The Korean began moonlighting at Marmot's Hole, writing primarily about Korean politics. If you are interested about Korean politics, you can start from here.
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Dear Korean,
What do you get your Korean dad for Father’s Day? My Korean dad never lets me know what he needs or wants.
Elisa
The Korean is convinced that Korean men -- particularly in late 50s or above -- are the hardest people in the world to buy gifts for. In fact, it is somewhat sad when you consider why. Older Korean men, generally speaking, have worked in poverty all their lives. They did not have the money to develop a finer taste on anything, nor did they have the time to cultivate a meaningful hobby. Korea's traditional gift-giving culture be damned -- the very idea of gift-giving can be antithetical to these men, particularly when the gift is being given to them.
Taking after the Korean Father, who epitomizes Korean men in their late 50s, the Korean Family is totally devoid of sentimentality when it comes to gift giving. Prior to every gift-giving occasion, we ask each other what they want. Then we go out and get it. There is no thoughtful process, true, but there is no possibility of error either. It usually works nicely except when it comes to the Korean Father, who would rather not have anything. So, for Father's Day, the routine is for the Korean (and the Korean Brother) to ask the Korean Mother about what the Korean Father needs. (Needs, not wants. He never wants anything.) It usually ends up being some type of clothing, except this year the Korean Father was actually interested in iPad. This was the first time in 20 years when the Korean recalls the Korean Father wanting something for himself.
But there is something that Korean fathers do want -- their children's love and respect. No matter what you end up buying, do not let the material thing to be the substitute for your expression of love and respect. Make sure the gift is accompanied by a heartfelt card that you wrote. Korean fathers may not show their reaction outwardly, but they will surely smile in the inside.
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
What do you get your Korean dad for Father’s Day? My Korean dad never lets me know what he needs or wants.
Elisa
The Korean is convinced that Korean men -- particularly in late 50s or above -- are the hardest people in the world to buy gifts for. In fact, it is somewhat sad when you consider why. Older Korean men, generally speaking, have worked in poverty all their lives. They did not have the money to develop a finer taste on anything, nor did they have the time to cultivate a meaningful hobby. Korea's traditional gift-giving culture be damned -- the very idea of gift-giving can be antithetical to these men, particularly when the gift is being given to them.
Taking after the Korean Father, who epitomizes Korean men in their late 50s, the Korean Family is totally devoid of sentimentality when it comes to gift giving. Prior to every gift-giving occasion, we ask each other what they want. Then we go out and get it. There is no thoughtful process, true, but there is no possibility of error either. It usually works nicely except when it comes to the Korean Father, who would rather not have anything. So, for Father's Day, the routine is for the Korean (and the Korean Brother) to ask the Korean Mother about what the Korean Father needs. (Needs, not wants. He never wants anything.) It usually ends up being some type of clothing, except this year the Korean Father was actually interested in iPad. This was the first time in 20 years when the Korean recalls the Korean Father wanting something for himself.
But there is something that Korean fathers do want -- their children's love and respect. No matter what you end up buying, do not let the material thing to be the substitute for your expression of love and respect. Make sure the gift is accompanied by a heartfelt card that you wrote. Korean fathers may not show their reaction outwardly, but they will surely smile in the inside.
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Tremendous piece about Ichiro and Asian Americans by Jay Caspian Kang. A sample:
The highlighted language, by the way, is part of the reason why the Korean embraced the Lakers and the Dodgers so wholeheartedly. As a 16-year-old immigrant to America, he found that no matter what you looked like, no matter what your accent was like, Americans liked talking with you, a total stranger, as long as you were talking about their home teams. The Korean was not even in the same continent as Kirk Gibson when Gibson hit the home run in the Game 1 of 1988 World Series, but he can tell the story as if he saw it. It's part of what it takes to live in America.
Immigrant Misappropriations: The Importance of Ichiro [Grantland.com]I believed I was witnessing the collapse of stereotypes about Asians. My letters back to the East Coast, which during the winter had alternated between a weird austerity and cloying anger, focused now on the importance of sports in a society: How a meritocracy like baseball offered anyone a chance to showcase the talents of a people....When a group of Japanese students sitting in front of me passed around a red sign on which some indistinguishable Japanese slogan had been written, obscuring my view of the field, I could do nothing but sit back and mutter astonished, bitter words into the back of my hand. It finally occurred to me that I had been ignoring the elephantine irony of this happy scene: I was born in Korea to Korean parents, meaning the only history I share with Ichiro is that on several occasions over the past thousand years, his people have brutally occupied my home country. Rooting for a Japanese baseball player because he fit in the same constructed minority category was like if an Irish ex-pat began rooting for Manchester United because the good people of China couldn't distinguish between his accent and Wayne Rooney's. And in most ways, it was a lot worse than that. ... I could watch Ichiro stretching in the on-deck circle and conjure the image of Jackie Robinson sliding home in 1947, but that association never brought hope, but rather a wariness that both told me that the association was wrong and that the only reason why I was cheering for Ichiro was because someone, something else had lumped us together....Roth languishes in the redemptive possibilities that a shared interest in baseball might offer people who are separated along other lines. Similarly, my own stake in baseball comes from the fact that I am the foreign-born child of Korean immigrants, and that sometimes finding acceptance in this country is as simple as shouting out in a crowded bar that you know who started each game of the 1986 World Series because you, like the rest of the people there, watched every game on TV and talked about it the next day at school.
