In this week’s readings we looked at Hallyu, the AFKN Nexus, and cultural production in South Korea. What intrigued me was the idea of nationalism in both North and South Korea. The country split into two ended up becoming a playing field for the two powers that gave rise to the Cold War, capitalism, and communism. Both sides had their own definition for what made Korea, Korea, the sort of isms, the quintessential qualities that a Korean “should” have. The situation was similar to two children looking at the number 6 from opposite sides. One of the children sees the number 9, but the other child sees the number 6. They’re both right, but they can both be wrong too. It’s all based on perspective and an understanding that people have different ideologies they believe to make sense of the world.

Colonialism and the idea of cultural imperialism plays such a big role in globalism, especially for America. America likes to be the big brother of the world, butting into places and promoting Western Exceptionalism. As Klein’s reading tells us, there is a major military presence around the world. The presence of U.S military serves a dual purpose, not only is it to police embassies and protect sites of U.S interest, it is also a way to tell the world that the U.S has its hand in everything, a remnant of maritime warfare strategy that Teddy Roosevelt believed in, “Speak softly, but carry a big stick.” Introducing people outside of America to Western media creates new fan viewership and customers who thus working into capitalism. The media that Korea was creating was constantly in comparison to Hollywood, which led to a shift in the movie-making industry to not only appeal to a Korean audience, but a global audience as well.

The idea of Han, speaks to the pain and sorrow of the Korean people for the hardship they endured, including the occupancy by the Japanese. The Japanese took over the cultural production of Korea and also did their best to get rid of the historical content in Korea. By eliminating a culture, you eliminate a part of a country’s identity. In return the State Controlled Korea attempted to restore Korean culture by promoting and regulating content. All content was made to promote “Koreanism”, and there was little wiggle room for complaints. While the intent was well meant, it only bottlenecked people more because they had just escaped control, only to be controlled again. At the time, especially after 2 World Wars, the world was already in the process of globalization. By lifting the bans, and giving artists more room for personal expression and development, Hallyu was born.

Above are two separate links to the same instance in both movies called My Sassy Girl . The first is the original movie made in Korea starring Tae-Hyun Cha and Ji-Hyun Jun, and the second is a , and the second is a 2008 remake starring Elisha Cuthbert, and Jesse Bradford. My Sassy Girl is the first Korean movie I ever watched, with subtitles of course. My Korean friend in junior high school showed this film to me and I couldn’t stop laughing until the movie got incredibly emotional. The reason I picked these two scenes is because while they are both conceptually the same, the fact that a remake was made for U.S audiences featuring American actors just goes to show that movie directors and producers believed that this was a profitable venture. It also goes to show that culture doesn’t just flow one way. The readings talk about Japanese influence and US military influence in Korea, but now thanks to Hallyu, not only does outside culture flow into Korea, but Korean culture flows outward to the rest of the world as well, reassuring and reaffirming the mutable and mercurial nature of this intangible thing we call culture.

Out of the three readings we had this week, what resonated with me the most was Minh-Ha T. Pham’s article, Racial Plagiarism & Fashion. I am too used to hearing the terms cultural appropriation/appreciation more so because I am an MCC major, and am a student at a socially conscious institution like NYU. By critiquing Marc Jacob’s ignorance and cultural appreciation, I see how both of these terms can be problematic.

Cultural Appreciation attempts to deny/remove the legitimacy of voices that are in protest by claiming that their disproval is invalid because the author had the pure intent of admiring aspects of a different culture for its aesthetic qualities.

This point relates to Crystal S. Anderson’s point on page 298 and 299 of, Hybrid Hallyu: The African American Music Tradition in K-Pop. “the commodification of soul reduces blackness to a commodity that could be bought and sold – and – this is important – without the cultural and social markers that have defined blackness.”  People can appreciate the artistry and aesthetic qualities of blackness, but at the end of the day, they are still free from the stigmas and prejudices that African-Americans still face today. As a friend once told me, if you’re going to sit with us at the dinner table, at least stick around for when things get bad.

” This commodification opens up the performance of soul to anyone but also makes it possible to level charges of inauthenticity of performances by non-black performers.” Sometimes it’s not just commodification but cultural flows in tandem with commodification that explain why cultures clash with each other and even exchange. Pham is careful in making this significant distinction by writing, “If racial plagiarism is not about cultural appreciation, it is also not about cultural sharing and diversity…this kind of copying produces social and material enclosures rather than cultural exchange.”

What immediately came to mind while going through these readings was the webpage Stuff White People Like, also known as SWPL. SWPL was created by Christian Lander in January in 2008 and is a satire featuring a list of over one-hundred things consisting of activities, foods, and trivia, that White people partake in.

In this video Lander is in a video talking about several topics on the list of Stuff White People Like that consists of 136 topics as of today. He points out there’s almost never a situation where it’s not appropriate for White women to wear yoga clothes and how some of them are turning a gigantic profit out of appropriated Yoga. Another example he brings up is how White parents refuse to have their children vaccinated out of fear that they might catch something worse than diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and other diseases.

Some of the items that are on the list that Lander doesn’t talk about in the video include: #129 Banksy, #101 Being Offended, #96 New Balance Shoes, #73 Gentrification, #62 Knowing What’s Best For Poor People, #55 Apologies, # 45 Asian Fusion Food, #5 Farmer’s Markets, and #20 Being an Expert on YOUR culture.

Part of the reason comedy thrives, especially satire, is because it wouldn’t be funny if it weren’t true. There is a level of truth in the joke that makes us laugh. However, there is a problem with this list. What this list seems to look like a list of activities that White people love to do, in actuality there is a power relation between them and people of other cultures that fails to be mentioned. This makes them look like Omnivores people with an empty plate at the cultural buffet table picking out what appeals to them. Of course one of the most beautiful things about culture is that it can be shared and exchanged, but there’s a difference from exchanging and one-sided consumption as Pham pointed out.

Consuming something because you like it is something all of us do repeatedly on an everyday basis, whether it’s lifestyle choices, the food we eat, the music we listen to, and the places we frequent. There is a level of responsibility that we must adhere to so we avoid mindless consumption. Instead of constantly consuming we have the choice of slowing down, doing our homework and actually looking at the origins, the histories and their peoples before we move on to the next thing. If it’s not a part of your culture, look into it, you may learn something new that you didn’t before. Cultural flows can be a beautiful thing. One way or another in the 21st century we’re going to be exposed to cultures other than our own. We’re all alive here and now, the least we can do is try to understand and respect each other.