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By David A. Tizzard
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That should make sense to anyone. What culture actually is however gets a little trickier. Clifford Geertz suggested it is dynamic, made of interpreted symbols, and essentially "the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves." So we try and understand how people see the world from their perspective and using their own language and imagery. A candle in a paper cup, a box of Pepero, or a yellow ribbon are more than just that in this part of the world, just as an eagle or a raised fist are elsewhere. They mean something beyond their physical or monetary value. Instead, they are embedded in the public collective consciousness over time with a whole host of associations and images.
Some of these are easy to grasp. Others much more difficult. When I heard the lady making my lunch earlier today shout to the woman in the back, "Emo," I knew immediately she wasn't actually shouting at her own auntie. It was a term of familiarity among two non-related people which also denotes age. But you can't really translate that into English and even typing the explanation above, I still don't think I got it right. It makes perfect sense in a Korean context but very little elsewhere.
So it was rather disappointing to see how an interesting and frankly necessary piece on certain segments of the Korean population becoming entrenched in their own views through social media resorted to calling these Korean people "alt-right." Grace Moon's article for Rest of World had some great research and took the time to explain the historical and political origins behind why many elderly Korean people have abandoned terrestrial news and found solace in corners of the internet that provide them with the nostalgic messages of days gone by. It demonstrated that those who did were often looking to be told that the country should be united as a single family and protect itself from the incessant and insidious dangers of communism. Religion was playing a strong role, too. It was a genuinely good piece.
But it does not make elderly, religious, anti-communist Korean conservatives "alt-right". They are many other things certainly, but "alt-right"? That word actually means something, doesn't it? Grace Moon may not like elderly Korean conservatives and may not like the "alt-right" in America either, but that doesn't mean we should conflate the two. More effort should be made to understand them as they see and describe themselves in their own language, not through our own ideological lenses. And no, this is not a defense of the elderly conservatives nor an attack on Grace and her good journalism; It's simply a call for less ethnocentric language.
A few months ago, I was doing a live televised interview with the BBC about increasing awareness of mental health issues in South Korea. When we discussed how more and more South Korean people were turning for professional help and societal norms were changing, the presenter Geeta Guru-Murthy asked me whether this meant that Korean people were becoming more "western." This is something I had heard many times before, but it wasn't something I agreed with. Korean people are not becoming more western, I replied. They are becoming new versions of themselves.
As in any culture, Korean people are changing, their values are shifting, the symbols they use to help navigate life are being reinvented, and their story is being retold with new perspectives and ideas added with each passing day and month. We cannot and should not deny the influence of the west, or anywhere else, but we can at least try to tell the Korean story in a Korean way and without having to repeat American tropes that we already hear far too much about here.
When a generation of young Koreans decided to forgo the idea of dating, marriage, and children, they called themselves the "sampo sae-dae" ― literally, the group of people who had given up three things. They weren't "incels," they weren't "red pillers" or any other of those things. Instead, they were who they were. Korean people reacting to Korean circumstances and calling themselves Korean things. Remember that Geertz idea of culture being the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves? There are some important words in there.
So of course, it's not my place to tell the Korean story. Nor is it to define the terms with which people should refer to themselves. But let's make sure the stories being told about Korea at least make sense in a Korean context and make it about them and not just us.
Dr. David A. Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) has a Ph.D. in Korean Studies. He is a social/cultural commentator and musician who has lived in Korea for nearly two decades. The views expressed in the article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.
