View allAll Photos Tagged decency
According to popular legend it was built about 1255 by the infante Frederick, brother of King Alfonso X, as a love-nest for his mistress, La Doña Juana, who was also his stepmother, the second wife of the previous king, Ferdinand III. Frederick was executed by his brother, either for the offence against public decency, or, more likely, for treason against the crown.
Either way Frederick’s land around the tower was confiscated, and in 1289 was used for the founding of a Franciscan convent.
After two months of fighting back and forth with Time Warner Cable, a tech visited and spent about 3 hours in my building trying to find our problem. It was finally discovered that the cable wires in our building were so old that they had been chewed through by rats. Frustrated, I asked the tech why it took 2 full months and 3 or 4 tech visits to figure this out when it could have been resolved soon after move in. His supervisor also dropped in during this visit and although the tech was polite, the supervisor cut me off when I was talking and yelled that it wasn't their fault and they weren't doing anything about it. While this was technically true, I just wanted sympathy and maybe an apology for how long it took their imcompetent team to figure out what was going on. When I finally asked him to leave my apartment because I didn't like his tone, he grabbed his tools and slammed out of my front door, leaving my cable outlet looking like this.
I learned my lesson about dealing with TWC and got Dish Network instead and have been a happy customer since October.
At least Paula Yates had the decency to put it somewhere safe before scarpering home with Hutch, erm, I mean Jim.
Queens Of The Stone Age @ Nokia Theater, Los Angeles
p.s. if you are gonna post my copyrighted images elsewhere on the internet at least have the decency to credit me with them or link them back to here, or i'll probably stop posting them or at least start putting big watermarks on them.
20220614 HELSINKI. KULOSAAREN KASINO. NAFM2022. PHOTO: ATTE KAJOVA
Ministry for Foreign Affairs produces photo material for media representatives. Please feel free to use the photos for journalistic purposes, considering the following restrictions: One-time picture publishing right, no archiving or reselling. Editorial use only. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organisation shall be mentioned as a source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. The publisher is not entitled to transfer rights to a third party. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall also obtain the permissions needed for any names, persons, works of art, trademarks, and proprietary rights shown in the pictures. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
This twisted stare is not intended for the 100lb dog sitting in the middle of the trail while I was going 20mph… it’s intended for his owner who didn’t have him on a leash nor pay attention to city ordinances- let alone have the decency to think about anyone except for themselves. There is a world outside of you by the way…
My blood was pumping and when I came around the corner my adrenalin shot up in a flash… and now I have a migraine.
Thank you.
"I am an incurable romantic. I believe in hope, dreams and decency, love tenderness and kindness. I believe in mankind."
- Leonard Nimoy
Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland Timo Soini and Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland welcoming the guests for the Session of the Committee of Ministers.
The Session of the Committee of Ministers, to be held at Finlandia Hall on 17 May 2019, will mark the end of Finland’s Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. At the meeting, Finland will hand over the Presidency to France. More than 30 ministers from the member States of the Council of Europe will attend the meeting. The meeting will be chaired by Foreign Minister Timo Soini.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Kimmo Räisänen / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
Biffy Clyro supporting Queens Of The Stone Age, Wintertur, Switzerland
p.s. if you are gonna post my copyrighted images elsewhere on the internet at least have the decency to credit me with them or link them back to here, or i'll probably stop posting them or at least start putting big watermarks on them.
The temptation is to stash away the bulk of a couple months' pay and use it to establish residency somewhere like Amsterdam or Toronto, where freedom from and freedom to be and to do are not mere neon Madison Avenue slogans but concrete realities, or at least goals toward which the people work together as a community. Perhaps life among the sane would serve to buttress the remnants of my frustration-eroded psyche. But the United States of America is my birthright and my burden, and San Francisco is my chosen home within it. On these streets I engage many thousands of people, suggestible passengers who seat themselves comfortably in the middle of my sphere of influence. My demeanor, behavior, occasional conversation impacts their own, and when they depart they transmit the healing ripple into their own circles, and so on, and it is in these little acts of human decency that our salvation lies. Heaven help me, I appear to be developing a vision.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transvestite, Freedom, Self Expression, All, Inclusive, Acceptance, Acknowledge, Parade, Charlotte, Downtown, Girl, Backside, Young, Different, Rainbow, Colors,Skirt, Tutu, Walk, Legs, Topless, Cover, Decency, Legal, Normal, Diversity
Queens Of The Stone Age, Innsbruck, Austria
p.s. if you are gonna post my copyrighted images elsewhere on the internet at least have the decency to credit me with them or link them back to here, or i'll probably stop posting them or at least start putting big watermarks on them.
Zoom lenses and teleconverters come in handy. Why? After taking this shot from the opposite side of the car, he didn't have the decency to hang out and chat. Once he saw Sam, he split. No respect.
