Tuesday, March 8, 2011

on POETRY - 시 (2009) by Lee Chang-dong


Appreciation can only match depth, and it only matters what the viewer carries before going in to see this film; let’s assume that the viewer understands Korea—has experienced it and has some knowledge of it—experienced some form of abuse like rape, molestation, harassment—any form of physical trauma or an unwelcome invasion (which, realistically speaking, is more common among people than not), is a feminist to some degree, either theoretically or just unwittingly so, and finally, understands poetry in all mediums—literature, cinema, music and art.

I’ve been a fan of Lee Chang-dong (Secret Sunshine, Oasis) because of his films' intense realism.
Poetry is completely real, unforgivingly so. I was at a screening of Straight to Hell the other night. Director Alex Cox quoted Paul Lewis, saying, “Film is a punishment inflicted on people who seek entertainment.” This is true. I like movies that do this. I cannot sufficiently express my disgust for films that cause escapism.

On Lack of Music

The main thing I was struck by in Poetry is the lack of music. Music often acts as a vehicle to the audience’s emotions, shifting and directing moods of viewers. Music is the most controlling element in the cinematic experience, and I can’t agree more with Jarmusch’s statement on how he much dislikes films where the music “hijacks the mood” of a moment. The lack of music in this movie was what made the experience so close and real. Lee doesn’t coddle his audience. He strips his product down bare and forces the viewers to look at life as we know and live it.

On Poetry and Man and Woman

The film begins with the death of a 16-year-old girl (whose communion name is “Agnes”) who committed suicide by throwing herself into a river and drowning. She’d left behind a diary, which includes details on a series of rape crimes she’d experienced on school grounds—specifically the lab room—by a group of six teenaged boys.

The protagonist is a 66-year-old woman, Mija, who is suffering from the first stages of Alzheimer’s and taking poetry classes at the local culture center. She receives a small government stipend and makes extra cash on the side by working as a maid and caretaker to an old man, who’d suffered a stroke. Her duties include bathing the old man as well as cleaning the house. She is also the grandmother to one of the boys.

The fathers of the five other boys and Mija gather at a lunch meeting for a discussion on the handling of the situation. They mention how the girl’s diary had been found by the principal and how a couple of police investigators are also aware of the crime, as well as the homeroom teacher and the girl’s mother (a farmer who lives alone with her son). The men decide as a group that they should compensate the mother with a sum of something equivalent to about $30,000 to keep the matter a secret and keep the press from getting to the story.

The primary discourse throughout the film is one on the difference between genders. For instance, the men who are fathers to the five boys who’d raped this girl and driven her to suicide find it very easy to come to a monetary compensation as a way to settle the matter. Mija, however, doesn’t seem to agree, albeit not stating it directly. She quietly harbors her mourning throughout the film. I thought it was ingenious to assign Mija's role to an old woman (Yun Jung Hee) —a person who obviously is no longer in her teens, and has mothered a daughter and now raises a teenage grandson struggling with adolescent qualms. But from the film’s portrayal, it’s obvious that she empathizes with this young girl’s pain very closely, despite the distance between the two in terms of age.

The main struggle for Mija, aside from the pressure to pay five grand in order to bail out her grandson, is to write a poem. She claims never to have written a poem and does not consider herself a poet, but she constantly asks herself and others what it takes to write a poem. She attends a local poetry reading and approaches one woman whose poems she admires. The woman advises Mija not to try so hard but to simply feel. This is where the young girl’s death, her experiences just prior to her death, and Mija’s desire to write a poem meet: Mija doesn’t try to write a poem but instead feels what the girl had gone though daily and takes notes, visiting the places where the girl had been, sensing what she had sensed when she was still living.

Mija takes a walk on the bridge, overlooking the river where the girl had killed herself, and stands there, feeling the wind. Her hat flies off her head and lands in the water. Mija takes a walk by the water through grass and sits on a rock, letting rain pelt down on her. It seems that the old lady is getting closer to acting as a vessel to the girl whose voice the townsmen, the mother, the school, the police and the media have muffled, but not in a vindictive way. Just in a quiet but heartbreaking manner to say that she’d been there and sensed something in those places there.

