EACS 4B Final

Under the Dome

A Chinese documentary by journalist Chai Jing

Summary: discusses problems with China’s pollution

• defines PM2.5 and the health problems it causes with human health

• Told personal story about how her fetus daughter developed a tumor in the womb and had to undergo surgery immediately following birth (likely due to defects from pollution)

• China’s rapid industrialization has led to large scale burning of fossil fuels to keep up with Western powers

• Talks about how many factories do not abide by environmental regulations and how inspectors don’t care to check + enforce

• Calls for higher national quality standards for oil

• Claims that information disclosure is a prerequisite for public participation

• China’s best way to controlling smog problem is reforming energy systems + policies

Significance: an extremely influential document because it brought these problems mainstream to a large audience, bringing about discussions. Showed how the awareness of China’s pollution issues, yet brought light to how environmental regulations are not implemented or enforced. Brought forth the need for public accountability and issues with political control.

• “catalyzed” public consciousness towards the issue

Examples of Environmental Pollution

• Coal: biggest contributor to China’s air pollution due to rapid industrialization and high demand for energy

• Water pollution

  • 20 of the world’s most polluted rivers are in China

  • Chinese drinking/groundwater water is contaminated by untreated wastewater, fertilizer, pesticides, etc

  • Lakes and reservoirs polluted

  • many native fish species in Yellow River gone extinct

• Soil pollution:

  • Land is polluted with chemicals (i.e. lead, arsenic) from industrial waste (from factories, mines, agriculture, etc)

  • 2014 Guangzhou, rice was contaminated with cadmium and caused kidney failure + cancer

  • farming land polluted bc of irrigation with polluted water, improper use of fertilizers + pesticides, and livestock

  • Causes fears for food security bc of inability to grow on safe + healthy soil

• Air pollution:

  • Coal burning leading to sulfur dioxide emissions and caused acid rain

  • Caused life expectancy to decrease (in the north)

  • PM2.5 causing human health problems (mainly respiratory)

  • Mass increase in cars and highway expansions that drastically increases CO2 emissions

Significance

• Shapiro argues that in light of all the pollution and human health problems it causes, industrial + economic growth is still nonetheless prioritized over environmental protection

• Reveals tensions between people’s demands for more environmental protection, human health protection, and increased living standards and government’s prioritization for profitability and growth

Obstacles to environmental protection in China

• National and local governments prioritize economic growth (GDP, jobs, and tax revenue) over environmental protection and human health

• Powerful industries have enough influence to block policies and strict regulations, preventing them from being held accountable

• China built its industrial expansion model off of coal and heavy industries, making it hard to transition away from it completely

  • China also has to meet most domestic demands of its huge population and the demands of the global supply chain, only increasing their need for industry and production and thus their contribution to pollution

• Thus, environmental protection and policies are hard to enforce

Significance:

• striving for modernity (aka industrialization) comes at a cost

• Shows how it’s not a lack of awareness of environmental pollution, but the corrupt industries that prevent enforcement for their own favor and growth

• Serves as the catalyst for “environmental mass incidents” and social unrest—changes relationship between citizens and state

PM 2.5

• particulate matter with particles that are 2.5 microns or less in diameter—therefore not visible to the naked eye

• Pollutes China’s air due to coal burning, factory emissions, vehicle exhaust etc

• So small that it can get into people’s respiratory systems and cause health problems such as asthma, bronchitis, lung cancer, heart disease, and even death

• Example (?): Chai Jing explains PM2.5 in “Under the Dome” and her observations how everyone has to wear their masks and how it even impacts her daily life. She describes how it prevents her from being able to do everyday, ordinary activities such as just going outside for a walk or for exercise because she’s worried about her health

Significance:

• PM2.5 serves as a measurable issue as a result of the state’s negligence and the consequence it held (human health problems).