This image is copyright, all rights reserved, and not part of the public domain. Any use, linking to, or posting of this image is prohibited without my consent. If you want to use this image in any fashion, please have the common courtesy and decency to ask.
Rowena Crest Viewpoint, Columbia Gorge, Oregon
Now that the secret is out, and everybody and their mama is showed up this weekend to capture Balsamroot blooms, I can start posting last weekend's photos. We got some nice color on Easter morning and with the small group of photographers there it was easy to get good comps. I tried doing what I did last year and did some handheld closeups, easier to do this year from the lack of wind. I was doing handheld bracketing exposures so I could get the full range of lights and darks, as I did in this photo. I did one of these last year, which I like better then this one, but this will do for this year.
Handheld bracketing blend,
1 exposure for the sky, 1 for the flowers,
Blended in Photoshop CS6
The Hung Drawn and Quartered pub on Tower Hill. To be hanged, drawn and quartered was from 1351 a statutory penalty in England for men convicted of high treason, although the ritual was first recorded during the reign of King Henry III (1216–1272). Convicts were fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where they were hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded and quartered (chopped into four pieces). Their remains were often displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake. We dont know we are born really do we.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transvestite, Freedom, Self Expression, All, Inclusive, Acceptance, Acknowledge, Parade, Charlotte, Downtown, Girl, Backside, Young, Different, Rainbow, Colors,Skirt, Tutu, Walk, Legs, Topless, Cover, Decency, Legal, Normal, Diversity
At least this brambling had the decency to slot himself nicely between the branches instead of behind them! My garden.
The infamous place where fellow Flickrite decembre tortures sanity, rapes decency, murders good taste and confines mannequins.
I met an elderly fisherman on the beach this morning, standing almost exactly where the pelican now is. He had caught one herring so far, and was hoping the dolphins in the bay might drive some more towards him. About 15 minutes later I returned to find him despondantly packing the last of his kit away. It turns out he had walked down to the waterline to cast, and turned round just in time to witness the pelican pictured here open his bait box and eat all the contents. At least the pelican had the decency to hang around for a few photos :).
The Postcard
A postcard that was posted in Korea on Monday the 20th. March 1911. It was sent to:
Miss Josephine Cooper,
27 Lansing Street,
Little Falls,
New York,
U.S.A.
The message on the back of the card was as follows:
"Seoul, Mar. 20 - 11.
Sedate, don't you
think so?"
The Korean Gat
The man on the right is wearing the traditional Korean gat (Korean: Hunminjeongeum갓)
A gat is a traditional hat worn by men along with hanbok (Korean traditional clothing) during the Joseon period. It is made from bamboo or horsehair with a bamboo frame, and is partly transparent.
Most gats are cylindrical in shape with a wide brim on a bamboo frame. Before the late 19th. century, only noble class men could wear gat, which represented their social status and protected their topknots.
Robert Neff of the Korean Times has written the following about Korean male headware:
'One of the most important articles of clothing for Koreans in the late 19th. century was the hat. The elderly man with his majestic black horse hair hat, often seen in pictures, is the iconic image of Korean male society during the Joseon Dynasty (1392 - 1910).
According to Percival Lowell, an American who stayed in Seoul in the winter of 1883-84:
"No Korean can in decency appear
without it [hat], except only to make
room for some other hat."
It was a sign of manhood, "the most essential of attributes," and a badge of one's position in Korean society.
Lowell seemed amused with the difference between Korean and American culture. In the United States it was considered poor manners to wear a hat indoors, and one would rarely remove one's shoes, but the opposite was true in Korea:
"A man would part with any or all of
his clothing sooner than take off his
hat. On entering a house, he leaves
his shoes outside to await his return,
but he and his hat go in together.
As he sits down to eat, he divests
himself of his outer garments that he
may eat with greater freedom, but his
hat stays on; and so it sticks to him
through life ― a permanent black halo."
There were many types of hats. The iconic hat, the gat, was made from horse hair and bamboo and was black and somewhat transparent.
It had a fairly wide brim that in the past, according to popular legend, was much wider as a means of preventing unrest. Because of its wide brim, conspirators were kept apart, and were unable to whisper their plans to one another.
There was also a large mourning hat made from bamboo. It was designed to hide the face of mourners from others they might encounter on the streets. It was considered a grievous breach of etiquette to look into the face of the mourner.
Early French missionaries used the mourning hat to disguise themselves as they traveled the Korean peninsula before the 1880's. They were able to move about in relative secrecy for no one would attempt to communicate with a mourner.
Court officials' hats had slightly bent-forward ear-shaped horizontal wings. It was said they symbolized the wearer's attentiveness and willingness to "catch every word of command that the King may utter."