The highlighted language, by the way, is part of the reason why the Korean embraced the Lakers and the Dodgers so wholeheartedly. As a 16-year-old immigrant to America, he found that no matter what you looked like, no matter what your accent was like, Americans liked talking with you, a total stranger, as long as you were talking about their home teams. The Korean was not even in the same continent as Kirk Gibson when Gibson hit the home run in the Game 1 of 1988 World Series, but he can tell the story as if he saw it. It's part of what it takes to live in America.
Diane Farr, who wrote a nice column for the New York Times regarding interracial dating (involving stories about her Korean American husband) gave a good interview about her new book, Kissing Outside the Lines. A quick sample:
Actress Diane Farr writes amazing book on interracial romance, Kissing Outside the Lines [tampabay.com]What’s so funny is in this exact moment of time, Asians are having like a moment in the sun, between the Tiger Mom and the cover of New York Magazine, and they’re being portrayed as either Nazi-like parents who have no sense of humor or meek, short, sheltered cattle. It seems everything about being biracial in America is about black and white. Sometimes I even feel funny to say I’m in a biracial marriage because people are like, ‘Oh, he’s Asian?’ The subtext is, ‘Who cares?’ You didn’t marry a black person. No one’s paying any attention to you. So for the first moment that we’re paying attention to Asians, we’re putting them down....I think so much of the time when parents are saying, no, I don’t want you to marry outside of your race, they’re worried about either the death of their own culture or what’s gonna happen to their kid because it’s out of their realm of knowledge. And if we can keep it in that idea that it’s from fear, it’s not from hate … yes, of course, it’s ignorance, but that people are acting from love or fear, it’s just one or the other.
Monday, 13 June 2011
[Series Index]
Finally, here we are -- the last part of this series. This post will be about how Korea can capitalize its Confucian heritage better, or improve upon the Confucian heritage. Put differently, this post will identify areas of Korean society that can use more Confucianism, as well as the same that can use less Confucianism.
More Confucianism?
The Korean found some of the reactions to the last part of this series rather interesting. Some commenters said essentially that Confucianism has its share of problems, and pointed to the social ills suffered by China, Japan and Korea. The Korean would readily agree that a Confucian society will have their share of problems -- which is the whole point of having this part of the series. Undoubtedly, there are social ills in Korea that will be solved with having less Confucianism.
But as the Korean warned over and over again throughout this series, Confucianism is not the only mode of thought that guides Korean society. In fact, the Korean would say Confucius is not even the philosopher whose ideas guide modern Korea the most. Any guesses about who that philosopher might be? Buddha and Dharma, based on Korea's long Buddhist tradition? Lao Tzu and Zhang Tzu, the pillars of Taoism?
Would you have guessed... Thomas Hobbes? In his book Leviathan, the 17th century British philosopher described the state of nature: bellum omnium contra omnes, "the war of all against all." In such state of nature, life of a person is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Hobbes might as well have been speaking of the way Korea found itself as it began its venture as a modern nation in the 1940s, devastated by Japanese imperialism, World War II and Korean War. Just how ugly Korea was post-World War II is described in harrowing detail by a recent book, "Birth of the Modern Man." The book, which chronicles the history of Korea's public medicine, recounts the disastrous state of Korea's public health. Within one year of the liberation, 2.3 million Koreans from overseas (mostly from Japan and China) returned to Korea. During Korean War, 500,000 people escaped North Korea to come to the South. Cholera epidemic covered the country. Seoul, in particular, was a crowded sea of bodies, alive and dead. In 1950, there were 800,000 refugees in South Korea without a home. Out of the 440,000 infants born in 1948, 180,000 died before their first birthday. During Korean War, American medics reported that a surgery for a Korean soldier shot in the stomach usually entailed catching hundreds of parasites that were crawling out of the dying host.
(More after the jump)
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
In the face of these Hobbesian conditions, Korea dragged itself to where it is now by, in significant parts, allowing the war of all against all to happen. The winners of that war -- the Lee Byeong-Cheol (founder of Samsung) and Chung Joo-Young (founder of Hyundai) of the world -- have built the empires that few in the world, and even fewer in the shithole that was Korea, could dare to envision in their wildest imagination. The losers barely carried on with their lives with no one else to alleviate their misery, or simply died off.
