Greetings again from Planet Korea. It’s been awhile. I’ve been back in Korea since September but due to the spam attacks on my blog I’ve held off on posting. I’m not sure where to start as I’ve made a lot of observations since I’ve been back, but here’s one that’s really been grinding my gears lately: Koreans and the concept of copyright.

This issue was first brought to my attention not necessarily by the mounting plagiarism lawsuits against prominent Korean pop singers, but by my own students. When I heard that celebrities were ripping off American songs without receving rights to them, I blew it off, figuring it was a media casualty and not representative of the national identity. But when my own students, many of whom had studied abroad, started copying and pasting entire essays from websites, I knew something was horribly wrong.

American students are taught how to properly credit and cite sources when they are high school and are expected to write research-style by the time they graduate. So much so that many colleges have harsh penalties - namely expulsion - for plagiarism. For Koreans, however, this didn’t seem to be a serious matter. I’d read many a work by a Korean author that would make broad generalizations without any evidence, articles loaded with blantant bias and no identifiable foundation. Crediting others’ work, I thought, was (academic) instinct, not cultural relativity.

Then a Korean friend gave me an honest explanation about this the other day when we were in an English bookstore looking for research writing textbooks (such as an MLA style guide). Which, by the way, don’t seem to exist anywhere in Korea. And here’s why:

“Koreans know how to credit works,” she said. “They do it in Korean all the time.”
“But when it’s in English, they figure they don’t have to. They don’t think it’s important if it’s written in English.”

Holy mother of ignorance.

I kept asking her to clarify over and over again, but she was serious. As if the occasional racist remark or assault from Koreans wasn’t bad enough, apparently my language - despite being a fever here - isn’t “worthy” enough to recieve proper citation. When English-speaking (and European, and probably every other nationality) professors write an article or book, they cite the sources EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT IN ENGLISH.

I wonder if Koreans do this because they figure, “Well, no one outside Korea is ever going to read this book that I’m stealing from, so it doesn’t matter.” If they write a textbook in Korean, and only Koreans - and and assumedly not the English speaker who wrote the content they used without credit - will read it, then why bother doing all that extra work? But they’ll cite Korean sources because they know that other Koreans will read their book and find them out otherwise.

This week I witnessed perhaps one of the poorest examples of plagiarism yet, and from this example I also continue to be apalled by some Koreans’ method of learning English. Somehow I got conned into editing the textbook of a teacher at my school (it’s a long story and I’m a pansy). He’s not an English teacher, but now and then he’ll come up to me with a paragraph in English and ask me if it’s right or if there’s another way to say a sentence in it. He can barely form a whole sentence. I had no idea what it was for, but I always helped him with it. Well, the other night I had to ask him a question about my club, and he ended up bringing some more questions to me. He had an entire packet of paragraphs and their translations with him, 78 typed pages worth. It turns out that he’s authored a book on this; though he’s not an English instructor, he has some sort of certificate for English. Let me repeat, the guy cannot form a basic sentence. And yet he’s struggling to ask me questions about these extremely sophisticated passages from classical books.

As if this wasn’t bizarre enough, his entire textbook is just page after page of random paragraphs translated into Korean - no coherency, and best of all - NO CITATION. The guy just pulls paragraphs from books and throws them in there and translates them. How he does so, I don’t even know, since he can hardly speak English at all.

Besides the aforementioned, there is one BIG PROBLEM with just picking random paragraphs out of texts and attempting to translate them - a little thing called context. This seems to blow peoples’ minds here. Context, WHY would you EVER need that to understand English? After all, English is just something you can learn from a textbook and lectures. It’s not like we actually use it to, you know, communicate. So here I am, trying to proofread all of these passages and some of them I can’t even UNDERSTAND because there is absolutely no context whatsoever. For example, one paragraph was discussing countries that have more than one official language, but it used the past tense (countries that “had” more than one). I changed it to the present tense, because I know that these countries STILL use more than one official language. But what if the passage had a specific purpose in using the past tense? After all, supposedly all of this shit was copied and pasted from academic sources, so why wouldn’t it be correct? Though, perhaps some of it he just got off Google, because otherwise why would he want me to proofread it if it was already published?

That was the most convoluted task I’ve ever been given in my life. But the worst part is that his book is not exclusive; our second-grade students use a textbook JUST LIKE IT! It’s just full of random passages that are completely unrelated to one another (and, if they are actually taken from somewhere, not credited at all). So when I was instructed to make second-grade lessons, the teachers literally meant “free topic” when they said “free topic”; there’s no way I can make a single lesson that integrates anything they’ve learned.

All of this seems to say to me that Koreans are certainly more concered about the QUANTITY rather than the QUALITY when it comes to education. They don’t seem to be that critical when it comes to what students exactly are getting out of their studying just so long as they’re doing a lot of it. And when you sacrifice quality for quantity, something as time-consuming as citation (especially in a foreign language, like English) goes straight out the window.

So we’ve established that Koreans plagiarize texts and have a pile of lawsuits for copyright infringement on pop songs. You’d conclude that they just don’t understand that copying is wrong. BUT, who just cracked down heavily on copyrighted material, threatening penalities even for copying and pasting a SONG LYRIC on your blog? Oh right: KOREA…

This post is brought to you by MC Mong’s newly-released caricature, “Indian Boy.” Any pop culture observer familiar with Mong knows that he likes to have fun, and in this case, poke fun. The first hit from his Humanimal album revisits humanity’s primal origins, though not those of his own people, but Americans.

