What’s the problem with feeling good?
Posted by ampontan on Friday, February 13, 2009
THOSE CONSUMERS of the news produced by the print, broadcast, and Internet media who pay close attention to the content they receive realize that at least 90% of it is intentionally presented to manipulate their emotions—usually in an unpleasant, negative way. The idea is that most people are suckers for the cheap entertainment of cheap thrills, and they’ll keep coming back for more as long as it’s mildly interesting and easy to access. Newspapers wouldn’t survive without them, and television is nothing but one long cheap thrill, broadcast 24/7.
Nowhere is this principle more evident than in the international coverage of Japanese-Korean relations. Overseas observers could be forgiven if they thought the citizens of the two countries were possessed by a mutual revulsion so powerful it prevented any kind of meaningful reconciliation or interaction. More than a few members in the Korean print media are actively complicit in creating that impression, though this tone in the coverage of bilateral relations is largely absent in Japan.
But that’s the hidden price one pays for trusting media content.
While some mutual revulsion may remain, it has largely given way to more realistic, up-to-date, and practical considerations, as I’ve repeatedly pointed out on this site. Most normal people under the age of 70 no longer have time for this nonsense in their 21st century lives, unless the media is their substitute for a hookah.
Another example of the growing importance of what I’ve called the Kyushu-Busan paradigm (see here and here) was on display last week, though it went largely unremarked by the media outside the immediate region. It seems that some people just don’t enjoy good vibrations.
A ceremony was held on 2 February in Busan, South Korea, to mark the start of the Fukuoka-Busan Friendship Year commemorating the 20th anniversary of official ties between the two cities. Roughly 1,400 attended the ceremony, including business and political leaders from Kyushu and the southeastern Korean Peninsula.
Said Busan Mayor Hur Nam-sik:
Cooperation between the two cities in such sectors as the economy, culture, and tourism will contribute to the peace and prosperity of all of Northeast Asia.
During his address, Fukuoka City Mayor Yoshida Hiroshi said:
We have taken the first step toward the realization of the supranational economic sphere concept. I hope we become pioneers in the integrated development of Asia.
Does that sound like mutual revulsion to you? It sounds to me like people getting on with the business of being alive and realizing that it’s in everyone’s best interests to enjoy the company of their neighbors on the opposite shore of the Korea Strait.
Quite a bit was achieved during the ceremonies. The chambers of commerce of both cities signed a formal partnership agreement, as did two municipal-affiliated cultural organizations.
Arrangements were also made for the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks of the Japanese major leagues to play an exhibition against the Busan Lotte Giants this August in Busan and next spring in Fukuoka. The major league teams will be involved in their respective seasons this year, so only the minor league affiliates will take part, but the big boys will square off during exhibition season next March.
For entertainment, there was a joint performance by the Seika Girls High School Brass Band of Fukuoka City and a dance team from Busan. Ah, well. Perhaps television does have its uses after all.
Beware of the temptation to dismiss the whole affair as an empty municipal government exercise in feeling good. Follow the links above and you’ll discover that it’s just the latest positive step in a regional relationship that is several millennia old.
A subsequent survey conducted by the Nishinippon Shimbun in Fukuoka City and the Busan Ilbo in Busan turned up two interesting facts, however.
First, 70% of the people in both cities don’t even know that this is the Fukuoka-Busan Friendship Year. That’s not surprising—the larger events are scheduled for later, and the activities so far have been confined mostly to business and governmental circles.
The second fact is more important, however: More than 60% of the respondents in both countries said that this sort of regional exchange should continue even if relations between the national governments turn temporarily sour, as sometimes happens.
And there you have the big story. It is inevitable that the regional ties between these two areas will continue to thrive despite all the flaming arrows, finger-chopping, pheasant-killing, flag-burning, textbook editing, and political grandstanding and demagoguery that provide the kindling for the cheap thrills served cold at the breakfast table or hot in the comment section of hyperactive blogs.
It’s curious. Everyone likes good news in their lives. Why don’t they like it in the world?
Afterwords: Thanks to Margaret, Martin F., Trapped in Brazil, and new friend Waynenet for their kind comments while I was taking care of business. Once you get out of a groove, it’s sometimes hard to get back in again!
Marc Sheffner said
“the supranational economic sphere concept”. Sounds kinda tame. How about something with a bit more pizazz, like, oh, I dunno, Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere? Oh, wait. Somebody already used that.
No news is good news. What else is new?