• A physical symbol of what impact rapid hyper-industrialization left, exposing the failures of the state to regulate and enforce environmental laws

Coal use in China

• china was following the west’s footsteps in unfettered economic growth and thus industrial pollution

• The Industrial Revolution in Europe was powered by coal so China followed in suit

• 2010: coal accounted for 70% of China’s total energy consumption

  • Decreased down to 56% in 2021, but China still burned more coal than the rest of the world combined

• coal powered electricity generation, factories, steel, cement heating

• Burning coal released SO2, smog, and PM2.5

Significance:

• Coal use was the backbone of China’s industrial growth, intertwining heavily with their economic growth, state policies, and pollution.

• Highlights idea that development and economic growth could not be achieved without environmental degradation

  • Development and industrial expansion sacrificed for public health and environmental protection (shows where gov’t’s priorities were)

Environmental mass incidents

• Social unrest that results from protests and demonstrates speaking out again corrupt factories, industries, and local officials contributing to environmental damage + pollution

  • Factories/mines/industries are polluting people’s homes and livelihoods, affecting their daily lives and health

Significance:

• Environmental degradation is not solely an ecological issue, but bleeds into social and political spheres. Reveals the corruption between the state, local officials, and industries and the unrest among the public

  • Distrust among public that challenges state legitimacy

  • Affects citizen-state relations

• Also significant because it forced state to pivot away from a coal-driven industry towards greener energy sources

China’s green technology and industries

• China is the world’s largest producer of solar panels

• 2025: 70% of EVs in the world were manufactured in China, China exported 60% of EVs in the glove

• Started what will be the world’s largest National Park system

• Drastically decreased their carbon emissions and continue planning to do so into the future

• Evolving their technology to be oriented around clean, sustainable, low-carbon energy to reduce reliance on fossil fuels

Significance:

• Reflects new steps towards modernity and change

  • A shift away from a coal-driven industry to one that sets the stage for new opportunities in economic modernization, technological leadership, and energy transition

• What once was China following in the West’s footsteps now demonstrates China leading forward in new technology that prioritizes sustainability

Buddhist notions of reincarnations, equality of all “sentient beings,” vegetarianism, and compassion for other life forms

• Buddhism emphasizes the idea that all living beings are connected through a cycle of reincarnation

  • Thus, everything should be treated with consideration and compassion

• Influenced how people treated animals

  • Treat animals with kindness and thus vegetarianism was encouraged because killing animals for food conflicted with this idea

Significance:

• shows how religion, morals, and ethics are intertwined with environmental ideas

• religion, specifically Buddhism in this case, brought forth specific morals and ethics that gave people a guideline how to live and behaven

Unilinear social evolutionism and plight of traditional Chinese religions

• A 19th century theory of the notion of progress—all cultures must follow through the same path as modern West

• Idea that all societies follow the same progression of development: Primitive, Barbarian, Civilization

  • Aka primitive, modern, scientific

Significance

• This ideology caused China to see traditional religions, rituals, temple practices, and folk beliefs as backward, primitive traditions of the past

• Then pushed the belief that Chinese society must be secularized or eliminated for the modernization of the nation

  • Thus, suppressed and stigmatized many traditional Chinese religions

• As a result, as China moved towards modernity, religion was seen as a backwards way of thinking and why secular and scientific beliefs were emphasized in the way they were

Document 19

• Allowed religion organizations to reclaim lost sites of worship and resume religion life following the 1982 Cultural Revolution

• Did not entirely embrace true religious freedoms, but adopted a policy of controlled tolerance

Significance:

• Signifies a move towards modernity after an era of religious suppression with new religious policy

• Created an era of modernity for religion in China where it was only permitted so long as it stayed loyal to the state and did not challenge it

• Thus, allowed a religious revival but only that was still restricted in favor of the state

Stalin’s Five-Stage theory of universal history

• primitive communism → slave society → feudalism → capitalism → socialism

• Was adopted by the CCP’s (1949-1980s) state orthodoxy

  • Regarded as “scientific knowledge”

Significance

• Provided a framework of ideology as China continued moving towards modernity during the Maoist years

• China was committed to viewing the past as backwards and continue moving towards socialism the correct way

  • Thus, justifying revolutions and transformations enacted and led by the state

State secularization of religion in the post-Mao era

• 4 main forms of religion in China today:

