Written by Courtney McLachlan
“Why Korea?”
A simple, innocuous question that has plagued me for seven years.
If you have a simple answer to this question, I applaud you. No, really, I do. Because here I am, going on my seventh year of the inevitable question and I still don’t have a perfect answer. I still can’t quite put into words why it had to be Korean that I took my freshman year of college, why I insisted on continuing it, even though it meant transferring schools. There’s no simple way to make people understand all that is Korea.
My challenge stems from the hierarchy that has formed in the American perception of East Asia.
There’s China. If you study Chinese, most people will assume you’re going into business or the Foreign Service. You might get a few “why China?”s here and there, but without too much perplexity. These days China, Chinese, makes sense.
And then there’s Japan, a country that has been the bane of my Korean Studies existence.
Realistically, neither Korean nor Japanese quite “make sense” to study in the way that Chinese does. China is business and politics and opportunity. But neither Japanese nor Korean magically become golden tickets to riches in your future, or even to steady employment. They both garner a puzzled “why?” from anyone and everyone to whom you ever confess your major. Choosing either of them will require explanations for the rest of your life.
But there is one key way in which they differ. Japanese culture made it big in the U.S. in the 90s; many people know anime, manga, Sega, Playstation, Nintendo, karate, sushi, ramen, Sony, Toyota – this list can go on. “Why Japan?” is usually asked with assumptions in mind, a list of easily digestible reasons the answerer can pull from.
By contrast, there is very little collective, mainstream perception of Korea. Korean isn’t in.
Freshman year, my Korean class (only one section) had ten students. Beginner Japanese had four sections and fifty students. There was kind of an us-versus-them mentality, an air among the Japanese students that the Korean kids had chosen the wrong language.
“하다, 해요, 했어요…”[1. Basic Korean conjugations of the verb “to do”] Suddenly, raucous applause and cheering ripped through our Korean classroom. My professor jumped, as did the rest of us, cutting our repetition off into gasps or yelps of surprise.
The source of the cheering was Japanese 103 in their room across the hall. We sat awkwardly waiting as our professor stomped over to beg for some silence.
After class, as we all streamed into the hall, I asked my Japanese class friend what all the ruckus was about.
“Oh, we were just watching ‘Princess Mononoke’ – you know, by Miyazaki.”
Another student butted into our conversation: “He’s one of the most famous directors in the animation world.”
“Sorry if we were too loud; our class is just so exciting! You really should have taken it with me.” My friend regarded me with some mixture of pity and amusement as she spoke. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.
During club week, among the rows of student orgs there was an anime club, a manga club, a para-para club and a Kendo club. The Japanese class students, all fifty of them, swarmed the tables and soon the sign-ups were filled. Circling the auditorium twice left me with only one Korean option: the Korean-American Student’s Association with six members. Since I am quite obviously not Korean, I passed on joining.
By second semester, every time the class across the hall erupted into yelling, cheering and/or applause, I imagined my class kicking down their door and breaking into some sort of battle (epic Yakuza vs. Busan Kkangpae[2. Japanese and Korean mafias, respectively] style). It never happened, but that odd inferiority complex stuck with me.
My complex was only made worse by a certain phenomenon among Westerners in Korea.
Many Westerners aim for Japan and if they don’t make it they choose Korea – as though the two countries are somehow interchangeable. I noticed this the first time I visited Korea, as part of a conference that had a Japanese sister conference.
“I actually applied to go to Japan, since it seems to be much cooler.” One of my fellow American delegates was talking to me about going to Korea for the first time. “But, that conference is so popular that I got wait-listed. Luckily the deadline for Korea hadn’t yet passed, so I just re-purposed my app and got in.”
A chorus of “me too!”s erupted from seven of the other participants. The conversation dissolved into a discussion of other ways to go to Japan after our conference ended – despite the fact that it had hardly even begun.
This trend is larger than my 25-delegate conference. It has resulted in a special type of visitor (short-term or long-term) to Korea. They begin many sentences with “in Japan.” They end others with “would never happen in Japan.”
As an ETA, I continued to hear almost daily comparisons of Korea and Japan, complaints about areas where Korea differed.
“Why does all of Korea smell? I never had this problem in Japan.”
“Korean ramen is seriously weird, where can I find real ramen?”
“Hashtag Japan does it better!”
I thought that this was only my complex, that I was simply too sensitive about it.
