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Hitler becoming a chic fad in S. Korea

I'll sum up what I think about this trend in two words: Utterly shameful.

------------------------Credits: Time Magazine Online ---------------------



"They Dressed Well"
A troubling fascination with Third Reich regalia elevates the Nazi look to what's chic in South Korea
By DONALD MACINTYRE Seoul

A small photo of Adolf Hitler adorns the entrance to the Fifth Reich, an upscale watering hole in Seoul's Shinchon university district. A larger picture of the Führer hangs across from the bar, where waiters and waitresses with swastika arm badges mix drinks that have names like "Adolf Hitler"and "Dead." Young people chat at booths surrounded by statues of golden eagles, romanesque columns and large glass display cases of SS insignia. Nazi pins and Iron Crosses are on sale beside the cash register. It almost looks like a quiet shrine to the man who sent 6 million Jews to their deaths in the Holocaust. But this isn't a neo-Nazi hangout. Some of the patrons aren't even quite sure who Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were. Others, like regular patron Chung Jae Kyung, 22, are aware of the evil the Nazis did but not especially moved by it. "I don't hate them, I don't like them," says Chung, a neatly dressed English-lit student with an easy smile. "But at least they dressed well."

This is Nazi chic, Korean-style. An unthinking fascination with the icons and imagery of the Third Reich is a small but troubling trend in South Korea, a country that suffered enormously under the harsh colonial rule of Germany's ally, Japan. The Fifth Reich is one of at least three bars in Seoul that have decked themselves out in Nazi regalia over the past year. A big confectioner, meanwhile, used Hitler's image in a television advertising campaign. And the subways carry an ad, for a popular online community, that features a young man dressed in leather Nazi garb. The ad's slogan: "We just want masters."

It wasn't long ago that Korea shook off its own authoritarian past. But the flirtation with things Nazi doesn't reflect an attraction to such politics. Nor does Korea, with no Jewish community to speak of, have an anti-Semitic streak. For many of the young people at the Fifth Reich, it's simply a fashion statement, with part of the appeal being the taboo nature of the symbols. What is puzzling is the seeming lack of outrage at the commercialization _ and trivialization _ of the Holocaust. While Koreans still feel resentment and anger toward Japan, few make a moral jump of empathy with Hitler's victims. "It just doesn't ring bells," says Cho Hae Jung, an anthropologist at Yonsei University in Seoul. "It was a war in the West, not here."

The Fifth Reich did trigger protests earlier this year, but they came from Korea's foreign community. Following complaints from the German and Israeli embassies, the government pressured the bar, which was originally called the Third Reich, to shut down, although no Korean law restricts the purchase or display of Nazi memorabilia. Amid the controversy, the bar changed hands and the new owner, Kim Kwang Tae, promised to redecorate. He did, sort of: the big Nazi flags came down and Hitler's Third Reich morphed into the Fifth Reich. But the Nazi theme still dominates, and the menus and matchbooks carry the old name beneath an image of a menacing black eagle. Kim still hangs the Hitler portrait because, he says, "I don't have anything to put in its place." Anyway, he adds: "It's just for decoration." (He hung three new Hitler photos in recent weeks.)

Nazi interior design is also the look of another Seoul bar, where outsized wall paintings of Jim Carrey, Marilyn Monroe, Whoopi Goldberg _ and Adolf Hitler _ adorn the entrance. Inside is an eclectic mix of Nazi and American memorabilia and an uncaptioned photo of dead bodies sprawled on the ground. ("The secret to a good interior is making a place that is agreeable to everyone," says owner Kim Jie Tae.) Across town, posters advertising a high-end bar in the Itaewon entertainment district recently featured a young man dressed in a black Nazi outfit doing a Hitler salute. The owner denies it ever had a Nazi theme: the ads, he says, must have been put up by a waiter who called himself Hitler. "Hitler the waiter," says Kim, "has changed his name."

And what was Crown Confectionery thinking when it kicked off an ad campaign for chocolate covered cakes? Inspired by Charlie Chaplin's Hitler in the 1940 movie The Great Dictator, the ad featured one of Korea's top comics as the Führer. After taking a bite, Hitler suddenly switches from German-sounding gibberish to fluent Korean and his mood mellows. The campaign was pulled after the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles protested to Korean diplomats in the U.S. Stylist Koh Jung Won, who designed Hitler's wardrobe (she used an East German army uniform and sewed on Nazi patches bought in Seoul) says the ads weren't meant to offend. "It was a fun thing," she says. "We were trying to portray Hitler in a funny way."

The German and Israeli embassies, which have worked closely on the issue, aren't laughing. They thought they had won a promise from Seoul to pressure the Third Reich to shut down or de-Nazify, according to a German spokesman. They plan to investigate the bar's latest incarnation. That's probably not what Kim of the Third, sorry, Fifth Reich wants to hear. Already annoyed at the fuss and media attention, he asked a recent caller: "Do you know anybody who wants to buy this place?" Maybe somebody could just recommend a new interior decorator.

