towards 1941 December 7: weep on the shoulders

"Let us begin with a short and elementary lesson in practical economics.

"The Japanese, cooped up on their little island, and as prolific as Italians, need more land. All the pretty words in the world and all the treaties in the world and all the well-meant speeches of all the well-meaning old ladies and gentlemen in the world won't change this fact....

"They live in a country that is smaller than California (155,652 square miles for California and 148,756 square miles for Japan) and of these only 16,000,000 acres can be used for agriculture, which is less than 2% of all the arable land of America. If you want the comparison to come a little nearer home, it is a trifle less than the improved farmlands of New York State alone. Even with the help of one of the best staffs of scientific agricultural experts to be found anywhere in the world, you will see at a glance what sort of problem it is that faces these poor island folk. Living so near the sea-shore they would of course fish; but although they have now reached the point where they are raising certain sorts of fish in the muddy water of their rice fields, the difficulty remains unsolved and unsolvable in view the fact that the population increases by more than 650,000 people a year.

"It was inevitable therefore that Japan should look for more territory; and it was only natural that first of all she should think of the badly administered and sadly neglected lands that lay just across the China Sea.... The road to Manchuria was indicated by the land bridge of the Korean peninsula from which the mainland of Japan was separated by the narrow Strait of Korea. This strait is only 102 miles wide and is conveniently divided into halves by the Tsushima islands, those islands near which the Japanese fleet destroyed the Russian squadron in the year 1905, and killed Russia as a possible rival in eastern Asia....

"The immediate causes for a war are rarely interesting. It is the real underlying motives that count. In this case, as in the case of the expedition of 1592, they were to be found directly and absolutely in the necessity of the Japanese government to provide its rapidly increasing population with food.

"As soon as Japan had defeated Russia and had driven the Muscovite troops back from the Yalu River, the river that separates Korea from Manchuria, Korea became a Japanese protectorate. In 1910 it became a part of the Japanese Empire quite as much as Formosa, which the Japanese had taken from the Chinese in 1895, or the southern half of the island of Sakhalin, which they had taken from the Russians in the year 1905 in lieu of a war indemnity. Today already half a million Japanese have moved in among the twenty million Koreans. The rest will follow in due course of time.

"As for Manchuria, it had long been a bone of contention between the two nations that fought for supremacy in the northern half of the Pacific. After the Peace of Portsmouth, which made an end to the Russo-Japanese war, the fate of the country was sealed....

"Many people seem to experience a profound indignation at what they are inclined to denounce as a brutal expression of 'Japanese ambition'. I would rather call them 'Japanese necessities'. In matters of international policy, a certain healthy egoism is rather a desirable quality. Japan has got to find an outlet for the extra people at home. It is finding such an outlet in northern Asia, in a part of the world that is very lightly populated, and that has been accustomed to such outrageous forms of government that the inhabitants cannot possibly be worse off now than they were ever before.

"If this northern Asiatic safety-valve did not exist, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Australia, New Zealand and the western coast of America would be forever exposed to a Japanese invasion and we would be obliged to station a battle-ship in front of every Polynesian island lest it be towed away over night by a Japanese cruiser.

"On the whole, the present arrangement seems much more practical. Those who feel inclined to shed tears at these callous and selfish utterances, are politely requested to weep on the shoulders of our own Indians."


--Hendrik van Loon, Van Loon's Geography: The Story of the World We Live In, 1932

to be an American

“Sarah!” she called. “Sarah, do come and meet young Mr. Mathews, who wants to be called Warren.”

A tall, pretty girl turned from a group of other drinkers to smile at him, extending her hand, but when Marjorie Blaine said “He’s an American,” the girl’s smile froze and her hand fell.

“Oh,” she said. “How nice.” And she turned away again.

It wasn’t a good time to be an American in London. Eisenhower had been elected and the Rosenbergs killed; Joseph McCarthy was on the rise, and the war in Korea, with its reluctant contingent of British troops, had come to seem as if it might last forever.


--Richard Yates, “Liars in Love,” 1981

Massacre in Korea

Massacre in Korea
Pablo Picasso
1881-1973 Spanish

Mongolian competitors in historic electronic gaming event

“...19-year-old Lkhagvasuren Byambasuren aims to win glory... at the Second Asian Indoor Games (http://www.maigoc2007.com/), an international multi-event sporting competition that includes hockey, swimming and cycling.

“Byambasuren aims to win gold... through the popular video game ‘FIFA 2007.’ That's because this year, for the first time, the Games will include an ‘electronic sports’ category....

