It is well known that tens of thousands of North Koreans have left their country to wander around China and vicinity, and if fortunate, to settle elsewhere, notably in South Korea. Most arrive via Southeast Asia or Mongolia, frequently aided by a South Korean Christian missionary organization. This scenario has been recognized in the new millennium as, and I speak with caution, a pattern. With caution, because after all, there cannot be a pattern for refugees or exiles to leave, travel, and settle, as their existence is inherently unsettling. This article highlights one such instance—North Koreans who reach South Korea. I do so by contrasting the representation of North Koreans on South Korea's silver screen, or more precisely, the transformation of such representation, on the one hand, and the actual fate of former North Koreans who reach South Korea. In the following I re-visit two South Korean movies Shiri (1999) and Joint Security Area (2000), both of which represented North Koreans in new ways and received critical acclaim as well as academic attention. While much has been said about these two, it is not what has been said that is important, but how it has been said, in connection with whom and at what historical juncture. In this regard, there is a perception gap between North Koreans depicted in film and North Korean neighbors who live next door. I shall first draw Shiri and Joint Security Area to the reader's attention and present my own interpretation. Following that, I shall discuss a connection—or, more precisely, the lack thereof—that exists between these films and the current situation that North Koreans in South Korea face.

Precis: Using Kawaguchi Kaiji's graphic novel Jipangu (2001-2009) as an example, this essay explores a horizon of historical consciousness revealed by alternative histories of the Asia-Pacific War. Alternative histories of the war attempt to remove the stigma of defeat but also betray the extent to which contemporary Japan is unimaginable without the experience of defeat. Jipangu suggests a limit to the alternative pasts imaginable in early-twenty- first-century Japan.

The U.S. Marine Corps buried a massive stockpile of Agent Orange at the Futenma air station in Okinawa, seriously sickening the base's former head of maintenance and potentially contaminating nearby residents and the ground beneath the base. The barrels were abandoned in Okinawa at the end of the Vietnam War - when the U.S. government banned the dioxin-laden defoliant for health reasons — and were buried at the installation in the city of Ginowan after the Pentagon ignored repeated requests to safely dispose of them, according to the veterans who served at the installation in the 1970s and 1980s.

“What's wrong with being a fag? What's shameful about being a fag? Why is it wrong for a man to love a man? Why is it wrong for a woman to love a woman? What is shameful is living a lie. What is shameful is not loving others.” Tōgō Ken campaign slogan.