find an outlet. Eunice Yu, Korean curator and co-founder of the Korean/Asian art gallery, I-MYU, near Old St, signalled the role of the persevering and permanent Korean curator in London. The final speaker was Seahyun Lee, renowned painter both in Korea and Britain, and slightly older than most of the artists in the show, who signify the post division, democratised 2030 generation. He described his experiences of working and living in Britain and how this has instigated a repositioning of his self reflexivity regarding the Korean origins of his work. Lee articulated, “In Korea I wasn’t interested in my country being divided. I was not one to say political things. But in London, I started probing about my country.” ^[1]

There were a few reoccurring threads of thought throughout the talks, such as the comparison of the Korean to the Chinese and Japanese art scenes. The conclusion of the speakers’ East Asian art focus appeared to be that the Chinese art scene is highly competitive, exclusive and capitalist in mind-set, whilst the Japanese art scene is less of a scene and more of a function, based on the nation’s demand for design and purpose. Korean art, conversely, is more fluid, innovative and open to new crossings. The discussion also emphasised the concept of the ‘contemporary’, over the notion of the Asian or Korean. Yu described galleries in London (the V & A springs to mind) which represent Korean art as Asian, focused on an audience which “loves,” or rather fetishizes, “Asian art.” In establishing I-myu, Yu decided she wanted to attract the contemporary art lover, thus focusing on “the contemporary side of contemporary Asian art.” ^[2] None of the speakers defined what exactly might be meant by ‘contemporary’ or whether the term has Western-centric origins. This is perhaps another area for discussion at future seminars on Korean art. Yu’s point was that the British public needs to see that there is an international language to current art practice and, suggesting there is no dichotomy of Eastness and Westness, or Koreanness and Britishness. At I-MYU, Yu combines Korean artists with artists from a variety of other nations in order to attract a broad audience who otherwise may have been initially led by their pre or mis conceptions of Korean art. As curators working in London, Yu and Lager recognise the growing number of young, talented Korean artists and hope for this trend to continue and for London galleries and curators to offer opportunities, which are difficult to find for up and coming artists in Seoul.

Choi concluded the session by revisiting the title of the seminar, examining how to promote Korean art abroad. By ‘abroad’, Choi was mostly referring to Britain, although, being a Paris based curator, she also mentioned the scarcity of Korean art in France. She described London as “more active than any other country” ^[3] in terms of the art scene. Choi’s advice to artists was to use generous funding bodies, such as Arts Council Korea or city specific public bodies and to build networks with galleries and curators. Lager, Yu’s and Choi’s experiences are testimony to the significance of building long term trans-national working relationships in the arts world. With the opening of the Korean Embassy’s Cultural Centre (KCC) this year, the continuing number of quality Korean art students in London and the omnipresence of various private Korean art shows around the city, it’s likely that Korean/British networks will continue to develop.

1. This quote is as near to word-for-word as possible given the seminar wasn’t recorded, but documented in detailed note form. Bargehouse, 18/10/2008.
2. Eunice Yu, Ibid
3. Sunhee Choi, Ibid.

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Given the present economic world order, last week was an opportune time for an update on Korean peninsular economics. First Aidan Foster Carter tells BAKS that in August President Lee Myung-bak’s military banned “Bad Samaritans,” by Chang Ha-joon, an economics professor at the University of Cambridge, for being un-Korean. Then on the same day the self-same Professor was at the LSE as part of an academic bridge-building exercise with Korean Universities, sponsored by the Korea Foundation. Well, Chang was able to give all kinds of interesting tit-bits as to how and when the ‘free market’ economy has acted as a ‘non-free market economy’ but the talk did not quite match up the billing of Korea’s response to the ‘credit crunch and all that’. Certainly, as Chang argues, Korea’s economy developed through protectionism, and no doubt emerging economies need to protect domestic industrial (and, given American agricultural subsidies, agricultural) production if they are to establish a secure basis for their economic development in the medium to long term. But I would guess that young soldiers were hardly likely to want to read about this kind of thing anyway, until Chang was banned, of course.

