By Jason Lim
Forget about Libya and the breathtaking fight for freedom that’s playing out with the world as its witness. Even forget about the biggest earthquake in Japan in a century that killed over 10,000 and counting, with the ticking bomb of a nuclear disaster waiting in the wings.
Forget all that. The news that competed for top honors in Korea the past week had nothing to do with the momentous, historic events happening in the world. But it has everything to do with what Korea is today and what it doesn’t want to be tomorrow.
The big news that set every tongue wagging around instant coffee vending machines was that the Chung Un-chan, the former prime minister, invited Shin Jeong-ah to late night drinks to offer her a position as a professor in Seoul National University a few years ago when he was the president of that illustrious institution.
In case people forgot, Shin is the former Cinderella of Korea’s arts scene and was appointed to be the joint artistic director of Gwangju Biennale 2008, Korea’s biggest arts event, before it was found out that she had lied about graduating from Kansas University and Yale. Even for a society used to public figures lying about their academic credentials, Shin’s brazenness was awe-inspiring for all the wrong reasons.
This story is told in a new book by Shin, who goes on to share her impression of the former prime minister as an immoral man thinly disguised in a coat of unapproachable respect who offered her a position in exchange for romantic favors. Casting a pall of immorality on someone whose public image was grounded in lofty, trustworthy character was devastating.
Chung was immediately put on the defensive and forced to fend off random speculations about not only his personal life but also his sudden lack of appeal as a political candidate in upcoming by-elections. The sudden turnaround in his fortunes as a public figure, all based on one unsubstantiated piece of gossip, must have given him a whiplash. It’s no wonder he might show up soon in a neck brace.
And this is all based on the say-so of a woman who is synonymous with lying and even served a prison sentence for fraud. True, no one can ever know what happened between two people in the absence of witnesses or camera footage. But that’s why you have to consider the source, which is dubious to say the least, with all the wrong incentives to tell the truth.
Add to the fact that she doesn’t really seem repentant over her previous lies (she paints herself as a victim of unscrupulous diploma brokers), her stories are not that credible. Also, since when is it a big deal in Korea to discuss business over drinks in a bar at 10 p.m.? Not appropriate, yes, but not exactly a rare event.
So why is it that Korean society jumped on this story with two feet? How did the words of a disgraced and proven liar carry so much weight with the public? Why were so many everyday Koreans ready to believe that Shin, despite her lack of credibility, accurately portrayed how Chung acted and what his devious motivations were?
That’s because we are so primed to believe the worst about our leaders. Despite all the lip service we pay to their achievements and qualifications, we do not trust our leaders. We believe that they must have done something sneaky to obtain the “specs” that allowed them to be where they are. They didn’t really earn it themselves. It was either luck, family money, or inside connections that allowed them to succeed. And then, they abuse the privilege that they didn’t earn to get the status that they don’t deserve.
This is today’s Korea. There is no trust in the leadership. No, it’s worse than that. There is no trust in the Korean dream. Work hard and you will get there? Not likely if you don’t have money or family connections. In short, there is no trust in the system. People believed Shin’s story because it only confirmed what they already believed the worst about Korea’s system. Shin was preaching to the choir.
And there is no trust because there is no sense that the system is fair, transparent, and inclusive. There is the elite; and then there is the rest of us. Just gauging from the public debate surrounding this relatively insignificant story, the sense of disenfranchisement is intense. This is beyond the typical cynicism heaped on leaders of any country; what I sense is distrust and contempt for any accomplishment by anyone.
There is no such thing as hard-earned success anymore; there is only someone who got away with cheating. Sadly, this is what happens when the people no longer trust the system to give them a fair chance to succeed.
So, what happens to a society whose people no longer believe that they can attain the dream that it’s selling? That’s the future that Korea doesn’t want.
Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C.-based consultant in organizational leadership, culture, and change management. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006. He can be reached at jasonlim@msn.com and on Facebook.com/jasonlim2000.