2012/11/25

IT'S ALL IN MY HEAD: A Lesson in Orientalism


Criticism is prejudice made plausible. – H. L. Mencken


We walk with our own maps.

Walking Seoul’s streets, or the Ewha campus, I, raised in the Western/American context, find my made-in-USA maps (both cultural and geographical) pretty darn useless most of the time. While I may think my home-grown information is accurate, the data are just “representational.”

What do you mean, Marc?

I grew up in a culture where driving on the right side of the road is a generations-old habit. It’s a habit that transfers: we walk on the right in crowded public places. Walking on the left gets one odd looks, as you negotiate more often that person appearing just in front, where each tries to read each others’ intent about which direction the other is headed.

But not here. It’s a free-for-all, all the time.

Staying right, or left, does not seem to clear the sidewalk of a constant supply of “sidewalk dance” partners. The only time I actually touch Koreans in this rare-touch society occurs in the shoulder-brushes one can expect every few hundred meters in this crowded place.

Here is a government poster one sees often to help “move the needle” of people’s public behavior in walking. It urges people to walk on the right:


●     ●     ●

Living in Korea a generation ago, and now, I come with a great deal of acquired knowledge (“maps”) about the country, its Confucian heritage, cultural mores, history. By the standards of my zip code back in North Carolina, I am an “expert” on Korea. 

The problem back in 1980, and again in 2012, is to assume I know the correctness of “right” and “left” here. I know less-than-enough about the past history, culture, Confucianism, military invasions, and language, yet assume I could know enough about Korea or name Korea’s problems. I feel authorized to predict how best for Koreans (or, at least, my students) to negotiate their futures.

“If they’d only listen to me. I would teach them how to walk! ... Or think!"

It’s an evangelistic mindset, a disposition of control. Notice the “Me” and “Them” grammar. One may take the professor out of America, but can one excise the "America" from the professor?

A website from Emory University describes my problem as Latent Orientalism: the unconscious, untouchable certainty about what the Orient is. The Orient is seen as separate, eccentric, backward, silently different, sensual, and passive. It has a tendency towards despotism and away from progress… Its progress and value are judged in terms of, and in comparison to, the West, so it is always the Other, the conquerable, and the inferior. (For more information, see Edward Said’s seminal work, Orientalism.)

Most of what I come to know is already colored by What/Who resides already in my brain; what I perceive is already behind my senses; and the sights lie – how convenient! – already behind my eyes! If perceived at all, Korea or “The Orient” contains my fingerprint, my voiceprint. I am very good at projecting my own  representations in all that I see, hear, and perceive.


And it's all in my head.
It's all in your mind. 
- lyrics from Mr. Brightside & Spaceman by The Killers

Example of Orientalism in Religion
This is not just psychological. Political, economic and missionary positions are implicated. Has not my country “understood” Islam – another Orientalism – and performed its diplomatic and military operations from within that colorized-colonized view? "We are here to liberate you."

Back to Korea: This blog is entitled All Korea Considered. Has this observer the will and freedom to rise up from the cave of shadows, and leave unreal images unconsidered? Don’t know … 

Colonialism 
             in all its forms 
                         dies hard. 
                                   Ignorance is 
                                               so well organized.

Am I like modern day colorizers of Hollywood black & white films? Readers: Caveat lector! When you read of, or see pictures of this country and its people, you are really inspecting his filters (with your own filters!). Can I stop being so representational, and become clear and transparent so you may Consider All Korea as you read? It’s an ever-elusive goal.

We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect, wrote Thoreau. We walk this Earth with our own maps, see with lenses ground by our own culture, and expect people to stay so conveniently on their side of the sidewalk. What small universes we inhabit!

Thanks for joining me as I walk these streets. I still pray to bump shoulders with the real Korea.

Marc, lost still in translation.

New Yorker cartoons © by Steinberg and Barsotti.

2012/11/18

EXAM HELL


The title of this topic comes from Japan, but it’s a well-understood term here. About two weeks ago, high school seniors took the test for which they may have been preparing since they were five years old.

(not my picture)

Think SAT on steroids, and then on steroids again.

The nine-hour-long test is ALL-important; it pretty much sets one’s course in life, at least publicly … which universities you can/cannot attend, and thus the sort of folks with whom you will, for the rest of your life, associate:
1.       Marriage choices
2.       Career choices
3.       Life status

One may take this test but once a year. With one’s scores, one may then apply to but three universities. Choose well! Strategy is  intricate; rewards and risks are both high. What if one has a score in the 95th percentile, and you apply to a school known to be slightly above your “level,” or you apply to a school that is at your level, but may be full of already-qualified applicants before yours gets considered?

Preparation for this exam begins, for some, very early in life, and very early in the morning. By the time the person is in high school, they are regularly getting up before 6:00 AM, warming a seat at a “hak-won” (private teaching institute) to bone up on math, or science, or English. After a few hours, they find themselves at their regular seat at middle or high school. After school, a return to a “hak-won” - or two, or three - until 11:00 at night.

Next day, rinse and repeat.

One can go to many parts of Seoul, take a random picture of the buildings, and you can see signs for a score, or more, of these “hak-wons” within the buildings. The Exam is a big business.

And no small pressure for 18-year olds. I have heard that one person in seven in Korea has actively considered suicide. Studies indicate that such early habits in pressure-cooker academics creates depressed people.

Parents and society often wonder what they are doing to their young, but it is difficult to maintain such thoughts in light of an overwhelming cultural habit.

So yesterday, I was STUNNED when I attended a Presbyterian (similar to the PCUSA) service in which the young people got up in front of the worship service, and publicly pledged never to attend a “hak-won,” unless it was to learn cooking or a hobby. Here they are making that pledge:



That took A LOT of counter-cultural energy, many parents saying "NO" to the Exam Hell, and risking their kids' futures. I am still saying to myself, "Wow! That's major!"

Ewha is one of the top-ten universities here, Korea’s top choice for a women’s university. My students have been through Exam Hell, have made their careful strategic choices about Ewha, and are now living on the other side of all that. I wonder who they would be otherwise. I wonder if they ever wonder.

I do not report this to be critical of this wonderful place. As one who tries to report the Normal and the Everyday, I thought you’d like to see things as I do. Your comments are welcome.

Marc

2012/11/10

Happy Pepero Day, you Lovers!



Peppero - Today is 11/11. As you see <11/11> think vertical. Now think of a vertical sweet. 

In the Korean mind, thanks to the Lotte Corporation (like Nestlé or Nabisco) a short while back, and its smart business plan, Korea now has a "holiday" as big as its American equivalent: Valentine’s Day. 

(I don't know how to spell Pebbero, or BBebbero. The P's and B's are, in Korean writing, "double B's." That means you really focus on the initial "B" sound, like an over-emphasized "B" in bulge, or blue ... you blow air through your lower mouth as you make the "B" sound, so sudden hard one could almost blow a candle out.)

The BBePPero candy of choice is a thin vertical swizzle stick of chocolate on a hard pastry. If you think vertical, you can understand why 11/11 is the day chosen for this candy's come-uppance. They are sold in at least flavors or configurations, and the outside of many stores are chock-a-block full of PPeBBero candy promotions. 



It is OK for anyone to give anyone these candies, just like in the USA on Valentine’s Day, and lovers can (read: are pressured to) spend mega-bucks on their arrangements.

I bought one box of BPePBero's for each of my undergraduate students, after I found that this would not be inappropriate. I will give them out on Monday in class. 

If you have any Korean friends, wish them "Happy Pepero Day!"

Marc