That futurists group sounds just as cool, maybe even more stimulating than a writing club in some ways — unless it’s the right people, some of those groups can become, er, less than inspiring.

Unlike my classmates from CW, who are constantly inspiring. It’s cool you know Caroline and Julie. Six degrees of… well, take your pick! :)

The Beijing Futurists are more of a discussion group about future issues and the direction of technology- not a writing group per say, but we do have a few writers in the group who get ideas from the meetings. We talk about things like the “future of art” or “nanotechnology” and bring any info we can find to share about the weekly topic. We also have affiliated futurist groups in Shenzhen/Hong Kong and Singapore.
By the way- just noticed- I know a couple of your fellow Clarionites (or Clarion Westites?)- when I lived in Seattle I was in the Writers Cramp writing group with Caroline Yoachim and I also know Julie McGalliard.

(PS: Your photos, over at Flickr? Good grief, how wonderful. Inspires me to pick up my camera little more often myself!)
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(PPS: The Beijing Futurists? Is that an SF writing group or something? I can only dream of starting such a group in Seoul. Hmm. Well, maybe I should try, actually. Though I’m a little scared of what might come out of the woodwork.)

Thanks, it’s very kind of you to say that. :) It certainly wasn’t an easy story to write!

I just finished reading your short story live at Apex Magazine. I’m completely speechless. I just had to read this when I saw it was linked for more info on the story.

So many questions are running through my mind right now but mostly I just want to say how much I admire your research and your handling of the subject in, what I can only imagine, was a difficult story to write for so many reasons.

You are most talented and I’m in awe. Great work. Look for an email from me. I hate to gush in such a public space but I also don’t want to look silly for the questions I’ve got for you.

Yeah, the confusion of it as a nationalist (ie. anti-Japanese) issue, and divorced from it being an issue of brutal sexism and misogyny shared across national borders and cultures, is exactly what frustrates me the most. To see young people use it as an excuse to express well-rehearsed lines about how bad “Japan” is is depressing, especially considering how many Japanese are vehemently angry about their government’s handling of this issue.

I’ve asked a number of Korean students whether they’ve ever read a single thing written by a Japanese writer who criticized the Japanese use of sex slaves (Korean and otherwise) during World War II, I’ve never gotten an affirmative answer. Which is weird coming from people who claim they care deeply about the issue as a point of national dignity. (It’s not my culture, but I’ve read such things. Hell, I even linked one above. And if the issue is that this stuff isn’t getting translated, that seems very sin-of-omission to me. Purposefully so.)

It’s a complex issue, of course, and a touchy subject, but if you’re outright ignoring what people abroad who agree with and support you are saying, it seems to me there’s some issue as to what purpose your protest and raising the issue is meant to serve. (In other words, I think Korean groups protesting this issue would get more mileage out of teaming up with sympathetic groups in Japan than they are from painting Japan (or allowing Japan to be painted) as monolithically in denial about this part of its history.

Back in the 1990s when this issue first came prominently into the public eye (not just in Korea but around the globe), I had some heated discussions with a few native Koreans (all men) who, in my opinion, were seeing this as nothing more than a Japan-versus-Korea issue. No, I insisted, it’s at the very least a gender issue (or whatever I would have called it then).

That it became stuck as an us-versus-them issue was largely because the Japanese government denied any culpability. Then, when forced by Japanese historians to acknowledge government involvement, Tokyo chose to shirk responsibility by saying all was covered in 1965 (when both Seoul and Tokyo did wrong by those women). I mentioned a little about it in the last three paragraphs here.

At any rate, the discussion in Korea is by no means uniform. There are loads who get it, and loads who don’t. Same in Japan, where there are lots of people who actively pursue the right thing on this issue.