Podcasts about kim ok

En el afán de de Leche de buscarle el tema que más odie a Fernando nos tocan hoy la nueva remesa de pelis de acción protagonizadas por actrices random. Al contrario de sus partenaires masculinos (The rock, Vin Diesel, Jason Statham etc) no existe un stars system de mujeres en la acción y aunque algunas han hecho bastantes pelis del género (Charlize Therom, Olga Kurilenko…) nadie va a ver esas pelis porque salgan ellas específicamente, tampoco tienen personajes reconocibles (más allá de Furiosa) y como no dependen tanto del físico para hacer estas películas de repente te hacen una comedia romántica. Navegamos por las distintas aspirantes, por una serie de películas bastante anodinas (a Leche le encantan por supuesto) y aventuramos el futuro del subgénero. Mucha asesina con ataques de humanidad, mucha venganza ratera, mucha traición que se ve desde el espacio de una figura paterna o masculina hetero patriarcal, sororidad de bote a rolón, mucha lección de vida ratera y mucha tía buena afeada para que la tomes en serio. LISTA DE ASPIRANTES Blake Lively: Ritmo de la venganza (2020) Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Kate (2021) Jennifer Garner: Matar o morir (Peppermint)(2018) Margot Robbie: Terminal (2018) Charlize Theron: Vieja Guardia (2020), Atómica (2017) Jessica Chastain: Ava (2020) Olga Kurylenko: Centinela (2020) , La mensajera (2019), Momentum (2015) Gal Gadot: Agente Stone (2023) Jennifer Lopez: La madre (2023), Atlas (2024) Olivia Wilde: La justiciera (2018) Kate Beckinsale: Jolt (2021) Jessica Alba: Detonantes (2024) Salma Hayek: Everly (2014) Maggie Q: La protegida (2021) Elsa Pataky: Interceptor (2022) Kim Ok-bin: La villana (2017) Saoirse Ronan: Hanna (2011) Angelina Jolie: Salt (2010) Scarlet Johanson: Lucy (2014)

Tune in as Fake-Dating February advances forward with the third episode of the month, where Brett Salter (Irish Salt) rejoins 2CC for a breakdown of Love to Hate You, the 2023 Netflix K-drama that follows the chaos and romance between a misandrist lawyer and a misogynistic celebrity. The absolutely wacky comedy that this show is willing to dive into, being grateful that a certain subplot doesn't stretch on longer than it does, a recommendation for Flower of Evil with a caveat, and the plentiful drinking and Asian flushes that appear throughout Love to Hate You comprise a few of the talking points for this episode.Directed by Kim Jung-kwon, Love to Hate You stars Kim Ok-vin, Teo Yoo, Kim Ji-hoon, Go Won-hee, Lee Joo-bin, Kim Sung-ryung, Song Ji-woo, Han Seo-jun, Jeon Shin-hwan, Kim Ye-ryeong, and Choi Yoon-so.Spoilers start at 28:35Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastrHere's how you can learn more about Palestine and IsraelHere's how you can keep up-to-date on this genocideHere's how you can send eSIM cards to Palestinians in order to help them stay connected onlineGood Word:• Brett: Severance (Apple TV+)• Arthur: Satranic Panic, T Blockers, and Carnage for Christmas, all of which are Alice Maio Mackay moviesReach out at email2centscritic@yahoo.com if you want to recommend things to watch and read, share anecdotes, or just say hello!Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review on iTunes or any of your preferred podcasting platforms!Follow Arthur on Twitter, Goodpods, StoryGraph, Letterboxd, and TikTok: @arthur_ant18Follow the podcast on Twitter: @two_centscriticFollow the podcast on Instagram: @twocentscriticpodFollow Arthur on GoodreadsCheck out 2 Cents Critic Linktree

Rounding Up Season 2 | Episode 12 – Counting Guest: Dr. Kim Hartweg Mike Wallus: Counting is a process that involves a complex and interconnected set of concepts and skills. This means that for most children, the path to counting proficiency is not a linear process. Today we're talking with Dr. Kim Hartweg from Western Illinois University about the big ideas and skills that are a part of counting, and the ways educators can support their students on this important part of their math journey.  Mike: Well, hey, Kim, welcome to the podcast. We're excited to be talking with you about counting.   Kim Hartweg: Ah, thanks for having me. I'm excited, too.  Mike: So, I'm fascinated by all of the things that we're learning about how young kids count, or at least the way that they attend to quantities.  Kim: Yeah, it's exciting what all is taking place, with the research and everything going on with early childhood education, especially in regards to number and number sense. And I think back to an article I read about a 6-month-old baby who's in a crib and there's three pictures in this crib. One of them has two dots on it, another one has one dot, and then a third one has three dots. And a drum sounds, and it goes boom, boom, boom. And the 6-month-old baby turns their head and eyes and they look at the picture with three dots on it. And I just think that's exciting that even at that age they're recognizing that three dots [go] with three drum beats. So, it's just exciting.  Mike: So, you're actually taking us to a place that I was hoping we could go to, which is, there are some ideas and some concepts that we associate with counting. And I'm wondering if we could start the podcast by naming and unpacking a few of the really important ones.  Kim: OK, sure. I think of the fundamental counting principles, three different areas. And for me, the first one is that counting sequence, or just learning the language and that we count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. However, in the English language, it's much more difficult [than] in other languages when we get beyond 10 because we have numbers like 11, 12, 13 that we never hear again. Like, you hear 21, 31, 41, but you don't hear 11. Again, it's the only time it's ever mentioned. So, I think it's harder for students to get that counting sequence for those who speak English.  Mike: I appreciate you saying that because I remember reading at one point that in certain Asian languages, the number 11, the translation is essentially 10 and 1, as opposed to for English speakers where it really is 11, which doesn't really follow the cadence of the number sequence that kids are learning: 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on.  Kim: Exactly. Yes.  Mike: It picks up again at 21, but this interim space where the teen numbers show up and we're first talking about a 10 and however many more, it's not a great thing about the English language that suddenly we decided to call those things that don't have that same cadence.   Kim: Yeah, after you get past 20, yes. And if you think of kids when they hear the number 16, a lot of times they'll say, “A 1 and a 6 or a 6 and a 1?” Because they hear 16, so you hear the 6 first. But like you said, in other languages, it's 10 six, 10 seven, 10 eight. So, it kind of fits more naturally with the way we talk and the language.   Mike: So, there's the language of the counting sequence. Let's talk about a couple of the other things.  Kim: OK. One-to-one correspondence is a key idea, and I think of this when I was first starting to teach undergraduate students about early math education. I had kids at the same age, so at a restaurant or wherever we happened to be, I'd get out the sugar packets and I would have them count. And at first when they're maybe 2 years old or so, and they're just learning the language, they may count those sugar packets as 1, 2, 3. There may be two packets. There may be five packets. But everything is 1, 2, 3, whether there's again, five packets or two packets. So, once they get that idea that each time they say a number word that it counts for an actual object and they can match them up, that's that idea of one-to-one correspondence to where they say a number and they either point or move the object so you can tell they're matching those up.   Mike: OK, let's talk about cardinality because this is one that I think when I first started teaching kindergarten, I took for granted how big of a leap this one is.   Kim: Yeah, that's interesting. So, once they can count out and you have five sugar packets and they count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and you ask how many are there, they should be able to say five. That's cardinality of number. If they have to count again, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, then they don't have cardinality of number, where whatever number they count last is how many is in that set.   Mike: Which is kind of amazing actually. We're asking kids to decide that “I've figured out this idea that when I say a number name, I'm talking about an individual part of the count until I say the last one, and then I'm actually talking about the entire set.” That's a pretty big leap for kids to start to make sense of.   Kim: It is, and it's fun to watch because hear some of them say, “One, 2, 3, 4, 5. Five, there's five.” ( laughs ) So, they kind of get that idea. But yeah, that cardinality of number is a key principle and leads into the conservation of numbers.  Mike: Let's talk about conservation of number. What I'm loving about this conversation is the way that you're using these concrete examples from your own children, from sugar packets, to help us make sense of something that we might be seeing, but we might not have a name for.   Kim: Yeah, so the conservation of number, this is my favorite task when I have young kids around. I want to see if they can serve number or not. So, I might first do the sugar pack thing or whatever and see if they can tell you how many there are. But the real fun is, do they conserve that number? So, I think back to a friend of mine who brought her daughter over one time, and I had these toy matchbox cards on my table, and her name was Katie. And I said, “Katie, how many cars are there?” And she counted “One, 2, 3, 4, 5 … there's five toy cars.” And I moved them around and I said, “Now how many cars are there?” And she counted “One, 2, 3, 4, 5 … there's five toy cars.” So, she has cardinality of number. However, I kept moving those cars into different positions, never adding or taking any away.   Kim: That's all that were there the whole time. And after about seven or eight times, I said, “Now how many cars are there?” And her mom finally jumped in and said, “Katie, you've counted those already. There's five cars.” ( laughs ) And I said, “No, no, no. This is just whether she conserves number or not, it's a developmental-type thing.” But you know they conserve number when you ask them, “Well, now how many cars are there?” And they look at you and like, “Well, why would you ask that again? There's five.” ( chuckles ) So, then they can conserve number. It's real fun to do that with elementary students who are getting their number sense going and even before they enter school. However, there will be some that may not get that conservation of number until they're 5 or 6 years old.   Mike: Let's talk about something you named earlier. I've heard people pronounce this as (soobitizing) or (subitizing), but in any case, it's really an important idea for people, especially if you're teaching young children to make sense of this. Can you talk about what that means?   Kim: Yeah, so subitizing, I think that's interesting. We work so hard getting kids to count and learn the language and have one-to-one correspondence, and then be able to eventually conserve number. But then we want them to just be able to recognize a set of numbers without counting. And that's when they're really starting to develop some number sense. I think of dice. And if you roll a single [die], we want students to just know that when there's an arrangement of four dice, they know it's four without having to count 1, 2, 3, 4. So the subitizing idea, a lot of dice games, maybe some ten-frame cards, dot cards, lots of things like that can help students develop a little bit more of that subitizing, or recognizing a set of items without having to count those.   Mike: So, when I look at a set of three dots, I can just say that's three, as opposed to an earlier point where a child might actually say, “One, 2, 3 … that's three.”  Kim: Exactly. So, that would be subitizing—just instantly knowing what's there without having to count.   Mike: So, I wonder if we could unpack two other counting behaviors that sometimes pop up with kids when they're combining or separating quantities. And what I'm thinking about is the difference between the child who counts everything and the child who either counts on from a number or counts back from a number. And I'm wondering if you can talk about what these two behaviors can tell us about how kids are thinking about the numbers that they're operating on.   Kim: Yeah, it's so interesting when you have activities like a cup … and maybe you have eight counters and you put three under the cup and you say, “How many are here? Three.” And then you cover those up and you ask, “Well, how many are altogether?” There are some kids who don't have any trouble with counting on 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, but there's other kids who have to lift up the cup and start again at 1. So, they don't have that idea that there's three items under that cup whether you can see them or not. So, it's difficult for them to be able to count on, and we shouldn't as teachers force that on them until they're ready to do it. So, it's a hard concept for kids to get, but especially if they're not developmentally ready for it.   Mike: I think that's a really nice caution because I think you could accidentally potentially get kids to mimic a practice that you're trying to show them, but without understanding there's some real danger that you're just causing confusion.   Kim: And we want to give kids the idea that counting collections and things, it's a fun thing to do. And I know there may be teachers that have seashells or rocks or different types of collections they might count, and we want students to count those and then discuss how they counted them, arrange them. And I'm thinking of this little girl that I saw on a video where she was counting eight bears, and she arranged them first by color, then counted how many there were. And the teacher then went on to use that and make a problem-solving task for her, such as, “Well, how many green bears do you have?” And she would count them. “Well, what if you gave me those green bears? Do you know what you would have left?” And she said, “Well, I don't know. Let's try it.” And I love that because I think that's the kind of idea we want students to have. They're counting, and “I don't know, let's try it.” They're excited about it. They're not afraid to take chances, and we don't want them to think that “Oh, this is difficult to do.” It's just, “Hey, let's try it. Give it a try here.”   Mike: Well, I've heard people talking a lot about this idea of counting collections lately. It seems like we are almost rediscovering the value of a routine like that. I'm wondering if you could talk about the value that can come out of an experience of counting collections and help bring that idea to life for people.   Kim: The idea here is that we want students to get good at counting. And the research is showing that students who maybe don't show one-to-one correspondence when they count out, maybe eight counters, might show one-to-one correspondence when they count out 31 pennies, which seems like it shouldn't happen. But there's research out there that over 70 percent of them did better counting 31 pennies than they did with eight counters. So, I think what you count makes a big difference for kids—and to not hold them back, to not think that “OK, we've got to get one-to-one correspondence before we count this collection of 50 items.” I don't think that's the case. And the research is even showing that these ideas that we've talked about all develop concurrently. It's not a linear process. But this counting collections is kind of a big deal with that. And having students count, again, collections that they're interested in, writing number sentences about their collections, comparing what they counted with another partner, and then turning it into problem-solving questions where they're actually doing what happens if you lost five of yours. Or what happens if you combined your collection with somebody else? And turning it into where they're actually doing addition and subtraction, but not actually the formal process of that.   Mike: The other thing that you made me think about is, I would imagine you could also have kids finish counting a collection and then you could ask them to represent it either on paper or in some other way.   Kim: Exactly. And writing out those number sentences or even creating their own word problems so that they can ask a friend or a partner, it makes it fun. And it relates to what they've done. And let's face it, once you've taken that time to count those collections, you may as well get as much use out of it as you can. ( chuckles )  Mike: Kim, you're making me think of something that I don't know that I had words for when I was teaching kindergarten, which is, when I look back now, I was looking to see that kids could do a particular thing like one-to-one correspondence or that they had cardinality before I would give them access to a task like counting collections. And I think what you're making me think is that those things shouldn't be a gatekeeper; that they actually develop by doing those things. Am I making sense to you?   Kim: Yes. I always thought you had to have the language first. You had to be able to do one-to-one correspondence before you could get cardinality of number, and you needed cardinality of number before you could do conservation of number. But what the research is showing is, it develops concurrently with students; that it's not something that is a linear process by any means. So, when we have these activities, it's OK if they don't have one-to-one correspondence, and you're doing problem-solving tasks with counters. We need to be planning these activities so they're getting all of this, and they will develop it as it fits in the schema of what they're working on and thinking of in their minds.   Mike: So, I want to bring up a set of manipulatives that are actually attached to our bodies, particularly when it comes to counting. I'm thinking about fingers. And part of what's on my mind is, again, to go back to my practice, there was a point in time where I was really hung up on whether kids should make use of their fingers when they're counting or when they're operating on numbers. And I'm wondering if you could just offer some guidance around that.   Kim: Yes. I think again, it goes to that idea that we have these 10 fingers that are great manipulatives, that we shouldn't stop students from doing that. And I know there was a time when teachers would say, “Don't use your fingers, don't count on your fingers.” And I get the idea that we want students to start to subitize eventually and make combinations and not have to count on their fingers, but to stop them from doing it when they need that would be very detrimental to them. And I actually have a story. When I was supervising student teachers, one teacher was telling a student don't count with their fingers. And I saw them nodding their head, and I went over and I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “Well, I can't count my fingers, so I'm using my tongue, and I'm counting my teeth.” ( laughs ) So, coming up with a problem that way, still using a manipulative, but it wasn't their fingers.   Mike: That's pretty creative.   Kim: ( laughs ) Yeah.   Mike: Well, part of what strikes me about it, too, is our entire number system is based on 10s and ones, and we've got a set of them right in front of us, right? We're trying to get kids to make sense of shifting from units of one to units of 10 or maybe units of five. So, these tools that are attached to our bodies are actually pretty helpful because they're really the basis for our number system in a lot of ways.   Kim: Yes, exactly. And being able to come up with even using your fingers to answer questions … I'm thinking, we want students to subitize. So, even something to where there's a dot card that a teacher flashes for 3 seconds, and it's in the formation of maybe a five on a [die]. And you could have students hold up how many there are. And you could do that five or 10 times, with dot flashes. Or you could hold up one more than what you see on the [die]. So, they only see it for 5 seconds and the number's five, but they hold up six. So just uses of fingers to kind of make those connections can be very helpful.   Mike: So, before we go, you mentioned that you work with pre-service teachers, folks who are getting ready to go into the field and work with elementary children in the area of mathematics. I'm wondering if there are any particular resources that really help your students and perhaps teachers who are already in the field just make sense of counting and number to really understand some of the ideas that we've been talking about today. Do you have anything in particular that you would recommend to teachers?   Kim: Yeah, I'll just mention a few that we use a lot of. We do the two-color counters a lot where one side is yellow and one is red. But we do a lot of dot cards, where again, there are arrangements of dots on a card that you could just flash to a student kind of like I've already explained. There's lots of resources on the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics website. That has ten-frame activities. And if you haven't used rekenreks before, I think those are pretty amazing as well—along with hundreds charts. And just being able to have students create some of their own manipulatives and their own numbers makes a huge difference for kids.   Mike: I think that's a great place to close the conversation. Thank you so much for joining us, Kim. It's really been a pleasure chatting with you.  Kim: Hey, thanks so much. It's been fun, Mike. Thanks for asking me. Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling all individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2024 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org

