Han River vegetarians are harmful to youth… Age restriction required

Han Kang wins the Man Booker Prize, the most prestigious award in the English-speaking world (London AP = Yonhap News) Novelist Han Kang (46) became the first Korean to win the internationally prestigious Man Booker Prize on the 16th (local time). The Man Booker Prize selection committee announced Han Kang’s novel ‘The Vegetarian’ as the winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize International Category at an awards ceremony held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England. The Man Booker Prize, which boasts the highest authority in the English-speaking world, is considered one of the world’s three major literary awards, along with the Nobel Prize in Literature and the French Competition Prize. The photo shows Han Kang posing after the awards ceremony. [email protected]/2016-05-17 06:49:07/
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Han Kang wins the Man Booker Prize, the most prestigious award in the English-speaking world (London AP = Yonhap News) Novelist Han Kang (46) became the first Korean to win the internationally prestigious Man Booker Prize on the 16th (local time). The Man Booker Prize selection committee announced Han Kang’s novel ‘The Vegetarian’ as the winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize International Category at an awards ceremony held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England. The Man Booker Prize, which boasts the highest authority in the English-speaking world, is considered one of the world’s three major literary awards, along with the Nobel Prize in Literature and the French Competition Prize. The photo shows Han Kang posing after the awards ceremony. [email protected]/2016-05-17 06:49:07/ Controversy surrounding novelist Han Kang’s book ‘The Vegetarian’ continues in the educational field.

On the 22nd, the National Federation of Parents’ Organizations (KPA), a parent’s group, issued a statement pointing out that Han Kang’s novel ‘The Vegetarian’ is a ‘harmful media piece for youth’ and stated, “It should not be displayed in elementary, middle, and high school libraries nationwide.” announced.

Jeon Hak-yeon said, “The brother-in-law paints and films his sister-in-law’s naked body and explicitly depicts a sexual scene. Moreover, the sister-in-law suddenly claims to be a vegetarian, harms herself, and is then admitted to a mental hospital, where she starves herself to death by doing a handstand and saying she will become a tree.” “It leads to one thing,” he claimed.

He added, “We are astonished by attempts to place books with extreme and violent content in elementary, middle, and high school libraries across the country just because they are the work of a Nobel Prize author.”

Jeonhak-yeon’s side states that Article 9 1 of the Youth Protection Act states that ‘the standards for reviewing media harmful to youth include ‘sensational or obscene material that stimulates sexual desire in youth’, and if this applies, it must be determined as media harmful to youth.’ Referring to the content, he continued to argue that age restrictions are necessary, saying, “Just because an ‘19+ adult film’ won an ‘Academy Award’ does not mean it can be viewed as a film ‘available for viewing by teenagers.’”

Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education Superintendent Jeong Geun-sik, who took office on the 17th, was publicly asked whether he had read ‘The Vegetarian’ to the end and whether he would recommend it as a must-read if he had minor grandchildren. At the same time, they requested the Ministry of Education, its affiliated city and provincial offices of education, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family to take immediate action to prevent ‘Vegetarian’ from being placed in elementary, middle, and high school libraries.

On the morning of the 22nd, Kang Kyeong-sook, a member of the Fatherland Innovation Party, asked Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education Superintendent Lim Tae-hee a question while holding the books The Vegetarian on the Han River, Franz Kafka’s Transformation, and The Hunger Clown at the National Assembly audit of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, Incheon Metropolitan Office of Education, and Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education held at the National Assembly Education Committee in Yeouido, Seoul on the morning of the 22nd. There is./ Photo = News 1 The controversy over the provision of ‘vegetarians’ in school libraries was also discussed in the National Assembly audit that day. During the National Assembly audit of the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education by the Education Committee held at the National Assembly, opposition party members demanded an apology from Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education Superintendent Lim Tae-hee for discarding the novel by author Han Kang.

From September to November last year, the Provincial Office of Education delivered an official document containing the standards for reviewing media materials harmful to youth to each educational support office, and instructed schools at each level to hold a library management committee to decide on harmful books. At this time, about 2,490 schools discarded a total of 2,517 books, judging them to be harmful sex education books, including ‘Vegetarian’. One school scrapped ‘Vegetarian’, and two other schools took measures to restrict viewing.

Superintendent Lim said, “It is a work containing deep thoughts written within deep thoughts,” but added, “I read the book with the feeling that the parts related to Mongolian spots, etc., were somewhat embarrassing to the students.”

‘The Vegetarian’ is the representative work of author Han Kang, the first Korean writer and the first Asian female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. After its publication in 2007, it has been consistently translated and published in many countries, including Japan, China, and France, since 2010. In 2016, it won the International Booker Prize, on par with the Nobel Prize in Literature, and has established itself as a world-class work in name and reality.

Kim So-yeon, Hankyung.com reporter [email protected]