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.
Because Trump dropped bombs, the Korean government bought me my bananas
Courtesy of Kelvin Zyteng
By David A. Tizzard
I’m now at the stage where I’ve been living and working in Korea longer than many of my university students have been alive. I remember the toilets that were little more than holes in the ground. The aggressive street-level sounds of men hawking bootleg DVDs and low-sheen neckties from folding tables. The pachinko parlors that lined Jongno. The high-temperature public anxieties of mad cow protests. Individual cigarettes sold illegally out of cardboard boxes at local pharmacies. And the constant wet throat-clearing soundtrack of old Seoul. My god, the spitting.
Much has changed since then. I’ve developed a great burning love for the people and the culture. I throw myself at it – the history, the music, the social concepts, the politics, the art, the food, and the language. While I often give my university lectures in English, I spend my days talking to people in Korean. Discovering the nuances and battling through my own difficulties with the grammar and the vocabulary. Even when uttering a simple hello or thank you, people now look at me with an eye raised: “Where are you from?” they question me. You look like a “them” but you sound like an “us.”
Admittedly, I still have not naturalized and become Korean. I have thought about it, of course. Just the same way that Korean people will move abroad to places like Australia, the US, or the United Kingdom, settle down, have families, become members of society, and then eventually get citizenship, why would I not do that here? It’s the same thing, after all.
One of my friends recently returned to Korea after 10 years in the States. While she was there with her American husband, she naturalized. No longer a Korean citizen. Upon returning after a while, I joked that because she wasn’t Korean anymore, I didn’t have to use honorific language with her. I could drop the title of “Nuna” and simply call her by her name. She said that was totally fine, but did so in a way that made it entirely clear I was not to do so under any circumstances. Irrespective of what her passport said, I was to finish every sentence, question, and statement with the appropriate ending that recognized her age and seniority over me. That I do so unfailingly, is probably why I have little trouble adapting to the culture here. There are rules to the social use of the language and I love learning them and using them purely because when you do that, it makes it so much more fun to break them at the most outrageous moment. If people know that you know how to do things correctly, it makes it so much more enjoyable to then remind them of our humanity by throwing a single “banmal” (non-honorific) statement at them and checking their reaction.
Will they say anything? Will the air be filled with a wonderfully exaggerated “Ya!” that defies English translation but lives rent-free in the mind of anyone who has survived a K-drama? Will they jokingly start to punch or attack me? Or will they not even flinch, and continue the conversation as normal? You can only break the rules once you know them. And once you break them with some people, you develop a wonderfully idiosyncratic bond. Something personal yet structured.
I like having nunas and hyungs. I like having sajangnims, bosses, teachers, professors, students, dongsaengs, nephews, nieces, children, halmonies, and everything in between. I totally get that some of those relationships can be difficult for some here. Oppressive at times, even. But it’s existing like that, not necessarily as David but rather as the counterpart to all those titles I just mentioned, when Korea really starts to come alive. I would venture that most foreigners who enjoy their time here have such relationships.
But that relationship doesn’t just exist with other human beings. It also exists with the state itself. The bureaucracy recognizes me. For all the talk of the ethnonationalism and single nation identity, government at the national and local level engage me.
I’ve recently received a beautifully oversized package of all the candidates running in the local elections. I can vote and now my task is to read through all their policies and plans, their photoshopped faces and white smiles glaring up at me from the sheen of their domestic manifestos. They all sport a primary-color palette so aggressively bright it feels borderline infantile, a sort of municipal kindergarten aesthetic. Politicscore. Nevertheless, I’m sure some studies have been done on how the psychological effects of numbers on us plays into people’s voting tendencies. Some people, no matter what anyone else will say, just look like a four or a six. Some people give seven vibes. Others are definitely blue. It’s the Bouba/Kiki effect, where the voter's brain instinctively maps complex ideas of governance onto smooth, rounded shapes or spiky, angular fonts and colors before a single policy has actually been digested.
We all have a day off on Wednesday so I’ll make sure to go and do my civic duty and vote for the person I believe will best take our community forward.
And as I do so, I’ll be automatically spending the money the government sent me as a relief from the financial damages we suffer from the war in the Middle East. Imagine that? Because President Trump is dropping bombs, the Korean government gives me money. I don’t have to do anything either. It comes straight through to my bank account and when I go into certain shops, it automatically uses that money and then provides an update on how much I have got left. It has lasted me throughout the week, helping me dry-clean my shirts, pay for some cold noodles, and put eggs in the fridge. It is a surreal, hyper-efficient loop: global catastrophe translated into a digital credit that pays for my day-to-day life and a modest pile of produce on my kitchen counter.
I daren’t think where this money that 70 percent of the population has recently received is coming from. That’s obviously something for future generations, economists and the next government to deal with. Until then, I’ll keep bowing, voting, and spending Korean money.