우물 안 개구리

Frog in a Well welcomes a guest posting from Sayaka Chatani on the issue of Korean War Criminals and the difficulty Korean historians have found in addressing them in modern Korean historiography. Sayaka is a PhD student in the History Department of Columbia University. Her research interests are in the transnational history of early to mid-twentieth century East Asia, mainly focusing on the colonization and decolonization of Korea and Taiwan.

Introduction

Colonial legacies are one of the most hotly debated political issues in South Korea. The phrase “legacies of Japanese imperialism (ilche chanjae)” is ubiquitous in newspapers and in bookstores, and the topic not only triggers controversies among academics, but inspires social movements, and leads the government to adopt policies to resolve the remnant problems.

Among the many controversies surrounding the history of Japan’s colonial rule in Korea, much attention has centered on the question of collaborators. Many Korean historians argue that former pro-Japanese collaborators subsequently prevented Korea’s unification and brought about significant harm to South Korean society. They see punishing them as a prerequisite to restoring a healthy society.¹ In the context of ‘setting history straight,’ The South Korean government has confiscated the property of descendants of nine collaborators.² A presidential fact-finding panel has finished its second investigation to identify the names of pro-Japanese collaborators, and continues working on a third investigation.³

In contrast to their excitement over the issue of collaborators, historians have only given very limited attention and analysis to the issue of Korean war criminals despite the significant number of Koreans put on trial and executed as Japanese prison guards. When a few Japanese and Korean historians do face the issue, they tend to simplify the complex experiences of Korean war criminals to fit the dominant minjung discourse that blames a distinct group of collaborators for betraying the majority of Korean people. The fact that Korean war criminals were both victims and victimizers makes it difficult for nationalist historians to openly discuss the issue.

(more…)

1. For example, Ahn Byung-ook, “The Significance of Settling the Past in Modern Korean History,” Korea Journal, Autumn 2002, pp.7-17, and Chung Youn-tae, “Refracted Modernity and the Issue of Pro-Japanese Collaborators in Korea,” Korea Journal, Autumn 2002, pp.18-59 [↩]
2. New York Times, “World Briefing, Asia: South Korea: Crackdown On Collaborators” May 3rd 2007. [↩]
3. The Korea Times, “202 Pro-Japanese Collaborators Disclosed.” September 17, 2007 [↩]

Thomas C. Reeves, perhaps my least favorite HNN blogger, is arguing that the success of South Korea justifies our Middle East policies, especially Iraq. The comparison of Bush to Truman is nothing new, nor is the analogy of Iraq and Korea. But this particular one is quite egregious, and I can’t let it pass without comment. Reeves’ main point — that South Korea is better off than North Korea and that the US had a hand in that — is true, but in such a shallow manner as to be empty rhetoric. His larger theme — that the support for freedom and opposition to tyranny are worthwhile even when unpopular — is also true, but the use of the Korea and Truman raise serious questions.

First, of course, is the sheer hubris of attributing the difference solely to “American influence and protection.” The Korean War was initiated by North Korea in direct action against US/UN troops, not by a US invasion. The US was already in Korea, for good reason, but ham-handedly refusing — as was the Soviet Union — to allow Koreans to determine their own post-colonial path. US involvement in South Korean politics over the quarter-century after the Korean War delayed progress towards democracy, did nothing in particular to promote religious tolerance (unless you count supporting Christian missionaries, which seems a bit self-serving), and I’ve never seen anyone argue that US involvement was particularly good for the Korean economy, either.

The attempt to tar opponents of Bush Administration policy as new McCarthyites — well-intentioned, perhaps, but short-sighted, partisan and hypocritical — ignores literally years of critics saying “it would be good for everyone if we could proceed in a responsible and effective manner.”¹ Instead, Reeves pulls out the middle ground, leaving only support for the Administration (who are, according to Reeves, more Trumanesque than Johnsonesque or Kennedyesque or Rooseveltian or Wilsonian….) or “appeasement and retreat for mere political gain.” It’s a short step from this kind of manicheanism to “stabbed in the back” revisionism.

