I have learnt that a mobile app has recently been launched in Japan, called Social Lunch, which will find a lunch buddy for you around your workplace. I know socialising over lunch is no news; there are lunch dates, business lunches, brown bag seminars, etc. However, this one stands apart from all those above because it appears to have been born out of the specifics of East Asian working culture.

(Capture from Nikkei Trendy)

Last Thursday, the world seemed to be mourning over Steve Jobs’ death. The camp of Na Kyung-won, the mayoral candidate of the ruling conservative party, were quick to come up with the following poster (image from here) in apparent hopes for capitalising on the popular mood. It was then briefly displayed on her campaign website until it was widely frowned upon and mocked on social networking sites. In order to damage-control, the camp said that it was merely one of the many designs that they had considered but was made visible for a minute due to a technical fault.

iSad? Sounds more like a case of iWouldDoAnything to me.

Gina Bellafante, The New York Times, 23 September 2011

Some said they were fighting the legal doctrine of corporate personhood; others, not fully understanding what that meant, believed it meant corporations paid no taxes whatsoever. Others came to voice concerns about the death penalty, the drug war, the environment.

“I want to get rid of the combustion engine,” John McKibben, an activist from Vermont, declared as his primary ambition.

“I want to create spectacles,” Becky Wartell, a recent graduate of the College of the Atlantic in Maine, said.

Having discerned the intellectual vacuum, Chris Spiech, an unemployed 26-year-old from New Jersey, arrived on Thursday with the hope of indoctrinating his peers in the lessons of Austrian economics, Milton Friedman and Ron Paul. “I want to abolish the Federal Reserve,” he said.

The group’s lack of cohesion and its apparent wish to pantomime progressivism rather than practice it knowledgably is unsettling in the face of the challenges so many of its generation face — finding work, repaying student loans, figuring out ways to finish college when money has run out. But what were the chances that its members were going to receive the attention they so richly deserve carrying signs like “Even if the World Were to End Tomorrow I’d Still Plant a Tree Today”?

One day, a trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Adam Sarzen, a decade or so older than many of the protesters, came to Zuccotti Park seemingly just to shake his head. “Look at these kids, sitting here with their Apple computers,” he said. “Apple, one of the biggest monopolies in the world. It trades at $400 a share. Do they even know that?”

Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? You don’t get it

Douglas Rushkoff, CNN, 5 October 2011

[...] unlike a political campaign designed to get some person in office and then close up shop (as in the election of Obama), this is not a movement with a traditional narrative arc. As the product of the decentralized networked-era culture, it is less about victory than sustainability. It is not about one-pointedness, but inclusion and groping toward consensus. It is not like a book; it is like the Internet.

Occupy Wall Street is meant more as a way of life that spreads through contagion, creates as many questions as it answers, aims to force a reconsideration of the way the nation does business and offers hope to those of us who previously felt alone in our belief that the current economic system is broken.

But unlike a traditional protest, which identifies the enemy and fights for a particular solution, Occupy Wall Street just sits there talking with itself, debating its own worth, recognizing its internal inconsistencies and then continuing on as if this were some sort of new normal. It models a new collectivism, picking up on the sustainable protest village of the movement’s Egyptian counterparts, with food, first aid, and a library.

Yes, as so many journalists seem obligated to point out, kids are criticizing corporate America while tweeting through their iPhones. The simplistic critique is that if someone is upset about corporate excess, he is supposed to abandon all connection with any corporate product. Of course, the more nuanced approach to such tradeoffs would be to seek balance rather than ultimatums. Yes, there are things big corporations might do very well, like making iPhones. There are other things big corporations may not do so well, like structure mortgage derivatives. Might we be able to use corporations for what works, and get them out of doing what doesn’t?

And yes, some kids are showing up at Occupy Wall Street because it’s fun. They come for the people, the excitement, the camaraderie and the sense of purpose they might not be able to find elsewhere. But does this mean that something about Occupy Wall Street is lacking, or that it is providing something that jobs and schools are not (thanks in part to rising unemployment and skyrocketing tuitions)?

The members of Occupy Wall Street may be as unwieldy, paradoxical, and inconsistent as those of us living in the real world. But that is precisely why their new approach to protest is more applicable, sustainable and actionable than what passes for politics today. They are suggesting that the fiscal operating system on which we are attempting to run our economy is no longer appropriate to the task. They mean to show that there is an inappropriate and correctable disconnect between the abundance America produces and the scarcity its markets manufacture.