At first I figured MC Mong just thought “Indian-style” might be the next big thing on the Korean hipster scene. Korean pop, after all, has never been about the depth as much as about the style. But then I noticed that he’d incorporated American football players into the video, which told me he’d at least done his research. I then wondered whether there was any significance to the very flowery dance of the football players in comparison to the indigenous movements of the Indians. In one move, the dancers swing their arms up and flex their biceps, indicating strength. Now arguably, the footballers are mirroring the moves of the Indians, but you don’t see them doing any of the strong moves - just some rather effeminate swaying of the hips and arms.

Am I looking too deep into this? Perhaps. But my interest was not in whether Mong or the director had planned this purposely. College-bred as a sociologist, I know that social signals are sent off regardless of the intention of the producer - they are latent. So, whether or not MC Mong knew what he was doing (or whether or not he knows how big of a foreign fanbase he has), “Indian Boy” sent out an interesting portrayal of masculinity.

But since I find no further evidence of it, it’s not the masculinity that I want to talk about in this post, but rather “Indian Boy”’s take on Indians themselves. I decided to do a translation of “Indian Boy” below to see if a lyric or two proved interesting. Unfortunately, it looks like Mong followed the breadcrumbs of the mainstream by writing a pretty straightforward love song, but the overarching meaning of the song is not to be underestimated: the “Indian Boy” gets the girl. It’s his strength, his weapons, his bravery, and his promise of protection that lure his love “across Alaska” and “to the other side of Niagara Falls.” This single line, along with the love that goes “around half the globe,” makes one wonder whether someone in this relationship is American, not Korean. Or, that the “Indian Boy” who gets the girl has to be American-like for his arrow to pierce her heart. In this sense, the flowery footballers might not seem so out-of-place: to be manly is to be primitive, and isn’t it the football players that band geeks and book nerds alike always mocked for being so “ape-like”? Naturally I’ve found myself off on a masculinity tangent again, but perhaps MC Mong has a thing or two to express to those 꽃미남 pretty boys.

Back on the topic of Indians, I’d like to know why MC Mong didn’t use his own Indians. Why Native Americans? The answer is quite clear when you keep in mind that Korea prides itself in being a “단일 민족 국가,” a one-race society. I find no direct translation of the term “Indian” in my dictionary as in reference to native peoples (only to people whose ethnicity is “Indian”) and when the term precedes other words as an adjective, it always refers to American Indians. If I input “native,” I get 원주민 and 토착민 (lit. person who settles in a new territory). But you’ll never hear Koreans use this term in reference to themselves - they are 한국인 (Hanguk-in) or, in the North, 조선인 (Joseon-in). By this expression, our humble northerners identify themselves closer to their ancestors than their northern neighbors. But you’ll never find a term like the English “Indian,” because in Korea, no one else was first.

Where exactly did Koreans come from? Again, the theory differs between North and South, and most theories are based on the Korean language rather than race and genetics. Korean lexis borrows many terms from Chinese, and Korean grammar is similar to that of Japanese. However, the language is said to be linguistically kin to Dravidian languages of India. I was surprised to find that, when watching Slumdog Millionaire last night, Korean shared many cognates with Hindi. The language is said to be of Altaic origin, that is, related to the Turkic and Mongolic (Manchu) families. North Koreans are of the latter opinion, though both are closely intertwined. Archaeological findings claim that Altaic peoples moved to the Korean peninsula around 4000 BC, making them half the age of the Eurasian “Indians” that migrated to the Americas 12,000 years ago. So what about the Chinese influence? No doubt the Yen invasion of 300 BC heavily influenced Old Joseon, but considering the Korean language was alive well before that, it’s difficult to know whether it was the chicken or the egg when it comes to Chinese lexis on the Korean language. Studying classical Chinese was a hobby of the upper class during the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties, so in a way, Chinese at this time wasn’t much different from Koreans studying English today: a status symbol. Nevertheless, Korean history will never tell you that “Koreans descended from the Chinese.” Many Koreans might tell you they came from Mongolians. Most, however, will probably say they came from Koreans.

So, could there even be a Korean Indian Boy? Probably not, which is why MC Mong used the more popularized version of “Indian” as it’s known in America. But despite all of the giggles that may ensue from the video, there’s a lesson to be learned here: while in English the term “Indian” can be used to denote something that is primitive, underdeveloped, or even overtly masculine, the word itself is apt to be understood rather differently depending on the origins of the people using it. Though America calls itself a “young” nation, it’s not so young if you consider it’s actual 12,000-year-old origins. Americans typically view their history as something radically different from that of Native Americans, rather than along a single timeline. Koreans and other “one-race” societies, however, are able to survey their history on much narrower terms, which has undoubtedly influenced “Han” and other cohesive sentiments among its people. I once read of an experiment that took 30 average Koreans off the streets of Seoul and asked them a variety of questions to identify their social and/or familial ties to one another. As it turned out, every single of them had some connection to the other, whether it was a common high school, hometown, or even kinship link. Korea is, indeed, a small world.

노래: 인디언 보이 (Indian Boy)
앨범명: Vol. 5 Humanimal
아티스트: MC몽 (MC Mong) Feat. 장근이 (Jang Geun-i), B.I