Ultimately, this is a classic case of the political rhetorical use of historical analogies: pick the one which has the most obvious parallel for the result you want to see, and ignore differences.² It’s irresponsible for a historian to trade in these facile arguments.

1. e. g. [↩]
2. Reeves waves it away with “Yes, of course, there are many differences between Iraq and the Middle East today and the Korean peninsula of more than a half century ago.” My students wouldn’t be allowed to get away with that! [↩]

There was a time in Korean labour movement history in the 1970s when it were the female workers who actually led the most militant part of the struggle. The reasons were obvious - while the wages were held generally low and grew on much lower rate than the economy as the whole (in the 1960s, the growth rate for economy were whopping 10%, but for real, inflation-adjusted wages in the manufacturing - modest 2,4% on the annualised basis), the female wages were always lower than the male ones, and military-like systemized bullying on the part of the male supervisors used to make factory life a miserable, constantly humiliating experience. Accordingly, some of the most moving struggles of the 1970s took place on the female-dominated textile factories - KyOngsOng Pangjik (1973) and Tongil Panjik (1978) strikes being the best known ones. In the latter case, the striking female workers were eventually assaulted by their male colleagues (?), beaten and showered with human excrements. Their response? On the Easter, 1978, they came to the public worship place on YOUido Square and succeeded in taking microphone for 5 minutes and shouting to the city and world - “우리는 똥을 먹고 살 수 없다!”. Of course, more beatings and arrest followed immediately, but the phrase ended becoming a tale-telling slogan of the female labour movement.

Now, I feel sometimes that the 1970s are returning, in a way. After 1997 crisis, females were first to be sacrificed on the altar of Washington consensus and “national interests” - put on contract (many of the contracts for tellers at the large malls, for example, are for 3 months or even 1 month), send to work on much worse conditions for a subcontractors, to which large part of the tasks was now “farmed out”, “re-employed” by some shadowy intermediary with proporationate part of the salary being withheld “for introduction”, and “flexibilized” in a million other methods, too diverse and creative to describe here. Now, 70% of Korea’s female workforce is “contingent” and “flexible”, on short-term contracts, subcontracted or supplied by “manpower agencies” - a world record of sorts. The women fought back, and the most protracted and bitter of all the struggles witnessed so far by the 2000s is the marathon strike by KTX (express train) female attendants - now well over 500 days and showing so far no signes of coming to an end. Below is the text of the appeal for their sake, prepared in its English form by a group of Korean female professors and sent to me by Prof. Na YungyOng (Culture Studies, Yonsei University):

“URGENT APPEAL for INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY

On March 1, 2006, approximately four hundred women who work as train attendants (similar to flight attendants) on the KTX “bullet train” began a strike to demand the end of discriminatory and unjust outsourcing practices of the Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL). Despite KORAIL’s promise that workers hired under short-term contracts via an external company would be granted permanent status as direct employees of KORAIL after one year, the KTX Crew Workers Branch Union’s demands for direct and permanent employment have yet to be met.

To date, the KTX Crew Workers’ Branch Union’s struggle is the longest and most bitterly waged fight by women workers in the history of Korea. For over 500 days, women who work as train attendants on the KTX bullet trains have held public rallies and marches, occupied buildings, lectured in classrooms, and conducted outreach on the streets and at train stations throughout the country. KORAIL’s continued refusal to meet the union’s demands for gender equality, safe working conditions and secure employment have led union leaders to engage in desperate measures to expose the unjust and unequal conditions under which they are forced to work. After exhausting every tactic, 31 union members began a hunger strike on July 2, 2007. As the hunger strike surpasses its 14th day, many union members have been rushed to the hospital..

Despite KTX’s sleek and high-tech image as the fifth fastest “bullet train” in the world, it is the site of blatant sexism and labor abuse. Of those train attendants who are irregularly employed under outsourcing agreements, the majority are women. In contrast, their male counterparts who perform comparable duties are directly employed by KORAIL as “team leaders.” Simply by being women, KTX train attendants are subject to lower wages, harsher working conditions, and heightened job insecurity. In addition, women workers face the perpetual threat of dismissal if they speak out against unfair conditions and sexual harassment in the workplace.

