It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
AMERICAN BOY The Midwest is that part of the United States usually re- garded as characteristic of the country as a whole, possessing
the manufacturing and business skills of the East and the foodproducing powers of the West. The Midwest includes the
smokestacks of Chicago, the automobile plants of Detroit, the
shipping of the Great Lakes. And the heart of this MidAmerica, the geographical center of our industrial empire, is Ohio, the birthplace of Standard Oil and the “Mother of
Presidents." It is of some interest—perhaps only in a sentimental sense—
that Cleveland, the chief city of Ohio, was also the birthplace
of the man who was to found and, until his death, lead the
Communist Party of the United States. He was C. E. Ruthenberg, the son of a dock-worker who lived in the poorer districts of that city. Charles Emil Ruthenberg was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on
July 9, 1882, of German parentage. His father, “Worker August
Ruthenberg"—as his name was written on his marriage record
—had left Germany earlier that year, February 19, taking with
him his wife, W
rilhelmina, and eight children. They reached
the United States on March 9, and went directly to Cleveland.
Charles—the ninth child—arrived four months later. RIGHT CLICK TO ENLARGE
Marxism In United States History Before the Russian Revolution (1876-1917)
People suffering from post-traumatic distress disorder report that cannabis reduces the severity of their symptoms by more than half, at least in the short term, according to a recent study led by Carrie Cuttler, a Washington State University assistant professor of psychology.
Cuttler and her colleagues analyzed data of more than 400 people who tracked changes in their PTSD symptoms before and after cannabis use with Strainprint, an app developed to help users learn what types of medical cannabis work best for their symptoms. The group collectively used the app more than 11,000 times over a 31-month period.
The study, recently published in Journal of Affective Disorders, shows cannabis reduced the severity of intrusions, returning thoughts of a traumatic event, by about 62%; flashbacks by 51%, irritability by 67%, and anxiety by 57%. The symptom reductions were not permanent, however.
"The study suggests that cannabis does reduce symptoms of PTSD acutely, but it might not have longer term beneficial effects on the underlying condition," said Cuttler. "Working with this model, it seems that cannabis will temporarily mask symptoms, acting as a bit of a band aid, but once the period of intoxication wears off, the symptoms can return."
PTSD is a disorder affecting people recovering from traumatic events and impacts women at about twice the rate as men with a 9.7% to 3.6% lifetime prevalence, respectively. While therapy is recommended as the primary treatment, Cuttler said there is growing evidence that many people with PTSD are self-medicating with cannabis.
"A lot of people with PTSD do seem to turn to cannabis, but the literature on its efficacy for managing symptoms is a little sparse," Cuttler said.
This study provides some insight into the effectiveness of cannabis on PTSD symptoms, but as the authors note, it is limited by reliance on a self-selected sample of people who self-identify as having PTSD. Also, it is not possible to compare the symptom reductions experienced by cannabis users to a control group using a placebo.
While some placebo-controlled clinical trials have been done with nabilone, a synthetic form of THC, few have examined the effects of the whole cannabis plant on PTSD.
In this study, Cuttler and her colleagues looked at a variety of variables but found no difference in the effect of cannabis with differing levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), two of the most studied constituents of cannabis. The results imply that it is some combination of THC, CBD and perhaps some of the many other parts of the cannabis plant that create the therapeutic effect. Cannabis has many molecules that can create a biological effect, including up to 120 cannabinoids, 250 terpenes and around 50 flavonoids.
"We need more studies that look at whole plant cannabis because this is what people are using much more than the synthetic cannabinoids," said Cuttler. "It is difficult to do good placebo-controlled trials with whole plant cannabis, but they're still really needed."Cannabis reduces headache and migraine pain by nearly half
More information: Emily M. LaFrance et al, Short and Long-Term Effects of Cannabis on Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Journal of Affective Disorders (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.05.132
New coronavirus may have emerged in summer 2019, study suggests
People visit a night market in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on June 3
A surge in hospital visits and internet searches related to COVID-19 symptoms from the Chinese city of Wuhan suggests the coronavirus may have been circulating since August 2019, according to a preliminary study by researchers at Boston University and Harvard.
The pandemic, which has been linked to a virus that crossed over from animals to humans, was initially identified in Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Market in December 2019.