Understanding the mindset created in this process -- of brutal competition and (literal) survival over the next person in every aspect of life -- is the more important to understanding Korea than understanding any other Eastern philosophy, including Confucianism. This survivalist philosophy -- crude and uncivilized, yet pragmatic and efficient -- pervades Korean mindset more than any other philosophy. Like a black hole, this survivalist philosophy (or is it an anti-philosophy?) pulls in everything around it and twists its surroundings in accordance with its pull.
A lot of Korea observers don't get this idea. So often, they end up blaming Confucianism as the cause of Korea's social ill based on the mistaken belief that Confucianism is the main driver of Koreans' mentality. But Confucianism does not deserve their criticism, because the social ills are not the reflections of Confucianism. Instead, borrowing from this excellent post in Asadal Thought, it is only a refraction of Confucianism, distorted by uncivilized philosophy of brute survival in which Korea had to engage by necessity. (By the way, make sure to read that terrific post by Seamus, describing the interplay between Confucianism and Korean education.)
For these types social ills of Korea, more Confucianism is the answer, not less. Here are a couple of examples in which Korea can be helped by engaging in more orthodox Confucianism.
Abuse of Hierarchical Position
Confucianism is commonly described as emphasizing hierarchy. That is a fair description in a sense because in almost every Confucian relation, there is a clear order of who comes first, and who comes second -- parents over children, ruler over subjects, husband over wife, older over younger. But the Korean so far has avoided the term "hierarchical," and instead opted for the term "relational." That choice was made because the Korean believed the term "hierarchical" missed an important element in Confucian relations -- that each person in a relationship, whether superior or inferior, has a certain duty corresponding to his/her status in the relationship. In, the highest ideal of Confucianism, is a natural result when everyone acts on his duty.
Often, this element is ignored in contemporary Korea. Instead, what ends up happening is a naked power play in the guise of Confucianism. Political leaders demand respect while not having done much to inspire such respect from the people. Bosses demand deference without doing much to inspire the deference from their employees. Older Koreans yell at younger Koreans rather than persuade. Facing this dynamic, instead of naturally obeying their superiors, Koreans often do so with bitten lips and gritted teeth.
More Confucianism will help this situation. Under the more orthodox view of Confucianism, such leaders and bosses will soon lose the heaven's mandate to lead, because they have not fulfilled their own duties. Once the heaven's mandate is lost, they no longer deserve to be in that position. In fact, this is the core message that enabled the Joseon Dynasty, which replaced Goryeo Dynasty that was supposed to have lost the heaven's mandate. Likewise, orthodox Confucianism envisions a dynamic relationship within a hierarchy. Hierarchy is necessary; there is no group that can properly function without a leader who can take decisive actions. Focusing on the duties of the leaders of the hierarchy, as Confucianism calls for, will make the various hierarchies in Korea run smoother.
Excessive Educational Pressure
The Korean will not get into too much detail on this part, since there will be a huge education in Korea series in the future. But for our purpose here, it would suffice to say that education in Korea is a nuclear arms race. When the Korean recently read this article from the New York Times about how American parents with private school students spending up to $35,000 for private tutors, he scoffed. In terms of proportion of their family budget, Korean parents spends twice as much as American parents despite the fact that primary schooling (i.e. actual elementary, middle and high schools) in Korea rarely involve private schools. (And even if they do, private K-12 schools in Korea usually cost no more than $2,000 a year.) Korean families spend more money of children's education than everything else except groceries -- more than eating out, more than vacations, more than rent.
Normally, this would be a good thing. Undoubtedly, a highly education population and the economic system that rewarded highly educated people have been major factors in Korea's success. But Korea's survivalist philosophy is pushing Korean children to their breaking point. There are only 24 hours a day, and only so much stress a mind can take. Korean children -- both youths and adolescents -- are deeply unhappy, even compared to other Asian countries like Japan or China. The stress is literally driving a lot of students to suicide, and the rate of increase is startling -- from 2009 to 2010, there was a 47% increase in K-12 students who committed suicide.
Observers often attribute this to Confucianism's emphasis on education, but in fact this is a stark departure from Confucianism. As discussed previously, Confucian education is about character building. It is supposed to be about building a moral self, not about the rewards that follow intense education. Confucian education looks inward, but the current Korean education system is fixated outward toward better colleges and high-paying jobs. A reminder of proper Confucian education would serve as a great antidote for the current nuclear arms race of education in Korea.
Less Confucianism
On the other hand, there is no question that certain aspects of Confucianism do not fit the dynamics of modern society. Confucianism simply never had the chance to evolve organically along with modernity, as other Western philosophies have. It would do Korea no good to hang on to Confucianism in these areas. In such areas, Confucianism must be radically re-interpreted, or discarded altogether. Below are a couple of examples.