  • 1. State-directed/state-penetrated religion

  • 2. Traditional local community religion

  • 3. Self-cultivation/self-enrichment secularized religiosities

  • 4. Commodified religiosities

Significance

• shows how religious revival following post-Mao was controlled by state

  • Religious growth in modern china is monitored, categorized, and limited by state

• Shows how religious growth in modern China is still a fear of the state (feared that it would be a competitor of their authority), and thus felt like they needed to control it

Categories of “religion” vs. “superstition”

• adopted from western constructs of religion

• Adopted Protestant rhetoric against Catholicism and it’s practices

• Many practices/rituals of religion were seen as “superstitious” and thus as backwards and primitive

  • Allowed the state to justify the eradication of these religions in the name of modernization

Significance

• The use of the label “superstitious” allowed state-engineered secularism and the suppression of traditional Chinese religions

• Shaped how certain religions were viewed and why they are still stigmatized, still affecting their presence in modern China’s religious sphere

China’s 5 state recognized religions

Buddhism, Daoism, Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam

Significance:

• again shows the environment of religious growth/freedom in modern China

• Religious revival in modern China is allowed, but still heavily monitored and controlled by the state

Chinese popular religion

• the remains of local indigenous religions and shamanism

  • Not fully incorporated into Daoism or Buddhism

  • Includes practices such as blood sacrifices, spirit possessions, and are highly localized

• The state denied building permits for popular religion temples—requires them to join Daoist Association

• The wide range of local, every day religious beliefs in practices that do not fall under a single doctrine—are often mixes of multiple religions

  • They are often more rooted in local communities and families rather than one centralized institution

Significance:

• shows the extent to which Chinese religions are monitored and limit within the modern China religious sphere

• religions and practices that are not formally recognized by the state are viewed as superstitious and not given certain freedoms that other religions have

  • Thus, making them vulnerable to suppression

Buddhist revival in mainland China

• Revival saw growth of Buddhist institutions and practices post-Mao

• Growth examples seen through temple rebuilding, monastic revival, tourism, and state-managed religious policy

  • Allowed for a greater visibility of Buddhism and their practices among the grater Chinese society

Significance:

• Buddhist revival shows how religions were still able to be revived and growth in modern, post-Mao China despite the previous suppression faced

• Reflects the era of religious growth in modern China where certain religions were still able to flourish despite past or even current suppressions

  • Shows how important religions (in this case Buddhism) were in people’s every day lives—not just as rituals or acts, but also as culture, morality, and heritage.

Tzu Chi Buddhist Merit Foundation recycling and environmentalism

• a global Buddhist Charity and disaster relief organization founded by Buddhist nun Master Cheng Yen, headquartered in the east coast of Taiwan

• Use the practice of recycling and environmental protection into a major form of religious practice

• Tzu Chi promotes many Buddhist ideals including moral discipline, compassion, and care for all life on earth

  • Thus case emphasizes how protecting the earth is important by reducing consumption and sorting waste, done through recycling

Significance:

• shows how religion permeates through modern Chinese people’s every day life—religion is not just one aspect of their life but is integrated into the reason why they perform certain actions

• Involves community, morality, and how they live

• thus the need for revival and recognition because it is so much more than a singular religious institute, but how people live, think, and behave—something hard for the state to control and suppress completely

Radio and television vs. new media in China

• Media form of radio and television largely dominated the Maoist years and helped the spread of propaganda

  • Thus more subject to a top down, state regularization—centralized and one-directional

• New media, including WeChat, Xiaohongshu, dousing, etc, are faster, more personalized, and more interactive (especially among community horizontally)

Significance

• shows the evolution of media and distribution of news throughout the history of modern China

• Evolving media’s did not completely stop the control that the state had over media, though

  • Still seen in certain forms of censorship over SNS apps

• yet, media has evolved to a point where news is not just received from a singular source without citizens being able to reciprocate their thoughts

  • Media has now evolved to where netizens can participate in discourse, while limited, but creativity allows discourse to pervade

• Evolving media reflects the control that the state attempts to maintain and citizens simultaneous desire to talk and discuss their thoughts and debate

