July 20th, 2008

Oh for the love of all the birds that fly through the sky.  The Dokdo protests have become so commonplace that I've come to ignore the regular flare ups.  Yet they've hit a new low recently.  Responding to the latest poke by the Japanese government on the whole Takeshima issue, a group of Korean military veterans decided that the best way to show their displeasure was to go before the Japanese embassy, hammer to death live pheasants (the national bird of Japan), eat their internal organs, and throw the carcasses at the embassy.

Yes, you read that correctly.  I didn't believe it either until I saw the photos.  I mean, what the hell?  I know you're upset about the issue, and I support your cause, but why execute a group of poor birds and consume their livers in public?

I'm still trying to figure out this aspect of Korean psychology because outside of nations in extreme political duress, these sorts of protests normally don't occur in stable, democratic states.  The only one possible thing I can think of is that this is an attempt to convince the Japanese that the South Koreans are utterly psychotic, and that they're just crazy enough to go on a bloodthirsty killing frenzy over the issue.

To be fair, the guys who went through with this are your typical far-right militant ultra-nationalists they are commonly found in most nations, so you can consider this the far end of the spectrum.  This was the same group that killed themselves a live "Koizumi pig" a few years back.  Also, the civilized portion of Korean society usually sticks with peaceful, nonviolent candle-light protests and marches.  Still, its a reflection of social tolerance for a very violent protest culture: you've got the far-right sacrificing animals while the far-left prefers running street battles.  I wonder if the group who did this was the same group that rigged the homemade flame throwers to battle police with a few years back.

My thoughts: no need to kill the birds, I could have told you the Korean government might actually do that without the need to sacrifice our avian friends.  When a government buys a brand new, state-of-the-art fighter jet and decides to deploy it in defense of that barely inhabitable island over the 1.1 million armed communists who regularly talk about turning Seoul into a sea of fire, you know they just might do it.

On the flip side, it only reaffirms my belief that no one can top South Koreans in protest showmanship (my favorite was the funeral dirge in Hong Kong a few years ago).