Up till now I’ve steered clear of the hysteria brought on by Korea resuming American beef imports. I’ve been following it closely in both the Korean TV news and in the expat blog circles, but haven’t asserted any opinion on here.
I saw a small and rather feeble protest this evening in front of Ulsan University, where seven students hung a sign saying “American Beef Shouldn’t Be in Our Mouths” and started chanting. But in the time I went into a store and came out ten minutes later, the protesters had stopped. I casually walked over to see if there’d be anything more in store.
Most interesting to me personally has been the fact that the protesters, and those who have been the most vocal, are mostly teenagers. I came across this article today via Marmot’s Hole, in which it describes how various Korean pop celebs have been coming out against US beef in what would appear to be a kind of populist revolt where both fans and celebs are more-or-less piggybacking one another. Most of it happening on the Internet.
Singer Kim Hee Chul, 25, from the popular boy band Super Junior, admitted on his website that he has been fretting over the news.
‘What should I eat in the future?’ he wrote, according to The Chosun Ilbo.
‘What if I should be so unlucky as to contract (CJD)?
CJD being “mad cow” disease. But keep in mind, he’s saying this after the uproar began. And it’s not as though he’s really coming out against anything.
My guess is that like the protest I saw today, this is going to die a quick death here very shortly. I’ve noticed the news channels have already stopped showing the decade old footage of a cow struck with CJD. I’m expecting some kind of slight acquiescence by the government, but nothing as weighty as this headline and story would suggest.
Indeed by the time I got to the scene I could see some guards at the school’s gate had asked the students to move their protest further to the right, as to not disrupt traffic.
5 responses so far ↓
1 baekgom84 // May 9, 2008 at 10:10 am
It’s a certainly a big issue here these days. All the Koreans at my school are talking about it and the feelings of concern seem to be unanimous. I find it really interesting that the pretty-boy pop groups like Superjunior and Dong Band Shin Gi are getting in on the act and encouraging their fanbases to protest. A lot of Korean kids live and breathe for these pop idols, so it makes me wonder how much of their protest is genuine concern and how much is unadulterated idol-worshipping.
2 Shinsano // May 9, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I’d say a lot of it is baekgom. I think it’s almost become a social trend, and I think the pop groups are using it to raise their own profiles. It’s actually an amazing thing to watch unfold. Very 21st century if I may say so. I think the process was somewhat similar when president Roh was elected.
3 Brian // May 9, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Brought the protests up at school today at my teachers’ workshops. Really surprised that how concerned my colleagues were about Mad Cow Disease. I showed them a couple articles on the scare-mongering tactics in the media, including one that talked about the “Koreans are genetically predisposed to Mad Cow Disease” business, yet they still believed that because a scientist said it and said it in the paper. Really irresponsible to get so worked up over chunks of misinformation. Then I showed them a Korean article in the Joongang Ilbo which talked with a Korean expert on the disease, in which he said the information was being incorrectly twisted to make it seem like MCD is a big risk. But as soon as I showed it to them they discounted it as false because it was in the Joongang Ilbo, “the government’s paper.”
When I brought up how many students were attending these rallies, that they were encouraged by teachers and by teachers’ unions, and that some got their motivation from pop stars and their websites, my colleagues said that I wasn’t taking the students’ intelligence and motives seriously enough.
And we did talk a little about those 2002 anti-American rallies. Hahaha, fun. (See, this is what happens when coteachers are unresponsive to all the normal workshop activities like “Dear Abbey” and boring newspaper articles. But at least it gets them fired up and talking.)
4 baekgom84 // May 10, 2008 at 2:17 am
Koreans certainly love a trend. I’ve had exactly the same reaction from both my co-workers and my students. Media biases and people’s susceptibility to it are certainly not unique to Korea, but at the risk of making a generalisation, I think Koreans often lack the jaded cynicism with which we often view these kinds of reports. There really needs to be a lot more accountability.
One thing’s for sure - Lee Myung-bak is not going to win any popularity awards right now. I’ve never come across a Korean who didn’t greet the very mention of his name with less than a grim scowl. I’ve no idea how he managed to get elected. Perhaps he was hated less than the other candidates.
5 Shinsano // May 10, 2008 at 12:07 pm
It’s interesting, Brian, that faced with a newspaper article discrediting the idea of that study that your fellow teachers chose to discredit the paper as a whole. That kind of situation shows that the issue at hand isn’t really the issue at all. It’s just an excersize in nationalism and anti-US sentiment.
And someone needs to start talking about the way dogs are treated and slaughtered in this country before this story ends up taking any more of a “Koreans: home of the humane animal slaughterhouse” angle.
On Lee’s popularity: I find it amusing he’s pulling in the same low 30s popularity numbers as Roh was this time last year.
Leave a Comment