Adventures of M.O.N.G 나는 인디언 인디언 인디언 보이
나의 화살은 네 심장을 가리키고
빛나는 오늘 밤 그대와 난 춤을 춰
나는 인디언 인디언 보이 나는 인디언 인디언 프라티포 제라리몽
정글 숲에 슬피 우는 그녈 놓칠 순 없어 not anymore
내 화살의 활은 돌 같은 너의 심장도 뚫어
내 진실의 그물은 하늘처럼 넓어 내 사랑을 낚어
너의 모닝키스는 나의 아침밥
길을 잃어버린 내겐 넌 나침반
너를 만나기전 난 눈 먼 잠수부 넌 진흙 속의 진주
i will do i will do 네가 맘이 변해도
너의 사랑을 지키는 인디언 보이
나는 인디언 인디언 인디언 보이
나의 화살은 네 심장을 가리키고
빛나는 오늘 밤 그대와 난 춤을 춰
나는 인디언 인디언 보이 알래스카를 넘어 나이아가라강을 건너
지구 반을 돌아 우리 둘 만의 낙원을 지어 숨이 터져버릴 듯 해 그대 얼굴과 손이 맞닿을 때
이 뜨거운 밤을 불 태울게 이 뜨거운 밤을 불 태울게
사막의 모래는 춤추고 하늘의 별은
입을 맞추고 내 가슴엔 심장 내 머리 위엔 너
know know know u gotta know my love
훌라때훌라때 (HA) 훌라때훌라때 (HOO)
훌라때훌라때 (HA) 환하게 웃어줘
just like that 나는 인디언 인디언 인디언 보이
나의 화살은 네 심장을 가리키고
빛나는 오늘 밤 그대와 난 춤을 춰
나는 인디언 인디언 보이 Yes! Humanimal Collaboration With your Boy B.I 키 작은 아
이라고 누가 뭐라 나를 무시해도
Don’t stop it make some noise We get it popping like an indian boy
비가와도 (눈이와도) 무너져도 (쓰러져도)
나 끝까지 그대만 지켜준다고
cuz i’ll do cuz i’ll do i’ll do anything for you
나는 인디언 인디언 보이
비가와도 (눈이와도) 무너져도 (쓰러져도)
나 끝까지 그대만 지켜준다고
cuz i’ll do cuz i’ll do i’ll do anything for you
나는 인디언 인디언 보이

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

Adventures of M.O.N.G. I’m an indian indian indian boy
My arrow is aimed at your heart
You and I will dance in this bright night
I’m an indian indian boy, I’m an indian indian PEURATIPO JERARIMONG (???)
In the jungle my arrow sorrowfully missed her, but not anymore
My rock-tipped arrow is strong enough to pierce your heart
My net of truth is as broad as the heavens, my love lures you
Your morning kiss is my breakfast
When I lose my way, you’re my compass
Before I met you I was submerged in blindness, you’re a pearl within the mud
I will do, I will do, even if your heart wavers
An indian boy, I’ll protect my love
I’m an indian indian indian boy
My arrow is aimed at your heart
You and I will dance in this bright night
I’m an indian indian boy, across Alaska, to the other side of Niagara Falls
When my hands and face touch you, it’s like I can hardly breathe, our paradise goes around half the globe
The fire will burn on this warm night, the fire will burn on this warm night
The desert’s sand is cold and the stars are in the sky
Our mouths fit together and this feeling in my heart and head is for you
Know Know Know you gotta know my love
When we hoola when we hoola (HA) when we hoola when we hoola (HOO)
When we hoola when we hoola (HA) smiling brightly
Just like that I’m an indian indian indian boy
My arrow is aimed at your heart
You and I will dance in this bright night
I’m an indian indian boy Yes! Humanimal Collaboration with your boy B.I., the short one
Whatever they say, or if people pay no attention to me
Don’t stop it make some noise We get it popping like an indian boy
Even if it rains (even if it snows) and if you crumbles (or you tumble)
You’re the only one I’ll protect until my end
Because I’ll do, I’ll do, I’ll do anything for you
I’m an indian indian boy
Even if it rains (even if it snows) and if you crumbles (or you tumble)
You’re the only one I’ll protect until my end
Because I’ll do, I’ll do, I’ll do anything for you
I’m an indian indian boy

Not to be confused with the Why I love Korea post, this post will focus on the little things about Korea I didn’t think I’d find myself so painfully yearning for during my hiatus in the states.

01. Big city, small-town charm. Yeongdeungpo-gu may not be a top tourist attraction, but overall, I enjoyed living there. Sure, it didn’t have the palaces, or the nightlife, or the greatest food, but it had hospitality. It had store attendants who always helped me with a warm smile, a corner mart whose workers knew me like the back of their hand and vice versa, and the quaint outdoor bar/restaurants where groups of friends could go to socialize and get chicken-on-a-stick for 3,000w a pop.

02. SERVICE-UH. This almost made #1. In comparison to Japan, Korea still doesn’t cut it as a top service nation. But compared to here, it’s a service heaven. I’m not talking about the material service - noraebang “service time” or the extra oranges a friendly fruit vendor would toss in your bag - as much as I am the interpersonal service. I miss witnessing service people actually do their jobs, and do them quickly and satisfactory. I also miss having salespeople at Hyundai Department Store doing everything except graveling at my feet to ensure I was satisfied with my (by no means cheap) purchase. I miss living in a country where the business climate makes computer accessories like a laptop bag, mouse, and full software packages something that is standard inclusion, not an extra charge.

03. Transportation Empancipation. In America, you drive EVERYWHERE. I just so happen to loathe driving with a passion (a passion I normally reserve for high gas prices). I miss cheap, speedy trains and buses that cover trails spanning the entire country, as well as the ease of obtaining tickets/charging up a T-Money card to ride them. I’d challenge anyone to find a public transportation system as cheap and efficient as Korea’s.

04. Humility. Americans are outspoken people. Generally, Koreans can be too, but only in certain situations. I don’t miss overt complaining, grumbling, and verbal frustration over petty things. If you’ve ever seen a Korean funeral, you’ll understand just how passionate Koreans can be. But only over what is important.

