Opinion - The Korea Times

Confessions of Korean-American parent

By Jason Lim So, my little boy just turned four and will be entering kindergarten next fall. Needless to say, I want my son to go to a good school. Luckily, Fairfax County in Northern Virginia is well-known for its good public schools. In fact, Fairfax is one of the preeminent destinations of the so-called “goose families.” Unfortunately, the district where I live has the worst schools in the whole county. Its elementary school rating is 2 out of 10. This obviously won’t do, leading us to the penultimate question that every parent faces: Should we move to a better school district or send him to a private school? This sounds simple, but it’s more difficult than trying to solve a differential equation on keg night. Let’s enumerate all the variables that go into this decision. One; private school means at least $24,000 a year. And that’s for a moderately priced one. More prominent ones cost upwards of $40,000 a year. Of course, we want to be able to send our son to one of the more expensive (and famous) ones. If Malia and Natasha c

Feb 19, 2016By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Who will be Korea's Bernie?

By Jason Lim When Bernie Sanders tied with Hillary Clinton in the Iowa Caucus, I swear that I saw more triumphant Bernie mentions among my Korean social media friends than from my American ones. Apparently, Koreans are also “Feeling the Bern” as they witness his implausible candidacy against the Hillary machine.But it’s more than rooting for David against Goliath. It’s apparent that Bernie’s rhetoric against socioeconomic injustice in which the elites have used their inherited power, wealth, and connections to stack the deck against the little guys has deeply resonated in today’s Korean society.And it’s no wonder.A recent article in Yonhap News cites a study by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA) that confirms the prevailing belief that your success is increasingly dependent on who your parents are versus how hard you work.The study looked at people’s careers divided into three generations. The first was the Industrial Age born between 1940 and 1950. The second was the Age of Democracy born between 1960 and 1

Feb 5, 2016By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Dear JYP

By Jason Lim Remember me? I was the guy at Harvard Kennedy School who invited you to headline the Hallyu Forum almost nine years ago in February 2007. You were smart, funny, and articulate at the lecture, greeting the overflowing students with a loud, “What’s up? Wait, can I say ‘what’s up?’ at Harvard?” You were also well prepared and informed about the spread of K-pop around Asia, taking us from its beginnings in Taiwan with the popularity of “KUNGTARI SHABARA” by Clon to where you saw its future going, which turned out to be right on the money for most parts. Afterwards, you rented the whole floor of a nightclub in Boston to celebrate your triumphant turn at Harvard as your posse danced the night away with Boston-based Korean students. I was surprised when you asked me later on in the night over the din of the music, “What do you think I should do from now on?” You were definitely buzzed, but I managed to catch a note of seriousness in your tone. “Bro, just have fun,” I said, unsure why you soug

Jan 22, 2016By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

You can't patent culture

By Jason Lim Something’s rotten at Oberlin College. According to the Oberlin Review, the local food service vendor “has a history of blurring the lines between culinary diversity and cultural appropriation by modifying the recipes without respect to certain Asian countries’ cuisines. This uninformed representation of cultural dishes has been noted by a multitude of students, many who have expressed concerns over the gross manipulation of traditional recipes.” The Atlantic cites an example: “The traditional Banh Mi Vietnamese sandwich that Stevenson Dining Hall promised turned out to be a cheap imitation of the East Asian dish. Instead of a crispy baguette with grilled pork, pate, pickled vegetables and fresh herbs, the sandwich used ciabatta bread, pulled pork, and coleslaw. ‘It was ridiculous,’ Nguyen said. ‘How could they just throw out something completely different and label it as another country’s traditional food?” Ok, so I kind of sympathize with the Vietnamese student here in that if you are expecting

Jan 8, 2016By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Korea's 'uncomfortable' truth

By Jason Lim The unassailable narrative about comfort women in Korea was that they were innocent, young Korean girls who were tricked or forcibly taken from their homes by the Japanese military to work as sex slaves in far-flung corners of their World War II Empire. They were enslaved, raped, and abandoned when Japan lost the war. However, history, like any other “stories,” is far more nuanced and complex. From afar, the tree might look uniformly green, but every leave will have different shades and gradations when examined closely. Similarly, while the larger narrative of Imperial Japan either directly operating or indirectly inducing a supply system of sex slaves is widely accepted, there are bound to be subtle shades and tones whereby the narratives don’t fit nicely. But the tree is still green despite the brown spots on individual leaves. People are people. When placed in threatening situations, they will survive in different ways and engage in actions that they won’t under normal circumstances. This could mean that ethnic Korean pimps eager

Dec 25, 2015By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Korea's fundamentalist immaturity

