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The rainy season has started, officially. Rainstorms, persistent rain, mild rain, straight rain and wild rain, all kind of rain you can name have already been delivered in this early rainy season. This is my third wet season in this small and beautiful city of Beppu.
The weather here is one thing that is similar to what I used to have in Korea. Generally, Mother Nature hasn't been something I needed to adjust to ever since I came to Beppu. Otherwise, almost everything differs here in Japan as the country has developed its unique identity throughout its long history without being interrupted from the outside.
The identity is well expressed in its culture encompassing attitude toward vocation, laws, customs and neighbors. The Japanese have a lot of pride about their identity, and rightfully so. It drives and underpins the third largest economy in the world.
Japanese keep the rules of the game, irrespective of defined as law or implicit in custom, and expect others to do the same. They want to live happily together in peace. They know how to live and endure together. They are taught to respect customs and rules.
Thoughts about Japanese attitudes toward rules and others are in my mind ever since I arrived in Japan. I asked myself often and always. Why are we Koreans so different? The question loomed bigger when the ferry Sewol capsized, foundered and sank deep into the South Sea in Korea last April, taking the lives of hundreds of students and hurting the hearts of tens of millions of surviving Koreans. It epitomizes a perfect failure, and a total systematic malfunction of the Korean State.
Are we still learning modern civilization that we started to build after total devastation from war in the early 1950s? Are we still learning how to share whatever wealth we have accumulated from the economic miracle of the Han River? Are we deeply divided with a legacy from the huge ideological gap between rotten communism in the North and successful capitalism in the South?
What made us sacrifice our precious students and many others? The disaster tells us we failed to build right system that works to sustain the very basic safety of the nation. We know we have been very successful in many other ways, though. We have successfully built one of the most competitive economies in the world. We provided large numbers of Koreans with a university education. We traveled all over the world in groups and alone, for business and leisure, for tracking and climbing, by foot and bike, by plane and ship. So what have we learned? What are all these meant for?
Now is the time to correct our state. From top to bottom, and inside out; emphasizing basics rather than skills; discussing more about legal spirits than just making laws; educating harmony rather than success; enjoying processes rather than end results; teaching morals and life rather than skills of picking answers; teaching swimming rather than English; dividing and distributing rather than collecting and accumulating; being rich with hard work rather than by cheating; being rich to share rather than to show off; serving rather than being served; listening and soothing others rather than talking and forcing; not wanting to be a president for its sacrifice and noble mission rather than wanting to be an individual to enjoy a plain life in its full.
We can make these happen only if we are willing to learn from our neighbors. So, I suggest our fellow Koreans to compete with Japanese in a game to see who keep rules and laws better and who respect others better, instead of making a big deal out of winning and losing in grounds, ball parks, and ice rinks.
Let's learn from our dear neighbors we hate to lose. And start a whole new game that matters most. Better now than late or never.
The writer is professor at College of International Management in Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University. His email address is shkim@apu.ac.jp.
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