05. Healthcare. It may not be quite as affordable as the Canadian and French systems (which are, erm, free), but I miss the stress-free environment of national healthcare. I need not elaborate on the mess I’m currently facing back home without insurance (I’d kindly direct you to Michael Moore’s heartbreaking film Sicko for that), but I cannot emphasize enough how essential national healthcare is. What impressed me most in Korea was the lightning-fast speed as which hospitals pumped customers in and out faster than blood through your aorta.

06. Giro. I miss the convenience of feeding all of my monthly bills into the Giro machine at the bank. Come to think of it, I also miss bills. They were just so much cheaper in Korea. And clearly much less of a headache to deal with.

07. The Won. The won sure has its disadvantages in the world market right now, but I’d like to highlight two of its benefits: first, although they have recently introduced a new 50,000 won bill, it was kind of nice to rely on small bills in some ways. Sure, they made for an unsightly bulge in your purse, but you never had to worry about businesses being unable to give you change. Second, I enjoy that most prices were “rounded-up” (indeed, my LG Telecom bill would display a ‘won unit roundup,’ which would actually save me a few won or so by rounding down, say, 34,009w to 34,000w…sweet!) so you didn’t have to fuss with change.

08. Food. I was never a huge fan of spicy food, or red pepper for that matter. But aside from the future gastrointestinal cancer, I miss Korean food for its health benefits. I miss walking past restaurants that had buckets of water and cabbage, or other fresh vegetables, sitting outside. (Once I even passed a restaurant in a mall with a freshly-slaughtered pig bucketed outside…yum!) But honestly, if the American Obesity Epidemic can be rightly blamed on processed food, Korea is an ideal place to discover un-processed food. You’ll be amazed at how your body will thank you.

09. Looking Like a Million Bucks…for Much Less. Koreans care about appearance. A Lot. Many Western countries ban the request of a photo for job applications, claiming that it could lead to bias in hiring. Not so in the Land of the Morning Calm. Luckily, the means to looking good are accessible and affordable for all. Clothing, manicures, and enough skincare products to probably cover every square inch of the country (not to mention plastic surgery) are not merely tools of the affluent. Seoul especially caters to appearance for both hip and professional lifestyles, and the better you look on the outside, the better you feel on the inside.

10. Constant Occupation. At my most bored, I could walk out of my apartment at midnight and take a stroll down to the enchantingly-lit Han River. On the opposite end of the spectrum, entertainment was unlimited. Be aware that I am not talking about clichéd tourist attractions or bars. I’m talking about free public performances and concerts, benefit events and HiSeoulFest at Cheonggyechon, local restaurants, unique hole-in-the-wall stores, unpolluted beaches in Busan, strange museums, festivals…∞

Dilemma: You and your (let’s say in this case, Korean) friend are both fluent in English and Korean. In which language should you converse? It isn’t any easier for her to speak English than it is for you to speak Korean; you are practically on the same level of fluency. The answer to this question might be purely situational.

This topic came to light after I sent an inquiry via e-mail to the South Korean Consulate in New York City, and have yet, one week later, to receive a response. I wrote it in English to my own convenience and for the sake of clarity on both ends. Then I snarkily thought to myself, “I bet if I wrote it in Korean, I’d get a prompt response.” THEN I thought: “But that might upset someone.”

Why would it upset someone, you ask? Perhaps a worker at the consulate already opened and read my e-mail, but is holding off on a response for some reason or another that doesn’t have anything to do with what language I wrote it in. If I were to write a second e-mail in Korean, they might interpret it as such: “This shmuck thinks I don’t know English, even though I’ve lived in this country xxyears…how rude!” Likelihood: slim. However, it’s some food for thought…exactly when is it appropriate to use a language, and when? This can get tricky when you live in America, a proverbial linguistic kaleidoscope.

Before I left Korea, I’d joke with one of my friends that if and when we visited New York together, we could make fun of all the people on the street behind their backs in Korean. Indeed, this is a tactic used round the world on streets, in offices, and in the general vicinity of “foreigners” everywhere. My Korean coworkers often used to remark on how “lazy” the foreign workers were (and I admit, they weren’t completely wrong), taking advantage of the foreign workers’ Korean incompetency. Unfortunately, they must have forgotten about the one Korean-Canadian in my workplace, who was richly bilingual and felt the sting of the comments.

But even when used for something other than harmful purposes, the bilingualism-game is a difficult one to play. Despite the fact that most American travelers are unwonted to learn most languages of the nations they visit beyond a phrasebook (after all, this is an English-speaking world, ain’t it?), speaking those languages to natives while in the United States is tricky, especially if you’re not a native of the country yourself. You can generally get one of two responses if say, you speak to an English-speaking Korean in America:

Reaction #01. Flattery. The individual is glad to see you have at least some interest in their language and culture, even though your pronunciation is crap and you actually just said “I know Korean lovers, too!” instead of “I know Korean people, too!” If you’re clearly not a native but speak fluently, you’ll probably garner at least an odd look, especially if that language isn’t a very common choice of study among English-speakers.

Reaction #02. Disdain. The individual might feel offended that you’re trying to think of yourself as anything but what you are, are butchering their language’s purity, and most of all, might feel put off that you think you are “helping them” by speaking in their native language when they’ve actually worked their rear off for years to master English and they’re not some FOB imported worker.

The latter might occur more often than you think, as in the individual will think it but not openly express it. Truthfully, if I just got told off by a racist American guy that I should “Be shipped back to my own country” the second he heard my accent (and unfortunately, this still does happen in America), I’d probably feel some possessiveness over my own language, too. Maybe I’ll get some heat for this being politically incorrect, but I challenge you to argue.