Youth culture and media development and culture

• Youth culture has influenced the development of new media and thus the culture that is beginning to grow in modern China

• New forms of media is influences youth culture’s identities, trends, and forms of expression

• Forms of media including WeChat, Xiaohongshu, online games, Weibo, etc

Significance:

• Youth culture influencing media (and media influencing youth culture) shows how it cannot be completely controlled, limited, and monitored by the state

  • Media is something bigger than just the state—sites and places where youth can create communities, develop their tastes, and find their identities

• Reveals the tension between these two groups

  • While media provides a space for the youth the express themselves, it also draws them in and leaves them vulnerable to consumer capitalism and dependence on the internet

History of media development in China

• Writing developed in Shang Dynasty

  • Oracle bone divinations, inscriptions, bamboo slips

• Paper invented in Eastern Han Dynasty

• Print media in early China was tied with disseminating Buddhism

  • Woodblock printing during Tang Dynasty

  • Moveable block printed text

• Newspapers fueled nationalism and Republican Revolution

• Maoist era heavily relied on print, film, and radio for spread of propaganda

• Modern China saw a rise of internet usage, social media apps, popular music, etc

  • Thus saw an influx of influences of western culture

Significance:

• History of media shows development of both communication and spread of culture throughout the history of China

• Old media was easy to be controlled by the state and thus was a top-down tool mainly used for propaganda

  • The evolution of new media through youth culture, commercial culture, and digital participation

• Development of media shows both a persistence of political control by the state and a simultaneous emergence of creativity by citizens/netizens in order to participate in political/social discourse

Nationalism and a shared temporality via media

• creating a sense of nationalism amongst citizens by allowing people to experience a shared temporality—aka living though significant events at the same time by witnessing it through media

• *note: Benedict Anderson’s “imagined communities”

  • Simultaneity through print and shared time creates a sense of living in the same nation, sharing the same important events and having the same emotional reactions

  • Enables a sense of national imagery across a wide nation of unseen fellow citizens

• Examples: radio/TV/newspapers all relayed the same disasters, holidays, political announcements, etc to create a shared sense of nationality so that it feels like everyone is experiencing it at the same time

Significance

• Important how the state was able to cultivate feelings of nationalism through citizens using certain events

  • Important considering the sheer size of China and its population consisting of hundreds of millions—a way to create a sense of togetherness and nationalism amongst citizens

• Shows the important role that media plays in a political/social sense

  • Allows people to feel similar feelings and thus this shared nationalism within a shared temporality

  • Allows the construct of a nation as a community

Internet censorship in china (state strategies and Netizen counter-strategies)

• Censorship is a result of Chinese state’s efforts to control + monitor online expression, contrasting netizen’s persistent opposition and efforts to participating in discourse

• Rongbin Han argues that Western perspective oversimplifies the Chinese cyberspace

  • The divide is not just between the state and the public, but there is also divide between local gov’t + higher levels, and between the citizens who support vs. don’t support gov’t

  • Argues that China has the world’s most powerful state media censorship system, but Chinese netizens are intensely dynamic, creative, and intelligent at thwarting/going around these measures

  • Such a tension and division has resulted in an erosion of trust in both state authoritarians and critics of the state

• 2000, Chinese gov’t built “Great Firewall of China”

  • Censored sensitive topics across Chinese internet, blocking access to many foreign websites

  • In opposition, netizens used VPN to jump the wall and still use these websites

• State censors posts, accounts, websites by using keywords to search for sensitive topics and remove/filter them

  • Netizens come up with homophones to avoid keyword detection that other netizens

Significance

• exemplifies that state of media in modern China—neither fully free or fully restricted

• Demonstrates how state wishes to maintain control, but citizens continue finding ways to express themselves

  • Also demonstrates the tension and divide between multiple levels of state officials and the public themselves

“The medium is the message”

• said by Canadian media theorist Marshal McLuhan

• This quote argues how the form/structure of media is delivered in is the message itself, effectively shaping how people think, communicate, and experience

  • In contrast to how many believe that the message is purely what content the media carries