Later, experts estimated a genetic ancestor to the virus emerged around mid-November 2019. A report in the South China Morning Post citing government data suggested a "patient zero" could be traced back to November 17.
The new paper, which has not yet appeared in a peer reviewed journal, comes under the relatively new field of "digital epidemiology."
A team led by Elaine Nsoesie at Boston University analyzed 111 satellite images from Wuhan between January 2018 to April 2020, as well as frequently looked up symptoms on the Chinese search engine Baidu.
"A steep increase in volume starting in August 2019" was detected at Wuhan hospital parking lots, "culminating with a peak in December 2019," the authors wrote.
Because queries for the word "cough" rise along with yearly influenza seasons, they also looked for "diarrhea" which is a more COVID-19 specific symptom.
"In August, we identify a unique increase in searches for diarrhea which was neither seen in previous flu seasons or mirrored in the cough search data," the team said.
While respiratory symptoms are the most common hallmarks of SARS-CoV-2 infection, the study suggested that diarrhea "may play an important role in community transmission."
The authors concluded that while they could not definitively confirm that the data they documented was linked to the virus, it supported conclusions reached by other research.
"These findings also corroborate the hypothesis that the virus emerged naturally in southern China and was potentially already circulating at the time of the Wuhan cluster," they said.
AFP
Two cats are first U.S. pets to be sickened with COVID-19
by Dennis Thompson, Healthday Reporter
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
The first documented cases of U.S. household cats infected with COVID-19 have emerged in New York state, a new government report shows.
Two cats—one in Nassau County, the other in Orange County—appear to have contracted COVID-19 from the humans with whom they lived, a team of veterinarians reported online June 8 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
These are the first reported companion animals to contract COVID-19 in the United States, the researchers said.
Transmission occurred from human to cat in both cases, the report noted. Importantly, the authors of the report said that there's no evidence the cats passed the coronavirus to humans or other cats living in the same household.
"This evidence supports findings to date that animals do not play a substantial role in spreading SARS-CoV-2, although human-to-animal transmission can occur in some situations," the team wrote. "Companion animals that test positive for SARS-CoV-2 should be monitored and separated from persons and other animals until they recover."
The Nassau County cat, a 4-year-old domestic shorthair, developed respiratory illness on March 24 that included sneezing, watery eyes and mild lethargy.
The cat had been living in an apartment with five people, three of whom had COVID-19 symptoms. The first person's illness began nine days before the cat became sick. The apartment complex had experienced multiple cases of human COVID-19 around the same time.
The Orange County cat, a 5-year-old Devon Rex, fell ill on April 1 with sneezing, coughing, runny nose, watery eyes, loss of appetite and lethargy. The cat lived with an employee at a Connecticut veterinary clinic who developed COVID-19 symptoms eight days before the cat became sick.
Both cats fully recovered from their COVID-19, according to Dr. Alexandra Newman and colleagues.
These cases are further confirmation that COVID-19 can spread among cats, something noted by a laboratory study published in May in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In that study, three healthy cats contracted COVID-19 after each was paired with an infected cat in their separate lab cage, researchers in the United States and Japan discovered. Within six days, all six cats were shedding coronavirus.
The study concluded that "cats may be a silent intermediate host of [COVID-19], because infected cats may not show any appreciable symptoms that might be recognized by their owners."
However, one of the researchers said the odds of human-to-cat or cat-to-cat transmission are likely greater than cats passing on the coronavirus to their humans.
"Cats are still much more likely to get COVID-19 from you, rather than you get it from a cat," researcher Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, said in a University of Wisconsin news release.
Another vet agreed. "There has been no evidence yet of people getting COVID from any domestic animal. Coronavirus is no reason to abandon your pets," Dr. John Howe, president of the American Veterinary Medical Association, told HealthDay News in May.
Serotonin, a chemical known for its role in producing feelings of well-being and happiness in the brain, can reduce the ability of some intestinal pathogens to cause deadly infections, new research by UT Southwestern scientists suggests. The findings, publishing online today in Cell Host & Microbe, could offer a new way to fight infections for which few truly effective treatments currently exist.