Think, for a second, about immigrant enclaves (I mentioned them in the previous post). Just like Itaewon, it’s a haven for foreigners, a place where they can speak their own language with no interference from the natives. Now, if you fold the country inside-out, you’ll see that the natives in-and-of-themselves form their own “enclave” where foreign languages aren’t welcomed. This is especially problematic in America where immigrant communities fail to blend in with the core culture. In the words of Jeb Bush regarding the need for immigration reform, “One of the real weapons we have in competing economically is our ability to absorb immigrants - legal immigrants - that make huge contributions to our country.” It’s not my place to say whether or not that lack of absorption is America’s fault or the fault of enclaves themselves (probably enough of both), but that lack of absorption can lead to Reaction #2, and that of course leads to tension and disrespect of either culture.

Therefore, it is Reaction #1 that we should all aim for. For the longest time I used to get upset when, in Seoul, I would speak to someone in Korean and they would respond entirely in English. I’d get upset because I was trying so hard to learn the language and stand apart from other “Korean-inept” foreigners, only to get shot down in the end by another case of “everyone in the world knows your language.” If that’s the case, I thought, what language do I have to be proud of, when everyone else can speak it? You see, in the workplace, it wasn’t like I could backstab someone in English - everyone knew my language. However, I finally realized that perhaps the clerk at the metro station wasn’t speaking English for my benefit, but for his - perhaps he just sincerely wanted to practice his English, and what better opportunity than on the rare foreigner in need of assistance? At least, that’s what I tell myself on the numerous occasions that this happens to me, it makes me feel better. I still have trouble, however, when it comes to finding a Korean language partner who actually has the patience to listen to me speak (and frequently stumble) through Korean. More often than not, it’s simply easier for them to speak to me in English.

Maybe this serves as a lesson that Americans, and other native English speakers, need to jump on the bandwagon when it comes to learning a second, or even third, language. In his stunning Wired piece on “How English Is Evolving Into a Language We May Not Even Understand,” Michael Erard wrote:

By 2020, native speakers will make up only 15 percent of the estimated 2 billion people who will be using or learning the language. Already, most conversations in English are between nonnative speakers who use it as a lingua franca [...]

Any language is constantly evolving, so it’s not surprising that English, transplanted to new soil, is bearing unusual fruit. Nor is it unique that a language, spread so far from its homelands, would begin to fracture. The obvious comparison is to Latin, which broke into mutually distinct languages over hundreds of years — French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian [...] But what’s happening to English may be its own thing: It’s mingling with so many more local languages than Latin ever did, that it’s on a path toward a global tongue — what’s coming to be known as Panglish. Soon, when Americans travel abroad, one of the languages they’ll have to learn may be their own.

This might suggest that when presented with a bi-linguistic dilemma, English (or something like it) might just be the default. In any case, it depends on the proficiency of both speakers, as well as their shamelessness in speaking the language that is not their native tongue. I’ve personally considered it a “chauvinistic imperialist” move to expect everyone outside of my homeland to approach me in English, but since the other 90% of my culture doesn’t feel the same, non-native English speakers are forced to accommodate in order to keep up with global business and other international affairs. Whether I like it or not, it looks like English, which in Korea can be viewed as a fashionable trend, a bearer of status, a gateway to a high-profile job, or even possibly a token of interest (note sarcasm), should be the go-to language for bilingualists everywhere, except where national borders interfere (i.e. two native Koreans who both know English will probably feel more comfortable speaking in Korean, just as two Korean-Americans born and raised in the states will feel more comfortable speaking English). At rea-seut-uh no one-uh weel get-a lost-uh in teu-rans-ration-uh.

Well damn, I caved and ended up watching the family copy of Twilight last night. I just had to see what all the hype was about. Believe me, I’d still read the books over my dead body, but I must say I enjoyed the film (sans tacky flying scenes a la Moon Child). The story isn’t that original - in fact, it reminds me much of an R.L. Stine Fear Street novel - but the cinematography of the film was impressive and I was pleased to see that Bella wasn’t a twit, which is how I originally envisioned her based on [what people have told me about] the book.

But I’ll give you one guess as to what - or who - in the movie caught my attention. Yup, Korean-American actor Justin Chon, who played the geeky but charming Eric.

My research surfaced that he’s son of olde-time SK actor Jeon Sang-cheol, who gave up his acting career due to the negative stigma surrounding actors at the time and moved to the US to become a businessman in Irvine, California.

While Chon typically comes off as a valley-boy surfer dude in interviews, the reasons he gave for why Asian-Americans still haven’t broken into the entertainment industry were impressionable:

“First off, there aren’t many Asian-Americans on TV presently. So demographically we’re not getting the proper exposure. Because of this, demand for Asian-American actors has stayed low. Also, the common stigma for Asian-Americans in entertainment up to this point has been action martial arts stars. This is slowly starting to change, but there is a huge disparity compared with other minorities who star in dramas. Another huge reason it is hard for Asian-Americans to break into entertainment is writers are not conscious of Asian-Americans. Therefore they tend to write stereotypical roles for them such as doctors, lawyers, business execs, immigrants, and store owners. Because of all these factors many Asian-American children don’t see it as a possible career and tend to take on more stable types of jobs.”

Regarding the latter, in my opinion there is some explanation lacking there. First off, I don’t know that the portrayal of Asian-Americans in the media has as much of an influence on a child as his own family, which in many cases pushes the child into those kinds of professions. Sure, if a kid like Chon truly saw himself acting, that could give him the impetus to rebel against his family’s wishes. But for Chon, it was easy: his dad had already been an actor. And though he initially gave it up because it was looked down upon, he probably also knew that in America his son wouldn’t encounter such a conflict.