Ability to deal with strangers
Korea's driving situation is notorious: it is disorderly, erratic and fatal. Korea's rate of traffic fatality is over twice of the OECD average, coming in third-to-last among the 29 member countries. The streets of Korea often approach a state of total lawlessness, with cars jumping onto and driving on pedestrian sidewalks and motorcycles whizzing by between lanes.
Korea also has a bad track record of discrimination. As the Korean chronicled a number of times on this blog, xenophobia and racism are rampant in Korea. Even among Koreans, there is still lingering discrimination against homosexuals, disabled, children born out of wedlock, people from certain regions, etc.
What do these two social ills have to do with each other? They are both examples of how Confucianism never evolved to fit the modern life. Remember that Confucian worldview is relational, based on the five specific relations -- parent-child, ruler-subject, husband-wife, old-young, friend-friend. But what about people who do not fit in one of those relations? If you are a serious Confucian, what are you supposed to do when you encounter a total stranger who does not fit the existing set of relationships?
Bad driving and discriminations are two examples that show Confucianism's failure to deal with strangers. (There are certainly many more examples.) When a Korean person meets another person, they spent the first few minutes asking each other how old they are, what they do, where they are from, etc. in order to figure out their relational positions. But you can't do that when you are driving a car. Behind the wheel, all the markers that matter to a Confucian are hidden. Because of that, the survivalist tendency takes over again, which leads to crazy and selfish driving. Similarly, discrimination against other people ultimately originates from failure to relate. When a person does not fit a set of existing social relationship, that person matters less than other persons who do fit. This is true everywhere, but particularly truer in a society that takes a relational understanding of humans.
A crucial characteristic of an industrial and capitalistic society is the ability for people to move around and constantly deal with strangers. Without this characteristic, modern society is not possible. But Confucianism is not very good at teaching people how to deal with strangers, although it may be excellent with teaching people how to deal with your parents, for example. Since Korea would prefer to have modernity than Confucianism, Confucianism must yield on this aspect.
A radical reinterpretation of Confucianism could possibly overcome this limitation. One way is to potentially extend the family-like treatment to total strangers. In fact, this has already happened to a certain extent. The original meanings of ajeossi and ajumma -- terms referring to any middle-aged man or woman, respectively -- are "uncle" and "aunt." If Confucianism is to evolve into a modern philosophy, this type of expansion needs to be dramatically increased. For example, the friend-friend relationship of the five morals -- "between friends, there must be trust" -- can potentially be expanded to cover relationship among strangers, similar to the way in which the Bible's "Love thy neighbor" requirement has been expanded to cover everyone in the world.
Gender Equality
Korea is not a place in which men and women are equal. The same can be said about almost all countries in the world, but the disparity of status based on gender in Korea is much more significant relative to other comparable countries. In a recent survey by the Economist, Korea ranked 104th (!) in the world in gender-based discrimination at workplace. Korean women are arguably more objectified by their male counterpart than any other women in the world, leading to shockingly high rate of plastic surgery and unhealthy diets that leave some women disturbingly thin.
Confucianism is hardly the only reason for this -- in fact, the survivalist philosophy probably has a greater role, as Korean men are trying to hang onto their dominant position and Korean women are doing whatever it takes to survive in a male-dominated society. But it is undeniable that Confucianism contributes to this. The Confucian manners -- ones listed in great detail in sohak (小學, Book of Small Learning), for example -- unfailingly consign women to a crabbed, inferior and unequal role relative to men's. And importantly, more (orthodox) Confucianism cannot solve this problem.
Fortunately there are multiple ways out of this, and Korea is well on its way to taking those roads. Among those who have a preference, parents who wish to have a daughter out number those who wish to have a son by 50%. The proportion of husbands participating in running the house is steadily increasing, easily surpassing the majority and moving toward supermajority. In 1998, only 13.3% of the people who passed the bar were women; in 2010, the same number was 41.5%. Gender equality in Korea still has a long, long way to go, but Korea did come this far because enough Koreans take the idea of gender equality seriously.
Also, there is room within Confucianism context to achieve greater equality between men and women. Confucianism reserves a special, elevated role for mothers. One of the most popular Confucian morality story involves the mother of Mencius, who moved to three different residences for the sake of young Mencius' education. Similarly, one of the most revered women in traditional Korean history, Shin Saimdang (whom you can see on the new KRW 50,000 bill,) is also renowned for (among other things) her motherly achievement of raising her son, Yi Yi, to be one of the greatest Confucian scholar in Korean history. (Yi Yi is also on the KRW 5,000 bill, to complete a mother-son pair on Korean money.)
The special emphasis placed on the parent-child relationship also has been summoned in the call for gender equality. "What if she was your daughter?" has a strong resonance anywhere, but particularly in Korea where family relationship is paramount over everything else. The rallying cry has been very effective so far in, for example, dramatically increasing punishment for sexual assault against a minor.
