heartly a response

http://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2010/11/ok-lee-hyori-gets-it-this-time.html

I refer back to what Chris in South Korea said most succinctly, “what SHOULD she have said?” His rhetorical question was not directed at alternatives with which you answered to. Rather, he was making a point about what is considered dominant discourse (I do not mean this in terms of majority opinion) in South Korea. Hyori’s point was about Korean solidarity (I do not deny the historical implements of how this came to be) and in putting forth ideas of race, brotherhood, family, culture and ethnicity, it seems rather apparent that these quasi ‘synonyms’ are used to support that claim of solidarity versus the one-blood Aryan Meinkampf ideology which many of us have been exposed to through largely Western discourse. Also note what Doreen revealed about the problems of translation, Hanminjok as opposed to Hanpitjool: no blood was shed.

What Hyori said has to be seen in terms of intention. Naturally, advocating this cultivated sense of one-identity is in itself a kind of segregation of the other. But that would also mean that because I support black solidarity, I would by default be ostracizing whites and everybody else. The fact that I prefer to eat alone means that I am being anti-social. All this is rather normative.

Heterogeneous discourse is a by-product of a western ideology whether you choose to attribute this to the holocaust, feminism or flowers. If we start axing the confidence of a nation built on a steadfast Korean identity, of being Korean, then we relapse back to the dark ages of looking at Koreans with myopic vision. Assuming that everything should be heterogeneous is as problematic as being homogeneous. I think it is important to consider other ways of thinking without needing to always collapse into a familiar one in which we are all used to.

That being said, if you read the latest edition of ‘The Rough Guide to Korea’ (Paxton 2008:7), you will find captioned under the header ‘Fact file’: “Ethnic Koreans dominate the populations of both countries, making them two of the most ethnically homogenous societies on earth.” Interestingly, not only the Koreans think so; it is ‘discursively’ so.

You mention that your Korean friends describe “Jung” as a “uniquely Korean feeling”, of which you read as “only Koreans have Jung”. This differs substantially from what can be read as: “Jung is about being Korean” in much the same way as ‘Gesellige’ is ‘Dutch, ‘Gemütlichkeit’ is ‘German’ and ‘Hygelli’ is ‘Danish’, whatever ‘Korean’, ‘Dutch’, ‘German’ or ‘Danish’ might mean. Incidentally, your experience of ‘Schadenfreude’ may need some adjusting: ‘Schadenfreude’ is making fun out of the mishaps of another, any other, not “someone you hate”. Or are they the same?

It seems to me that you have elected paths in which to situate yourself as being marginalized. Your gripe is not directed at Lee Hyori, but a national sentiment (like many other nationalisms) and dominant discourse in which you seem to have built up quite some resentment for. I am not saying that Koreans are all-accommodating to foreigners or ‘non-ethnic’ Koreans nor am I saying that it is a breeze in terms of integration, but attributing Korean solidarity as racism (a word which you explicitly use) is rather deterministic. My spiel here is also not meant to dispute your thoughts in terms of overall truth value, which for the most part I might even agree with. It is directed toward how you arrived at your position given Lee Hyori’s speech which stems from something every ‘good citizen’ would probably have said on air and which you find to be an object of contention.

d.