And here is our former UK-Korea Ambassador doing his bit:

Former ROK ambassador to the UK, Dr Cho Yoon-je (far left) at the Asian Development Bank conference in Manila, 18-19 September 2008

PS: This Monday morning the BBC reports that the Korean Government has secured the foreign debts of Korean banks with $100 billion plus another $30 billion for good measure. And poor (economically?) President Lee promised economic growth of 7%… Incidentally if you are thinking of visiting South Korea currently your £1 buys around 2300 won whereas according to Frank Rudiger (SOAS Friday 17th “Transformation of State Socialism in East Asia: The case of North Korea”) inflation in the North is about 200%, yet he believes that the ‘toxic’ effect of money in circulation will bring things round.

Links:

• Gov’t to offer guarantee for banks’ foreign loans, korea.net, 20 October 2008
• Seoul offers markets financial aid, Choe Sang-hun, International Herald Tribune, 19 October 2008

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Last Thursday and Friday 24-25th September an itinerant band of Pansori sellers displayed their wares at the Korean Cultural Centre (KCC) and the School of Advanced Study, University of London. The main event was Yonsei University’s (Institute of Media Art) Jeong Taeg Lim and Jung A Huh’s talk on ‘The Aesthetic modernity of the traditional Korean music drama “Pansori”’ as part of the joint Institute for Germanic and Romance Studies (IGRS) & Institute for Musical Research conference on ‘Opera, Exoticism and Visual Culture’ mistress-minded by another Korean, Dr Hyunseon Lee of IGRS. The hors d’oeuvre (almost literally as the main focus was on ‘bibimpap’ as a metaphor for fusion in Korean culture) on the previous evening at the KCC was rather meagre fare. Chunhyang’s hanbok, feisty personality and diet, (presuming she ate bibimpap), present, so it was asserted, a rich mix for Korean authors and an exemplar for Korean women. Yes, well! A bit more evidence or analysis would have been handy. But perhaps Korean practioners of ‘media art’ are not aware of the anthropological of the parallelisms between food, dress and societal attitudes found other cultures, including Britain.

A pansori performance of Chunhyang

The ‘Pansori’ performance was much more meaty fare with a very strong claim for the uniqueness of Korean Pansori vis-à-vis Western opera. Not all agreed on the uniqueness (including one Korean) but the talk was certainly to be valued for its description of the impromptu interplay between drummer, singer and audience characteristic of Pansori. Also on sale for academic participation by Professors (at Goldsmiths and elsewhere) was Yonsei University’s “Technology - Imagination - Future” Project - apparently ‘bibimpap’ also provides food for thoughts on the extensive use of mobile phones in South Korea. Is Nam June Paik turning in his grave?

Links:

• Home page of Yonsei University Institute of Media Arts Technology - Imagination - Future project.

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Nami Morris performs Jindo Buk Chum

The conference opened with a bang, as the champagne corks popped in the Clare College JCR bar – generously funded by the ROK embassy – followed by some Jindo drumming from Nami Morris in the adjoining vaulted crypt underneath the Chapel. Lee Chul Jin then performed an atmospheric shamanistic dance – Salpuri – which had the audience’s rapt attention.

The opening gala dinner followed, and a keynote address from Meredith Jung-en Woo provided the perfect start to the conference, stimulating the appetite for intellectual engagement over the next two days with a thought-provoking (or even provocative, in the words of one questioner from the floor) discussion of the need for the KORUS FTA to be put in place, emphasising its geopolitical rather than its economic importance.

If the evening started with high culture it ended on a different note. As the whisky shots depth-charged into one or two pints of college lager in the JCR bar, the mighty sound of Yi Paksa’s disco ppongtchak rendition of YMCA sadly met with a mixed reception.

Lee Chul-jin performs Salpuri

The first full day of the conference started with looking forwards, with a focus on the prospect for denuclearisation, with thoughtful input from ambassadors past and present. Particularly valuable were the insights of Ambassador Chun, who was the ROK’s chief negotiator in the six-party talks. Subsequent papers from Choi Jong-hyun, Tim Beal and Johannes Gerschewski looked at the two Koreas’ strategy and ideology, with interesting analyses of the concepts of legitimacy and totalitarianism.