Finally, here we are -- the last part of this series. This post will be about how Korea can capitalize its Confucian heritage better, or improve upon the Confucian heritage. Put differently, this post will identify areas of Korean society that can use more Confucianism, as well as the same that can use less Confucianism.
More Confucianism?
The Korean found some of the reactions to the last part of this series rather interesting. Some commenters said essentially that Confucianism has its share of problems, and pointed to the social ills suffered by China, Japan and Korea. The Korean would readily agree that a Confucian society will have their share of problems -- which is the whole point of having this part of the series. Undoubtedly, there are social ills in Korea that will be solved with having less Confucianism.
But as the Korean warned over and over again throughout this series, Confucianism is not the only mode of thought that guides Korean society. In fact, the Korean would say Confucius is not even the philosopher whose ideas guide modern Korea the most. Any guesses about who that philosopher might be? Buddha and Dharma, based on Korea's long Buddhist tradition? Lao Tzu and Zhang Tzu, the pillars of Taoism?
Would you have guessed... Thomas Hobbes? In his book Leviathan, the 17th century British philosopher described the state of nature: bellum omnium contra omnes, "the war of all against all." In such state of nature, life of a person is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan
(Source)
Hobbes might as well have been speaking of the way Korea found itself as it began its venture as a modern nation in the 1940s, devastated by Japanese imperialism, World War II and Korean War. Just how ugly Korea was post-World War II is described in harrowing detail by a recent book, "Birth of the Modern Man." The book, which chronicles the history of Korea's public medicine, recounts the disastrous state of Korea's public health. Within one year of the liberation, 2.3 million Koreans from overseas (mostly from Japan and China) returned to Korea. During Korean War, 500,000 people escaped North Korea to come to the South. Cholera epidemic covered the country. Seoul, in particular, was a crowded sea of bodies, alive and dead. In 1950, there were 800,000 refugees in South Korea without a home. Out of the 440,000 infants born in 1948, 180,000 died before their first birthday. During Korean War, American medics reported that a surgery for a Korean soldier shot in the stomach usually entailed catching hundreds of parasites that were crawling out of the dying host.
(More after the jump)
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
In the face of these Hobbesian conditions, Korea dragged itself to where it is now by, in significant parts, allowing the war of all against all to happen. The winners of that war -- the Lee Byeong-Cheol (founder of Samsung) and Chung Joo-Young (founder of Hyundai) of the world -- have built the empires that few in the world, and even fewer in the shithole that was Korea, could dare to envision in their wildest imagination. The losers barely carried on with their lives with no one else to alleviate their misery, or simply died off.
Understanding the mindset created in this process -- of brutal competition and (literal) survival over the next person in every aspect of life -- is the more important to understanding Korea than understanding any other Eastern philosophy, including Confucianism. This survivalist philosophy -- crude and uncivilized, yet pragmatic and efficient -- pervades Korean mindset more than any other philosophy. Like a black hole, this survivalist philosophy (or is it an anti-philosophy?) pulls in everything around it and twists its surroundings in accordance with its pull.
A lot of Korea observers don't get this idea. So often, they end up blaming Confucianism as the cause of Korea's social ill based on the mistaken belief that Confucianism is the main driver of Koreans' mentality. But Confucianism does not deserve their criticism, because the social ills are not the reflections of Confucianism. Instead, borrowing from this excellent post in Asadal Thought, it is only a refraction of Confucianism, distorted by uncivilized philosophy of brute survival in which Korea had to engage by necessity. (By the way, make sure to read that terrific post by Seamus, describing the interplay between Confucianism and Korean education.)
For these types social ills of Korea, more Confucianism is the answer, not less. Here are a couple of examples in which Korea can be helped by engaging in more orthodox Confucianism.
Abuse of Hierarchical Position
Confucianism is commonly described as emphasizing hierarchy. That is a fair description in a sense because in almost every Confucian relation, there is a clear order of who comes first, and who comes second -- parents over children, ruler over subjects, husband over wife, older over younger. But the Korean so far has avoided the term "hierarchical," and instead opted for the term "relational." That choice was made because the Korean believed the term "hierarchical" missed an important element in Confucian relations -- that each person in a relationship, whether superior or inferior, has a certain duty corresponding to his/her status in the relationship. In, the highest ideal of Confucianism, is a natural result when everyone acts on his duty.
More Confucianism will help this situation. Under the more orthodox view of Confucianism, such leaders and bosses will soon lose the heaven's mandate to lead, because they have not fulfilled their own duties. Once the heaven's mandate is lost, they no longer deserve to be in that position. In fact, this is the core message that enabled the Joseon Dynasty, which replaced Goryeo Dynasty that was supposed to have lost the heaven's mandate. Likewise, orthodox Confucianism envisions a dynamic relationship within a hierarchy. Hierarchy is necessary; there is no group that can properly function without a leader who can take decisive actions. Focusing on the duties of the leaders of the hierarchy, as Confucianism calls for, will make the various hierarchies in Korea run smoother.