There is a scene where the old woman is bathing the old man she works for. In the middle of bathing him, she stops because she feels an erection. When she pulls away, the old man grabs her arm and begs her to let him feel like a man just once before he dies. She rebukes him and leaves, subsequently quitting her job. The scene is intense. The old man, who can’t enunciate his words properly due to his stroke, looks pathetic and desperate, and Mjia looks back, resentful and disgusted. The scene conjures up the eternal struggle between man and woman. The only word that can describe this struggle is “impossible,” because of the impossibility of what a man claims he needs, which he blames nature for, and the impossibility of being a woman, unable to heed to such a request so easily without feeling like she is being taken away of something. This scene juxtaposes nicely with another scene that occurs a bit later on in the film, when the old woman pays a visit to the country side where the girl’s mother resides. She takes a walk down a path and sees apricots that had “throw[n] themselves” all over the ground. She finds the girl’s mother working in the field and talks for sometime about apricots, and how the sight of the fruit thrown on the ground, getting trampled and broken, seems necessary for the next life to begin. The scene is more or less a statement on how a woman, in all stages of her life—teenage girl, a middle aged mother, or a senior grandmother—suffers abuse for the sake of others' progression, particularly, in this case, the men’s.

In another scene, Mija goes to a karaoke room and sings. The father of one of the five boys goes there to meet her. I wondered why the director had put in this scene, and soon the reason became clear to me: the men sense an urgency in a matter such as this, and believe it can easily be put to rest with money, but women—this woman—finds the situation so much more overwhelming and impossible than they do—so much so that she sees no choice other than to go to a karaoke room and sing. Either that or go for walks, feel and describe nature, and try to write a poem.

Mija eventually returns to the old man’s house, gives him his Viagra, and performs intercourse. I say “perform” here because the sex scene lacks such intimacy, is so tragically arid and sad that there is no better word to describe it. The old man, with his face contorted from stroke, in an expression that seems mixed with pain and pleasure, looks away the entire time she has sex with him, while Mija sheds tears. Mija eventually blackmails him, requesting the five grand in return for the service she gave him when she pays him a visit in the presence of his children and grandchildren. She requests the money in return for her silence of their actions.

On “Electricity” as a Motif

At the start of the film, Mija visits a local hospital, complaining of a prickly sensation traveling down her arm, which she compares to a sensation of electric shock passing. Throughout the film, technology as a form of escapism for her grandson plays a huge role. Whenever the boy is home with his grandmother, he plays the stereo too loudly, keeps the computer on constantly, or watches TV at every meal. When the grandmother makes hints at her awareness of his crime, he turns on the TV to block out her words and his own conscience. In one of the last scenes of the boy, his grandmother finds him at an arcade, and pulls him out. The boy reluctantly leaves with her, but it is obvious that what he craves is senseless visual or aural stimulation to find relief from whatever distress he feels. The electronic distractions in the film act as an antithesis to poetry which Mija looks for in nature.

The boy doesn’t really show much remorse for his actions or the girl’s death, and finally, neither does Mija after she hands the men the five grand she received from the old man, indicating that the matter’s been closed and put behind her. In the end, the boy does get taken away by the police, and what happens after is never really told but the old woman does finally write her poem, and she hands it in on the last day of her poetry class, leaving it behind with a bouquet of flowers for the teacher.

On Agnes’ Song

The poem is called “Agnes’ Song,” and it begins in Mija's voice then turns into Agnes’ voice in the middle until the end.

It is a love poem. One must ask to whom this song is dedicated, and to whom the confession is being made. The poem makes sense once it is realized that the love song is dedicated to life. The small but vivid details of the experiences one feels while living are what Agnes had loved and what she misses. Seen from this angle, the poem is moving, painful and beautiful.

Poetry is a terrific film. It’s devastating and slow moving but intense and lovely at the same time. I recommend it for anyone who can appreciate it from the angles that I’d mentioned earlier. The film is a perfect, poetic illustration of what we live everyday but often ignore.  




Monday, March 7, 2011

On "Bob's Burgers"

Fox's new animated series "Bob's Burgers" received very mixed reviews but I think the main problem with Mike Hale's (The New York Times) and Tim Goodman's (The Hollywood Reporter) reviews is that they both compare this show to Fox's two other animated Sunday shows: "Family Guy" and "The Simpsons."

