Caveat: Ah, Retribution… PSY Style

So I suspect I might be able to mention Korean rapper and satirist PSY without too many people not recognizing him, at this point. I was slightly ahead of the curve when I [broken link! FIXME] posted about his "Gangnam Style" way back in mid August.

But I recently ran across something interesting. His current social satire is pretty mild. Back in 2003, he as was full-on radical. And angry-radical, too.

In this short video clip, above, he's performing a song called "Anti-American" with a heavy metal band called "NEXT" and he's smashing a toy model of an American tank. Apparently the song included lyrics such as the following.

싸이 rap : 이라크 포로를 고문해 댄 씨발양년놈들과
고문 하라고 시킨 개 씨발 양년놈들에
딸래미 애미 며느리 애비 코쟁이 모두 죽여
아주 천천히 죽여 고통스럽게 죽여

Kill those —— Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives
Kill those —— Yankees who ordered them to torture
Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law, and fathers
Kill them all slowly and painfully

I did not do the translation, and it seems a little bit rough, but I found it online and it's close enough.

I do not condone, and never condone, violence as a response to violence. I dislike the ease with which people transition from violence they oppose to the idea of retributive violence such as that being espoused by the PSY and his metal-headed friends, above. Having said that, I, too, was deeply troubled by the US behavior in, especially, Iraq. I have long felt that Bush, Cheney, and subsequently the disappointing Mr Obama should be held responsible for war-crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan (and Yemen and Pakistan and other places where drone attacks are still being carried out). So without agreeing with his prescription for retribution, I do agree with PSY's anger as expressed in 2003. And I actually find him more interesting, because he's clearly a politically conscious animal – as indicated by both his recent, milder satire as well as this.

[Update added 2012-12-10] I just noticed that blogger Ask A Korean has a very brilliant post on this same topic. Please read it if you're one of those people who are uncomfortable with PSY's rhetoric. Or even if you're not, but just curious about the context of South Korean anti-Americanism.

Caveat: 인디안 썸머

For my Korean movie of the week, I watched a movie entitled 인디안 썸머 [in-di-an sseom-meo = “Indian Summer”in transliteration – just sounded out and spelled in Korean letters]. A very slow-moving, slightly morbid romance between a lawyer and his death-penalty-eligible court-assigned client. I’m not sure I liked the movie that much. The courtroom drama was a little bit interesting, but the romance seemed implausible both because they talk so little but also because of their situations. But anyway. It doesn’t really have a very happy ending – the point of an “Indian Summer” is that it ends in winter quite quickly.
I tried to pay attention to the dialogue, and managed to understand some Korean. I guess that’s progress.
Good night.

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