[KS] Korean attitudes towards "German" Shepherd Dogs

[Kelly Jeong]

That's an interesting question.  I noticed that my grandparents'
generation, generally speaking, doesn't like dogs, especially the
German Shepherd kind.  They (again, generalizing here) seem to think
that it's a waste of money and time to give them dog food and show
them affection.  "Expensive" foods and affection should be reserved
only for humans, in their opinion.  I never thought about the colonial
connection.

As for 'textual evidence,' there's a short story by a war generation
Korean author (I think Yi Ho-ch'ol?) that explicitly pits a weak,
Korean dog (a symbol of the narrator, a disabled Korean man) and a
strong, aggressive German Shepherd that is associated with America and
especially American soldiers.  The story was definitely an allegory of
the post war S. K. situation.


Kelly Jeong

On 4/14/05, Aaron Herald Skabelund <ahs39 at columbia.edu> wrote:
> In relation to a larger project on human-canine relations, I have a
> question about Korean attitudes towards "German" Shepherd Dogs. I
> have heard from a number of Korean specialists that an older
> generation of Koreans dislikes these dogs because of their
> extensive deployment by Japanese colonial authorities. Similar
> attitudes exist among older people in Manchuria and Taiwan, where I
> have been able to find textual and visual evidence of such
> historical memories. I have so far been unable to find any material
> for Korea, except for some anecdotal evidence. In addition, I
> recently heard that some Koreans refer to the breed as "Yankee
> Dogs," presumably because of their use by the Americans after 1945.
> It would seem that negative attitudes toward the dogs translated
> smoothly across eras of colonial oppression and American occupation
> and a large U.S. military presence. Any ideas, references, leads, or
> suggestions, and even additional anecdotes, are greatly appreciated.
> 
> Aaron Skabelund
> Research Fellow
> Hokkaido University
> 
>