Koreas collective neurosis

By Jason Lim

I recently went into a discount furniture outlet near where I live and immediately found a petite Indian woman on my heels armed with the nice smile and predatory gaze of a typical sales person. In making small talk, she asked me whether I was Chinese. I said no. How about Vietnamese? I said no again. Then you must be Japanese? She was less certain. No, I told her, finally giving up. I am Korean.

Then her face lit up a ton, and I knew what was coming. Actually, I dreaded what was coming. But she was going to ask it anyway. Are you a North Korean or South Korean? She was filled with the self-importance of knowledge, proud that she knew that there were two Koreas that I could be from.

I guess that she wasn’t entirely wrong. But since there are about 3 million immigrants from South Korea (give or take a half-million of so) and 100 North Korean refugees who have resettled in the States, chances are that any random Korean in America is originally from South Korea. Not to mention the fact that a North Korean would have to risk torture, death, starvation, freezing cold, human trafficking, rape, prostitution, forced marriages, treks across jungles and deserts, and a Bermuda Triangle of international laws to make it over to America.

However, much as I hate putting up with the ``Are you from North or South Korea?” question from strangers, I had to admit that the fact of Korea’s division is now a part of the world’s baseline knowledge. In fact, Koreans add to it every time we describe Korea to an international audience. I can’t count how many times I heard the term, ``The last remaining divided country in the world” to introduce Korea in various symposiums and conferences.

Then I recalled watching on TV the latest reunion videos of the divided families. I don’t care who you are or how jaded you have become over the whole process, but the real human joy, suffering, regret, and drama that plays out in these scenes cannot help but move you; the elder sister with her baby sister with equally wrinkled faces, long lost brothers who fought on opposing sides of the war, or a previously stoic farmer in tears at the sight of his frail mother with wispy, cotton-candy hair, all caressing each other’s faces with such longing, care, and sadness over the impending farewells, probably the last time they will see each other alive. I was riveted.

When suddenly something hit me like a ton of bricks: that what I was watching and feeling emotional about wasn’t normal. In fact, it shouldn’t even be happening. Families shouldn’t be separated and be forced to live separate lives without knowing whether they are alive or dead for six decades, only to see each other in some contrived process that forces them apart after two days of tortured meetings. This can’t be real. This must be some weird plot element from Joseph Heller’s latest mindbender or the opening chapter of an undiscovered Camus novel.

Then why was it so normal to me? Why was I so accepting of the whole situation without even so much as questioning its strangeness? Why was such lunacy living as total normalcy in my unconscious? Or is this the legacy of all Koreans who have grown up with the division as a normal fact of life?

Seoul and Pyongyang are only 120 miles apart. But they might as well be a planet away. Try resetting your mind to a normal default state and imagine not being able to hop in your car and drive from LA to Palm Springs, Washington DC to Ocean City, New York to Boston, or even Seoul to Taegu. Is this normal? Is this acceptable? Of course not. Then why is it acceptable not to be able to drive from Seoul to Pyongyang? Even worse, not to even consider the possibility or question why it can’t be done.

But more than the physical distance, how has this unquestioning and unconscious acceptance of Korea’s division affected us? How has this influenced us in shaping our attitudes, thoughts, and behavior as Koreans?

This is what Jung said about collective neurosis: If, for a moment, we regard mankind as one individual, we see that the human race is like a person carried away by unconscious powers; and the human race also likes to keep certain problems tucked away in separate drawers … Our world is, so to speak, dissociated like a neurotic, with the Iron Curtain making a symbolic line of division.

Although Jung was talking about the Cold War, he might as well been referring to the divided Korea. Perhaps it’s time to begin considering a divided Korea not only as a geopolitical issue but as a collective mental illness. But now the key questions become: do we even realize that we are ill and does mental illness become the new normal when enough people share it?

Don’t know. And don’t ask me. I am insane. But I feel totally normal though.

Jason Lim is a non-resident fellow at the Peace Foundation, a non-partisan think tank researching policy options for peace on the Korean Peninsula. He can be reached at jasonlim@msn.com. You can also follow him on Facebook.

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