Chon has said in multiple interviews how ecstatic he is that he can “break the Asian stereotype” with his roles. But he’s played a Korean pop star (on the O.C.), a Chinese kid (Wendy Wu), and of course your usual overzealous nerdy Asian kid who can’t win the heart of the leading lady in Twilight. In Just Jordan he plays a typical high school kid, most Asian stereotypes aside, but nonetheless seems to continually represent the status-quo of Asian-America as non-Asians perceive it.

This led me to see his film Crossing Over, in which he plays an FOB Korean-American who gets involved with thugs. This seemed like the straw to break the camel’s back when it comes to Asian-American stereotypes, and I was curious to see how it would play out (not to mention that I loved Crash, to which this film is said to be akin). It seemed appropriate for me to watch a film chronicling the lives of “Americans as we know it” on the most poignant national holiday.

Korean-Americans really should be a more discussed topic in this blog, yet surprisingly, I’ve known very few in my life. Someday I’d like to move near Koreatown in Los Angeles, but the closest Korean niche to me is a one-hour drive away in Fort Lee, NJ. Crossing Over proved Chon true: in the film, he portrays a genuine character, having studied at Yonsei for a year and polished his Korean to fluency, even pulling off an incredible Korean accent. It must be awkward, I imagine, to practice speaking with the accent of your birth culture, having been raised in America your whole life surrounded by valley-English-speaking beach bums (which along with Southern accents is probably the most “American” form of English in existence). Yong Kim, his alter-ago, was forced abroad much against his will by his parents, and claims that in America “people get what they want with guns.” He ends up in the most non-characteristically Asian role as an honorary member of a Koreatown gang, but is given a second chance at both citizenship and life when his buddies end up flayed during a shootout and a Persian ICE officer, whose father (like Kim) is also about to attend his naturalization ceremony, convinces him that America has more to offer.

I can’t express my gratitude for whoever made the decision to bring this topic to light via film. To put it bluntly, it’s about damn time. For us native-borns, it’s too easy to overlook the trials and tribulations that Americans, more than two centuries after the nation’s birth, continue to encounter. It’s a bittersweet reality for illegals, who risk everything up to their lives to make it in the “land of the free” only to be delivered a crude vengeance in the end. Moreover, it’s also too easy to grossly overestimate the ease with which Asian-Americans “blend” into the mainstream as the “model minority.” I respect Chon for taking on a role completely counter to his own and to the rash over-generalization of Asian-Americans everywhere: that they are a subculture of doctors, Harvard-bred geniuses, and Silicon Valley inhabitants. The fact that most Americans can’t even tell a Korean last name apart from other East Asian names is testimony to the misunderstanding that since Koreans are gobbling up English education in their homeland, cultural adaptation must be a cinch for them. One must keep in mind that Asians are still the third-largest minority group in the United States, preceded by Hispanics and blacks, and that immigrant enclaves (or “cultural comfort zones” as I like to call them, places like Chinatown and Koreatown) for them remain sparse. Many argue that so few enclaves exist because Asian-Americans have been triumphant in acculturation with the dominant white culture, but this is only a half-truth when you consider that while most second-generation Asian-Americans have succeeded in this, many of them must do a double-shift playing translator (both linguistic and cultural) for their parents. An abstract from a July 2008 study done on Korean-American immigrants reads:

Korean Americans are one of the poorest ethnic groups in the United States. In Los Angeles County, 15.81% of Koreans fall below the federal poverty line, compared with 14.82% in California, and 6.44% are unemployed, compared to 5.78% statewide. Korean Americans have the highest rate of self-employment amongst all ethnic groups, which translates into couples working long hours together, creating strain and the neglect of children. Approximately 75% of Koreans arrived in the U.S. after the 1970s, and both these first-generation adults and their children face significant language and cultural barriers. The number of divorced Asian Pacific Americans more than doubled between 1996 and 2002, and Koreans have the highest rates of domestic violence among Asian Americans. Despite this reality, the needs of Korean American families have been lost in easy categorizations of them as the “model minority. [sauce]

Of Koreans living in New York City, 40% have limited English proficiency and Koreans rank number 6 for limited proficiency in Los Angeles county, preceded by Southeast Asian or Central American groups and ranking behind Chinese and Japanese.

It’s not that Koreans have it bad, and they are far from having it the worst. This is also not to say that America is a more difficult place for a foreigner to settle, because becoming a Korean citizen is certainly no breeze either (and does not recognize dual citizenship; you need to choose one or the other by the age of 21). But what any of my own readings or research on immigration has taught me is that America will forever be the world’s greatest experiment. Pluralists strive for perfection, but the chances of it ever occurring are slim. More often than not, I’m not proud to be an American, the result of the some of the utterly poor decisions my country has made in the past and continues to err on. But if you can understand the brilliance of heterogeniety, which you probably can after having lived in one of the world’s most homogeneous nations for the past year, you can give America some credit for at least trying, even if it has yet to get all of the kinks worked out.

Every country has its problems, right? Well, let’s highlight a few of the social issues currently plaguing the ROK (aside from Kim Jong-il’s persistent whistle-blowing).

Korea ranked third among 30 OECD member states in terms of the ratio of education spending to GDP but at bottom in terms of happiness and had the longest working hours.

Korea came in fourth with a 31.8 percent ratio of self-employed businesspeople to all employed people, about double the average of 16.1 percent. This suggests that Korea is in greater danger than any other country in a recession.

However, the country ranked at the bottom in terms of life satisfaction. In a survey of career interest, pride and annual leave among 1,000 people aged 15 or older in each member state in 2008, Korea finished 24th with 23.1 out of 100 points, much lower than the average of 54.3 points.

In a negative index survey of pain, hypochondria, and sadness the same year, the country averaged 61.5 points, far above the average of 35.6.