Last time we spoke about the assassination of Kim Ok-kyun and the Donhak Rebellion. Conflicts between China and Japan had heated up to the boiling point at last. The pro Japanese politician Kim Ok-kyun was assassinated serving also as an insult towards Japan. The Beiyang Fleet's visit to Nagasaki resulted in embarrassment and an awkward threat for Japan. Japan was not happy with the SINO situation and actively began building her navy to have the capability of facing off against the Beiyang fleet. Then a violent rebellion of the Donghak faith emerged in Korea prompting a very panicked King Gojong to call upon his Qing allies for aid. The Qing took up the call for help and although it differs from source to source, did or did not notify the Japanese of their actions. Regardless, both China and Japan prepared forces that would embark for Korea. The chess pieces were on the board and now things were set into motion that could not be undone.   #49 The First Sino-Japanese War of 1898-1895 Part 1: The Battle of Pungdo   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. The Tonghak rebels can be seen more as a symptom than a disease of the ailing Joseon dynasty. She was a nation stuck between two tigers, two tigers who were both trying to eat her. The turmoil of the later half of the 19th century was tearing Korea apart. Her citizens were forced into this quasi black and white choice between China or Japan, particularly when it came to the topic of modernization. The Tonghak followers were rallying against a tyrannical government who were overtaxing them. Major revolts occurred in 1885, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892 and 1893. By February of 1894 the unrest rose dramatically and in April the Tonghaks were in a full scale open rebellion. The target of their hatred were the corrupt officials oppressing them through over taxation and incompetency. But one thing that is funny about the Tonghak story, one that is almost never mentioned, is rumors spread to the Tonghaks that China and Japan were on the verge of sending troops and this prompted them on June 1st to agree to a cease-fire to remove the possibility of foreign intervention. Well that should have been the end of our story, China and Japan keep their boys home and the 3 nations lived happily ever after? On June 2nd, the Japanese cabinet decided to send troops to Korea, if China did so, they also made sure to muzzle any political opposition by asking the emperor to dissolve the lower chamber of the diet. We have the official documentation to back this, thus if China did not send troops, Japan would not have a justification to send there's, however a problem arose. The next day, King Gojong on the recommendation of the Min clan and Yuang Shikai, requested China send troops to help suppress the rebellion. King Gojong had thus unwittingly given the hawkish Japanese military leaders the pretext they desired for so long, another chance to intervene in Korea on a large scale. Why did the Min clan push King Gojong to do this despite the Tonghak basically calling a truce? Turns out the Tonghak's were particularly targeting the Min clan and their allies and there were rumors they had contact with the Daewongun. Within a few days Japan is on a military footing. On June 5th the first IJA HQ is established and on the 6th the ministries of the IJA and IJN issued instructions to the press not to print any information concerning warlike operations, they mean business. Despite this many Japanese news outlets ignore the order, leading to countless being suspended for a day. Now again the sources are sticky with how this part goes down, but on June 7th, China notified Japan in accordance with the Treaty of Tianjin. The notification states that China is sending 2000 troops to Nanyang, which is located on the coast between Seoul and Asan. Within hours of receiving the notification, Japan sends its own notice to China that it is also sending troops, which is in line with the treaty. Also at this same time the Asahi Shinbun reports that Russia is sending ground forces and warships to Korea. It seems the Asahi Shinbun made this report largely to compare the actions of Japan and China to a western power, alongside noting how much Japan had modernized. Remember, Japan's Meiji restoration began exclusively as a means to thwart colonization, but by this point Japan now seeks to become a world power. Japan is emulating the greatest nations of the world, and the actions she will take for the following years certainly emphasize that. Within days, 2000 Japanese IJA forces have landed and are marching towards Seoul despite the Korean government pleading for them to refrain from sending forces. It is far too late however, the troops are arriving and it seems Japan was prepared well in advance to do this. In accordance with the treaty of Tianjin, the end of the rebellion meant that China and Japan no longer had legitimate grounds to send forces and should have withdrawn. But Japan began making claims their troop deployment was necessary for the protection of their embassy, consulates and citizens within Korea. Now by the 8th, 4000 Japanese soldiers and 500 sailors have landed at Jemulpo, current day Incheon. A public ceasefire acknowledge for the Donghak rebellion is issued on the 11th, though it is already known days before. The harbor of Incheon looks like its participating in an international naval show. On the 13th 9 IJN warships and transports along with 4 Beiyang warships are anchored there. Alongside them are an assortment of international ships from nations like Russia, Britain, France and America. Also on the 13th the Japanese government sends a telegraph to the commander of Japanese forces in Korea, Otori Keisuke to keep the forces within Korea for as long as possible despite the public announcement that the Donghak rebellion is over. On the 15th another 8 more Japanese transports arrive with 6000 troops disembarked. On the 16th Japanese foreign minister Mutsu Munemistu meets with the Qing ambassador to Japan, Wang Fengzao to discuss the future status of Korea. Wang states the Qing government intends to pull out of Korea once the Donghak rebellion is fully suppressed and expects Japan to do the same. But he also acknowledges that China will retain a resident to look after Chinese primacy in Korea, ie: Mr Yuan Shikai. Soon there are 10 IJN warships actively patrolling Korean waters and on the 18th the ministry of the IJN issues new naval fleet regulations. On the other side, Li Hongzhang is trying desperately to avoid war and maintain stable relations with Japan. He has been spending years doing this, trying to get other Western powers to take a more active role in Korea to thwart Japan's ambitions over her. During this period and even in the upcoming war, Li Hongzhang continues to try and involve western powers to end the conflict. When King Gojong pleaded for help, Li Hongzhang made sure the troops would not go directly to Seoul, which he knew would upset Japan. The troops instead went to Nanyang and Asan where they could hit the Donghak before they marched northwards from Cholla upon Seoul. Li Hongzhang had hoped by doing this, the Japanese would choose not to become involved, but he was gravely wrong. Once Japan began sending troops, Li proposed to the Japanese that both nations should agree to withdraw. On the 16th Japan made a counterproposal, stating China and Japan should cooperate in assisting Korea to undertake the major steps to promote modernization. However it was obvious to all, Japan sought to promote economic development in Korea for its own interests, to obtain Korean grain at cheap prices. Thus Japan's proposal was refused. On the 22nd Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi told his fellow politician colleague Matsukata Masayoshi, he believed the Qing empire was making military preparations and that “there is probably no policy but to go to war”. Mutsu Munemitsu likewise sends word to Otori Keisuke to press the Korean government on Japanese demands. On the 26nd Otori presents a set of reform proposal to King Gojong, but instead of accepting them, he insists on troop withdrawals. At about this time, Yuan Shikai see's the paint on the wall and on the 27th requests permission from Li Hongzhang to return to China. However Li Hongzhang only sent a response 20 days later granting it. On July 19th, Yuan Shikai would disguise himself as a Chinese servant of a Russian military attache and flee Seoul for Peking. In the later half of June, Japanese newspapers are ramping things up. The Japan Weekly Mail read this “It is apparent that the restless energies of the people yearn for employment in a foreign war”, a week later “The Tokyo journals unite in urging upon the Government the importance of utilizing the present opportunity for wiping away the stain left on the national honor by th fatal error of 1884”. The bitter lesson learnt from 1884, next time bring more men. Such news articles were working wonders as during the last week of June, Japanese public petitions from multiple prefectures were requesting permission to raise troops. In early July an imperial ordinance established extraordinary powers to regulate the sale of goods with military applications raising public concern. By the third week of july, the “Korean question” was the only thing in the Japanese press and the Japan Weekly Mail predicted “It now looks as though war is inevitable”. Indeed on July 7th the British ambassador to China openly acknowledged the mediation between China and Japan had failed. Now initially China just sent 2-3 thousand forces, while Japan matched them with 8000, these are the numbers they are reporting officially, the real numbers for both are much higher. Regardless, once the fighting begins, both sides toss troops into Korea at such a high rate it was hard for people to keep actual figures. Now Li Hongzhang made no war preparation attempts to match the increasing Japanese numbers coming into Korea. His strategy remained to avoid hostilities. He hoped to secure European intervention to rein in the Japanese, this was his primary strategy. Li Hongzhang was the commander of the Qing's most modern military force and had a considerable amount of knowledge about Japan because of his role as a diplomat. He knew the Qing forces were no match for the IJA, for that there is no doubt. Li worked like a mad dog to push European powers to rescue the Korea situation, but he had overestimated their willingness to intervene and to be honest their disgust with the Qing political situation. Li Hongzhang seems to have misread the political situation in Japan as well. Many Chinese officials in Japan were feeding reports back to China about feuding between the Diet and Cabinet and their conclusions were that the political divisions would most likely prevent Japan from launching an effective military campaign. Its sort of interesting they came to such conclusions, as it may have been more of a understanding of their own Chinese political situation rather than Japan. The Manchu-Han division was indeed hampering Chinese foreign policy for example, but Japan shared a national identity, it was a case of apples and oranges. Li Hongzhang first turned to Russia for help in mid June, but it came to nothing. Britain made an effort, but failed. Italy tried mediation and like Britain failed. King Gojong went to the Americans for help, but they were employing an isolationist policy at the time. Yes good old isolationist America, back in the ol days.  Now when the Japanese made their counter proposal and the Qing declined it on June 21st, Japan responded by stating they did not intend to withdraw from Korea until their reforms were implemented. Li responded “On the approach of the Chinese forces the insurgents [Tonghaks] dispersed. China now desires to withdraw, but Japan refuses to evacuate simultaneously with China, and proposes a joint occupation, the administration of Korean finances, and the introduction of reforms. These are tasks which China cannot accept." The reality of the matte for the Japanese government was that the current Korean situation did not meet her national security interests nor her economic ones. As Japan poured her troops into Korea, her politicians also put relentless pressure on King Gojong to implement their desired reforms. The Korean government unsuccessfully tried to convince Japan that they would adopt the reforms if they withdrew their troops.  On July 22nd, the Japanese received word, Li Hongzhang had overcome domestic opposition with the Qing court and now large reinforcements were going to be sent to Korea. Though Li Hongzhang wanted to avoid hostilities, his hands were tied, if the Qing did retain a presence in Korea it would threaten the legitimacy of their Manchu dynasty. But in a typical Qing fashion, the troops were delayed and would not make it to Korea in time. Well the Japanese were done dancing with the Chinese and Korean, on the 23rd the IJA forces in Seoul suddenly stormed the Joseon royal palace and took King Gojong hostage. The New York Times had this to say "The Japanese have announced that they will hold the King of Corea as a hostage until the internal reforms demanded by Japan shall have been satisfactorily guaranteed." Well the Tonghak rebellion flared right back up and took rapid momentum, going from what was a regional event to a national uprising. The IJA were brutal in their suppression of the Tonghaks and this fueled the Korean public against them. Likewise the Qing were placed with their backs against the wall, if they did nothing about Japans seizure of King Gojong, they were basically giving up suzerainty over Korea. Japan's actions were obvious, they wanted war and they were going to get it. On the afternoon of the 23rd, with King Gojong in hand, the IJA began storming and disarming Korean garrisons in Seoul. By the end of the day the capital of Korea was in Japanese hands. The Japanese then recalled the Daewongun to oversee the Japanese style reform program. Yes the anti-foreign, isolationist icon ironically was chosen. The Daewongun always looking for an opportunity to regain power had little options laid bare to him so he took up the job, on the sole condition Japan refrain from annexing any Korean territory. That day the Daewongun met with King Gojong at the royal palace, they had not seen each other for nearly a decade. The father scolded his son for misrule and Gojong apologized requesting the Daewongun become regent again. I will add these sources are coming from Japan, I am sure it did not at all go down like this. Give the sort of feeling when you read about Hernan Cortez and Moctezuma II, if you know the sources for that one, well you know. The Daewongun went to work, immediately exiling the Min clan to some small islands and the new government renounced multiple treaties with the Qing dynasty, thus severing its tributary ties.  The Japanese backed reform program became known as the Kabo reform movement, which would go on from July 1894 to February 1896. It was not all bad to be honest, a lot of it was to create an efficient and honest government. Posts were given fixed responsibilities and salaries; a national budget was established; better tax structure; the military/judiciary and educational system were given overhauls and the nation's infrastructure was modernized rapidly. The most significant reform was taking away the Yangbang class monopoly on public offices, basically an end to the Chinese examination system. In a single stroke the Japanese had destroyed Korea's aristocracy, the elites were destroyed. As for the Daewongun, ever the plotter, he secretly envisioned a pincer movement on Seoul with the Tonghaks from the south and the Qing from the north. Unfortunately for him, the Japanese found out about this later on when they found documents containing such plans and this would lead later on to him being forced into retirement.  Li Hongzhang knew Qing forces were no match for the Japanese. Zhili, Shandong and the Fengtian provinces had around 40 battalions with 20,000 or so first-line action men and 20 battalions only fit for garrison duty. All of the rest were Green Standards who were pretty useless. And lets be honest, this series has shown the Green Standards to be …well nothing less than so. He faced around 50,000 Japanese to his estimates, and he concluded they would need to recruit 20-30 additional battalions which would set back the dynasty 2-3 million taels. William Ferdinand Tyler who served in the Beiyang northern squadron and witness the battles of Yali and Weihaiwei later on had this to say of Li's position "the Viceroy's game was merely bluff, not genuine defence; his army and navy were the equivalent of the terrifying masks which Eastern medieval soldiers wore to scare their enemy. He knew that if it came to actual blows he would stand but little chance; but he carried on his bluff so far that withdrawal was impossible, and the Empress Dowager urged him on - probably much against his will. And Japan 'saw him,' as they say in poker." Just about everyone believed China would stomp Japan however. British envoy to China, Sir Robert Hart embodied the worldview stating “999 out of every 1000 Chinese are sure big China can thrash little Japan”. But China was fractured realistically. Empress Dowager Cixi's authority over the dynasty was only held because it was fractured, she could not allow the nation to have a real unified government. Such a government would most certainly unify against her and the Manchu. To stay in power Cixi checked every possible rival, even Li Hongzhang. All of the internal turmoil undermined the Qing's ability to modernize its military and this also caused factional rivalries within the military. Cixi controlled the funds for the Qing navy and infamously siphoned naval funds for the renovation of the Summer Palace. Li Hongzhang could not do anything about this specific matter because he would lose favor with her, and her favor was all that kept his authority so he could deal with the conflict. Yet all these internal problems were non existent in the minds of the elites in China nor the western onlookers who simply believed China would give Japan a quick spanking, take this from the North China Herald  "the breaking out of war between China and Japan is only a question of days, perhaps of hours. The real reason for Japan's desire for war was "that the Japanese government prefers a foreign to a civil war. The discontent of the majority of the House of Representatives was getting serious...A foreign war, however, is expected to reunite the people; it is an outlet for the bad blood which has been accumulating of late years in the body politic."  While the Japanese were doing everything possible to stir up a war, Li Hongzhang was extremely careful to minimize the possibility of a clash. He ordered the Qing forces to encamp 80 miles to the south of Seoul around Asan. He was in contact with the Tonghak and indeed a pincer maneuver was agreed upon. The Qing forces took up a stance between Asan and Pyongyang and the Japanese realized it would be much easier to hit their reinforcements at sea rather than commence with a land offensive. On July 16th, when 8000 Qing forces arrived to Pyongyang, the Japanese sent Li Hongzhang an ultimatum, threatening to take action if any additional forces were sent to Korea. At the same time orders were given to General Oshima Yoshimasa leading the 9th brigade of the 5th division at Chemulpo and the commanders of IJN warships there to initiate military operations if any more Chinese troops were sent to Korea. Li Hongzhang suspected Japan was bluffing and therefore sent reinforcements to the commander at Asan, General Ye Zhichao, 2500 troops who left Dagu on 3 transports, the Irene, Fei Ching and Kowshing. The first two transports carrying 1300 of the troops left on the night of July 23rd with cruiser Jiyuan, torpedo boats Kwang-yi and Tsao-kiang as escort, they could also rely on the cruiser Weiyuan at port in Chemulpo for support. The two transports successfully landed their troops on the 24th. The IJN had deployed a component of their combined fleet to Korean waters by this point. The IJN sent 15 major warships and 7 torpedo boats under Vice Admiral Ito Sukeyuki from Sasebo to Gunsan on July 23rd. There was also the flying squadron of Rear Admiral Tsuboi Kozo who was dispatched to Chemulpo to aid the weak forced anchored there. At Chemulpo were the ships Yaeyama, Musashi and Oshima, while Tsuboi was bringing the cruisers Yoshino, Akitsushima and Naniwa. Tsuboi's task was to prevent any Qing landings. The, Captain Fang Boqian of the Jiyuan received word of the Japanese actions in Seoul and Chemulpo from the Weiyuan and on July 25 ordered the Irene and Fei Ching to head back to Dagu, while the Weiyuan would head for Weihaiwei to report to Admiral Ding Ruchang of the situation unfolding in Korea. However the third transport, the Kowshing was late, thus Fang Boqian decided to remain at Asan bay with cruiser Jiyuan and torpedo boat Kawng-yi to protect its landing.  On the morning of the 25th the Jiyuan and Kwang-yi departed Asan to meet up with the Kowshing and Tsao-kiang. Near the small island of Pundo the Qing vessels would run into the Tsuboi's squadron. Tsbuoi's had gone to Pungdo trying to rendezvous with the Yaeyama and Oshima. At around 6:40am, the Japanese spotted two warships heading south-west, these were the Jiyuan and Kawng-yi. Tsuboi guessed they were escorting Qing transports and went in to investigate. Captain Fang Boqian spotted the incoming Japanese warships, greatly alarmed by their appearance. He ordered the Qing ships to increase speed to escape and this prompted the Japanese to do the same. Yoshino headed the formation with Naniwa and Akitsushima behind, trying to outmaneuver the Qing and prevent their escape.  At 7:45am the Yoshino and Jiyuan were closing in around 3km from another, then at 7:52 Naniwa suddenly opened fire on the Jiyuan. After Naniwa, the Yoshina and Akitsushima began firing. Yoshina and Naniwa concentrated on Jiyuan while the Akitsushima fired upon the Kwang-yi which was around a km behind Jiyuan. The Qing ships returned fire, but the Japanese had distinctly taken the advantage by opening up first. The first shells hit Jiyuan's conning tower, demolishing it and severely damaged her steering mechanism. The second volley hit her forward barbette guns taking them out of action and soon shells were hitting her midship causing carnage and panic amongst her crew. Qing commanders had to quell the panic with their revolvers pointed at the gunners until they regained their composure and continued to fire upon the enemy. The Jiyuan made a dash for open sea as her crews tried to repair her steering mechanism. Meanwhile the Kwang-yi was hit at the offset of battle, the Akitsushima had fired a shell penetrating her hull below the waterline and damaging her boiler room. She rapidly took on water, prompting Captain Lin Kuohsiang to ordered her beached. Enveloped by fire, smoke and steam Kwang-yi turned southeast to beach along the shore while Naniwa began firing on her. Kwang-yi's crews quickly abandoned ship as the Naniwa shelled her ferociously causing numerous explosions and turning her into a fiery wreck. 37 of her crew died while 71 including captain Lin Kuohsiang swam to shore.  While the Kwang-yi was destroyed, the Japanese cruisers continued to pursue the Jiyuan which they caught up to at 8:10am. Yoshino and Naniwa were almost abeam of her prompting Captain Fang to prepare to surrender his warship, but then they all saw smoke from the horizon, two more warships were approaching Asan. It was the Kowshing and Tsao-Kiang. The Japanese immediately turned their attention to the new ships bolting towards them as the Jiyuan attempting sneakingaway. Upon spotting the Japanese coming at them, the Tsao-Kiang immediately turned around for Weihaiwei as the poor Kowshing continued slowly towards Asan. Upon seeing what Qing warships were before him, Tsuboi sent Naniwa over to investigate the Kowshing, Yoshino to hunt the Jiyuan and Akitsushima after the Tsao-Kiang. The Tsao-Kiang was caught by 11:37 and surrendered without a fight to the Akitsushima. At 12:05pm the Yoshino ran down the Jiyuan and began firing upon her from 2.5kms away. Captain Fang made daring move and steered his ship among some shoals, managing to escape the Yoshino who would not risk the dangerous waters. Meanwhile the Kowshing, which was a British vessel captained by Thomas Ryder Galsworthy chattered last minute by the Qing had no knowledge of the battle that had occurred. Galsworthy felt safe under the protection of the British civil ensign and just kept sailing. At 9am the Captain of the Naniwa, Captain Togo Heihachiro, yes the future legendary fleet admiral of the IJN combined fleet who would win the legendary battle of Tsushima ordered the Kowshing to follow him as he would escort it to the Japanese squadron. Galsworthy made a protest citing British neutrality, but complied nonetheless. The unfortunate issue, was the Qing soldiers on his ship who did not comply. The Qing soldiers began threatening to kill the crew if they continued to sail over with the Japanese. Galsworthy tried negotiating with the angry Qing soldiers, but when it became obvious they were in real danger he along with the British crew jumped overboard, swimming for the Naniwa. Allegedly, as the sources are Japanese mind you. The Qing soldiers began firing upon the British in the water killing all but Galsworthy and two other sailors who were rescued by the Naniwa. Upon seeing all of this, the Naniwa then opened fire on the Kowshing, completely obliterating her. Very few aboard managed to swim to safety. It was carnage. The Kowshing launched 2 lifeboats full of Qing soldiers which were fired upon by the Naniwa. 1100 Chinese died in what became known as the battle of Pungdo, 800 alone from the Kowshing. As a foreign commentator said of the event "It was truly a pitiable sight that such a number of officers [on the Kowshing], amongst whom were two generals, should not have sufficient military experience to understand the absurdity of attempting resistance in a merchant vessel against a powerful man-of-war.". The Japanese had damaged a cruiser, captured a gunboat and sank another. Something was noted by a reporter of the Japan weekly mail about the battle "the Chinese ships made a miserable fight. There seemed to be a problem with bad ammunition. The Qing had scored a hit, but  the shell had failed to explode and thus did no significant damage. It is suspected to be a result of bad equipment or careless inspection." For those of you who know about the first Sino-Japanese war, or perhaps just know the general history of Empress Dowager Cixi and the corruption of the late Qing dynasty, this is indeed one of the earliest pieces of evidence of what will be a large problem for the Qing Navy. The battle of Pungdo and sinking of the Kowshing would be soon followed by formal declarations of war. On August 1st, Japan declared war on China, stating Korea was an independent state and that China was trying to hold her as a dependency and had rejected Japan's offer to cooperate. Japan had to declare war because China had made “warlike preparations and sent large reinforcements and had opened fire on Japanese ships”. Sounds about right? There was no mention of Japanese much larger warlike preparations, the taking of King Gojong and the first shots being fired from IJN vessels. However the Japanese clearly were writing a declaration not aimed solely at China, but at the world powers, because the thing she coveted most was to join them of course. The declaration made in the name of Emperor Meiji used specific terms like “family of nations, law of nations, international treaties and such”. Japan was being very diplomatically minded. On the other side, Emperor Guangxi on the same day Japan declared ware made the formal declaration of war against Japan and did so by calling the Japanese “Woren” multiple times in the declaration. The declaration showed disdain for the Japanese, and to even make a point the Qing had it translated in English specifically referencing what Woren meant haha. The declaration wreaked of the traditional way the Qing spoke of those they considered inferior and showcased to the world powers, China had not changed much.  The world's press still remained certain, Japan would be crushed by big China. On July 24th, the Times of London predicted China would win because of her size, population and that time was on her side. British advisor to the Qing military, William Lang was interviewed by Reuters and predicted the Japanese would lose. Lang thought that the Chinese navy was well-drilled, the ships were fit, the artillery was at least adequate, and the coastal forts were strong. Weihaiwei “ was impregnable. Although Lang emphasized that everything depended on how China's forces were led, he had faith that 'in the end, there is no doubt that Japan must be utterly crushed'. Only time would tell. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. It seems despite all the efforts, war has finally broken out amongst the siblings of China and Japan. The world seemed convinced big brother would defeat little brother, but little did they know how wrong they would be.

Last time we spoke about the Gapsin Coup. Li Hongzhang snipped the bud of war before it could bloom after the Imo uprising and the Daewongun stole back power in Korea. The Daewongun was spanked and sent into exile yet again, but now Korea had become greatly factionalized. The progressives and conservatives were fighting bitterly to set Korea on a Japanese or Chinese path to modernization. This led radicals like Kim Ok-kyun to perform the Gapsin coup which was terribly planned and failed spectacularly. Japan and China were yet again tossed into a conflict in Korea, but China firmly won the day for she had more forces to bear. Japan licked her wounds and went home, learning a bitter lesson. That lesson was: next time bring more friends to the party.   #48 This episode is the Assasination of Kim Ok-kyun & the Donghak Rebellion   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.   Now despite the Gapsin coup, Japan and China still tried to cooperate against the west. But Japan was learning much from the outside world, particularly by the actions of imperialistic nations. Britain had begun large scale operations in Shanghai, developing the international settlement there. King Leopold of belgium established the Congo Free state of 1862, and likewise France and Britain were also establishing colonies all over Africa. The Dutch held Java, but then they invaded Aceh in Sumatra in 1873 and other parts of Indonesia after that. The Russians were taking large swathes of land including Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, parts of the Sakhalin, even territory close to Korea in the region of Priamur. Once the ports of Wonsan and Inchon were opened up, Japanese manufactured goods began to pour in. By 1893 91 percent of imports into Korea would be from Japan while 8 percent would be from China. While China tried to keep Japan out, the Meiji restoration had created an industrial powerhouse that made goods, and China had not managed this herself. Of Korea, 49 percent went to China and 50 percent went to Japan. In the eyes of Koreans, even though she was not formally a colony of Japan, the way the Japanese were behaving looked imperialistic.  Now in 1886 the Beiyang Fleet was responsible for protecting China's northern coastline and she would make a fateful call to Nagasaki. The purpose of this call was to show off her 4 new modern battleships she had purchased from Germany, the Dingyuan, Zhenyuan, Jiyuan and Weiyuan. These ships were far larger than anything Japan had at the time, a large reason because Japan was following the Jeune Ecole naval strategy. This strategy was developed by France basically to combat the British royal navy. It emphasized using small rapid assault craft, cruisers and destroyers to thwart the might of capital ships like battleships. For my fellow world of warship players, the idea was simple, instead of slamming money into large battleships to fight other large battleships, the French began to experiment more with the capability of torpedo technology. With faster, smaller ships, the French thought they could be used more like raiders, to attack the enemy and cripple them. The Jeune ecole doctrine also sought to use strongly armed fast ships, thus its kind of a glass cannon situation. Anyways the implicit message from China was to show Japan how foolish they would be to go to war with her. On August 13th, 500 Chinese sailors took a shore leave in Nagasaki and they went to the local red-light district. As you can imagine, one thing led to another and some altercations began with the locals. The locals claimed the Chinese sailors got drunk and starting causing havoc, regardless the Chinese sailors began fighting some Japanese cops apparently using swords they bought at some stores. One source I found says over 80 people died during this which is pretty nuts. The next day a conference was held by the governor of Nagasaki, Kusaka Yoshio and the Qing consulate Xuan Cai which led to an agreement the Beiyang navy would prohibit their men from going ashore for a day. Then on August 15th at 1pm, 300 Chinese sailors went ashore, some wielding clubs apparently and they attacked 3 police officers killing one. A rickshaw saw the conflict and tried to punch a CHinese sailor, and this all snowballed into a riot. More cops showed up, more fighting, and this led to the deaths of 2 more cops, 3 sailors and more than 50 wounded. It was a real shit show, and the Qing decided not to apologize for the ordeal. In fact the Qing made demands to the Japanese government that from then on Japanese cops would not prohibit Chinese from wielding swords and forced the Japanese to make a large sum of reparation payments.  Now aside from the drunken debauchery, which in the grand scheme of things was not much of a deal, the real deal was the Japanese reaction to the Beiyang fleet. When the Japanese saw the Dingyuan, they basically went 100% in on the Jeune D'ecole doctrine to counter it. They IJN immediately decided to construct 3 large cruisers with firepower identical to the Dingyuan, basically this meant they were making battleship killers. While Japan was aggressively modernizing and pouring a ton of money into their navy by the late 1880s, in China the reconstruction of the summer palace was taking enormous sums of funding. The marble boat pavilion, as I mentioned, was taking funds intended for the Beiyang fleet thanks to empress dowager Cixi and thus no major investments would be made for the Qing navy in the last 1880's and early 1890s. To give more of an idea, 1/10th of the salaries of for civil officials and military officers in Japan was being deducted to add additional funding for the construction of naval ships and purchase of arms, Japan was not messing around. Now something that often goes more unnoticed is Japan's early efforts at gaining intelligence on China. Despite the Sino-Japanese relations falling apart because of the Korea situation, trade between China and Japan was growing in the 1880s. Japanese businessmen expected trade with China to only increase and in preparation for the expansion they began collecting information of Chinese market opportunities. But for those who know a bit about Meiji era Japan, the Zaibatsu driven system meant private business went hand in hand with the government of Japan and this led the Japanese government to ask the businessmen to look at other things in China. What sort of things, military installations, military dockyards, everything military. In 1879 Katsura Taro took a trip to China with 10 Japanese observers to survey Chinese military facilities. He would publish a book describing Chinese military bases, weapons and organization in 1881 and that book would be revised in 1882 and 1889. By the time of 1894, the Japanese military had access to detailed information about China's geography, her economy, her railways, roads, ports, installations, the whole shebang, thanks to Japanese journalists and businessmen. Of course amongst all of these were full blown Japanese spies, but for the most part China did not do enough due diligence to hide its military capabilities. Rather ironically, the Japanese businessmen who opposed military actions and just wanted to help develop China contributed a lot of information that would hurt China. On the other side of the coin, chinese reports about Japan were a complete 180. China's consul general in Nagasaki wrote reports on the ships coming and going within Nagasaki harbor. Alongside him, the Chinese ambassador to Tokyo, Li Shuchang who served from 1881-1884 and 1887-1890 sent some warnings about developments in Korea. Other than those two, Japan attracted virtually no interest from Beijing. Just before the war would break out in 1894, the Chinese ambassador to Tokyo Wang Fengcao, reported to Beijing that the Japanese were so obsessed with internal politics they were unlikely to be active externally. I think its interesting to point out, while Japan was indeed building up its IJA/IJN, she never stopped pointing that gun at Russia. China and Japan right up to the conflict we will be talking about had its tensions, its conflicts, its escalations, but they never gave up the chance at cooperation against the west. Take a legendary figure like Yamagata Aritomo, who led the development of the IJA and was the head of the Japanese privy council. In 1893 he publicly stated Japan should cooperate with China against their main enemies, Russia, France and Britain. Despite all the tensions in Korea, vast amounts of Japanese and Chinese scholars who studied the causes of the first sino-japanese war, came to agree it would not have occurred if not for two key events. The first one is a assassination and the second is a rebellion. In early 1894, Kim Ok-kyun was invited to visit Li Hongzhang in Shanghai. After living nearly a decade in fear of assassination, he accepted the invitation, perhaps believing this was his only chance to reclaim normality in his life. Well unbeknownst to him another Korean acquaintance of his named Hong Jong-u had actually gone to Japan in 1893 trying to hunt him down and he found out about the voyage. A source claims Hong Jong-u was working for King Gojong and went to Japan befriending him, while trying to lure him back over to Shanghai. Regardless Hong Jong-u got aboard and murdered Kim Ok-gyun by shooting him on March the 27th. Hong Jong-u was arrested by British authorities in Shanghai for his crime, but in accordance with their treaty obligations they surrendered the assassin over to Qing authorities for trial. The Qing instead freed him, whereupon he became quite the celebrity for his actions. Hong Jong-u would return to Korea and would be appointed to a high office position, giving credence to the theory he was working for King Gojong the entire time. When Kim Ok-kyun's body arrived to Korea it was shrouded in some cloth bearing the inscription “Ok-kyun, arch rebel and heretic”. On april 14th, King Gojong ordered the body decapitated, so the head could be displayed in Seoul while 8 other body parts would be sent to each of Korea's 8 provinces to be showcased likewise. His severed body parts were showcased in various cities in Korea to display what happens to those who commit treason. Kim Ok'kyun's father was hanged and his brother, wife and daughter were all imprisoned. Under Korean practice at this time it was common practice for the family of the guilty to be punished as well, that's some hardcore stuff there folks. The wife and daughter would become slaves to the governmental offices, a standard punishment for the female household members of rebels. It was during this time one of Kim Ok-kyun's traveling companions, a Chinese linguist for the legation in Tokyo claimed to reporters that Kim Ok-kyun had come to Shanghai by invitation from Lord Li Jingfang, the former minister at Tokyo and adopted son of Li Hongzhang.    The Japanese public was outraged. Japanese newspapers interpreted all of this to mean Viceroy Li Hongzhang had planned the whole thing. It was also alleged Li Hongzhang had sent a congratulatory telegram to the Korean government for the assassination. Many others pointed towards King Gojong since the assassin claimed to be under direct orders from the king. Kim Ok-kyun had been a guest in Japan and the Qing authorities had seemingly done nothing to protect him and made no attempt to bring the assassin to justice. The Qing had likewise handed over the corpse, knowing full well what the Koreans would do to it, as was their custom for treason. From the Japanese point of view, the Qing had gone out of their way to insult the Japanese in every possible manner. From the Chinese point of view, Kim Ok-kyun had committed high treason and deserved his fate.  Fukuzawa Yukichi led a funeral ceremony held in Tokyo at Aoyama Cemetery for Kim Ok-kyun. He had taught the man, and spoke in his honor reflecting Japan's respect for his efforts to modernize Korea. The Japanese press began to fill with public calls for a strong national response. The Chinese reaction during this time period reflected their deep-seated prejudices concerning the Japanese. Even with official communications, the Qing routinely referred to the Japanese as ‘Woren” which is a racist term meaning Japanese Dwarf basically. Wo is the word for dwarf, and the link to the Japanese was a racial term emerged during the times the Japanese were pirating the waters around China's coast, the “wokou”. By the way do not use this word today to refer to Japanese haha. During the upcoming war a Qing official expressed these types of racial attitudes, that this quote for example "It took them 48,000 years before they made contact with China, while in 3,600 years they still have not accepted our celestial calendar...illegitimately assuming the reign title of Meiji (Enlightened Rule), they in reality abandon themselves all the more to debauchery and indolence. Falsely calling their new administration a 'reformation' they only defile themselves so much the more." One Captain William M Lang, a British officer who helped train the Beiyang Squadron of the Qing fleet from 1881 to 1890 had noted this about the Chinese and Japanese. "treated Japan with the utmost contempt, and Japan, for her part, has the same feeling towards China." One German military advisor in China said “The Chinese looked upon Japan as a traitor towards Asia”. Thus before the war broke out, the Chinese for the most part considered the Japanese to be another inferior neighboring people, below the status of a tributary since Japan had severed that link to China. The more tense the situation got between the two nations saw the Chinese viewing the Japanese with more contempt. They would ridicule the Japanese for the communal bathing habits, the attire of their women and the way they imitated western culture. The Japanese as you might guess resented this a lot.  In 1891 Alexander III issued a special imperial rescript announcing Russia's intention to build a trans-siberian railway. From the Japanese point of view, this amounted to a foreign policy manifesto equivalent to the monroe doctrine of the united states. Just as America had kicked out all other powers from the Americas, so to it seemed Russia would do the same with the Asian mainland. For the great Meiji leadership of Japan, it looked like Russia would seize control over Korea and thwart Japan's dreams of empire and the ever coveted status of a great power that came with it. Once the trans-siberian railway was announced the Japanese knew they had roughly a decade to resolve the Korea situation before the balance of power would be irrevocably changed and the door would be shut upon them. Yet as bad as the situation was for Japan it was even worse for China. The trans-siberian railway would allow the Russians to deploy troops along the Chinese border in areas that would prove difficult for the Chinese to do the same as they did not have a major railway. On top of this Japan was pursuing an increasingly aggressive foreign policy focused on the Korean peninsula. Qing strategists had long considered Korea a essential buffer for their defenses. With the Russians pushing from the west and the Japanese from the east, Li Hongzhang was hard pressed to take a more aggressive stance in Korea. Now as I said, two major reasons were attributed to the outbreak of the first sino-japanese war, the first being the assassination of Kim Ok-kyun, the second is known as the Tonghak rebellion. I can't go to far into the rabbit hole, but the Tonghak movement began around 1860 as a sort of religion, emphasizing salvation and providing rituals to achieve this. It was much akin to the Taiping Rebellion, a sect that was deeply upset with a corrupt government. It was formed by a poor member of the Yangban class whose father had been a local village scholar and it was largely created to give hope to the poor class. It had some roman catholicism and western learning associated with it, again very much like the Taiping. The peasantry class of Korea found this sect very appealing and the Tonghak influence was particularly strong in Cholla province, the breadbasket of Korea. Members of the sect were angry that corrupt Joseon officials in Seoul were imposing high taxes on them. The leaders of the sect were all poor peasants who, because of their inability to pay their taxes, had either lost their land or were about to lose their land. Their leader was Choe Jeu who described the founding of the Tonghak religion as such  “By 1860, I heard rumours that the people of the West worship God, and caring not for wealth, conquer the world, building temples and spreading their faith. I was wondering whether I, too, could do such a thing. On an April day, my mind was unnerved and my body trembled... Suddenly a voice could be heard. I rose and asked who he was. "Do not fear nor be scared! The people of the world call me Hanulnim. How do you not know me?" Said Hanul. I asked the reason he had appeared to me. "...I made you in this world so that you could teach my holy word to the people. Do not doubt my word!" Hanulnim replied. "Do you seek to teach the people with Christianity?" I asked again. "No. I have a magical talisman... use this talisman and save the people from disease, and use this book to teach the people to venerate me!" The Joseon Dynasty quickly banned the religion and executed its leader in 1864 for “tricking and lying to the foolish people”.  Regardless the tonghak spread across Gyeongsang province by the 1870's under new leadership. However in the 1870's the rice agriculture in Korea had become increasingly commercialized as Japanese merchants bought more and more of it to ship back to Japan. Korea was not producing enough to meet the needs of its own population as a result. Japanese merchants would begin to lend money to local Korean peasants and when the peasants could not repay the funds, the rice merchants confiscated their land. This obviously was seen as dishonest and exploitative, as it was and the Tonghak gradually became very anti-Japanese. The Tonghaks performed a series of lesser rebellions against excessive taxation. There were revolts in 1885, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892 and 1893. By the 1890's the Donhak's began a petition to overturn the 1863 execution of Choe Jeu, to stop the ban on them, to expel all western missionaries and merchants and to kill corrupt officials, a tall order. So yeah King Gojong did not want to give in to such reasonable petitions and told them “go to your home, If you do, I may grant your plea”. A lot of the Tonghak wanted to march on Seoul, and they began threatening westerners and Japanese. Soon a group of over 80,000 Donghak believers led by a southern leader named Jeon Bongjun began marching with flags stating “expel westerners and Japanese”. Now this is a really confusing a large scale event, one of if not the biggest rebellion in Korean history. One thing to focus on though is that a particularly oppressive county magistrate named Jo Byeonggap in Northern Cholla, seemed to have provided the “straw that broke the camel's back”. The magistrate had forced young men to work on a water reservoir and then charged them and their families for use of the water. He overly taxed, fined peasants for dubious crimes including infidelity, lack of harmony, adultery and needless talents, no idea how that last one works out. He also sent spoiled rice sacks to Seoul while keeping unspoiled sacks from himself. Basically this guy was an embezzling scumbag, by today's standards we would refer to him as a member of the US congress.  By march 22nd tens of thousands of Tonghak rebels destroyed the new reservoir, burnt down the governmental offices and some storage facilities in northern Cholla. They then occupied Taein by April 1st, and a few days later Buan. The local Joseon government sent commander Yi Yeonghyo with 700 soldiers and 600 merchants to quell the rebellion only to be lured into an ambush at the Hwangto pass. Many of the troops were killed, some deserted and the Tonghak rebellion spread further north. King Gojong panicked, because news spread the rebels were being joined not only by countryside peasants but by many of his soldiers! Worried that the Joseon military would not be able to quell the rebellion King Gojong called upon his Qing allies to send reinforcements.  Now there are two narratives that come into play. The first involved the Qing responding quickly, on June the 7th following the Tianjin treaty's requirements that if one country sent troops to Korea the other had to be notified, they informed Japan they were sending 2000 troops to Inchon. The Japanese leaders, having bitterly remembered what occurred the last time they sent a smaller force into Korea did not make the same mistake this time. Within just hours of receiving the notification they dispatched 8000 troops to Korea and notified China of this. The other narrative has it that on june 2nd the Japanese cabinet decided to deploy troops to Korea should China do so. On june the 3rd, King Gojong under advice of Empress Min and Yuan Shikai requested the Qing aid. In doing so he gave Japan the rationale to deploy their own troops. On June 5th the first Imperial headquarters was established and the next day the ministeries of the IJA and IJN instructed the Japanese press to not print any information concerning warlike operations. China notified Japan on june th of their deployments, and within hours the Japanese sent their notifications for the same. There is evidence many Japanese leaders accused China of not sending the notification thus breaching the treaty of Tianjin, but it seems highly likely they did send the notification. Regardless what is a fact is that Japan had already been pre planning its deployment during the end of May, thus it all seemed a likely rationale to start a conflict. This conflict would change the balance of power in asia, and begin a feud between two nations that still burns strongly to this very day. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The endless conflicts between China, Japan and little Korea had finally sprung a large scale war, one that would change the balance of power in the east forever. Little brother was going to fight big brother.  