Although the vast majority of research on serotonin has centered on its effects in the brain, about 90 percent of this neurotransmitter—a chemical that nerve cells use to communicate with each other—is produced in the gastrointestinal tract, explains study leader Vanessa Sperandio, Ph.D., a professor of microbiology and biochemistry at UT Southwestern Medical Center. In humans, trillions of bacteria live within this space. Most of these gut bacteria are beneficial, but pathogenic bacteria can also colonize the gastrointestinal tract, causing serious and potentially fatal infections.
Because gut bacteria are significantly affected by their environment, Sperandio, along with UTSW doctoral student Aman Kumar, laboratory manager Regan Russell, and their colleagues, wondered whether the serotonin produced in the gut can affect the virulence of pathogenic bacteria that infect the gastrointestinal tract.
The researchers worked with Escherichia coli O157, a species of bacteria that causes periodic outbreaks of often deadly foodborne infection. The team grew these pathogenic bacteria in petri dishes in the lab, then exposed them to serotonin. Gene expression tests showed that serotonin significantly reduced the expression of a group of genes that these bacteria use to cause infections. Additional experiments using human cells showed that the bacteria could no longer cause infection-associated lesions on the cells if these bacteria were exposed to serotonin.
Next, the researchers examined how serotonin affected virulence in living hosts. Using mice, the researchers studied how serotonin might change the ability for Citrobacter rodentium - a mouse gut bacterium often used as an analog for E. coli in humans—to infect and sicken their hosts. These mice were genetically modified to either over- or underproduce serotonin in their gastrointestinal tracts. Those that overproduced this neurotransmitter were less likely to become colonized by C. rodentium after being exposed to this bacterium or had relatively minor courses of illness. Treating mice with fluoxetine (sold under the brand name Prozac) to increase serotonin levels prevented them from getting sick from C. rodentium exposure. However, the mice that underproduced serotonin became much sicker after bacterial exposure, often dying from their illness.
Further experiments identified the receptor for serotonin on the surfaces of both E. coli and C. rodentium, a protein known as CpxA. Because many species of gut bacteria also have CpxA, it's possible that serotonin could have wide-ranging effects on gut bacterial health, Sperandio says.
In the future, she adds, she and her colleagues plan to study the feasibility of manipulating serotonin levels as a way of fighting bacterial infections in the gastrointestinal tract. Currently, few available antibiotics can effectively fight E. coli O157—some antibiotics actually worsen the consequences of infection, causing the bacteria to release more damaging toxins.
"Treating bacterial infections, especially in the gut, can be very difficult," Sperandio says. "If we could repurpose Prozac or other drugs in the same class, it could give us a new weapon to fight these challenging infections."
More information: Aman Kumar et al. The Serotonin Neurotransmitter Modulates Virulence of Enteric Pathogens, Cell Host & Microbe (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2020.05.004
Professor Heinrich Hora. Photo Illustration: Asia Times / Wikimedia
One of the world’s leading specialists in laser fusion, the Australian physicist Prof. Heinrich Hora, has proposed a new type of nuclear reactor which promises to provide highly-efficient, radioactivity-free generation of electric power, with virtually unlimited reserves of fuel. The design uses ultra-high-power, ultra-short-pulsed lasers to trigger fusion reactions between nuclei of hydrogen and boron. Hora believes that a prototype of his reactor could be running within the decade.
In the previous installments of this series, Jonathan Tennenbaum introduced readers to the new reactor concept and its fascinating scientific and technological background.
It is fitting to conclude this series with an interview Tennenbaum conducted in March this year with Heinrich Hora.
Jonathan Tennenbaum: The first experimental realization of fusion energy happened 70 years ago, with the explosion of the first hydrogen bomb. Why have we not yet learned how to use the energy of fusion in a controlled way, to produce energy for mankind? Today we have these gigantic experimental devices, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) laser fusion facility in the United States, and the International Torus Experimental Reactor (ITER) magnetic confinement fusion device under construction in France. ITER has an official price tag of $20 billion, but many expect it to rise to $50 billion by 2035 when ITER begins full-scale experiments with deuterium-tritium fuel. In 2040 it might be possible to start designing a prototype reactor. If that is supposed to be the right approach, then the practical generation of energy by fusion reactions is far away, indeed.
What makes you think it can be done much faster?
