Amazingly refreshing reading of ‘Gee’. I can actually enjoy this video now :)
Here’s a brief essay about the use of doll imagery in K-pop, along with an excellent collection of additional resources.
One of the videos mentioned here is Girls’ Generation’s “Gee.” It’s the first one that came to mind for me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s true for many others. But…
I do not believe in punishment. I abhor the notion that after a ‘wrongful’ act is committed, we must balance the ‘cosmic’ scale of ‘justice.’ I believe this scale in fact exists within people, and it’s real name is ‘vengeance.’ Practicality and understanding are by far the best tools for dealing with crime. Humane treatment of criminals is not only ethical, but is also more likely to stop re-offense.
Watching a documentary a few nights ago about a prison in America, I was reminded of my tour of Sachsenhousen, a German ex-concentration camp. The way that we look back on these concentration camps, labour camps and prisoner of war camps is with regret, disgust, horror. And yet it still occurs. Granted, the conditions don’t compare, but I can still imagine, in a few hundred years, tours of ex-prisons taking place to scare, shame and lightly entertain tourists. “And here we have the cells, the exercise yard and the electric chair. In the modern era criminals were de-humanised, locked away in inhumane conditions and often killed. In a corrupt prison they might also be beaten, raped and humiliated. This was seen as normal at the time.”
Perhaps you might ask how I an compare the suffering of rapsits, murderers and theives to innocent Jews, dissidents and homosexuals. For me it comes down to this. Guilty people still suffer. To believe it is OK to hurt people sometimes depending on their acts is to dehumanise them. Dehumanisation is a way of committing atrocious acts against other humans without regret.
I stand against the suffering of all people on the grounds that they are people, not that they are innocent. I won’t allow my ‘selfish dog’ to make me take pleasure in vengeance. I will strive to understand criminality, and although I’m not Christian, to love the sinner and hate the sin.
I’m ill, which means I’ve been watching a lot of ITV daytime TV and in general it’s not the kind of channel that makes me nod my head and applaud in agreement their political views and the views of their guests. In fact I kind of like to watch because it will get me riled up ha.
One of my views that usually gets a lot of opposition from ITV daytime, Daily Maily types is my disagreement with punishment. And my hope that people will become more thoughtful about morality and practicality rather than conceding to their ‘selfish dog’ - their despair and rage - in an attempt to try to balance some kind of ‘cosmic scale’ of justice. To me, it’s no better than ‘an eye for an eye’.
One of the most common arguments I hear from people who do believe in punishment is this - “That’s easy for you to say, but what if something happened to you or your family? I bet you’d feel differently then.”
Well here’s what a guest said on ‘Daybreak’ today.
He was on to speak about 9/11. His father had died in the south tower. When asked if he felt any anger, or if he still harbored any anger he said that it actually made him think about how small the world is. It made him realize that terrible things like this are happening all the time. And now that it has happened to him, when before they seemed so detached from himself on the TV, he realizes their significance.
Me: “How thoughtful, such a rare, thoughtful answer.”
When asked how he’s coped her said he’s been focusing on the his own thought that there is hope, that there is a light in the darkness and he mentioned his disagreement with retalliation and ‘getting our own back’.
Me: *Applauds*
I was very happy after watching that.
Anyway just wanted to share that =)
I love how this line translates..
난널 널 생각하면 너무아파 아파아파
When I think of you it really hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
But literally..
As for me, you.. you I think about if.. It really hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
Was listening to Love is So Difficult as well, I love how slowly they sing because I managed to translate the verses as I listened. I normally spend half the song decoding one line ha.
음악이
Ahh what is it about music? I have such an odd music taste, it’s rare to find someone to share with.. so I’ll share with you.
I remember when I was ill on that last day in Berlin, he was being lovely as usual and sat for hours in a cafe with me until I felt well enough to go a museum. I was so uncomfortable, all I could do was sit, listen to my headphones and stare at the fountain out the window. And in the end it was better than pain killers. It was so soothing to really listen to songs that I’d heard so many times before and appreciate the musical layers and the meaning. Some of them I hadn’t listened to properly since before I learned Korean so it was fun have a go at translating.