There is nothing about this new show, created by Loren Bouchard, that I find comparable to "Family Guy" or "The Simpsons," (both reviewers compare the character of Linda Belcher (voiced by John Roberts) to Marge Simpson) other than the fact that all three shows are about a nuclear family in cartoon.

Bob Belcher (voiced by H. Jon Benjamin) is a burger joint owner and the father of three: Tina Belcher (Dan Mintz), Gene Belcher (Eugene Mirman), and Louise Belcher (Kristen Schaal). (Given Schaal and Mirman's appearances in "Flight of the Conchords," the confused back-and-forth and inanity that occur in "Bob's Burgers" show signs of comedic influences taken from their HBO Alma mater.)


The tone of the show's humor is reminiscent of Adult Swim's animated shows, whose quality is minimal, dead-pan, and seemingly pointless but eventually delivering a strong and clever punchline. (In fact, H. Jon Benjamin was on "Space Ghost Coast to Coast.")  What great timing on Fox's part to be airing a show that will let audiences relearn and rethink what good humor in animation is all about ("The Simpsons" have their place in history, and as for "Family Guy," well, people seem pretty tired of its perpetual, over-the-top absurdity, which, if anything, is more pointless and weak in terms of comedic effect than the depth and hilarious timing that "Bob's Burgers" has). "Bob's Burgers" is refreshing, smart, and necessary.

Hale misses the point in the show's humor if he doesn't find its "deadpan monotone" funny. Bob's calm and quiet (but mild and harmless) aggression and sarcasm are terrifically delivered by Benjamin (who looks familiar from his appearance in "Important Things with Demetri Martin").Given the generally monotonous tone of Bob's character, there is always the promise for a laugh when he explodes in anger or goes mad with frustration (which happens often).  And Louise is anything but monotonous with her burst of high energy and loud voice, which are constant throughout every episode, as is Linda, the Brooklyn-Jew/Italian sounding wife and mother with her homeyness and an attitude that seems to almost deliberately overlook the crass, borderline sociopathic, qualities in her children. Gene is reminiscent of those wayward and strange boys everyone knew in high school, who were aware of their bizarreness but didn't care who said what about it--another refreshing element. The only characters who show signs of monotony are Bob and the eldest, Tina, who is working through the awkward stage in her life and is ruthlessly unapologetic for doing so; contrary to her apparent nerdiness, she is pretty comfortable and outspoken about the changes she is going through (in fact, her shamelessness reminds me of another classically considered nerd who is apathetic to anyone else's opinion of her--the great Ms. Tina Fey). Goodman accuses the show's writers for their weak writing but I find every character in this show to be well-developed, original and fitting in the dynamic of the show. The writing is tight and solid. The pilot episode of "Bob's Burgers" is so much better than what "Family Guy" came up with back in '99.

The humor in this show is a taste that some members of the audience may have to learn to acquire , but it's easy to do (proof of the mass audience's broad-ranging palate is in their acquisition of the humor in "30 Rock").

If this show is taken off the air before the second season, I would be disappointed but not very surprised. But I also guarantee and predict a large cult following as "Freaks and Geeks" did at the turn of this century.
"Bob's Burgers" is a great show, and people will definitely recognize it.

Monday, February 28, 2011

on Richard Simmons

When I woke up this morning, for some effed up reason, the first thing I wanted to do was look up Richard Simmons.



I have no idea why.

Anyway, here are some facts about Simmons:

He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on July 12, 1948. He is five foot, six inches tall and was obese throughout high school, weighing over two hundred and sixty pounds.

He studied at the University of Southwestern Louisiana and Florida State University. He also studied in Florence, Italy. He earned his undergraduate degree in Art.

Shortly after, he moved to New York, working a few jobs in advertising, cosmetics and hospitality. He moved to LA, where he gained an interest in healthy eating and physical fitness.

His first exercise studio was called The Anatomy Asylum.

According to Wikipedia, his trademark attire is "candy-striped Dolphin shorts and tank tops decorated with Swarovski crystals."

Simmons has made numerous appearances in the media including major shows such as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Late Show with David Letterman, General Hospital, Saturday Night Live and Arrested Development.

He was also in a Superbowl car commercial in 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLDlstxN5y8

He also has his own line of steamers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SCJLlSf21Y&NR=1&feature=fvwp

He was also on The Ellen DeGeneres Show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcZUODRQQBs&feature=related

He screams in all three.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

in response to "Beatniks and the Roots of Hipsters" by Noah Cicero

For the record, I liked The Human War. But not this.

