The Grand Narrative

(Photo by Full_Frame_Chris)

Rasion d’être 

For those of you who’ve read parts one and two of this (to be) four part series, thanks, and sorry, because I didn’t plan to wait so long before taking it up again. But the break at least gave me time to think about what exactly the series was about, and my purpose in writing it. I don’t think I’ve been too clear about either so far (sorry), so for everyone’s sake I should clarify both before moving on. For new readers especially, I would have liked to have quickly summarized the contents of parts one and two here as well, but that proved impossible without copying and pasting large chunks of them. Despite their length, they’re actually pretty succinct and to the point already, at least compared to my normal posts.

Lets see…parts one and two lead up to an important epiphany I had a long time ago, which I will describe in this post. The epiphany itself is very much water under the bridge, and if I’d written about years ago, then the final result wouldn’t have been all that different to what you’ll read here today. And because I ultimately came to it by a very academic route, that is what the bulk of this post is about. But the reason I’m writing about it now is because for a long time I thought it was merely a sort of intellectual realisation - after all, all my others had been - but recently I’ve realised that it had a much greater emotional impact on me as well, and crucially, not in a good way. It slowly made me a more jaded and cynical person. And because I happened to become so while I was in Korea, then in hindsight I it meant transferred this negativity towards my views of Korea and Koreans, even though it had nothing to do with either really. That is not to say that most long-term expats in Korea don’t get equally cynical and jaded about both regardless, or that this whole series of posts is really about anything other than typical 30-something angst about lost youth and passion. Nevertheless, unique or not, I don’t like either, and because I’m in Korea then it’s in Korea that I must deal with and overcome both. How I plan on doing that is the subject of part four.

So, I apologise for the false advertising: this series is not about “Korean social issues.” That actually means that it should have the most universal appeal of anything I’ve written, but ironically, if parts one and two are anything to go by, hits-wise it will probably be one of my least popular posts. No matter. In writing it, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a favorite short-story collection called Personals: Dreams and Nightmares from the Lives of 20 Young Writers (1998), which I’d describe as stories ultimately giving advice about life from 30-somethings to 20-somethings, although I’m sure sure editor Thomas Beller would hate to have the book so crudely described. Although this series would have to changed a lot to make it into a (good) short story, I think it’s possible, and I will attempt it sometime this year.

Having unwisely raised everyone’s expectations then, on with the show!

Seeing the Forms

(Photo by dolloi)

Back in part two, I wrote that I liked trance music so much because, well, it put me into a trance. But not a drug-induced one, although my lack fo funds and spare time back in New Zealand were the only reasons I didn’t try that as well. The trance I meant was:

…difficult to describe, but if pressed I would have said that it was a palpable sense of being transported to another place, complete with futuristic electronics, exotic locations, bright clothing, a sense of empowerment and of being an adult, lots of attractive, sexually assertive girls in tight-fitting clothes (naturally), more money, more power, a lot of potential, and of living my dreams, whatever they may be.

Putting it into words now, what this thing was is banal and obvious. But I didn’t, and it wasn’t to me at the time, so I set about finding out what it was via a more introspective route. For a short while I thought that this thing was living in Korea, and certainly it seemed that way at first, especially having been a penniless students and then graduate before coming here, but then I realised that: 

…this place or thing wasn’t and could never have been Korea, because it was well before I arrived that I got into the habit of staying up late at night writing and drawing mindmaps about it, feeling that I had my finger on the zeitgeistof the millennium, that only I was so close, and that it just had to be gotten down on paper. Not succeeding, my mind eventually roamed beyond Trance music, if only for the fact that it’s difficult to sustain an interest in it when you can’t afford to go to dance parties, and ultimately came to rest in spending the odd hour or so sneakily photocopying entire books on popular culture in my newly “old” university library. Fortunately, it was at about that time that I got my golden ticket to Korea, and soon had the money to buy the books themselves.

And then I gave a list of all the books I bought, if not actually read, to try to figure things out. Again, go to the end of part two to see the list, but I’m actually only going to mention three here, although I’d be happy to chat about any of them with fellow geeks anytime.

• First, of all those books, easily the best and most straightforward amongst them is “An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture“(1995) by Dominic Strinati. If that doesn’t pique your interest in popular culture just by itself, then nothing will.