Get A Job, Son! said
Once again you highlight that on the ground, relations between both nations are not as some like to portray. It is good to see that not only are the local community/business leaders are working to build bridges, but that…
“60% of the respondents in both countries said that this sort of regional exchange should continue even if relations between the national governments turn temporarily sour, as sometimes happens”
… which can only be a good thing.
As an aside (and I hope I don’t start another battle here), this image (fake?) from another blog is another way of putting a similar message forward.
http://partypooperwontdie.blogspot.com/2009/02/dokdo-update.html
PS… Welcome back! Its been too quite around here.
bender said
Overseas observers could be forgiven if they thought the citizens of the two countries were possessed by a mutual revulsion so powerful it prevented any kind of meaningful reconciliation or interaction. More than a few members in the Korean print media are actively complicit in creating that impression, alas, though this tone in the coverage of bilateral relations is largely absent in Japan.
Exactly. I’ve been told several times by Americans that the Japanese are reluctant to admit they’re genetically close to Koreans. Now nothing is farther from the truth- no, not the fact that the Japanese and Koreans are genetically close, but that most Japanese are reluctant to admit this. My sense is that most actually do. I bet this is one of those urban legends regarding the “snobbish Japanese” that originated from…well, you guess where.
BTW, if someone starts saying that the Japanese are 100% Korean blood, which I tend to hear from you guess where, that can’t be true, either.
Aceface said
“Exactly. I’ve been told several times by Americans that the Japanese are reluctant to admit they’re genetically close to Koreans.”
This is probably from the same group who think “Japanese are reluctant to admit the dark side of the colonial past”.No?
Anyway,hostility is pretty much one sided and that probably helps Korean sustain their hostility to Japanese,since it is risk free and feel good.
bender said
Of course there are risks. Hatred gets into your mind.
But so far I haven’t seen any hatred/friendship issues between Koreans and Japanese in the real world, so I suspect most of the stuff is media-fabricated.
Ken said
The Japanese and Koreans are not genetically close at all as I quoted before.
The Japanese have the Y-chromosome of D-ancestry line at high ratio as follows.
Mainland Japanese: 42 to 56%, Ainu people: 88%, Okinawa people: 56%
Other races that have D-ancestry line are Tibetans (33%) and Middle & Near Easterners.
On the other hand, Koreans have almost 0% of it but belong to O-ancestry line close to Mongolians and the Chinese because of repeated conquest.
D-ancestry line is very old one close to E-ancestry line which Mediterranean and Middle Easterners have.
Culture wise also, two well-known Korean ladies say Japan and Korea have rather opposite culture.
Interestingly they are of both side of anti-Japan, Jeon Yeook who got to dislike Japan after living for a few years there and wrote ‘There Is No Japan’, and pro-Japan, O Seonhwa who once disliked Japan alike but overcame culture wall by ‘Do as the Romans do’.
bender said
Of course the Japanese and Koreans are closely related:
http://www.jref.com/culture/origins_japanese_people.shtml
I’m sure if you look into the mirror, you look just like them. Unless you come from Okinawa or some fringe parts of honshu.
BTW, Y-chromosome only tells who the paternal ancestors are. And I seriously doubt Y-chromosomes determine human behavior.
Aceface said
I’m a bit uneasy about this DNA thing.It gets creepier as the debate gets heated.It’s a bad legacy from Japanese/Korean national psyche of “Pure Blood Nation”.
Anyway,it’s not the genes that sets the tone of the bilateral relation.
Bender said
We are one people, Homo sapiens. Gene markers are useful in knowing where people might have come from, but it has nothing to do with superiority, intelligence, etc.
Bender said
Oh, but I happen to come from planet Berserk, so leave me out.
tomojiro said
Well, I guess Ken is getting his information from Yahoo message boards (and probably from Chanel 2).
http://messages.yahoo.co.jp/bbs?.mm=GN&action=m&board=1143583&tid=a1fcffckdcbfma4h4z9qbfma4n0deabbra4oa4a4af0dba4ja4ja4dea49&sid=1143583&mid=1&thr=1&cur=1&dir=d
Of course, Japanese and Korean have common rootes. Archaeology, Linguistics and historical research all point to that. And of course biological and Bio anthroplogical findings points to that, too.
The debates recently among serious scholars are (as far as I know), whether the ratio of the people who came from the continent to Japan after the beginning of the Yayoi period (continuing till BC1000) are as much as over 70% as once Prof. Hanihara from the Tokyo Uni. has estimated in the midth 90ies.
Some says that it was less than 50%, some say more. But that are minor difference. And I guess the report about newly estimated C14 data about the beginnging of the Yayoi period from the National Musem of Japanese History (国立歴史民俗博物館） complicates it further.