Noah Cicero published this "thought" or "essay" on Thoughtcatalog.com <http://thoughtcatalog.com/2010/beatniks-and-the-roots-of-hipsters/>.

I agree, somewhat, with this: "The modern hipster paradigm is that joining the military is lame. That the military is for non-artistic people who have no sense of irony. The modern hipster also believes that Christianity isn’t something to be taken seriously. The modern hipster has no religion, it just lives on this planet walking around aimlessly keeping themselves busy with work and artistic projects."

I, personally, don't think that the military is full of non-artistic people. As far as I am concerned, if a human being wants to be creative, he/she can be creative anywhere on this earth, doing anything at all; every moment in existence is a creative opportunity.

But I also know that military service can take away a certain element and instill another element in a human being.
For example, South Korean men who paid their military service dues come out saying how agonizing it was, but always conclude that "a man must serve at the military...." If their wives ask them, "Why?" They just say, "...A man must serve at the military." They don't have an answer. They just know that they suffered physical and mental pain that they wouldn't have suffered elsewhere or at any other point in their lives and this suffering has a unifying force among Korean men. They just know that they've experienced something that has turned them into the conventional idea of what makes "a man" in South Korea. All men in South Korea are required to serve in the Korean army unless they are exempt for whatever reason (mentally "inept," bribed out by rich parents, whatever). So, basically, every man in South Korea is soldier. If the North invades again (or the other way around), every man in South Korea will be drafted.

I digressed for a moment, but this all has a point. I refer to this example time and time again because I love this example: I saw a movie at two film festivals during my stay in South Korea. I saw it the first time right around this time of the year at the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF), and the second time around at the International Women's Film Festival in Seoul (IWFFIS). The film is called "Viewfinder." There is a monologue that basically says that although a Korean man and a Japanese man are basically the same entity, what sets them drastically apart and makes them fundamentally different is that a Korean man's imagination is limited, whereas a Japanese man's imagination is boundless.

What the speaker is saying here is that because a Korean man has experienced the pains of military service and has been trained to kill people, he is forever anchored to the earth and reality; if he wishes to take off into his mind somehow, he's unable to let go of himself completely and explore deep realms because his imagination is stifled by the memory of a certain pain that he's experienced, the kind of pain that is permanently etched in him. The speaker further notes that a Japanese man is "always prepared" to dive into the realm of imagination. The speaker envies the Japanese man for this, who has replaced the speaker's animation position when he was fired.

So when Cicero says that the military is for non-artistic people, there is some truth to that, but I think it should be clarified: The military wouldn't be the ideal place for anybody, because it'll stifle if not completely dry up imagination and the spirit of creativity. But the fact of the matter is, there are plenty of places outside of the military that can cause the same damage, for instance a cubicle at the DMV. Another person that might debunk this idea that "the military is for non-artistic" is Tim O'Brien, the author of The Things They Carried. I, personally, loved that book. I haven't read anything else of his. O'Brien fought in the Vietnam war, but he is artistic.

The paragraph that follows the one up there is the one I really have an issue with: "This is why there are so many Asian hipsters: in general Asian-Americans do not join the U.S. Military, care about American politics, the history of America or the Christian religion. They believe in serial monogamy because they haven’t had the Christian tradition slammed down their throats for 2,000 years like the Europeans have. The Asian-American grows up on the American landscape and seeks out other people with similar beliefs and they find the hipsters, who have similar value structures. And since hipsters are not xenophobic like many people in America, becoming a hipster is a viable option for an Asian."

I am fully aware that Cicero starts out the sentence about Asians with "in general," but that's precisely the problem here. One should never generalize because it'll create problems. For one thing, I know four Korean-Americans who have or are still serving the U.S. military. They had their reasons for joining the Army or the Marines although I am completely against the idea. Do I consider them the "artistic" types? Not really. One of them, maybe. But honestly, who am I to say that a person is or is not an artist? If one of them stood in a Kuwait desert and drew a smiley face in the sand and said, "Look: I'm an artist," who's to say that that person isn't one?

