The Grand Narrative

(Ahem…as usual, scroll down to the photo of the babies if you’re only interested in something related to the post’s title…you fiend!)

I’ve been in a bit of a complete funk pensive mood since the results of my TOPIK test came out 2 weeks ago. After all, when you’re aware that Korean fluency is crucial to getting out of the ESL industry in Korea, then learning that your ability (apparently) hasn’t improved in a year does take the spring out of one’s step. Learning that plently of other people in Korea have had no problems getting work they enjoy regardless of their Korean ability doesn’t help either. I could also mention how much I used to just love feeling all superior and holier-than-thou to monolingual newbies and the odd group of Koreans who thought I didn’t understand what they were saying, but now can’t really pull if off…but you already get the idea, and that’s much too honest, yes? So I’d better not.

But then I hung out at my friend’s new bachelor pad on Saturday night. The copious drinks certainly helped of course, but somehow the coldness of the evening and the crappy workmanship of whoever built the place especially combined to give me a weird sense of deja vu, almost as if I was a student back in 1996. Considering how much of a wanker pretentious and histrionic I am on a normal day without any of those triggers, then you can imagine how much Korea-specific, 30-something angst I got through that night. But it was a good catharsis in a way, and I left in a drunken buzz barely able to see straight full of ideas, and with a renewed, palpable sense of carpe diem.

Which is an…ahem…roundabout way of apologising for the light blogging while I put some of those ideas into motion (well, this post was intended to be short anyway). But as we all know, I’m rather fond of talking, but not so much doing, so I promise not to mention them again until I actually have done something worth talking about. But great things are afoot I tell you! Last night I even studied Korean, the first time I’ve done so on a weekend in…maybe this year? Sure, it was technically 1am by the time I finished, and its questionable how much I was learning when I had to rely on my nose hitting the desk to wake me up and finish the chapter of the book…but dammit I did it! Hell yeah!

Now, actually the photo above was the intended subject of today’s post (more here if you’re into eminently bloggable Benetton ads like that). My daughter Alice, who is 17 months old and half-Korean, is learning a new word every few days, but has a harder time of it than other babies because I only speak English to her and my wife only speaks Korean to her. She seems to be doing okay though, and actually amazed us two days ago by saying 우유 or “Oo-you,” the Korean word for milk when my wife gave it to her, and then walking into see me at this computer 2 minutes later and saying “milk” to me.

But when I’m reading her ”The wheels on the bus…blah blah blah” book to her….which I might point out do “all day long,” and not “all through the town” which blasphemous American versions give…I couldn’t help but notice that she would always point at the caucasian baby in one of the windows of the bus (on every page) and say 아기 “Ah-gi” (alas, no “baby” yet), but never point out or say that about the black baby in the seat in front of it. So I did an experiment and found the above image and tested her, and she’s still reacting much more strongly to the caucasian baby.

I know, it’s simply because Alice never sees any black people, let alone babies. Hell, if you check out my favorite photo of her above from June…big awwwww…..you’ll she doesn’t even look Korean herself! I did have an African-American acquantence once, but he’s long gone, and all my friends are caucasian or Korean, and Koreans tend to have light skins (sometimes toooo light). But I mention this because…well, I’m a geek, and so I:

• Have read lots of my fathers old Psychology Today magazines from the 70s with the odd article about the issues raised when teaching politics to children, and a lot of those would also apply to teaching them about race.
• Am aware of and have done the tests on the internet that prove that even a pinko-liberal in spirit (if not in wallet) socialist like myself is at heart completely racist, sexist and homophobic…probably ageist too (I’ll try to find a link for the test - watch this space).
• Actually remember some of what my history teacher said in my last year of high school, back in Macleans College Auckland, 1993. Sure, I may only remember because Miss MacCuish was so completely hot, but we won’t go there. One thing she told us about was having parent-teacher meetings with parents of her 13 year-old homeroom classes, and how mum and Dad would say “Our daughter is interested in maths and science and especially biology…we’re thinking maybe she might like to be a nurse,” and how she would say, nooooo, why not a doctor? The parents weren’t evil, but they were only thinking so modestly because their child was a girl.

Naturally the last point is the most important. I’ll try to avoid doing the same myself, but I’m already behaving around my child differently because she’s a girl. “Well…duh!” I hear many of you say, and sure, but I mean in subconscious ways that only geeks like myself will have read about. It’s well known for instance, amongst geeks anyway, that both parents talk much more to baby girls than to boys (although especially mothers), and I doubt anyone will be able to persuade me that that isn’t 90% of why women tend to have much better social and language skills (although why women do this is still up in the air, and I’m happy to debate it). I know this, but knowing this doesn’t make me some impartial automation immune to it, and as I stare into my baby daughter’s eyes I sometimes try to imagine talking as much to her future brother as I do to her…and for the life of me I can’t see it. I like talking to my little girl too much.

So, having concerns that my baby daughter doesn’t think black babies are, well, babies by no means makes me some multicultural guru at one with nations and creeds, and I’m well aware that merely exposing my daughter to PC childrens’ books will not make her one either. But is this where the black=bad/strange/uneasy, white=good/normal/proper associations that that internet test reveals begin? And although these issues can come up anywhere, what can a parent in still all too monocultural Korea do? I’m very interested in how much of an issue readers think this is, if its an issue for you yourselves, and if so what you (and I should) do about it. Is using Eric Carle’s books with her, with their orange, purple, brown and white kids, enough for now? When she’s older, will that be enough to counter the derogatory images of non-Koreans that the textbooks at Korean schools seem to be full of? Will there ever be a point at which I can not worry so much about what my kid, hopefully kids, is/are learning at school and take it for granted that there’s nothing I would object to in it? Or will I have to leave Korea to do that? Points to ponder as I go to bed.

P.S. If you’re interested in the origins of popular Korean notions of race, I heartily recommend checking out all the work done on it by Michael Hurt at the Scribblings of the Metropolitician, in my blogroll on the right. Once you’re there, click on some of his links in his right-hand sidebar to get started.

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