As Korea entered the 20th. century, there were many reforms forced on the population. Some were readily accepted and appreciated, but others, especially those that dealt with hair styles and hats, were vehemently opposed.
"A man is much more firmly bound to
his hat than he is attached to his wife.
He may put away the latter; without
the hat, life becomes a hollow mockery,
for the hat makes the man. Without it
he remains forever a boy."
Hats remained a part of male culture throughout the first half of the 20th. century, but have since disappeared. The only exceptions are those worn by elderly males in the Jongno area, or the bright colorful caps that young teens and adults wear while out with their friends. The "permanent black halo" is no more.'
How Japan Took Control of Korea
Erin Blakemore has written the following for history.com in 2018, and updated it in 2023:
In 1910, Korea was annexed by the Empire of Japan after years of war, intimidation and political machinations; the country would be considered a part of Japan until 1945. In order to establish control over its new protectorate, the Empire of Japan waged an all-out war on Korean culture.
Schools and universities forbade speaking Korean, and emphasized manual labor and loyalty to the Emperor. Public places adopted Japanese, too, and an edict to make films in Japanese soon followed.
Topographical and other postcards of Korea were published with descriptions in Japanese text.
It also became a crime to teach history from non-approved texts, and authorities burned over 200,000 Korean historical documents, essentially wiping out the historical memory of Korea.
During the occupation, Japan took over Korea’s labor and land. Nearly 100,000 Japanese families settled in Korea with the land they had been given; they chopped down trees by the million and planted non-native species, transforming a familiar landscape into something many Koreans didn’t recognize.
Nearly 725,000 Korean workers were made to work in Japan and its other colonies, and as World War II loomed, Japan forced hundreds of thousands of Korean women into life as “comfort women”—sexual slaves who served in military brothels.
Korea’s people weren’t the only thing that was plundered during Japan’s colonization—its cultural symbols were considered fair game, too. One of the most powerful symbols of Korean sovereignty and independence was its royal palace, Gyeongbokgung, which was built in Seoul in 1395 by the mighty Joseon dynasty.
Soon after assuming power, the Japanese colonial government tore down over a third of the complex’s historic buildings, and the remaining structures were turned into tourist attractions for Japanese visitors.
As historian Heejung Kang notes, the imperial government also attempted to preserve treasures of Korean art history and culture—but then used them to uphold imperial Japan’s image of itself as a civilizing and modern force.
This view of Korea as backward and primitive compared to Japan made it into textbooks, museums and even Koreans’ own perceptions of themselves.
The occupation government also worked to assimilate Koreans with the help of language, religion and education. Shinto shrines originally intended for Japanese families became places of forced worship.
Historian Donald N. Clark explains:
"The colonial government made Koreans
worship the gods of imperial Japan,
including dead emperors and the spirits
of war heroes who had helped them
conquer Korea earlier in the century.”
This forced worship was viewed as an act of cultural genocide by many Koreans, but for the colonists, it was seen as evidence that Koreans and Japanese were a single, unified people.
Though some families got around the Shinto edict by simply visiting the shrines and not praying there, others grudgingly adopted the new religious practices out of fear.
By the end of its occupation of Korea, Japan had even waged war on people’s family names. At first, the colonial government made it illegal for people to adopt Japanese-style names, ostensibly to prevent confusion in family registries.
But in 1939, the government made changing names an official policy. Under the law, Korean families were “graciously allowed” to choose Japanese surnames.
At least 84 percent of all Koreans took on the names since people who lacked Japanese names were not recognized by the colonial bureaucracy, and were shut out of everything from mail delivery to ration cards. Historian Hildi Kang writes:
“The whole point was for the government
to be able to say that the people had
changed their names ‘voluntarily.’”
The Plundering of Korea by Japan
(a) Historic Korean Artifacts
Koreans accuse the Japanese of plundering hundreds of thousands of ancient Korean artifacts, mostly during their 36-year occupation of the peninsula. Most Japanese consider the issue a dead one, resolved by the 1965 Japan-Korea Treaty, which led to the return of some 1,400 items.
However the treaty was not definitive, as it neglected artifacts in Japanese private collections, as well as those originating in North Korea.
The size of the haul is astounding. Eighty percent of all Korean Buddhist paintings are believed to be in Japan. And, says Seoul art historian Kwon Cheeyun:
"35,000 Korean art objects and
30,000 rare books have been
confirmed to be there, too."
However that is only the tip of the iceberg: vastly more is believed to be hidden away in private collections.
Determining legal ownership is far more difficult than with the art looted by the Nazis. Toshiyuki Kono, a law professor at Kyushu University. states:
"It's almost impossible to trace the
provenance of centuries-old artifacts."
