The Idler, Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Moustaches

and international

diplomacy

RELATIONS between the US and South Korea are beginning to fray, as people in the South look with suspicion on President Donald Trump's intermittent engagement with Kim Jong-un ("The Young 'Un") in the North.

And, extraordinarily, the discontent has focused on the moustache of the US ambassador, Harry Harris, a retired admiral in the navy, according to Reuters.

The moustache reminds them, the malcontents say, of the moustaches worn by the Japanese colonial occupiers of Korea between 1910 and 1945. (To complicate matters, Harris is himself half-Japanese though fully American).

In an interview with a local radio station, a ruling party lawmaker compared him with a Japanese governor-general during the colonial period.

The sentiment was echoed by the Korea Times, which said  Harris's moustache "has become associated with the latest US image of being disrespectful and even coercive toward Korea".

"Harris often has been ridiculed for not being an ambassador, but a governor-general," the paper said.

In a street protest, demonstrators carried placards with a photograph of Harris sporting his tash.

But the ambassador expresses attachment to his moustache, which he grew after retirement from the navy and as an accoutrement to his new diplomatic status. He suggests the criticism stems really from his part-Japanese heritage.

"My moustache, for some reason, has become a point of some fascination here. I have been criticised in the media here, especially in social media, because of my ethnic background, because I am a Japanese-American."

This comes at a time of tensions between South Korea and Japan over a South Korean court's ruling that Japan should pay compensation for forced labour during World War II. Plus, of course, the uncertainty of the American position vis-a-vis the two Koreas.

Absolutely the last thing President Trump should do is sprout an orange moustache to go with the fancy hairstyle. It could cause convulsions in South-East Asia.

 

The sheriff

ANOTHER prominent American moustache is the iron-grey  job sported by Trump's erstwhile national security advisor, John Bolton. All Bolton needed was a tin star to be the old-time sheriff Out West.

This Bolton tash caused nary a murmur in South Korea – obviously a style entirely different from Japanese colonial. But it possibly sent a shiver up the spine of the baddies Out West.

 

Zeeland

THE other day I described the Dutch province of Zeeland as a place we don't hear much about. Reader Pieter Aarsen, who has retired from in shipping, disagrees and sends me a glossy magazine, Port News, which in this edition looks at North Sea Port, in Zeeland, which extends cross-border to link up with the Belgian port of Ghent.

It seems it's all happening in a big way at North Sea Port, in Zeeland – oil and gas platforms for the North Sea, ship repairs, bunkering, hydrogen production, a rail link all the way to China … you name it, they've got it.

I stand corrected, Pieter. But Zeeland still haven't produced too many rugby All Blacks.

Tailpiece

In Soviet Russia a  man was arrested by the political police and brought before Josef Stalin.

 

Stalin: "Why was this man arrested?"

 

Officer: "He was shouting: 'Death to that moustache-wearing bastard!' in the street, Comrade Premier."

 

Stalin (to prisoner): "And who were you referring to?"

 

Prisoner: "I was talking about Hitler, Comrade Premier!"

 

Stalin (to officer): "And who were you referring to?"

Oops!

Last word

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected. – Oscar Wilde,