I also have an issue with Cicero claiming that Asians do not care about American politics, American history, or the Christian religion. The last bit is the craziest one, but I'll address the first two:

As a Korean-American (or an Asian-American or even just ASIAN, if you want to be general like Cicero), I care about American politics to some extent. (In what way? Or, to what extent?) I care enough to vote for Obama...? I care enough to have gone to Korea to research modern Korean literature on a U.S. government funded grant in order to cite and illustrate the open-minded Korean intellectuals of the early 1900s to show educators of this generation that South Korea was not xenophobic, racist, and pure-blooded national identity obsessed a century ago as it is today, and that we should utilize ideas given by Derrida to debunk the illusion of a pure-blood nation and promote diversity to allow South Korea to become as diverse like the U.S. (does this idea promote U.S. cultural imperialism in Korea?--no, because I think striving for diversity should be the goal of every nation--hurray for world peace), even though a lot of obstacles lie ahead. So that's my political bit. Another thing: It is impossible for Korean-Americans to not feel the slightest bit political. Hello? North Korea? South Korea? The U.S.'s involvement? Um...

I was told that Fulbright scholars are "cultural ambassadors," but that's really just a joke. Anybody can be a "cultural ambassador," are you kidding me? Just hop a plane and go to another country. There. You have culturally "ambassed" the hell out of another country.

Now the bit on American history... As a Korean-American, I sort of did not fit the stereotype of a good-at-math-Asian. I was terrible at math, and because I was so terrible at it, I never paid attention in class and really did horribly in math all four years of high school and for a year of it in college. But I kicked ass in my AP US history class. I passed the AP exam. And my APUSH teacher adored me. Actually, the entire Pearl River High history department and all its faculty adored me. I know another Korean-American attending Rutgers University right now who is majoring in American history. I don't see why she would pay money to go to college and spend four years of her life studying a subject that she doesn't care about. And she's Asian...

Now for the most hilarious bit: Asians not caring about Christianity? WOW. We Asians, if anything, have no one but the U.S. for making us the most Christian ethnicity on this planet.

My dad is a deacon at a Presbyterian church. My mother carried me to church in her belly for nine months. After I was born, I was taken to church every single Sunday of my life until age 18, when I was able to make my own decisions. I left church at 18, but I returned at age 20, then left again at age 21. I haven't returned since and am now an atheist (more or less), but that isn't my point here.

About 99.9% of my Asian-American friends are Christians. About 12% of their parents are either elders at a church if not pastors.

The history of Christianity permeating all of Asia is incredibly complex and varied (because ASIA is actually many different countries, given that it is a continent), but I'll just focus on what I know: Korea and Christianity.

American and European Christians have been going to Korea as early as the 1800s to evangelize. By the early 1900s, when Korea was trying to catch up to Japan and China's state of modernization (a.k.a. Westernization), they were eager to learn English, Japanese (a colonial vehicle to an even greater form of cultural imperialism--the West's) and soak in Western culture, which meant adopting their religion as well.

Schools such as Yonsei University and Ewha Women's University are founded by Christians.These schools were established over a hundred years ago. Are there Korean Christians today? Jesus Christ. Both Korea and the U.S. are teeming with Korean Christians. There are so many fucking Korean churches on this earth, it's not even funny.

In fact, a couple years ago, I saw statistics on the percentage of missionaries coming from which nations. The U.S. leads. The second nation that has the most missionaries in the world is... South Korea.

I think South Korea has like 48 or 49 million people in it or something. The number is dropping every year because people don't want to have babies and are more career-oriented these days. (Novelist Kim Young-ha is one of them.)

Do Korean-Americans not care about U.S. politics, U.S. history, or Christianity? Wow. That's the most insane thing I've ever heard. Especially the bit about Christianity.

I've seen more zealous Christians who are Asian in my life than those who are non-Asian. Could that be because I've been raised by Asians among Asians most of my life? Sure. But that doesn't make Cicero's statement any less absurd.

A lot of my female Asian-American friends are well into their twenties, and a lot of the single ones are still virgins. Would I consider some, if not most of my Korean-American friends xenophobic? Absolutely. They grew up with Korean-American Christians all their lives, so their Christian value of chastity and their Korean upbringing (by Korean immigrant parents raised in the 50s & 60s, who saw Park Chung-hee as President--the most racist, most nationalistic people ever) are very cherished.
So do I think that they believe in "serial monogamy"? Hell. No. Only monogamy. In marriage, and a holy matrimony at that. I don't mean like City Hall signing papers kind of thing. I mean pastors, blessings, the whole fucking shebang.

