By Tom Plate
BEVERLY HILLS, California ― Koreans have no monopoly on the need to save face, of course. Name a country or a nationality or a personality that enjoys public humiliation and you will have an example of a terribly messed-up state, society or human being.
But Korean pride certainly has to rank very highly on the Global Pride Parade ― right up there with league-leaders like France, dictatorial orchestra conductors and many lions clustered together in an open field.
America is no stranger to pride-overload, either. The nation probably stayed longer in Vietnam than needed, in part, due to then President Nixon's 1970 fear of our being perceived as a ``pitiless helpless giant.''
We may be guilty of making a similar mistake the longer we stay in Iraq. Besides, anyone who really thinks America is or will become ― in the foreseeable future ― a ``pitiless, hopeless giant'' needs his head examined.
But it is a fact that ever-prideful Koreans in the last few years have suffered more than their fair share of public humiliations.
Two years ago a prominent South Korean scientist who claimed to have cloned human cells was unveiled as a fraud. His faked evidence put the entire country on the defensive. Aside from the South, a far worse Korean embarrassment, of course, is the entire country of North Korea.
But lately the Korean image has been burnished by a string of positive events to which, in the interest of fairness, proper world attention must be paid.
Near the top of the list is the astonishing impact of Korean golfers on the worldwide game of golf at the highest competitive level.
Recently, Koreans ― male and female ― finished on top of two American major championships. South Korea's Lee Seon-hwa bagged her title in an Arkansas professional golfing event with a closing round of 4-under 68, and Korean-American Anthony Kim grabbed the AT&T National, finishing with a 5-under 65 ― his second PGA-level title in one year.
The only other American under the age of 25 to do that was someone named Tiger Woods. (I think I've heard of him, actually).
I may not be the biggest expert on golf but having written this column on Asia since 1996, I cannot recall seeing so many Korean names on the ``leader boards'' of major golfing events ever before.
My favorite Korean golfer is undoubtedly Pak Se-ri, a woman with indomitable spirit. Her 201-yard miracle playoff 4-iron shot in a 2006 PGA event that put the ball within a cat's paw of the cup was one of the best golf shots I've witnessed. To see something of that athleticism, under that kind of pressure, is unforgettable.
Another Korean doing his country proud ― in a different sport entirely ― is Ban Ki-moon. His sport is international politics, and unlike golf, it is one that generally lacks grace, elegance and beauty. But it is an important game: for the stakes are sometimes ones of war and peace.
It turns out U.N. Secretary General Ban may actually prove something of a diplomatic Pak Se-ri.
Ban was selected to replace the charismatic Kofi Annan as the U.N. chief late last year and took over in January amid fears that this quiet, unassuming career diplomat would be gobbled up by the infamous U.N. bureaucracy and lost in the embers of Annan's remarkable charisma.
Instead, Ban has survived the bureaucracy by outworking it and has evaded direct comparisons to Annan by being Ban at his best: a diplomat's grind-it-out diplomat.
``No one works harder than Ban Ki-moon,'' a colleague of his told me last year. But when I asked a prominent Southeast Asian diplomat last summer whether the Korean would be a good choice for the job of secretary general, he replied, ``Only if he understands that what is wanted is less a general [like the showboating Annan] and more of a secretary [i.e. someone who can gracefully take dictation from the big powers]. Then he will be successful."
Undoubtedly, that estimate, while un-warm, was a fair comment that to some extent has proven true. But if Ban is not a big-time boat-rocker by temperament, he is a consummate professional by training and application.
Like a lawyer who rarely ever shouts but has done enough homework to know his case like a fitting glove, the U.N. secretary general impresses peers and foreign leaders alike.
Peace does not come to those who think it will fall into their laps, like water from the moon. It comes to those who work at least as hard as those who plot for evil.
Ban is a tough peace-wager who is no one's fool. You may not get charisma, but neither will you get a spot of corruption ― or of laziness.
In South Korea on July 3, this workaholic-for-peace was given a hero's welcome. This modest man would be the first to agree that he is not yet a hero of any kind. But give him time.
Tom Plate, a veteran American journalist, has been writing about Asia since 1996. He has interviewed Ban Ki-moon several times and last August endorsed his candidacy for the top U.N. job in his internationally syndicated column. The writer can be reached at platecolumn@gmail.com
platecolumn@gmail.com.