The afternoon started with two entertaining talks on South Korean politics: Youngmi Kim opened her presentation with photographs of shoes and fists flying in the National Assembly, and went on to analyse what went wrong with four specific initiatives of the Roh Moo-hyun administration, while the ever-engaging Aidan Foster Carter asked the same question of the current administration. In between, a fascinating talk from John DiMoia questioned the received historiography of South Korea’s most famous scientist, Lee Tae-kyu.

When matters such as politics and security issues are rehearsed in the newspapers daily there is a danger that attendees might think they have little more to learn, but each speaker gave new insights from their past experience and novel approaches. No such danger with film studies, where there is still much to research, particularly in the area of early Korean film.

In general the sessions on film looked at early Korean film history, though there was a fascinating exception in Jeon Yeon-woog’s discussion of Our School – a documentary about a school for zainichi Koreans in Hokkaido. Neither North Korean nor South Korean, the zainichi Koreans can visit both halves of the peninsula but belong to neither.

Springtime on the Peninsula (1941)

Followers of Korean film have a lot to thank the Korean Film Archive for, and we were fortunate to have Oh Sung-ji from KOFA present to discuss Korean film in the late Colonial era. Mark Morris introduced a screening of Springtime on the Peninsula (1941) an interesting product of the Colonial period, where the actors switched easily between Korean and Japanese, where all Korean dialogue had to be subtitled in Japanese, and where of course all the credits were in Japanese. But even under the authoritarian Japanese rule, Morris highlighted elements in the film where the Koreans could register their protest (for example, at a banquet where a patriotic (pro-Japanese) speech was being delivered there were some stony faces, and one person present looking like he was falling asleep). The contrast with the opening title sequence of Hurrah for Freedom (1946) was huge, as Morris pointed out, with the credits inscribed in Hangeul in a monumental typeface, as some triumphal Copland played over the soundtrack.

Meredith Jung-en Woo

But freedom from the Japanese did not mean freedom for the Korean film industry. Sueyoung Park-Primiano’s paper looked at the early post-liberation film industry. Within a couple of years, USAMGIK had imposed a film distribution regime more repressive than ever existed under Japanese colonial rule. Korea had to learn about the benefits of the American way of life, and film was a key tool for disseminating this. But rather insensitively, the first batch of 15 Hollywood films to be distributed in Korea (which included Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan) were subtitled in Japanese. Fortunately the ever-resourceful Koreans managed to bypass the rigid monopoly distribution system, and soon pirate copies of Hollywood films were in circulation.

Kim Chung-kang looked at some of the gender comedy films of the late 1960s, trashed by the critics but loved by the film-going public. A clip from Namja Kisaeng (Male hostess) had the conference attendees duly amused, while the presenter described how the comedy genre could slip in some criticism of the Park Chung-hee regime under the radar of the censors.

The last session of the conference looked at literature – the discourse of the Modern Woman in Yom Sang-seop’s Cheya (from Choi Minkoo), while Jo Elfving-Hwang gave a fascinating presentation on trauma literature, focusing on Hwang Seok-yong’s The Guest and Im Ch’ol-u’s My Father’s Land. We then returned to Korea in a globalised world, as Kim Jeehun introduced his work on the Korean migrant professionals in Singapore.

Thanks to John Swenson Wright and his helpers for a well-organised and stimulating couple of days, which gave the opportunity for new friendships to be made, old ones to be refreshed, and the latest researches to be shared. We look forward to the publication of some of the papers presented, and to the growth of Korean studies at Cambridge with the appointment of the new Korean Studies lecturer, Michael Shin, funded by the Korea Foundation.

Clare College, venue for 2008 BAKS conference

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Report by Saharial, with photo by Matthew Jackson

This informative lecture by Dr. Hyunsun Yoon examined the way the elderly are represented in both British and Korean advertising.

A growing demographic, the elderly population is regarded with a great difference between the two cultures, something demonstrated well when comparing various advertising clips. Confucian values of family, filial duty and respect for the elderly provide the basis for the Korean perception, the elderly portrayed as helpful, doing gentle activities, imparting wisdom and embodying the feeling of ‘Han’. ‘Han’ is a concept of wistfulness, nostalgia and reminiscence, often related to the unique political situation in Korea.

