This was a movie with a pretty easy to interpret message.  What I got from it, was that the Korean war wasn’t only a conflict between two ideologies, it tore apart families of the same country, and turned countrymen against one another.  However, it did have the ultimate message that regardless of how much the war was able to tear families apart, that family will ultimately triumph over everything.  Family is very important to the Korean people as it is in most Asian countries.  The concept of family over ideological differences and conflict is not only shown through the two brothers, but when they turned on their own countrymen in order to rescue the older brother’s fiancé from the death squads looking for communists.  They were willing to kill for their family even though they were technically on the same side of the conflict at hand.

While the Russian documentary was pretty similar to most of the other North Korean documentaries I have watched, there were some huge differences that I noticed.  The first thing I noticed was that it was the first time I had seen any North Korean citizen who was being interviewed say anything even sort of negative about the North Korean regime.  The biological scientist who was being interviewed admitted that the country was in a difficult situation, and remarked how they still had not reached a western standard, and that the government was relying on people like him for improvements.  That amazed me that we said it as frankly as he did, and he seemed at lease somewhat aware of the dire situation that his country was in.  The second thing that stood out to me was the Spaniard who was working as president of the North Korean Friendship Association.  This association Ive found, was in fact started and is operated  by the Spanish, and has official representatives in 28 countries including the United States. The KFA pages provides DPRK related material, including tourism tips and political essays, and it is possible to hear views from a DPRK point of view. The KFA Forum site is hosted and administered in Europe and gives links to Korean language teaching sites. The KFA also denies allegations of human rights violations and concentration camps in North Korea.  Their objectives as stated by the KFA are to: show the reality of the DPRK to the world, defend the independence and socialist construction of the DPRK, and to work towards the peaceful reunification of  the Korean peninsula. Due to many of these beliefs, they have lost much of their role in the international arena, and are now reduced to serving domestic purposes in North Korea.  Which in my opinion, makes it safe to say that they are under the direct control of Pyongyang.

I was finally able to find my propaganda poster, it was in the barracks study room where I had been working the night before. I uploaded a picture of it to the media portion of my eportfolio.  I used several key themes I found to be the most important throughout the different North Korean propaganda I looked at.  First of all I featured Kim Il Sung at the top of the poster within a sun to represent how the Koreans look to their leader as the sun that gives them life.  The left portion of the poster under Kim Il Sung is used to represent the Korean Military prowess.  It features a Korean soldier holding a rifle with a bayonet on it, and stuck on the bayonet is a much smaller helpless American solider, to represent how the North Koreans believe that America is the enemy and their superiority over us.  I also added several missiles behind the soldier to represent their nuclear capabilities.  To the right side of the poster I drew several sunflowers, a common symbol to represent the Korean people, who turn towards their sun (Kim Il Sung) to give them life and direction.  And finally the top right portion of the poster has a North Korean flag, used to represent the sovereignty of the North Korean state as a whole.

This movie has been the hardest one to interpret so far out of all the ones we have watched.  It seems to be, at least in part, a contrast in how the Japanese view their role in WWII and their role in the world moving forward.  The different interpretations of the story represent the different interpretations how the Japanese role can be interpreted, either as aggressor,  manipulator, or victim.  Then the priest is meant to be the catalyst for moral interpretation of not only the actions portrayed in the story, but interpret the actions of all men due to their nature.

The study conducted was to test how well we could remember certain patterns over time.  We were asked to determine whether a picture we saw was taken inside or outside, and remember which of four quadrants on the screen it appeared in.  After the initial stage of seeing all the pictures, we did a math page for five minutes, when were shown all pictures again in a different order.  When a picture appeared we had to remember which quadrant it appeared in.  We also had our heart rate and blood pressure taken incrementally throughout the testing.  We did not experience any stressors, as we were simply the control group, but from what I understand future groups will be exposed to some form of a stressor to measure the affects.

Unfortunately I was unable to complete the movie all the way through due to technical difficulties with my computer, but I was able to watch enough to get the idea of what the movie was trying to get across.  I think that Mr. Chu’s character was supposed to represent the older generation of Taiwan, and the old traditions of the Taiwanese people.  Through his cooking of traditional food he seemed to by trying to keep the old spirit alive, even as the times were changing.  His daughters, who were more involved in the more modern Taiwan represent the modernization and change that has happened, and Mr. Chu’s disconnect with their interests shows the disconnect between the two generations, who favor work over simple things in life like eating a good meal.  They live in a fast paced world while Mr. Chu seems to prefer his slower simple life of cooking food.  It also seemed to by trying to teach a lesson about love and human desires through the daughter’s love interests.  Even the title is a metaphor, which is reiterated later by Mr. Chu’s friend, that eating and drinking are like man and woman.  They are basic desires that go together.