#kqcf

July 15, 2017

The Korea Queer Cultural Festival (퀴어문화축제) was my first Pride experience. I support the LGBTQ community everywhere in the world --especially in a country where many people aren't openly gay as they fear the reactions from their community. I saw and met so many incredible loving, courageous people in Seoul! 

Celebrating love and diversity was more blissful and liberating than anything I had imagined. There was some on-and-off rain and hateful protestors. I am thankful for the 85,000 supporters and 6,000 police officers in attendance (numbers from Korea Herald). 

KQCF Support☆Butamanoji☆T-shirts

Hi! I’m Butamanoji (the prince of steamed pork buns) (Twitter/Instagram ID: @butamanouji) and I make steamed pork buns (known as "butaman" in the Osaka dialect) and custard pudding in the heart of Koreatown, Osaka Japan. I’m pleased to introduce you some T-shirts I made to support the Korean Queer Culture Festival.

The story depicted on the T-shirt goes as follows:

1. Butamanoji was fishing in the Hirano River near the Koreatown and found a bottle with a note in it.

2. It said “Please send us your Butaman”

3. Butamanoji then threw a bamboo steamer full of Butamans into the sky.

4. Warm Butamans in the form of rainbow-colored balloons landed in Seoul.

You might have heard about the recent growth of hate speech protests in Japanese society. It started around 2009, by a group of right-wing extremists, who targeted the resident Korean population in Japan.

The frequency and intensity of their hate speech demonstrations against foreigners in Japan such as resident Korean and Chinese minorities have since escalated as the Japanese government and members of mainstream society have failed to take concrete action to curtail their activities. These hate speech protests reached new heights of intensity between 2012 and 2013, when the extremists started to organize large-scale anti-Korean demonstrations in historic Korean enclaves in Tsuruhashi, Osaka and Shin Okubo, Tokyo. Their activities incurred irreparable psychological damage on the members of my community in the Koreatown, and the trauma that we experienced has continued to haunt us even now. It was during this very critical and traumatic moment when our LGBT friends stood up for us, raising their voices with us on the streets in our fight against xenophobia. As sexual minorities who have also experienced similar types of discrimination, they were able to understand and share in our suffering. I cannot begin to express the gratitude that I felt towards my LGBT friends for giving us the courage and wisdom to persist, despite all the hardships and heartache we experienced during this time.

In June 2015, I learned that our LGBT friends in South Korea had become the target of hate speech from anti-LGBT religious organizations. This reminded me of my very own experiences with hate speech as a Korean in Japan and I felt compelled to take action. Just as our LGBT friends were there for us on the streets and raised their voices in protest, I thought that maybe it was my turn to show gratitude and solidarity in their fight to overcome discrimination in Korea.

In my efforts to express these sentiments of support and friendship, I decided to make these T-shirts last year and managed to donate part of the sales to the KQCF. I support the efforts of the KQCF this year and I will continue to support my LGBT friends in the future, as well. I would feel honored if you could March in the rainbow parade wearing these “KQCF Support☆Butamanoji☆T-shirts."