Excessive Educational Pressure
The Korean will not get into too much detail on this part, since there will be a huge education in Korea series in the future. But for our purpose here, it would suffice to say that education in Korea is a nuclear arms race. When the Korean recently read this article from the New York Times about how American parents with private school students spending up to $35,000 for private tutors, he scoffed. In terms of proportion of their family budget, Korean parents spends twice as much as American parents despite the fact that primary schooling (i.e. actual elementary, middle and high schools) in Korea rarely involve private schools. (And even if they do, private K-12 schools in Korea usually cost no more than $2,000 a year.) Korean families spend more money of children's education than everything else except groceries -- more than eating out, more than vacations, more than rent.
Normally, this would be a good thing. Undoubtedly, a highly education population and the economic system that rewarded highly educated people have been major factors in Korea's success. But Korea's survivalist philosophy is pushing Korean children to their breaking point. There are only 24 hours a day, and only so much stress a mind can take. Korean children -- both youths and adolescents -- are deeply unhappy, even compared to other Asian countries like Japan or China. The stress is literally driving a lot of students to suicide, and the rate of increase is startling -- from 2009 to 2010, there was a 47% increase in K-12 students who committed suicide.
Observers often attribute this to Confucianism's emphasis on education, but in fact this is a stark departure from Confucianism. As discussed previously, Confucian education is about character building. It is supposed to be about building a moral self, not about the rewards that follow intense education. Confucian education looks inward, but the current Korean education system is fixated outward toward better colleges and high-paying jobs. A reminder of proper Confucian education would serve as a great antidote for the current nuclear arms race of education in Korea.
Less Confucianism
On the other hand, there is no question that certain aspects of Confucianism do not fit the dynamics of modern society. Confucianism simply never had the chance to evolve organically along with modernity, as other Western philosophies have. It would do Korea no good to hang on to Confucianism in these areas. In such areas, Confucianism must be radically re-interpreted, or discarded altogether. Below are a couple of examples.
Ability to deal with strangers
Korea's driving situation is notorious: it is disorderly, erratic and fatal. Korea's rate of traffic fatality is over twice of the OECD average, coming in third-to-last among the 29 member countries. The streets of Korea often approach a state of total lawlessness, with cars jumping onto and driving on pedestrian sidewalks and motorcycles whizzing by between lanes.
Korea also has a bad track record of discrimination. As the Korean chronicled a number of times on this blog, xenophobia and racism are rampant in Korea. Even among Koreans, there is still lingering discrimination against homosexuals, disabled, children born out of wedlock, people from certain regions, etc.
What do these two social ills have to do with each other? They are both examples of how Confucianism never evolved to fit the modern life. Remember that Confucian worldview is relational, based on the five specific relations -- parent-child, ruler-subject, husband-wife, old-young, friend-friend. But what about people who do not fit in one of those relations? If you are a serious Confucian, what are you supposed to do when you encounter a total stranger who does not fit the existing set of relationships?
Bad driving and discriminations are two examples that show Confucianism's failure to deal with strangers. (There are certainly many more examples.) When a Korean person meets another person, they spent the first few minutes asking each other how old they are, what they do, where they are from, etc. in order to figure out their relational positions. But you can't do that when you are driving a car. Behind the wheel, all the markers that matter to a Confucian are hidden. Because of that, the survivalist tendency takes over again, which leads to crazy and selfish driving. Similarly, discrimination against other people ultimately originates from failure to relate. When a person does not fit a set of existing social relationship, that person matters less than other persons who do fit. This is true everywhere, but particularly truer in a society that takes a relational understanding of humans.
A crucial characteristic of an industrial and capitalistic society is the ability for people to move around and constantly deal with strangers. Without this characteristic, modern society is not possible. But Confucianism is not very good at teaching people how to deal with strangers, although it may be excellent with teaching people how to deal with your parents, for example. Since Korea would prefer to have modernity than Confucianism, Confucianism must yield on this aspect.
A radical reinterpretation of Confucianism could possibly overcome this limitation. One way is to potentially extend the family-like treatment to total strangers. In fact, this has already happened to a certain extent. The original meanings of ajeossi and ajumma -- terms referring to any middle-aged man or woman, respectively -- are "uncle" and "aunt." If Confucianism is to evolve into a modern philosophy, this type of expansion needs to be dramatically increased. For example, the friend-friend relationship of the five morals -- "between friends, there must be trust" -- can potentially be expanded to cover relationship among strangers, similar to the way in which the Bible's "Love thy neighbor" requirement has been expanded to cover everyone in the world.