Besides, the Japanese annexation was internationally recognized in 1910, meaning that relocating Korean artifacts within "Japanese territory" was lawful at the time.
To Korea's annoyance, Japan holds many items of particular value. More than 1,000 bronze, gold and celadon pieces owned by the late businessman Takenosuke Ogura now make up the core of the Tokyo National Museum's Korean section.
A lot of precious Korean artifacts are now owned by private Japanese citizens or organizations, which means that the Japanese government can’t just acquire them and hand them back to Korea. So, unless the Korean government offers to actually spend millions of dollars to buy back the artifacts, it is unlikely they will ever be returned.
As well as removing cultural artifacts to Japan, the Japanese also burned countless Korean government buildings and palaces.
(b) Natural Resources
The Japanese also removed vast amounts of Korea's natural resources, including lumber, rice, coal, iron ore and many other minerals.
The land itself was also appropriated by the Japanese; by 1910 an estimated 8% of all arable land in Korea had come under Japanese control. This ratio increased steadily, and by 1932, the ratio of Japanese land ownership had grown to 53%.
Japanese landlords included both individuals and corporations. Many former Korean landowners became tenant farmers, having lost their entitlements almost overnight because they could not pay for the land reclamation and irrigation improvements forced upon them. As often occurred in Japan itself, tenants had to pay over half their crop in rent.
The Winter Garden Theatre
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, on the 20th. March 1911, the Winter Garden Theatre opened on Broadway in New York.
Its first production was a double bill, Bow Sing followed by La Belle Paree, which was also Al Jolson's Broadway debut.
Howard Lang
The day also marked the birth in Marylebone, London of Howard Lang.
Howard Lang, born Donald Yarranton, was an English actor known for playing Captain William Baines in the BBC nautical drama The Onedin Line (sometimes jocularly referred to as "The One-Din Line").
-- Howard Lang - The Early Years
Lang was born the son of Edward John Yarranton (1884–1954) and Clara Ann (née Malkin) (1888–1921). Howard's father had left the family's bookbinding business to become a senior commercial traveller for Winsor & Newton, the manufacturer of artists' materials.
Howard served for seven years in the Royal Navy, including during World War II.
His younger brother from his father's second marriage was Sir Peter Yarranton (1924–2003), chairman of the United Kingdom Sports Council from 1989 to 1994, and a notable figure in the world of rugby union, both as a player and as an administrator, for more than 40 years.
-- Howard Lang's Acting Career
For his role as seafaring Captain Baines in The Onedin Line (1971–1980) he gained international attention. In a 1977 interview in Radio Times, Lang recalled a personal appearance in Norway:
"When the series was first shown in Norway I was
asked to make a personal appearance in a small
shipbuilding town. As I was brought into Grimstad
by sea I caught sight of huge crowds – all of 3,000
townsfolk out on the quay to greet me.
I learned afterwards that I had been received as
family because almost every home had an ancient
photograph of an uncle, cousin or grandfather
dressed and sideburned precisely as I appear on
The Onedin Line."
Lang's other parts included roles in The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970), Z-Cars, Softly, Softly, The Vise, and an appearance as caveman Horg in three of the four episodes of the first Doctor Who story, An Unearthly Child. He also played Winston Churchill in the 1983 TV miniseries The Winds of War.
Howard also played the role of Bert Hudd in the first production of Harold Pinter's first play, The Room.
In an early seafaring role, he had a cameo in Ben-Hur as the hortator aboard a Roman galley leading up to the epic battle with an enemy fleet.
-- The Death of Howard Lang
Howard Lang died at the age of 78 in West Hampstead, London on the 11th. December 1989.
My son took this "sneaky-photo" of Flash and I relaxing on the living room couch. Half my rear-end is on the ottoman, because my miniature beagle needs to "hog" most of the couch! Yes, we are 2 chubby hounds, and yes, I am wearing humongous "paw" slippers. They are my favorites. The photo is air-brushed under Flash's tail, for decency's sake! ;0)
"I am an incurable romantic. I believe in hope, dreams and decency, love tenderness and kindness. I believe in mankind."
- Leonard Nimoy
A drug addict walked in down Abbott Street, still holding the coil that's used to expose veins on arms. Her skin was gray, and she was walking in a drunken manner. She stopped, muttered some things in front of the Luc Bourdon memorial at General Motors Place. I thought she was going to cause trouble or do something bad to the memorial, until she wrote this. Even though she was clearly still influenced by whatever drugs she just took, she still had the decency to pay her respects to the Vancouver Canucks defenseman. Big props to her. (Vancouver, BC, Canada)
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transvestite, Freedom, Self Expression, All, Inclusive, Acceptance, Acknowledge, Parade, Charlotte, Downtown, Girl, Backside, Young, Different, Rainbow, Colors,Skirt, Tutu, Walk, Legs, Topless, Cover, Decency, Legal, Normal, Diversity
My Grandmother was the most proper and strictest of women. She would always speak about decency or lack of it. “You look indecent child” she would quietly and sternly state at seemingly every opportunity, eyebrows raised, mouth twisted.
