I had this weird dream the other day, right as I was waking up. The dream had this unidentified guru-like person, who was advising me to practice “Juche” as a means to personal growth and salvation. He was pointing to a page with the Chinese characters for it (see title-line).
But then Ken interrupted (Ken is the archetype interrupter, in Jared’s dreamland), and I lost dream-traction… vaguely.
“Juche” (주체) is the Korean name for the official ideology of North Korea, as formulated by Kim Il-sung and his son, Kim Jong-il. It’s 2 parts Stalinism, 2 parts fascism, 1 part maoism, and 1 part feudalism. Well, that’s my own take on it.
Kim’s folly. Literally, it means something like “corism,” as in, “the ideology of core” or “ideology of the main subject.” But generally it’s translated as “self-reliance,” as it is strongly autarkic in character.
Interestingly, when I looked in the naver.com dictionary, I discovered that 주체 can also mean “indigestion caused by drinking” and also “a burden.” Nice bit of homonymy. Courtesy naver.com:
주체(主體) the subject;the main body;【중심】the core;the nucleus;『법』 the main constituent
주체(酒滯) indigestion from[caused by] drinking
주체 a burden;a bother;a handful ―하다 cope with[take care of] one´s burden
It was strange that it was the Chinese hanja that were in the dream, since North Korea no longer uses Chinese characters – their banning was, in fact, part of the culturally self-reliant practice of Juche, as it was developed in the 60’s in reaction to the Sino-Soviet split.
Speaking of weapons of mass destruction (we were speaking of weapons of mass destruction?), check out this “fake 404” from the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It made me laugh.
Other notes from studying Korean:
시(時) o´clock;time;hour (I recognized the hanja for this on a sign, recently. It was a cool feeling.)