David Tizzard is a professor at Seoul Women’s University, holds a PhD in Korean Studies, and hosts the Korea Deconstructed podcast. He has lived and worked in Seoul for more than two decades. Reach him at datizzard@swu.ac.kr.
Can Korea have an ethnic revolution?
Courtesy of Yokeboy
By David A. Tizzard
Korea is no stranger to revolution. Although many think of Korea as a very conservative culture, stuck in the past, and mired in tradition, the truth is very different. This is a country and people that have experienced incredible change over the past few decades. And during that time, much of the vision has been forward. Looking at the future and achieving the impossible.
If we understand a revolution as a fundamental and often sudden and significant change in the structure, institutions, or the basic principles of a society, usually involving a widespread and radical reorganization of power, values, or social, political and economic systems, then Korea has achieved three of them in the last century.
The three revolutions
First came the economic revolution. In the 1950s, the country had nothing. Civil War had destroyed not only much of the infrastructure and history, it also tore apart families. Here were a people, on a largely barren land, with little food on the table, and barely a roof over their heads. The tales of life during this time speak of the bitter cold, the financial hardship, and the communal poverty that everyone suffered. Gangnam was a field. The country an agricultural society, straining under the monsoons and winter blasts. Dirt was everywhere. Disease rampant. Hunger a national pastime.
And now? South Korea is rich. Everything is clean. It works. The airports and cafes are warm and connected to high-speed internet. The health service cares for people. We now count calories rather than fight for them. Of course, the country’s economy is not perfect but when one takes the time to realize what it once was, it’s hard to call what the people of this country achieved anything other than an economic revolution.
And, as people became richer, their values, their lifestyles, and their dreams changed. The dream sold by Washington think tanks is that democracy is the path to prosperity. They are wrong. Prosperity is the path to democracy. At least in South Korea’s case. And perhaps why North Korea does not want too much prosperity or a middle class. Because when people get rich, they start to think of things beyond their material well-being. They think of abstract values such as justice, equality and freedom.
My wife grew up having to do compulsory physical education every day before school. Until the 1980s, South Korea was operated as a military base on a national scale. There were curfews on the street and police and security manned various points around the city, checking what books students were reading and what topics they were discussing. There was no freedom. Citizens were not allowed to leave the country of their own free will until 1989! And now? Democracy. A complete political revolution in which fair and free elections take place with multiple parties and citizens fully engaged in the process. Free speech allows people to say things about presidents and leaders that only decades ago would have had people marched off to Namsan (a local euphemism for torture…or worse). I’ve never lived in a country that has not been a democracy. The majority of South Korean people have. And that is testament to the political revolution they have achieved.
The third revolution is in the cultural sphere. The label “Made in Korea” used to denote cheap and basic. It was a sign that people could not afford higher-end goods. Even people in Korea weren’t particularly devoted to their own culture, instead besotted by the more glamourous products and people coming from America or Japan. Korea simply copied and made cheap knock-offs. Until, that is, they didn’t. They learned to replicate, to innovate, and then to create. Korean culture has become a by-word not only for cool, but also for high quality. When you watch a K-drama, a K-pop video, or a Korean movie, whether or not you like the content, the production levels will be incredibly high. Rarely do things look cheap. When you buy a phone, a car, a television, companies such as Samsung, LG and Hyundai produce some of the world’s most cutting-edge products, placed at the upper-end of the market rather than in Dasio (not that there’s anything wrong with that). The culture, once cringe, is now coveted.
Born of God and she-bear
So to talk of revolution in a Korean sense is justified. And people ignorant of those three previous revolutions are generally those who are most vocal online about Korea’s current problems. They simply fail to realize or acknowledge the complete transformations achieved here. And many nations around the world would love to have achieved those transformations. Ask the people attempting to construct modern nations in Oceania, Latin America, or Africa whether they would be happy with experiencing the same economic, political and cultural growth as Korea. Many clearly would. Because these revolutions didn’t just happen by wishful thinking or vibes. They were brought about through the blood and sweat of the Korean people, as well as an indefatigable will.
And so to the next one: the ethnic revolution. To be Korean is to be part of the Korean race. Nationality and ethnicity are connected here, meaning that irrespective of your passport, your Korean-ness is often determined by your blood rather than a piece of paper. It’s a form of ethnic nationalism that might make Europeans shudder because of our experiences with mustached leaders and goose-stepping Italians. But Korean history is different. The origin myth of Tangun, part of a nation building project that was brought to life by Shin Chae-ho and others, says that the Korean people are all descendents from a single man: their grandfather. Tangun was a man born of a son of a god and a she-bear. From him, all other Koreans originate and thus they refer to each other as brother and sister. The old lady you meet in the street is called grandmother irrespective of any familial relations.
This ethnic nationalism was particularly necessary during the Japanese colonial era. Go back less than a century and Korea did not exist on a world map and the peace-speaking people of the League of Nations refused to acknowledge the Korean people’s claims to their land. The Korean state had disappeared and colonial rule also began attacking the language and culture too. It was necessary, therefore, for Korean people to find their identity in their shared blood. What else could they keep to themselves?
The ethnic revolution
But that was last century. Democratization and globalization have served as the catalyst for the emergence of whole new groups of people: mixed Koreans, Kyorosaram, North Korean defectors, nationalized Koreans, refugees, economic immigrants, multicultural families and many more. These people may not be part of the mythical Tangun bloodline but they have expanded the once binary distinction of Korean/Outside Person into something different. Of course this transition has not been perfect. It’s been messy, full of mistakes, and lots of hurt feelings along the way. As well, it’s still taking place today.
But will there ultimately be an ethnic revolution in the country? One in which we find white Koreans, brown Koreans, and everything in between? Many will shirk at the idea. It’s incredible how quickly some people online are to dismiss all Koreans as a country of close-minded racists (without, of course, realizing that they are merely projecting their own faults and are guilty of the very same charges they accuse others of). And yet the reality here is that most young Koreans are incredibly open to foreigners. Their reactions ranging from adoration, to curiosity, all the way to a vague indifference. This is not North Korea. Many people in Seoul don’t blink twice when they see a foreigner anymore.
In his autobiography, Horace G. Underwood III said that despite living in this country all his life and playing a pivotal role in its history as it unfolded, he could never consider himself Korean. In his own words, he simply couldn’t cut off his western nose. Plastic surgery jokes aside, and with the greatest respect to a man and family that dedicated so much to this land, I wonder if people in this century will share the same view. Or whether instead people of all shapes and sizes might finally become able to see themselves as Korean and, by the same token, be seen as Korean by the people here.
I’m not saying an ethnic revolution will happen. Nor am I saying it should happen. I’m simply watching the fantastic tale of the Korean people unfold, with all its dramatic changes and life-altering upheavals, and wondering what revolution comes next.
Dr. David A. Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) has a Ph.D. in Korean Studies and lectures at Seoul Women's University and Hanyang University. He is a social-cultural commentator and musician who has lived in Korea for nearly two decades. He is also the host of the "Korea Deconstructed" podcast, which can be found online.