The Jargon of Asia:Toward the Possibility of Postcolonial Criticism in Korea Hang Kim (bio) An Advanced Country? In a book recently published and becoming popular in South Korea, the author confesses that, as he awoke one morning, he found his country transformed into an advanced country. The book explains the mission of Korea as an advanced country as follows. "Being an advanced country means having such definitions: having more in the back than in front of the line, having fewer options for better examples to rip-off. … One becomes an 'advanced country' when it realizes that asking the right questions matters more than the right answers" (Park 2022, 32). He enumerated several examples: foldable smartphones that trump all the other phones, an iconic world influencer like BTS with global fandom, an Academy Award to Parasite, president rolls with the big guys of the world, and now Squid Game. It seems rather appropriate to call this an overnight success. However, we have a long way to go actually to get there. "Now is the time for the preceding body to wait for its sluggish soul. We have piles and piles of 'cultural lags' waiting to be handled" (Park 2022, 32). Indeed, we are in this predicament where the body enlarges and precedes but the souls are sad, sickly laggards. It is difficult to become an advanced country that is worthy of the title. Yet half the success might as well be a complete success for the author. Now, all it needs is to have fully alert souls. As it is only so little further to go, let's prematurely hail to this country—long live the Republic of Korea. But this celebrating must pay for its uproarious acclamation: an oblivion of brutal history of colonialism and imperialism. Advancement? Or does it mean precedence? When it is a matter of nature, if merely referring to the first few heads in the herd of wild animals, this dry description has no sentiment. Eventually, however, this insensitive prose draws judgments: the advanced are good, beautiful, and just, and the stragglers are pitiful, inferior, and wrong—the completion of a worldview dotted with historical violence of imperialism and [End Page 7] colonialism. However, as World War II ended and the global civil war swept over the world, the idea of a developed country was to measure a nation's rank with highly objective and hygienic numbers while hiding the bloodstains of violence and slaughter. Advanced/underdeveloped is just a sequel to imperialism/colonialism, yet after the stench of bleach from history laundering passes, we hardly notice the resemblance. The author said that we awoke one morning and this nation was turned into an advanced country. Then, will we fall into another deep sleep in order to close our eyes to the history of colonialism and imperialism? Historical Usage and Connotation of "Advanced Country" The earliest use of the term "advanced country" can be found in the Japanese Meiji-period magazine Fuzoku Gaho (風俗画報). Fuzoku Gaho was the first graphic magazine in Japan to visually explain contemporary social customs, such as lifestyle, trends, wars, literature, history, and geography.1 An article in 1894 visualized the battle aspects of the Sino-Japanese War as a picture and added the following commentary. "It is originally the responsibility of advanced countries (先進国) to aim for national interests (國利) by giving money assistance (幣助), and it is a kindness (情宣) of neighborship (隣交)." "Money assistance (幣助)" refers to material aid here, and this article emphasizes that the Sino-Japanese War stemmed from the responsibility of Japan, an advanced country, to help Korea, an underdeveloped country. Japan at the time initiated reforms modeled on the modern European state through the so-called Western impact, not only accepting European institutions in politics, economy, administration, education, and so on but adopting the dominant perspective quickly. The above quotation tells us that the Sino-Japanese War was socially accepted as an event that substantiated the theory of social evolution in the late 1800s in Japan. The term "advanced (先進)" is based on a thoroughly social-evolutionary perspective. The following history will not require a longer explanation: the history of Imperial Japan, which colonized Taiwan and acquired practical control over the Korean...