Last time we spoke about the Gapsin Coup. Li Hongzhang snipped the bud of war before it could bloom after the Imo uprising and the Daewongun stole back power in Korea. The Daewongun was spanked and sent into exile yet again, but now Korea had become greatly factionalized. The progressives and conservatives were fighting bitterly to set Korea on a Japanese or Chinese path to modernization. This led radicals like Kim Ok-kyun to perform the Gapsin coup which was terribly planned and failed spectacularly. Japan and China were yet again tossed into a conflict in Korea, but China firmly won the day for she had more forces to bear. Japan licked her wounds and went home, learning a bitter lesson. That lesson was: next time bring more friends to the party. But today we are going to be taking a side quest, for many events were occurring in China, and one that brought yet again another foreign war.   #41 How France Ended up in Indochina   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. As I said a while back, I wanted to try and hit some events that don't necessarily fit the, something like 4-5 episodes its taking to explain how the First Sino-Japanese war came about. And even as I am writing this, on my personal channel someone commented “hey please don't forget to do a podcast on the Panthay Rebellion”, sigh. I chose to keep the Panthay Rebellion out of the Dungan Revolt episode, though many like to bundle these events up. I will try my best to hit that one, but if it somehow falls through my fingers, perhaps I will cheekily put it on my patreon, www.patreon.com/pacificwarchannel. A bit scumbag perhaps, but honestly its taking forever to get to the first sino-japanese war. Now this one, the Sino-French War is actually something a lot of my Vietnamese audience from my youtube channel have begged me to do an episode on for a long time now. Where to begin. This series focuses on the history of China and as such it fails to mention the experiences of China's neighbors quite often. For example while western nations like Britain were courting the Qing dynasty trying to open up further trade outside the Canton system, nations like France were likewise exploring and trying to exploit places like modern day Vietnam. During the early 17th century, France began to establish relations with Vietnam by sending the Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes. Alexandre de Rhodes was the first to write a catechism in the Vietnamese alphabet and upon returning to france in 1650 he advised the Catholic church they needed to dispatch bishops over to Vietnam to help development her roman catholic population, estimated to be around 100,000 converts by that point. He also warned that they must not allow what occurred in Japan to happen in Vietnam, referencing the Shimabara rebellion "We have all reason to fear that what happened to the Church of Japan could also happen to the Church of Annam, because these kings, in Tonkin as well as in Cochinchina, are very powerful and accustomed to war... It is necessary that the Holy See, by its own mouvement, give soldierss to these Oriental regions where Christians multiply in a marvelous way, lest, without bishops, these men die without sacrament and manifestly risk damnation." Alexandre de Rhodes efforts helped create the Paris Foreign missions society and soon the French East India company began operating in southeast asia. Throughout the 18th century the Jesuits missionary work and trade were very successful in Vietnam and this even led to military assistance. The French aided Nguyen Anh to retake his lands that had been taken from his family during a rebellion. The French were able to protect Nguyen Anh who became Emperor Gia Long and relations were fairly good with France, until his death whereupon relations fell considerably. The Nguyen dynasty increasingly viewed the catholic missionaries as a threat to their control. The french missionaries were soon being persecuted and then a revolt occurred in Cochinchina known as the Le Van Khoi revolt of 1833-1835. French catholic missionaries, Vietnamese catholics and Chinese settlers revolted against the current Emperor Minh Mang. Minh Mang quelled the revolt in 3 years while simultaneously fighting off a Siamese offensive. The revolt caused a dramatic increase in the persecution of catholics, leading to the execution of many missionaries. France tried to send diplomats to work out a peace deal with Minh Mang, but he would have none of it. In 1825 he made an edict  “"The Westerner's perverse religion confuses the hearts of men. For a long time, many Western ships have come to trade with us and to introduce Catholic missionaries into our country. These missionaries make the people's hearts crooked, thus destroying our beautiful customs. Truly this is a great disaster for our land. Our purpose being to prevent our people from abandoning our orthodox way, we must accordingly completely eliminate these abuses."   Minh Mang unlike his predecessor had no illusions about catholics, missionaries nor the west in general he sought isolationism. He was a very conservative leader and abided by confucianism. During his 21 years of rule he expanded his empire to acquire territory from parts of modern day Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. However after the first opium war saw the Qing dynasty humiliated by Britain, Minh Mang attempted to build an alliance with European powers by sending a delegation out in 1840 led by Ton That Tuong. They were received in Paris by Prime Minister Marshal Soult, but King Louis Philippe shunned the delegation and the Vatican urged a rebuke for “the enemy of the religion”. The delegates tried to offer France a trade monopoly in exchange for military support in the case of being attacked by a western power, but it was all in vain. After this the delegation tried a similar treaty with America, but it also failed. Minh Mang died and was succeeded by his eldest son Thieu Tri, who upheld the anti-catholic stance of the Nguyen dynasty, but did make some efforts to thwart conflicts and handed over to France 5 imprisoned missionaries in 1840. Thieu Tri would be dealt a hard hand of cards, as during in 1840's his empire was hit by a global cholera pandemic that killed roughly 8% of his nations population. Meanwhile his fathers isolationist policies meant the empires economy was hurting. Back over in France, in 1843 the French foreign minister, Francois Guizot sent a fleet to east asia led by Admiral Jean-Baptiste-Thomas Medee Cecille, lol wow to that name, all first names literally imagine someone in English called John, Jacob, Ryan, Jack, Kyle. The reason for the expedition was to respond to the new situation in China, as Britain had just defeated her in 1842 and thus the door was busted wide open so to say. The French thinking was while Britain began exploiting China in the north, perhaps France could counterbalance this by trying to puncture China in the south. Of course France was not openly stating this, officially she sent the mission “to support British efforts with the Qing dynasty and to fight against the persecution of French missionaries within Vietnam”. Admiral Jean-Baptist went to Vietnam in 1845 to try and get the release of one Bishop Dominique Lefebvre who had been condemned to death. Lefebvre had gone to Vietnam in 1835 and it was then illegal to work as a missionary. He was caught performing missionary actions and received the death penalty. A US captain named John Percivil of the USS Constitution attempted to gain his release but failed so he turned to Admiral Jean-Baptiste. Jean Baptiste managed to smooth things over and obtained Lefebvre's release and Lefebvre simply snuck right back into Vietnam and got himself caught yet again and was in the same situation by 1847.  Thus in 1847 Admiral Jean-Baptiste dispatched to Vietnam two warships the 54 gun frigate Gloire and 24 gun corvette Victorieuse under captain Lapierre and Charles Rigault de Genouilly. They went to Touran to try and free Bishop Lefebvre, Bishop Duclos and to try and get the Vietnamese to allow for Catholics to worship again in Vietnam, perhaps they were getting tired of showing up everytime a priest was imprisoned. Negotiations began, but it seems Lefebvre's being a second offender made the Vietnamese believe the French were pulling a fast one thus it fell apart. The negotiations dragged on until april 15th of 1847 while 6 Vietnamese corvettes snuck up and attacked the french warships anchored in the Bay of Tourane. The French retaliated and sank 4 of the Vietnamese corvettes, disabled the 5th and inflicted roughly 1200 casualties, quite a one sided brawl. The French assert, the Vietnamese had deceived them by prolonging negotiations in order to surprise attack them. Colonel Alfred Thomazi a historian who covered this period had this to say about the event;  “Thiệu Trị, indignant with this interference, decided to end the affair with a surprise attack. His plan was to invite the French officers to a banquet, kill them, and then burn and sink the ships. But Commandant Lapierre was on his guard, and declined the invitation. The mandarins, seeing the first part of their programme go astray, passed on to the second. They attacked.”   Thomazi gave the following description of the battle in Tourane Bay: ‘Gradually the Annamese war fleet, consisting of five corvettes with covered batteries, several bricks and a large number of junks, gathered in the bay, and one morning, without prior warning, attacked the French vessels. These, as their armament was far superior, had little difficulty in destroying the entire enemy fleet, but they had to get underway thereafter, abandoning the Christians to the vengeance of their persecutors”. In the end Lefebvre and Duclos were released. The Vietnamese were stunned by the dramatic disparity in firepower between their warships and the French. It showcased to many, the Vietnam's isolationist policies had left them extremely vulnerable to western powers and they began demanding modernization efforts. Things gradually began to get worse for the catholic community in Vietnam. In 1856 the French diplomat Louis Charles de Montigny was sent to asia to secure trade agreements. He first went to the kingdom of Siam where a treaty was signed on August 15th to facilitate trade, religious freedoms in order for Siam to gain access to French warship technology. Then Montigny turned to Vietnam arriving the next year where he demanded they establish a consulate in Hue, allow for free trade and to end their persecution of the catholic community. The Vietnamese court rejected all of these outright.  When Montigny returned to France having failed in Vietnam, Napoleon III decided enough was enough and he dispatched a military force of 3000 men to Vietnam led by Charles Rigault de Genouilly. France actually had a few reasons they were dispatching forces, and it was not exclusive to Vietnam. Do remember the 2nd Opium War was kicking off, so these forces were also sent to deal with China. It also did not help that the Nguyen emperor Tu Duc ordered the execution of 2 Spanish catholic missionaries in 1857 as well. Thus Spain likewise sent a punitive expedition force to join the French. Their first target was to be Tourane. The French force was led by Admiral Genouilly's flagship the 50 gun frigate Nemesis alongside 2 corvettes, 5 steam gunboats and 5 transports carrying 1000 French Marines. The Spanish brought a armed vessel called the El Cano carrying 550 Spanish infantry, 450 Filipino Chasseurs Tagals.  Now Tourane held 5 major forts on the western side of its peninsula which covered the approach to the town. The French called these the Fort de l'Aiguade, Fort de l'obervatoire, Fort du Nord, Fort de l'est and the Fort de l'ouest. They were accompanied by several shore batteries between them. The Vietnamese had a garrison of 2000 bien binh (provincial soldiers) led by Chuongco Dao Tri and the Governor Nam-Ngai tossed in another 2000 cam binh (centre soldiers) led by Do Thong Le Dinh ly. The Franco-Spanish force arrived to Tourane Bay during the night of august 31st and at dawn Admiral Rigault de Genouilly demanded the 5 forts surrender. He received no response and thus ordered his flotilla to bombard them. The forts response were on par with the Qing's performance during the opium wars, none of the western ships received damage. Rigault de Genouilly then landed some marines who quickly seized Fort de L'Aiguade. The charged its defenders chanting “vive l'empereur”. The defenders were overrun and soon the Fort l'est and fort l‘ouest were taken likewise with ease. El Cano had anchored off the entrance of the Da Nang river and aided the forces by bombarding the two forts, causing the defenders to flee. Most of hte vietnamese defenders were able to flee the carnage from the offset of bombardment, but those at the Fort L'observatoire were not quick enough. The French stormed into the fort and inflicted heavy casualties upon them before taking the rest prisoner. With this the Franco-Spanish force were able to occupy Tourane and the Tien Sa Peninsula. However upon occupying Tourane, suddenly the westerners found themselves under a siege.  Admiral Rigault de Genouilly surmised their forces at Tourane could achieve nothing under these circumstances so he pulled them out and decided to try and find a new target. He considered Tonkin first, but ruled it out and instead chose Saigon. Saigon was chosen because of its strategic value, it was one of the main sources of food that fed the Vietnamese army. He left Capitaine de Vaisseau Thoyon at Tourane with two gunboats and a small garrison and took the rest of the force south. The force spent 5 days gathering supplies in Cam Ranh bay and then reached Cape Saint-Jacques on February 10th. They bombarded the forts that defended its harbors into silence before storming them with marines like they had done at Tourane.  From cape saint-jacques they made a 5 day journey upriver, taking time here and there to bombard and storm some riverside forts. The Vietnamese defenders fought them off tenaciously and managed to land some cannonade hits into ships like the Dragonne and Avalanche inflicting hull damage. The defenders also tried to barricade the riverway behind the invaders, but the europeans made sure to dispatch naval forces behind to thwart these efforts periodically. Everytime the europeans attacked a fort or riverforce they made sure to spike the enemies weapons down or take them, thus reducing the enemies materials. By the 15th the Europeans were approaching some forts that defended Saigon's southern part. During the night they snuck 2 armed forces to destroy a barrage the Vietnamese had made using boats tied up together utilizing explosives. Dawn the next day the european warships anchored 800 meters from the forts and began their bombardment. They were so close some of the marine snipers in the warship mastheads were able to pick off Vietnamese gunners as well. The Vietnamese responded as best they could, but like the Qing during the opium wars, their outdated cannons were greatly overmatched. Soon landing companies began to assault the forts and by 8am the French and Spanish seized them. A few hours later, Capitaine Bernard Jaureguiberry took the Avalanche and scouted the Citadel of Saigon, before sending a French-Spanish force to assault it. Once the Europeans entered the citadel, the defenders began fleeing, though they did return with 1000 men to counter attack. The Europeans managed to repel the counter attack and by 10am the French and Spanish flag was raised over the citadel.  The Citadel of Saigon was enormous and the Europeans could not spare the necessary men to man it, so Admiral Rigault de Genouilly decided to simply blow it up. Using 32 mines on march 8th of 1859 the citadel was brought to ruin. Alongside this the europeans set fire to the rice granaries which would burn for several months. The Europeans turned back to Tourane leaving a small garrison to hold Saigon, which would fight a few battles of its own before being forced to pull out. Taking Saigon proved to be a fruitless victory. Admiral Rigault de Genouilly lost favor back home and was replaced in november of 1859 with Admiral Francois page with orders to obtain a treaty to protect catholics in Vietnam, but not to seek territorial gains. Now at the same time this was all occurring, there was the outbreak of the Austro-Sardinian War and this meant the French would require large numbers of forces to go to Italy, which the Vietnamese leadership quickly found out about.  When Page began negotiations in november with the vietnamese they refused his moderate terms, believing the French were no longer in a position of strength because of their troubles in Italy. So in the meantime Page reinforced the garrisons at Saigon and Da Nang awaiting the conclusion of the Italian war so more troops would be available to him. But by 1860 the 2nd opium war broke out requiring the French to send troops to China and Page was forced to relinquish much of his forces for the China expedition. In April Page left Vietnam to go to Canton, leaving the defense of Saigon and the neighboring Chinese town of Cholon under Capitaine de Vaisseau Jules D'Aries. D'Aries was left with 600 French marines and 200 Spanish troops who were led by Colonel Palanca y Guttierez. He also had on hand the corvettes Primauguet, Laplace and Norzagaray. With such forces he could not hope to with stand attacks from the Vietnamese so he was forced to hire some Chinese and Vietnamese auxiliaries who he placed in advanced posts and for patrols.  With his 1000 man augmented force, in March they were attacked by a Vietnamese army roughly around 10,000 men in strength. This led to a long and bitter siege, while simultaneously Tourane faced a similar situation and as I said they were forced to pull out as a result over there. D'aries and his men fought the siege off from March of 1860 to February of 1861. However during this time, the British and French forces had won the battle of Palikao on September 21st of 1860, thus relieving the need for their forces over in China. 70 ships led by Admiral Charner, carrying 3500 soldiers led by General de Vassoigne were quickly dispatched to Saigon. This naval force was then the largest the Vietnamese had ever seen. Admiral Charners forces reached their besieged allies in Saigon to find a Vietnamese army estimated to be around 32,000 men strong led by Nguyen Tri Phuong. The Vietnamese siege forces had their siege lines extending 12 km's long centered around a village called Ky Hoa. As Colonel Alfred Thomazi recounted “The first objective was the capture of the entrenched camp of Ky Hoa. This was a rectangle measuring around 3,000 metres by 900 metres, divided into five compartments separated by traverses and enclosed within walls three and a half metres high and two metres thick. The camp was armed with more than 150 cannon of all calibres. Subsidiary defences were piled up in front of its walls: wolf-pits, ditches filled with water, palisades and chevaux de frise. Bamboo was employed in the defences with consummate art, and the walls were crowned with thorn bushes along their entire length. The number of enemy soldiers both in and around the fortified camp had grown steadily during the previous year. After the victory, we discovered from the muster rolls that there were 22,000 regular troops and 10,000 militiamen. There were also 15,000 men manning the forts along the upper course of the Donnai. All these men were under the command of Nguyen Tri Phuong, the most celebrated general in the Vietnamese army”. The Europeans made their initial assault on February 24th, moving their artillery into firing range of the siege lines. With bombardment support the French and Spanish gradually attacked the fortifications taking heavy casualties in the process. A second assault was made the very next day starting at dawn and again our friend Thomazi has a lengthy account of the days battle “The action resumed at 5 a.m. on 25 February. The artillery advanced, facing east, enclosed by two columns of infantry: to the left, the engineers, the marine infantry and the chasseurs; to the right the Spanish infantry and the sailors. The sun, very low in the sky, was spoiling the aim of the cannons, and Lieutenant-Colonel Crouzat brought them forward by rapid bounds to within 200 metres of the enemy lines and ordered them to fire with case shot at the top of the ramparts. The firing was very heavy and our men, in the open, suffered appreciable casualties. Then the haversacks were laid on the ground, the sailors of the assault force reclaimed their scaling ladders, up to then carried by the coolies, and the admiral ordered the charge to be sounded. The right column, led by capitaine de vaisseau de Lapelin, crossed the wolf pits, the ditches and the chevaux de frise which extended for more than 100 metres in front of the enemy work under an intense fire, and was the first to reach the parapet. Most of the scaling ladders, which were very light, had been broken during the advance. Only three were left, which were placed along the wall, and the sailors of the assault force who could not find a place there climbed on the shoulders of their comrades. This time the fighting was bitter indeed. The first men to reach the summit were killed, but others took their place, throwing grenades inside. Then, using grappling hooks, they breached the perimeter fence and entered the fort. They then found themselves in an enclosed compartment swept by the fire from the neighbouring compartment, to which they could make no reply. It was a critical situation, and they suffered heavy losses. Finally, several resolute men, rallied by lieutenant de vaisseau Jaurès, succeeded in smashing in the gate that gave onto the other compartment with their axes, just as the engineers succeeded in breaking in, while the marine infantry and the chasseurs outflanked the enemy line on the left. The defenders were either killed where they stood or took to flight. The entire complex of the Ky Hoa lines had fallen into our hands.” The casualties for the second day were heavy, 12 dead and 225 wounded and according to the French reports, the Vietnamese lost around 1000 men including commander Nguyen Tri Phuong. By seizing Ky Hoa, the Europeans were able to take the offensive. Their first target was to be the city of My Tho. A smaller expeditionary force led by Capitaine Bourdais aboard the Monge alongside the Alarme, Mitraille and some gunboats took a force of around 230 men to seize My Tho. They ran into two forts defending a creek leading to the city and began to bombard them. After the forts were neutralized they ran continuously into barricades the vietnamese forces made to bar further passage. Then on April the 4th, the Europeans received reinforcements from Saigon in the form of 200 Chasseurs, 200 Sailors, 2 companies of marines and some heavy artillery. Capitaine Bourdais relinquished command to Capitaine Le Couriault du Quilio and he went to work having their expeditionary force fight its way through the barricades which began to become increasingly well defended. By april 8th, the expedition was reinforced a few more times, including more gunboats prompting the Vietnamese to send two fireships against them. The French naval forces were able to hook the two fireships and tow them away. On the 10th a scouting party led by Captain du Chaffault managed to reach the walls of My Tho, exchanging fire with its defenders before returning to report. Quilio decided to press forward his warships to hit more forts defending the passage to My Tho until they finally got in range of My Tho's walls. As the Europeans prepared their assault of the city, suddenly a flotilla led by Admiral Page showed up taking the Mekong river passage and he bombarded My Tho by sea which surrendered on the 12th.  After taking My Tho the French offered peace terms to Tu Duc, but this time demanded the cession of Saigon province, an indemnity of 4 million piastres, free trade rights and freedom of religion. Tu Duc was open to conceding on the religion, but rejected the others outright. Thus the French occupied My Tho and looked for new targets. Meanwhile Tu Duc had lost numerous materials and received many casualties for his efforts against the French-Spanish invaders. His forces simply could not meet the enemy on the open battlefield and thus he now sought to shift towards guerilla warfare. He dispatched men to venture into the enemy held territories and organize resistance groups. Soon Saigon and My Tho provinces were finding themselves in a state of siege. The French and Spanish forces began to fan out into the countryside hunting guerrillas, but as you can imagine this led to terrible violence against the common people.  Admiral Charner was replaced by Admiral Louis Adolphe Bonard in November of 1861. When he arrived he found the forces were being increasingly attacked by guerillas. One band of guerilla forces attacked the French Lorcha Esperance by luring the vessel out and ambushing her. 17 French and Filipino sailors were killed and the ship was burned down. This prompted Bonard to launch a major reprisal campaign against the province of Bien Hoa. Again our dear friend Thomazi has a lengthy passage on the battle and capture of Bien Hoa “"The Annamese had established defence works on all the routes leading to Biên Hòa. They had built an entrenched camp held by 3,000 men at My Hoa, midway between Biên Hòa and Saigon, and obstructed the course of the Donnai with nine solid barrages and a stockade. The admiral decided to attack simultaneously by land and water. He ordered the detached posts to remain on the defensive and to concentrate all disposable forces before Saigon. All being ready, and an ultimatum issued on 13 December going unanswered, the columns set off at daybreak on 14 December. The first column, commanded by chef de bataillon Comte and consisting of two companies of chasseurs à pied, 100 Spaniards and 50 horsemen with four mortars, made for Gò Công, which it captured at 7.30 a.m. A second column, consisting of 100 Spaniards and a battalion of marine infantry with two cannon, under the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Domenech Diego, placed itself before the camp of My Hao. At the same time capitaine de vaisseau Lebris, with two companies of sailors, advanced on the Donnai, taking in reverse the batteries on the right bank. Finally, a flotilla of armed launches, having followed the creeks as far as Rach Gò Công, cannonnaded the works which were also bombarding the gunboats anchored in the Donnai under the orders of lieutenant de vaisseau Harel of Avalanche. The forts replied energetically, and the gunboat Alarme was hit by 54 balls and had her main mast nearly destroyed. But once the defenders saw themselves threatened by a land attack, they hastily evacuated the forts, one of which blew up and the others were occupied. The sailors toiled throughout the night to demolish the barrages, while the naval hydrographer Manen sounded the passes. The first obstacles having been destroyed, the two infantry columns joined hands in front of the camp of My Hoa on 15 December. The marine infantry attacked the enemy's centre, while the chasseurs menaced his right and the Spaniards his left, and the cavalry made a turning movement to cut off his retreat. The Annamese panicked and took to flight. Admiral Bonard, aboard the dispatch vessel Ondine, ascended the river and exchanged cannon shots with the citadel. On 16 December the troops crossed the Donnai and occupied Biên Hòa, which the Annamese soldiers had evacuated, but not before burning alive numerous Christian prisoners. We took there 48 cannons and 15 armed junks. The operation cost us only 2 men dead and several wounded." Even after taking  Bien Hoa, the guerrillas persisted to amp up their attacks.. The guerilla forces around My Tho began to snipe european columns marching along roads and a French gunboat carrying troops was blown up via sabotage. Bonard believed these actions to be the work of Vietnamese forces operating in Vinh Long so he began a campaign to seize it. On March 20th, his naval forces reached the fortress of Vinh Long and he quickly landed 700 French and 300 Spanish troops led by Lt Colonel Reboul to attack. Thomazi tells us  “On 22 March they crossed two arroyos under fire and advanced into view of the enemy batteries, which had been fighting a violent artillery duel with the gunboats. During the night, after a seven-hour struggle, all the batteries were occupied, and on the following day we entered the citadel, where we found 68 cannon and considerable quantities of materiel” The defenders of Vinh Long had fallen back to some earthwork defenses 20 km's west of My Tho, so Bonard sent forces to attack them while he consolidated Vinh Long. As the forces marched to attack the defenders, the loss of My Tho, Bien Hoa and Vinh Long had severely demoralized the Vietnamese leaders. In April of 1862 Lu Duc announced he sought peace terms. In May, following some preliminary meetings at Hue, the French corvette Forbin went to Tourane to meet with a Vietnamese delegation. As Thomazi, a very faithful source for this entire episode it seems tells us after the French waited 2 days for the Vietnamese to show up. ‘On the third day, an old paddlewheel corvette, the Aigle des Mers, was seen slowly leaving the Tourane river. Her beflagged keel was in a state of dilapidation that excited the laughter of our sailors. It was obvious that she had not gone to sea for many years. Her cannons were rusty, her crew in rags, and she was towed by forty oared junks and escorted by a crowd of light barges. She carried the plenipotentiaries of Tự Đức. Forbin took her under tow and brought her to Saigon, where the negotiations were briskly concluded. On 5 June a treaty was signed aboard the vessel Duperré, moored before Saigon.” The result was the Treaty of Saigon which legalized the catholic faith in Vietnam and the secession of Dinh Tuong, Gia Dinh, Bien Hoa and some islands over to France. The ports of Tourange, Ba Lac and Quang Yen were opened and France was given trade rights. On top of all of that the Vietnamese were to pay an indemnity worth one million dollars to France and Spain over a 10 year period. And thus the colony of Cochinchina with its capital of Saigon was acquired by France, which would start a ongoing conflict only to end with the United States of American pulling out in 1975. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. I honestly thought I would be able to do the Sino-French war of 1884-1885 in a single episode, yet again I was mistaken. Thus next time we will continue the story of France and Southeast asia.