“His ambition will surprise nobody who's been to Game Arena, an Internet cafe in Mongolia's frigid capital city Ulaanbaatar. This is where the nation's best video game players tend to congregate. Among them are Mongolia's two other representatives for the Games: 18-year-old Ganzorig Batbold, who will compete in the car-racing game ‘Need for Speed: Most Wanted,’ and 23-year-old Bilguun Chimedregzen, who aims for glory at ‘NBA Live 07.’ All three emerged victorious in national competitions held to find the best players.

“This dream team will face formidable competition, though. Tsogt Sharavrentsen, the overseas manager of Mongolia's national e-sports program, is most concerned about competition from China and South Korea. Those players, he says, receive better training and are well-supported by both sponsors and their governments.

“‘In Mongolia it's very difficult because nobody understands e-sports,’ he says. ‘They think it's like a game.’

“The Olympic Council of Asia couldn't disagree more. A few years ago at a board meeting in Kuwait, it decided video games were serious enough to include in the event....

“Of course, video game contests are not uncommon -- especially in Asia. Channel-surf in Seoul, for example, and you'll likely stumble upon video game action, complete with breathless commentators, on-screen maneuvering and close-ups of players' intent faces.

“But it's rare for video games to be included as part of a multi-sport event -- Chau says it's the first time, as far as he knows -- and to be recognized by a sports governing body as weighty as the OCA. The council, recognized by the International Olympic Committee, includes the National Olympic Committees of 40-plus nations (http://www.olympic.org/uk/organisation/noc/index_assoc_noc_fede_uk.asp?id_assoc=7).

“So far, nine nations have signed up for the e-sports event. Others include India, Iran and Kyrgyzstan. (The Games are held October 26 to November 3.)

“The OCA decided that the video games chosen should be versions of real sports. This criteria -- and a marketing tie-up -- led to the choices being ‘FIFA 07,’ ‘NBA Live 07’ and ‘Need for Speed: Most Wanted.’ All the titles are from California-based game publisher Electronic Arts. The company's marketing muscle was a factor in the decision, Chau says, as was the popularity of the games themselves.

“More important, he says, is what the event means for video games. ‘This is a very important moment. We are witnessing the development of e-sports. Its development has reached a different level than being merely a game to play with.’”

--CNN.com, 2007 August 28

The Story of the Weeping Camel

"so i was wondering if you've seen the film weeping camel and what you might have thought about it. i'm taking another filmmaking class and we're discussing it tomorrow. -lisa"

I saw "Weeping Camel" in Portland, Oregon, in 2004, as I was on my way back to Mongolia. The audience was stunned; the reaction was very positive. I know the film was popular in the politically liberal-minded markets of Europe and the coasts of the States. In Mongolia, it was a huge flop. I read one opinion (I think it was by the filmmaker) that posited that the fact that the film was a documentary turned off Mongolians, because they have ideas about documentaries, held over from Soviet times, as silly propagandizing films portraying the glory of the worker.

But I think "Camel" is just not that interesting to Mongolians. There's not much of a story to it. Many of the film's scenes are simply scenes from regular countryside life. One of the most shocking, humorous, incredible scenes for the Portland audience was when a five-year-old boy runs outside the ger and crawls up onto the back of a huge camel and then whips the camel until it stands up and then he rides away on it. But for a Mongolian, that scene has no novelty and can elicit no reaction; it's just another boring scene in which nothing really happens.

To think about it, would you want to watch a film of some average ol' Americans in Ohio or somewhere, just following them around in their ordinary routine, working and cooking and showering and whatever? Can you think of anything more boring? Anyway, "Weeping Camel" flopped in Mongolia.

I was uncertain about the people portrayed in "Camel." The film's style was of a documentary, but it seemed to me that the people were acting out predetermined roles, or perhaps they were self-conscious about having a camera on them.

I think of "Camel" as an example of a concept that I had read about in "Anthropology of Tourism" seminar: the commodification of culture--specifically, the commodification of so-called "indigenous" culture to be marketed to wealthy, liberal foreigners.

The only Mongolians I know who have seen "Camel" are ones who work in the tourism industry. Many tourists have come to Mongolia stating that their interest was piqued by that movie, so some Mongolians have viewed the movie just out of curiosity. In the main, "Weeping Camel" was ignored in Mongolia, and would be almost entirely unknown if the filmmaker had not received some international recognition through awards, which did make the papers in Ulaanbaatar.

So what do Mongolians watch? Melodramatic South Korean television serials and films. There are Mongolians making films for the Mongolian market, more of them, it seems, with each passing year. Many of these popular films seem to be set in Ulaanbaatar and are crime/gunfight/kick-'em-in-the-face flicks, which in the States might be described with the adjectives "cheesy" and "bad."

I read that the filmmaker's follow-up movie, "The Cave of the Yellow Dog," was very slightly more popular than "Weeping Camel" in Mongolia, perhaps because there was a stronger story to it. I haven't seen that film. In fact, I don't know anyone who has.