“Your grandfather would be ashamed”.
When she died this is how I thought I would remember her, the tea, the bridge, the country women’s association meetings- In short a life spent in the strictest and most damned propriety imaginable. Yet when I emptied her house of her lifetime’s worth of ‘proper’ possessions, a photo album was found.
Staring out of the photographs inside was her face, her smile and her raised eyebrows. But what photos- the thigh high stockings, the proud stature, the raunch of it all. The lady I thought I knew vanished before my eyes and found herself replaced by this smiling, mischievous creature.
“You look indecent child” I muttered and closed the album.
The humor behind each supposedly strict statement now so evident, the properness now realized as but a part of the whole. And, in the blink of an eye, my memories of our time together changed and were made new simply from the knowledge that a few photos could create.
-Lauren Meath
News.com.au ran a story about Banksy today. News.com.au didn't even have the decency to check all the artwork was actually by Banksy, let alone credit the photos to their respective photographers.
If this is your photo, you should write to News.com.au and complain.
Queens Of The Stone Age Palm Desert Benefit show
p.s. if you are gonna post my copyrighted images elsewhere on the internet at least have the decency to credit me with them or link them back to here, or i'll probably stop posting them or at least start putting big watermarks on them.
"The image of a Syrian child's lifeless body washed up on the shores of a Turkish beach this week brought the world to its knees. His name was Aylan Kurdi, and he was just three years old.
The sad reality is that Aylan was one among millions of desperate people forced to flee from war and persecution. The world is facing a global refugee crisis on a scale we've not seen since WWII, but Australia - our lucky country of a fair go for all - is not doing enough. We can do better to help these people.
We need to do better."
light the dark, adelaide, south australia
#lightthedark
That vaos shit lasted not 4 days before someone, namely 2che, had the common decency to cover that shit up. nuff props 2che.
20220614 HELSINKI. KULOSAAREN KASINO. NAFM2022. PHOTO: ATTE KAJOVA
Ministry for Foreign Affairs produces photo material for media representatives. Please feel free to use the photos for journalistic purposes, considering the following restrictions: One-time picture publishing right, no archiving or reselling. Editorial use only. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organisation shall be mentioned as a source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. The publisher is not entitled to transfer rights to a third party. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall also obtain the permissions needed for any names, persons, works of art, trademarks, and proprietary rights shown in the pictures. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Well leave it to the “fair and balanced” news source to make fun of children during this reality TV show of a campaign. Fox News latest article asking whether people think the Obama Kids are “Cute or Creepy”.
Please explain to me how that is relevant to anything other than showcasing your obvious bias towards a candidate. At least Obama and John McCain have the decency to leave children out of their political push. Not Fox though… they’ll take the cheap shots wherever they can get them.
Even if it’s at some poor kids expense… Way to go Fox!
20220614 HELSINKI. KULOSAAREN KASINO. NAFM2022. PHOTO: ATTE KAJOVA
Ministry for Foreign Affairs produces photo material for media representatives. Please feel free to use the photos for journalistic purposes, considering the following restrictions: One-time picture publishing right, no archiving or reselling. Editorial use only. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organisation shall be mentioned as a source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. The publisher is not entitled to transfer rights to a third party. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall also obtain the permissions needed for any names, persons, works of art, trademarks, and proprietary rights shown in the pictures. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
The Postcard
A postally unused postcard. The card has a divided back.
The Korean Gat
The man on the horse is wearing the traditional Korean gat (Korean: Hunminjeongeum 갓)
A gat is a traditional hat worn by men along with hanbok (Korean traditional clothing) during the Joseon period. It is made from bamboo or horsehair with a bamboo frame, and is partly transparent.
Most gats are cylindrical in shape with a wide brim on a bamboo frame. Before the late 19th. century, only noble class men could wear gat, which represented their social status and protected their topknots.
Robert Neff of the Korean Times has written the following about Korean male headware:
'One of the most important articles of clothing for Koreans in the late 19th. century was the hat. The elderly man with his majestic black horse hair hat, often seen in pictures, is the iconic image of Korean male society during the Joseon Dynasty (1392 - 1910).
According to Percival Lowell, an American who stayed in Seoul in the winter of 1883-84:
"No Korean can in decency appear
without it [hat], except only to make
room for some other hat."
It was a sign of manhood, "the most essential of attributes," and a badge of one's position in Korean society.
