Cancel Culture: The 100-Won Coin's Image is to be Redone

Yes, this is the most recent controversy in the USA. (right?)

Some pointed out that Tubman was a Union spy and received military honors at her funeral (a good person to put on currency), whereas although he was a war hero and president, Jackson removed the Cherokee from their lands (trail of tears). These facts can plausibly be used as the justification for replacing Jackson with Tubman, whether or not that's a good idea.

The difference in the Korean case here is that there is no real evidence that the artists of the Korean currency had done anything that can be reasonably deemed "bad."

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Not really. Every future generation thinks they're more moral than the previous one. 100 years from now people will be trying to cancel everything done today no matter how woke it may be for today.

Every single country on earth was founded by taking it away from someone else. Are we just going to completely erase history and pretend like life started in 2020?

 

Not saying I agree with the replacement of Jackson with Tubman.

However people CAN use these facts I noted about these two above as a sort of justification for changing the currency. Are they not...facts...that we can agree on, whether or not we agree it's a good idea?

I agree there is a problem with viewing historical figures from the current moral fashion. Yep.

Judging them by the standards of their OWN time, or by timeless standards (The Golden Rule), are NOT as problematic, IMO.

 

My challenge was really that it could be a justification. I'm not taking any position on either individual rather the more dangerous idea that wiping history is a huge issue the the USA and the world needs to stop

 

If some have their way, yes.

 

That's good for you: The difference in exchange value between a 500-Won and 500-Yen coin is tenfold!

 

It's not a conspiricy, they are doing it openly. It is a design change, but for deeply cultural and political issues. That's the problem. Freedom of expression world wide continues to be under attack.

 

This has been an interesting and informative thread to read. We are fortunate not to have lived through a recent occupation like the Koreans have. When visiting Tokyo last fall I gained some first hand perspective on historical revisionism. I stayed a couple nights at an APA hotel, which is a chain owned by a right wing nationalist. Instead of a Gideon Bible like in our hotel rooms, this room contained a couple of nationalist themed books by the owner which, along with other topics, addressed WWII. That piqued my curiosity enough to visit the Yasukuni shrine and war museum which is dedicated to the deification of all who died serving Japan. I found the sanitized presentation of history quite shocking when compared with postwar deNazification in Germany, not to mention our National reckoning with the sins, real and imagined, of our past. It made me feel fortunate to live in a country where we aren’t afraid to admit we did things wrong at times. “Wokeness” seems to be more of a Western phenomenon, while countries like Korea and Japan have a different political dynamic.

 

Korea needs a wake up call and move on. It is stuck behind the times.

I acknowledge that WWII has caused severe hardship and yet continue to bicker Japan over compensation and demand apologies. After 75 years this continues to go on.

All this just creates unnecessary tension. Quite a few young Koreans that I meet today are obnoxious and ignorant. Acknowledging and learning from history is important but to get lectures that Japanese should bend over and pay all "debts" is just absurd. Why should I apologize or even talk about compensation when it happened a couple of generations ago?

 

All I know on the subject is that they have proven through historical records during the Japanese colonization of Korea (1910-1945) this artist who was born in 1912 collaborated with the Japanese colonists, received money for them for his information and that is how his funded his carrer choice of art until they liberated Korea in 1945.

Now you can view it any way you want. The Korean government views it as they do not want to honor him with his artwork on their coin or currency because of his collaboration with the colonists in his formative years as an artist.

This predates WWII. He was collaborating with Japan against the people of Korea since sometime after WWI until Korea liberated the country from Japan. He wasn't conscripted, he wasn't forced into labor like many Koreans. He wasnt beat into submission or his family killed for standing up to the colonists. He gave Japan information in exchange for ease and comfort for himself to pursue his passion. And this is the way the Korean government sees it.

As far as the 100 Won coin. They are melting them down to make the new coin to replace it with as a cost cutting measure.

If you like the coin so much buy up as many as you can if you like before they are all gone.

this would be similar to finding out the guy who designed the quarter and dollar In the U.S. was a torie and giving info to Britain duing their colonization, and collaborating before and all through the American revolution but he was good at not being found out.
We would change the currency also and take his artwork out of it and find a new artist too. Hell, we got bent out of shape over a simple V. D. B.

I don't think its cancel culture or revisionist. If anything it's setting the record straight and refusing to give an artist that worked actively against his own people the honor of his work on their money or an honor in their society.

It's their country. They can do what they want.

 

Meaning not just that the artist received money for his artwork, but that he was a stool pigeon and received benefit for that? I could definitely see this would cause someone to go out of favor, even posthumously.

 

↑ THAT is true.

I wonder what "info" a painter like Jang had that would have "helped" Japan? Not a rhetorical question; I really do wonder what the specifics are. The English page of the JoongAng Daily has these specifics:

According to the Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities, the artist received the recognition and support of the Japanese colonial government from 1941 to 1944 as he built his career. The institute has demanded the removal of his work from the coin.

Korean-language sources that I have found don't say much more than this as the evidence of his "crimes."

Like I said, I'm open to correction. Please direct us to your source of information.

There are certainly much worse "offenders" in Korea. If they're going after Jang, they might as well tear apart the Gyeongbusan Expressway and fill in all of its tunnels dug into the mountains, dismantle the Hyuandai Shipyards in Ulsan, and all the other infrastructure projects directed by President Park Chunghee in the 1960s and 1970s. He not only swore an oath to the Emperor, he was a commissioned officer in the Japanese Kwangtung Army hunting down Korean partisans, one of whom went by the name Kim Il-sung (later, the first leader of North Korea).

It seems like lots of revision will soon follow if Jang's "offense" is enough to get a person in trouble. Especially if the government is not looking at the entirety of someone's career and lifework.