According to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, KORAIL’s treatment of KTX female train attendants is a clear example of gender discrimination and a basic violation of human rights. The National Human Rights Commission has strongly recommended that striking KTX women workers be granted fair and just conditions of employment. The South Korean Minister of Labor, the legal community, various media outlets, 500 university professors, 300 members of the literary community and a wide cross section of NGOs including the Korea Women’s Association United, Lawyers for Democratic Society, People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, Korea Women Workers Association United, and the People’s Coalition for Media Reform have also called upon KORAIL to reinstate the striking workers as directly hired employees, not as contingent workers contracted through a third party. However, KORAIL continues to disregard this overwhelming public outcry.

KORAIL, the nation’s largest public enterprise and employer of over 30,000 people, refuses to abide by the most basic and fundamental standards of fairness and equality. KORAIL’s actions violate South Korean laws that prohibit all forms of discrimination, as well as international standards established by the ILO to protect the rights of workers. KORAIL is also failing to comply with the international standards that the company itself pledged to uphold when it joined the UN Global Compact in May 2007.

KORAIL’s blatant violation of the basic principles of democracy and human rights deserve international criticism. KORAIL’s actions are indicative not only of the pervasive inequality facing contingent workers in South Korea, but also of systemic gender discrimination in South Korea. We urge the international community to stand in solidarity with the KTX Crew Workers in its brave fight for justice. We respectfully request your signature on this petition letter in support of the KTX women workers. This letter will be sent to President Roh Moo-hyun and UN Secretariat General Ban Ki-moon, as well as to the CEO of KORAIL.”

The letter of the appeal is enclosed below. Dear friends, if you think that the cause of the KTX workers is worthy, I beg you to sign it and return with you sign to ktxworkers@gmail.com (please, indicate your position and affiliation). More info in Korean is available at: http://ktxworkers.blogsome.com. This thing is URGENT, since only the Almighty knows how long the hunger strikers will be physically able to hold on.

this via:

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush would like to see a U.S. role in Iraq ultimately similar to that in South Korea.

“The Korean model is one in which the United States provides a security presence, but you’ve had the development of a successful democracy in South Korea over a period of years, and, therefore, the United States is there as a force of stability,” Snow told reporters.

and this via

Missing from much of the current discussion is talk about the success of democracy in Iraq, officials say, or even of the passage of reconciliation measures that Mr. Bush said in January that the troop increase would allow to take place. In interviews, many senior administration and military officials said they now doubted that those political gains, even if achieved, would significantly reduce the violence.

The officials cautioned that no firm plans have emerged from the discussions. But they said the proposals being developed envision a far smaller but long-term American presence, centering on three or four large bases around Iraq. Mr. Bush has told recent visitors to the White House that he was seeking a model similar to the American presence in South Korea.

Discuss.

There are all sorts of interesting materials in the National Archives collection of Captured North Korean Documents in record group 242 that I introduced in an earlier posting. While I’m looking through files most likely to be of use in my own dissertation research, I can’t help coming across materials that are of little use to me but which might be a great starting point for research on other North Korea related topics.

For example, if you wanted to do research on issues such as migration to and from North Korea, the captured records collection includes many lists and individual files on many hundreds of foreigners (overwhelmingly Chinese and some Japanese in the files I saw) kept by North Korea’s internal affairs ministry (내무서). The files I looked through last week were mostly dated from the middle of 1947 but there appear to be a lot of files from 1949. These lists of foreigners also come from different counties throughout North Korea. They list foreign residents over the age of 18 but the files also often list family members.

I flipped through one pack of these internal ministry files, with perhaps around a hundred individual files in it, all of them of Chinese residents.¹ Each file contained a range of information including the resident’s name, citizenship, current address, place of origin, date of entry into Korea, occupation, religion, family members, and how well they are doing (生活狀態 생활상태) with their condition being described with such words as good (良好 양호), not so good (下 하), or suffering difficulties (困難 곤란).

