Koreans Are Individually Kind, but Collectively Rude

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

National

Jon Huer

Koreans Are Individually Kind, but Collectively Rude

Posted : 2009-03-06 19:31

Updated : 2009-03-06 19:31

By Jon Huer
Korea Times Columnist

Observing and reflecting on the recent tragedy in Yongsan, where the resettlement dispute between the displaced and the law took a tragic turn, leaving seven people dead, including one police officer, one wonders why public discourse, and not confrontations, is so rare in Korea, leading one to conclude that Korea urgently needs to establish a way of life based on the concept of ``public.''

Public stands somewhere between the ``nation'' and the ``individual,'' thus facilitating a large measure of resolution on disputes between the nation and the individual that are inevitable in any society. It is a stage all tribes must go through in order to enjoy the benefits of modernity.

The so-called advanced societies have gone through this stage of ``public-making'' earlier and more successfully, often accompanied by violence. Tribal societies, perhaps modern in form, lack this concept of public and suffer and display all the signs of backward members in the world community.

The Yongsan tragedy, one of the many such events in Korea, makes one recognize how urgently Korea needs to become a ``public society.''

In spite of the mushrooming of the non-government organizations (NGOs) that have sprung up in recent years, their presence merely adds more conflict than it resolves and obfuscates issues more than it clarifies them through discourse.

Further, their active participation in this or that issue has mostly strengthened the idea of Korea as a permanently in-fighting tribe.

Naturally, Korea's strong tribalism is in dramatic contrast with the absence of its more modern, institutionalized counterpart, the ``public.''

The concept of ``public'' is still alien in Korea. Koreans do not identify other Koreans as members of a public society with similarly shared and institutionalized values and rules of life.

Rather, they tend to identify other Koreans as either someone they are related to in some way usually by blood, region, school ties, or even broadly as ``Koreans,'' or someone who is ``persona non grata'' (a non-human being), who stands outside of such intimate circles.

If perceived as part of the first group, you get Korea's legendary hospitality. If you are perceived as part of the second group, say, strangers on a street or in a public place, you get Korea's equally legendary rudeness and indifference.

Because of the absence of a ``public'' where strangers relate to one another in an established, orderly way of interaction, Koreans can be the most gracious host, but also the most indifferent and savage.

This is most glaringly evident when one observes Korean behavior in ``public'' places, such as on the street, where many seem to be unaware that they are in a public place.

The famously nasty behavior displayed in Internet exchanges may be thought of as the electronic version of street behavior.

Today, advanced societies are defined, among other criteria, by the presence or absence of a strong ``public.''

In those societies, public has replaced ``motherland,'' ``nation'' or ``tribe.'' In the Netherlands (Holland), for example, whether one is American, Japanese or Nigerian does not have a dramatic effect in the way one is treated.

In England, for another example, the English are not radically different in the way they behave whether they are among friends or out on public streets. In America, even illegal foreigners are treated with a certain reference to their basic constitutional rights.

This absence of a public sphere makes Korea an unpredictable place largely dependent on the moods of the moment.

A Korean can be sweet, wonderful, and conscientious in his private sphere. When he is in public, however, he recognizes nothing and nobody else but his own existence.

Individual Koreans can be nice to a poor Philipino or a hungry Bengali. But as a nation, and a public, Korea is also known to be very rude and indifferent to those from poor countries. The heart, that is, the very embodiment of humanity individually, can also be the very representative of narrow-mindedness and even cruel tribalism.

It is the general consensus of many foreigners who understand Korea that, very urgently, Korea needs to develop a public, an institutionalized model of society where rules and consensus, not just the personal tugs of the heart, which can be whimsical and unpredictable, are upheld.

Even many Koreans themselves lament that the Korean heart should be institutionalized into the ``Korean public'' or the ``Korean policy'' in place of unending confrontations.

The writer can be reached at jonhuer@hotmail.com.The opinions expressed and the observations described in these articles are strictly the writer's own and do not represent any official position of the University of Maryland University College or the USFK.