Friday, November 05, 2004

BEWARE THE WESTERN GODS

Seeing Eye Blog points to this Hankyoreh editorial which warns of "Western Gods Possessing the Children." A snippet:
Suddenly children are being possessed by "Western gods." Some of the children in Gangnam were overtaken by the Halloween craze. Somewhere along the line there has been an increasingly solid trend to believe in the "special days of Western children" such as Valentines Day and White Day. Traditional play culture has disappeared and "things Western" are gradually taking its place. It's not something that can be accepted as a natural phenomenon on the way to "globalization."
Halloween I can undertsand and sympathize with (although I'm not sure whether it is commercialization or sugar addiction that is to blame). But "White Day?" Can't say that I've heard of it. Why is this so? Perhaps because it isn't a "Western" holiday at all, but rather a Japanese one (albeit a Japanese response to the Western St. Valentine's Day tradition). "Western gods" indeed!

Comments:
Sure...."white day."

Sugar is white.
+
Kids like sugar.
+
Kids demand to mimic method-of-gaining-sweet-sweet-sugar-as-seen-on-TV.
+
Parents are aghast.
+
Parents blame stupid westerners and their wicked rituals.

=

Protests at Yongsan concerning repression of cultual heritage.

Nah, I'm not cynical about Korea. Not even a little.
 
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