Lowell seemed amused with the difference between Korean and American culture. In the United States it was considered poor manners to wear a hat indoors, and one would rarely remove one's shoes, but the opposite was true in Korea:
"A man would part with any or all of
his clothing sooner than take off his
hat. On entering a house, he leaves
his shoes outside to await his return,
but he and his hat go in together.
As he sits down to eat, he divests
himself of his outer garments that he
may eat with greater freedom, but his
hat stays on; and so it sticks to him
through life ― a permanent black halo."
There were many types of hats. The iconic hat, the gat, was made from horse hair and bamboo and was black and somewhat transparent.
It had a fairly wide brim that in the past, according to popular legend, was much wider as a means of preventing unrest. Because of its wide brim, conspirators were kept apart, and were unable to whisper their plans to one another.
There was also a large mourning hat made from bamboo. It was designed to hide the face of mourners from others they might encounter on the streets. It was considered a grievous breach of etiquette to look into the face of the mourner.
Early French missionaries used the mourning hat to disguise themselves as they traveled the Korean peninsula before the 1880's. They were able to move about in relative secrecy for no one would attempt to communicate with a mourner.
Court officials' hats had slightly bent-forward ear-shaped horizontal wings. It was said they symbolized the wearer's attentiveness and willingness to "catch every word of command that the King may utter."
As Korea entered the 20th. century, there were many reforms forced on the population. Some were readily accepted and appreciated, but others, especially those that dealt with hair styles and hats, were vehemently opposed.
"A man is much more firmly bound to
his hat than he is attached to his wife.
He may put away the latter; without
the hat, life becomes a hollow mockery,
for the hat makes the man. Without it
he remains forever a boy."
Hats remained a part of male culture throughout the first half of the 20th. century, but have since disappeared. The only exceptions are those worn by elderly males in the Jongno area, or the bright colorful caps that young teens and adults wear while out with their friends. The "permanent black halo" is no more.'
How Japan Took Control of Korea
Erin Blakemore has written the following for history.com in 2018, and updated it in 2023:
In 1910, Korea was annexed by the Empire of Japan after years of war, intimidation and political machinations; the country would be considered a part of Japan until 1945. In order to establish control over its new protectorate, the Empire of Japan waged an all-out war on Korean culture.
Schools and universities forbade speaking Korean, and emphasized manual labor and loyalty to the Emperor. Public places adopted Japanese, too, and an edict to make films in Japanese soon followed.
Topographical and other postcards of Korea were published with descriptions in Japanese text.
It also became a crime to teach history from non-approved texts, and authorities burned over 200,000 Korean historical documents, essentially wiping out the historical memory of Korea.
During the occupation, Japan took over Korea’s labor and land. Nearly 100,000 Japanese families settled in Korea with the land they had been given; they chopped down trees by the million and planted non-native species, transforming a familiar landscape into something many Koreans didn’t recognize.
Nearly 725,000 Korean workers were made to work in Japan and its other colonies, and as World War II loomed, Japan forced hundreds of thousands of Korean women into life as “comfort women”—sexual slaves who served in military brothels.
Korea’s people weren’t the only thing that was plundered during Japan’s colonization—its cultural symbols were considered fair game, too. One of the most powerful symbols of Korean sovereignty and independence was its royal palace, Gyeongbokgung, which was built in Seoul in 1395 by the mighty Joseon dynasty.
Soon after assuming power, the Japanese colonial government tore down over a third of the complex’s historic buildings, and the remaining structures were turned into tourist attractions for Japanese visitors.
As historian Heejung Kang notes, the imperial government also attempted to preserve treasures of Korean art history and culture—but then used them to uphold imperial Japan’s image of itself as a civilizing and modern force.
This view of Korea as backward and primitive compared to Japan made it into textbooks, museums and even Koreans’ own perceptions of themselves.
The occupation government also worked to assimilate Koreans with the help of language, religion and education. Shinto shrines originally intended for Japanese families became places of forced worship.
Historian Donald N. Clark explains:
"The colonial government made Koreans
worship the gods of imperial Japan,
including dead emperors and the spirits
of war heroes who had helped them
conquer Korea earlier in the century.”
This forced worship was viewed as an act of cultural genocide by many Koreans, but for the colonists, it was seen as evidence that Koreans and Japanese were a single, unified people.
Though some families got around the Shinto edict by simply visiting the shrines and not praying there, others grudgingly adopted the new religious practices out of fear.
By the end of its occupation of Korea, Japan had even waged war on people’s family names. At first, the colonial government made it illegal for people to adopt Japanese-style names, ostensibly to prevent confusion in family registries.
But in 1939, the government made changing names an official policy. Under the law, Korean families were “graciously allowed” to choose Japanese surnames.