By Jason Lim Imagine that you are a caveman looking out over the horizon and see an unfamiliar figure approaching. You immediately view the figure as a threat, preparing for the prototypical fight or flight response. Adrenalin and Cortisone prime you for immediate action. Your brain’s executive functions (pre-frontal cortex) are shut down because there no time to “think” through this situation. Your instincts have to take over. This is life or death. This is us vs. them.We are the descendants of this caveman and his survival instinct that classifies everything he sees into unfamiliar vs. familiar, threat or reward, friend or foe, and us vs. them. This is what human beings are primed to do at our most basic level. We like simple duality. It makes taking sides much easier to do when taking the right side used to mean surviving. We like the stark clarity that simple duality gives us because this is how our brain evolved to keep us alive. Duality is a cognitive habit that’s instinctive to us.We see this in small children in their tendency to classify the

Nov 27, 2015By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Who's criticizing Japan collaborators?

By Jason Lim My father, who grew up in Pyongyang during and after Japanese rule, remembers how people would suddenly show up and sweep the lane from the main road to his childhood home clean a day before the younger brother of his grandmother would come to visit. And when he would come, he was accompanied by all the pomp and circumstance, including a police escort, as befit a member of the local government council whose select members were appointed by the Japanese governor. My father’s grandfather, on the other hand, was an ardent supporter of the Korean independence movement in Manchuria, selling all of his property, except for the main house, to fund the fledgling movement. He even left behind his wife and children to permanently relocate to Manchuria to participate directly. Since he was the third-generation descendant of the great Ginseng merchant of Joseon, Lim Sang-ok, who was at one time the wealthiest man in the peninsula (whose trade exploits were so legendary that a popular Korean TV drama in 2001, called “Sang-do,” was based on his life), he mu

Nov 13, 2015By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Father, I am your son

By Jason Lim No, I am not rewriting the famous Star Wars scene from Luke’s point of view. I am actually quoting Chae Hee-yang, 65 years old, who met his father, Chae Hoon-shik who is 88 years old, for the first time in his life in last week’s Divided Families Reunion. Hoon-shik and his wife, Lee Ok-yeon, were separated by the Korean War when Lee was five months pregnant, never to see each other again (or even know whether either one was alive or not) until they met again in the reunion event. However dramatic and crazy their story sounds, it’s far from unique. My own father was only a teenager when he escaped the North just ahead of the rapidly advancing Red Chinese Army in winter of 1950. His whole family ― father, mother, and younger sister ― left together but the father sprained his ankle on the treacherous, frozen road. So, they went back home to let the father heal while sending their only son ahead since he would have the most to lose if he were caught by the communists. That was the last time they saw one another. Even to this day, we don&rsquo

Oct 30, 2015By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

What's your story, Korea?

By Jason Lim When I wrote about Hell Joseon in my previous column, describing it as a collective psychopathology caused in large part by the prevailing Korean culture, I received more than the usual number of email responses. I was also very gratified and grateful to read comments on my Facebook page that engaged with the column in a very thoughtful and intellectual manner. I thought about responding directly to each comment, but I thought, why not respond to the comments as a group by sharing my thoughts in a column? After all, I am all about efficiency, not to mention that I don’t have to look far to find a topic to write about. I recently watched a fascinating TED talk explain why humans were the most dominant species in the world today. In his talk titled, “Why humans rule the world,” Yuval Noah Harari makes the point that humans rule the world because we are able to “cooperate flexibly over large numbers.” He goes on to explain how: “The answer is our imagination. We can cooperate with numerous strangers because we can inve

Oct 16, 2015By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Psychology of Hell Joseon

By Jason Lim “Hell Joseon,” referring to how difficult it is for a young person to live in Korea today, has been getting a lot of media exposure lately. In quoting the big data analysis firm, Daumsoft, The Korea Times reported that “Hell Joseon” was cited 101,700 times this year on Twitter and in blog posts. Marriage, employment and dating were three life-related keywords closely associated with “Hell Joseon,” which fits right into the popular cynical belief that young people from an ordinary family have to give up marriage and even dating because they can’t get regular, stable jobs (as opposed to temporary part-time jobs of a menial nature) or other opportunities needed to do the things that previous generations took for granted. More worrisome, anger, crying, and hope (lack thereof) were the closely associated emotional keywords with Hell Joseon. I am not a psychologist, but, taken altogether, it almost feels like the young people in Korea seems to be in some type of a collective anxiety and depression. Rise in anxiety a

Oct 2, 2015By Jason Lim

Jason Lim

Read more

Confessions of Korean-American parent

Who will be Korea's Bernie?

Dear JYP

You can't patent culture

Korea's 'uncomfortable' truth

Korea's fundamentalist immaturity

Who's criticizing Japan collaborators?

Father, I am your son

What's your story, Korea?

Psychology of Hell Joseon

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