Last time we spoke about the imo uprising. Empress Min royally messed up when she allowed her nephew Min Gyeom-ho to be in charge of handing out the grain to the retired soldiers. His tossing of the job to a subordinate led to embezzlement and the soldiers were greatly slighted. The pissed off soldiers began a major riot threatening to kill Empress Min, her clan and those they thought had cheated them. The Japanese military advisor and other staff were attacked, some Japanese were even killed, thus bringing Japan into the mix. King Gojong panicked and allowed his father to return, only to be ousted by his own father. The Daewongun was back and immediately went to work trying to rid Korea of the Min clan. Now the Chinese and Japanese were bringing forces to bear in Korea, was war on the menu?   #40 This episode is the Gapsin Coup   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. Now the Chinese had a sticky situation on their hands, the attempted coup d'etat had disposed of many officials who they had been working with and worse they had attacked Japanese nationals prompting Japan to perform military intervention. Ma Jianzhong ordered the Daewongun to meet with him and read him the riot act. Ma accused him of acting against the Qing emperor by unseating the approved King of Korea “your sin is unpardonable. Considering the fact that you are the father of the king, we will not press hard on you. Please go to Tianjin to receive whatever punishment is bestowed upon you”. The Daewongun was then forced into a palanquin, whisked aboard the warship Weiyuan and sent to Tianjin. He was then interrogated by Li Hongzhang and sent into house arrest at Baoding until October of 1885. Li Hongzhang had this to say of it all “: "Our country regarded [Korea] as part of the empire and dispatched...troops. We arrested the evil ringleader, the Taewongun [Grand Prince Hungson], and detained him at Paoting. The [Korean] masses were awed. Now the entire world knows that Korea is our dependency."” Basically Li Hongzhang was playing a grand game of power politics, he was trying to show face to the western world that China was in charge of Korea. However this major show of face was also a large loss of face particularly to Korea and Japan who saw this as quite the lenient strategy.  And thus China reasserted her suzerainty over Korea, her troops secured Seoul and the Qing officials began to aid the Korean-Japanese negotiations. The treaty of Chemuplo was signed on August 30th of 1882 to which Korea agreed to pay Japan in indemnities, sent an envoy to officially apologize and permitted a Japanese legation guardforce in Seoul. The Qing began training the Korean army and provided them with 1000 rifles, two cannons and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. The Korean military was to be trained by a Qing figure, one of the most important figures in modern Chinese history called Yuan Shikai, oh boy this guy. On my personal channel I think I have made at least 8 episodes related to him, but he will come a bit further in the story as a lead player. Korea was reduced to an official tributary state of the Qing with King Gojong unable to make many decisions without official Qing approval prior. China basically began to treat korea more like a colony. The Min clan came right back into their seats of power, albeit under Qing approval and Li Hongzhang began to perform puppetry work on the nation to make sure she served Qing interests. The Korean government then received two major advisers, Ma Jianzhong and a close confidant of Li Hongzhang, Paul von Molldendorff, formerly of the German foreign office, but now under Li Hongzhangs employment. The new Capital guard commander was Yuan Shikai. By 1883 Li Hongzhang was so pleased with his work he said this to an American minister in Beijing "I am the king of Korea, whenever I think the interests of China require me to assert the prerogative." The 1880s was a political maelstrom for Korea. As a result of the actions of the Qing and Japanese, Korea was literally being torn apart. Two major factions emerged within the Korean political scene, the first being the Gaehwa Party, known as the “enlightenment party”. They can be seen as a leftist party, progressive liberal types. Their leadership came mostly from the Yangban class, those being the traditional gentry-ruling class of the Joseon dynasty. These were the highly educated types who joined the bureaucracy and military, the quote en quote “landed guys” the aristocrats. They were much akin to the Qing officials, those who took examinations to earn their place within the government, living by the principles of confucianism. The members of this faction included Kim Ok-gyun, who spent considerable time in Japan and was mentored by Fukuzawa Yukichi. Kim Ok-gyun would emerge the leader of this faction and he alongside his colleagues pushed for a more independent Korea that took steps to perform their own version of the Meiji restoration. They also wanted to end what they saw as Qing interference with their nation. They were greatly frustrated by the limited scale and scope of Korea's modernization efforts and reforms. Most of their leadership like Kim Ok-kyun were quite young, in their late 20's and early 30's and they were headstrong to be progressive, and progress at this time, to them looked like Japan. They basically saw the Qing as an arrogant imperialist power interfering with their nation rather than a protector. The other faction was known as the Sadaedang, the right side conservatives. This included the Min clan and many high government officials who were very pro-Qing. Its not to say they were against progress, in fact they championed many causes put forward by the Enlightenment party, but they favored gradual changes based on the Qing models. After the Imo uprising, the Pro-Chinese faction was greatly bolstered, obviously because of the interventions by the Qing within their nation. The Min clan advocated going about the modernization process via dongdo seogi “adoping western technology while keeping eastern values”, it was not so different from the Meiji restoration, but they wanted to keep inline with the Chinese.  In 1882 after getting rid of the Daewongun and his rioters, the Min clan pursued a pro-chinese policy. Instead of adopting major institutional reforms akin to the Meiji restoration such as legal equality, modern education and significant industrialization, they chose to direct the pathway of the nations reforms in piecemeal. This basically meant revamping the underlying social structure of Korea rather than replacing or changing. They began to block all appointments of the progressive to any important positions, particularly that of their greatest rival Kim Ok-kyun. They signed trade agreements with China that enabled the Qing to dominate the trade with Korea at the expense of other nations, specifically that of Japan. King Gojong basically looked like he was abandoning all the progressive policies that had begun before the Imo uprising. The Japanese were livid over all of this as they had planned to dominate Korea with their influence to soon import Korean grain and export products back, but now China dominated her. Then a major event occurred that drew conflict between Japan and China over Korea yet again. In 1880, Kim Ok-kyun had managed to secure a position in the high government office serving as a councilor in the foreign office and even became acquainted with King Gojong. He was the bulwark trying to get Korea to take the Meiji restoration path and in December of 1881 he went off to Japan and would be in Japan when the Imo uprising occurred. Since he was there, he was made the official Korean representative in 1882 to apologize for the ordeal and he would remain in Japan until 1884. While in Japan he was influenced heavily by Fukuzawa Yukichi. Through this Kim Ok-kyun became convinced Korea needed to severe its Qing domination by overthrowing the Min clan so they could commence a Meiji restoration program with Japan's help. "Korea is a country in which misgovemment and extortion have flourished luxuriantly for centuries, but under the recent MING [Min] administration a serious change for the worse has taken place." Now in 1884 hostilities broke out between the Qing and French over a conflict in Annam, this became the Sino-French War of 1884-1885, which will be its own episode. Needless to say, the Qing forces within Korea were moved to deal with the French and this represented a major opportunity for the progressives in Korea. Despite the name progressive, the pro-Japanese faction decided to fall back on quote “the old Korean method of political transformation by murder”. Yes they were going to attempt a coup d'etat, with help from the Japanese. The Gaehwapa leadership, on December 4th staged their coup under the guise of a grand banquette being hosted by Hong Yeong-sik, the director of the Ujeong Chongguk, the postal administration. It was an inaugural banquet to celebrate the opening of a new national post office. The guests were to be King Gojong, commanders of the Seoul garrison, several foreign diplomats and high ranking officials, obviously many of which were members of the Sadaedang faction. They had help from the Japanese minister Takezoe Shinichiro who promised he would mobilize the Japanese legation guards to provide assistance. The plan was quite simple, get everyone to come and kill the commanders and officials; then hijack King Gojong to use him like a puppet to legitimize their pro-japanese reform program. They had a 14-point proposal which held conditions such as these; to end Korea's tributary relationship to the Qing dynasty; to abolish the Yangbang privileges and establish equal rights for all; to reorganize the governmental structure as a constitutional monarchy; to change the land tax laws; cancel the grain loan system; unify the internal fiscal administrations; promote free commerce and trade; create a modern police system, who would in turn severely punish corrupt officials in government, ie the Min clan. Now Kim Ok-kyun was obviously encouraged by Fukuzawa Yukichi, alongside other Japanese intellectuals and officials to seek a Meiji style reform in Korea. But the Japanese leaders did not support his plans for a coup. Count Iwakura, the same who led the Iwakura Mission and the foreign minister Inoue Kaoru both refused to support the coup as they still wanted to retain goodwill with China. Shibusawa Eiichi, the most prominent Japanese business leader in promoting Japanese business in other parts of Asia also refused to support the coup. Kim Ok-kyun had presented many in Japan his plans, but with 3000 Chinese troops in Korea he knew the coup had no chance, that was until the Sino-French war broke. So despite not having any real support from Japan, he went ahead with the coup thinking it was an opportunity too great to pass up. They began the banquet and Kim Ok-kyun sent some of his supporters to set fire to a nearby building causing some noise and confusion. While that occurred they seized King Gojong and brought him to his palace. Then they began to summon various Korean garrison commanders they believed might mobilize the military against them to the palace. Each commander came one-by-one only to be murdered by the Gaehwapa. So basically the coup amounted to the decapitation of 6 Korean ministers, the murder of military officials and other administrators, while occupying the royal police backed up by the Japanese legation force of around 170 men. The father of the murdered postmaster general, who had been duped into hosting the event was so applied by it and the stain upon his families honor, he invited all 18 members of his family to a dinner and killed them along with himself via poisoning, whoa.  Now things did not go according to plan for the Gaehwapa. The Japanese minister, Takezoe, went back on his promise to provide military assistance as soon as word came that the Qing were sending forces into the city. Kim Ok-kyun seemed to believe with just under 200 Japanese troops he was going to somehow maintain power keeping the king hostage, but 1500 Qing troops was not going to let that happen. When the coup was found out, Queen Min secretly sent word to the Qing asking for help and they sent General Yuan Shikai. It took Yuan Shikai and his men all but 3 days to retake the palace, rout the Japanese troops and rescue King Gojong. During the fighting around 180 people were killed, including 38 Japanese troops and 10 Chinese. The officials who had been appointed by Kim Ok-kyun were all dismissed. Japanese citizens living in Seoul were viewed by the locals as exploiters, thus they became targets of attack, many of their homes were looted and burned. Kim ok-kyun and 8 of his followers managed to escape to Japan using a Japanese ship. Just  prior to the failed coup, Kim Ok-kyun had met with King Gojong about some reform ideas and the king was in support of many of them. After the coup the king made a full 180 and publicly label Kim ok-kyun as a villain. King Gojong voided all the reform measures done by the coup leaders and sent an envoy to Japan to protest their involvement in the coup demanding repatriation of the conspirators. On December 6th, King Gojong telegraphed Li Hongzhang asking for reinforcements. Meanwhile Yuan Shikai who wanted to dethrone the king because he deemed King Gojong to be “ a dim-witted monarch” who he believed was actually complicit in the coup but was overruled by the conspirators. A sticky political situation thus emerged between the 3 nations. As I mentioned, King Gojong demanded Japan repatriate the conspirators. The Japanese responded by demanding Korea pay them indemnity for the loss of life and property, to make formal apology and promise to punish the guilty. In a show of force the Japanese sent 7 warships and 2 battalions to Korea. On January the 9th of 1885, within the presence of 600 IJA and under threat of war if they did not cooperate Korea signed the “Seoul Protocol” also known as the Treaty of Hanseong. The Koreans officially apologized and paid Japan reparations in the sum of 100,000 yen for damages done to the Japanese legation, go figure that. This treaty however was really gimmicky, because the real trouble going on was not between Japan and Korea, but instead Japan and China.  Ito Hirobumi and Li Hongzhang met in Tianjin in April of 1885 to discuss the matter. Tensions were very high between the nations and both men tried to defuse that tension. They called for bilateral troop withdrawal from Korea, a proscription against sending further military instructors and prior notification to another of any future troop deployments in Korea. King Gojong would be advised to hire military instructors from a third nation to train up the Joseon army, America the most likely candidate. Japan and China signed off on this and it became known as the Tianjin convention or “Li-Ito convention”. It was a diplomatic victory for Japan in the end . Japanese minister Takezoe Shinichiro avoided punishment for his complicity in the coup which essentially was done to subvert Korea's tributary status with the Qing. China lost her exclusive claim to armed intervention in Korea, since Japan and her now we're even on that front. The treaty represented yet again another curtailment of Qing suzerainty over Korea. Now despite all of that, Japan also lost significant influence over Korea while China's influence only increased. Japan looked like the bad guy to the Korean populace. Also Li Hongzhang appointed Yuan Shikai as the “director General Resident in Korea of diplomatic and commercial relations”. Basically Yuan Shikai was to look after Qing interests in Korea, but in a civilian capacity. Officially this was in line with the Tianjin convention, as Yuan Shikai was no longer a military leader, but both China and Japan knew at a hares notice he could called upon Qing forces whenever he wanted. Li Hongzhang instructed Yuan Shikai to prevent Japanese commercial dominance over Korea and promote Chinese commercial dominance which he did very well.  After both the Chinese and Japanese withdrew their forces from Korea as per the Tianjin convention, China chose to garrison most of its forces along the Korean border. Likewise the the vast majority of telegraph lines in Korea were Chinese controlled while Japan had one going to Pusan, but when they requested it extend to Seoul this was rejected. Thus the Japanese could only communicate with Seoul using a Chinese controlled telegraph system. Yuan Shikai, despite being in his early 20s, exercised strong leadership and for all intensive purposes Japanese influence was simply drained. Now while many Koreans were happy to be rid of Kim Ok-kyun and his Japanese friends, many also complained about Yuan Shikai who was seen to be very overbearing and quite arrogant towards the Korean government. In June of 1885 China signed the final peace protocol with France and thus for the first time since the Russian conflict in Xinjiang, China was free of threat from war from Russia and France. This gave the Qing government the opportunity to be more aggressive in Korea. Yuan Shikai operated as if he was above the law. He replaced progressive officials with pro-chinese members of the Min Clan. He also began interposing in foreign matters, taking the place of Korean diplomats or envoys. He stopped all attempts at military reform and the development of modern industry. As for his personal reputation that was quite bad as well, he acquired a reputation for as one source puts it “kidnapping young korean women and making them his concubines, something akin to 19th century comfort women”. The Qing and Min clan were using the two failed coup d'etats to virtually wipe out any and all political opposition. Yuan Shikai's tenure over Korea which lasted for a decade has been considered by some historians as “a dark age” for Korea's development. Japan had learnt its lesson after 1884 bitterly and they would not eschew in Korea for some time, but this did not mean forever. No, the lesson they learnt was not to leave korea alone, it was to make sure next time they would have a stronger position than China. King Gojong also learnt a lesson, that Korea was vulnerable and needed a protector, but who? Well King Gojong secretly began gravitating towards Russia. You know the Russian Empire was a coy player when it came to Asia and China in particular. The Qing had greatly miscalculated when it came to Russia in the 19th century. The Qing intelligence indicated to them that the Russians had crushed Britain and France during the Crimean War so when the Second opium war was raging on, China was wary of Russia. This had a large effect on the Qing as they basically gave up parts of Siberia to Russia assuming they had large forces at the ready when in fact their far eastern forces were scattered horribly. Had the QIng showed a stronger arm against Russia they could have retained more territory which would have helped them pay their large indemnities to the west after the Opium wars. From the Russian point of view they took full advantage of a golden situation. Honestly, imagine Britain and France fight a war against this grand Qing empire in the late 1850's and Russia just barges in making demands alongside them. With the treaty of Aigun, setting a new boundary on the AMur River, Russia gained 185,000 square miles of territory, that is the size of California and was the only livable part of eastern siberia. Russia followed this up with the treaty of Peking grabbing 130,00 square miles of territory, then again on October 7th of 1864 where she signed the treaty of Tarbagati grabbing another 350,000 square miles. That was like adding two Italies. The Qing at the time did not have proper knowledge of the territory they were handing away and when they figured it out later it was a national humiliation. Russia acquired all of this through a bluff, with some bravado and a brilliant stroke of diplomacy. As I will talk more about in the “great game” episode, Russia and China were in conflict for a long time because of Xinjiang. They remained on the verge of full scale war until 1881 when they signed a treaty, but until that point China had felt hamstrung when it came to Korea and the Russians. As the Korean situation went further and further to shit, the Russians eagerly watched, salivating as you can imagine. Russia's strategy for quite a long time at this point was to surround its empire with weak neighbors, to destabilize those who threatened to become strong. This was a very logical strategy for a large continental power, thus Russia wanted to do everything possible from a third power swallowing up and revitalizing Korea. They sent Karl Ivanovich Weber as consul to Korea and he carefully cultivated ties to King Gojong. Weber made it clear to the Korean officials Russia intended to support them in the event Korean territorial integrity or independence became threatened. A secret deal was made between Korea and Russia, to obtain military instructors in return for a lease at Yonghunghang, a port in Wonsan. When the British found out about this they were quite livid and they immediately occupied Komundo island near the southern tip of the Korean peninsula. Its not important just yet, but Britain and Russia being aggressive towards another with holdings in east asia would reek its ugly head in 1904.  When Yuan Shikai found out about King Gojong's plans to secure Russian military assistance he was not too happy and tried to intimidate him. Yuan Shikai ended up quashing the Russian military adviser plan by leaking it to the diplomatic community which caused a large uproar. Yuan Shikai's influence over Korea was beginning to boomerang, as now the Korean sought out Russia aid even more so seeing Qing suzerainty even more overbearing. King Gojong approached Weber again in 1886 requesting to establish a Russian protectorship. This was leaked to Yuan Shikai, who began plans to depose the King, but Li Hongzhang overruled him. Russia would make two fateful decisions, the first in 1888 when they would try to facilitate Japan's attempts to undermine the Qing influence over Korea. Russia did this in order to weaken the Anglo-Chinese relations, but Russia had also greatly underestimated Japanese power and overestimated Chinese power. The second decision I have spoken about multiple times, the building of the trans-siberian railway. This decision altered the balance of power in the far east as Russia would be able to deploy troops at basically a whims notice to the CHinese and Korean borders. But Russia also needed something else vitally important, a warm water port. Russia had acquired vladivostok, a cold water port that freezes up for a few months of they and back then without icebreakers one could not keep their fleet at port year round. Russia eyed Korea or a Chinese warm water port in the Yellow sea as a future prize they must claim. Now I don't want to side track too much about Russia as that will come about much later in 1904.  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The Gapsin coup was yet again another mess that almost led China and Japan to war over their proxy fight over Korea. Things were heating up more and more, how long could the diplomats and politicians hold it all off?  