This advert for Werthers in the UK, ran for 15 years until it was pulled in the early years of this decade as the public were obviously unable to relate to the imagery.

and, albeit tongue in cheek, adverts such as those for Safe Storage and John Smith’s Beer regard the elderly as useless and disposable.

Safe Storage

John Smith Bitter

Adverts shown for companies like KT (Korea Telecom) show communication between parents and children on a daily basis, a government sponsored advert shows the grandmother helping to raise the children whose parents must go to work and feel they ‘abandon’ their filial duty. The UK adverts for BT usually deal with families that are dysfunctional in some way, an odd concept if you think about it – for a communications device.

It was definitely a lecture that gave one a lot to think about in terms of how cultural differences still rule the nature of advertising and marketing, even if the financial and product aspects get closer together. Both cultures use ‘overflow’ from popular dramas and ‘worlds’ to create a familiar feel. In the UK we have Sibyl from ‘Fawlty Towers’ transposed to Tesco while Korea has Dae Jang Geum transposed to advertise instant noodles.

An interesting point made by one of the many attendees for the lecture was that the Korean portrayal of the elderly is far more passive than those of the UK – the UK elderly are vociferous complainers, stubborn and determined and that we like it that way. We, he went on to add, will always take the humorous route in advertising whereas Koreans will always select the sentimental and emotional angle.

Commercial breaks will never be the same again…

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The event was partly to celebrate the launch of the Selected Writings of Han Yongun (above right), which was done in style, with plenteous wine and nibbles plus a traditional dance from Lee Chul Jin, who performed in Trafalgar Square the week before. He will be based at SOAS for the next six months.

The launch and conference was a who’s who of Korean studies, a great way of networking and hearing the gossip. Jane Portal, for example, was present, and people were speculating as to who was going to take on her Korean responsibilities at the British Museum now she’s off to Boston.

My day job got in the way of attending the full conference, but I managed to hear most of Vladimir Tikhonov discussing the merits and demerits of available Korean history textbooks available in English. None were thought to be totally ideal, with the standard work, Korea Old and New, lacking a little in regional perspective, while other more recent works in English did not take into account the latest historical research available in Korean. Tikhonov suggested that a new text book was needed, reflecting all the latest research, maybe written by a number of different scholars. But in discussion afterwards there weren’t any volunteers to write a chapter.

A similar problem was identified by Charlotte Horlyck, who reviewed the available literature on Korean art history in English – a rather short list compared with the wealth of information and different viewpoints available in English on Chinese and Japanese art. This means that any Westerner who is serious about studying Korean art history has to learn Korean: if restricted solely to western texts a student could potentially find the subject “boring” because more or less the same artefacts are discussed in more or less the same way in many of the texts.

Some of the texts available were catalogues linked to exhibitions of Korean art in the West. Dr Horlyck gave a useful summary of recent opportunities to view Korean artefacts: earlier exhibitions gave a broad overview of the Korean art world:

• A touring show in the US in 1979-1981: 5,000 Years of Korean Art.
• In 1984 came Treasures from Korea: Art through 5000 years at the British Museum
• In 1998 the Met published Arts of Korea to coincide with the opening of their permanent Korean gallery
• Korea - die alten Koenigreiche showed in Munich and Zurich in 1999.

More specialist exhibitions followed in 2003:

• The (New York) Japan Society’s Transmitting the Forms of Divinity: Early Buddhist Art from Korea and Japan, and
• Goryeo Dynasty: Korea’s age of enlightenment at the Museum of Asian Art in San Francisco.

All these exhibitions produced catalogues - most of them now only available on the second hand market, though the Met’s magisterial Arts of Korea is readily available. The British Museum and the V&A have also published books to accompany their permanent collections - respectively Jane Portal’s Korea: Art and Archaeology and Beth McKillop’s Korean Art and Design. Portal’s book has unexpectedly ended up as a text book in one US school: she gets the occasional complaint that the book wasn’t written with one chapter for each week of a term.