At least 84 percent of all Koreans took on the names since people who lacked Japanese names were not recognized by the colonial bureaucracy, and were shut out of everything from mail delivery to ration cards. Historian Hildi Kang writes:
“The whole point was for the government
to be able to say that the people had
changed their names ‘voluntarily.’”
The Plundering of Korea by Japan
(a) Historic Korean Artifacts
Koreans accuse the Japanese of plundering hundreds of thousands of ancient Korean artifacts, mostly during their 36-year occupation of the peninsula. Most Japanese consider the issue a dead one, resolved by the 1965 Japan-Korea Treaty, which led to the return of some 1,400 items.
However the treaty was not definitive, as it neglected artifacts in Japanese private collections, as well as those originating in North Korea.
The size of the haul is astounding. Eighty percent of all Korean Buddhist paintings are believed to be in Japan. And, says Seoul art historian Kwon Cheeyun:
"35,000 Korean art objects and
30,000 rare books have been
confirmed to be there, too."
However that is only the tip of the iceberg: vastly more is believed to be hidden away in private collections.
Determining legal ownership is far more difficult than with the art looted by the Nazis. Toshiyuki Kono, a law professor at Kyushu University. states:
"It's almost impossible to trace the
provenance of centuries-old artifacts."
Besides, the Japanese annexation was internationally recognized in 1910, meaning that relocating Korean artifacts within "Japanese territory" was lawful at the time.
To Korea's annoyance, Japan holds many items of particular value. More than 1,000 bronze, gold and celadon pieces owned by the late businessman Takenosuke Ogura now make up the core of the Tokyo National Museum's Korean section.
A lot of precious Korean artifacts are now owned by private Japanese citizens or organizations, which means that the Japanese government can’t just acquire them and hand them back to Korea. So, unless the Korean government offers to actually spend millions of dollars to buy back the artifacts, it is unlikely they will ever be returned.
As well as removing cultural artifacts to Japan, the Japanese also burned countless Korean government buildings and palaces.
(b) Natural Resources
The Japanese also removed vast amounts of Korea's natural resources, including lumber, rice, coal, iron ore and many other minerals.
The land itself was also appropriated by the Japanese; by 1910 an estimated 8% of all arable land in Korea had come under Japanese control. This ratio increased steadily, and by 1932, the ratio of Japanese land ownership had grown to 53%.
Japanese landlords included both individuals and corporations. Many former Korean landowners became tenant farmers, having lost their entitlements almost overnight because they could not pay for the land reclamation and irrigation improvements forced upon them. As often occurred in Japan itself, tenants had to pay over half their crop in rent.
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IMG_6972
In this photo CRC staff are conducting art therapy workshops for both the youth that are their clients, and for anyone else on the Muslim floor of Camp Bagong Diwa.
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Something is more than a little off when a 12 year old is accused of kidnapping 52 people and held in captivity without a completed trial into his twenties.
I was able to visit a group of youth (originally numbering twelve) accused Abu Sayaff (the militant Al Quaida offshoot) prisoners at Camp Bagong Diwa ['Camp New Consciousness'], a prison in metro Manila.
All of the group I met were imprisoned barely into their teens, all are now in their twenties, and none have seen the end of their trials. They were all arrested in Mindanao and brought to Manila to showcase to the media the “success” of the government in routing the Abu Sayaff.
All are accused of crimes that seem outlandishly ridiculous like a 12 year old kidnapping 52 people, but even if they were true what’s happened to them since seems horribly unjust. They live on the first floor of the jail which is dedicated to Muslim detainees all accused of being Abu Sayaff members, of the 130+ most have not completed trial (despite many of them having been imprisoned for 5+ years.
Around five to seven lived in each two part cell that measured approximately 3x6 metres for the inner room and 2x3 for the outer room. Each inner cell had a washroom facility that has running water about six hours each day. Between 8 and 3 pm the cells are opened and they are allowed into the approx. 6 metre wide inside hall of the jail (they are the only ones in the multistoried jail that had access to this). They are not given any regular access outside so they would crowd around the one corner of the jail where light would come in on nice days. After 10p the inner cell door is also locked down for the night.
One of the kids showed me his cell which he shared with six others. It was set up bunk style, but instead of one raised bed over another, some slept on the floor under the bottom bed. He shared his bed with one other. The group of youth we visited have been housed in adult prison and denied schooling for the last five to six years.
Despite this, they says that the conditions are better now. They used to be housed in the second building in Camp Bagong Diwa with criminals convicted of hard crimes like rape and murder. There they slept thirty to a cell (so crowded that you have to sleep on your side, one told me with eyes glazed and mouth smiling). There water was rationed at four litres per person, per day—and that for all their needs from washing to drinking.
I was impressed by the strength of these young men. They greeted us with smiles and treated us with respect. It almost didn’t feel like I was meeting kids with their childhoods robbed from them—except for that glazed over look they all had when they weren’t talking to us directly.
