Democracy, cereal and colonization

By David Tizzard

David Tizzard

2004 was a mixed year for South Korea: Roh Moo-hyun was in the second year of his presidency, the Miryang gang rape scandal brought to life the shocking abuse of power (and reminds us today just how far back lenient sentences and a blind eye have been at the heart of Korea’s continuing problems of a sexual nature), Taegukgi was breaking all sorts of records at the cinema as citizens rushed to see a story of families divided and the symbolic power of shoes, and at the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics, the North and South Korean teams marched together under the Unification Flag.

Plus ça change, non? Everything changes but it all still seems to stay the same. Roh Moo-hyun’s best friend is in power, sexual abuse and lenient sentences still plague the courts and society, and the Korea Peninsula remains divided because of the war despite a host of merely symbolic efforts and presidential love hearts in photo-ops to bring the two nations together.

Yet there has been one fundamental and pivotal change that has altered the fabric of reality in South Korea in the past sixteen years: You can now get green onion flavoured cereal.

Yes, that sounds disgusting. And, in reality, it kinda is. But there’s a peculiar story behind it that has gripped much of the nation – or the internet at least. And, as Baudrillard would say, that’s where the real stuff happens.

In 2004, Kellogg’s South Korea wanted to debut a new revamped version of their chocolate cereal Chex. Weird for some already as in most other countries General Mills has the licensing rights for the Chex brand.

Nevertheless, Kellogg’s decided to run an internet poll in which it would allow people to vote for the President of the Kellogg-Chex world. The two contenders were Cheky and Chaka.

Cheky was a cool young candidate promising voters he would double the amount of chocolate found in the cereal. He was the front-runner. The people’s favourite. The one Kellogg’s had decided would win before they even opened the polling. Perhaps the Mnet creators of Produce 101 were watching through young eyes.

His opponent was Chaka. Chaka was green, rude, acerbic, and running on a platform designed to put green onions in the cereal. He was the one your mother warned you about.

The voting would be clear. Cheky would win, Chaka would retire gracefully, and Kellogg’s would make heaps of money while the population gorged themselves on a rather unnatural food product created in the west, covered in sugar, and about as far from a traditional Korean breakfast as one could possibly imagine.

The internet, however, had other ideas. And if we have learned anything over the past decade or so, it’s that the internet, more than anything, is capable of really messing things up like no other.

Korean internet users began voting for Chaka the green onion in their droves. They swamped the polls and ran up an unassailable lead. Eventually Kellogg’s had to shut down the poll and instead resort to holding ballots at amusement parks and by cold-calling people. Despite these efforts, the results showed the green onions had won. But Kellogg’s had already begun plans for the chocolate.

So, the poll was declared null and void. Chaka was labelled a racist and cancelled (this didn’t actually happen), and Cheky was declared president of the diabetic-inducing cereal world.

The internet was enraged. Though, to be fair, when is it not? But here was an affront to democracy. Another sign of privilege, nepotism, and conglomerates ruling the country on a whim rather than for the people. Chaka became a meme. A symbol of the democratic movement and part of the epic of yeolsas (patriots) such as Jeon Tae-il who would drag the country towards reform.

And that’s where the story ended sixteen years ago.

Until, that is, the past couple of weeks when Kellogg’s announced it would apologize for the scandalous behavior, remove Cheky from his/her (I’m not sure of the decided pronouns) dictatorship, and institute reform that would free people from their authoritarian and segregated past.

It announced that it would release the cereal on July 1st. It even got famous trot singer Tae jin-ah to feature in its promotional material. Dressed in green, he apologies profusely with his trademark voice and the sound of Casio keyboards and carpeted karaoke rooms blaring behind him.

16 years of hurt finally ended. It’s about half the wait that Liverpool have endured in their quest for the title. But now it’s here. South Koreans can finally eat green onion cereal.

But amidst all this, the fanfare, the adverts, the internet love-in, did anyone stop and actually ask “why?”

Koreans would normally eat the same meal for breakfast as they did for lunch, and dinner: Rice, soup, and side-dishes. There was not so much a breakfast menu, but rather the opening of the fridge and the placing on tables of the stored vegetables and food one had eaten last night.

If cereal was ever eaten, it was placed in one of those weird shaped brown wooden bowls and given to you dry alongside anchovies and peanuts (and sometimes dog biscuits, I’m sure) as you swilled down Cass and soju in smoke-filled rooms.

And when all that was done, you would wake up with red-eyes, a headache that would make Oh Dae-su proud, and eat some hot soup and vegetables to get ready to do it all again.

So yes democracy in cereals is here. But at what cost? At what cost?

David Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) is an assistant professor at Seoul Women's University, where he teaches Korean Studies, and he is an adjunct professor at Hanyang University lecturing in World History and Political Science. He discusses the week's hottest issues on TBS eFM (101.3FM) on "Life Abroad" live every Thursday from 9:35-10 a.m.