Heinrich Hora: Most experiments for fusion are based on the assumption, that one needs temperatures of several hundred million degrees Celsius. The question is, how can you get around having to use these high temperatures?
The equation for a laser acting on a target contains pressure, given by the density and temperature, but there is a second term for the ponderomotive force produced by the electric and magnetic fields of the laser. (Today with lasers) you can produce very high fields for extremely short times, of millionths of a millionth of a second, and one can produce petawatt (a million billion watts) or multiples of a petawatt of power. From this one can produce forces from the laser fields. One can generate higher pressures than the pressures from thermal mechanisms (i.e. heating). This is an essential difference to everything that was done before. As a matter of fact the idea to use lasers for fusion [has existed] since the early 1960s, but where the laser energy would go into the thermal energy of a spherical compressed plasma. This was still via temperature.
Now, the latest results – which were not measured by us but which we understand because we have been involved in all kinds of detailed research – is that now ignition can be done with extreme laser pulses. That sends a new message.
Tennenbaum: And this happens without heat?
Hora: Indeed. (The pulse) produces the ignition, and from then on (heat) develops in the hydrogen-boron fuel at moderate density and produces reactions, which then have to be confined by ultra-high magnetic fields. These fields are now available. In Japan, Fujioka has produced kilo-tesla and higher fields (using laser pulses). These fields are more than 100 times those used in the systems operating without lasers.
Tennenbaum: Such as the ITER?
Hora: Yes. A new situation.
Tennenbaum: How has it become possible to produce laser pulses of such huge powers, that you can succeed with a non-thermal ignition of the hydrogen-boron fuel?
Tennenbaum: It reminds me of the famous Moore’s law in microelectronics.
Hora: It was more dramatic.
Tennenbaum: Up to now when fusion is discussed, people always think of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium. And as far as I know practically all the experimental reactors use DT fuel. Tritium is radioactive and DT reactions produce a lot of neutrons. Your proposal, on the other hand, would use boron together with hydrogen as a “clean” nuclear fuel. Why was this not considered before?
Hora: The reaction of deuterium and tritium is the easiest and fastest way to fusion, even for the ITER experiment with magnetic field confinement. [It was thought to be] the only way to realize fusion.
The hydrogen-boron reaction is well known, but it is about five orders of magnitude more difficult when going through the usual procedure of compression and heating. The reaction rate is so low that this reaction was usually neglected.
Diagram of a hydrogen-boron reaction (left). An early experiment with the production of alpha particles by the bombardment of boron by hydrogen (protons). Images: Wikimedia
But using lasers with chirped pulse amplification, for which the Nobel Prize was awarded, experiments have now been made which gave a billion times higher hydrogen boron reactions, than the very frustrating low values [obtained earlier].
You get directly three alpha particles with no radioactive ash. And the alpha particles are no environmental problem at all. Carrying the energy of the nuclear reaction, they can be slowed down by electric fields so that the energy can be directly converted into electric power, without heat exchangers and turbines.
It is simple to make a spherical (reaction) chamber, charge it to a high voltage and have the alpha particles run into this high voltage and change their energy into electricity.
Ninety percent of the nuclear energy would be converted directly into electricity.
Tennenbaum: But how would the fusion reactions be produced in the reactor?
Hora: For five or six years we did calculations, to [realize hydrogen-boron fusion] the same way as in all the other (laser fusion) experiments: to make a spherical compression, heating with extreme laser pulses. And it turns out that one needs not a petawatt but an exawatt – a thousand thousand times higher powers, and this is too far away. And then came the simple idea, to make it not spherically but to trap the reaction in a cylindrical geometry. And just at this time to produce the highest magnetic fields using another laser, kilo-tesla fields. These fields are enough, for a short time, to trap this cylindrical volume with the reaction.
Tennenbaum: You have emphasized the role of accelerated plasma blocks in the ignition process. Can you explain how that works?
Hora: This is a very interesting question. We can refer to computations by Jean Louis Bobin in Paris and C. K. Chu from Columbia University in New York. If you have a plane geometry [as in the end-on irradiation of a cylindrical target], how short must laser pulses be in order to start the ignition? I was involved very early in pulse theory and numerical calculations. Computations resulted in the following: for ignition in this plane geometry, the energy input has to be in an extremely short pulse, in the range of millionths of millionths of a second. And in this plane – not spherical – geometry it ignites a self-sustained reaction which indeed then does produce high temperatures, but by itself, in the fuel. The interaction of the laser field and the plasma generates, so-to-say a piece of neutralized plasma block, getting energy from the light, and moving into the fusion fuel, igniting the fusion reactions.