As of 2007, a Korean worked 2,316 hours, the longest among member states and 548 hours more than the average of 1,768. In terms of eight-hour work days, this means that Koreans worked 69 days more than their counterparts. The Dutch worked the shortest hours with 1,392. The Japanese (1,785 hours) and Americans (1,794 hours) also worked fewer hours. [sauce]

I continually ask myself just how I made it out of my academy alive this year, having managed a high-stress job at up to 12 teaching hours a day, 8 hours straight without a break. I wanted to laugh in my doctor’s face when he told me I had to exercise. Not because of that comment, but because he told me that “sitting at my desk was giving me neck pain.” Right, because I generally sat at my desk for a grand total of about 20 minutes during the entirety of the work day. Actually, I only SAT for that long, period. However, when I tried to express my exhaustion and even a slight bit of “this is just so unfair!” to Korean acquaintances, I might as well have been invisible. After all, I was still working far less than them.

The attitude, I find, is one of duty. Koreans know that they work inhumane hours, but what can you do? You need to work, right? There isn’t much of a way to dodge the issue. I remember being appalled while watching the recent hit film Antique and hearing the coffee shop owner’s proposal to his potential employee: “the hours are 12-2.” In America and European countries, the share of labor is divided differently than in Korea. Westerners hire several employees to cover a variety of shifts, whereas Koreans hire only one or two employees to cover, well, all the shifts. This likely benefits the employee financially, as he isn’t sharing his salary with a number of other workers (though the extent to which the employee is actually seeing a high salary is greatly dependent upon the position and also upon the levels of bureaucracy involved), but what of his general well-being?

Through American eyes, it makes more logical sense to hire an employee for no more than 8 hours a day so that he can come to work well-rested, energized, and ready to put his best foot forward (well, one hopes) rather than run him into the ground after a 16-hour work day and send him into a state of mental trauma by the end of the month. By my logic, the former not only makes more sense, it makes more efficiency. But you must remember that in a society with Confucian roots - yes, it is still developing, but it’s just not there yet - efficiency isn’t necessarily key. Both Korean workplaces and schools favor quantity over quality: regardless of how much a student actually learns, what matters is that his warm body (conscious or not) is present in a school-related function from 9 a.m. until 11 p.m. each day. It’s no surprise, then, that I receive blank stares when I express my confuzzlement with this logic. Why wouldn’t you stay for an extra 4 hours of overtime? It’s what your boss tells you to do. You wouldn’t dare disobey your boss, but you also wouldn’t scrutinize the reason you need to stay, either. It’s doesn’t matter if you actually have work to do, you just need to be there.

If you figure that there are about 240 working days a month (Monday-Friday), according to the statistic presented above the average Korean works over 9 hours per day. Unfortunately, I fear that a certain lump of hours is missing from this equation: the copious amounts of unpaid overtime Koreans submit to. For a long time Japan has always stolen the limelight when it came to overwork, karoshi a much more trumpeted word in social literature rather than the Korean equivalent, gwarosa. I admit that at first I was surprised to see that Koreans do in fact trump Japan when it comes to working hours. But I was also surprised to hear that Korea also had a higher suicide rate (no doubt related to overwork) than Japan, also a fact that is little-known beyond the Asian continent.

Now I’d like to question just how proactive countries like Japan and Korea are when it comes to a societal issue such as this. Basically, about as proactive as America is when it comes to national healthcare. Even though change in this sector would be ethical and beneficial for society as a whole, someone is going to lose money in the end, and that always retards the process. While Koreans will protest about contimainated beef or about high university tuition, working hours isn’t something they’re known to protest, despite its obvious negative consequences. You might say that a Korean refuses to relinquish his pride, knowing that for years his country has been the underdog and that hard work and dedication is finally pulling it out on top. However, depression and suicide rates tell us otherwise, that in fact the Korean isn’t getting any satisfaction whatsoever from draining labor. This might also be a test of strength, the survival of the fittest and their subsequent belittlement of the weaker employee who “just can’t handle it” (a habit that has likely developed solidly in the military). I’d prefer to read up more on Korean labor laws before going into further detail, but I can say that from my own experience as a foreign teacher, contracts mean nothing and the articles in them are consistently overwritten or just completely ignored. In other words, the employee is typically at the mercy of his company. Whether a Korean has a problem with this is all case-specific, but it sure doesn’t seem like a cohesive pot of steam is boiling on the issue, nor has policy been enforced (indeed, perhaps it has been enacted, but it is certainly not enforced) to change this OECD plunge.

OECD also found this:

Obesity among Korean women is the lowest among the 30 member countries of the OECD with 3.3 percent, even lower than Japan’s 4.3 percent. Korean women work an average of 44.3 hours per week, the longest among OECD members, and well above the OECD average of 34.3 hours.

Korean men also work the longest hours in the OECD with 48.3 hours, but considering the gender wage gap in Korea, where women only earn 62 percent of what men earn, the gap in working hours is minimal.

The Korea Women’s Development Institute published a report on Korean women’s life and their status to mark the 14th Women’s Week from July 1-7, based mainly on the OECD Factbook 2009 released in April.

One key figure that shows the current status of women in Korea is the rate of participation in economic activities. In Korea, the rate was 58.7 percent in 2008, lower than the OECD average of 63.2 percent. Among Korean men, the rate was 82.2 percent, slightly below the OECD average of 83.3 percent. Along with Greece, Italy and Japan, Korea has a gender gap in economic activity of over 20 percent. [sauce]

Ah yes, it’s never a pleasant time to be a woman in South Korea. But my beef with this article is as follows: sure, Korean women are underrepresented in the labor force. The get paid less than men. But if you had a one or more children and a husband your children never see, would you really want to be working the “double shift” anyway? What’s gets to me about Korea’s gender inequality isn’t the gender gap in the labor force. That, in my opinion, is something the wife can choose and should she choose to not work, she will probably be handing herself less stress. When you read that 82 percent of the jobs lost over the past year were held by women, it seems devastating and unfair. But if many of these women are giving up jobs for extended maternity leaves to be with their newborn children or can devote more time to their household and family, this has significant benefits for the stability of the family, which has decreased since the dawn of women in the labor force. I’m not saying that women should be forced into the household, I’m saying that some women like it that way and more power to them.