• “We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us”

• Media comes in many forms—TV, radio, print, social media/internet

Significance:

• Shifts away from analyzing just media content and instead the effects that forms of media has brought about

• Throughout the history of china, forms of media have changed drastically and thus shaped political culture, social, youth culture, etc

• Forms of media in modern China are so different from what they were before and it has affected Chinese society in various ways

  • Through commercialization, youth culture, political culture, etc

City of Düsseldorf, social media, tourist economy

• a city that became popular on Xiaohongshu for its authentic regional Chinese food

  • Became a recognizable foodie destination for Chinese diaspora travelers in Europe

Significance

• exemplifies the role of social media in tourist economy—how social media can increase urban visibility by direction attention, desire, and movement to a specific pinpoint

WeChat and Xiaohongshu

• WeChat: a versatile mobile messaging system where people can exchange photos, news links, essays, payments, gifts, etc

  • Millions of users

• Xiaohongshu: platform for lifestyle, beauty, travel reviews, etc

Significance:

• An example of two major social media sites in modern Chinese media society and how they’ve shaped media culture

  • Have shaped basic everyday behaviors such as communication and spread of information

  • Have also shaped culture around commercialism, consumerism, identity, and lifestyle

• Shows how media in modern China is interactive and incorporated in daily life of netizens

  • Lives are incredibly intertwined with social media and this current culture cannot function without it

Part 3 Chinese ascendancies

1) Tang-Song Dynasty

• massive economic growth + technological innovation (i.e. printing, gunpowder, compass)

• Expansion of trade along the Silk Road and maritime routes

• Emergence of wealthy cities such as Chang’an and Hangzhou

• World’s largest economy during this era—lots of cultural influence due to Chinese goods + ideas circulating through Eurasian trade routes

  • Greater connection to the world—not just trade of goods much, intellectual + cultural + religious ideas

2) Ming Dynasty

• Projected power through naval exploration

  • Admiral Zheng He led massive naval expeditions through the Indian Ocean, East Africa, etc

• An expansion of Chinese naval power, resulting in diplomatic relations with many states and domination of trade

  • Showed their ability to project global power

3) Afro-Asian Non-Aligned Movements

• Newly independent Asian and African countries tried avoiding aligning with US/USSR during Cold War

• China positioned itself as a leader among these post-colonial nations and promoted cooperation among their development

• Strengthened China’s political influence and built diplomatic relations

In general significance: China has always been building it’s political influence and economic growth through its history, showing its ability and capacity to succeed in these areas

Quanzhou in Song Dynasty

• Asia’s largest cosmopolitan port in the 10-14 centuries

• Contained many foreign resident communities from Persia, India, and SE Asia

• A central port in the Maritime Silk Road, thus making Quanzhou a very wealthy and cosmopolitan area

• This unique communities of foreigners built temples, mosques, temples, etc in Quanzhou

Significance:

• Quanzhou is a representative for how deeply connected to trade networks was during the Song Dynasty and thus how international it had become

  • Demonstrated China’s economic power and influence

  • China’s globalization began well before it moved towards modernization

The Silk Road

• Trade routes that connected China with Central Asia, Middle East, and Europe during the Han Dynasty

• Goods were passed through multiple routes and traders

• Religious, cultural, and intellectual ideas were spread along these routes as well with the traders

  • I.e. allowing the spread of Buddhism from India to China

  • Technologies such as paper making were able to spread westward

  • Art styles, languages, and scientific knowledge spread to different societies/areas

Significance

• Contributed to globalization in general

  • In specifics to China, helped spread of ideas to and from Chinese society that still contributes to modern China—i.e. Buddhism is still prevalent in China today and influences culture

Maritime Prohibitions

• forbade private entrepreneurs to go on high seas to engage in trade with foreigners

  • Only allowed court-controlled “tributary trade” with emissaries from China’s neighboring kingdoms who used the paying of tribute to the Chinese court as an excuse to trade with China for coveted goods

• Done as a way to protect Chinese coastal people from piracy + smuggling from Japanese pirates

Significance:

• historians use the policy to explain why China became less dominant in maritime exploration

One Belt, One Road Initiative (BRI)

• The New Silk Road in which the Chinese gov’t pledged $1 trillion on huge infrastructure projects that create a land route between Central Asia, Russia, E. Africa, SE Asia, etc

  • Infrastructure including railroads, highways, bridges, ports, etc

• This “belt” is aimed to link China with Iran, Turkey, and Europe—ending in Venice

• The “road” is the maritime Silk Road that links China with SE Asia, Pakistan, and E. Africa

Significance:

• BRI is a signifier of a modern step towards globalization across continents which China at the center

  • Helped increase China’s international influence and globalization in modern society through trade and connection

Chinese Inbound & Outbound Foreign Direct Investment

• IFDI = foreign companies investing into china

  • Building factories, subsidiaries, funding productions in China

  • I.e. lots of US investment in China, seen through foreign companies in China like McDonald’s, Walmart, automobile + electronics manufacturers

• OFDI = Chinese companies investing overseas

  • I.e. buying firms overseas, investing in mines in Africa, ports in SE Asia, buying foreign tech brands, real estate, etc etc

Significance

• Significant growth in both FDIs shows increase in China’s globalization and global influence

  • China is in transitional alongside a shift in cultural domination as the world goes from Western power to multipolar world power rise (includes China)

• Growth shows global market’s trust in China’ ability host economic power domestically (thus IFDI) and a simultaneous growth in it’s own ability to be a global direct investor (increase in OFDI)

Chinese students studying abroad

• Total number of Chinese students who have studied abroad since 1978: 4 million

• 2015: 70% returned to China for jobs

• China Scholarship Council: Chinese gov’t fellowships for Chinese scholars to go abroad to foreign universities for 1 year

  • Gave students access to prestigious universities, global experience, language skills, and career advantages from an international degree

  • allowed students to build higher social statuses and better employment

Chinese infrastructure development around the world

Race and class relations among Chinese and the foreigners in Guangzhou

Foreign communities living in China: ancient & contemporary

Non-state transnational Chinese migration, small businesses

Cosmopolitanism vs insularity, isolationism

Japan’s industrial modernity and postwar economic miracle

• Japan saw rapid GDP growth post war, increase in export-led manufacturing, and growth-oriented state industries

  • Includes the rise and industrial success of major Japanese export industries including Toyota, Mitsubishi, Sony, etc

• this era of economic growth was known as a period of “super-modernization” for Japan

Significance:

• This post war economic miracle led Japan to be one of the world’s largest economies following WW2

• This forward motion into industrial modernity served as a model for other Asian nations

  • A model story of economic success after a jarring defeat

Minamata disease

• Minamata was a fairly small, yet thriving fishing community that was dependent on its marine—a small local economy structured around daily food consumption

  • Livelihoods were structured around fisheries and agriculture

• 1908, Nippon Nitrogen Fertilizer Company established a chemical Minamata

  • Dominated economic force in Minamata and the entire town became dependent on it bc they provided labor for them

• Minamata saw heavy industrialization and economic growth after the establishment of Chisso

• Chisso released wastewater containing methyl mercury into Minamata may

  • Worked into the environment and into the bodies of Minamata’s residents because of their heavy seafood consumption

• Resulted in the Minamata disease—first seen in mutated mutated animals

  • 1956, first human case—reported cases of severe neurological damage, paralysis, death, birth defects

• State only took action after 12 years

Significance

• showed the cost of such economic growth

• Exemplifies argument how there cannot be both—without economic growth/industrial growth there was peace/nature and with industrialization was a loss of nature

• Challenges narrative of economic growth above all else by looking at what sacrifices have to be made for it

3.11 Triple Disaster (basic facts, government response, citizen responses)

• March 11, 2011 Fukushima

  • Earthquake triggered tsunami and a nuclear meltdown

• Hundreds of buildings destroyed, cities flooded, public transportation centers decimated, thousands dead/missing

• Nuclear meltdown left radiation uncontrolled

• Gov’t was slow, uncoordinated, and lacked transparency in their responses to the disaster

• Fukushima called a “city with nuclear ghosts”

  • “Ghosts” referred to both radiation and victims

    • Radiation bc it was unknown, invisible, yet deadly

    • Victims bc radiation made people invisible to gov’t (??)