Gender Equality
Korea is not a place in which men and women are equal. The same can be said about almost all countries in the world, but the disparity of status based on gender in Korea is much more significant relative to other comparable countries. In a recent survey by the Economist, Korea ranked 104th (!) in the world in gender-based discrimination at workplace. Korean women are arguably more objectified by their male counterpart than any other women in the world, leading to shockingly high rate of plastic surgery and unhealthy diets that leave some women disturbingly thin.
This is Seo-Ah from Korean girl group, Brave Girls.
Focus on her arms in particular -- that is just sick.
Incredibly, this picture is from a tabloid article praising her figure.
(source)
Confucianism is hardly the only reason for this -- in fact, the survivalist philosophy probably has a greater role, as Korean men are trying to hang onto their dominant position and Korean women are doing whatever it takes to survive in a male-dominated society. But it is undeniable that Confucianism contributes to this. The Confucian manners -- ones listed in great detail in sohak (小學, Book of Small Learning), for example -- unfailingly consign women to a crabbed, inferior and unequal role relative to men's. And importantly, more (orthodox) Confucianism cannot solve this problem.
Fortunately there are multiple ways out of this, and Korea is well on its way to taking those roads. Among those who have a preference, parents who wish to have a daughter out number those who wish to have a son by 50%. The proportion of husbands participating in running the house is steadily increasing, easily surpassing the majority and moving toward supermajority. In 1998, only 13.3% of the people who passed the bar were women; in 2010, the same number was 41.5%. Gender equality in Korea still has a long, long way to go, but Korea did come this far because enough Koreans take the idea of gender equality seriously.
Also, there is room within Confucianism context to achieve greater equality between men and women. Confucianism reserves a special, elevated role for mothers. One of the most popular Confucian morality story involves the mother of Mencius, who moved to three different residences for the sake of young Mencius' education. Similarly, one of the most revered women in traditional Korean history, Shin Saimdang (whom you can see on the new KRW 50,000 bill,) is also renowned for (among other things) her motherly achievement of raising her son, Yi Yi, to be one of the greatest Confucian scholar in Korean history. (Yi Yi is also on the KRW 5,000 bill, to complete a mother-son pair on Korean money.)
The special emphasis placed on the parent-child relationship also has been summoned in the call for gender equality. "What if she was your daughter?" has a strong resonance anywhere, but particularly in Korea where family relationship is paramount over everything else. The rallying cry has been very effective so far in, for example, dramatically increasing punishment for sexual assault against a minor.
* * *
This is the end of Korea and Confucianism series. This was the most difficult series so far in the history of AAK! because of the breadth and depth of the subject involved. It basically took 10 months to write -- four months to buy books and brush up on the knowledge of Confucianism, and six months to complete six parts. Even with that, the best the Korean could do was to skim the surface. The Korean hopes you found it helpful, and welcomes any comments or additions.
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
Friday, 10 June 2011
[TK: The title of the post is from a song. The Korean will be very impressed if you knew the song. Don't Google!]
Dear Korean,
Why do Koreans turn their faces away when drinking in front of elderly ?
Anna
Dear Korean,
During a night of drinking with my boss and his colleagues, some of my elders (I'm 31, they're 40-45) told me that i don't have to turn my head away when drinking because i'm in the company of friends. does this mean that next time i go out with them i don't need to do that? i'm confused about this custom and how it works.
Ryan
Dear Questioners,
If you have had any contact with Korean culture, the Korean hardly needs to remind you that Korea has, among other things, a strong drinking culture. And visitors also find that with the strong drinking culture comes a set of rituals about drinking.
Here are the basic rules of Korean drinking.
Rule 1 - Drink, but don't be a hero
At a place to drink, you are supposed to drink. You can refuse to drink by giving excuses like being sick, etc. (Roboseyo has a good list of clever ways to avoid drinking.) But preferably, you will drink. This, however, does not mean you have to be the best drinker of the crowd. Unless you like drinking that much and can handle it physically, there is no honor in being the best drinker. Don't be a hero -- pace yourself. Sip instead of knocking back. Or do what the Korean does -- don't drink at all, until the occasion calls for it. During the course of the night, there inevitably will be times where you will have to drink the contents of your glass, like when someone attempts to fill your glass (discussed below). Drink then.
For the uninitiated, Korean-style drinking can get out of hand really fast unless you remember this rule -- don't be a hero. Other people might encourage you to drink at first, but they will stop caring as the night goes on and they themselves get more drunk. If you have a particularly bad instigator in your party, get the instigator drunk first so that he won't notice that you are pacing yourself.
Rule 2 - No one pours him/herself
The implications of this rule are simple. Never pour yourself, and never let anyone's glass go empty. Going back to Rule 1, one of the surest way of pacing yourself is -- not drinking at all, until someone attempts to pour your glass. The Korean likes to drink exactly half of his soju glass, and simply sit on it until someone attempts to pour his glass. As noted in Roboseyo's post, being proactive about pouring others usually helps you pace yourself.