Last time we spoke about the Dungan Revolt. Yes it was a grand little side story that only encompassed something that should have required at minimum three podcasts, but I do my best. Northwest China was a wild place and multiple groups on the frontiers of other nations saw an opportunity when the Taiping Rebellion kicked out to try and rebel themselves. Multiple muslim groups and some foreign leaders like Yaqub Bek fought the Qing, the Russians and other groups to try and consolidate control over key areas. However when the Taiping were finally quelled, the Qing sent Zuo Zongtang northwest to deal with the Dungan problem. Zuo Zongtang led a brutal campaign to reclaim Xinjiang and was successful, a large part to muslim chinese defectors. Now we need to venture back to the issue of Japan, China, Korea and a truly stressful situation for poor old Li Hongzhang.   #39 This episode is the imo uprising   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. The 1880s were an extremely turbulent time for China, Japan and Korea. Each nation faced the same anxiety, that of western encroachment, the danger of colonization. Each of these nations would face challenges from the west and this would affect all 3 of them and in turn their relations to another. There were leading figures in each nation that sought to cooperate together to resist western colonialism. At the time the greatest threat was Russia. The Russian empire was beginning the process of building the grand trans-siberian railway. The railway would only begin construction in 1891, but by the 1880's settlers were being pushed east into Siberia and discussions were being held to push the process forward. Now when Japan pulled the sneaky maneuver of getting Korea to sign treaties acknowledging her independence from China, both Korea and Chinese officials were deeply concerned and no wonder. Japan had kept pressing the buttons and this was a major red flag moment. But the Chinese and Koreans had a multitude of problems at the time taking up much of their attention. Thus the Chinese and Koreans tried to ignore the implications of the Japanese treaties in the hopes they could be stamped down later thus easing Japan back into a passive role.  You might be asking yourself why are the Chinese and Koreans backing down so much and allowing Japan basically to stomp over them, to put it simply, they had too much to deal with. You might remember when I barely talked about some of the rebels going on in China during and after the Taiping Rebellion. One of those known as the Dungan Revolt of 1862-1877, well that little guy was not such a little guy. If you go on wikipedia for example and look up the Dungan revolt you will notice a few things right off the bat, the first most likely the death toll which was in the millions, possibly up to 21 million. It hit Shaanxi, Gangsu and Xinjiang provinces very hard. But alongside the death toll, you would probably notice secondly the participants list which is extravagantly long and holds many surprising participants. The Ottomans, British, Russians, Uzbeks all hands their hands in the Chinese cookie jar. While the Dungan Revolt is certainly a big one, it gets even bigger, much bigger. The Dungan Revolt basically is part of “the Great Game”. Now you're probably asking yourselves what game? The Great Game was this mashup of conflicts between the British and Russian empires of multiple territories spanning the middle east and Asia. They fought for and over numerous things, for example the British believed Russia had plans to invade India. The Russians thought Britain wanted to expand into central asia. This led to countless wars such as the 1st anglo-afghan war of 1838, the first anglo-sikh war of 1845, the second anglo-sikh war of 1848, the second anglo-afghan war of 1878 and theres even more than that. Now for China this cultivated the Dungan Revolt somewhat and Russian began encroaching in Xinjiang. From 1871 to 1881 the Qing dynasty and the Russian empire were on the verge of a massive war over Xinjiang. Now I am literally pulling out my hair as I write this series because I planned to write a single podcast explaining how the situation in Korea led to what will be one of the most important wars, the first sino-japanese war of 1894-1895 and as I do so I keep skipping over major events, such as the multitude of rebellions in China, and this “great game situation”. Oh and its not just the great game, in the 1880s emerges another fantastic war known as the Sino-French War of 1884-1885 first involving Vietnam and France and then China gets mixed in. Needless to say I face two options, option number 1; I give a summary of these events and gloss right over them to carry on with my intended little narrow narrative about Korea, China and Japan. Option 2) I carry on as I am and write two separate episodes, “the great game” and “the Sino-French War of 1884-1885”. I am electing to do option 2, so please bear with me for the time being I imagine those 2 episodes will come right after I am done with the Hermit kingdom. Stating that I keep glossing over major events, but its simply impossible to hit them all, so if there are some you just are dying to hear about, or simply other things you want to hear about that I can't hit here please let me know on the Pacific War channel discord, comment my Youtube channel or become a patreon, if ya do I promise I will make content just for you, that's why it's there. So needless to say, these major events were hitting China at an extraordinarily bad time. These were major variables thwarting China from seeking a firmer hand against Japan when it came to Korea. China was waiting for things to simmer before they confront the Japanese. And do remember despite Japan's actions, they still represented the greatest possible ally against the looming Russian bear to the north who were gradually expanding into Asia. The prospect of large numbers of Russians moving into East Asia concerned Korea, Japan and China all the same. On top of this the Russians began plans in 1882 to start a steamship line from Ukraine to Priamur, on the coast of Siberia and this also meant a large development of Priamur. Korea had the great misfortune of being what one author has called ‘a shrimp among the whales”. The whales being China, Japan and Russia. Korea had a long history of being fought over, in 661 the Japanese sent troops, then the Yuan Dynasty forces of Kublai Khan used Korea to try and invade Japan in the 1190's and in the 1590s Hideyoshi invaded Korea. So Korea had this unfortunate history of simply being stuck in the middle. In 1882 China still held suzerainty over Korea…well from their point of view, the Japanese certainly did not see it that way. Korea was grasping at straws, trying to avoid conflict, but she was playing a game between two tigers. Now in 1881 Korea began expanding its relations with all 3 major players, Russia, China and Japan. Awhile back I mentioned that Korea sent Kim Hong-jip to Japan and after his journey he strongly suggested Korea send more envoys to learn more from Japan. In 1881 this led Korea to create the Gentlemen's sightseeing group. These were 12 young Koreans who went to Japan to learn more about the Meiji restoration efforts. The mission was akin to Japan's Iwakura Mission, the Koreans inspected administrative agencies, military facilities, education facilities, everything they could. The Koreans were very impressed by what they saw and when they came back home they sought ways to push Korea onto the same path as Japan's modernization efforts. Amongst the 12 gentleman was one Kim Ok-kyun. After the tour had ended Fukuzawa Yukichi one of Japans top liberal minded intellects arranged for Kim Ok-kyun to remain an extra 6 months at Keio university. Kim Ok-kyuns stay convinced him that the Meiji restoration was the essential path for Korea to self strengthen and thwart western encroachment.  Now Kim OK-kyun will be a key player in many things to come, but I bring him up now just to signify the efforts of Japan to win over Korea. People such as Kim Ok-kyun began championing Japan as Korea's savior and this prompted King Gojong to look to Japan for some assistance in modernizing, such as the employment of Lt Horimoto Reizo who trained the Pyolgigun. But while Japan was making inroads to circumventing China, China was not sitting idly by.  Li Hongzhang had emerged probably as the most influential person in all of China by the 1880s. The Qing government authorized the man who was the Grand Minister for the Northern Sea, the governor general of Zhili province, Commander of the Huai Army, associate controller over the board of admiralty and Grand secretary, yes China was continuing the practice of placing as many titles as possible onto a single man. Above all else Li Hongzhang was responsible for Korea. As much as I have talked about Zeng Guofan's pupil I have not really talked all that much about the man himself. Li Hongzhang dominated Chinese foreign policy for nearly quarter of a century. He was 6 feet tall and quite a lot of western diplomats noted him to have a fine physique, a vigor to his nature, piercing eyes, a commanding presence and a no-nonsense approach. As a Qing official he wore multicolored silk robes, a large triangular hat with the traditional three-eyed peacock feathers. As noted by his mentor Zeng Guofan “Li Hongzhang possessed a bearing and manner of speech sufficient to bring men to their knees”. Li Hongzhang was frankly a go-getter as we say in the west. George F Seward, a minister of the US to China called him “a giant among his fellow Chinese and the best foreigners who have met him in affairs will not hesitate to accord to him intellectual powers, which would command admiration in any cabinet or council”. Russia's count Sergei Lil'evich Witte, the architect of the empires industrialization program for over two decades and a man not known to overstate others said this of Li “I have met many notable statesmen in my career and would rate Li Hongzhang high among them. In fact, he was a great statesman; to be sure he was Chinese, without any kind of European education, but a man of sound Chinese education, and what is more, a man with a remarkably sound mind and good common sense." The socialist French newspaper, Le Siecle, called him "the yellow Bismarck." I particularly like that last one, yellow Bismarck thats a flavourful one isn't it.  Li Hongzhang was Han Chinese, from 6 of 7 generations that passed the imperial examinations, a scholar through and through. He passed the third highest out of 4000 other students for the highest imperial degree and built up the Huai army with help from Zeng Guofan quickly becoming one of if not the dominant military ruler in China. It was in fact his rule over the most powerful army in CHina that led to many of his appointments as the Qing needed to try and rein him in somehow. He and Empress Dowager Cixi would have a long-standing relationship. Li Hongzhang aided her in installing her nephew as Emperor in 1875, though in reality he would not actually rule anything it would be Cixi and Li was loyal to her. On the note of Cixi, Li Hongzhang was criticized heavily for corruption and indeed he became fabulously wealthy. Yet I do not think you can point fingers simply at Li, as it was not just him but the Qing bureaucracy that was corrupt. A foreign employee under Li had this to say about him and corruption “The Viceroy was a diplomat of world-wide fame; but to his countrymen - before the war - he was chiefly reputed as a great military and naval organizer. He was not nor could he be that; for the corruption, peculation and nepotism which infested his organizations had their fountain-head in himself, and to an extent which was exceptional even for a Chinese official. He was himself enmeshed in the national machine of organized inefficiency; to him also it was a normal condition, and any other, had it been indicated, would have been incomprehensible to him.” You have to understand at this time in the Qing dynasty corruption was simply the status quo. Bribery was the normal source of political influence. The Qing salaries were insufficient, so all officials bribed and embezzled to make ends meet. To get anything done politically in China at this time one had to bribe whether it was for good means or bad, Li was no different. Li's activities were some of the largest in scope China would ever see and thus required enormous sums of money. None the less Li was a Han, and the Manchu were never going to let the Han simply run the show, so even if Li had idea's about reform to stop the corruption they would not allow him to do so as it would put a Han in the drivers seat. And so Li was a master operator within the corrupt system of Qing politics, he had to grease the corrupt wheels of power. Unlike the Meiji restoration which took daring reforms backed by the Genro of Japan, Li had major shackles.  I think I already said this before, Li Hongzhang is one of my favorite characters of modern Chinese history, but he is also a terribly tragic character. One would call him a man before his time. He showed great foresight about how China could modernize but he was hampered by the system. Yet despite all of that he did an incredible amount to help modernize China nonetheless. He also never got a chance to really see the outside world until late in his life unlike most of his Japanese counterparts. He would also take the lionshare of the blame for the many humiliations CHina would receive, literally right until his death he just kept fighting bitterly. Many champion those who do great feats during good times, but we often forget those who lived in dire times who struggled to do great feats, and Li is one of those. Now as the man responsible for Korea Li Hongzhang advised his Korean counterpart in 1879 "There is no human agency capable of putting a stop to the expansionist movement of Japan: has not your Government been compelled to inaugurate a new era by making a Treaty of Commerce with it? As matters stand, therefore, is not our best course to neutralize one poison by another, to set one energy against another? You should seize every opportunity to establish treaty relations with Western nations, which you can use to check Japan." The advice was carried to King Gojong who in 1822 solicited Li Hongzhang to negotiate on Korea's behalf for a treaty with the United States. The Josen-United States Treaty of 1882 or Treaty of Peace, AMity, Commerce and Navigation would be signed in 1882 heavily influenced by Li Hongzhang. It was Korea's first treaty with a western nation, albeit an unequal treaty. It established mutual friendship with the US and mutual assistance in the case of attack. The treaty became the template for others as soon Germany signed one in 1883, then Russian and Italy in 1884 and France by 1886. The idea obviously being, Li Hongzhang trying to bolster up Korea so Japan would not try to invade her. Now despite the fact these treaties were intended to counterbalance Japan, they also indirectly undermined China. Combined with the Japanese treaties they all worked collectively to shatter Korea's isolation and severed China's suzerainty over her. To be blunt, while China could continue to scream about how Korea was still her tributary, now a collective group of other nations saw her as independent. This also began a process of creating pro-Japanese and pro-Chinese factions within the Korean political system. There were those who missed the times of the Daewongun reign. They believed the current actions of Korea were unfaithful to Confucianism. And then in 1882 a small problem would evolve into a larger one. Remember the Japanese military attache, Lt Horimoto Reizo? Well in January of 1882, his work ended up reorganizing the existing 5 army garrison structure into the Muwiyong “palace guards garrison” and the Changoyong “capital guards garrison”. But alongside that he also created the Pyolgigun “special skills force” which was basically the yolk of a new modern Korean army. This is all fantastic and good fun, however Korea held a very tight budget and was forced to reduce the number of her old-style troops. For those of you who know your Satsuma Rebellion that occurred in Japan, here in Korea a similar event unfolded. In July of 1882 many Korean soldiers were retired against their will. They protested that for over a year after the forced retirement they had not received back pay. 1000 men, mostly the old and disabled were let go, and they were not paid their stipends of rice for 13 months. They began to protest, and who wouldn't. Hearing about this, King Gojong ordered that a months allowance of rice be given to the soldiers and he directed one Min Gyeom-ho, the overseer of the Joseon's government finances to see to it. Min Gyeom-ho was the nephew of Queen Min, and that is an important fact as the Min family would be seen as culprits. Well Min Gyeom-ho handed the job over to his steward who sold the rice he had been given for the soldiers and used that money to buy millet which was further mixed with sand and bran, the good classic old case of embezzlement, like cutting cocaine with baking powder. Well the the substance by the time it got to the soldiers had gone rotten and as you might imagine it really pissed off the already pissed off protesting soldiers. So on July 23rd of 1882 a riot broke out in Uigeumbu. Pissed off soldiers marched upon the residence of Min Gyeom-ho who they suspected was the culprit swindling them all. Min Gyeom-ho heard of the incoming rioters and ordered the police to arrest their ringleaders and have them executed the next day. The rioters received word of these orders and broke into Min Gyeom-ho's home, but by that point he had fled so they simply trashed the place. Without the man to exact their vengeance upon the rioters marched to the armory and began stealing arms and ammo. Then they went to a local prison, overwhelmed its guards and released the arrested ringleaders alongside other political prisoners. At this point Min Gyeom-ho was hiding at the Royal palace. He panicked and ordered the army to quell the revolt, but by this time the revolt was snow balling. The armed rioters then turned their attention to two different groups of people, the first were the Japanese and second Korean progressives aka the reformers supporting the new changes to Korea propped by Japan. A group of rioters headed to Lt Horimoto's quarters where they grabbed him and took turns stabbing him to death. Another group of over 3000 rioters marched upon the Japanese legation. Over at the legation were the minister to Korea Hanabusa Yoshitada alongside 17 staff members and 10 legation police. The legation was quickly surrounded prompting Hanabusa to order all the documents within to be burnt. As the smoke and flames increased, many of the legation staff used it as a cover to escape through the rear gate. The Japanese fled to the nearest harbor where they took a boat down the Han river enroute to Incheon. From there they thought they would be safe, but Korean soldiers continued to hunt them down, soon they were fleeing to another harbor, but this time the Koreans caught up to them. 6 Japanese were killed with another 5 severely injured. The survivors got onto a boat and made a break for open sea, eventually running into the British survey ship HMS flying fish which took them in.  The rioters certainly did not stop at the Japanese legation, on July 24th they took to marching upon the royal palace still hunting Min Gyeom-ho. They got their hands on Min Gyeom-ho killing him alongside a dozen high ranking Joseon officials including Heungin-gun Yi Choe-Heung, the older brother of the Daewongun. It should be noted that while he was the brother to him, he was also publicly critical against his isolationist policies and could be seen as an ally to the Min clan. The rioters also hunted for Queen Min, intending to kill her as well. They saw the Queen and the rest of the Min allies as the main culprits behind the corruption going on in the government. Queen Min managed to escape the palace being carried literally away on a guards back dressed as a commoner. She fled for refuse in the home of Min Eung-sik in Chungju of Chungcheong province. Meanwhile the rioters managed to kill an official of the Min family and the entire ordeal became known as the Soldiers Riot of 1882 or the Imo uprising.  Now the Imo uprising was sort of a symptom of something else going on in Korea. I had mentioned previously that the Korean politics had created sort of a faction situation. It was not necessary one side was Pro Chinese and the other Japanese, a lot more was going on, but I will try to summarize it as best as I can. During the reign of the Daewongun, many of the Korean literati, you know the political, scholar, high society types, well they considered a lot of what the Daewongun was doing to be unfaithful to confucianism. However when the Daewogun was kicked out, they began to see all the grand reforms and treaties emerging under King Gojong as even worse. In fact they never really saw it as “King Gojong's” but rather Queen Min and her entourage of family members in high positions taking Korea to hell in a handbasket.  During the Imo uprising incident there was a rather important figure amongst the rioting troops, Prince Waneun, the illegitimate son of Daewongun and one of his concubines named Kyeseongwol. He was the older half brother to King Gojong. Now When the Daewongun was “forcefully retired” he actually did not go without a fight and attempted a coup, which just saw him getting deported to China, and this greatly upset Prince Waneun. But he bide his time, entering the Korean military as a low ranking officer. When the rioters struck in 1881, Daewongun had sent agents to instigate them, one of which was Prince Waneun. It seems the Daewongun was trying to replace King Gojong with his illegitimate son, but the riots failed. When they arrested the rioters many of their leaders were executed, one of which was Prince Wanuen. Who ordered his specific execution is unknown, myth has the Korean politician Yi Yun-yong being responsible, but there is also evidence he did so under orders from Queen Min and King Gojong. On October 28th of 1881 he was poisoned to death while in prison at Jeju. The reason I bring up this minor part of the story is to highlight that there were serious efforts being made by political factions to usurp King Gojong and steer Korea in certain directions. The Daewongun clearly supported the rioters and their cause. In fact it is known the Daewongun exhorted the rioters to specifically bring down the Min clan and expel the Japanese. Daewongun was very much in the China camp politically. King Gojong clearly did not support their cause, but he saw the writing on the wall. King Gojong asked his father to return to the palace, who promptly showed up with 200 of the rioters backing him up. King Gojong capitulated to their demands, one of which was to restore his father to power. King Gojong basically said this to his father when he showed up to the palace “put an immediate end to the wild melee and I will give power over the small and large matters of the government”. And thus the Daewongun was back in power. His first order of business as you might imagine was to remove from office all officials of the Min family, he even had his own brother executed because he had allied to them! At the time it was believed Queen Min had been killed, thus he had a funeral process begun for her. Now in response to the killing of the Japanese officials, well Japan was not too happy about that. The foreign office under Inoue Kaoru ordered Hanasuba to return to Seoul to hold a meeting with senior Korean officials to get them to bring the rioters responsible to justice. If any more of these rioters were to attack Japanese, Japan was going to bear military force against them, regardless of whatever the Korean government did. Inoue instructed Hanabusa, that if he saw the Koreans making any attempts to hide the perpetrators and not punish them, or if they refused simply to comply at all with their demands this would constitute a breach of peace and thus the IJA would be rolling in. Japan also sent an official letter to the Korean government with an envoy, indicting it for the crimes that had been done to the Japanese and that Japan would be sending forces to occupy the port of Chempulpo. Hanabusa meanwhile was instructed that if China or another nation attempted to mediate on behalf of Korea, he should refuse this, but to reiterate none the less that Japan still believed her relations with Korea were friendly and that they best restore that friendly relationship. Thus Hanabusa was to go to Seoul with IJA and IJN forces to protect him and other Japanese officials. Now while Japan was doing all of this, in the background they were also calling up reserves for their military in advance and Inoue Kaoru made sure to notify western ministers in Tokyo they were sending IJA/IJN forces to Korea to “protect their citizens”. He strongly emphasized this was all in good faith and that their intentions were peaceful, but when the Americans offered to mediate he declined this off the bat, not a great look. As for the Chinese reaction, Li Hongzhang who was in charge had left his post just before the crisis had broken out, taking a leave of absence because his mother had just died. How fate tosses the dice sometimes eh? Thus China's de facto foreign minister was left out of touch and Korea did not have a Chinese legation on hand. Li Shuchang, the Chinese minister in Tokyo received word of the situation and sent word home. On August 1st, Zhang Shusheng dispatched 3 warships of the Beiyang Fleet under the command of Admiral Ding Ruchang to Korea with the Qing official Ma Jianzhong to assess the situation. 4500 Qing forces led by General Wu Changqing arrived and they quickly aided the Korean government in quelling the rioters thus thwarting a full blown rebellion. The Qing forces took control over Seoul. This was the first time that China had military intervened in Korea since 1636 and constituted a major departure in her foreign policy over Korea. Would this situation ignite a war between the Qing and Japan? I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The imo uprising was going to escalate things for China, Japan and Korea, simply boiling the pot of war gradually over time. How long could the diplomats and politicians keep those rattling the sabers of war?  

Mark and Jonny Numb (@JonnyNumb on Twitter) continue their "Feel Good" series by talking about the 2009 horror romance Thirst. Directed by Park Chan-wook, and starring Song Kang-ho, Kim Ok-bin, and a large rock, the movie focuses on what happens when a priest becomes a vampire. In this episode, they also discuss terrible fishing trips, people being thrown into the woods, and the filmography of Park Chan-wook. Enjoy!

Life is But a Dream (일장춘몽) is a Park Chan-Wook directed, 20-minute short film. It is a romantic martial arts fantasy film starring Kim Ok-vin, Park Jeong-min and Yoo Hae-jin. It has amazing music inspired by pansori, rock and '70s prog, and despite being shot on an iPhone looks amazing. By default the best advert you will see all year, because Park Chan-Wook done it.Watch it here right now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnzKqxtnWDY The K-botak Podcast is a podcast where I review Korean films and television series or K-dramas.Join the conversation on Twitter, be part of the K-botak community and discuss your favourite shows, movies, actors and more.Follow K-botak on Buzzsprout and catch the show on Spotify, Apple, Google and most places you get podcasts.    Music used in this episode:'Life is But a Dream' soundtrack by Jang Young-gyu

THIRST - "Thirst After Sinful Pleasures." This week we appropriately question everything about life, death, religion, feminism and our own THIRST (2009). Director Park Chan-wook holds nothing back  with sumptuous  imagery and body horror to delight all you gore hounds. Beautiful performances from Song Kang-ho (Parasite) and Kim Ok-bin who is a force to be reckoned with!We hope you enjoy this fresh episode!Support the show

This episode we discuss the one of a kind Thirst by Park Chan-Wook in 2009. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762073/ Send us an email at zafilm2film@gmail.com or tweet us at https://twitter.com/zafilm2film ! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Film critic and Bloody Women Commissioning Editor Leila Latif joins us for a deep dive into two vampire horror films that live in that delightful and delicious grey area between arthouse and horror cinema. Let the Right One In  from 00:08:24Thirst from 00:47:41This season is made possible with the support of Arrow Video. Our pick this week is The Villainess, a Western-inspired hyper-violent revenge thriller starring Kim Ok-bin.   Produced and presented by Anna Bogutskaya. ***The Final Girls are a UK-based film collective exploring the intersections of horror film and feminism.Find out more about our projects here: thefinalgirls.co.ukFollow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Support us on Patreon. Subscribe to our newsletter for a weekly dose of curated horror treats.Follow Anna on @annabdemented and Olivia is on @livihowe 