Significance is also the consequence of modernity and industrialization and what it sacrifices

DMZ ecology: biodiversity shaped by militarized division

• demilitarized zone, established 1953 after Korean War Armistice Agreement

  • Ironic bc even tho it’s called “demilitarized” it’s one of the most heavily fortified borders with troops, land mines, guard posts, surveillance, etc

• A haven for biodiversity bc of its restricted access for no urban or industrial development in this area

  • Allowed nature and biodiversity to flourish and wetlands to grow and thrive

Significance

• shows the paradox because militarization is precisely what allowed this biodiversity to flourish—it’s a site of contradiction

• Also significant because it raises question for future development

  • Future of DMZ? There are questions of if there will be development in the DMZ in the future, but what will happen to this unique nature that houses so many endemic species

  • Reveals idea of how one cannot be without the other

Nature emerging within Cold War context

• DMZ emerged as a compromise for NK and SK in the Cold War

• is heavily restricted and militarized with troops, land mines, and surveillance on both sides

  • This restriction allows for the growth and flourishing of nature and biodiversity

Significance

• Shows the interconnectedness between ecology, politics, and human conflict

• DMZ is a site where all of these ideas intersect into a physical representation—contains history, biodiversity + nature, and militarization all at once

The double bind of DMZ conservation, coined by Eleana J. Kim in “Making Peace with Nature”

• the idea of an impossible contradiction in which the DMZ’s ecologies can only be preserved by maintaining this militarized division

• “Peace” is often defined as economic cooperation and this peace can only be achieved through the destruction of the DMZ

• Thus, this double bind exists because there can be no scenario where both peace and ecologies can exist together

Significance:

• ecology and politics are so intricately intertwined

• Reveals tension between ecological preservation and human conflicts/relations

Temple-stay rebranding Buddhist monasteries as heritage sites

• an example of a traditionally religious (Buddhist) space being turned into a cultural, tourist site

• A traditionally, religious site turned into an accessible “heritage” site that resembles more cultural + national identity

  • Became symbols of Korean tradition, culture, and national identity

Significance

• shows evolution of role that religion has played throughout SK’s history, and what role it currently plays in modern Korea

• Religion can serve as a commodity for cultural and economic purposes

  • Simultaneously helps persevere and popularize Buddhism in modern society

  • Yet brands these once-sacred religious sites as more a site for cultural identity and heritage of Korea than Buddhism as a religion

Religion operating within modern capitalist society

• religion does not disappear within modern capitalist society, but simply adapts

• Modern capitalist society promotes market systems, tourism, consumption, branding, etc

  • Religion has adapted to become a marketable commodity part of consumer culture instead of simply a belief and ritual

• Example: temple-stays, wellness retreats and “Buddhist-core”

  • Buddhism has branded itself in specific ways to target youth consumerism (by making Buddhist merch and meme-style slogans)

Significance:

• also shows the role that religion currently plays in modern society

• Modern society is moving towards capitalism, yet religion still persists

Shamanism’s this-worldly logic

• predates Buddhism and Christianity—Korea’s oldest religious practice

• Very ritualistic:

  • Female shamans would act as mediums; temporarily possessed by spirits and perform initiation rituals

  • village rituals for collective prosperity, ritual purification for the dead

• “This-worldly” logic is concerned with problems in the current, present life rather than emphasis on salvation or the afterlife

  • Thus rituals focus on practical human needs including health, family, fertility, luck, protection, success etc

Significance

• its “this-worldly” logical shaped how later religions took root in Korea

  • I.e. Christianity was reinterpreted and also emphasized health, prosperity, salvation, etc

• Reveals how religion is deeply imbedded in people’s every day lives rather than just mere beliefs regarding the afterlife

  • Why peope

Christianity and modernization in Korea

• 1952-1962: nearly 1/3 of SK’s political leadership were Christian despite only 4% of gen pop being Christian