I start to think to myself.. these are some of the most beautiful songs ever.. and yet anyone else who hears them rights them of as rubbishy pop. I can see what they mean, but they can’t seem to ever see it, or hear it, with my ears.
It’s OK though, I understand why, music is most pleasurable to us when we associate with something else, it’s a very personal thing, kind of like smells.
So here are the songs that made me feel better that day.
‘Somebody to love’ is a song I used to listen to when I was blissfully happy, doing my Korean homework sat on his bed. I also for some reason love the way GD says ‘when I say somebody, then you say..’ it’s just so relaxed and calming..
In the club is a song I’ve always loved but has really touched me recently as I worked out what some of the lyrics in the chorus meant.
In the club 오늘밤 그에게 - tonight for you
In the club 내 모든걸 줄래 - I’ll give him my everything
In the club 니가 그녀와 그랬던 것처럼
쉽게 사랑할래 - I’ll love easily
It Hurts is just an incredibly beautiful song sang by great singers, I find Bom’s ‘you’re not mine anymore’ so moving.
Germany is not the long-time-stable country I thought it was (I blame being born post-Berlin wall.) In fact it has only twenty years of stable government to boast?! Of course I knew a lot about the Second World War and a little about the First, but I know now that there are some embarrassing gaps in my knowledge regarding Prussia, the Soviet Union and the Cold War. When I’ve finished my Ghandi reading I’m going to switch to these subjects.
Even so, I learned a lot from my four nights in Berlin. We didn’t have enough time to fit everything in, and my getting ill cut our time down further, but we still managed lots of museums and monuments as well as two walking tours. One of which was a tour of Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
I thought this tour was a very important experience.I’m so glad I didn’t get ill on that day because even the thought of mentioning the heat or my aching legs felt extremely disrespectful on that day, in that place. I didn’t even want to eat in the camp though others sat down for lunch.
I met a couple of friendly Korean tourists who I got to speak to for a bit. It was reassuring to know that I can still hold up a conversation in Korean.
One thing I did notice in the grounds of the camp was the surreal amount of butterflies.
I soaked up as much as I could. I really wanted to feel something from the experience, and although it was massively thought provoking, I didn’t feel emotional. I felt hopeless, kind of numb - partly because of how unimaginable the trauma was. But also because it can’t be taken back. It’s why I hate suffering so much, it’s permanent. I could have lay flowers at the execution site or cried in the pathology lab but it would have only been a self-indulgent exercise.
The words of our tour guide resonate with me “it won’t be long before there is no one left to talk about their experiences of these camps.” It has to remain a fresh horror. Suffering can’t be undone, but at least we can stop it from being re-done.
Last night I dreamed I went to a doctor and was told I would die in my sleep that night. I remember thinking that as I didn’t feel ill I could let myself believe in the miniscule chance that the doctor was wrong and I would wake up tomorrow. As I began to stir in my sleep I let myself hope in the same way that maybe it was all just a horrible dream - not really believing I could be so lucky. The nasty feeling of dread and panic remained after I woke.
This is the third dream that stuck out to me as particularly unsettling. Where I have felt panicked and disturbed for a long time afterwards, I’ve cried, been afraid to go back to sleep and afraid to leave the room.
In the first one I witnessed from a distance a man’s head ripping off as he piloted a helicopter. The second was probably the worst and makes me uncomfortable to recall. I fell from a great height and hit the ground. I thought I was dead but then became aware if being taken to hospital where I was pronounced paralyzed. At this point I woke up but couldn’t move. (I think it’s called ‘parasomnia’ and I’ve experienced a few times before whilst trying to get to sleep.)
Anyway, All I can think about in the couple of days following the nightmare is how lucky I am to have only experienced this kind of horror in dreams, and how upsetting it is that some people experience it in real life.
Every time it re-ignites my desire to somehow help people, to stop suffering.
“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”
-Ghandi
My house.