It indicates that actually the beginnging of the Yayoi period (and thus migration of people from mainly the “peninsula”) goes further back 500 years ago than conventionaly accepted. (thus BC.8 rather than BC.3).
Ken said
As for me, I do not look like them, though. Who do you say that to? Yourself?
First of all, the southern most area of Korean peninsula was Japanese colony and the neighboring other tribal area was allying with Japan based on ancient Japanese document.
Tang wiped out those areas and some of the people were thought to have come from there to Japan based on it.
Koreans consider themselves as the teachers for Japan based on the latter record while they deem the former record about colony as Japanese fabrication with using same document.
It is apparent there is no succession from those newcomers to current Koreans and also the connection between then-existed people in Korea and current Koreans is suspicious.
Did anyone say Y-chromosomes determine human behavior?
Tomojiro was wrong. That was originally from Enjoykorea.
Aceface said
Dude…..
ROK Drop Weekly Linklets - February 15, 2009 | ROK Drop said
[...] what the relationship between the national governments of Japan and Korea may be, the cities of Fukuoka and Busan seem to be getting along just [...]
tomojiro said
Men, Ken
Please try to read some books. Internet informations are great sometimes but it must be taken with large grains of salt.
>First of all, the southern most area of Korean >peninsula was Japanese colony and the neighboring >other tribal area was allying with Japan based on >ancient Japanese document.
>with Japan based on ancient Japanese document.
“Nihon-shoki” and “Kojiki” are basicly accumulations of historical myth which were written down with political intention. Thus, it needs to be interpreted carefully by historians. Nobody,NOBODY serious about histories takes this book at face value.
Enjoy Korea…,dude….
Ken said
Men, Tomojiro,
Thanks but I will not. Please try to read my comments carefully.
I just wanted to point out the contradiction that their cherry-picking of taking same document as truth and fabrication, not state that is historical truth.
“Enjoy Korea…,dude….”…dude.
camphortree said
Tomojiro,
Not only Kojiki and Nihonshoki, but also Chinese famous history book known as 魏志倭人伝 recorded that southern tip of the Korean Peninsular state named 狗邪韓国 was the starting point of the territory of the Wa-states when Wei dynasty dispatched 張政 mission to Japan. Wa states’ Wajin were proto-Japanese as you know. The Wajin were aggressive sea traders as well as fishermen and farmers. It was natural that they made their home and business settlements on both sides across the Korea Strait, one of their most familiar waters. In S.Korea prior to Japan’s Yayoi Period, there exist some Jomon archaeological sites with bunch of Jomon potteries. The Jomon settlements were along the Rakutong River that pours into the Korea Strait near Tsushima. Both Jomons and Yayoians made their settlements on adjacent sides of the sea waters. It just happened that in the particular era when Chinese 魏志倭人伝 recorded, settlers in the southern most tip of the Korean Peninsula were more populated and dominated by proto-Japanese called wajin than whoever the natives happened to have been.
The beginning of rice planting in Japan does not match the Yayoians bones appearing time(BC400). What matches with this time is the arrival of the bronze tools that originated from 遼寧省、China(BC400~BC200). It appears that initial Yayoians were not rice farmers, but bronz salesmen from Northern China and Korean Peninsula.
Here is a history of rice planting in Japan.
BC4,000 Jomon Period. Asanebana ruins, Okayama. Rice plant opals mixed in the Jomon layers. Slash and burn farming or planting type. This site is well known since NHK TV has broadcast.
BC3500 Jomon Period. Minamimizote ruins, Okayama. Rice plant opals inside the Jomon potteries.
BC2,500 Jomon Period. Himesasahara ruins, Okyayama. Rice plant opals inside Jomon potteries.
BC700~1,000 Nabatake ruins, Saga. Yayoi Period. This is the first known irrigated rice farm in Japan. All the potteries in the Nabatake are Jomon style. However, farming tools were newly introduced Yayoi styles that were about the same as the ones excavated in the Dongsamdon ruins, southern tip of the Korean Peninsula. Near Nabatake, the Japan’s first southern Korean Peninsular style dolmen burials exist. All the occupants of the Korean style dolmens were Jomon people.
Many Japanese archaeologists concluded that the first rice was brought to Japan by Jomons 4,000~6,000 years ago.
The first irrigated rice farms were also planted by Jomons 3,000~2700 years ago.
The seeds were probably from Korea.
As Tomojiro stated the irrigated rice farming starts BC1,000 in both Korea and Japan at around the same period of time. Japanese other archaeological site shows BC 1,000 old rice preserved in the Jomon pottery.