  • Syngman Rhee, SK’s first president, was Christian

• Christianity and democratization developed hand in hand during the 1970s-80s

  • Protestant + Catholic clergy supported anti-authoritarian protests

  • Churches served as spaces for protest organizations

  • The emergence of the Minjung theology reinterpreted Christianity through the lens of the suffering and lived experiences of workers, students the poor, etc

    • Thus a new emphasis on human rights, social justice, and democracy

• Christianity also became synonymous with modernization

  • Became closely associated with modern education, medicine, hospitals, and democratic values

  • So thus conversion meant access to these services—to modernity

Significance

• shows the close ties that religion (in this case Christianity) held with the modernization of Korean society

• By aligning itself with certain values, Christianity became interlinked with modernity and the development of Korean society—thus playing an important role in modernity

Minjung theory and democratization

• reinterpretation of Christianity through suffering of workers, students, the poor, the oppressed, ordinary people

  • Thus less of an emphasis on salvation and more so how Christianity should help these people stand against dictatorship, exploitation, social injustices, etc

  • More of this-worldly, here and now emphasis

• Became closely tied with SK’s democracy movement during the 70s-80s

• Example: Yoido Full Gospel Church promoted “Threefold Blessing”: Health, prosperity, and salvation

  • Evangelical theology that also strongly emphasized life here and now

Significance

• shows how religion adapts to places as they move across cultures. Korea already was cultivating a this-worldly ideation due to Shamanism, and Christianity molding to it reveals how cultural landscapes can influence religion

• Also reveals how closely tied religion is with its social and political landscape

  • Acts as an active driving force in political spheres (seen through the driving of SK’s democratization movement) and not a private, belief institution that stands around and does nothing

  • Played an active role in the development of SK’s modernization

Mountain Buddhism and spatial marginalization

Templestays as wellness response to burnout society

• 1997 Asian Financial crisis left left SK in a state of labor precarity, intense competition, and rising inequality

  • SK was then ranked low in global happiness and high suicide rates

• Late 2000s saw a rise of a “healing” discourse and self help—Templestays aligned with this cultural shift with an emphasis in healing

• Participants were motivated to participate in Templestays bc of their desire for rest and emotional rests

• Templestays allowed people to spend time in nature, enjoy temple food, and escape from their daily stresses

Significance

• Showed how a religious space could provide a site of healing rather than simply just doctrinal instruction

• Shows evolution of religion’s role in modern SK society and its adaptation to a modern capitalist society and culture

Religion transformed into cultural tourism

The Asian Century and shifting global power

• The idea that the 21st century is increasingly defined by Asia’s rising economic, political, and cultural power

  • Specifically in countries such as Japan, Korea, China, India, etc

• A shift in the global center of gravity away from the old dominance of the Atlantic world and towards Asia

Significance

• reveals a new age of modernity for Asia as it grows in economic and cultural power Specifically

• Not just an object for western domination, but consisting of its own countries that have the ability and power to grow themselves—drives global change

Pax Americana shaping post WW2 east Asia

• Post WW2 saw the emergence of Pax Americana

  • US-led security order in East Asia

• Established an alliance network with Japan, SK, Taiwan, Philippines, etc

• Long term US military presence across these regions

• Korean War was a central pillar in the shaping of Pax Americana—SK developed a system that was strongly influenced by their alliance with the US

  • Largely shaped by their military power, political influence, and economic support

• Example in photo shown in lecture—Kim Jong Un shaking hands with Donald Trump rather than with the president of SK

Significance

• shows how US presence has shaped the way East Asian countries have moved into modernity

• In regards to SK, much of its move towards modernity in a political and economic sense was influenced by Pax Americana

  • Thus revealing their dependence on US military power

Paik Nak-chung’s concept of the division system

• Paik Nak-Chung developed the idea of Korea’s division system in which the border is not just a physical separation, but the self-reproducing political structure that shapes how both states operate

Division system as a subsystem of the capitalist world-system

Division system constraining SK democracy

Korea between Pax Americana and rising China

THAAD controversy as example of the division system