Courtesy Heinrich Hora
Tennenbaum: How fast is this plasma block moving?
Hora: About 1,000 km per second. It is interesting that these are also the velocities given in the Google article for the processes in H-bombs. [The Wikipedia article “Thermonuclear Weapon” gives the implosion velocity of the fusion secondary of the first hydrogen bomb, the Ivy Mike device, as around 400 km per second – JT.] It is disclosed there, and one can compare the numbers. And it is interesting, that the plasma block generation [in the hydrogen-boron reactor] is obviously of a similar kind, but in a fully controlled way, for a power station. Nothing can explode, nothing can meltdown like in a uranium [fission] reactor. This is safe and controlled in an easy and inexpensive way.
Tennenbaum: How big would such a power plant have to be? Could the plant be made relatively small? Or would it have to be as large as a present-day nuclear power plant?
Hora: No, instead of the gigawatts power stations it could go down to 100 megawatts, perhaps 50 or even smaller. We have a whole design, for which we have patents granted in the US, Japan, and China.
Tennenbaum: And the laser?
Hora: These types of lasers are fortunately just now available from companies, you can buy them, but indeed then they need to be specifically developed to be much cheaper and cost not $50 million but much less through standardized production. This is all possible.
Control room of POLARIS petawatt laser in Jena, Germany (left). POLARIS oscillator and CPA pulse stretcher. Photos: Wikimedia
Tennenbaum: In other words, the technical parameters needed for the lasers are essentially already in the commercial sphere?
Hora: Exactly on the same level. One leading company is in France but the main leaders are at the University of Austin, Texas. They can generate one pulse per minute. Whereas in Livermore [with NIF] they can make two pulses per day.
Tennenbaum: But for the reactor would you need a much higher pulse rate?
Hora: A higher pulse frequency going down to one per second or two seconds, five seconds. This can be optimized according to what is desired.
Tennenbaum: Can you say anything about the economics?
Hora: Provided that the scientific efforts on this track do not encounter unknown difficulties, then these reactors can be on the market in eight years altogether.
Tennenbaum: In eight years?
Hora: To have a prototype available from which you can then produce for the market. There are mountains of boron, we could power mankind for thousands of years.
Tennenbaum: What would be the order of magnitude of the investment required to build a prototype hydrogen-boron power plant?
Hora: A prototype would cost 100 million or so. That is so little money, that it is suspicious! But it will be in this order of magnitude. But then there are many components which can be made much cheaper in volume and so on. One can definitely say that one kilowatt-hour will cost a fifth to a tenth of the present lowest price.
Hora: Well, I mentioned the measurements in Prague. Before that, a similar experiment with hydrogen-boron was performed at the École Polytechnique in Paris. The first good experiment producing hydrogen-boron reactions was done by Belyaev and his colleagues in 2005 near Moscow. Christine Labaune made, with her experiment in Paris, a big step forward and then came the results from Prague. We could then ask a number of former students and established physicists to follow up the computations which we published in papers with a large number of people from around the world, to confirm our progress step-by-step.
Tennenbaum: So you have a kind of international community around you which would be pulled into the project or which is available to answer various questions and to participate in this effort?
Hora: Yes, definitely.
Tennenbaum: What is the next step, from your standpoint?
