'Ideological divide could kill Korea'

A group of professors selected “gongmyeongjijo” (共命之鳥) as the four-character Chinese idiom that best describes our society for this year. The idiom implies extreme social divide and confrontation would ruin society. Yonhap

By Kim Hyun-bin

Korean society is suffering from an extreme ideological divide and the conflict could destroy society, a group of professors has warned.

The professors picked “gongmyeongjijo” (共命之鳥) as the four-character Chinese idiom that best describes our society for this year.

The idiom was selected by 347 professors, or 33 percent of 1,046 professors nationwide in a survey by a weekly journal of professors earlier this month. Since 2001, the journal has picked a phrase that best describes the state of the country at the end of each year.

Gongmyeongjijo, written in Buddhist scriptures, means two-headed bird, with each head believing it could survive without the other but the two sharing a common destiny.

According to the scriptures, one of the two heads woke up in the morning and the other at night. As one head always ate healthy fruit, the other, in jealousy, ate a poisonous fruit and both of them died.

The idiom was recommended by Choi Jae-mok, a philosophy professor at Yeungnam University.

“The current situation in the country seems like the bird. Each side wants to beat the other and survive on its own, but if one side disappears, neither will survive,” Choi said in the journal.

Other professors who chose the idiom also said the biggest problem facing Korean society is a political divide. “It is sad to see the public is also divided. Instead of trying to resolve differences, political leaders are using the public’s emotions to make the situation worse,” one professor wrote.

The second-most-picked idiom which was selected by 29 percent of the professors was “eomokhonju” (魚目混珠). It means it is difficult to distinguish fish eyes from pearls, indicating the difficulty to differentiate between what is real and fake.

“The most shocking incident this year was prosecutors’ investigation into former Justice Minister Cho Kuk and his family,” said Moon Seung-hoon, a philosophy professor at Seoul Women’s University who recommended the idiom.

“Cho could be a fish eye and Prosecutor-General Yoon Seok-youl could be a pearl, or vice versa. Or both of them could be pearls or fish eyes — it is too early to determine,” he said.

The third-most-selected idiom was “bangeunchakjeol” (盤根錯節), meaning a tree with roots that become entangled as they spread. “The government made various efforts to reform past systems and practices, but the achievements were insufficient. The people will hope the government will untangle at least some of the roots,” said Seoul National University professor Lee Yu-sun who recommended the phrase.