After the slightly gloomy picture painted in the lecture theatre, it was good to see the books available in the foyer. Saffron’s translation of Lee Dongju’s The Beauty of Old Korean Paintings and Francis Mullany’s Symbolism in Korean Ink Brush Painting from Global Oriental didn’t stay on the display table for long.

Here are some of the titles that were on display:

Links

• Saffron Korea Library
• Global Oriental
• Brill

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Questions and answers were translated on the spot by Seh Hyun Rho to whom we extend our thanks and also to the Korean Cultural Centre for hosting the event.

The following is a complete transcription of the Q&A session by Saharial, to whom even bigger thanks are due. The transcription reflects the conversational style of the evening, with only minor editorial changes made where necessary to aid understanding: Im Sang Soo, uncut.

Seh Hyun Rho: ‘The President’s Last Bang’ is one of the many films director Im Sang Soo has written and directed. In 1998 he presented his first film ‘Girl’s Night Out’, and ‘Tears’ in 2000 provided us with a glimpse of the teenagers in Korea, then in 2003 a Good Lawyer’s wife, ‘The Old Garden’ in 2007 with the Kwangju democratisation movement as his backdrop. Having studied sociology at the prestigious Yonsei University in Korea, it appears that socio-political themes are current in his movies. Now we have a chance for a question and answer session where you can put the director under the microscope and ask him any questions you like. I will take the liberty of asking the first question.

Could you please tell me what your favourite political movie is?

Im Sang Soo: To be honest, I can’t think of any famous Korean or any famous political movies, and although there are elements of politics in my work, I’d be unsatisfied to call them political as such. My apologies.

If you look at the international film landscape currently, if you were to name political movies or directors as such, you could say Ken Loach or Costa-Gavras – they could be seen as directors who make political movies or deal with political issues. I don’t want my work to be compared with theirs, and I don’t think my films should be in the same category as theirs.

My three movies ‘The President’s Last Bang, ‘The Old Garden’ and ‘The Good Lawyer’s Wife’ are frequently labelled as the trilogy depicting Korea’s political or the state of modern Korean society, I think that would be inaccurate. This apparent label, which occurs when I am outside of Korea, can be interpreted as the mockery, or my mockery, of Korea currently and that’s a guilt I have to bear – it’s uncomfortable. This is unfortunate and unavoidable if you actually reflect on Korea’s modern history. For the past 35 years we were colonised, or Korea was colonised by Japan, there was World War 2, there was a military dictatorship for about three years, so you have to be critical. One of the reasons why I love of my degree in sociology so much is that you have to use these events and depict them as such.

Questions were then taken from members of the audience who seemed very familiar with his movies and eager to delve deeper into his perceptions and opinions.

Q: Did you expect ‘The President’s Last Bang’ to be censored and are there any plans for the release of the uncensored version?

‘The President’s Last Bang’ was made prior to the change in government that took place in Korea a few months ago and before, the government was quite liberal so I felt free to make such a movie. To be strictly straight, there is no censorship in Korea - that would be illegal to do so. The reason why there was a censorship with this movie was because Park Chung-hee, the president who was assassinated in the movie, his son appealed to the Seoul district court, and the court ordered the scenes to be taken out.

When this movie was first released in Korea, I predicted there would be conflict, or at least problems, with the entire Korean community, but I didn’t realise it would be to the extent that some of the scenes would have to be censored. The film was released in France as well, that was the edited version, but earlier this year in Japan, they released a Director’s cut which means all the censored scenes were put back in. Yesterday, I just found out that there would be a DVD release in England using the Director’s uncut version, which means the movie would have English subtitles. The whole international community can then purchase the DVDs from England and see the film, so I’m very much happy about that.

For the movie ‘The President’s Last Bang’ when you look at the audience we have here today, we have Koreans as well as foreigners. Foreigners might perceive this as a military dictatorship where an army general takes over the country and takes power, which happens frequently in Africa and Asia, so it might seem not petty but hilarious or comical in your point of view. As opposed to the foreign audience, for Korean people it has to be a shocking film. Park Chung-hee, the President at the time, he ruled for 18 years as a dictatorship and there were many liberals who were tortured and captured and many died during this protest. At the same time Park Chung-hee was also known as the Father to modernise Korea and help with the economic status, so for the Korean audience to see such a negative view of this character must have been shocking.