Rule 3 - The elder rules
There are just a few rules to remember about drinking with older people. When pouring, use two hands to pour. When receiving liquor, also hold your glass with two hands. When actually drinking the alcohol in front of an older person, turn your face away such that you don't show your neck going back. These are just polite things to do.
Rule 4 - Forget all the rules
Often, visitors to Korea get paralyzed by all these supposed rules, because they somehow have this vision of Korea where all the rules must be followed with mechanical precision, or they will be stoned to death in the streets. Relax! Always remember the Foreigner Rule -- Koreans do not expect foreigners to follow Korean custom. If you do not want to keep all these things in mind, don't.
Even forgetting the Foreigner Rule, remember that all the rules described above are dynamic and change depending on the circumstance -- particularly when the night is old and everyone is drunk. Similar to what Ryan described above, Koreans will let some of the rules go if they do not feel like following them. Go with the flow, and enjoy the night.
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
Dear Korean,
Why do Koreans turn their faces away when drinking in front of elderly ?
Anna
Dear Korean,
During a night of drinking with my boss and his colleagues, some of my elders (I'm 31, they're 40-45) told me that i don't have to turn my head away when drinking because i'm in the company of friends. does this mean that next time i go out with them i don't need to do that? i'm confused about this custom and how it works.
Ryan
Dear Questioners,
If you have had any contact with Korean culture, the Korean hardly needs to remind you that Korea has, among other things, a strong drinking culture. And visitors also find that with the strong drinking culture comes a set of rituals about drinking.
Any remote excuse is sufficient to post
the Korean's favorite stock picture for AAK!
Here are the basic rules of Korean drinking.
Rule 1 - Drink, but don't be a hero
At a place to drink, you are supposed to drink. You can refuse to drink by giving excuses like being sick, etc. (Roboseyo has a good list of clever ways to avoid drinking.) But preferably, you will drink. This, however, does not mean you have to be the best drinker of the crowd. Unless you like drinking that much and can handle it physically, there is no honor in being the best drinker. Don't be a hero -- pace yourself. Sip instead of knocking back. Or do what the Korean does -- don't drink at all, until the occasion calls for it. During the course of the night, there inevitably will be times where you will have to drink the contents of your glass, like when someone attempts to fill your glass (discussed below). Drink then.
For the uninitiated, Korean-style drinking can get out of hand really fast unless you remember this rule -- don't be a hero. Other people might encourage you to drink at first, but they will stop caring as the night goes on and they themselves get more drunk. If you have a particularly bad instigator in your party, get the instigator drunk first so that he won't notice that you are pacing yourself.
Rule 2 - No one pours him/herself
The implications of this rule are simple. Never pour yourself, and never let anyone's glass go empty. Going back to Rule 1, one of the surest way of pacing yourself is -- not drinking at all, until someone attempts to pour your glass. The Korean likes to drink exactly half of his soju glass, and simply sit on it until someone attempts to pour his glass. As noted in Roboseyo's post, being proactive about pouring others usually helps you pace yourself.
Rule 3 - The elder rules
There are just a few rules to remember about drinking with older people. When pouring, use two hands to pour. When receiving liquor, also hold your glass with two hands. When actually drinking the alcohol in front of an older person, turn your face away such that you don't show your neck going back. These are just polite things to do.
Rule 4 - Forget all the rules
Often, visitors to Korea get paralyzed by all these supposed rules, because they somehow have this vision of Korea where all the rules must be followed with mechanical precision, or they will be stoned to death in the streets. Relax! Always remember the Foreigner Rule -- Koreans do not expect foreigners to follow Korean custom. If you do not want to keep all these things in mind, don't.
Even forgetting the Foreigner Rule, remember that all the rules described above are dynamic and change depending on the circumstance -- particularly when the night is old and everyone is drunk. Similar to what Ryan described above, Koreans will let some of the rules go if they do not feel like following them. Go with the flow, and enjoy the night.
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
Well, this is something.
Approximately 1,000 French fans of K-pop conducted a flashmob demonstration in front of the Louvre, demanding that the visiting SM Town stars to extend their visit as the planned concert sold out in 15 minutes. Reports of this demonstration, and the popularity of K-pop in Europe, took up an entire Culture section page in Le Monde.
The Korean had thought that K-pop was reaching a saturation point, but he is glad to be wrong.
Approximately 1,000 French fans of K-pop conducted a flashmob demonstration in front of the Louvre, demanding that the visiting SM Town stars to extend their visit as the planned concert sold out in 15 minutes. Reports of this demonstration, and the popularity of K-pop in Europe, took up an entire Culture section page in Le Monde.
The Korean had thought that K-pop was reaching a saturation point, but he is glad to be wrong.
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