Sixty years in Korea

Forgive my personal note this time, but within days of this article being published, I will celebrate 60 years since my first appearance in Korea. I first came to Korea on Nov. 22, 1965. I stayed for two-and-a-half years in that first iteration, and have returned close to one hundred times since, including other stays for study and employment, for a total of about 15 years altogether.

What has changed in sixty years? The answer: everything.

I remember visiting with a colleague of mine from the '60s who came back to Korea in the'90s. I had been in and out several times over those 30 years, but he was returning for the first time. I asked him what was different? What stood out as different? He responded that Korea was a completely different country. If that was true for a thirty year span, it is doubly true for a 60 year span.

The one thing that I might say is the same is the people. But that’s not entirely true. The people, though holding on to some parts of Korean culture, are somewhat different. People are more self-confident these days — maybe too much so? The Korean people in the 1960s were certainly humble, and in some cases “reliant” on others. But I like to say that although Korea was desperately poor back then, the people were not poor. Per capita income was $125 per year, yet people had a light in their eyes and a hope in their hearts that the poverty they were experiencing was a temporary thing. They knew they had been a powerful and strong country before the ravages of the Japanese occupation and the Korean War, and they seemed to know that better days lay ahead.

The key to the confidence that Korea could become a wealthy and powerful country was the same key to a lot of Korean success — education. There was a drive to get educated back then. People didn’t have money, but they pursued education, knowing that was the key to a better life for everyone.

We often speak of the Korean “education fever,” a term implying that Korea has gone overboard on education. That’s true to some extent, but it’s also true that education is what rebuilt Korea after the Korean War. Lately, I’ve been looking at Korean printing methods — both metal movable type and wood block printing. I’ve concluded that printing meant books, books meant education, education meant achieving success in the state examination system, the examinations meant power for the central government and a centralized government meant the abandonment of feudalism. The centralized government meant civilian control of the government; a civil, cultured form of governing that did not rely on the sword. It was a manifestation of the truth that the pen is mightier than the sword.

The drive for education created the "seonbi system" — the way of the scholar became the hallmark of Korean society for one thousand years. It is the drive for education that has pulled Korea out of trouble historically, as well as in the 20th century.

In 1965 Korea was poor, desperately poor, and petty crime was rampant. We had our house broken into and the thieves took everything that was not bolted down from the living room and the kitchen while we were asleep in the bedroom. They even took things that were bolted down — the pencil sharpener was gone. Pickpockets ruled the crowded buses. You had to be careful not to be victimized. People would apologize when they heard of a theft saying, "It’s because we are so poor." Now that Korea is well-off, petty crime is virtually nonexistent. One is safer on the streets of Seoul than virtually anywhere in America or Europe.

Politically, I’ve seen Korea mature over the years. The days of the military governments are over, and in some ways Korea is more democratic than the U.S. For example, no American university elects its president from among the faculty, but Korea does (although I understand some schools have backed away from that).

My biggest concern is what has changed concerning the family. In the 1960s large families were the rule — the larger the better. Then came efforts at population control, when “have only two and raise them well” was the slogan. In the 1990s, technology for determining the gender of a fetus swept the country and females were aborted in overwhelming numbers. But that eventually led to the destruction of Korea's traditional son preference, and gave us the daughter preference. But now, Korea shamefully has the lowest birthrate in the world. This will mean the destruction of the country, unless it changes course like it did in the 90s. But some studies indicate that it’s already too late. Korea is bent on self destruction.

So what have I seen in sixty years in Korea? Radical changes here and there and everywhere, and sufficient changes to make me worry about the future of the country. Korea, you’ve made it 60 years, will you be around in another 60?

Mark Peterson (frogoutsidethewell@gmail.com) is a professor emeritus of Korean studies at Brigham Young University in Utah. The views expressed here are his own.