By Mark Peterson
I've been impressed with how much on-going education and training there is in Korea. When I'm physically in Korea, I sometimes get asked to lecture to various government and private groups. I've lectured to alumni groups of various kinds, to breakfast clubs, lunchtime clubs, "kinship associations" and various adult education groups.
If I were in Korea full-time, and if there weren't a lockdown for the COVID-19 virus, I think I could make a living off lecturing to these ad hoc groups. There are a lot of them. Many, many more than you might find in America.
This last week I was asked to make a presentation from my home in Utah, via Zoom, to the Provincial Government Leaders Training Institute located outside of Jeonju, far from Seoul. Through the miracle of modern technology I was able to talk to provincial government officials in their homes ― ordinarily, they would meet at the training institute, but during the COVID times we were all at home.
The lecture was in English, and the focus of the training was "Global Leadership." I was impressed! Provincial government officials, half of them men, and half of them women, from city halls and county or provincial offices all across the country were getting training in English to become "global leaders." Remarkable! Korea has amazing foresight and vision.
The title of my talk, "A Reexamination of Korean History from a Global Perspective" and I included comparisons at various points with similar situations in China and Japan. It was a three-hour, morning-long seminar. The officials seemed to understand my English, though we answered some questions in Korean, and all-in-all, I was impressed with the officials-in-training and with the whole concept of education after education.
I understand that major companies have training centers, and I have visited some of them. The theme of "on-going education," "life-long education," "never-ending education" seems to me to be as much of the Korean story as their excellent record in secondary and post-secondary education. Education doesn't end with schooling.
Which brings me to one of the points in my lecture to the government officials ― a comparison of Korea's "seonbi" and Japan's samurai. It seems to me that in comparing the two countries traditions, in the post-traditional world samurai, looking for the next fight, led Japan step-by-step into World War II, whereas the seonbi, once the traditional world collapsed, resorted to the only thing they knew ― study.
The result is Korea has the best educational system in the world, and they have studied their way out of the poverty and desperation of the post-Japanese colonial era, the Korean War, and the aftermath of the war as divided states. Education has been key, and Korea has virtually caught up to Japan. Indeed, the pen is mightier than the sword ― the seonbi are mightier than the samurai.
The quest for education goes on in Korea today, after finishing formal school and after becoming employed. Indeed, given the groups I've lectured to, the quest goes on even after retirement! This is the true spirit of the seonbi.
Yet, there is an attitude I've discovered in places like my YouTube channel and in my lecturing, of distain for the seonbi. Indeed, some people think of the seonbi, not as Yulgok and Toegye, the great scholars commemorated on the Korean money, but as the slave-owning, lazy landlord. And in a leftist fashion, these "landlords" are the "bad guys" of history. I think that is a narrow and somewhat twisted view of the seonbi. Call me naive, but I idealize the seonbi, indeed, I am a seonbi wannabe.
I see the seonbi studying and studying to pass the all-important "mungwa" civil service exam as the ancestor, in deed and in spirit, of the students studying to get the best score possible to get into a major university. I see the spirit of never-ending education that I see all around me in Korea as a manifestation of the best of the seonbi tradition.
When I first arrived in Korea in 1965, it seems that everyone I met was a student ― and it seemed that most of them were studying economics. It was clear then, in the midst of poverty, that the way forward was to study ― to be a seonbi. Horace Underwood of Yonsei University used to say, the "Education miracle preceded the economic miracle."
In Korea we often hear of the "Miracle on the Han" ― or the economic miracle of Korea. We need to look more at the "Miracle on and off the Campus" ― the education miracle of Korea that continues even today.
Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.
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If I were in Korea full-time, and if there weren't a lockdown for the COVID-19 virus, I think I could make a living off lecturing to these ad hoc groups. There are a lot of them. Many, many more than you might find in America.
This last week I was asked to make a presentation from my home in Utah, via Zoom, to the Provincial Government Leaders Training Institute located outside of Jeonju, far from Seoul. Through the miracle of modern technology I was able to talk to provincial government officials in their homes ― ordinarily, they would meet at the training institute, but during the COVID times we were all at home.
The lecture was in English, and the focus of the training was "Global Leadership." I was impressed! Provincial government officials, half of them men, and half of them women, from city halls and county or provincial offices all across the country were getting training in English to become "global leaders." Remarkable! Korea has amazing foresight and vision.
The title of my talk, "A Reexamination of Korean History from a Global Perspective" and I included comparisons at various points with similar situations in China and Japan. It was a three-hour, morning-long seminar. The officials seemed to understand my English, though we answered some questions in Korean, and all-in-all, I was impressed with the officials-in-training and with the whole concept of education after education.
I understand that major companies have training centers, and I have visited some of them. The theme of "on-going education," "life-long education," "never-ending education" seems to me to be as much of the Korean story as their excellent record in secondary and post-secondary education. Education doesn't end with schooling.
Which brings me to one of the points in my lecture to the government officials ― a comparison of Korea's "seonbi" and Japan's samurai. It seems to me that in comparing the two countries traditions, in the post-traditional world samurai, looking for the next fight, led Japan step-by-step into World War II, whereas the seonbi, once the traditional world collapsed, resorted to the only thing they knew ― study.
The result is Korea has the best educational system in the world, and they have studied their way out of the poverty and desperation of the post-Japanese colonial era, the Korean War, and the aftermath of the war as divided states. Education has been key, and Korea has virtually caught up to Japan. Indeed, the pen is mightier than the sword ― the seonbi are mightier than the samurai.
The quest for education goes on in Korea today, after finishing formal school and after becoming employed. Indeed, given the groups I've lectured to, the quest goes on even after retirement! This is the true spirit of the seonbi.
Yet, there is an attitude I've discovered in places like my YouTube channel and in my lecturing, of distain for the seonbi. Indeed, some people think of the seonbi, not as Yulgok and Toegye, the great scholars commemorated on the Korean money, but as the slave-owning, lazy landlord. And in a leftist fashion, these "landlords" are the "bad guys" of history. I think that is a narrow and somewhat twisted view of the seonbi. Call me naive, but I idealize the seonbi, indeed, I am a seonbi wannabe.
I see the seonbi studying and studying to pass the all-important "mungwa" civil service exam as the ancestor, in deed and in spirit, of the students studying to get the best score possible to get into a major university. I see the spirit of never-ending education that I see all around me in Korea as a manifestation of the best of the seonbi tradition.
When I first arrived in Korea in 1965, it seems that everyone I met was a student ― and it seemed that most of them were studying economics. It was clear then, in the midst of poverty, that the way forward was to study ― to be a seonbi. Horace Underwood of Yonsei University used to say, the "Education miracle preceded the economic miracle."
In Korea we often hear of the "Miracle on the Han" ― or the economic miracle of Korea. We need to look more at the "Miracle on and off the Campus" ― the education miracle of Korea that continues even today.
Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.
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