The files usually had pictures as well, but over time, the pictures that had been glued to their file often became stuck to the next file and/or smudged. Those pictures I could see clearly often showed less than happy faces. The vast majority of the Chinese listed in these 1947 files I looked at were listed as farmers, and almost all of them came from Shandong province, with just a few coming from Hebei. They mostly came to Korea in the 1930s and wartime 1940s, with a smaller cluster of files with entry dates from 1917 and another group who came in during the 1920s.

Anyone interested in doing research on migration to/from Korea in the 20th century, especially those interested in Chinese and Japanese who stayed behind in North Korea, at least for the first few years, can find a great deal of useful information in these files given the considerable quantity of them. Though I have only looked at one of these file packets, there are many of them in SA 2005 all throughout box 9 (remember, this original SA box number does not correspond to any actual box number in the national archives), including items 9/3 (100pp), 9/4 (which I looked at), 9/6 (100pp), 9/13 (684pp), 9/14 (148pp), 9/15 (4pp), 9/16 (640pp), 9/18 (1300pp), 9/24 (8pp), 9/27 (188pp), 9/35 (56pp), 9/39 (278pp), and 9/43 (150pp), all of which include such files of Japanese and Chinese residents in North Korea according to the microfilm index of the collection.

1. RG242 Captured Korean Documents SA 2009 9/4 (in Box 161) [↩]

In an otherwise interesting discussion of North Korean defector readjustment and North-South relations in the Washington Post, Samuel Songhoon Lee drops this

In South Korea, a country that withstood centuries of invasions from its Chinese and Japanese neighbors, unity defines survival. And without ethnic diversity or a history of immigration, unity means conformity. When something becomes fashionable here, it can have significant consequences. For example, South Korea has the world’s highest ratio of cosmetic surgeons to citizens, catering to the legions of girls who receive eyelid surgery as a present for their 16th birthday. … The lack of diversity at school makes the young defectors instant standouts — subject to 15 minutes of fame and adulation, then an enduring period of isolation. When their peers ask about their accent — noticeably different from what’s common in Seoul — most students say they’re from Gangwon Province, in the northeastern part of the country.

My second reaction was to note the self-contradictory nature of the paragraph: if conformity is so ubiquitous and nationalized, how can strong regional accents survive? In fact, this is something which I’ve noted with regard to Japan as well: to a large extent, parochialism and immobility (geographic and class) mask diversity because most people don’t experience it within their own society. There’s another factor which is similar between Japan and South Korea: the domination of the media by media created within a single mega-urban community, which tends to assume its own experience and views as “normal.”

But it’s the historical early section which piqued my interest in the first place, of course. Maybe it’s just a word choice thing, but I’d be much more comfortable with the idea that Korea “endured” invasions than “withstood”: the latter implies that they successfully resisted. They didn’t repel the Mongols: they waited until that empire had collapsed elsewhere before rising in revolt. They didn’t repel the Japanese in the 1590s without considerable assistance from China. They were in no condition to repel the Qing, thanks to the Japanese, though they retained their independence. They didn’t repel the Japanese in the modern period at all, though they enlisted the aid of their largest, most powerful neighbors. In one sense — the continued existence of an entity which eventually became the modern Korean states — the term “withstood” is tolerable, but it still implies that Korea was largely unchanged by the experiences, and that wasn’t really true, either.

Then there’s the “unity defines survival” question: for most of Korea’s history there was a pretty sharp divide between aristocratic and commoner, as well as pretty significant unfree populations. I suppose you could argue that it was the unity of Korean elites which defined the cultural survival of Korea, but that still requires believing in some essential element persisting and also that Korean elites were actually unified, which seems quite questionable, especially in periods like the Koryo.

Finally, there’s “unity means conformity” which just makes my skin crawl. I’ll freely admit that it’s an American bias, but it also seems a long way to me from fashion conformity (which is fleeting and faddish) to national unity (which ought to be enduring and based on some kind of fundamental principles). The concept of the nation as sharing culture usually refers to an historical tradition; the idea of the nation as people who share fads is a significant degradation of an already questionable concept.