This week we are "traveling" to upstate New York to the land of mountain resorts of yore in the Catskill Mountains in New York. Fadra Nally from All Things Fadra fills us in on what is different in this region from the times of Dirty Dancing and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and why it makes a great spot for an outdoor-focused girlfriend getaway with waterfalls, wine, and shopping or a family vacation destination with hiking, kayaking and more. About Fadra Nally Fadra is a blogger and podcaster focusing on the lighter side of cars, entertainment, and travel. Her favorite destinations are as close as West Virginia and as far away as Saudi Arabia. You can find her online at AllThingsFadra.com, or on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. Tips for Visiting the Catskills The Catskills are located just about two hours north of New York City and cover 700,000 acres over four counties, with the Hudson River creating the eastern border. While the Catskills were popular in the 1950s, especially with families in NYC, many of those all-inclusive type of family resorts are no longer there. Dirty Dancing was based on a resort called Grossinger's, which is no longer operating, but it was actually filmed in Virginia and North Carolina. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel episodes in the Catskills were filmed at a family-run resort called Scott's Family Resort at Oquaga Lake. The Catskills are a good four-season destination, with skiing and winter sports in the winter, great hiking year-round, and beautiful fall foliage in October. However, some activities and attractions may only be open from May to October. There are a lot of breweries, wineries, and distilleries in the Catskill region. Kaaterskill Falls is one of the tallest in New York State at 260 feet, which is higher than Niagara Falls. It is approximately a one-mile hike, including a series of stairs, to reach the top and an overlook. Some trail heads may be closed so look online to find alternatives. There are many cute towns with great bookstores, restaurants, and boutiques for shopping. There are many cabin rentals that you can find on Airbnb that are perfect for a self-contained getaway where you can either cook or bring in take out. Mohonk Mountain House near New Paltz is a great hotel to stay at or even visit for brunch and then enjoy the hiking trails on the grounds. Catskill, Kingston,and Hudson are all great little towns to set up a home base. Fadra stayed in Cocksackie on the water, which has a smaller downtown that is undergoing a revitalization to make it a wedding destination. Cocksackie has a great bottle shop and Chez Figata is a good restaurant to try for dinner. If you go further west in the Catskills you will find more resorts and mountains. It is a great destination for a girlfriend getaway, romantic getaway, or a family vacation. The Kartrite Resort in the Catskills is great for families and has an indoor waterpark. Fadra stayed at an Airbnb called Heron's View. Be sure to plan in advance if you are going to rent a cabin or vacation home. [00:00:00.150] - Kim Where can you find Waterfalls, wine and shopping just a couple of hours from New York City? Stay tuned to find out.   [00:00:18.730] - Announcer Welcome to Vacation Mavens, a family travel podcast with ideas for your next vacation and tips to get you out the door. Here are your hosts, Kim from Stuffed Suitcase and Tamara from We3Travel.   [00:00:33.700] - Kim So, Tamara, we are in February. And, you know, things are starting to change a bit in the travel sector. I feel like we've been in a pretty standard operating procedure. But we recently had some big news come out for people that are planning to fly into the United States, and that is that they are going to require a negative covid test.   [00:00:56.890] - Tamara Yeah, and I think that's a big deal. I'm thinking of people that have done some trips like to the Caribbean especially. I've been seeing a lot of that or Mexico. And now to think about how you are going to get that test on the way back, otherwise you're not going to be allowed home. Tt's something you have to really take into consideration. I think in the past, we've thought about testing to leave, but not testing to come back. So definitely a change.   [00:01:23.920] - Kim Yeah, I think it makes sense. It seems good. I'll be honest where we're at with not traveling at all. It seems odd that people are traveling to the Caribbean and Mexico.   [00:01:34.420] - Kim But I know that some people are choosing to do that and definitely still planning vacations and traveling and stuff. But I think this is definitely going to be an extra layer of logistics that they have to consider. I know you had mentioned some testing might be done at airports or such, but I know I've received a couple of press releases from major hotels such as the Palace Resorts, where we had stayed at one Moon Palace in Jamaica.   [00:02:03.400] - Kim But they are offering free testing to their guests that will help them further. You know, American guests are flying back into the states so that that is one thing that you might consider is checking for hotels that are offering it. I think they know how much they rely on that tourism dollar. And so they're doing whatever they can to make sure that American tourists keep coming down and visiting.   [00:02:27.030] - Tamara Yeah, especially because I imagine they could get pricey. I mean, if you think about some of the private testing that is available tends to be 100 dollars or more a person, so that can definitely add to the vacation cost. I was just talking to friends of ours and we were talking about their 25th anniversary in October, and they wanted to do like a four day getaway to the Caribbean. And I was like, here are some things to think about.   [00:02:49.900] - Tamara And they're like, do you think that's still going to be in place? And I have no idea. And that's the thing is like we don't know how long. So, maybe people are thinking about a spring break trip, maybe they're thinking about summer. We just don't know how long these things are going to be in place. And it's definitely, for a four day trip, you think about the time it takes you away from your little vacation to have to deal with testing.   [00:03:12.130] - Tamara And even before you go, like even though testing is more widespread, I know here a lot of the testing that I can get easily and that they encourage us to get regularly now is the rapid test and the rapid test is not going to qualify for what most countries will we will need.   [00:03:27.640] - Tamara They'll need a PCR test for coming in, so if I try to get a PCR test, it doesn't have the same guaranteed turnaround time. And so then that could really mess up your trip. And so then you have to think about, OK, maybe I have to do private testing. Like when we talked to Amber about her trip to Hawaii, she used a company called Vault Health to do private testing before she left.   [00:03:49.570] - Tamara And so now you might be paying for testing on both sides, plus taking time away from your vacation like I was just thinking about in Mexico when we went to Riviera Maya, it was about an hour from the Cancun airport. And transportation was pretty expensive because we weren't going to rent a car because we were planning on staying on the resort and then, getting back and forth to the airport. If that's where you have to do your testing, that that's going to be time consuming out of your trip.   [00:04:17.830] - Kim So, yeah, a lot of considerations.   [00:04:20.410] - Tamara And then I think also there's things to think about. Obviously, every country has their own rules. And I mean, pretty much most of them are still off limits. But even the ones that are accepting visitors from the U.S., which are a lot of the Caribbean islands and Mexico, Costa Rica. I know I was just following our friend Sarah that talked to us about kind of where the Caribbean was and they're reopening of the islands to go to. And we talked to her back in the summer. She does a lot of reporting from down there.   [00:04:50.020] - Tamara So she's just in Anguilla and it looks like she had to have a PCR test before she left a PCR test when she arrived. And then you're quarantined in your hotel room until the results of that get back, which are supposed to be within 12 hours.   [00:05:04.690] - Tamara But then even beyond that, there's a 14 day quarantine within certain resorts or properties or a restaurant.   [00:05:11.850] - Tamara So basically they've created this little like traveler's bubble so that if you are a visitor and your negative, but you're still have a red wristband that you're in a 14 day quarantine and you can go to certain hotels, certain restaurants, but only on certain days. And then they're accessible to locals on other days to keep the locals and the visitors, I guess, a little separated. And I mean, it seems to be working. They've had no deaths and very few cases.   [00:05:38.650] - Tamara But, wow, that's a huge I don't know I don't want to say restriction on your vacation because, you know, frankly, just being able to travel at all right now is a huge privilege and so but it's really it's not everyone's like, oh, I want to go on vacation. I wanted to be feel normal. Well, you know, maybe not.   [00:05:57.250] - Kim Yeah, I think that's the thing is, it's I mean, we're still not looking at what normal is going to be for a while. And I think that's that's the big thing. I know. You know, we I do feel lucky that we have such great summers here in the Pacific Northwest and we could say, hey, we can, you know, go explore our own area again. But I think everybody is getting kind of sick of that. I know I'm you know, we love California and I'm typically down there a couple or few times a year. And we I just miss, you know, pool lounging and, you know, sunsets on the beach and all of that, you know, palm tree lifestyle. And so I don't know. And, you know, Disneyland is still not open. And I don't think it has any chance of opening for spring break, in my opinion.   [00:06:44.260] - Kim So what that must be doing to that economy and all those workers, I mean, I can't even imagine.   [00:06:49.030] - Kim So it's kind of a crazy, crazy world still. I mean, I can't believe we're coming on one full year of it.   [00:06:55.630] - Tamara And yeah, I know it's it's beyond depressing, but I'm thinking mostly about summer and I just need a change of scenery, like, desperately. And so we're going to go somewhere. You know, our plan was to go to Greece, which we wanted to do last year, this year. And that may just never happen. So my strategy right now is I'm creating backup plans.   [00:07:22.300] - Tamara So I'm just booking things that are cancelable and will go where we can go. I mean, I'm not going to book like airfare or whatever, but like I did for Greece, but it is changeable without a fee and it was a good deal. So I don't know I don't know what it will happen with that eventually.   [00:07:40.870] - Tamara And the hard thing is, like everything is contingent on everything else. And that's what drives me crazy in my life because I am a planner and have a really, really hard time like not knowing what the future holds, not being able to plan for not having anything in my control. So even just talking to Hannah about like her summer plans, like last year, she was going to do this like counselor in training year at the camp that she's gone to and then do this Israel trip.   [00:08:07.090] - Tamara And obviously that was canceled and all she did was stay home and take summer optional classes and face time with friends and go for runs with me. And then we did a couple little trips, but it was just not good. And so she was thinking that this year would be something entirely different. But then the camp said, well, we're just going to kind of push it out a year.   [00:08:30.820] - Tamara So you have another chance. You know, she'd kind of like given up on that hope that she was going to do that. So now the camp is like, well, you know what, we're just like adding an extra year to camp. So now you can do it as a rising senior as well. And everything she's ever heard has been that that's like the best year of camp. And so she really wants to do it.   [00:08:48.610] - Tamara But then we were kind of thinking this year she might focus on something a little bit more like a job or like an academic program or internship, something like that. And so it's like all these things like, is that camp, is it going to move forward? Because if it doesn't doesn't should you do this? And here are these other, like, astronomy related things that she wanted to do. But like one by one, those are getting canceled, too.   [00:09:08.830] - Tamara So they're off the table. And then we are like, if you do that, then you'd be around here. But if you're not doing that, then you wouldn't be around here and maybe you want to do a family trip versus a you know, Glenn and I go on a trip.   [00:09:20.680] - Tamara And then there's also like, well, coming back are there's still going to be quarantines and restrictions in place because like right now, especially with our school, there's very strong rules about, you know, what's allowed.   [00:09:30.460] - Tamara And so it's like, well, if we did something when you came back from camp, but you need to have time to quarantine or whatever before you would have to start up soccer practice in like mid-August. And we're also trying to look at colleges like all over the country.   [00:09:46.510] - Tamara And it's like, oh, gosh, it's just there's so many feel overwhelming. And it just feels overwhelming to get locked in, you know. Yeah. The one thing that I can then like, plan things around.   [00:09:57.220] - Kim I get it. Yeah.   [00:09:58.840] - Tamara And unfortunately it'll be like last year where it will literally be June, you know, like days before something where you finally know what the situation is.   [00:10:07.780] - Kim Yeah. Who knows. We can hold out hope and just see what's going to happen the next couple of months. But I think it's important for us all to just try and like. You said earlier it's it's still a very privileged worry and a lot of ways with what's going on, so long as we keep that in mind that it is a privilege to travel and we all miss it and we will get to it when we can, and we just all support each other and do the best we can to follow rules.   [00:10:33.250] - Kim I think the rules are there to keep everyone safe on both like visitors and locals. So I think just be following rules and make sure that you're educated about rules before you make plans. I think that's the thing to focus on right now, certainly.   [00:10:46.450] - Tamara And I think also, if you are considering doing one of those like Caribbean, Mexico, whatever trips, it seems like Canada is on the verge of telling people like if you go out of the country, you may not be able to come back in. So it's like, who knows? That could happen here as well.   [00:11:01.570] - Tamara Like right now there's bans on travel for people that are not U.S. citizens. But there's a lot of considerations to travel right now.   [00:11:13.360] - Kim Well, I mean, the Tokyo Olympics have completely been scrapped, which is just so sad and hard on that country. And I'm sure. So it's it's affected so much of, you know, I mean, it's not like they can't delay it another year like they did. So it's very sad for all those situation.   [00:11:33.010] - Tamara Yeah.   [00:11:34.000] - Kim Well, we are going to try and not focus on the sad and we are going to talk about a New York state escape. So for many people, depending on, like you've said, travel restrictions and quarantine requirements, it is a possible escape because it sounds like it's a lot of small towns, kind of keep to yourself, go outdoors, hike destination. So we are going to be talking about the Catskills.   [00:11:58.930] - Tamara Yes. Let's let's go to the Land of Dirty Dancing, right?   [00:12:02.080] - Kim Yeah, exactly.   [00:12:12.650] - Tamara Today, we're here with Fadra Nally. Fadra is a blogger and podcast author who focuses on the lighter side of cars, entertainment and travel, her favorite destinations are as close as West Virginia and as far away as Saudi Arabia. So welcome, Fadra.   [00:12:26.660] - Fadra Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk to you today about a location that's pretty close to where I am, but I've actually only been a few times.   [00:12:35.450] - Tamara We're going to talk about the Catskill Mountains, but some of our listeners may have only heard of the Catskills for movies like Dirty Dancing or I think The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, they spend some time in the Catskills. But can you explain to our listeners, like, where are the Catskill Mountains and what are some of the towns in their area if you're going to look it up on a map?   [00:12:53.000] - Fadra Well, I'll tell you, before I went last time, last November, for the first time, I only knew that I knew it from Dirty Dancing. And that was pretty much it. And, you know, it's it was kind of well known back in the 50s. It was a big sort of like a summer location for wealthy, usually Jewish families from New York City. They would head out to the Catskills and it's it's considered upstate New York.   [00:13:16.520] - Fadra It is west of the Hudson River. And it actually encompasses it's about 700,000 acres and takes up four different counties. So it's a pretty large region. It's kind of in southeast New York state. So it's a very big area. It's a mountainous area. It's actually part of the Appalachian Mountains. So there's there's a lot to see and do there. And it's kind of funny that you mentioned the entertainment aspect, because I do cover entertainment as well as travel.   [00:13:45.680] - Fadra And so it was kind of fun just to read a little bit more about it. And just a quick side note on Dirty Dancing. So the resort in that film is called Kellerman's, and it was inspired by a resort called Grossinger's, which is it's now gone. It's long gone, actually. So they actually shot that movie in Virginia and North Carolina.   [00:14:07.850] - Fadra So they didn't even shoot it in the Catskills. But Mrs. Maisel, they did actually shoot there. There's a place called Scott's Family Resort at Oquaga Lake, and it's a family run hotel. I haven't been to the one in the Catskills. I've been to similar type hotels where it's sort of like an all inclusive, rustic, family friendly family activity type place. And that one, they actually chose to film it there because that's remained largely unchanged since the 50s.   [00:14:35.060] - Tamara Yeah, it was funny. You talk about the 50s because I think my husband would get upset because growing up he always went to the Catskills and it was not in the 50s.   [00:14:43.280] - Tamara But I always call him old, so. Yeah, but but he was definitely one of the New York Jewish families that always went to the Catskills. They went to the Concord, was like the big resort then. And he tells me about like some of the comedians that came in. And so, like the whole Mrs. Maisel thing, like definitely ties into that. But it's really funny because one of the first times we went skiing together, his only experience skiing was at the Concord, which I guess is like just a small little hill that you would take like a tow rope up.   [00:15:10.310] - Tamara And so when we were going up the lift, I think it was in Mount Snow in Vermont, he was like, how high are we going? Like, how long is this lift? And I was like, I don't know. I'll take about like 10, 15 minutes. He's like, What? And then I was like, well, how long is it going to take to get down? I'm like, I don't know, like half an hour or so.   [00:15:27.590] - Tamara And he was just like so shocked because it was, you know, his experience was, you know, very much going to the Concord in the winter and skiing there. But skiing was more like, you know, that most five minutes down the hill.   [00:15:39.390] - Fadra So his idea of skiing sounds more like my idea of. So that's good to know. If I want to go skiing, I'm going to go to the Catskills.   [00:15:47.160] - Tamara Yeah, I think there are some some tougher hills or mountains, I should say now. But anyway, it's funny because he definitely always talked about his experience in the Catskills.   [00:15:57.530] - Kim That's funny. So speaking of winter and seasons, you had mentioned that you went in November, which would have been the fall. So it's it seems like maybe it's a seasonal destination. Do you know anything about some of the things that you can do around the different seasons and maybe the best time you think for people to visit?   [00:16:14.480] - Fadra Well, you know, the great thing about the Catskills are that it's really a four season area. So I think it just depends on what you like to do.   [00:16:23.150] - Fadra So I am not a skier, as you might have inferred from like those small little hills. I actually grew up doing some ski trips to Pennsylvania, which are also, you know, nice little hills, and I can handle that. So I'm not a big winter sports fan. They do have skiing there. So if that's something that you like to do, that is something that you can do in the Catskills. But the other three seasons are where you're really going to be able to take advantage of a lot of the outdoor activities.   [00:16:49.370] - Fadra So, for example, I love to kayak and we actually stayed at a place right on the Hudson River. So you do have access to the river and you do have access to the mountains. So depending on what you like to do, we stayed right by the river, which would be great for warmer weather activities. And then, of course, all the mountain activities are, you know, just a short drive away.   [00:17:09.590] - Fadra But I found November was just a bit too chilly for any activities on the river, and when you get into fall in an area like New York and in the mountains, you know, it's kind of hit or miss. You're going to have some warmer days and then you're going to have some really cold days. So I was actually content to just sit on the shore of the river. And for people that don't know, the Hudson River is a major waterway for cargo ships.   [00:17:32.850] - Fadra And so, it's kind of fun just sitting out there. In fact, our first night there, I looked out the window.   [00:17:38.610] - Fadra I'm like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And my friends were like, what's wrong? What's wrong? I said, there's a giant ship on the river.   [00:17:47.730] - Fadra So it was totally unexpected to see them go up and down. So that was kind of fun. But, you know, fall and spring are great for hiking, as is summer.   [00:17:55.270] - Fadra I mean, you could do anything in the summer, but fall, fall or spring. It was perfect for us to do some brisk hiking. And then, like I said, if if you don't mind snow and you like skiing, there are opportunities in the winter as well. So, you know, it really just depends on what you like to do. But I would definitely consider it a four season area.   [00:18:13.560] - Kim Is it really like tree heavy snow would fall be have a lot of fall colors like you hear so much about in the Northeast, or is it a little too far north for that?   [00:18:22.680] - Fadra No, I think it depends. Again, it depends on where you go. Keep in mind that the Catskill region is huge and it goes all the way from the Hudson River, pretty far west. So if you start driving up, I think you're talking about maybe elevation wise, it is it you don't get a lot of trees. No, it was actually most of the leaves were gone by the time we went. We went mid to late November.   [00:18:44.220] - Fadra So, you know, of course, the further north you go, the earlier the foliage season is. But no, the area is definitely popular for fall foliage and they definitely encourage that. In fact, it's still a big area for New York City people, even though it's a couple hours away, you'll get a lot of the leaf peepers in the fall. So, yeah, it's a beautiful area for that.   [00:19:05.050] - Tamara Yeah, I was thinking I was in the Finger Lakes in September, like late September of this year. And so they are not too different in terms of how high up they are. So feel like October would probably be prime leaf season.   [00:19:24.690] - Tamara And I definitely think that the Catskills have a lot of agritourism because when I was there for a family reunion, this was, oh, gosh, maybe 15 years ago almost. We went in the summer and there were like a lot of farms to visit. So I imagine in the fall that could be really, you know, an excellent time to like do all the pumpkin patches and stuff like that.   [00:19:49.200] - Kim I'm betting if it's near the it has a lot of trees and it's near the river, it's probably really good for birdwatching. Not that I'm into that, but I'm thinking spring time would probably be really popular.   [00:19:58.230] - Fadra I actually love bird watching, but I can't say it was something that occurred to me because along the river. So if you're going to stay along the river, you're probably going to stay in a town which is going to be a little bit more developed.   [00:20:10.740] - Kim OK, but it's more I'm picturing like Pacific Northwest Rivers, but that's more like when I lived in Kansas. It's like the Missouri River, like transport river type.   [00:20:19.020] - Fadra Exactly. Exactly.   [00:20:20.680] - Tamara Okay. Yeah. When you were talking about kayaking, I'm like, wow, the Hudson, that's that's huge. And I'm not quite sure I'd want to kayak on that.   [00:20:27.900] - Fadra You know, it's kind of funny because my husband grew up a little further south, but right along the Hudson River and he used to tell me stories of how they would jet ski all the time on the Hudson River. And you just you don't really grasp it until you're there. And you see, OK, it's a pretty big it's a pretty wide river. And then you see these massive ships going up. And I came home and I said, you were jet skiing on that river with these giant cargo ships.   [00:20:52.260] - Fadra And he said, yeah, we used to you know, they would go behind the ships and catch the wake of the ships and jump them. And, you know, I was like, we are different people. He also did black diamond skiing trails. So, you know, he's more of a thrill seeker.   [00:21:06.540] - Fadra I'm more of a I'm going to sit over here with my glass of wine and just, you know, take a look at the the world going by.   [00:21:12.090] - Fadra But, yeah, I would I would definitely do some kayaking. I'd probably be more inclined to keep it, you know, close to the shore. And there are rules on the river. So, you know, they do have buoys, so you don't go out past a certain place and there are shipping lanes. So it's not like you can just cut straight across.   [00:21:28.890] - Kim So, yeah, funny when you said that, it reminds me, I don't know if either of you are. Well I know not on TikTok, but I'm, I like TikTok sometimes and there's a thing and it's like, the best relationships always have one really boring person and one really crazy person because the it works. It's the only it's the only way that matches up.   [00:21:49.110] - Fadra Did you just call me boring?   [00:21:50.670] - Fadra Yeah, I'm, I'm with you. Compared to my look compared to my husband. I like different types. You know, I might try and exotic fish.   [00:22:01.530] - Fadra You know, you live you live large. He's done everything jump out of airplanes. Motorcycles that I'm like, let's stay in a nice luxury hotel.   [00:22:17.900] - Tamara I'm just thinking, I think that we're both the boring ones, which leaves Hannah to be the wild one.   [00:22:23.900] - Tamara But, yeah, so we talked about kayaking and, you know, maybe some hiking, things like that. Are there any other, like activities? Are there attractions that you should see in the Catskills?   [00:22:33.890] - Fadra So, you know, keep in mind that I went in November and we are, you know, in the midst of this thing called a pandemic. So, you know, I didn't get to explore everything that I wanted to see because, you know, there are reduced hours and reduced availability. And also there are some things that are open seasonally. So I would say, you know, the biggest activities are probably open from May to October. So keep that in mind.   [00:22:58.790] - Fadra I was there in November. But with that said, I think the biggest things that I would recommend are waterfalls and wineries. And even if you're not into wineries, they have a lot of distilleries that are pretty well known. They have a lot of breweries. And so we didn't actually get a chance to hit any of those. But there are some you know, there are a couple really well-known distilleries that we were looking to get to. But waterfalls, of course, are, you know, available.   [00:23:24.830] - Fadra That's that's a four season thing as well. I don't know that I would go in the winter, but it was a nice brisk hike to do the waterfalls. And, of course, you know, you have the mountains, you have the water. So you're going to get a lot of waterfalls. One of the places that we went that I absolutely loved, it's called Catskill Falls. And keep in mind that this area was founded by the Dutch.   [00:23:45.380] - Fadra So you'll get that skill like Fishkill and Peekskill and which I think I think that I think Kill actually refers to River. I think that's what I think that's what it means. So it's a Dutch word. But Catskill Falls is a it's one of the largest the highest waterfalls in New York State. It's 260 feet tall.   [00:24:05.000] - Fadra So it's actually higher than Niagara Falls. It's the tallest cascading waterfall in New York State. And it's really popular. And we went and it was it's about a one mile hike to get to the base of the waterfalls. And then you can actually go up a series of stairs to take you to the top of the waterfall. And it's a it's a beautiful overlook. It's a nice hike. And, you know, the only thing to keep in mind, again, during the pandemic, if you look online, it'll say the falls are closed.   [00:24:38.180] - Fadra And what that means is some of the trailheads are closed. So you have to be a little bit more strategic about, you know, where you park and how you access it. But Catskill Falls was really amazing. And if you're not a super outdoorsy person, if you just wanted like a nice relaxing getaway, there are all kinds of cute little towns with shopping and eating.   [00:24:59.300] - Fadra And again, you know, availability during this time is really going to vary by towns. But we found great bookstores and cute little coffee shops and restaurants and just like boutique shops, unique artsy shops. And one of the things that that I like to do when I travel is I like to stimulate the local economy and I like to try and find things that I couldn't find other, you know, in other places. So I do a lot of boutique shopping.   [00:25:26.150] - Fadra And so, yeah, they had some really unique stuff there. So I definitely recommend the shopping as well. It's great.   [00:25:32.310] - Kim It sounds like a kind of the type of place that you'd pick a nice hotel and maybe get a spa treatment and enjoy a lazy breakfast and then stroll around and maybe do a hike or two. And that's the kind of vacation I'm dreaming of right now as a kind of nice for a girlfriend getaway.   [00:25:47.630] - Tamara Yeah, exactly. A romantic getaway. I think you definitely sold both of us on the waterfalls and wine.   [00:25:52.100] - Kim Yeah, exactly. Tamara and I, those are it's like we're sold. We're in.   [00:25:56.330] - Fadra And actually that's why I went in November. So last year was a big birthday for me. And I had decided going into the year that this is going to be my year to travel. And as you know, the world had other plans. And so two of my friends actually said, let's do just a local getaway. You know, it's drivable for all of us. And so we it was three girlfriends and we stayed in a little Airbnb, beautiful Airbnb on the water with three bedrooms.   [00:26:26.870] - Fadra And it was just, you know, it was a perfect getaway for us. And, you know, the thing is right now that you can go out, but you can also, you know, get some takeout and have a girls night in and just be away from home.   [00:26:39.020] - Tamara And it was really, really nice. Yeah, well, I share that big birthday with you, and I was also planning a year of travel, so I'm going to make up for it. We are definitely eventually I kept saying we're going to do in twenty, twenty one. I'm like, uh, maybe the latter half of 2021.   [00:26:55.970] - Fadra So yeah. Still holding out hope.   [00:26:58.550] - Kim So is there any, special area, you know you've, you've just been the one time. But I know with your research and probably what you plan, what about any favorite areas to stay because you said it's a huge region, so. What would you like, what towns or areas do you think are the the winning winning spots? So, you know, I've actually been up that way, you know, quite a few times because my I have family that lives up in Fishkill, New York, which is a little further south of the Catskills, and it's on the east side of the Hudson River.   [00:27:29.620] - Fadra So my husband and I go up there almost every year and we do a lot of day trips. And so I've done things like hiking and biking and brunching at Mohonk Mountain House. I don't know if you're familiar with.   [00:27:41.260] - Tamara Oh, yeah, I've wanted to stay there.   [00:27:42.850] - Fadra Yeah, it's beautiful in New Paltz, New York.   [00:27:45.160] - Fadra So that's a place where normally you can only go there if you are a guest. But, you know, fun little secret. If you make a brunch reservation, then you could spend the whole day there. You know, they'll let you in as long as you have brunch reservations or something. And so they have some great trails that go all the way around the lake. So I've done that.   [00:28:04.960] - Fadra But this time I stayed further north in a town called. If you were to read it, it looks like it's Cock Sakey, which is a horrible name, but they pronounce it Cook Soki. .   [00:28:19.270] - Fadra I thought it was really just the perfect location. It's not too far from Albany. It's a really easy drive. I live, you know, close to Baltimore and drove up there and it was actually a really, really easy drive. I thought it was a good location and it was kind of a good place where we could go to the east side of the river if we wanted to visit. Some towns over there like Hudson is a really cute town there.   [00:28:45.370] - Fadra If we wanted to go as far south to a town called Kingston, we went there or if we wanted to stay closer, you know, there there is actually a town called Catskill. And then, of course, the town we stayed in Cocksackie and just in the little downtown area, there's not there's not a ton there.   [00:29:03.040] - Fadra They're actually doing a lot of revitalization there. They have some investors coming in. And, you know, I think they're going to kind of try and make it a wedding destination. But there were some great restaurants we ate at this place called Chez Figata, and they were open for business. There was a great bottle shop, which we call them wine stores. But I guess up there it's a bottle shop and really great wines and just some small little little shops that we were able to walk to from where we were staying.   [00:29:31.540] - Fadra So I actually really love staying there and I wouldn't mind staying there again, but I would love to explore the areas further west. So the Catskills go much further west, a little bit deeper into the mountains, and that's where you're going to find the resorts and the ski areas and so on.   [00:29:49.450] - Tamara And what about Woodstock, Woodstock's part of the Catskills, isn't it? Or is that further South?   [00:29:53.350] - Fadra It is. Well, it's further south, but it's very close to New Paltz. So, you know, Woodstock, as in the Woodstock is right up there, which was actually just a big, you know, farming area, big farm where they had it.   [00:30:06.400] - Fadra So you'll find that there's pretty, how shall I say, crunchy towns up that way.   [00:30:13.270] - Tamara Yeah, those are fun. Like you said, though, bookstore's like unique boutiques like I love that kind of things.   [00:30:20.710] - Tamara I again I keep going back to like maybe more girlfriend getaway a romantic getaway. But at the same time like I know that we've done family things there and there are definitely I feel like there's like amusement park.   [00:30:32.410] - Tamara I'm trying to think of like all the things my nieces and nephews did when we were on that family reunion quite a few years ago.   [00:30:39.760] - Fadra Well, let me just say that right now, especially to the moms out there, we're pretty much home with everybody almost all the time. And it's OK to take a little time for yourself and do do a girlfriend getaway. I know it's easy to think like, well, if we're spending the time or the money, we should do a family trip. But it's really worthwhile to just kind of refresh and recharge and take that back home to your family.   [00:31:09.310] - Tamara Yeah, I think especially this should be a year where there should be less guilt about that because we're like, oh, I never see them. We're so busy. I'm like, no, you've seen them.   [00:31:18.910] - Fadra So we need to spend more time as a family. No, we don't.   [00:31:24.880] - Kim I have to say, I was, you know, really thankful that we never, you know, embrace the RV or tiny home lifestyle, you know? But then I was thinking of our friend Brianna, who runs Crazy family adventure, and they've been living in their RV with her, you know, kids for six years now or something. And I'm like, I guess this pandemic's really not that different for them.   [00:31:48.280] - Fadra So my friend Andrea Updyke, I don't know if you know Andrea, they recently bought an RV. By the way, RVs are hard to come by right now because because because of the pandemic, everyone's like, let's get on the road. So they bought an RV and they actually just did a trip out to the Grand Canyon from North Carolina. And it was a three week trip and I said, how was it, and she said, actually, you know, it's great, we had a wonderful trip, we all got along really well.   [00:32:15.450] - Fadra But it's funny because when she's home and I think when you're away with your family, it's a little bit different. So she says when we're home, a lot of times they'll plug the RV in on their driveway. And she uses that as her little like oasis away from her family.   [00:32:30.630] - Kim It's like her, she shed. I think it's funny.   [00:32:37.050] - Tamara So, you know, we were talking about that its kind of good for the girlfriend getaway, a romantic getaway. I remember when Glenn and I were dating, when we lived in New York and we went up to the Catskills, we stayed to someplace I wish I could remember.   [00:32:48.570] - Tamara It was like a B&B, but we stayed in like a loft in the barn and it was on a pond that was supposed to be like, I don't know where they filmed on Golden Pond or something like that. And I remember like rowing in a rowboat was so romantic.   [00:33:03.150] - Tamara But there are you know, there are still some family resorts up there. Do you have any that, you know, kind of heard of or know about? I think the one that I've that comes to mind for me is Kartrite, which has like the water park inside, kind of like a great wolf kind of thing.   [00:33:19.170] - Tamara But are there some more of those kind of the traditional like what used to be Catskill family resorts?   [00:33:24.870] - Fadra There are there are about 25 different mountain resort.   [00:33:29.760] - Fadra So if you're looking for a mountain resort in particular, they all have a little bit of a different focus. So some are that family oriented, all inclusive, where it's, you know, three meals a day or whatever it is. And they have all the family activities and everything is right there. Others are casino resorts and some are ski resorts. So I think it really just depends on what you're looking for.   [00:33:53.620] - Kim It's good to know that there's probably a lot of options out there.   [00:33:56.230] - Kim I seem to recall I recently wrote a post and I was referencing like some All-Inclusive in the United States, and I seem to recall one that's there. And I can't think of which one now, but I know it was in that upstate New York area and it's probably in that region, I'm guessing. And it's one of the all inclusive that kind of attracts families.   [00:34:13.360] - Fadra Yeah. And when you when you mention all inclusive, I mean, here's the thing. Depending on the resort, I've stayed at a couple in the U.S., not up in the Catskills. And, you know, the one thing I want people to keep in mind is you're probably not going to get the all all inclusive experience at, say, like in the Caribbean. So it's it's a little bit different. Some that are more old fashioned and more family oriented.   [00:34:37.200] - Fadra To me, they feel more like summer camp for families. Right. And then others, I've been to some I've been to some in the Poconos, and that's more like a cruise ship on land. So it's still not quite that Caribbean feel. But I think it's important to kind of reset your expectations for what an all inclusive is if you're doing something within the U.S..   [00:34:58.290] - Tamara That's true. Very true. It's definitely not a yeah. Not the same. You know, bring me my drink by the poolside.   [00:35:04.820] - Fadra Exactly, exactly.   [00:35:06.870] - Kim It's more of just like a meal package included. Yes, exactly.   [00:35:10.380] - Fadra So it's also a good area for camping. And by camping, I mean tent camping. We talked about RV camping. I got to be honest, for years I wanted that to be my thing. It's not my thing. In fact, I mentioned my friend when she got an RV and it was just very exciting. And I mentioned it to my husband. I said, what would you think about this? And he looks at me and he goes, No.   [00:35:32.850] - Fadra And I said, Really? He's like, Do you really think that's us? We're more like luxury hotel kind of people, which makes me sound sort of snobby. It doesn't have to be a luxury hotel, but I like places like you said, like something that's a little bit unique, like staying in a loft in a barn or something that's just that feels really clean and modern and comfortable. So we actually rented the first time ever that I stayed in an Airbnb and I absolutely loved it.   [00:36:00.570] - Fadra And I'm really worried now because I don't know if all experiences are that good. So we stayed at a place called Heron's View, which is right on the Hudson River in Cocksackie. And like I said, it was an older home. They completely renovated it. So it still had character, but it was modern and clean and I just loved it. So I definitely recommend that.   [00:36:23.610] - Fadra But again, I hate to keep referring to the P word, but in the time of the pandemic, these kind of things actually book up because a lot of people who maybe would have, you know, done their European vacation or gone on a cruise, they're not they're looking for these smaller, family oriented, more accessible type vacations. So these things actually fill up fairly quickly. In fact, the place where we stayed, Heron's view, I think for the entire month of August, it was rented by three working women out of New York City that just wanted to get out of the city.   [00:36:59.460] - Fadra And so it wasn't really a vacation. It was just a place for them to stay while they were working. So you'll find a lot more of those kinds of things. So I definitely recommend planning in advance for whatever it is. That you want to do?   [00:37:10.920] - Tamara Yeah, and we had that when we went to the Adirondacks over the summer and I definitely think it's going to continue. I think people are already looking at some of that this year, even if it's their backup plan.   [00:37:22.580] - Tamara You know, like if other things can't happen, at least they have something. So the better properties, like you said, like the ones that have those unique characteristics or the views or the you know, they're lakeside like that type of thing, if you're looking for that. I agree. They definitely book it up early. Those I think it's going to continue to be a very popular way to travel throughout 2021.   [00:37:44.600] - Fadra I think so, too. And, you know, I want to mention that because a lot of people feel like they can't travel.   [00:37:51.470] - Fadra And, you know, of course you have to pay attention to state requirements and state restrictions and your personal level of comfort as well. But, you know, because we all work in the travel industry, you know, I want to make sure that people know that you can travel, you can travel safely. You know, it just depends on where you're going and how you're choosing to travel. I think we went out to eat maybe once, maybe twice.   [00:38:15.440] - Fadra But we we did takeout and we brought it back. You know, we all made sure that we were safe before we traveled together. We brought takeout back. We brought board games with us. You know, we went to the bottle shop and got bottles of wine. And it was really about spending time with each other in a different destination. So you can do it. I don't think that you have to put off travel. You just have to figure out more creative ways to do it.   [00:38:39.530] - Kim Yeah, that's what we're starting to see. I mean, these these towns and tourist districts, I mean, as travel writers, we're seeing what they how they've been impacted. And I don't know if many of them can go through another summer or even spring into summer facing this.   [00:38:56.030] - Kim So I think it is smart for us to figure out where our level is and make sure, of course, that you're following any rules and restrictions, but then do what works best for your family and help try and support the local economy. I love that you talk about buying from the local shops. And, you know, we've been trying to do that locally, just eating at our local restaurants and getting order out instead of, you know, visiting as many chains and little things like that.   [00:39:21.290] - Kim So I think there are ways that if you're comfortable and you're following the rules and restrictions Tamara do you know, does New York State have any current travel restrictions?   [00:39:31.400] - Tamara They do. They have had for quite a while. So definitely check their website. They had some quarantine restrictions. There's a form that you need to fill out. Yeah. So definitely before you go, make sure you understand what the restrictions are. The good side is that I don't know what your experience was, Fadra, but I know when we were in the Adirondacks, it's like because New York has taken things very seriously, we saw a lot of compliance, you know, like we didn't have many issues.   [00:39:59.420] - Tamara It was it felt like a pretty safe place to go, you know, so that I really appreciate it.   [00:40:06.610] - Fadra I mean, I felt comfortable. But it's one of those things where if you're walking around town, you're having a mask on. Whether you're inside or outside, you just you wear the mask. And when even when we went hiking, there were people that wore masks. We chose not to wear them outside. But you make sure if if that's how someone feels comfortable, you give them a wide berth when you pass them on the trail, right?   [00:40:29.090] Yeah, definitely. We we would usually have something that we would like pull up if you're passing someone. But I definitely appreciated the people that didn't have it and they made sure they stepped far off the trail and that was good.   [00:40:43.670] - Kim So do you have any final tips that you'd like to share for, you know, if someone's thinking of planning a trip to the Catskills?   [00:40:50.840] - Fadra Well, just to kind of recap some of the things we talked about, I'd say planning it in advance, you know, make sure there's availability for where you might want to stay, especially right now. Make sure you know what's open, whether it's something that's closed for seasonal reasons or it's closed because of, you know, pandemic reasons, because you don't want to get your heart set on something. You'd be like, oh, well, we can't do that now and then.   [00:41:13.610] - Fadra You know, you don't know. You don't know what to do. I also want to mention that just because it's outside doesn't mean it's easily accessible. This is true, honestly, throughout the country, there are some trailheads that are closed primarily to reduce the number of people, you know, a lot of the national parks, which drives me a little crazy that, you know, some of the parking lots are closed and the shops are closed and some of the attractions are closed.   [00:41:39.230] - Fadra But more importantly, the bathrooms are closed. That's the only thing that bothers me.   [00:41:44.690] - Fadra But they do that because they want to kind of discourage, you know, large crowds of people gathering together. The other thing, and I sort of hinted at this is be prepared for any kind of weather. Even in the summer, it can get very chilly in the mountains. So we were staying right on the water and it it was actually nice during the day and then it would drop down at night. But, you know, a lot of places are used to having you know, we had a fire pit, we had an outdoor heater.   [00:42:10.760] - Fadra So but we definitely brought layers as well.   [00:42:14.340] - Tamara Yeah, very good point. I mean, even in the summer when you're in the mountains, it gets colder. Well, speaking of layers of question that we ask, all of our guest is, what do you wear when you travel? Do you have any favorite brands or gear?   [00:42:29.400] - Fadra Well, for me, it changes by season. So, for example, in the summer, I love fit flops and I wear them pretty much everywhere I go.   [00:42:39.000] - Fadra If I'm hiking, I'm more of a I wear new balance hiking shoes. If if I'm hiking, I don't do hiking boots, I do hiking shoes. But in the summer I do flip flops. This winter I've been wearing a lot of toms and I don't mean the little canvas toms. Toms makes some nice, they're kind of like sneaker ankle boots and I love them and I also have some wool clogs from earthier. Can you tell that footwear is important to me.   [00:43:05.400] - Fadra I like to be comfortable. And I also did a little shopping in Kingston, New York, which is a little bit south of Catskill, and I bought a shirt from a boutique. Between us, it's the most expensive shirt I've ever bought, but I love it. It's from a brand called Faherty. It's hard to say f h e r t y. And I've heard that it's my new favorite shirt. It's just like it looks like it's a gray wool shirt, but it's just a button up shirt with just the right fit, the right stretch.   [00:43:34.110] - Fadra And so like that's my go to shirt.   [00:43:36.150] - Tamara Now that's what I love about boutique shopping, though. It's I mean, I rarely do it here because I can't afford it on a regular basis. But it's just so nice to have something that's unique and like you said, that has like that special fit.   [00:43:50.130] - Tamara And you're going to remember going to remember where you got it. Going to remember the time that you had it with your girlfriends and all of that.   [00:43:54.870] - Fadra So every time I put it on, I text my friends and say I'm wearing my special shirt today and I know exactly what I'm talking about. That's awesome.   [00:44:02.820] - Kim Well, thank you so much for all these awesome tips. And why don't you let our listeners know where they can find you online? Sure.   [00:44:09.390] - Fadra Well, I have a blog called All Things Fadra, and you can find it at all things Phaedra dot com. It's spelled FADRA and I also produce a lot of videos. So I do have I do have quite a few travel videos on my YouTube channel and that's YouTube.com/allthingsfadra and I'm a sometime podcast store where I talk about TV in movies and you can find all the info on that at StingerUniverse.com.   [00:44:36.510] - Tamara And I've gotten a lot of tips from you guys on things to watch, so I enjoy listening.   [00:44:42.480] - Fadra Pandemic is a perfect time to really dig into entertainment.   [00:44:46.200] - Kim Can you believe how long ago Tiger King was like four years ago? That was still. That was it.   [00:45:12.690] - Kim Yes, but Fadra, you have to make time for Bridgton, OK?   [00:45:16.500] - Fadra Not with my son around though.   [00:45:18.180] - Kim No, definitely not. Well, you know, if you're into entertainment, you can't pass that by.   [00:45:26.790] - Tamara I kind of thought I was a teen drama kind of thing. And then I started watching. I'm like, oh, OK.   [00:45:33.150] - Fadra Isn't it sort of like a period teen drama, though?   [00:45:35.580] - Tamara Well, yeah, yeah it's yeah. It's like what the eighteen hundreds supposed to be.   [00:45:40.350] - Kim Well I mean it's just back to like when I mean I think the problem is the fact that girls used to be married off when they turned 17 and 18 like you come into your first season and you better get married then are you going to be on the shelf, you know, type mentality, then you'll be an old old maid or.   [00:45:56.100] - Fadra Yeah, well, we just got a new elliptical so I need something to motivate me and get my heart rate up so that if I don't work nights.   [00:46:06.360] - Tamara So have you ever watched Reign?   [00:46:09.540] - Kim No, I haven't is it ok? I need to watch that one.   [00:46:12.030] - Tamara If you liked Bridgton then you will definitely like that.   [00:46:15.750] - Kim I've been thinking I need to watch that, but I want to watch Queen's Gambit first and I just started. I haven't watched it yet and I was debating because I was trying to start watching the office, which Paul really liked the office years ago, like when it was out and I never really got into it with him, but a couple of times I would see some episodes. And so I thought I should go back and start it like season one and watch it. Yeah, but then I was just like I loaded it and I watched the pilot last night. I was like, there's like nine seasons and they're twenty some episodes per season. I mean, it's a lot.   [00:46:48.210] - Tamara We've watched all of those with Hannah like a few years ago we went through it. But I will say like I love the office. But the things that Michael did that were cringeworthy then are like a hundred times more cringeworth now. And you're like, how did they ever put that on the air? You know?   [00:47:06.060] - Kim I watched the first one. I'm like, oh my goodness, this is sort of hard to watch.   [00:47:09.640] - Fadra Pretty sure I worked for Michael Scott, so. I think we've seen every single episode about 17 times, so we're well versed in the office.   [00:47:22.480] - Tamara What I want is just a compilation of all of the practical jokes that Jim plays on Dwight like that would just make me laugh, like I would roll over, you know, just like watching an hour straight of all of those.   [00:47:35.920] - Fadra You know what? Let me just give one plug for a little show you guys should watch. Speaking of the office, it's a show on Netflix called We Are the Champions. If you haven't watched it, it's I think like a six or seven is running through my head. Yeah, it's like a six or seven episode docu series by Rainn Wilson, who played Dwight on the office. And, you know, I'm mentioning it because it goes to all different parts of the world and and the country so we can kind of tie it back to travel a little bit.   [00:48:03.820] - Fadra And it's really about unique competitions. It's like there's one and I think it's England, a cheese rolling competition where they roll a wheel of cheese down a very steep hill in this small town. And it's a big competition for who can get to the bottom and catch the cheese first. There's another one about the frog jumping competition in Calberas County, California. So it's just a really fun show. And, you know, even the kids would like it.   [00:48:31.870] Great recommendation. Well, thanks so much, Fadra, for spending time with us. And yeah, we look forward to hopefully chatting with you again soon and maybe eventually we'll see each other again on a vacation or somewhere..   [00:48:49.360] - Kim Well, as always, thanks for listening. And we have something exciting if you go to on Instagram, if you go to Stuffed Suitcase or We3Travel, go to one of our Instagram pages and check out our post.   [00:49:01.390] - Kim We are actually doing a giveaway with a lot of amazing books that will help you at least be inspired. If you are thinking of planning a vacation, it'll help you get some things figured out and started on your vacation planning. So go to our Instagram and check that out.   [00:49:17.620] - Tamara Yep. And stay tuned, because next week we're going to be talking about tips for saving for travel. And I think this is a big one because as we've talked about before, like budget is certainly an issue. And I think we're going to be trying to share as many tips as we can in the next few episodes and from different people about ways to save on travel and for travel. We'll chat with you again in two weeks.  

