By Park Moo-jong
The turbulent year of 2019 is drawing to a close amid ever-deepening ideological confrontation between the left and the right and the worsening economic situation.
The Year of the Pig, a year of fortune and luck according to the Chinese zodiac interpretation, however, was neither fortunate nor lucky at all, politically and economically in particular.
Against this backdrop, university professors nationwide, as they do at the end of each year since 2001, chose the four-character Chinese idiom of the year to best describe the state of the nation: 共命之鳥 (gong myeong ji jo).
Literally translated, it means "bird with common destiny," namely "a bird with two heads" found in Buddhist scriptures.
According to mythology, once upon a time, there lived a bird with two heads, one facing the left and the other the right. The two heads used to fight and argue with each other, even for simple reasons, though they shared the same body.
Each head believed it could survive independent of the other without admitting they shared a common destiny.
To be more specific, one of the two heads woke up in the morning and the other in the evening. The former found some delicious fruit and ate it. The jealous latter, out of pique, ate poisonous fruit. Eventually both died.
As the professor who recommended the phrase said, each side's top priority is to beat the other to survive on its own, but if the other side disappears, neither will survive.
What a great idiom to best describe the state of South Korea of 2019! Throughout the whole year, the people were suffering from an "all-or-nothing" ideological division between the left in power and the right in shadow, both of whom did little to take care of the public livelihood instead pursuing their own political interests.
The ruling forces are dying to cement their hold on power, spending taxpayers' money to rally their supporters behind their leftist causes, while their opponents are still in chaos for factional strife without suggesting policy alternatives to help better the life of the people.
All the problems result from politics. The selfish politicians, obsessed with their own political gains, are dividing the public to make the situation worse, instead of trying to bridge differences and boost national unity.
A visit to Gwanghwamun Square and the Seocho legal area in Seoul every Saturday shows how seriously the people are suffering through the division.
Any society has different opinions and interests, which are necessary for a democracy cherishing diversity, communication and persuasion. Yet, communication and compromise are missing today, while hatred and all-or-nothing confrontation dominate all fields of society.
The Korean society of 2019 has been flooded with lies, fake news, pretense and double standards. On everybody's lip was the so-called "naero nambul," meaning: "When I love someone, it is romance; when others do, it is an affair."
The ruling camp has gone all-out to terminate what President Moon Jae-in termed was "deep-rooted evils" such as corruption and real-estate speculation, amongst other things, over the past two and half years.
However, the ruling forces are suspected of applying a double standard, like the popular term "naero nambul," to many cases like the controversial appointments of Moon's confidants accused of "evil practices" to important government posts.
In the daily lives of the people, similar phenomenon can be found easily. For instance, a driver blames the other driver who cut in all of a sudden as a violent and lowbrow one. On the contrary, when he or she changed lanes suddenly, he or she excuses that it was inevitable because of traffic flow or for other reasons.
A social trend to try to rationalize one's misdeeds will only aggravate the national division, not to speak of political split.
The left and the right are the two very pillars of society. A simple truth is that the two can coexist peacefully when they produce mutually acceptable terms through cooperation and compromise.
The professors' choice of the phrase for the year of 2019 should serve as a precious lesson to those in power or seeking power. Who could imagine the Republic of Korea will end up as a two-headed bird?
Park Moo-jong (emjei29@gmail.com) is a standing adviser of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English daily newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter since 1974
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The Year of the Pig, a year of fortune and luck according to the Chinese zodiac interpretation, however, was neither fortunate nor lucky at all, politically and economically in particular.
Against this backdrop, university professors nationwide, as they do at the end of each year since 2001, chose the four-character Chinese idiom of the year to best describe the state of the nation: 共命之鳥 (gong myeong ji jo).
Literally translated, it means "bird with common destiny," namely "a bird with two heads" found in Buddhist scriptures.
According to mythology, once upon a time, there lived a bird with two heads, one facing the left and the other the right. The two heads used to fight and argue with each other, even for simple reasons, though they shared the same body.
Each head believed it could survive independent of the other without admitting they shared a common destiny.
To be more specific, one of the two heads woke up in the morning and the other in the evening. The former found some delicious fruit and ate it. The jealous latter, out of pique, ate poisonous fruit. Eventually both died.
As the professor who recommended the phrase said, each side's top priority is to beat the other to survive on its own, but if the other side disappears, neither will survive.
What a great idiom to best describe the state of South Korea of 2019! Throughout the whole year, the people were suffering from an "all-or-nothing" ideological division between the left in power and the right in shadow, both of whom did little to take care of the public livelihood instead pursuing their own political interests.
The ruling forces are dying to cement their hold on power, spending taxpayers' money to rally their supporters behind their leftist causes, while their opponents are still in chaos for factional strife without suggesting policy alternatives to help better the life of the people.
All the problems result from politics. The selfish politicians, obsessed with their own political gains, are dividing the public to make the situation worse, instead of trying to bridge differences and boost national unity.
A visit to Gwanghwamun Square and the Seocho legal area in Seoul every Saturday shows how seriously the people are suffering through the division.
Any society has different opinions and interests, which are necessary for a democracy cherishing diversity, communication and persuasion. Yet, communication and compromise are missing today, while hatred and all-or-nothing confrontation dominate all fields of society.
The Korean society of 2019 has been flooded with lies, fake news, pretense and double standards. On everybody's lip was the so-called "naero nambul," meaning: "When I love someone, it is romance; when others do, it is an affair."
The ruling camp has gone all-out to terminate what President Moon Jae-in termed was "deep-rooted evils" such as corruption and real-estate speculation, amongst other things, over the past two and half years.
However, the ruling forces are suspected of applying a double standard, like the popular term "naero nambul," to many cases like the controversial appointments of Moon's confidants accused of "evil practices" to important government posts.
In the daily lives of the people, similar phenomenon can be found easily. For instance, a driver blames the other driver who cut in all of a sudden as a violent and lowbrow one. On the contrary, when he or she changed lanes suddenly, he or she excuses that it was inevitable because of traffic flow or for other reasons.
A social trend to try to rationalize one's misdeeds will only aggravate the national division, not to speak of political split.
The left and the right are the two very pillars of society. A simple truth is that the two can coexist peacefully when they produce mutually acceptable terms through cooperation and compromise.
The professors' choice of the phrase for the year of 2019 should serve as a precious lesson to those in power or seeking power. Who could imagine the Republic of Korea will end up as a two-headed bird?
Park Moo-jong (emjei29@gmail.com) is a standing adviser of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English daily newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter since 1974
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