CINA

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"Das Kapital" as Entertainment for the New Bourgeoisie?

Last December, punktually to the "Christmas sales"(^^) in Japan, the EastPress Co. publishing house released Karl Marx' "Das Kapital" as a manga guide version (資本論/まんがで読破)...

Sounds strange! But it makes some sense - somehow... Well, at least it's a kind of funny!

But now the Chinese producer He Nian has a complete f... nitty idea, as you can read in the following article (in today's Guardian, UK):

China to bring Das Kapital to life on Beijing stage

You've read the book, attended the seminars and pondered the accumulation of surplus value – now see the musical.

Chinese producers are attempting to transform Das Kapital from a hefty treatise on political economy into a popular stage show, complete with catchy tunes and nifty footwork.

Whether Karl Marx would approve of his masterwork being served up as entertainment for China's new bourgeoisie is a matter of speculation. But the director He Nian – best known for his stage adaptation of a martial-arts spoof – has promised to unite elements from Broadway musicals and Las Vegas shows in a hip, interesting and educational play featuring a live band, singing and dancing.

"The particular performance style we choose is not important, but Marx's theories cannot be distorted," he said sternly, in an interview with the Wen Hui Bao newspaper.

Zhang Jun, an economics professor at Shanghai's prestigious Fudan University, is being drafted in to ensure the production is intellectually rigorous.

The director said the play, which is to open next year, will be set in a company and will document the progress of its workers. In the first half they realise their boss is exploiting them and begin to understand the theory of surplus value. But far from uniting, as Marx enjoined them in the Communist Manifesto, some continue to work as before, some mutiny and others employ collective bargaining.

Yang Shaolin, the general manager of the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, said that in the past it would have been difficult to imagine Das Kapital adapted into a play with "main characters, major dramatic elements, and profound educational meaning", but that it was now possible thanks to the flourishing of different styles in Chinese theatre.

Even so, the producers face a tough challenge. True, the social criticism of Marx's 19th century contemporaries Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo has been transmuted into two hugely successful all-singing, all-dancing musicals – Oliver! and Les Miserables. But unlike the novels on which those were based, Das Kapital has never been noted for its vivid characterisation or gripping plot.

There is some precedent for the new production. A Japanese writer and translator is said to have adapted Das Kapital for the stage in the 1930s, and the result was subsequently translated into Chinese.

Three years ago a German theatre group had another bash. But despite an added inducement to attend – a copy of Volume 23 of the Collected Works of Marx and Engels for each theatre-goer – the Suddeutsche Zeitung described it as mostly "something of a lecture … at times dry and boring".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/17/china-das-kapital-marx-stage

Related articles:
☞ Das Kapital turned into a manga comic (Telegraph/UK, 08.11.18)
☞ Marx goes manga in a Kapital comic strip (The Times, 08.11.18)
☞ 'Das Kapital' comic has mass appeal (AP/Japan Times, 08.12.24)

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One of today's int'l TOP news (e.g. in The Guardian, UK):

For millions of undernourished North Koreans, the notion of eating at a restaurant belongs strictly to the world of fantasy. And so there is only the grimmest humour in the news that, for the country's ruling elite, Pyeongyang's dining options just got a little more impressive:

After 10 years of leader's heroic struggle,

pizza comes to North Korea

An obsession with pizza stretching back at least 10 years prompted the isolated nation's dictator, Kim Jong-il, to authorise North Korea's first Italian restaurant, which opened in December, according to a pro-Pyongyang newspaper published in Japan. "General Kim Jong-il said that the people should also be allowed access to the world's famous dishes," the restaurant's manager, Kim Sang-Soon, was quoted as saying in Choson Sinbo, a Tokyo-based newspaper seen as a mouthpiece for the regime.

Those dining at the restaurant are reportedly treated to pizza and pasta made with wheat flour, butter and cheese flown in from Italy. They are also presumably reaping the benefits of a years-long effort by Kim Jong-il to bring the perfect pizza to his famine-plagued totalitarian state.

In the late 1990s, he summoned a team of Italian pizza chefs to Pyongyang to instruct army officers. One of the chefs, Ermanno Furlanis, later recounted how the Italians underwent x-rays, brain scans and urine and blood sampling on arrival, before being sequestered in a marble palace. One of the officers Furlanis was training asked him to specify the precise distance at which olives should be spaced on a pizza, he recalled.