Kim Ok viene abbandonata vicino al confessionale di una chiesa cattolica nella Corea del Sud di metà anni '70. Non ci sono indizi per ricostruire il suo passato. Tranne una lettera scritta a mano lasciata nella culla. Ma di questa lettera, ne Kim, ne la sua famiglia di adozione, sapranno mai nulla.

Mark and Kiyon discuss the excellent 2017 action film The Villainess. Directed by Jung Byung-gil and starring Kim Ok-bin, this extremely fun (and violent) action film focuses on a deadly assassin looking for revenge. In this episode, they discuss first-person action scenes, Korean action films and kitchen fights. Enjoy!

Podcast Description “Really it’s a cult. They prey on the people who don’t know, who are the weakestWho are going through the hardest time and I met a lot of people going through really, really hard time…everybody’s going through their pain or their hurt. And it just seems like Lambda is the hope for them. And then I feel bad for them because I try and tell ‘em Lambda doesn’t know shit, this is a bullshit-ass program, you should try and get out of the ISA…but by the time you actually realize that it’s bullshit you’re already X% invested in the ISA.”Jonathan Martinez​ has 5+ years of experience as a Designer working on a wide-range of projects. He started from print to digital and pivoted to UX/UI Design. He currently works with remote agile-development agencies as a freelance consultant to maximize budgets, and save developer time with a Lean UX workflow.​ Additional Resources https://twitter.com/noelbaron/status/1288261119476408320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1288261119476408320%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.trello.services%2Ftweets.html7B22secret223A22lTb750fgvJCKq1o68YiJNpzxw2Jpa8MVNcd4cK5ysx9WZi0VJQSrwLiV4YRkbUDp222C22context223A7B22version223A22build-5509222C22member223A2255e97874dbb2337d37e76966222C22permissions223A7B22board223A22write222C22organization223A22write222C22card223A22write227D2C22organization223A225b509813b0d9fe70470296b9222C22board223A225b5098454efea8c1ff937ab4222C22card223A225f28432e047c5375077b9989222C22command223A22attachment-sections227D2C22locale223A22en-US227D Transcription 00:30 Kim Crayton: Hello, everyone. And welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene podcast. My guest is Jonathan Martinez; pronouns are he / him. Jonathan, please introduce yourself to the audience.Jonathan Martinez: Hey everybody, how y'all doin'? My name is Jonathan Martinez, and the Internet world calls me JM—JM the Creative. So I'm also cool wit' just JM. And yeah, I'm on the podcast, I'm here to cause a scene.Kim: OK, well, [laughs] let's do that. So I always start to show the same way. Can you tell me why is it important to cause a scene? And how are you causing a scene? And we'll start the conversation from there.Jonathan: OK, cool. So, man, that's... it goes deep. Why is important to cause a scene? I wish I didn't have to cause a scene. Really, to be honest, I wanna be able to play fair, you know, play nice, but sometimes you got to cause a scene to be heard. And, you know, it seems like sometimes it’s the only way you could really get your way is to just start wildin' out a little bit.Kim: So how are you causing a scene specifically, Mr. Martinez? [Laughs]Jonathan: I'm just speakin' up, I guess. And, you know, also letting myself be known as I speak up, also. That's why when you aksed me if I wanted to be anonymous, I was like, "Mmm." People know my voice. People know what I sound like. [Laughs] People know who I am. I put my name out there. There's no need to be anonymous. I'm here, you know? So.02:09Kim: OK, so, we still have not broached what you're here to cause a scene about, and so I'm gonna let you tell your story. So, take your time, and we'll get to why Jonathan is causin' a scene.Jonathan: OK. Cool. So, yeah, I was basically invited here; I had not known anything about the podcast, really. But I'd seen you before on Twitter causin' a scene. People on Twitter, they talk about certain kinds of things, it's really raw and unfiltered, and you can jump into different conversations, and I had gone to—basically I went to a bootcamp called Lambda School, and to give a little bit of context, I'm a person that has a background in design, Web design, graphic design, UX design. And I just found myself in a place where I was really hurtin'. I was having a lot of imposter syndrome, just not really feeling confident in myself. And here comes Lambda School advertising like, "Hey, look, we got offers; we can help you at least get a job that makes more than 50K.

200424 - Is Kim OK? How Do We Know For Sure? | SANGMIN LEE | DR. DANA CHENG | NICK ADAMS by Blanquita Cullum

Podcast Description “Black people are constantly lookin’ back at who they were, while constantly trying to look forward while navigating this fuckery that is white supremacy” André Brock is an associate professor of media studies at Georgia Tech. His scholarship examines racial representations in social media, videogames, black women and weblogs, whiteness, and technoculture, including innovative and groundbreaking research on Black Twitter. His NYU Press book titled *Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures* was published in February 2020, offering insights to understanding Black everyday lives mediated by networked technologies. His article “From the Blackhand Side: Twitter as a Cultural Conversation” challenged social science and communication research to confront the ways in which the field, in his words, preserved “a color-blind perspective on online endeavors by normalizing Whiteness and othering everyone else” and sparked a conversation that continues, as Twitter in particular continues to evolve as a communication platform. He has also authored influential research on digital methods, gaming, blogging, and online identity. Transcription 00:30 Kim Crayton: Hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene podcast. Today my guest is Andrè Brock; pronouns him/his/he. Would you please introduce yourself to the audience, Andrè? Dr. Andrè Brock: Hi, my name is Andrè Brock. I'm an associate professor of Black Digital Media at Georgia Institute of Technology here in Atlanta, Georgia. Kim: All right, so we always start with two questions: why is it important to cause a scene? And how are you causing a scene? Dr. Brock: It's important for me to cause a scene in the work that I do because I study Black people and digital environments. I've been doing it since the early 2000s, and one of the things that has been of note to me is that we're often erased from technological narratives, particularly around computing. And if we're not erased, we're often put in a space where we're deemed not sufficient or not appropriate to use those technologies. Kim: And how are you causing a scene? 01:26 Dr. Brock: My research since that time has been dedicated towards showing that we indeed are—in my recent book, I call it "natural Internet users"—that our facility and our joy at using the Internet come from the ways that we interact with the world. And as such, we tend to bring an excess of life to wherever we are on the Internet. That translates in multiple ways, whether it's dance videos, or Black Twitter, or our political activism done during Ferguson and later moments of social injustice. Kim: OK, so we're just gonna dive into this; y'all know how I do this. So you said erased from technological narratives or positioned as inadequate. [Laughs] I need you to talk about that, because I need to know if you—and first I want you to say more about that because again, my audience is mainly white folx and I need them to understand what the fuck they doing. Dr. Brock: Hello, white people. Kim: Yes, hello white people and welcome to my world. And also, if you have any historical precedent of like when did this happen? Was it always this way? Was there... because—and what's popping in my head, it reminds... the question I'm trying to answer is when video games first came out, they were non-gender. They were—everybody played video games. And then all of a sudden they start gendering games and having the narrative of girls don't play games when that was never the truth. So I'm trying to see if this eraser from technical narrative and this this narrative that Blacks aren't capable, has it always been there, and then... or, was it not there and then—just like we saw with "Hidden Figures"—and where we learn that women were actually in computer—were in heavily in computing and then were pushed out. So that's the one I'm tryna figure out: is this something—this erasure of Blacks in technical narrative—was it from t...

Hoy nos vamos al continente asiático porque Héctor se decanta por una cinta de acción coreana: La Villana. Acción y locura por partes iguales. Uno de los productos del género más disfrutables de 2017. ¡Disfrutadla! LA VILLANA Director: Jung Byung-gil Intérpretes: Kim Ok-bin, Shin Ha-kyun, Kim Seo-hyung Plataforma: Netflix Si ya habéis visto el film, ¡dejadnos comentarios! ¡Acordaros de clicar el "Me gusta" en Ivoox! itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/es/podcast/los-tres-amigos/id1198252523?mt=2 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/52i1iqZ56ACal18GPkCxiW https://www.facebook.com/LosTresAmigosPodcast/ Twitter: @tresamigospod Instagram: lostresamigospodcast

"Let me show you what you made me into." We review The Villainess (2017) starring Kim Ok-bin.

The South Korean action melodrama, released in 2017. Directed by Jung Byung-gil and starring Kim Ok-bin.

On Episode 281 of Trick or Treat Radio, we welcome fellow bandmate and frontwoman supreme, Mz. M in studio as our special guest host to assist with this week’s December Double Feature Cram Jam. We tackle two very different films featuring female antagonists as we discuss Darren Aronofsky’s latest film Mother! and the South Korean action revenge film, The Villainess! We also veer off into some interesting territory as Ares and Ravenshadow bond over their love of Superman, Wolfie and Dynamo talk about The Independents show and we discuss our favorite on-screen villainesses. So grab the heart of a loved one, unsheath your favorite katana and strap on for the world’s most dangerous talk radio show! Stuff we talk about: Al-Khul, The Independents, Vampire: The Masquerade, Dracula Mid-Terms, dossier, Jake “The Snake” Roberts, Catch of the Day, James Balsamo, Hanukkah, Superman logo clothes, five star reviews, Paramount Pictures, Smokey and the Bear, Mother!, Darren Aronofsky, Ed Harris, marketing a film, Michelle Pfeiffer, R.I.P. Warrel Dane, Jennifer Lawrence, Nevermore, The Smithereens, Sanctuary, Javier Bardem, Charminism, religious metaphor, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, The Villainess, sexual, Kim Ok-bin, Shin Ha-kyun, roll for initiative, Dungeons and Dragons Online: The Mists of Ravenloft, The Five Hossmen, Superman, Christopher Reeve, Wolf Warrior 2, the Oldboy hallway knife fight, Richard Pryor, Henry Cavill, LandoDent, thanks to Corny and Julie MeowMeows for saving the country, George Reeves, Kirk Alyn, John Haymes Newton, Gerard Christopher, Superboy, Dean Cain, Tim Daly, Lois and Clark, Brandon Routh, Bryan Singer, Tom Welling, Rutger Hauer, The Hitcher, Krampus, Christmas in the Stars, Porky Pig's Blue Christmas, The Deadites Blue Christmas, favorite carols, Twisted Christmas, “Make it So”, Picard, Man of Steel, NJPW, Julie MeowMeows reviews wrestling, and nipplekicks.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/trickortreatradio)

