By Sandy Fortune
I took exception to the article ``Korean Derangement Syndrome" by George R. Hogan, which appeared in the weekend edition of this newspaper.
Hogan asserts that any number of English teachers (``it doesn't matter how many, just find them") ``have deeply-instilled gut reactions to many points of Korean pride," including not believing in the health effects of kimchi and fan death, as well as insisting that Dokdo is Japanese.
These are examples of what he calls "Korean Derangement Syndrome," defined as ``a self-imposed barrier that blinds and forbids the mind from accepting anything that doesn't fit into one's pre-determined narrative of who Koreans are and how they think." He believes that these people are ignorant and dismissive of Korea and its culture.
The first point of contention I have is Hogan's meritless conviction that us English teachers, as a whole, do not believe in the health benefits of kimchi. This is patently untrue. In my time in Korea, I've not met a single person, English teacher or otherwise, who has doubted that kimchi is good for you ― just as I've never met someone who has said that, say, eating fresh fruit is not healthy.
However, I've also never heard that eating fresh fruit will prevent swine flu, cure cancer or protect one from Mad Cow disease. All of the above, unfortunately, have been attributed to kimchi in my presence. If one has a negative knee-jerk reaction upon being told that eating kimchi is the best way to protect oneself from swine flu, I think it is, at the least, understandable.
Just as it's understandable if someone rolls their eyes when told, for the thousandth time, how healthy kimchi is. It's not a state of willed ignorance. In both cases, it's nothing more than exasperation. In the same way, many of us become tired of hearing, over and over again, that Dokdo belongs to Korea.
Secondly, Hogan misrepresented the material that he quoted. I don't know if he did this deliberately or if he simply lifted his quotes off of the blog ``Ask a Korean!" Personally, I believe that he took these quotes from the Web site, wherein they appear in almost the exact same format. If this is true, and he didn't even read the source material, then shame on him.
But if he had read the source material, he would have seen that it did not imply that electric fans could cause death. The quotes came from a guidebook for EHEs (Excessive Heat Events) published by the EPA. The main concern with electric fans is that they are not adequate during an EHE.
A secondary concern is that, in situations of intense heat (99 degrees Fahrenheit or above) in an enclosed room, an electric fan pointed directly on a person may accelerate dehydration, which may lead to heat stroke. Similarly, if a fan were used to blow poisonous gases into a poorly ventilated room, it may also be a factor in the deaths of those inside.
If Hogan chooses to believe that the possibility of a fan contributing to death under very extreme and specific conditions is the same as the urban legend that sleeping with a fan on is dangerous, then that's his choice. But when I claim that fan death is not real, I don't meant that it's impossible for a fan to be involved in a person's death.
Finally, I find it shocking that a member of the expat community in Korea would go so far out of his way to further lambaste and negatively stereotype a group of people who are already portrayed so negatively ― and arbitrarily so, I might add ― in the Korean press. I am speaking, of course, of English teachers ― the only specific segment of the expat community that Hogan alluded to. I find it exceptionally distasteful that an expat would choose to stigmatize and alienate such a large group of his associates.
What could possibly motivate Hogan's negativity?
I think the answer lies in another little-known affliction found amongst expats on this peninsula: the "Korean Estrangement Syndrome." This can be found in those expats who have become ``estranged" from their origins. The people who throw themselves headlong into Korean culture, finding in it everything that was lacking at home, absorbing everything they can. The ones who shun other foreigners and scoff at people who maintain vain attachments to their inherited culture and way of life.
The worst sin for someone suffering from KES is, of course, someone criticizing Korea ― warranted or not.
KES is characterized by such things as virulent support and praise of the adopted country, an assumption of superiority over other expats, the belief that their experience in Korea is more pure or meaningful than that of their affiliates and, of course, by the loss of critical reasoning skills.
The writer is an English teacher from Canada. She has been in Korea for about three years. Currently, she is working in a public school in Seoul and can be reached at sandy.fortune@gmail.com.