This was especially pronounced with Taufic Munir, the former 12 year old accused of kidnapping. Ikram Amiruddin, who seemed to speak for the group, said as we were leaving “when you see us we are smiling and seem happy, but remember that there’s more. We’ve been taken from our families and imprisoned so far away from them that they can’t visit.”
That these young men have kept their sanity and decency after what’s happened to them humbles me. Sadness and anger are some other emotions I leave with, they may not have been militants when they were captured, but I have no doubt this is exactly what would spur others on to become one.
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A month or so after this photo was made one of the youth was convicted for the Dos Palmas Resort kidnapping on Palawan in 2001 . The youth claims to have never been to Palawan and the only evidence they have on him is that he 'confessed.' The youth claims that this confession was only obtained after torture (including beatings by multiple men with and without weapons, choking with a plastic bag, and electricution).
In order for the torture to end he says he told the guard that he did 'everything.' This resulted in the then 17 year old being charged with: 259 counts of frustrated murder, 21 counts of murder, and the Dos Palmas kidnapping.
He has been sentenced to twenty (yes 20) life sentences in maximum security prison.
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There were originally twelve Muslim youth in this jail. That number went down to eleven in 2005 when one was killed during a prison siege in 2005. Now that one has been convicted there are ten.
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My profile photo is of myself and three of these youth (I'm the guy with the glasses).
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I encourage anyone interested in the situation in the Philippines to read UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston's report (written in 2007): stopthekillings.org/stknpv2/?q=resources/60/alston%e2%80%...
20220614 HELSINKI. KULOSAAREN KASINO. NAFM2022. PHOTO: ATTE KAJOVA
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Although Bird Island is now sometimes patrolled by police, its history as a nude beach is not forgotten.
Dirk had come in for a bit of stick over having one button too many undone on his shirt. We felt that this was simply beyond decency and were not prepared to accept any explanation that it was pectoral development in the gym causing a tightness of the garment. Eddie took the opportunity to ape from the back seat, causing The Bronze Hand* to reach round in an attempt to give him a donkey bite..... we're on the road again!
Frankly Services, M5, is not a common stop for us, but as we had been sitting in a long tailback round Birmingham, we were all hungry, thirsty and needing a piss.
The Playhouse is a lovely old theatre, really well maintained and run in a traditional way by very smartly turned out ushers.
It was one of those shows were we felt we had a bit of a battle on our hands. Dirk and I often use the bow after the first song to exchange brief comments. Tonight it was an "oh oh". From what we could see, there was a decent sized crowd, but we both felt that, as a body, they weren't entirely "with us". It is probably just our own paranoia, but it doesn't help when you can see a po-faced couple on the front row who appear to show zero emotion at the end of every tune and flatly refuse to applaud. Perhaps we weren't any good....but, we thought we played well, and the new drum heads sounded ace!
The Severn Bridge Toll costs £5.10 for a car, they accept cash sterling, US dollars, euros and cheques, but you can't pay by card......how very queer these days.
We are settled into our Pencoed travelodge by midnight.
* Yet another nick-name for the bassist.
"I lecture in art history in Swansea and since I was encouraging my students to apply for One and Other (after giving them a lecture about The Fourth Plinth), I thought I should put my money where my mouth is - but didn't think I'd get picked of course! 8 metres sounds and looks high! My slot is 6-7pm on 19th August.
Still have no firm idea what I am going to do (keep changing my mind), but I'm sure all my fellow staff at Swansea Metropolitan Uni will be offering me plenty of ideas, many of which I expect to reject for reasons of sanity or decency! One realisation that I have come to is that knowing about art history is of no use to me whatsoever in actually becoming part of a work of art! Damn, and I keep bashing on to my students about the importance of linking theory and practice! Hey, but next year I can do a lecture on Antony Gormley's work and say "I was part of it!", brilliant!
On a more serious and personal note, I fought breast cancer 7 years ago, and obviously won. My mother, my only close relative, died while I was having chemo, and thought I was probably going to closely follow her (she did suggest we could "do a Thelma and Louise" off a clifftop!). So I will also be thinking of her when I am up there, because she would have loved the idea of it all and would be so pleased that I am not only still around but on a Plinth in Trafalgar Square for goodness sake!
Postscript.....What I am going to do: I have now decided, thinking about the things which are important to me, that I am going to give an art history lecture on Art, Women & Cats (with humour of course). Because I will have no projector, I will have to hold up images as visual prompts (which I gather was how Ruskin used to deliver lectures in the 19thC.). Of course since I will BE art, and am a woman and sharing my space with Landseer's Lions in the Square, some of the ingredients of my lecture are already present!" - Source www.oneandother.co.uk/participants/Susan_G