Kim seems to have taken a personal interest: while the pizza-making sessions were under way, on a ship anchored offshore, he was apparently witnessed arriving to inspect his officers' progress. "I am not in the position to say whether it really was him," Furlanis later said. "But our chef, who had no reason to fib, was, for the space of several minutes, utterly speechless. He said he felt as if he had seen God, and I still envy him this experience."

The training seems not to have met Kim's expectations. According to Choson Sinbo, subsequent efforts to reproduce Italian pizza in North Korea were a process of "repeated trial and error", and last year the dictator sent chefs to Naples and Rome to learn more. Finally satisifed, he authorised the restaurant.

North Korea, one of the world's poorest countries, was hit by devastating famine in the mid-1990s, with up to 2m people dying, primarily from pneumonia, tuberculosis and diarrhoea.

But Kim's passion for fine food is legendary: he is said to be a connoisseur of cognac, French wine, shark-fin soup and sushi. One of his former chefs, writing under a pseudonym, recalled travelling to Iran and Uzbekistan to fetch caviar, flying to Denmark for bacon and China for melons and grapes. He defected, he wrote, by offering to source sea urchins from Japan, from where he never returned...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/16/north-korea-pizza

Related articles:
☞ North Korea launches "perfect" Italian pizza (Telegraph, UK)

☞ I MADE PIZZA FOR KIM JONG-IL/Part 1: Welcome to megalopolis  

☞ I MADE PIZZA FOR KIM JONG-IL/Part 2: Hot ovens at the seaside

☞ I MADE PIZZA FOR KIM JONG-IL/Part 3: The great man eats (A. Times, 2001)

Also (somehow^^) related:
☞ The Great General's "Birthday Gifts", 2009 (DailyNK, 3.16)

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Last Tuesday a small bunch of (fortunately only) 30 people celebrated with a protest rally in front of Seoul's Chinese Embassy the 50th anniversary of the failed "uprising" (by the representatives of the ancient feudal class and their flunkies, sponsored by the US and British Imperialism) in Tibet. And the rally, once again, was supported by members/activists of (self-appointed) "progressive"(^^) groups/organisations!! (*)

In this context I would like - once more - to call attention to the following significant article, published almost one year ago in the (definitely NOT pro-communist!!) Asia Times magazine:
☞ Tibet, the 'great game' and the CIA

Related contributions about the racist progroms in the Xizang Autonomous Region (Tibet) and adjacent Chinese provinces, committed/attempted in March 2008 by Tibetan "protesters":
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/?pid=1449
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/?pid=1450
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/?pid=1451
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/?pid=1455

* (Unfortunately) MWTV "felt compelled" to report about the "event":
☞ "티베트 민중봉기 50주년, 티베트에 자유와 평화를!!"

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"Mangrujeon" - Art Exhibition in Seoul

-Part 1-

Paintings, sculptures, videos and other artworks related to the Yongsan Massacre

When? (since) March 11 ~ 30, 2009

Where?  평화공간 Space*Peace/Peace Museum (opposit to Chogyesa, subway: Jonggak Stn., ex. 3)

-Part 2-

The history of Mangru struggle ("Mangru/망루/亡淚" means a makeshift fortress built on the roof of a building, threatened by deconstruction/i.e. the "construction mafia", in collaboration with the "security forces"/police..)

When? April 8 ~ 28, 2009

Where? The same place!

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Yesterday's Hankyoreh published following feature:

In Maseok, unhealed wounds after

‘human hunt’ for migrant workers

Ongoing crackdowns are threatening the human rights of migrant workers and the existence of small businesses with few hiring choices

A visit to Maseok Furniture Industrial Complex on Monday afternoon showed that the wounds of last year’s crackdown have not yet healed.

“Making furniture is a technical trade, but once we’ve taught them and they’re good enough, they drag them away. Koreans don’t come, either. They say it’s too tough. The legal ones who have come in through the employment permit system leave right away. I really don’t know what they expect us to do.” The 50-year-old director of “D” furniture company launched immediately into his rant. Three of the four migrant workers he had employed at his factory were dragged off in last year’s crackdown. Half of his entire workforce of six was gone, just like that. “After that, the factory sat idle for a while, and only recently did I manage to find workers and open up the factory again,” he said. The nation is said to be facing an unprecedented hiring crisis, but even the three new employees he managed to bring in were all unregistered migrant workers.

There are more than 350 small-scale manufacturing businesses located in Maseok and more than 600 migrant workers. These workers were expected to keep the factories moving, and when they suddenly disappeared in last year’s crackdown, more than 40 small workplaces were forced to shut their doors completely.

