Interview in the dark

Interview with

Benjamin Joinau, "L'Atelier des Cahiers"

This short video interview (in French) with the publisher of 'Impressions papier hanji' was recorded in the middle of the summer and in the heart of Seoul (Seochon, Jongno-gu, my favorite neighborhood and Benjamin's new lair). I'm at my Bela Lugosi best, but this is about 'de Vermis Seoulis', haunting places, and the dark side of Seoul. 




Ce bref entretien vidéo avec l'éditeur d'"Impressions papier hanji" a été enregistré au coeur de l'été séoulite, et au coeur de la capitale (à Seochon, Jongno-gu - mon quartier préféré et le nouveau repaire de Benjamin). Ambiance sombre, mais il est question 'de Vermis Seoulis', de hantise, de fantastique, et du côté obscur de la ville.


See also / Voir aussi:

• "Impressions papier hanji" release (2011)
• "Impressions Papier Hanji" / Kindle" on Kindle, paperback (2012)
• L'Atelier des Cahiers

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LEE Seok-ki's Arirang Spring

Last week, North Korean propaganda confirmed that the nation was ready to invade the South in case of a pro-DPRK popular uprising.

This week, South Korean National Intelligence Services revealed a conspiration aiming at a pro-DPRK insurrection. The usual suspect? LEE Seok-ki, the member of the Unified Progressive Party (UPP) with the most documented history of norkphilia. He was rumored to have fled, but showed up at the National Assembly this morning (see "Lee Seok-ki Appears!" - The Marmot's Hole 20130829).

Of course, the best defense is a good offense, and both KIM Jong-un's regime and the NIS were feeling the heat: the former as the world braces for intervention against fellow WMD-lover Bashar al Assad, the second as the critics mount on the 2012 election scandal. The NIS is accused of manipulating public opinion ahead of the vote, and already detonated the "ROH Moo-hyun-NLL" scandal a couple of months ago as a Weapon of Mass Diversion.

BREAKING - according to NIS, #NorthKorea gas masks for #Syria were Gwangju surpluses smuggled through NLL (Agence Fausse Presse) ~,~ - @theseoulvillage 20130829theseoulvillage/status/372884583446228992

Note that UPP firebrands are convenient diversion tools for the conservatives: even if LEE Jung-hee eventually withdrew from the presidential ballot, she had time to torpedo the first two debates ("Time is up"), and her figure was used in the final hours of the vote as the ideal "devil" to mobilize the base behind their own lackluster candidate.

Trying to picture #LeeSeokki's #ArirangSpring: a dozen pro-NK gunmen parading among tourists on Gwanghwamun Square? Ask a Korean Dud - @theseoulvillage 20130829twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/372907761425588224

Are there crypto-kimilsungists in South Korea dreaming of a reunification under the Juche banner? Of course, just like you'll always find a few crypto-fascists dreaming of the return of dictatorship. Right now, the more visible minority of right and left wing radicals that keep polluting national politics, rewriting history, and preventing sound debates from emerging are more dangerous for the nation.


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Hashima, Yawata Steel: enshrining slave labor in UNESCO World Heritage List?

This year again, Japanese revisionists are pushing the candidacies of highly controversial industrial sites to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list: the island of Hashima (Nagasaki-ken) and Yahata Steel Works (aka Yawata Steel Works, Fukuoka-ken) are both intimately associated to forced labor under Imperial Japan rule.

'Nagasaki shipyard among old industrial sites named for World Heritage list' (The Japan Times 20130827)

This year, the provocation looks even more outrageous: the Prime Minister (Shinzo Abe) is the grandson of the war criminal in charge of forced labor in Hideki Tojo's cabinet (Nobosuke Kishi), and the Deputy Prime Minister (Taro Aso) and his family still have links to his father's company, Aso Mining company, then a massive 'consumer' of slaves.

My position hasn't changed since last October, when I mentioned the Hashima case under similar circumstances (see "Dokdo, Senkaku, Ieodo, Kuril,... Hashima?"): sites like Hashima cannot be listed, except as symbols of forced labor, for the world to remember past war crimes.

Again, that's not what people like Shinzo Abe or Taro Aso have in mind: they want to discreetly enshrine war crimes in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list, the way their predecessors discreetly enshrined war criminals in Yasukuni Shrine or Mount Sangane Cemetery**.

I can't help but feel nauseous when I read the submission in the tentative list ("The Modern Industrial Heritage Sites in Kyûshû and Yamaguchi" - whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5399): no, I don't consider forced labor to be the best model for "indigenous modernization" or "proactive importation of technology". And I don't think the UNESCO had in mind forced labor when it chose its first two criteria for selection: "1. to represent a masterpiece of human creative genius; 2. to exhibit an important interchange of human values".

Yet I do believe in a "Justification of Outstanding Universal Value" for Hashima, and I could even accept to see it listed among UNESCO World Heritage Sites... but only to to denounce forced labor and honor the slaves who suffered and died there.

Yes, Hashima could join sites like Auschwitz-Birkenau or the Island of Goree on the list.

But no, Hashima shouldn't be remembered as a "Modern Industrial Heritage Site". We've already read these "Arbeit Macht Frei" signs.


