The excellent Korean politics and history blog, Popular Gusts, found this image from 1990:
Student: I should stop my mother from buying imported food.
Teacher: Hmm… That is a good idea.
Teacher: Why don’t we all follow our mothers to the market and monitor them?
Everybody: O.K.!!! [The last Korean word might better be translated as “Yes, Sir!!”]
This attitude remains strong in South Korea even into the mid-2010s.
The entire Left and much of the Right (except its leadership) share this attitude. It may be the most-vigorous strand of Korean political thought that I noticed. It may “come from” the left-wing, but as its real appeal is on nationalistic-racialistic grounds, the right-wing “doth not protest too much”. There thus being little opposition, conformism takes care of any stragglers who didn’t get the memo (the apolitical, not-particularly-racialistic bloc).
The entire Left and much of the Right (except its leadership) share this attitude. It may be the most-vigorous strand of Korean political thought that I noticed. It may “come from” the left-wing, but as its real appeal is on nationalistic-racialistic grounds, the right-wing “doth not protest too much”. There thus being little opposition, conformism takes care of any stragglers who didn’t get the memo (the apolitical, not-particularly-racialistic bloc).
There are so many examples I could cite, from my time in Korea. One is the U.S. Beef Ban. Many may not remember this, but American beef was banned for years in Korea, and it is still, in some ways, defacto banned, after a phony “crisis” was manufactured a few years ago about American beef allegedly being tainted.
In reaction to that “crisis”, they passed a law requiring that all restaurants and markets post their meat-products’ countries of origin. In my time in Korea, from 2009 to 2014 (not all consecutive), never once did I ever see any restaurant selling a beef-product from the USA, from the cheap “분식” [minute-food] places to the “meat buffets” to even American chain restaurants like “T.G.I. Friday’s”. Some had American pork, but none ever had American beef.
I saw this at a Lotteria fast-food restaurant:
In reaction to that “crisis”, they passed a law requiring that all restaurants and markets post their meat-products’ countries of origin. In my time in Korea, from 2009 to 2014 (not all consecutive), never once did I ever see any restaurant selling a beef-product from the USA, from the cheap “분식” [minute-food] places to the “meat buffets” to even American chain restaurants like “T.G.I. Friday’s”. Some had American pork, but none ever had American beef.
I saw this at a Lotteria fast-food restaurant:
“Australian Beef, Clean and Safe” / Burger wrapper from Lotteria (a fast-food chain), Gwangju, Korea, Fall 2013.
On the wrapper is an official-seeming seal certifying that this burger has Australian beef, which is “clean and safe”
The full phrase in Korean is “호주청정우”. I recognize the first word as “Australia”, and the last word as [an abbreviated way to say] “Beef”. My dictionary translates the middle word, “청정”, as “pure, immaculate, clean, spotless, stainless, unsullied, undefiled, unpolluted.” By implication, U.S. beef is the opposite of those things.
Korean-grown beef is way too expensive to be economical. Lotteria now sells a “Hanwoo burger” — Hanwoo means “Korean-grown beef”. It’s far-and-away their most-expensive menu item.
The full phrase in Korean is “호주청정우”. I recognize the first word as “Australia”, and the last word as [an abbreviated way to say] “Beef”. My dictionary translates the middle word, “청정”, as “pure, immaculate, clean, spotless, stainless, unsullied, undefiled, unpolluted.” By implication, U.S. beef is the opposite of those things.
Korean-grown beef is way too expensive to be economical. Lotteria now sells a “Hanwoo burger” — Hanwoo means “Korean-grown beef”. It’s far-and-away their most-expensive menu item.
Here is another part of the 1990 cartoon distributed to students:
This cartoon’s pictures are self-explanatory. “If we open our market to foreign foods, all the Korean farms will fail, farm babies will starve, and we will be dependent on foreigners for food”. The last box features a man in a traditional Korean outfit pleading for “A bit of rice, please”. The White man in the boat (who is smoking a pipe in the style of the famous photos of General MacArthur) mockingly glowers down at him. “How much ya got?”
Translation
White Man: [Scheming] “Let’s make it expensive”.
Korean: [In Panic and Despair] “How can we survive if it costs so much?”
White Man: [Haughtily] “If you think it’s expensive, then don’t buy it!” [Whistles]
White Man: [Scheming] “Let’s make it expensive”.
Korean: [In Panic and Despair] “How can we survive if it costs so much?”
White Man: [Haughtily] “If you think it’s expensive, then don’t buy it!” [Whistles]
(But thanks, anyway, for the trillions in net aid [in today’s dollars] you’ve given us, for your ongoing military protection, for liberating us from Japan, and for saving us from Communism….)
Hanwoo.. so expensive, but so good.