Hora: Knowing what the difficulties would be if we would go to the government and say, please give us the money to do the research – we would need a year of discussions, and people who are not fully qualified would have the power to say, this is nonsense. The other way is to find investors and to use the existing, high-level laboratories around the world and give them tasks in an outsourcing way. We will have to pay for this. We have a number of very well-known advisors, to optimize this outsourced research. That is how we will try to proceed. Hopefully, it will go ahead. For the last three years, we have had good news. In recent weeks we have had good publicity in the media. I hope that despite all the other world problems, we will really get support from investors, and outsource experiments. The recent results from Prague make me even more optimistic than before. [See “High-current stream of energetic α particles from laser-driven proton-boron fusion” by Lorenzo Giuffrida et al., Physical Review E 101 (2020) 013204, specifically the last paragraph of Section 1 and Figure 9]
(More information on the proposed hydrogen-boron reactor, including scientific references, can be found on the website. A good summary with an extensive bibliography is also provided by the 2018 paper “Extreme laser pulses for non-thermal fusion ignition of hydrogen–boron for clean and low-cost energy” by H. Hora et al. published in the journal Laser and Particle Beams, Volume 36, Issue 3, September 2018, available on the internet; and “Pressure of picosecond CPA laser pulses substitute ultrahigh thermal pressures to ignite fusion,” by H. Hora et al, High Energy Density Physics 35, 2020, Article 100739).
Jonathan Tennenbaum received his PhD in mathematics from the University of California in 1973 at age 22. Also a physicist, linguist and pianist, he’s a former editor of FUSION magazine. He lives in Berlin and travels frequently to Asia and elsewhere, consulting on economics, science and technology
In Korea, extensive tattoos flaunt conservative social conventions. Photo: Tom Coyner
Millennial South Koreans talk a great deal about generational change and the related changes in attitudes and behaviors. One visible and physical aspect of this in recent years has been a rise in tattoos.
While 0n-skin artwork has surged with a vengeance into fashion among hipsters in the wider world, the trend is arguably more notable in Korea, where for hundreds of years tattoos were virtually taboo.
The skill of Korean tattoo pros is luring non-Korean clients. Photo: Tom Coyner
While the practice has been with Koreans for at least some 1,500 years, the neo-Confucian culture of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) put the kibosh on it.
Under prevailing cultural beliefs, bodies were gifts from parents, and out of filial piety, bodies are not to be purposely mutilated or otherwise decorated. Moreover, some criminals were tattooed with their crimes being engraved upon their skins, and some slaves had the names of their masters inscribed on their flesh.
This negative attitude toward tattoos continued up to the 2000s.
What is behind the ongoing change?
Obviously, globalization is partly responsible. With Koreans being among the Top 10 groups of international travelers in 2018, there is widespread exposure to global trends. Likewise, more young foreigners are visiting and residing in Korea.
But the real reason may be deeper, closer to home – and less about attraction and more about rebellion against social norms.
Anger on Korean skin, in ink. Photo: Tom Coyner
Millions of Koreans in their 20s and 30s have done all the right things to live the “Korean dream”– study hard at school, attend a good college, graduate and land a safe, steady white-collar job.
But the “job for life” social contract was destroyed after the Asian economic crisis of 1997. The Korean economy has matured in recent years and globalization has led the conglomerates that dominate the economy to find business offshore.
This means that not only have the ultra-high growth rates of the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s slowed, but the formerly abundant supply of white-collar jobs has also dried up.
Meanwhile, the percentage of college graduates, limited to the top fifth of predominately male high school seniors during the 1970s, has widened to roughly 90% of high school graduates of both genders. The result is increased competition for jobs with career potential. Today, a coveted occupation for young people is government work – something unheard of among college grads 50 years ago.
Tattoos have traditionally been seen in a harsh spotlight in Korea. Photo: Tom Coyner
A new generation of young people now lives at home or shares tiny flats while working part-time or short-term jobs with little future potential. Many feel shame and frustration: The sacrifices made by their families and their own efforts have come to naught. A once dominant sense that “things are getting better” has evaporated.
One side effect is the emergence of a nascent alternative culture, visible in the adoption of less conventional and freer attire and body decoration, such as small (and often faux, removable) tattoos.
While an increasing number of young persons are exhibiting more flamboyant tattoos, young men have to wait until after their military obligations as large tattoos are not permitted in the Korean military. Young men who go ahead with obtrusive tattoos prior to their mandatory conscription are required to do non-military national service.
Love of art. Photo: Tom Coyner
Young women are usually more reserved, or more particular where they place their artwork. Nonetheless, one can now see the rare Korean young woman with extensive tattoos. Two years ago, I was surprised to see a young female office worker sporting an exposed upper chest tattoo in a Seoul government facility. This was unseen a decade or so ago.