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** the latter by none other than Abe's grandfather: "The Elusive Independence Day - When will Japan officially proclaim its Independence from Imperial Japan?"

--- UPDATE 20130828 ---
Tentative list
Tweets about "#abeignomics"

 

KIM Han-sol - Episode IV, Striking Back At The Empire?

KIM Han-sol will study political sciences in Sciences Po Le Havre  (see "Un petit-fils de Kim Jong-il à Sciences po" (20130827 - L'Express).

The first time KIM Jong-nam's son (KIM Jong-un's nephew, KIM Jong-il's grandson, KIM Il-sung's great-grandson - NB: nothing to do with KIM Yu-na) made the world headlines was when he distanced himself from the North Korean dictatorship as Elisabeth REHN interviewed him for Yle, Finland's public broadcasting company (see videos below):







The teenager was then studying at the Mostar campus of United World College because Hong-Kong authorities didn't grant him a student visa, and BIH was a friendlier destination. Han-sol had less trouble living in another SAR, Macau, where his dad majored in Gambling magna cum laude, with an exchange student experience at Tokyo Disneyland University, and a Master's Degree in Fashion Disasters.

KIM Han-sol will not study at the main Sciences Po, the prestigious IEP Paris, Rue Saint-Guillaume. But Le Havre campus does makes sense: that's the one devoted to Europe-Asia, all courses are delivered in English, and there's even a Korean language program.

The main news, of course, is that a fourth generation KIM is venturing into politics, and for the first time, with notions of actual democracy reaching beyond the experience of life in a Western democracy.

And if you don't like KIM Han-sol's ear piercing, that's another positive leap forward from the previous generation:

KIM Jong-nam majored in Gambling magna cum laude at Macau International School of Jokers, was an exchange student experience at Tokyo Disneyland University, and got a Master's Degree in Fashion Disasters

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Germany and Japan: different ways of remembering war crimes and playing politics

No comment:

Germany and Japan: different ways of remembering war crimes and playing politics

• Angela MERKEL: the first German Chancelor to visit Dachau. Expresses "deep sadness and shame".The controversy: in Germany, a nation that faces its past and where honoring war criminals, Nazism, or the swastika flag is a crime, that's normal. But you don't do that during a political campaign: that's playing politics.

• Shinzo ABE: Japan's most shameless, unrepentent revisionist Prime Minister since his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, a war criminal who dedicated Mt Sangane to Hideki Tojo and Co. Regularly honors war criminals in Yasukuni.
  
  No controversy: in Japan, a nation that never recognized any war crime and where revisionists control the political system, honoring war criminals, Imperial Japan, or the Rising Sun Flag, that's normal. And you must do that to survive politically: that's playing politics as usual.

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Seoul, Our Movie

Amateur filmmakers, behold: Seoul city invite you to contribute to "Seoul, Our Movie", a project directed by PARK Chan-wook, with the help of his "PARKing CHANce" partner - and brother* - PARK Chan-kyong.

Documentaries, fiction films, even films created from still photos may apply, but your work shouldn't last more than 5 mn, or be a parody. Submit your video - with "Seoul" in the title - until November 9 on YouTube (youtube.com/seoulourmovie), and get all submission directions on seoulourmovie.com:

seoulourmovie.com

The man who delivered the vengence trilogy seems to be aiming at a movie with "some sort of extreme qualities":





I don't think blood is required. Not for a city like Seoul, full of extreme qualities.

Let me know if you posted something, I'm curious to see the result.

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* see "Brothers share passion, talent for Seoul film project" (The Korea Times - 20130821 - UPDATE)

France claims the British Isles at the United Nations

"France on Thursday made a presentation on its Partial Submission Concerning the Outer Limits of the Continental Shelf beyond 200 nautical miles to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ( UNCLOS).

France said the natural prolongation of the continental shelf of France extends to the British Islands and beyond 200 nautical miles from the baseline from which the breadth of the territorial sea of Britanny is measured.

According to the UNCLOS and its relevant provisions, if the continental shelf of a coastal state extends beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the width of the territorial sea is measured, information on the limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles shall be submitted by the coastal state to the CLCS under the UNCLOS."

Okay. Replace "France" with "China" and "British Isles" with "Okinawa Trough" and you get the core of the message released by Xinhua yesterday (see "China makes presentation on outer limits of continental shelf in East China Sea to UN" - Global Times - 20130816).

Here's the Okinawa Trough:

NB: the closest piece of land are Japan and Taiwan. And note that you can even find a few Koreans who also claim Okinawa.

And here's the continental shelf supporting the British Isles (obviously we frogs have a much easier case than the stretched Chinese one):

NB: I could also have made Denmark claim the British Isles (a perfectly rotten joke for the Bard), but my country has had a legitimate right to do so ever since Guillaume le Conquerant took over England, back in 1066 (yup, 900 years before England stole the Holy Grail from German barbarians - at one stage, a giant called Geoff supposedly did a dirty trick involving a hat).


PS: to my many British friends, please keep your shelf control, and remember that you invented humor. And yes, the ball crossed the line in 1966 (anyway according to recent news, that West Germany team was probably loaded).

Stephane

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