__________________
ni pour ni contre; ça m'est égal

"The weight of this sad time we must obey,/ Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say./ The oldest hath borne most; we that are young/ Shall never see so much, nor live so long."
King Lear (V.3.300-304)

omg. i thought it was bad enough that the french backstabbed us. but wtf is this shit. to hell wit them just let them die

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the fool is the one who thinks he is wise, yet the wise one is the one who thinks he is a fool

Remember the heros
Remember the lives
Remember the day
God bless

man.... wudduh hell? i swear some korean univ. students are fuckin' retarded as hell.... almost every year they have riot in Yun-Seh Univ. (I don't know they still does it or not they were doing it every year when i was in korea) some stupid asses saying south korean should support communism..... and now this?.... wut's up with their head?

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with onE magic pill i EscapE from painful rEality and Enter the wholE nEw diffErEnt world....

I'm not addictEd... I can stop anytimE i want to...

quote:

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Originally posted by Mash1mar0
some stupid asses saying south korean should support communism.

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__________________
ni pour ni contre; ça m'est égal

"The weight of this sad time we must obey,/ Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say./ The oldest hath borne most; we that are young/ Shall never see so much, nor live so long."
King Lear (V.3.300-304)

quote:

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Originally posted by Crazydeb8ter
Well, Marx's idea of Communism wasn't all that bad- just improbable.

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__________________


with onE magic pill i EscapE from painful rEality and Enter the wholE nEw diffErEnt world....

I'm not addictEd... I can stop anytimE i want to...

quote:

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Originally posted by Mash1mar0
yeah i know... but wut they were saying is.... jus' like North Korea (support Kim Jung Il!).... which is a lot diff. with Marx's idea

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__________________
ni pour ni contre; ça m'est égal

"The weight of this sad time we must obey,/ Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say./ The oldest hath borne most; we that are young/ Shall never see so much, nor live so long."
King Lear (V.3.300-304)

the bar owners and staff lack respect for the past

quote:

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Originally posted by Crazydeb8ter
oh haha.

screw Kim Jung Il, he makes a terrible dictator. his ass needs to be shot.

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Shift_

"cuz no matter how long U've known them or how well U think U know them..the friendship can be over in a second" ~Indecisive

"you don't realize how much of a luxury cup holders are until you don't have em" ~Indecisive

quote:

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Originally posted by indecisive
is there really such a thing as a GOOD dictator???

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__________________
ni pour ni contre; ça m'est égal

"The weight of this sad time we must obey,/ Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say./ The oldest hath borne most; we that are young/ Shall never see so much, nor live so long."
King Lear (V.3.300-304)

does it really matter? Its a single bar with a nazi theme. Nowhere in the article did it say that people who attend the bar, practice nazi fascist beliefs.

How many of you people would flip out, if a christian bar was pressured to shut down, or change its theme.. because people who followed the same god slaughtered women and children a thousand years ago.

Calm down, it doesnt matter.

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It seems like just a gimmick..I seriously doubt there is an underground neo fascist group who meet up in that bar. Nazism is a worrying thing but its the ones that people need to be concerned with wouldnt be so brazen as to open a bar to advertise their beliefs.

quote:

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Originally posted by Prototype
does it really matter? Its a single bar with a nazi theme. Nowhere in the article did it say that people who attend the bar, practice nazi fascist beliefs.

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__________________
ni pour ni contre; ça m'est égal

"The weight of this sad time we must obey,/ Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say./ The oldest hath borne most; we that are young/ Shall never see so much, nor live so long."
King Lear (V.3.300-304)

People shouldnt feel forced to deal with issues in certain ways. Im not presuming to know anything about these bar owners but some people can deal with such things by making them an object of ridicule.

It is slightly distasteful but no more so than imperial japanese flags used in tons of different things, at least over here in europe..and irish bars in the US with republican decor.

quote:

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Originally posted by Balddog
People shouldnt feel forced to deal with issues in certain ways. Im not presuming to know anything about these bar owners but some people can deal with such things by making them an object of ridicule.

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__________________
ni pour ni contre; ça m'est égal

"The weight of this sad time we must obey,/ Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say./ The oldest hath borne most; we that are young/ Shall never see so much, nor live so long."
King Lear (V.3.300-304)

Thats the thing though, the nazis did have nothing to do with the far east. Korea didnt come in contact with them in any way. Most people in the west know very little, if anything about the history of asia and should they do something offensive, i doubt they would change their ways because it caused controvesy in asia.

For the record, I dont think theres anything wrong with the bar. Slightly bad taste maybe but im not offended.

awesome

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12101 bue

quote:

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Originally posted by Balddog
Most people in the west know very little, if anything about the history of asia and should they do something offensive, i doubt they would change their ways because it caused controvesy in asia.

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__________________
ni pour ni contre; ça m'est égal

"The weight of this sad time we must obey,/ Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say./ The oldest hath borne most; we that are young/ Shall never see so much, nor live so long."
King Lear (V.3.300-304)

No one knows everything, so I conclude that we're all guilty of ignorance

quote:

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Originally posted by bckp
No one knows everything, so I conclude that we're all guilty of ignorance

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__________________
ni pour ni contre; ça m'est égal

"The weight of this sad time we must obey,/ Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say./ The oldest hath borne most; we that are young/ Shall never see so much, nor live so long."
King Lear (V.3.300-304)

quote:

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Originally posted by Prototype
does it really matter? Its a single bar with a nazi theme. Nowhere in the article did it say that people who attend the bar, practice nazi fascist beliefs.

How many of you people would flip out, if a christian bar was pressured to shut down, or change its theme.. because people who followed the same god slaughtered women and children a thousand years ago.

Calm down, it doesnt matter.

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WE ARE MANDY, WE DEMAND BAGELS!!!