Addendum: The author of the Post article contact me, as he has everyone who’s blogged about his article, to alert us to a problem, namely that he’d neglected to use pseudonyms and alter identifying information for his students. This raises safety issues for their family members who are still in North Korea, and consequently he is asking that anyone who blogs about the article be careful to avoid identifying his students.

“Selling yourself” - one of those phrases we use in a somewhat metaphorical sense, but which nonetheless has a more literal meaning than we probably give it credit. In modern capitalist society, where pretty much anything can be commodified, we regularly sell our labour to others. To put this another way, we alienate part of ourselves in order to get the cash that we need to sustain ourselves. But in precapitalist societies such as Chosŏn, it was possible not just to sell part of oneself on a temporary basis but to sell oneself whole, to alienate one’s own body in perpetuity.

I recently came across some information about the Chosŏn practice of ’self sale’ (chamae 自賣) in volume 3 of the brilliant Chosŏn sidae saenghwalsa (History of everyday life in the Chosŏn dynasty) series, in the section on ‘famine foods’ (구황식품, 굶주림을 해결하라, pp. 196-217):

During repeated famine years, when people’s livelihoods became uncertain, some starving peasants sold themselves and their wives and children as slaves in order to guarantee at least some level of subsistence. The document created for this purpose was called a chamae mun’gi (contract of self-sale).

Here is an example of such a document, dating from 1815, from Andong in Kyŏngsang Province:

(Source: Donga Ilbo).

Interestingly, there is still a word used in everyday Korean which is clearly related to this practice and the more general Chosŏn practice of buying and selling slaves as commodities: momkap (몸값), literally ‘body-price’. Although nowadays it is used to mean the price of a prostitute or the cost of a ransom.

Actually, a project I’m currently working on has led me to think quite a bit about the question of slavery in Korean history. For anyone who is interested in a short and clear introduction to this topic, and the quite fierce debates that surround it, I would highly recommend reading the late James Palais’ essay ‘Slave society’ in the small booklet published in 1998 by Yonsei University under the title Views on Korean Social History. I seem to recall that there are one or two people in the US working on the subject of slavery in Chosŏn history for their PhD research, but I can’t remember who they are. Perhaps someone can enlighten me… And while I’m asking for enlightenment, perhaps our fellow mainland and archipelagan froggers would know whether similar practices of ’self-sale’ can be found in Chinese and Japanese history.

I guess it is not only my experience - looking upon the past and getting oneself surprised about “how could I say/do this?” 15 years ago, when I was a 3-year student, on exchange at Koryo University, I once suggested in a discussion with my advisor at that time, Prof. Cho Kwang, that the presence of the American troops in South Korea might have benefited the smooth development of Korea’s capitalism by bringing stability and defraying the security costs South Korea was in no position to shoulder in the beginning. Further, I lamented that no GIs were forthcoming to the USSR, in the pains of (what I considered at that time) “transition to democracy”. Prof. Cho was in a sort of consternation on having heard this revelation from his 18-year old charge, but, being possibly the gentlest person I have ever met in Korea (and, frankly, elsewhere as well), just limited himself to saying that foreign troops is not something a normal nation-state is supposed to depend upon. Well, if I were to hear something like my 1991 apologetic account of the GI presence from somebody today, I am afraid my reaction may be much harsher…. An interesting thing - in the USSR back in 1991, the positiveness of the attitude towards the former cold war enemy was in reverse proportion to the intensity of the Stalinist denunciations of “American imperialism”. Folks back then used to read Pravda assuming that the truth was the direct opposite of what was written - the sort of attitude NYT and WP readers seem to be seriously lacking. For many people around me, America was a sort of great unknown - and was assumed to offer some solutions for “our” problems - while the evils of Stalinist system were more than well known. And today, after 15 years, the malnutrition and chaos of the IMF-dominated early 1990s, after the ruins of Belgrade and Baghdad… I am afraid that if some bolder tourist company in Moscow would recruit clients for a week-long hunt for some unlucky GIs in cooperation with a business-minded Iraqi resistance group, the business would prosper. The euphoria of the early 1990s is gone, and a stubborn, strongly emotion-laden enemy picture has taken its place - after 15 years of getting better, more direct knowledge about what a combination of McDonalds with McDouglas (and also Harvard University - where many of the consultants for the “Yeltsin reforms” happened to come from) may mean for “the rest” of the world, and after a decade of economic growth, which, at least, gave a part of the urban middle classes an option of NOT going to the Russian branches/affiliates of the assorted Mcs hat in hand looking for a job.