Is this popularity random? Let’s put aside for a moment the fact that the film hasn’t been released in Korea (it is going to, next Thursday) and the naturally following question how these many people have then managed to see the film. The question I would like to pose here is this: when does a cultural product resonate beyond its contextual boundaries?

I have here and there on this blog talked about the (in)famously competitive Korean education system – a system that President Obama seems to be fantasising about, but survivors such as myself are (although degrees vary) traumatised about. Despite my unhidable sarcasm towards it, however, part of me has always been cautious that things might have moved on since my school years and I should probably let go. Sadly, news like the following tells me that things are not any better after more than a decade, if not worse.

Cruel spring at KAIST with fourth suicide (The Hankyoreh, 8 April 2011)

Indeed, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is the South Korean real-life equivalent of the Imperial College of Engineering in the film. After the tragedy of a series of suicides earlier this year, insiders of the KAIST as well as outside observers started to voice out their concerns and call for a reform. With nothing concrete in sight yet, in the meantime, KAIST students are now eagerly looking forward to the release of the film and are even planning a group screening in their amphitheatre. To paraphrase a Twitter user, the film is now taken as a desperately needed dose of idealism.

During my master’s programme in Leicester in 1999, one essay question I worked on was:

Do popular phenomena, such as Madonna or rap, ‘resist’ dominant culture?

In response to this question, practically saying “Yes, they do”, I took an example of Korean youth’s love for hip-hop back then. (Well, as you will see, the language kind of gives away that I was young and into the whole hip-hop thing myself. )

In addition, it seems reasonable to question quite what makes “black rap music attract largely non-black audiences” (Stephens, 1992, p.62), especially Korean youth, who have nothing to do with ‘the bitter black history’. [...] Korea has such a strong hip-hop subculture to the extent that the adjective ‘popular’ cannot fully describe the phenomenon. It is not just about club music and low-slung trousers. For example, recently, many hip-hop institutions, even colleges, have been established in Korea claiming that they can teach what real hip-hop is. When the first official institution opened on 7th of June 1999, public interest was so high that all places were taken up within three days.

[...]

Then it may be worth considering what about it attracts them to this extent, and the rigidity of the society can perhaps explain the phenomenon. [...] For example, the censorship of the national TV channels is so strict that they do not broadcast the performance of any singers who wear earrings or have dyed hair. School discipline is more military in nature: many schools not only have school uniforms but also, for example, the restriction of hair length. Thereby a male student’s hair should not be longer than 1 centimetre and a female student’s should not be longer than three centimetres from her ears, with no hair accessories other than those in black or brown.

[...] It seems reasonable to argue that hip-hop’s ‘anti-formality’, above all other characteristics, appeals to Korean youth, who are somehow suffocated by too many disciplines. [...] They interpret the essence of hip-hop culture in their own way, as a kind of symbol of freedom, which perhaps makes them feel emancipated, at least when they listen to rap music while wearing baggy jeans.

After many years, I find myself maintaining the exact same argument: phenomenal popularity is symptomatic of something within the society.

<Added on 13 Aug>

Amused by the pure coincidence between digging up a decade-old essay about the ‘black culture’ and coming across the next day David Starkey’s “the whites have become black” comment, which is now flying high on the BBC’s most watched/listened clips list.

Now, hypothetically, let’s assume that such a prison exists. The authorities might say everything is good and legal as prisoners get three meals a day, water for showers, and above all, no apparent torture. However, I can see how effectively it would break a soul. So, this has led me to a fundamental question of human rights: what constitutes a human necessity and who gets to define it?

A project I am independently working on at the moment is concerned with an aspect of the ongoing aerial protest in the shipyard of Hanjin Heavy Industries in South Korea. Kim Jinsuk, a committee member of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, has been on the top of a 35-metre-high crane since 6 January this year, demanding that the company withdraw its layoff plans. While up there, she has also been tweeting from her smartphone. As it recently started to gain wider public support through Twitter, and Kim shows no sign of climbing down, the management decided, in the name of security, to cut electricity to the crane and to screen food supplies for Kim with a metal detector. Interpreting this as a move to isolate and corner her, supporters complained that it is inhumane to deny her the right to communicate. In response, the management added that they could allow her an old-model mobile without Internet access.