While hardly commonplace, tattoos are no longer rare, and in even more limited areas, body piercing is also being seen. Tattooing makes an indelible statement: The possessor of the tattoo is not of the mainstream.
Still, there may be an inbuilt prejudice against those with tattoos – one I recognized in myself.
As a photographer engaged in photo essays on the topic, I was struck by how polite and courteous my subjects were. Yet I sensed a quiet desperation: Most of the subjects did not see where their lives were going.
My overall sense was that I was documenting more of an economic than a social or cultural phenomenon.
Asia Times thanks the following for the location shoots: Gentle Monster Showroom of Gyedong (Bukchon); Skunk Works (Seoul); The Vinyl Underground (Busan); and Gyeongbok Palace, Seoul.
Alternative culture means traditional culture: Tattoos on display at Seoul’s Gyeongbok Palace. Photo: Tom Coyner
Wuhan calling and the clash of punk culture
The Chinese city that triggered the Covid-19 epidemic has seen its alternative music scene battered by the crisis
Queen Sea Big Shark were planning a live-stream performance for Wuhan fans but the event was called off. Photo: Unknown Wuhan is arguably China’s punk capital, its historically feisty reputation reflected in the writhing mosh pits and live venues of a vibrant music scene.
Or at least it was before coronavirus, which has tattooed a new outcast image on the city of 11 million and at the same time pulled the plug on the high-decibel subculture.
The city that gave the world Covid-19 remains fearful of new outbreaks, forbidding live shows, forcing performances online, and clouding the future.
“The eventual impact on us remains unknown,” said Zhu Ning, founding member of a landmark Wuhan punk band and proprietor of indie live house VOX. “The most important thing is to keep (the music scene) alive.”
Wuhan’s 11-week coronavirus lockdown was finally lifted in April as new infections abated, reawakening the city, but live shows remain banned. “No performance means no customers and that means no revenue,” Zhu, 48, said inside his empty club, hours after police ordered him to call off an event.
Vox had planned to live-stream a show by Beijing-based rockers Queen Sea Big Shark. “We were all ready and had to suddenly put a stop to it. What’s wrong with the world?” Zhu sighed.
Punk rock band Demerit made a splash in China in 2016. Photo: Facebook
Located at China’s center, Wuhan is an ancient crossroads and site of a 1911 uprising that led to the collapse of thousands of years of imperial rule.
Home to several universities and their students, and the expat staff of multinational manufacturers, it is known for its openness to new ideas, while a massive industrial sector adds a blue-collar air.
Its reputation for straight talk and quick tempers was captured on video when a top national official arrived in March to inspect epidemic-control efforts.
Communist authorities have endured unprecedented criticism after Wuhan officials initially suppressed news of the outbreak and fumbled the initial response, and the official was jeered by locals sequestered in their apartment blocks.
Zhu is the former drummer for pioneering Wuhan punk band SMZB, which emerged in the late 1990s with several other local groups, earning Wuhan a reputation as one of China’s punk crucibles, along with Beijing.
SMZB’s frontman, Wuhan-born guitarist Wu Wei, is recognised as the godfather of Chinese punk, penning provocative lyrics that sometimes criticise authorities. He also founded Wuhan Prison, another punk landmark, a decade ago.
“This is a place where many people gather together and pass on their energy,” Ingmar Liu, 21, a vocalist for a local band and a Wuhan Prison employee, said.
But Liu, with green hair and a series of surreal arm tattoos, said the club has struggled to pay its rent without customers
.
Punk culture is still alive and well in China despite the coronavirus crisis. Photo: AFP GOD SAVE XI! IS NOT AN ALBUM TITLE
A mid-May attempt to reopen was quickly aborted by police due to Covid-19 transmission fears. “The epidemic has impacted the entire bar and concert industry, not just us,” she said.
It has also scattered musicians for local bands, including foreigners, according to members of reggae/ska band Sky King Jack.
Unable to perform, they gather in private for loose rehearsals, waiting to take the stage again.
“The band can’t make money and now we play music just for fun,” bassist Liu Jia said after assembling for practice at a rented cottage.
It remains to be seen whether Wuhan’s famed frankness will be reflected in future songs referencing the pandemic.
“I was very angry with the government’s handling of the coronavirus at first, but now I have digested it,” Ingmar Liu said.