Before Yayoians arrived, the Jomons were active on both sides of the Korea Strait for thousands of years.
In Magarida archaeological site, Fukuoka, 60% of the pottery is Jomon and 30% is Yayoi. Both styles were co-existing in the same village. 10% of the pottery is yet to be determined. No archaeological evidence of any fighting or warring between the Jomons and Yayoians has been found.
Below is the comparison of DNA between Japanese, Koreans, Northern Chinese, Southern Chinese and Tibetans. Enjoy.
http://bbs.jinruisi.net/blog/2008/10/000458.html
Japanese are obviously a hybrid of Jomons and Yayoians from all the way around the archipelago.
Japanese are descendants of Jomons as Ken stated. Jomons’ DNA got exterminated both from China and Korea for whatever reason.
Japanese are as much southern Chinese as Koreans are.
Korans are as much Chinese as northern Chinese are.
20,000 years ago, Siberian mammoth hunters came to both Korea and Japan.
8,000 years ago, mysterious Kuroshio sea current riders made their way to Japan probably from the sunken continent,
Sundaland that existed around Indonesia.
The list goes on but, I better stop here.
Aceface said
Japanese are people with Japanese passport,period.
tomojiro said
Whoa, serious mistake in my post.
“The debates recently among serious scholars are (as far as I know), whether the ratio of the people who came from the continent to Japan after the beginning of the Yayoi period (continuing till BC1000) are as much as over 70% as once Prof. Hanihara from the Tokyo Uni. has estimated in the midth 90ies.”
….(continuing till AD 700)….
Sorry, all!
Ken said
Camphortree, long time no see.
Just I would have liked to let him correct the comment, ‘they’re genetically close to Koreans.’ but your uploaded site is ‘Chessmen out of gourd’.
I have read 2 kinds of reports on above gene issue but did not quote them this time because I had thought before-mentioned theory as primitive knowledge in Japanology.
I am interted in your site not only because Japanese researcher is investigating own unique roots but also the gene distribution is analized with the view point of civilization.
What I would have liked to empahsize above is culturural difference alike and I am not intersted in such an obsolete lesson as the order of both language is similar or so.
There is little passive voice expression in Korean and they very seldom use it according to O Seonhwa.
On the contrary, there are many passive expressions in Japanese such as ‘be jilted by girlfriend’, ‘be deserted by wife’, etc.
So she calls Japanese culture as ‘that of passive’ and Japanese people as ‘always-reflecting people’.
On the other hand, there are ‘the culture of Han’ in Korea, which she think Japanese can never understand.
Han is literaly translated to grudge but she says it is not suitable for that.
In case of other people, if one is abused, he/she may bear grudge against those who abused him/her.
But in case of Koreans, they set there-existing counterpart as enemy with thinking that it is him/her who is suffering them now even if the very person has not abused them.
She says the structure of this sentiment has been formed through history and the Japanese, who they regard as inferior people, are the best target of Han.
On this context, I can understand the famous precepts of HONDA about Korea by Honda Souichirou.
Trapped in Brazil said
Maybe because there is little ethnical diversion in someplaces, people tend to search for a racial ranking, but after living in a place with different cultures, I think there are no inferior/superior races, but rather, inferior/superior philosophies. Now wich one is superior, I don´t know, I am not of the divine kin.
About the fearfull news, it is the same old “need for an external enemy so my people will forgive/forget my huh… screwing up things badly…”. Luckly, as people from all over the world tend to interact more (be it by travel, cellphones or internet) they realize that there are no child-eating-monster-with-sharp-fangs-and-claws out there.
(By the way, I left Tv, magazines and newspapers out of the ways for people to interact because of the very reasons Ampontan made this topic).
Bender said
Here’s a famous passive sentence, most recent usage by Bill Clinton:
Mistakes were made.
camphortree said
Here is a passive sentence spoken by Hillary Clinton on Jan. 20, 2008.
“I think that we, Senator Obama and I, are blessed to have strong, passionate
spouses.”
ampontan said
Not about Japan, but since Camphortree brought up Obama and passive in the same sentence…
It’s beginning to look as if the biggest problem of an Obama administration will be his passive approach to just about everything. No decision-making ability, no consistency, no clear direction…
This was obvious during the campaign, as well as his lack of experience at doing anything really important, much less being a leader in anything important, but sometimes style triumphs over substance. (Not that his opponent was much more substantial, but at least he had serious life experience.)
Adlai Stevenson, who ran against Eisenhower twice and lost, once said, “In America, anyone can grow up to be President. That’s the chance you have to take.”
Still true today.
bender said
Sounds just like Japanese politicians.