Until I learned from my students that I was far from alone in this sentiment. Despite the fact that they knew that I spoke Korean, many of them would still ask if I could speak Japanese, which always gave me a pause until one of my students, Seok In, enlightened me as to why.
“쌤,[3. A familiar term for “teacher”] why is it that foreigners who come to Korea always speak Japanese and never Korean?” He sprung the question on me one day after class.
“What do you mean?” I asked, genuinely stumped since I had never heard of this generalization from a Korean.
“Well, most times if you ask a foreigner if they speak Korean they say, ‘No, but I can speak Japanese!’ And I always wonder why they come to Korea if they like Japan a lot. It’s embarrassing; why would they study Japanese but come to Korea?”
“Well, they probably want to experience Korea too,” was my lame excuse for a phenomenon that even I couldn’t quite wrap my head around.
“Well, we’re impressed with you, 쌤. When we mention Korean history, you know what we’re talking about; we feel comfortable with you. You’re the first foreigner I’ve met who cares about Korea. You must be unique in America.”
“Unique? Why?”
“Because everyone else studies Japan.”
The shame hit me hard; I was still stunned when Seok In ran off to his next class. This isn’t just a passing curiosity for him. He, along with the rest of Korea, has had years of history classes to remind him that the darkest period in Korean history was courtesy of Japan. It was Japan that colonized Korea for forty years and sought to rewrite Korean history on its own terms. It was Japan that left Korea in 1945 tasked with redefining Korea and “Koreanness.” It is no wonder that today Korean nationalism burns as intensely as it does.
Korea has spent years climbing out of the shadows to carve its own culture into the West’s imagined landscape of “East Asia.” Ninjas have no place there; neither does kung fu, nor communism for that matter.
And yet, even as Koreans try to splash their unique qualities (Dynamic Korea!) across the globe,[4. A Korean tourist slogan] Westerners continue to flock to Korea and ask for Japan. They leave disappointed by how boisterous Koreans are (the Japanese are so orderly), how spicy the food is (Japanese food is so much healthier), how nationalistic Koreans are (Japan doesn’t need to brag about itself).
And Koreans notice. Even my rural-area students somehow knew that many foreigners see Korea in terms of Japan. They feel the same inferiority that I myself struggle with – but for them, it’s personal.
Despite leaving Korea, I still have to listen to Korea-Japan comparisons at least once a week.
“Dude, Korea is hella boring!” A week into my new job and a group of my co-workers had just returned from an Asia trip.
I perked up, despite my newbie status. “No it isn’t?” I replied, wondering if this was some sort of running joke. My co-worker rolled his eyes.
“Hell yeah it is, they don’t have arcades or gambling or anything worth buying. They don’t even have toys; Korean kids just study. Tell me one thing that Korea makes that I actually want to own? I spent 200,000 yen in Japan. In Korea, I spent like nothing.” He had spent all his money on arcade games, collectibles, DVDs and books – things that Japan is well-known for. The guys he traveled with nodded their heads in agreement, eyes on me. “Why does anyone even go to Korea? What’s it good for?”
You see, I actually knowingly applied to work in an office of Japanophiles, at a streaming-media company that provides almost exclusively Japanese content: anime, manga, Japanese dramas.
The timing worked out just right that they decided to branch out into Korean media and needed a Korean brand manager at the exact same time that I was desperately job-hunting for anything, never expecting to find a job that would actually allow me to use any of my Korea-related knowledge.
I am now the Korean brand manager and one-woman Korean media team. I have to prod the people around me (who mainly focus on Japan) to help me when they have time. This also means that in a company of 60 people, I am the only person who focuses solely on Korea.
As I meet more and more people from the other side of the office, I have to explain and defend my interest in Korea nearly daily – a side effect of both the company environment and the fact that I’m white and in charge of the Korean brand.
But, my answer to the “why Korea” question has gradually improved. My responses are no longer wavering and self-deprecating.
Korea isn’t the wrong choice. There’s a reason Korean actors and directors are breaking into Hollywood, Michelle Obama is making kimchi, and Google is now hosting Korean pop concerts in the states. Korea rose out of the Korean War and grew into an economic and cultural powerhouse, spreading influence throughout Asia and the world. “Why Korea?” It’s only a matter of time before Korea answers that question on its own.
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Courtney McLachlan was a 2012-2013 ETA at Naju High School in Naju, Jeollanam-do. She is now the Korean brand manager at Crunchyroll.
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