So, a rule of thumb is here - a decade of more of being directly subject to GI presence/”shock therapy” on Dr.Reagan’s precepts/”vicarious assaults” (many people in Moscow or Beijing assumed that the bombs pouring upon Belgrade were pouring upon them too) and more + some degree of capitalist well-being (a more or less definite position inside the world capitalist system) = outpouring of the “anti-hegemonic sentiments”. Not to be confused with anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist ones - as the majority of those (reportedly up to 10 thousand) Muscovites who telephoned Iraqi embassy back in 2003 asking whether they may be of any help in the Defence of Baghdad, had no intention of defending Grozny against the assault of their “own” thugs in uniforms a couple of years before that. In fact, strongly nationalist/masculine/militaristic “anti-hegemonism” is largely destroying the ground for the real anti-imperialism/anti-capitalism - just like the way it happens with the NL (”national liberation”)-dominated Korean left today.

Back to Korea! The same rule of thumb applies here as well. Before 1945, when the “white men’s burden” was mostly borne “in the Korean field” by several hundred of missionaries, and for the majority of Koreans, even for those with some education, “America” was more of a myth than reality, “anti-Americanism” in Korea - if we do not count the official Japanese Imperial declarations against “Anglo-American beasts” after 1941 - amounted to very little. Well, Yun Ch’iho (1865-1945) bitterly complained in his diary about being racially insulted and gravely assaulted while in the US in 1888-1893, and struggled not to lose the newfound faith in the Protestant God in the sight of the dog-eats-dog realities of God’s “chosen country” - but he chose to follow a typically American combination of Protestantism and Social Darwinism, and did not explicitly criticise the US in his published Korean writings until it became a trendy issue at the beginning of the Pacific War. An Ch’angho (1878-1938) was in a perfect position to know what racism against “Orientals” meant, as he, unlike Yun, lived in the US as a migrant worker/activist, not as a student, but he chose a typical middle-class, Protestant trick of blaming the victim for its own victimization - and mostly criticized Koreans’ supposed lack of “hygiene”, “moral strength” and good manners, not the institutionalized racism of the host country. Pak Honyong (1900-1955), Korea’s great - if misled - Communist, made some good salvos against the American Myth back in 1925:

“세상은 米國建國의 역사를 보고 淸敎徒的 殉道의 정신과 英雄的 行爲가 충만하다고 찬미하나 그것은 표면만 본 皮相的 관찰이 아니면 그짓말로서 정확한 史實을 숨기는데 불과하다.
米國의 역사는 「土人虐殺」로 그 첫페이지가 열린다.
米國에 처음 이주한 歐洲人은 新領土의 森林과 荒野에 사는 土人을 放逐하고 土民을 학살하고 土人의 住家를 약탈하는 일이 彼等에게 上帝가 준 「神聖한 事業」이엿다. 원래 土人은 歐洲人의 移住에 대하야 적극적으로 능동적으로 방해한 것이 아니엇다. 그런데 和蘭人, 佛人, 英人, 西班人들은 基督敎의 博愛主義를 신봉하고 맘대로 土民의 住家를 蹂躪하고 粉碎하고 彼等을 虐殺 屠戮하고 그리고 서서히 彼等에게 愛의 福音을 선전하엿다.
神을 사랑하고 사람을 불상히 녀긴다는 淸敎徒는 토인의 土地를 약탈하고 土人의 가옥을 태우고 土人을 죽이고 토인을 죽이지 안해도 土人을 속이어 彼等의 富를 맨드럿다.” (”歷史上으로 본 基督敎의 內面”, < 개벽>, Issue 63, Nov. 1925, pp. 67-68)

