Japanese moustaches: racism or triggers?
By Chanmi Kim and David Tizzard
2020-01-05(코리아타임스)
Once an unwanted nominee to Australia, Ambassador Harry Harris, now settled into Habib House in the heart of Seoul, has attracted a great deal of attention since his appointment to South Korea on June 28th last year. His comments, tweets, and appearance have been probed and prodded to a far greater degree than those of his diplomatic counterparts in other embassies.
He has officially and unofficially voiced his concerns on a whole host of issues vis-a-vis Korea, including President Moon's choice to end the GSOMIA, comments on President Moon being allegedly surrounded by pro-North Korean leftists, and President Trump's demands for a fivefold funding increase for US troops stationed in South Korea.
Citizens here, moreover, winced at Ambassador Harris' baffling choice to cancel a pre-scheduled meeting with the Korean Veterans Association and instead tweet about attending the grand opening of an American burger franchise, ShakeShack, last August.
Over time, all this has given birth to a rather peculiar and all too familiar phenomenon, and now it's morphing into something new. The creation, sadly, is more Frankenstein's monster than butterfly.
On December 19th, a small group of Koreans supportive of President Moon's government held an “Ambassador Harris Beheading Contest”. This was home to oddly-titled events such as “Harris' Waxing Shop” and “Harris Go Home Noodles” during which they pretended to pluck out the Ambassador's hair as well as distort and kick a football with his face printed all over it.
Unfortunately, this didn't come as a surprise. There have been two attempts made by South Korean protestors to illegally enter the U.S. envoy's residence over the last few months.
And Korean people's discomfort regarding Ambassador Harris' race continues to evolve. To mutate. To adopt new forms and patterns, not always immediately distinguishable.
Some have questioned his intentions and abilities to properly function as an American Ambassador (and not as a “Japanese-American Ambassador”), others have discredited his political views, and even gone so far of accusing him of being a Japanese puppet.
Consider a very brief sketch of Ambassador Harris' biography and his many noteworthy achievements:
“Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr. is a decorated American military officer, born in Japan, and currently the US Ambassador to the Republic of Korea. He is a 4-star admiral, a P-3 Orion flight officer, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo (which had its own issues from within), assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and finally, and former leader of U.S. Pacific Command.”
There's likely only one thing that South Korean readers will care about...
Koreans are of course right to bristle at their neighbours across the sea: Post-Cold War nationalism has risen in Japan as its economy has faltered. This has led to many Japanese referring to the 2000s as the “lost decades” as they watch on while China surges past them to claim economic and political supremacy in the region.
Tensions have also been exacerbated by high level visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, home to 14 Class A war criminals, and continued political ambivalence towards the 1993 Kono statement on comfort women.
Nevertheless, diplomats take their jobs very seriously and theirs is an art. The diplomatic community is home to a great many intelligent, tactful, and honorable men and women. One does not too readily play games in a region of the world filled with longstanding belligerents, missiles, and nuclear weapons.
Early on Ambassador Harris stated, “I wanted to make a break between my life as a military officer and my new life as a diplomat. I tried to get taller but I couldn't grow any taller, and so I tried to get younger but I couldn't get younger. But I could grow a mustache, so I did that...I can't deny my ethnic background. I can't hide from it. I am who I am. All I can say is that every decision I make is based on the fact that I'm the American Ambassador to Korea, not the Japanese American ambassador to Korea.”
So when the Korea Times questioned him about his moustache in a recent interview, were they really asking him about the hair on his upper lip? Not likely: despite all the fine dust in the air, dog whistles work just as well here as they do anywhere else.
Many Koreans have likened his current moustache to that of one sported by employees of the Japanese occupying forces, yet they would surely do well to remember that -- like long padded coats and maratang everything today -- each era has its own particular fashion and tastes. To wit, even figures of the Korean resistance such as Ahn Jung-geun and Kim Gu sported moustaches.
But racism, xenophobia, and chauvinism are dangerous wherever and whenever they occur.
To its credit, Europe has, for the most part, moved on. While human nature, of course, remains the same, political institutions and diplomatic infrastructure have sought to create stability based on cooperation and visions of the future.
Nevertheless, today we are seeing how Western demagogues have been able to stoke division and then rise to power based on the animosity created through political and ethnic cleavages. Recent anti-Semitic outbreaks in London and New York bring with them horrible memories of a tragedy the continent thought it had forgotten.
Could it not be possible that the same is at play here in South Korea? Might politicians and their parties not be seeking to gain, maintain, or increase their political power, not through effective and rational policies designed to improve the day-to-day lives of the citizens, but rather by fueling animosity towards a historic enemy?
Ex-President Roh Moo-hyun was often quick to latch onto public sentiment and exploit tensions with Japan by drawing on historical animosities whenever his domestic support faltered. Tokyo has long been an easy target and a card often played by Cheongwadae.
Moreover, is it possible for empathy and a historical focus to bleed into chauvinism? If so, how can we better prevent this from happening?
The media also pushes and pulls gusts of popular feeling towards friends and enemies with its own version of “mil-dang”. Despite real life being home to a nascent romance between Super Junior's Heechul (Korea) and TWICE's Momo (Japan), tvN's fantasy-laden hit drama “Crash Landing on You” has instead gripped the nation with its tale of love and romance between a North Korean soldier and a South Korean female heir to a conglomerate. Recent viewing figures put it as the year's most successful cable program, achieving a nationwide rating of 9.2%, equivalent to 2.4 million viewers for a single episode.
In 2020, weird as that still sounds, the teenagers and young adults of Korea breathe the same air as those who experienced Japanese colonization first-hand. And despite the recommendations and exhortations from neighboring countries and former imperial powers on how Korea should learn to put history behind it, many of the people still can't.
“It's too emotional”, they say. And they are right. It simmers deep in the collective psyche of the people - sometimes described as “han” in popular media and songs.
But how can it be anything but?
It is emotional. It “should” be emotional. We are talking about an event that changed the entire course of this country, this land, and these people.
But a more important question is whether “emotions” can be used to justify the decisions an individual makes. Or even those that a state makes.
Is it acceptable for a government or an individual, whether here or anywhere else, to take out the “a-nation-that-forgets-its-past-has-no-future” card and play it at its own convenience?
Because if that's democracy, then I'm not sure, moustache or otherwise, that I want to be a part of it.
Chanmi Kim is a Visual Communication Design major at Seoul Women's University
David Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) is an assistant professor at Seoul Women's University. He also presents economic and cultural issues on "Business Now" on TBS eFM (101.3FM) live every Wednesday from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.