Welcome to Beyond Prisons: a new podcast examining incarceration in America through an abolitionist lens.  In our first episode, hosts Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein introduce the idea behind the podcast, dissect and critique the current conversation around prison reform, and discuss the need for a broader vision for justice that should guide those efforts. What is prison abolition and what would it mean to live in a world without prisons? What's missing from current efforts to reform the criminal justice system? What kind of topics will this podcast cover? We tackle these questions and more in our first episode. Going forward, we will conduct interviews and delve much deeper into the various issues we touch upon in this first episode. So, stay tuned! -- Follow us on Twitter: @Beyond_Prison @phillyprof03 @bsonenstein Music & Production: Jared Ware -- Transcript Brian: Hello everybody and welcome to the first episode of Beyond Prisons. I am one of your hosts Brian Sonenstein and I’m joined by my co-host Kim Wilson. How ya doing, Kim? Kim: I’m doing well. Hi Brian, how’s it going? Brian: It’s going alright. I’m excited to be here. I’m glad we’re getting this off the ground. Kim: Yeah, me too. Brian: So what Kim and I are trying to do is something a little bit different. Oh, my dogs are barking in the background. (laughs) Kim: We’re gonna have dogs, we’re gonna have cats. We might have you know, who knows what else is going to show up so I say let’s just roll with it. Brian: I know, it’s fine. Kim and I decided to start this podcast to talk about the issue of prison reform and mass incarceration, and offer some different perspectives than a lot of the things you hear going on in the news right now. So I thought we could introduce ourselves a little bit. Kim, why don’t you go first? Kim: Ok, well, I’ll tell you a little bit about what my motivations were, and I think that will be a nice segway into my intro. But the motivating factor behind me getting on board with this podcast really stems from a place of frustration. I’m frustrated with the policy choices around mass incarceration, around prison specifically, and I’m seeing so many things that are impacting communities that I care about and that many people that I know live in, and I feel like we could be doing something better and so I’m coming at it from that perspective. That said, on a personal level, I’m the mother of two incarcerated men who are serving life in prison without the possibility of parole or at least that was their sentence. My professional and academic interests in incarceration began long before either of them had any encounter with the criminal justice system and I’m thinking of that in a broad sense particularly when we talk about schools and school to prison pipeline, which I’m sure we’re gonna spend quite a bit of time talking about in later episodes. And then I’m also coming at this as an activist who started out very much on board with prison reform and the prison reform movement if you want to call it that, and quickly evolved from that perspective to one of being strongly committed to prison abolition. So that’s a little bit about me, where I’m coming from, and what I’m hoping that this podcast is going to be about. What about you, Brian? Brian: Well, so I am a journalist. I’ve been writing about incarceration and the criminal justice system for about five years now. My work has primarily been to address these issues from the perspective of the people who are most directly impacted by it and that’s how I actually got to know you Kim. I’m also deeply interested in the issue of prison abolition after having been an activist myself for a number of years on a number of issues from drug policy to whistleblowing. I’ve seen a lot of people have interactions with the system and none of them have been good, including friends of mine. I grew up in sort of a blue collar, very small town in New England and saw a lot of people who fell into drugs and other problems, wind up in the system and it just destroyed not only their lives but the lives of their families and friends, and so I just had a growing interest in this. I’m very interested in the topic of reform, I’m also interested in critiquing reform, which is something we talk a lot about here. And we’re also going to try to break away from sort of this large statistical view of incarceration where we’re focusing on numbers. What we’re gonna try to do is bring perspectives from the people who are involved and use those to sort of guide our arguments about what the criminal justice system should be like. So why don’t we talk about like the major narrative around mass incarceration, you know maybe we can start by just critiquing that there. So I don’t know, when you think about mass incarceration , what are some things that jump out to you, like what are the things you know about it? Kim: You know, coming at this from several different points of view and those things have deeply informed where I am today regarding mass incarceration. I think that’s an important thing to talk about because, again, as someone who was trained as a policy analyst, the policy perspective or that school of thought can really be distilled in terms of cost-benefit analysis and I want, as you pointed out, for us to move beyond statistics and to think about the real issues, to dig down deep into the racialized nature of mass incarceration, which is one of the things that jumps out to me. I mean, I think it’s important to address the numbers and to account for those and also to explain what those numbers mean in the context of people’s lives in the context of communities. How do those numbers translate into problems for the people who are behind the numbers, right? So I think that first and foremost addressing the racialized nature of mass incarceration and more broadly what we refer to as the prison industrial complex. That’s one of the main things that I want to talk about and I don’t feel is actually discussed enough in public policy circles. Now, that said, I think that there are public policy institutions that are doing this kind of research and that are publishing reports and white papers and what have you that do address the racialized nature of mass incarceration. But this doesn’t actually seem to make it into the spaces where policy makers are making decisions and that gap right there really frustrates me and it’s something that has frustrated me for a really long time. We know, for example, that Black people are disproportionately represented in the system and what does that mean?  You know, what does that mean in terms of communities? And I want to talk about that and to explore that. We know, for example, that in terms of placing this in a global context that the U.S. has one of the largest prison populations in the world. So what does that mean you know and what does that look like on the ground and what does that mean in the context of the politics of today? Because I don’t think that we can really launch a podcast in 2017 and not talk about the current (laughs) political situation in this country. Brian: Right. Kim: If that’s not a source of frustration for people, I don’t know what is and it’s certainly a major source of frustration for me. Then there is the gender component of mass incarceration. We tend to talk about men who are incarcerated and particularly black men. To neglect an oversight of talking about women and how those numbers have grown exponentially over the last decade and a half, and I think that’s an important piece that needs to be addressed as well. So there’s a lot of stuff that I’m thinking about when I’m thinking about mass incarceration. I think that that this is a good place to start. I’m also thinking about mass incarceration in broader terms and this goes to the title of our podcast as well, Beyond Prisons. I want us to imagine what that means. What does it mean to see something beyond prisons? Can we imagine a world not only without prisons but what are some of the creative solutions that we can come up with through these conversations that are going to be I would say not only realistic but that are necessary in light of the fact that we have, what, over six million people under correctional supervision in this country with about two million of those incarcerated? So when we think about, when I’m thinking about incarceration in this country, I’m thinking about it in really broad terms. I’m thinking of policing. I’m thinking of surveillance. I’m thinking of all the various ways, the mechanisms that are used to control certain populations in this country particularly marginalized groups in this country. What about you? Brian: Yeah, absolutely, and I think that on a very basic level, one of the things that I want to do is talk about what we as Americans by and large think prisons do, who goes there, what happens there, and this includes even through the lens of the reform movement. But as activists, when we’re thinking about policy that we could be implementing and if we’re thinking about what comes next after prison, I think one of the most important things that we can do is have conversations that could lead to a cultural shift among people that will lay a stronger foundation for these policies, and I think we can get there. As we know, prisons and the system in general are largely out of the public view. Attempts to, I know this as a journalist and you know this as both a scholar and a parent, but any attempts to get more information about the system or to question actions by officials, you get the silent treatment or worse. I think in order to really lay the groundwork for a lot of this policy, we need to have conversations and clear some things out about punishment, and about crime, and about safety and the role of prisons in all of this, right? And I think that there is this idea that people are criminals instead of people that do things that are against the law or maybe have low moments. I think there’s this idea that when you go away to prison,  you deserve harsh treatment and certain things as punishment and there’s no thought that these people are eventually going to get out. They’re going to have to reintegrate into society under even more difficult situations than the average person trying to get a job out there today, when you have this scarlet letter of a conviction hanging over you. What I hope that we can do in addition to all the things that you said that I totally agree with. In addition to getting into the various issues that go on in prison, and at the front end and back end, before people go in and after, I just really want to challenge our assumptions, and I want us to really think about the myriad costs that are associated with decisions that we make with punishment. And even on just a basic and theoretical level, we talk about prison sentences, right. We talk about sentencing reform, but we attach arbitrary years on prison sentences because I mean there really is no science behind a lot of this and it’s just interesting to think a lot of times—I hear people on the left and liberals are always talking about how oh, the Republicans are so anti-science. Well, the truth is that as a society, we have this looming system that is very pseudo-scientific and very anti-scientific in a lot of ways. And so these are the ideas and little things that we want to chip away at. We’re gonna bring guests on to talk about these things and a lot of the things that you and I are going to chat about today. We’re gonna gloss over a lot of things, we’re gonna mention a lot of things, but trust that in coming episodes, we will dig into these issues deeper. So, what else? What else should we talk about here? Kim: Yeah, I mean playing off of those points that you just made about prison, one of the things that I’ve been thinking about as I was preparing for this episode today was something that Angela Davis writes about in ‘Are Prisons Obsolete?’  And she says, ‘stop thinking of prisons as inevitable, ‘ right? We think of the prison as this natural thing, and that we can’t imagine life without it. And I think that our name again captures that, but our approach to what we’re attempting to do with these conversations is to think about what is life without a prison. It’s not some Utopian ideal. It’s not politically naïve to talk about a world without prisons, a society without prisons, and the difficulty that I’ve encountered in my work with people, including a lot of liberals. It’s mostly liberals who I’ve been working with around issues of prison abolition, that any time I say, ‘Ok, imagine a world without prisons? What does that society look like?’ The first thing I hear is, no, no, no, you can’t possibly mean you want to get rid of prisons. And again, this really is super, super frustrating because it’s not even... I’m giving you a magic wand. You can make the world whatever you want it to be, right? It’s like, it’s a theoretical exercise in a lot of ways. And people don’t even want to imagine that world. Brian: Why do you think that is? Like why do you think people—I have my own thoughts on this, obviously, but I’m curious of your thoughts on why people are resistant to the idea of having that radical imagination. Kim: Well I think a lot of people are afraid, right. I think that there’s a lot of fear that they watch these television shows, they see things depicted in the media and presented a certain way, and their fantasy about what someone in prison looks like or is capable of is informed by these things. They don’t necessarily—even if they have an experience with someone who’s been to prison, they tend to have this wall up, like okay, I like the idea of improving conditions for people in prison, but what are you talking about? This is going a little too far. You can’t really be talking about getting rid of prisons. And, I’m like actually I am. So institutions where we put people in cages for long periods of time without any consideration as to what that is doing to someone. It’s a problem. It’s problematic. We need to have, I’m fond of saying, the courage, the backbone, like we need strong backs to be able to say this is wrong, right? And how do we disrupt this system? How do we change this system? How can we make something that is different from what we have now, right? Not just substituting and moving this around or you know they say rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, right? You know, just a couple of days ago, de Blasio, Mayor de Blasio of New York, announced that they’re closing down Rikers and that’s great, and I’m cheering for the fact because Rikers was a really shitty place. It was a horrible place by all accounts and it needed to be closed. However, what he’s proposing is setting up new prisons. So for me, and this is where I have to depart with the reform movement: Substitutes for prison, including other prisons, doesn’t really help the issue. It doesn’t address the social, the economic, the political problems that have created the issues that we have regarding mass incarceration, and I think until we get to that, until we get to that point where we can, I mean, good grief, have a conversation about what a world without prisons could look like. And to move people just a tiny little bit to say ‘ok, what does transforming this society mean? How do we deal with really scary things? Okay, so someone’s committed murder or someone’s being raped. These are horrible things and how do we address the victim’s legitimate concerns here while also addressing what is happening in terms of incarceration that we know doesn’t actually act as a deterrent, right? It doesn’t work, so what do we do about this? We need a better way to approach this and I’m thinking of this podcast and our conversations as a way to explore various approaches to what that landscape would look like. I’m looking at it also in terms of how do we challenge white supremacy as part of this project? I see a lot of talk about prisons and carcerality that want to leave out the race component. And that’s one of the hang-ups I think that we have and that we confront, particularly in the terms of policy making and policy choices that are being made because these policies around prison are meant to appear race neutral, and they’re not. We need to have not only a language but a process by which we can assess, analyze, and understand what racialized carceral system is, and what do we do about that. Brian: I agree. I completely agree. And I think that there is a lot of danger in compartmentalizing reform efforts instead of taking these broader approaches like abolition. My head is spinning. There’s so many things I want to say in response to what you just said. I mean one thing I want to say is that I think that for people who don’t really know what prison abolition is, they’ve never heard of it, or maybe they have somewhat of an idea. I think that one of the helpful ways to think about this too is that there is not going to be a one-size-fits-all solution to prisons, much the same way that much the one-size-fits-all of prisons doesn’t work for the justice system. I think when we’re talking about getting rid of prisons, like you said, we’re not talking about replacing it with a different kind of prison. I really resent a lot of this talk about looking over to Sweden and see how awesome it is to be a prisoner in Sweden. I think that’s totally the wrong way to look at prisons. It’s also a hard conversation, I think, and I wonder if you ever butt up against this, Kim. The needs and the problems are so bad for people who are incarcerated that the needs are very immediate, right? So I’m not sitting here saying we shouldn’t support these reform efforts that look to increase the quality of life of prisoners, because we need to help people right now. But we can’t do that at the expense of a broader vision. I see a lot in these reform efforts of reducing or showing greater leniency toward low level non-violent offenders, but at the same time, we are going to increase penalties and introduce new penalties for violent offenders or for other drug crimes. They talked about introducing a new Fentanyl mandatory minimum sentence in the last criminal justice reform bill. It probably will be added to this one, I assume, with Republicans being in control of legislature. Another thing that I want to say and I’m jumping around a little bit here, but I’m just thinking about your comments, is a lot of times what we see in reform is euphemism, to make it look like things are changing or to modestly or slightly tweak a prisoner’s experience. But the abuse and the fundamental issue of why a certain thing in prison is bad remains the same. So, for example, with solitary confinement, we say that solitary confinement is torture and I think that it is pretty widely accepted now that solitary confinement is torture. And at the same time, the reforms that we get are two extra hours out of your cell per week, and reformers call that a victory. Or only certain groups of people are not allowed to go into solitary confinement, or they opened a new housing unit that is basically solitary confinement in everything but name. So it’s really tricky and that’s another reason why I think it’s important to consider abolition and to take it seriously because a lot of these problems. We are at where we are today because a lot of these politicians have been kicking the can on these issues ever since we had prisons. I mean, Attica, the reform efforts followed Attica. Rebellions have been going on for years and years and years. Things haven’t gotten materially better. I think when we think about abolition, another thing to think about like you were saying, is how do we think about somebody who’s committed an act of murder, an act of rape? How do we think about justice? But it’s also that the prison and the system that we have set up does nothing to sort of head off these things from happening by changing the material conditions and environments, social contexts and racial contexts like you were talking about, that people live in, that limit their options and push them in or silo their paths in life. So it’s not just what can we do differently when someone commits a crime but it’s like how can we invest in communities. All the money we spend on federal, state, and local jails, all that money could be so much better put to use with education, jobs, healthcare in society in ways that would reduce the number of people winding up behind bars. Kim: Absolutely! And I think to your first point regarding reforms and changing things in the immediate and looking to European models of prisons and what not. I think that there is a space for having a comparative analysis as to what other countries are doing that are better than what is happening here in the U.S. and if it improves the conditions of people on the inside, then Ok, great. However, what an abolitionist’s perspective actually does is that it provides a framework for understanding and placing that conditions have to be improved right now, however, the long term goal is not to just sit back and say, yeah, we improved conditions, but how do we not use prisons as an anchor for the problems that are happening in society? How do we or what other things can we use? And you mentioned some of those things: investing in communities, providing healthcare, mental health. Mental health is such a big part of this problem, not criminalizing drugs and seeing that these things don’t actually improve safety or security, but are used as the pretext for increasing the carceral state. I think that one of the things that we’re going to do in upcoming episodes is really delve into what do we mean by prison abolition. Today, I think that we can just give a quick definition of that, a working definition so people have that and to talk a little bit about what we mean when we say prison industrial complex so that we understand the language that’s being used here. Because I think particularly in this day and age, particularly in this political climate that our words matter and our words matter more than they have in the past. So providing clear definitions gives us a place to begin. It may not improve or increase understanding very much, but at least it gives us a place to begin so that we know that we’re talking about this thing over here, and not that thing over there. That said, one of the things I talk about when I talk about prison abolition and again using a lot of Angela Davis’ work, using the work of people from Critical Resistance, as well as Insight, and a number of other groups is to really think about it as a political vision. To think about how prison abolition constitutes a set of long term goals. There are things that we are doing right now, however, the goal is to eliminate and get rid of imprisonment, to get rid of policing and surveillance as the mechanisms that we use to address social problems. I think that’s really the most concrete way of putting it in really simple terms. It sounds easy but once we start unpacking that, I think there is just so much happening in that. So that framework include, for me at least, that framework of abolition is also anti-racist. It is when we talk about gender disparities. We’re including trans’ rights. We’re talking about immigration policy. We’re talking about all of these things that are happening right now and the kinds of policies that are being implemented by this administration that work against an abolitionist framework. I feel a sense of urgency now more than I have I think before. And I think I’ve had a sense of urgency for a long time. I don’t know. What do you think about that? Brian: I totally agree, and I think that we really need to have goals. And I think a lot of what’s happening in the prison reform movement and even just sort of larger on the left, I think you see that it’s a little different when you talk about when you talk about something like single-payer healthcare, for instance. I think we need to have these goals that even if they seem politically unfeasible in this moment, we have to have something to work toward. Like you said, provide a framework for what we’re doing, not only so that we don’t shut off any avenues to fully realize reform or anything like that, but just so that we’re going somewhere with this. This is the work of movements. You know, we might not see this in our lifetime. A lot of people that I talk to about abolition for their first time kind of scoff at you. They’re like, yeah right, there’s no way that would ever happen. The prison is such a fundamental institution in our society that obviously it’s much bigger than any one issue. I think that something that you were touching on or something that it made me think about when you were talking is that if you bring an abolitionist framework to this, it does inform the way you look at other policies and other areas of government and society instead of just sort of being content to fiddle with whatever problems are going on. It makes you want to investigate the root causes more, to question the system more. It also sort of gives you more empathy in a way. I feel like even the worst political foes that I could imagine, I definitely would like to understand more about why they are the way they are. That doesn’t mean I’d excuse their behavior, but just sort of a strategy. I feel so much that political fighting and everything today is like very in the moment and lacks a broader context. So, anyway, I think abolition is something that if there were ever a good time to talk about it, it would be now with things as awful as they are. I feel like we almost have more space to talk about abolition than we might have had a few years ago. Kim: Absolutely! Absolutely! Yeah, I think that one of the things that I wrote down in my notes in my preparation for today had to do with reforms, and one of the things that Angela Davis says is that the idea of reforms doesn’t go beyond the prison. So if all of your solutions begin and end with prisons, then there is really no room for alternatives in that reform model, and that’s the problem that I have as an abolitionist with the reform movement – that all of the solutions maintain these carceral institutions, so whether we’re talking about house arrest or surveillance, parole, probations, what have you, then it’s not really an alternative. You’re trying to give something a different look without doing much about the actual problem and this resonates with people. This is very appealing and again, this is extremely frustrating for me because again, as someone who was trained in policy and public policy research and what have you, the literature really approaches mass incarceration from those perspectives. So when we’re writing policy documents, when they’re doing evaluations of re-entry programs, for example, there are really no alternatives that are being presented that are not carceral alternatives. And that, for me, has been part of the problem for years. That, for me, the ‘Aha’ moment or the lead-up to the ‘Aha’ moment if we can even call it that, came a number of years ago, where it was evident that the further I dug down into re-entry and what was happening in communities was people returning from prison to certain communities. There’s a pattern there and that pattern is repeated over, over and over again across communities in this country. So the policies weren’t working. But it wasn’t enough to just say the policies aren’t working. What is actually happening here? What is informing these policies, and I think that was where I really started to go into the abolitionist literature because the public policy literature doesn’t discuss abolition. It completely neglects it. Abolition is something that, if you’re a political theorist that was talking about abolition from that perspective, and people are writing brilliant things about Foucault and what have you. But that information, that knowledge doesn’t transfer over to the public policy space. So how do we bring these things together? It’s not just political theorists, but philosophers and other people who are doing work on prison abolition, not just theoretical but practical work as well. How do we bring that knowledge to bear on policy choices so that in the choosing because people talk about public policy in sort of a disconnected way in this thing that’s happening somewhere in Washington and in the halls of the State Capitals and what have you, it’s some kind of mysterious process. No. People are making decisions, and those decisions are informed by people’s values, people’s understanding of the problem, etc., etc. And if we’re not attempting to understand that part of it in terms of what’s happening with so many people and disproportionately, black and brown people in this country going to prison, then we’re actually not being honest about trying to address what is happening here. What we’re doing is something else, but it’s not rooted in an honest, intellectual project that is going to give us public policies that improve the conditions for communities and the people that live in those communities. I think that, for me, that’s one of the strengths of an abolitionist’s perspective, and one of the things in my activism and in my scholarship and in my personal life that I have really committed to understanding in a lot of different ways. And I think that it presents a lot of challenges. It’s a difficult task to be an abolitionist. It’s not an easy thing to say that publicly and it’s even more difficult thing if you write about these issues, or facilitating workshops and conversations with people around these things. They always want to talk down to you and tell you that you’re misinformed somehow and that letting people out of prison is just going to run society. I’m like, have you read the paper? I mean, have you looked around? Angela Davis says this all the time: not having any prisons would actually improve things. No alternative would be better than having prisons and that really gets people’s backs up. They can’t handle that. I think to your point earlier about trying to understand where people are coming from with that, I think that’s an important piece of the overall puzzle in conversation here, and I’m looking forward to these conversations as the podcast unfolds and as we get deeper into these things. Brian: Yeah, and I just think one last thing I’ll say on your discussion of policy-making and peoples’, like you were saying, sort of arching their back and a lot of this stuff. I think it speaks to a lot of political incentives that end up shaping reform and that need to change, and hopefully conversations like the ones we’re going to have on this podcast can help change. Because it’s really hard, you have to admit on a certain level that it’s hard for policymakers to go out and maybe put out a reform that would reduce the number of violent offenders in prison because all it takes is one violent offender to make the news to cause a political backlash to that. I think because of that the incentives are so stacked to be harsher, whereas the political gain for showing leniency is so unfortunately low, and I think we need to completely invert that and sort of show politicians and these political figures, including prosecutors. To a certain degree, they’re followers. They’re going to take certain cues from the public in terms of what the public will support and what the public won’t support. So I do see the tide changing a little bit in terms of how people view ‘offenders.’ Obviously, it’s like a very niche group of offenders are given leniency right now, but it’s hopeful in the sense that it could–if we could have these conversations to get people to think differently, we could change those political incentives so that there is less of a risk for a politician to craft a policy or sign on to a policy that would decarcerate and that politicians won’t so strongly overreact to rises in crime and the public doesn’t prioritize the safety of some communities at the expense of others. Kim: Absolutely! And I think that this whole thing about who we let out of prison, and what is an acceptable kind of level of criminality–if we’re aiming for zero crime in society, we’re neglecting the fact that we’re dealing with human beings. So we need to talk about that. We need to address that on the front end and I don’t see where politicians do this very effectively, and I’m sure we’ll certainly critique the politician’s approach to public policy around incarceration and what have you. But we don’t have a world where we will be crime free. That world actually doesn’t exist. So a world without prisons is possible; a world without crime I’m not so sure. So I think that, how would we handle that crime? What constitutes a crime? So we have all sorts of examples currently in the news: defending yourself against a domestic abuser is considered a crime. So that’s a problem. What do we want to do with that? I mean, what we’re really saying to victims of violence is well we don’t care about you if you tried to defend yourself, then you are really the problem. How has that changed anything for that community, for that person, for their family or anything like that? So I think we need to move beyond the surface level analysis that is really popular and talk about the complexities involved with letting people, not just opening the doors and letting people run out of prison. We’re talking about a more thoughtful approach to decarceration, getting rid of cages. We’re talking about, as you mentioned earlier, providing people with healthcare and for me, particularly mental health, and what that would do. We know that there is a large proportion of the incarcerated population that has a documented mental illness. That’s a problem. And if our approach to these issues is basically to just lock them up for some indefinite amount of time, don’t provide them with any kind of counseling or support while they’re incarcerated, that somehow through the isolation and solitary monastic existence that these people are going to have some kind of ‘Aha’ moment, and magically come out being okay. Brian: That’s what I mean. Yeah, when I was saying earlier that I just feel like incarceration is so anti-science. I mean listening to the way you just described it, it sounds ridiculous! And we have at this point mountains of evidence showing how incarceration harms, and I would argue that we have very little evidence suggesting that incarceration as an end in itself works to do anything other than perpetuate misery. So, yeah, sorry I just wanted to chime in here. Kim: No, Absolutely! Brian: Because it always baffles me that we cling to this institution so strongly, but it’s complete pseudo-science the more that you dig into it. Kim:  Uh-huh, Absolutely! Absolutely! And I think that’s a valid point and that we need to talk about that more not just on here, but in the context of public policy choices that are being made. Targeting specific groups of people or to put people in prison who have drug problems makes no sense. It makes absolutely no sense. You don’t actually change the conditions for that individual by putting them in prison. Not just putting them in prison, but putting them in a cage and not giving them any kind of assistance. These things don’t happen, like they don’t just fall out of the sky and all of a sudden they walk out of prison and they’re going to magically never use again. And that seems to be the sort of approach towards carcerality here, why reforms are a huge problem because it relies on this notion that if you lock someone up and you take away everything that is meaningful to them, that is of value to them, their ties to the community no matter how strained those are, their ties to their family no matter how difficult that family might be, those are still ties that we are basically cutting off and say, Ok, we’re going to remove you from society, from everything that is near and dear to you, and now we’re expecting you to be ok. So when you come out, you should be ready to conquer the world. And then we set up this system of obstacles for a person who’s returning from prison and into the community, and we say, well you need to follow all these rules. Okay, so you go to prison from a community where most of the people that you know have also gone to prison, but we have laws in this country that prevent the association of people with a felony conviction from associating, so that can get you back into prison. That’s just so ridiculous! Who else would you know? It’s like if your parent went to prison and you’re their child and you also went to prison, we’re basically saying, well mom, dad, aunt, uncle, cousin, whatever the ties are, you can’t be around each other. So now we’re undermining the support system that would be there by making the association a criminal act. It’s like, God! How is this supposed to work? Brian:  Yeah, and I think one of the things that we all are going to need to talk about, and it’s going to be hard given just American culture in general, are these limits of individual responsibility. I think, as you were talking about earlier, that a lot of the way carcerality bleeds in, and the punitive structure bleeds into post-release and things like that, and you were talking about drug treatment programs and things like that. You know, even in that situation- let’s take drug treatment programs for instance. A lot of these programs are 12-step programs that are built around the individual basically accepting full responsibility for their actions, making no excuses outside of themselves, and supposedly being able to stay sober with that as their backing. And the truth of it is that there are limits to personal responsibility for somebody like that. I mean, if you live in a context in which drugs are always around, or maybe you have a chronic health issue and that’s how you became addicted to opiods. I mean, taking responsibility like that is just another, it’s like another one of these examples of sort of puritanical anti-science approach. It’s like disproved by incredible amounts of evidence. But we’re going to need to really as Americans dial back our desire to pin 100% total responsibility on people who commit crimes. And I just want to…I think this is a good time to talk about in terms of abolition too, Kim and I’m wondering what your thoughts are on this. When we talk about prison abolition and you said this earlier in a way, we’re not just talking about letting people out of prison. We need to… there still will be accountability after prison, right. There still will be justice. And hopefully, it won’t look like this. So, yeah, I don’t know if you have any thoughts on that. Kim: Yeah, I mean we need to talk about and explore new forms of justice. So the whole theatre that’s associated when someone gets sentenced to a long prison term is one of the problems. I obviously experienced that with my sons and this idea that somehow justice was being served within that context felt so…it’s painful and it’s still painful today. To think back on this and part of what that does is it creates further divisions within communities because we’re all in this together. We’re all in this together, and like you said, the American ethos of individual responsibility and resiliency and this kind of ‘you can do it, and I built it myself…and I didn’t need any help, and it’s not my responsibility to take care of you, etc., etc.,’ which is at the core of American society. People really really believe that, uncritically believe that. They don’t examine what they say around resiliency and individual responsibility at all, and we have medical models that are informed by this perspective. A lot of this probation and parole are informed by this perspective. A lot of re-entry programs are based on these perspectives, and the need to rely on personal transformation strategies as the preferred approach to dealing with crime and to dealing with people’s problems. Because I think we conflate that. We make people their problems. We don’t separate the two. We don’t say, Ok this person has a problem…we say, these people are a problem. So drug users are a problem, not wait a minute, let’s think about what is actually happening here. And as you pointed out, we’re living in a really un-scientific time. The lack of critical thinking around these things or the willingness to approach this from a scientifically informed perspective is another huge issue that we’re probably going to talk about in one way or another throughout every conversation that we have because it’s there. It’s part of every single issue, and to lay blame at an individual’s feet is…one of the things that I say quite a bit is that when we individualize, we moralize. It makes it really easy to moralize. We do a lot of finger wagging and we can say, oh you need to get your act together, you need to stop doing drugs, you need to stop doing this, and we’re very much invested in this notion of choice; that an individual chose this path as opposed to this other path. And when we do that, what we’re doing is obscuring the fact that there are conditions and that there is a system in place that perpetuates these conditions that can strain your choices. So if you can’t eat because you don’t have a job and because you can’t go to your mama’s house because of whatever reason or because there are federal policies that prevent you from crashing on her couch because she lives in HUD housing or something ridiculous like that. And you’re back on the street. I mean, what would you do? Because I think about that quite often and I would do whatever I need to do to eat. I would do whatever I needed to do to survive, and I live in L.A. I have been in supermarkets out here where I’ve seen people arrested who are hungry. They’re coming in and they’re stealing a loaf of bread or something small like that, and the police are called because that is the system that we have. Instead of the manager just giving them the damn loaf of bread and keeping it moving, it’s like…No, we have to call the police. Now you have another set of problems there. I think that part of our…part of what I’m hoping we’ll do is to unpack that a little bit more in a more critical way, and bring people on as guests who can discuss these issues in a really well informed way to get us to think about this stuff beyond the superficial, beyond this sort of knee-jerk reaction to petty crime. But, that said, I also feel that we need to talk about violent crime, and that without the conversation or a set of conversations about violent criminals that we would be doing a disservice to what we’re saying we want to do with this podcast. I think that we need to address what happens when the unthinkable happens, and how do we deal with that and how do we address that? How can communities come together and what does a justice model look like that says, ok, well we need to talk about that more… We need to address the fears that people have and discuss ways that someone who has committed a really horrific crime can be held accountable. It doesn’t produce more harm. It doesn’t perpetuate the pain that already exists because I don’t think, in speaking from my own experience…the pain doesn’t go away. The pain when something horrible happens in your family with crime …that pain doesn’t leave. It doesn’t get better with time. It is just as fresh today as it was the day that it happened, and I think that is something that for me, on a personal level, that I want to talk about more and to bring in families that have been impacted in these ways by crime on both sides. I think that’s an important conversation to have, and something that in transformative justice circles and restorative justice circles has been happening for a lot of years, and there are ways to approach those conversations. But we can’t do that until we talk about accountability. But if accountability is happening in very narrow terms of ‘lock them up and throw away the key’, that doesn’t cohere with an abolitionist perspective, and as you can see, there is a lot to talk about. Brian: There is. Kim: There is no shortage of topics here. I think we barely scratched the surface today. I’m excited about what we can do with this podcast. I don’t know. Do you have any additional thoughts? Brian: There’s just one more thing that I wanted to bring up, and I am curious what you think about this, too. I think a lot of times when people bring up these arguments somebody might say to you, Well, Kim, what about the victims? What about the people who the crimes are perpetrated against? Don’t you think that deserve our empathy too? I don’t know what you would say. I would say our system is not designed at all right now to really empower victims in any meaningful way outside of punishment. I think prosecutors by and large aren’t really interested in what a victim would like to do. I wrote about earlier this year that the vast majority of crime victims, including violent crime victims would prefer rehabilitation over incarceration. There’s a lot of myths that, I would also say that maybe people wouldn’t be victims if we didn’t have incarceration and were addressing these root causes. That was really the last thing that I want to bring up. I’m just thinking about some of the things that might come to your mind when you’re thinking about prison abolition for the first time, sort of these ingrained defenses that we have as Americans against imagining a world without prisons. Like you said, a lot of this, we will be digging in very deeply on all these subjects with guests, and I’m very, very excited. So, yeah, we want to know what questions you have. You can email me at brian@shadowproof.com. We would be happy to take tips from people and hear how people react to the show and a lot of ideas that we have. Honestly, I want to hear what sort of problems people have with a lot of these ideas because I think that a lot of these conversations are going to be really uncomfortable for a lot of people. They’re gonna be really difficult. We’re going to be talking about violence, and sexual offenses and things like this that we react to in a certain way. But we need to have these conversations if we’re really going to make a meaningful impact on this issue. What about you, Kim? Do you have any final thoughts? Kim: Yeah, I think that there are a number of victims groups around the country that have been very outspoken against things like the death penalty, and I’ve been working with some groups, some people in Delaware around this as well, whose families have been the victims of violent crimes. And it’s a difficult conversation, but I can tell you that from my own experience, talking with these families, they have been out front of the death penalty abolition movement, and they have said things not in their name, like you can’t kill someone because you lost someone in their name. And this notion of state sanctioned violence as a way to mete out justice is deeply problematic for a lot of people, not just on a moral level because they do think that it’s wrong, but in terms of what this actually does. What does this actually do? It doesn’t feel good, but then again, I think that the people who are best able to talk about this issue are the victims. I don’t want to speak for anyone. If anything, another goal that I have for this podcast is really to amplify and marginalize people’s voices, and to let people speak for themselves rather than talking over them or for them. You’ll hear me say a lot, I’m speaking for myself, because I think that needs to be clear that I’m not talking for other folks here. I think that in general, I look forward to hearing what people have to say. I think that these are courageous conversations that we need to have, that they’re going to require us to have really strong backs to address. We’ll certainly give people trigger warnings around certain issues. There might be a trigger warning around the entire podcast. I mean, I don’t even know. That includes just as much for my own benefit as for anybody else’s because this isn’t easy. I’m on board with this project because it gives me a way to sort of channel this energy that I have and to bring this work to a much bigger audience, and to include a lot more people in this conversation. Before I forget, if people want to contact me, I’m at wilsonk68@gmail.com and I look forward to hearing about what people have to say and if they want to chime in, and if they want to have ideas for future topics. Certainly, I’m open to these things. Hate mail you can send somewhere else. I’m not interested in the hate mail and the abusive nonsense that I’m sure we’re going to get as a result of putting ourselves out there on these issues. It’s been, this has been great. I enjoyed this conversation. I think it was a lot easier than I thought, huh. Brian: Yeah, I know seriously. I’m really glad to be doing this with you Kim so thank you very much and thank you everybody for listening. We will have another episode out soon. You can subscribe to us on Itunes Beyond Prisons and stay tuned for our next episode. Thank you so much.