“The first page of America’s history begins with the ‘massacre of the natives’” - NOBODY said this in such an open way in the whole 30-40 year-long history of Korea’s modern intelligentsia before Pak, and that may be one more reason to appreciate the contribution of the Communists to our modern ideological development. But then, the same Pak happened to believe in September 1945 that the invading GIs are “our liberators from a democratic country” (the Soviet Stalinists, who worked with him at that point, are partly to be blamed) - until the “democrats” sent him fleeing in September 1946. So, the pre-1945 “anti-Americanism” was a bookish exercise at best, without a systematic, independent approach, or sometimes just a simple personal reaction against mistreatment. In 1950-70, we have some intellectuals coming to the understanding that the externally imposed hegemonic power greatly limited the possible range of development for the country (the brilliant poet Kim Suyong, for example), but that did not come to the mass level even among the intellectuals - Korea was still too poor to allow itself the luxury of standing up to its Big Brother. And the breakthrough came, as is well-know, after Kwangju 1980 - when Korea accumulated enough experience with the “democratic liberators”, and when its middle classes became confident enough to question whether they needed their erstwhile benefactors any more. That is how I explain the origins of the “NL mood” among quite a big stratum of Korea’s educated (I do not necessarily speak about hardcore “chusap’a”). And I am sure, this phenomenon - just like back there in Moscow - will stay and flourish here, given the fact that the New Rome still did not learn to retreat gracefully.

The carnivals roll on: Nathanael Robinson hosted the last AHC, and did a very nice job. The next edition will be hosted by our very own Owen Miller in a week or so: get your nominations in soon! And we’re looking for more AHC hosts: we’ve got open spots from December on.

After a return engagement by founding host John McKay, the Carnival of Bad History is moving to England, where Natalie Bennett will be collecting historical turkeys for the pre-Thanksgiving edition.

As always, your best source for good history is the History Carnival, hosted this time at longtime contributor (especially to the Bad History carnival) Sergey Romanov. In two weeks, another edition: submit here. And the latest Early Modern edition of Carnivalesque features a tabloid cover and lots of great stuff. I believe they’re still looking for volunteers for hosts.

Almost forgot: The Cliopatria Award Nominations are open through November: Best Blogs (individual, group, new), Best Post (individual and series) and Best Writing. Pick your favorites and add ‘em to the list!

And Now, the News…

Daniel Sneider has a wonderful op-ed detailing the ongoing tensions in the US-South Korean relationship, belying the ballyhooed “best friend” meme.

Finally, because this is a Frog website, I have to share one of my son’s favorite sites, National Aquarium’s Frog Chorus. It’s like the blogging soundtrack we never had….

Mea maxima culpa. Due to a regrettable lack of focus on bloggerly things, I’ve let my carnival friends down. First, I never congratulated Roy Berman on a wonderful September AHC. If you haven’t read it yet, you should: he did a great job of rounding up and presenting the material, and it could well inspire you to …. submit to the upcoming carnival: That’s right, the next AHC is just days away (two days, to be exact), so get your nominations for your best work over the last month to Nathanael Robinson, Quickly!

While you’re considering what of your recent blogging is good you might also consider taking a look at the September Carnival of Bad History, and if you think any of your blogging is worthy, send it in to that one, which is also coming up shortly. If you’ve got history blogging which is more Early Modern (actually, they still need a host for October, which I can tell you, is really fun), or just plain ol’ Historical (Jeremy Boggs is hosting this weekend’s edition of the grand HC, and I have very high expectations), you’ve got plenty of outlets.

Finally, a rare political plug: American Historical Association Members needed for free speech resolution

For fun: the Kim Jong Il Random Insult Generator. Best one I got was “You ultra-right lackey, we will annihilate you with a fresh revolutionary upswing!” The News site that comes from is pretty substantial, too.