 

I've got a better "cost cutting measure" than melting the coins, one that will save even more money: Just don't change the design on the 100-Won coin. Simply use them until the Moon government comes through on its "2020 Coinless Plan" to remove these 100-Won coins, and the rest of South Korean coins, from circulation(!). I find "melting and redesigning" these coins now to be rather oddly timed. Especially with the hoopla over the coinless plan (similar to Sweden's). But, like you said, it's their business.

And I won't be buying up any of these Second Series 100-Won coins anytime soon: There are over 10 billion of them out there. I never said "I like the coin." I prefer the First Series 100-Won design. So do most other South Korea collectors.

In any case, I'm interested to see what the new design will look like. It'd be nice if they went back to the First Series image of Admiral Yi, but they probably won't. I'm sure it'll be a completely new image.

 

I found an interesting English-language opinion piece on this controversy.
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2020/11/197_299260.html

The author's final paragraph is rather fitting:
"I just worry about these lists and committees as I keep reading about discussions on the taking of money, land and privileges from people in the modern age based on their descendants' past behavior.

I've read about it before in history books and the endings were never that glorious."

 

People try to sort things out for the record, and move on. Maybe leaving things alone is the better thing to do, I don't know, but as I said, it's their country and their choices to make on how they want things to be there. For this time period though the record was mostly written by Japan.

I also agree, there are worse offenders in Korea than this guy, but those worse offenders aren't as "in your face" as this guys art work which is in a lot of pockets. I am sure they will get to everyone eventually or let it go at some point.

I don't have sources really to point you to, I know some Koreans (a dozen) online in a game/ clan chat type forum and I posed the question about the artist, a lot had no opinion and didn't even really care one way or the other. There were 3 that had really strong opinions on the subject though, the gist of a lot of back and forth was "there weren't artists in this time period really besides him, it wasn't a job or profession for Koreans. Either you were conscripted to fight for Japan, or forced to work in manufacturing or farming for Japan, or you opposed japan and you and your family were hunted, Artist wasn't something Koreans could do so he was a favored collaborator to be so lucky"

True or not, I don't know, Just an opinion I heard, but they seemed to feel strongly about it. It was a small sample size to start, and even smaller that had an opinion or cared about it.
I don't know if the general Korean public really cares all that much one way or the other, but the ones that do, seem to care a lot that the guy shouldn't get honored with his artwork on government things.

 

Did you bother to read WHY they are making the change?

 

Ah. That ↑ might help explain your statements above.

I believe the followers of this thread can NOW accurately judge the veracity of your earlier claims that:

1) "He gave Japan information" and

2) "received money for[sic] them for his information and that is how his[sic] funded his carrer choice of art"

Hmm.

Yes. I would agree that coins (especially business strikes) get people all riled up for this very reason. That is true.

Strong opinions there are! No doubt. Thanks for pointing that out.
However, merely "strong opinions" ≠ "facts of the case at hand."

You know what they say about opinions...

As always, especially in the recent context of the USA's problems with "facts", it would be nice if there were "facts" to which people could agree.

 

Yes, I did read the supposed reasons why. But, it doesn't really matter. It's the right of those who win elections to make changes - whether it's a political decision or not doesn't matter - it is within the law as far as I can tell.

Coin designs change all the time. Lamenting that things are changing serves no purpose besides complaining. I don't see modernizing the designs of a country's coinage to be "cancel culture" - no more than I see moving to electric light bulbs as being "cancel culture" of candle makers.

 

Okay. Here ARE the reasons why:

According to the Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities, the artist received the recognition and support of the Japanese colonial government from 1941 to 1944 as he built his career.

Is this quote supposed, too?

I counseled you before to just forget you saw that.

True.

Pardon my complaints, then. Perhaps you never "lament that things are changing?"

If that's the case, you are the ultimate progressive, sir!

The problem isn't the coin changing, really. It's the unfair destruction of an artist's reputation, and the fact that generations will have this interpretation of him spoon-fed to them going forward.

In the past, South Korea's currency planners seemed to consider things much more carefully than in the current case with the proposed changes to the 100-Won, 5,000-Won, 10,000-Won and 50,000-Won. Previous "political" changes in currency were in response to public outcry (maybe not always the best thing to respond to...). Responding to public outcry does have a sort of "representative governing" aspect to it, IMO. However, the Moon government's decision has a "my tribe" decision-making flavor to it. THAT is different from previous South Korean currency alterations.

Again, this decision brings with it the real possibility that a follow-on right wing government will just reverse it, or "redesign the redesign" in tit-for-tat partisan fashion. That would also be new.

Again, unless I'm getting this wrong, the Moon government's decision is not befitting the more measured and reasonable approach of earlier governments.

 

Yeah, I was worried that you might have had such experiences, gx...

The historical facts, are just that. Like you said, we should acknowledge them. The problem is that the enmity growing out of them is used politically and is "enculturated" in some fashion so as to make it durable over time. It can always be dragged out again to fit another purpose or for another government, for example.

There are Koreans with reasonable opinions (who still do not like the fact that Japan ran Korea for 35 years) but yet are not using a "resentment lens" on these issues, and the Koreans absolutely know that there are reasonable Japanese with whom they can have sympathetic discourse with on this topic. The problem is that a "shared Korean/Japanese narrative" among these kinds of Koreans and Japanese has never taken hold.

Without the same kind of cross-national narrative building that the Germans and French had after the war, there is no hope of this enmity evolving into something other than what it is now.

The Japanese govt. has apologized before (I think formally in 1984). However a "shared narrative" built and promoted by knowledgable people from both countries is what is really needed, not more apologies. It literally is the only way I can think of getting out of this mess.

Otherwise, we'll be witness to this "neverendum" of contention between the two societies. And WITHIN Korean society...