“What, are you gonna say Twitter is a necessity?”, you might be scoffing already. No. Not for me at least. I can well live without. But if I were perching on the top of a vessel crane alone and were suddenly deprived of the only communication channel I had with the world, I am sure I would say differently.

No tweets from her for the last 24 hours. While waiting, let me share something I read a couple of months ago. Citing the whole passage here as it feels even more relevant now. The source, a Guardian article, is linked here.

Not long ago, according to the new-media guru Clay Shirky, the Sudanese government set up a Facebook page calling for a protest against the Sudanese government, naming a specific time and place – then simply arrested those who showed up. It was proof, Shirky argues, that social media can’t be revolutionary on its own. “The reason that worked is that nobody knew anybody else,” he says. “They thought Facebook itself was trustworthy.” This is one of many counterintuitive impacts that the internet has wrought on the politics of protest. But perhaps the most powerful is the one that Shirky – himself a prominent evangelist for the democratic power of services such as Twitter and Facebook – labels “the dictator’s dilemma”.

Authoritarian leaders and protesters alike can exploit the power of the internet, Shirky concedes. (At least he notes the risks: in another session at the [SXSW] conference, I watch dumbstruck as a consultant on cyber-crimefighting speaks with undisguised joy about how much information the police could glean from Facebook, in order to infiltrate communities where criminals might lurk. Asked about privacy concerns, she replies: “Yeah – we’ll have to keep an eye on that.”) But there’s a crucial asymmetry, Shirky goes on. The internet is now such a pervasive part of so many people’s lives that blocking certain sites, or simply turning the whole thing off – as leaders in Bahrain, Egypt and elsewhere have recently tried to do – can backfire completely, angering protesters further and, from a dictator’s point of view, making matters worse. “The end state of connectivity,” he argues, “is that it provides citizens with increased power.”

The road to that end state won’t be smooth. But the compensatory efforts of the authorities to harness the internet for their own ends will never fully compensate. Either they must allow dissenters to organise online, or – by cutting off a resource that’s crucial to their daily lives – provoke them to greater fury.

By the way, the title to this post comes from what those supporters visiting Kim’s sit-in site earlier this month was told when being taken by police.

I know this is so yesterday – or the day before yesterday, to be precise – but isn’t it too cute to be let go without mention?

Unsurprisingly, many performances are already up on YouTube. I must say some have turned out to be quite enjoyable (although I am a little less impressed, finding that the guitar can also be played by keystrokes).

By the way, every time I read/think about the chief ‘doodler’ Dennis Hwang, I am amazed and relieved that he managed to keep his creativity alive during his Korean schooling.

You might have forgotten already, but I still vividly remember students desperately protesting in freezing cold against the tripling of tuition fees. It has only been a few months, for goodness’ sake, let alone that the issue hasn’t been resolved. And what did these so-called leading intellectuals come up with? A private college charging even twice the new maximum fee for public universities. What kind of message are they trying to send, exactly?

As my mind is too boggled, I am instead linking an article that says all I want to say but in much more decent language.

AC Grayling’s private university is odious (Terry Eagleton, The Guardian, 6 June 2011)

And here are a couple more comments that I have dog-eared along the way.

RT @andrew_chadwick Enlightening comments on the “New College for the Humanities” here: http://bit.ly/kDiKTs and here: http://bit.ly/jlcdCC (6 June 2011)

RT @evgenymorozov One group of people madly excited about The New College are those of Gaddafi’s sons who couldn’t make it to LSE (6 June 2011)

Transcript of Telephone Call from Cambridge Lecturer, Michael Hrebeniak, to New College of the Humanities: is NOT a spoof!!! (A Facebook note by Priyamvada Gopal, 06 June 2011)

* Despite my association with the University of London (as a PhD graduate and an on-and-off employee), I have, AS ALWAYS, written this post in an entirely personal capacity.

Noam Chomsky, Guernica, 6 May 2011

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: [...].

Killing Evil Doesn’t Make Us Evil

Maureen Dowd, the New York Times, 7 May 2011

Unlike Osama, the Navy Seals took great care not to harm civilians — they shot Bin Laden’s youngest wife in the leg and carried two young girls out of harm’s way before killing Osama.

Morally and operationally, this was counterterrorism at its finest.

We have nothing to apologize for.