Thread by @gatamchun

Great question! Hope u don’t mind the QRT but I figured this was important context for everyone.

https://twitter.com/becanti_/status/1472073161344704516

Modern South Korean history, especially as told by Western media but also by Korean media, tends to be narrated as an ECONOMIC success story. K-pop in some ways is the latest chapter of that economic growth.

Styled after the Miracle on the Rhine (Germany), Korean economic growth from the 1960s onwards is sometimes dubbed “Miracle on the River Han.” This is a commonly brought-up narrative when discussing Korea today.

President Park Chung-hee, a Japanese Army-trained, ruthlessly authoritarian dictator who took power in a coup and reigned 1961-1979 until his assassination, is often given a lot of credit for that economic miracle. Economists differ on how much credit but everyone gives him some.

So it’s unsurprising that, with the relative economic prosperity South Korea enjoys today (esp. in comparison with North Korea), there are plenty of ppl who think Park mostly got it right and was generally praiseworthy.

(My uncles are like this. Even after what my dad went through. Family can be insufferable, y’all.)

I’m less willing to give PCH all the credit, even as I also benefit from that economic prosperity, because I knew it came at a steep price: no democratic processes, brutal working conditions, union busting, and general annihilation of human rights.

Regardless, many conservatives believe Park got it most right, and it was a kind of misguided nostalgia + mourning of him that led to the election of his daughter, Park Geun-hye, in 2013.

[Obligatory caveat that I am politically left-wing, raised by politically left-wing folks, so you may get a v different narrative if you ask someone else]

As I’ve mentioned, there are many works of TV and film on this era, though film is more likely to be brutally honest about the realities of what happened. This is because most of the prominent, respected Korean filmmakers came of age - you guessed it - around 1987.

Addendum: during Park Geunhye’s political career, many older folks remembered her from her younger days. This is bc she was not only PCH’s oldest child, she was “de facto first lady” after her mother was assassinated.

A contributor recalled a story from her father, where he was summoned to a school assembly for an hours-long lecture on loyalty and filial piety by Park Geun-hye in the 70s. PGH served as a handy political mascot for her father and his agenda even before she came of age.