Europeans are less susceptible to being a hipster than Asians because Europeans have a long-standing relationship with the religion whereas Asia does not? C'mon.

Asia does have religions. Hinduism. Buddhism. Shinto. There are more that I'm not aware of, but those three are pretty fucking huge. If the "modern hipster" isn't a Christian, but claims to be Buddhist, would that person not be considered a hipster anymore? I mean, I don't get it. Ginsberg was really into Buddhism... Whitman wrote Leaves of Grass while reading Hindu texts. ... I really don't get it. And it's not fair to say that "Buddhism isn't a religion; it is a way of life." That's really not a valid argument because Christians can say the same thing.
Do religions from Asia not count as religions, therefore, would that allow the transition into becoming a "modern hipster" be a lot easier...? ...Yikes.

How absurd...

Now, I sort of fit the first paragraph's description on what makes a "modern hipster," in that I am not a Christian, and I just "[live] on this planet walking around aimlessly keeping [myself] busy with work and artistic projects." Yeah, I do that. But would I call myself a "modern hipster"? No.

Can others call themselves that? Sure.

There were just... so many things wrong with this essay, now that I think about it.

I liked Cicero's The Human War. I still like him as a writer. But I do not agree with this piece at all. I don't even see why it is necessary. I don't think it was very well thought out. No, I don't think it was thought out enough, and I don't think the points were very strong. Just irritating because they weren't true, which is why I had to write this response, given that there are many readers and followers of him.

Friday, October 8, 2010

cup of world spring stadium - poem

I don't either, just do it, Ben

in the corners of the square Wendy's patties.

Ok. The park is empty in some sense

would come if there were jobs.

Pregnant women walking with their children, except it's hard to tell that they are pregnant

but the chins look square in the dark
     dark glass.

Four families, and a family of bikes--four bikes...and pine cones dispersed across the walk, all over like
families dispersed.

--B.F. and G.J.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

excerpt from THE SHOWER by Charles Bukowski


...
it is usually mid-afternoon and quiet,
and getting dressed we talk about what else
there might be to do,
but being together solves most of it
for as long as those things stay solved
in the history of women and
man, it's different for each-
for me, it's splendid enough to remember
past the memories of pain and defeat and unhappiness:
Linda, you brought it to me
when you take it away
do it slowly and easily
make it as if I were dying in my sleep
instead of in my life
amen 

The Question of "MODERN"

I was sitting with a circle of guys. One of the lucky ones had nabbed a fresh, young Korean chick. They'd been going together for about two months now, good and strong.

One of the boys asked, "Well, is she modern or what?"

The other boys immediately nodded. They knocked back their drinks and confirmed again with 'yeses' over and over.

Let's start with what he meant by "modern" in this case: He obviously meant if she's the kind of girl that wouldn't mind spreading her legs.

There isn't a problem with that. But there's a problem with the employment of that term. In fact, people may argue that "modern" is even more conservative in the Korean context due to the Christianity that began to permeate the nation and spread like wildfire, parallel to the industrialization and love for capitalism. What's conservative about "modern" then?
It reemphasized where women "belonged" and heightened the obsession over a woman's chastity. This was, of course, just a PART of modernity in Korea.

Novels like TEARS OF BLOOD by Yi Injik and THE HEARTLESS by Yi Kwangsu emphasized chastity like crazy. In a society that once had a tradition of child marriages and kisaengs as a part of their cultural root, these writers promoted the curbing of sexual activity. And both writers are considered the first modernists in Korean literature.

But modernity in Korea was pretty complicated. Socialists and realists began to disassemble the work that Yi Injik and Yi Kwangsu developed; Kim Tongin's POTATOES illustrates how an "upright" and "proper" girl loses her sense of Confucian virtue through force of circumstance (poverty, oppression), and opens her eyes to the truth: Polyamorous behavior is not outside the human capability.

This story was written in the 20s. Outside of literature, however, both liberal reformers and conservative reformers did not allow change for women that would force men to change their habits (such as prohibiting male abuse towards women). This is Korea's modernity--a non-progression, an immobility of female reform, an inability to see the woman's sex as a free existence that is autonomous and independent from male influence.

My point is, be careful how you employ the term "modern" in the Korean context.