The real problem with Korean gender balance, and you’ll hear more about this in the future I’m sure, is the objectification of women. I was shocked to see videos from Nude News posted on the Chosun Ilbo, what I thought to be a reputable news source. Such trashy videos factored in with news, and especially on the same network as an article that just addressed the low status of Korean women, seemed absurdly out of place.

Then I remembered that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

Just wanted to let you know I’ve added a handful of song translations to the blog, transferred from an obsolete blog. You can view them by clicking on “Translations” in the Categories section. I can’t guarantee 100% accuracy, but most of them were reviewed by native Koreans. Enjoy~

I’m leaving to visit the states in a week and that week is sure to be overwhelming. I’ll have all the time in the world to post when I arrive home.

Even though Korean music may not have the deepest lyrics or the most crafted musicianship, it has a way of embedding itself in your existence if you live here. You hear the top songs everywhere, you have them stuck in your head even if you don’t want them. And although Western pop music has the same effect, these Korean songs have a softer, more sentimental mood about them that has, for me, marked specific eras of my time here in Seoul this year. All videos are accompanied by English subtitles when available.

01. Epik High - One
Appropriate for the number 1 slot. I listened to this song nonstop before my arrival in Seoul and it was my welcome song. The lyrics carried a haunting message about time and urged me to make the most of my time here, since I didn’t know what the future would bring.

02. Big Bang - Haru Haru
This is still one of the few Korean songs I know practically every word to because it was just played like the plague when it came out. Like “Lies,” it also one of the few songs all of my Korean friends know whether they listen to Big Bang or not. It was also a welcome song since it came out shortly before my arrival.

03. Dear Cloud - Ice Fortress
I didn’t know anything about Dear Cloud the first time I saw them at the Busan Rock Festival, but after seeing this video, I was addicted. I’d never been a fan of mellow melodies like this, but I fancied the singer for her courage in standing out as a tomboy among so many other airy, fake-like-plastic female singers. It also helped that Kim Jae-wook, our favorite Coffee Prince “Waffle Guy,” had an outstanding role in this video.

04. FT Island - 나쁜 여자야
This year was seasoned with corny jokes about how FT Island live in Cindy’s apartment complex (I told her the best birthday present would be for her to get Hong-gi to sing “Happy Birthday” to me, but unfortauntely it didn’t pan out), so naturally there had to be a memorable FT Island song of the year. And it had to be this one, because it was too much fun to serenade my friends with this while pointing at them accusingly (”You’re a baaadd womannnn!”).

05. 서태지 - 난 알아요
This list wouldn’t be complete without the origin of my interest in Korean culture, would it? I still remember the shock and awe on one record store-owner’s face when I told her that Seo Taiji was the first thing I ever knew about Korea. Sadly, due to his poor diction, there are few Taiji songs I can sing well, but I can stumble through this one better than others and at least triumph over the chorus. Ergo, it’s a noraebang essential. But perhaps the best thing about it is the terrible dancing, which I frequently try to imitate in the noraebang as well. “Yo Taiji! What up bro?”

06. Hwang Project feat. 박효신 - Castle of Zoltar
Not a single one of my Korean friends know this song and it barely got any air time, but it means a lot to me. The lyrics are all about breaking out of the mold and following your dreams, which is exactly what I’ve been doing this year. It also introduced me to the vocal wonders of Park Hyo Shin.

07. Norazo - Superman
This is to commemorate the week-long laughfest my coworkers and I had when this song first came out, and to remember the story Jennifer once told me: while she was at the pool, she saw a herd of ajummas synchronized swimming to this song. The video is sarcastic enough, but the performance is better as you can see some of the dance moves the ajummas were pulling off.

08. Super Junior - Sorry Sorry
A song that reflects absolutely zero talent from a band of 13 singers (who each sing for approximately 10 seconds of the song), yet has been the creme de la creme of the Seoul music scene for weeks on end due to its contagious choreography. All of my little boy students would pop out of the classroom and perform it for me, especially on the occasion when they’d have to apologize for something and a simple “sorry” would inevitably turn into “…sorry sorry sorry sorry.” My preschoolers got a kick out of when I did the dance myself, and I even distributed the English translation of the lyrics to several lucky, obsessed students. And who can forget the SuJu personality pun from Kevin? “Teachuh, you, Donghae.” “Kevin, you, SHINDONG” (the fat one). PS: 소리 (”So-ri”) in Korean means “sound.”

09. Epik High - 평화의 날 (Day of Peace)
The last few months have been a bit difficult for me personally, but this song always raised my spirits. It has the best lyrics on the planet, and serves as a humorous reminder that even though your day may suck, you need to just brush it off and move on.

10. Super Junior - 너라고 (It’s You)
My departure song. Even thought the lyrics may not seem relevant, if you take the invisible girl out of the equation and replace it with my love for Korea, it works perfectly. “Even if I’m born again, it will only be you” also reminds me of how I also became “born-again” as a Christian this year, and once again you have a reminder of time passing (”자꾸자꾸 시간이 흘러도”). The melody and background music in this song have both a sorrowful yet hopeful vibe to them: sad to be leaving, yearning to come back.