The government crackdown is still ongoing. A week ago on March 4, another “rabbit hunt” resulted in 13 more people being carted away. In other years it would be time of boundless energy with the marriage season ahead, but lately the area was been swept up in anxiety over when the crackdown squad might be making another appearance. Factory “J,” which had four of its five employees taken away in last Wednesday’s crackdown, has halted its production line.

“If we get hit by another crackdown this time, we’ll have to go into default,” said the director of company “H,” which produces bathroom slippers. “I know that unregistered migrant workers are illegal, but what am I supposed to do when there’s no one who comes here and says they want to work?” he asked.

In contrast, the unregistered migrant workers targeted in the crackdown were serene, as though they had given up hope.Thirty-year-old Nepali “Hobin” said, “I’m really scared of a crackdown, but if I get caught, I get caught. I have to keep working because of my family back home.” Attached to Hobin’s windowless lodgings is a sticker that reads “STOP CRACKDOWN.”

Hankyoreh editor's note: The National Human Rights Commission of the Republic of Korea (NHRCK, Chair Ahn Kyong-whan) announced Tuesday that a number of human rights violations took place in the Ministry of Justice’s crackdown last November on unregistered migrant workers in the Maseok Furniture Industrial Complex. As a result, the NHRCK’s recommendations to the Minister of Justice included: rectifying crackdown practices such as excessive suppression, establishing measures to prevent such events from happening again, and conducting sexual harassment education for employees of the Korea Immigration Service’s investigation team who participated in the crackdown. In its investigation, the NHRCK reported finding such actions as: breaking down a dormitory door and forcibly detaining female foreigners who were sleeping, ignoring medical measures for victims wounded during pursuit, failing to give the required notification prior to exercising force, and violating human rights, for example in the case of foreign women who were forced to wait for a long period of time in an escort vehicle and told to relieve themselves outside when they said they needed to use the bathroom. The Hankyoreh visited the scene following last November’s “human hunt” to get a feel for the situation of the foreign workers living in Maseok.

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/343458.html

Related articles:
☞ Human rights were violated in crackdown... (Yonhap, 3.11)

☞ Migrant workers sue the state for illegal crackdowns (Hankyoreh, 3.12)

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told today regional leaders meeting in Tehran (to discuss the global economic crisis) that the capitalism is on verge of collapse, Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

But - of course(!!) - The Great General and Dear Leader Kim Jong-il (The Sun of the 21st century) noticed the same fact almost weeks before!

During a meeting with hundreds of KPA and WPK hereos in preparation of the SPA election (successfully held last Sunday) HE already noticed (according to the following minutes of the meeting) that..

"The Capitalism is in on the brink of collapse..." (frantic applauses) "... and as usual, our Korean Socialism - guided by the victorious Juche Idea and invincible Seongun Policy - is always one step ahead of Capitalism!" (frenetic applauses, standing ovations!!)

Note: The "minutes" - just a joke! But in some (if not ALL!!) countries of the "Real Socialism" (the former Eastern block) the joke (related to different ruling "socialist"/"communist" parties) has been very popular...

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On March 8 the S. Korean women, like in many other countries around the world, celebrated the  International Women's Day .

So last Sunday afternoon hundreds of members of women groups and female activists of labor unions, political parties and human right organisations gathered in downtown Seoul to protest against the ongoing discrimination in the society and the increasing exploitation and opression. But they also celebrated the date with an colorful culture program.

Comrade "Hong Gil-dong.."/숲속홍길동 produced and published an impressive documentary about the event. You can watch and enjoy it here (the 2nd movie) or directly here!

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A NEW EPOCHAL VICTORY FOR THE DEMOCRACY

While y'day the entire international democratic and peace-loving community feared for the political fate of the Dear Leader, the Great General Kim Jong-il (The World's Most Brilliant Commander, the Sun of the 21st Century etc, etc..) - surprisingly - was re-elected by the voters in HIS constituency (*) to the D.P.R.K.'s parliament, the Supreme People's Assembly.

Although HE has been elected by only 100 percent of the voters, it's - once again - a epochal victory for the Korean (north AND south!!) and int'l Revolutionary Democratic Movement!!

And in gratitude to HIS voters, the entire Korean nation and all the peace-loving peoples all over the world - immediately after HIS election - HE vowed (via a new statement by the General Staff of the KPA) to exterminate the US-Imperialism and its puppet regime in Seoul as soon as possible (they only must give HIM a good reason!!).

* The int'l media wrote today that HE has been elected in the constituency 333. But that's a mistake, likely based on a typo by KCNA. In fact it's - of course - the constituency 666!

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Source of the pics: TiN, VoP

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