Week 9 discussion

For some reason, I can not open the given link, so I looked up the movie Free Minu and listened to the song Tears of Mokpo by myself. I am not sure I have the right one, but I still want to share what I feel.

In the movie, Minu is a Nepalese immigration worker in Korea. His working experience, as what we have learned in class, is miserable and harsh. He worked as the bottom class in Korean society and was paid unfairly for his hard work. Despite his sacrifice and contribution to Korea, he was deported from Korea and not allowed to reenter. This cruel treatment reminds me of Harsha Walia’s definition of border imperialism. She claims that the broader causes displacement and immobile immigration. In the case of Minu, he was a victim of broader imperialisms of Korea, as he was forced to leave the country that he self-identified as his home. This movie would be a typical sad immigration story without the intervention of music. When he was in Korea, he was a performer in a vocal band. Through the charm of music, he became close with his Korean bandmates. After the government sent him back to Nepal, all his bandmates flew to Nepal to accomplish his dream, performing the song “Tears of Mokpo”. Even though the Korean government hurt Minu through racial capitalism, the music tightly holds Minu and the Korean bandmate together. ( Remember Korean people and Minu are at the opposite party under racial capitalism) It is fair to say that music is a sharp tool to break prejudice and discriminations and contributes to the harmonious relationship among different groups of people.

We also could see music has the same function in week 1’s reading. In Jamaica, Reggie music forms a positive relationship between Jamaican people and Chinese merchants. These people, just as in the case of Minu, are considered opposite parties under racial capitalism.

In the future, I believe that the interaction of art production of different groups would create a hospitable, friendly global environment. At that time, people would only consider others as another human instead of having a predetermined racialized profile, and we would not see any signs of racial capitalism.