When the original uncut version is released, I hope that all audiences, Korean and international will be able to perceive the film slightly differently. The film is not intended to be satirical or mock Park Chung-hee or the dictatorship, but to show the lifestyles of him and his entourage. Upon the release of the movie no Korean community could laugh or enjoy this film and he had to wonder why this was so, and possibly it reflects our state of understanding of the whole incident.

So the film deals with the entourage of Park Chung-hee, the way it deals with people and community, his lifestyle and his principles and can see this reflects fascism and chauvinistic attitudes. If you look at the Bush Administration and the Bush/Blair pact leading to the Iraqi war, you can see that… well, I feel that this is not completely different to Park Chung-hee’s way of working. Overall, these kinds of attitudes and principles are not new to Korea or to any time era and the film which deals with this is not, I suppose, so enjoyable to watch.

Q: Firstly have you any plans or hopes to direct in Hollywood? And with remakes of ‘Dark Water’ and ‘The Ring’ etc. - how do you feel about remakes of some of these Asian films?

Currently, I’ve moved to Paris and have been living there for the past 6 months. This is because I am working with a French producer and we are filming a film in Paris using French actors and mostly going to be in French dialogue. This is not Hollywood, but an international project for me, and if successful, yes, I have plans to work with the English community as well. That’s my direction to a more International level.

The remakes that you mentioned – most of them are Hollywood financed and given the enormous wealth that Hollywood has, it’s not so imperative that they make a large profit or even a loss. The producers and directors that allow these remakes – well all I can say is ‘Money Talks’.

The Austrian director Michael Haneke remade the movie ‘Funny Games’ and won a prestigious prize internationally. If you look up the actors, I presume that the paycheque had an additional two zeros at the end, so I guess money rules and money is power.

Q: Still on the subject of money, In order to get through the US Free Trade Agreement the current government has had to agree to import more US ‘mad cows’ and the previous government agreed to import more US movies. So now, two years on from the relaxation of the screen quota, what impact has it had on the Korean film industry and what impact will it continue to have?

I don’t know about the UK, but in my point of view Korea is in terms of economics and politics America’s colony. The current government cannot refuse any demands from the American government whether it’s a liberal or a conservative government. Secondly, despite theoretically having a liberal Korean government, I don’t feel that they would know the impact or the importance of having Korean movies out there on the international scene.

I imagine all of you here are great fans of the Korean movies and cinema, but I feel that in the next 5 years you will see a difficult time for Korean movies and whether the Korean movie industry can resuscitate itself or completely die even that I can’t answer. The Korean government that accepted the relaxation of the Korean screen quota was the most liberal one so far, and the change to our more conservative government and accepting cows with potential mad cow disease, well I am just glad to say that I have now moved to France!

Q: Do you think there are any similarities between the Korean political scene and the French one?

Despite Sarkozy being a very conservative leader, and France being more liberal, I don’t think you can compare that to the Korean. Lee Myung Bak is extremely conservative and the more liberal Korean society right now you definitely can’t say the Lee Myung Bak is in the same category as Sarkozy.

Does the government appease themselves to America?

Well, I don’t see the French importing US beef! [Laughs] I would just like to remind everyone, that this event and place today has been funded by the Korean government. I guess we can still talk liberal.

Continued on next page… (click below)

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Reflecting the more formal nature of this meeting, Dr Jun spoke from a prepared text, though there was also a generous amount of time afterwards for Dr Jun to take questions from the floor.

It was a whistle-stop tour for Dr Jun. Earlier in the week he had been at the IOSCO meeting in Paris, where he was appointed Chair of IOSCO’s regional committee for Asia. He was only in London for the day and was heading back to Seoul immediately after the Chatham House session. He will be back at his desk at the FSC on Sunday. It’s a 24/7 administration.

Usefully, Dr Jun began his talk by explaining what his Commission is called. If you go to the website (www.fsc.co.kr) you will variously see “Financial Services Commission”, “Financial Supervisory Commission” and “Financial Supervisory Service”. Like other ministries, the Commission has been through one of President Lee’s reorganisations. The new Financial Services Commission is the result of merging the Financial Policy Bureau of the Finance Ministry and the (old) Financial Supervisory Commission - thus bringing together under one roof both policy-making and supervision. The Financial Supervisory Service remains as the arm of the Financial Services Commission which conducts on-the-ground supervision of financial institutions.

Having got that out of the way, Dr Jun gave a regional perspective on some of the recent financial turmoil, and highlighted ASEAN Plus 3 ^[1] and the Chiang Mai Initiative as regional efforts to coordinate financial stability.

Dr Jun then moved on to setting out his domestic agenda:

1. A “Big Bang” to reorganise Korea’s financial sector, with the Capital Markets Consolidation Act coming in to force next year. An English translation of this is currently being prepared. Dr Jun considered the UK’s Big Bang in 1987 to be a good model, and preferred it to the more gradual approach adopted in Japan
2. The establishment of Financial Clusters, where resources and financial expertise are concentrated, with an aim to assisting in the formation of new business ventures
3. Strengthening international cooperation between regulators. Dr Jun stressed the importance of information exchange between national supervisors when dealing with international banking groups. Korea currently has formal memoranda of understanding with 19 regulators in 13 countries (including the UK, but excluding the US - that’s work in progress at the moment). Dr Jun also stressed the importance of risk-based supervision, and also expressed a strong desire to move towards principles-based regulation. Earlier in the day he’d had a chance to compare notes with Calum McCarthy at the FSA.
4. Enhancing the competitiveness of the financial sector through privatisation and introduction of new investment. In this context he noted the upcoming privatisation of Korea Development Bank.

A lot of these changes require a gradualist approach. In respect of the introduction of new capital into the financial services industry - particularly capital from the chaebol - Dr Jun envisaged a step-by-step raising of the maximum shareholdings permitted, and he recognised that the move to a more principles-based framework could not happen overnight. But he viewed the arguments for both as compelling: complex rule-based frameworks inhibit innovation, increase compliance costs and prevent effective enforcement, while when industrial groups such as POSCO have more cash flow than they can reinvest internally there was a strong argument for allowing some of this surplus to be directed towards investment in the financial services industry.

President Lee’s aim is growth, and a vibrant financial sector is seen as crucial to long-term economic expansion. Dr Jun’s job is to help to deliver that.

1. the extra 3 being China, Japan and Korea

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I thought I ought to show my face in the office, so missed some of the key talks, opting to show up at the beginning and the end of the day, which was probably an error of judgement. While it is always encouraging that these events have august and generous sponsors (enabling the whole thought-provoking day to be totally free of charge to freeloaders such as myself) it does mean that there are rather too many bland “keynote” addresses before you got to the actual meat of the proceedings. The conference was well-provided with simultaneous translation facilities, enabling the monolingual to get some benefit when faced with panellists not speaking their language – though inevitably one suspects that nuances were lost in the translation.

While the theme of the day was billed as human rights, the agenda flowed freely off-topic. A senior Pyongyangologist gave a fascinating talk about differences between North Korea under the two Kims, highlighting:

1. the move to Military First (songung) politics under Kim Jong-il, under whom power is exercised primarily through the National Defence Commission rather than the Workers Party of Korea:
• the National Supreme People’s Assembly meets only once every 5 years, leaving civilian matters to be governed by its Standing Committee
• Civilian ministers / cabinet (members of the Standing Committee) have limited importance
• the Defence Minister doesn’t report to the “Prime Minister” – instead reporting directly into the National Defence Commission
2. the move from the doctrine of “Juche” to that of the “socio-political organism”, a holy trinity of the Supreme Revolutionary Leader, the Military and the People. One strand of this doctrine is that while human life is 80 years, political life is eternal – thus subordinating the individual to society as a whole.

Note: this is a stub article. If I find my notes and have the time, I might write up some more in due course.

1. The Chatham House Rule was invoked, and a strict reading of that implies that I can’t say who was in the audience, but at least the speakers are a matter of public record

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