• Next, the only book most readers will have heard of: George Ritzer’s “The McDonaldization of Society: An Investigation into the Character of Contemporary Social Life,” the first edition of which came out in 1993. I doubt it has the same resonance for undergrads today, but back when it came out it was like Mao’s Little Red Book was for my parents’ generation, proudly displayed in the bookcases of anyone who considered themselves at all left-wing. It’s a good book, and the world would be a better place if everyone read it, but it’s definitely sociology-lite. On top of that, I even grew to dislike it, because as I got more and more involved in environmentalist groups as a student, I came across more and more members of them who acted as if all they ever needed to know about history, politics and sociology was contained in that one book. I ultimately quit as president of the university group, partially because I was finally getting laid regularly, my main reason for joining, but primarily because I got so tired and frustrated with other members’ naivety and ignorance.

(Photo by studentoftheology)

• Finally, I mention that book to remind readers of the meaning of the phrase “McDonaldization,” which most probably haven’t heard of for nearly ten years, and to contrast it to McDonalidization Revisited: Critical Essays on Consumer Culture (1998), which is much more academic, and with a correspondingly much more limited audience. Almost all of the authors of the essays in it acknowledge their debt to Ritzer, as the book gave sociology departments the world over a boost in student numbers, much like the Matrix trilogy did for philosophy and CSI for forensic science later. They also acknowledge their complete jealousy at his success at creating “one of those strange and marvellous books that manages to be both academic and popular, but without doing particular violence to either genre of writing,” which, like Desmond Morris’s The Naked Ape (1967), and Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch (1971) and a few others, “has sold more copies and been cited more often than most academics could dream of in a lifetime.” But jealousy aside, I think they’re all justified in ripping much of his central thesis to shreds, especially its elitism, pessimism, and reliance on the notion that consumers are  passive and ultimately constrained in their choices. I will focus on just one essay in the book here, entitled McDonaldization and the Global Sports Store: Constructing Consumer Meanings in a Rationalized Society, pp. 53-65, by Steven Miles.  

(Photo by johnny_kqc)

In a nutshell, Steven Miles argues that “that consumption has become so fundamental to the modern life experience that it must have some role to play in the construction of people’s identities,” and so a debate has emerged amongst sociologists over whether “consumption provides consumers with the feeling or illusion that they can escape from the drudgery of everyday life” or whether what it really does ”is ensure that consumers are locked within an “iron cage” of consumerism.” (pp. 53-54). He was particularly interested in the relationship between youth consumption and identity, and to learn more about the meanings with which young people endowed consumer goods, for 10 weeks he worked as a sales assistant at an anonymous multinational sports store, somewhere in the North of England. Like he said:

Given the apparent significance of brandnames among young people, and the close identification with the high-profile sports stars advertising such goods, the sports store seemed a likely context in which the meanings with which young people endowed consumer goods might proves accessible. (p.54)

Other staff were aware of his research role, but customers were not, who just thought he asked so many questions because he was an especially enthusiastic member of staff. The intent of the questions was:

…to address the significance of consumption in their lives, most particularly in relation to the training shoes they were considering purchasing. The meanings with which these shoes were endowed, the role that these meanings played in the construction of personal identities, and the cultural context in which such meanings operated, were the issues addressed…..The priority…was for the customer to discuss the role that training shoes/sneakers (and often, as the conversation developed, other types of consumer goods) had in their lives, and what factors they believed influenced that role. (pp. 54-55)

(Photo by rolon2000)

Sneakers may not seem like a sexy subject today, web 2.0 and all, but it’s easy to forget that they used to be so important to some young people that they would would mug and kill for them. This essay may also seem far removed from trance music and/or my “visions,” and for sure, it’s not about either at all. But with this next paragraph, about the uniformity of the sport stores’ designs and layout the world over, à la McDonalds and Starbucks, you should begin to see the links:

This notion of predictability is further emphasised when you consider the atmosphere that the management actively seeks to promote in its stores. All branches of the sports store concerned are dominated by a large TV monitor overlooking the shop floor. This acts as a magnet for passing customers. British branches of the store often broadcast MTV…as far as the Head Office is concerned, this helps to create a relatively straightforward means of perpetuating a superficial feeling, on the part of the customer, of personal familiarity with what it is to experience this particular store. It gives the individual a sense of personal knowledge about the store, whilst apparently simultaneously denying him or her of any sense of individual creativity in that selfsame context. The experience of shopping in this store is an a passive, as opposed to an active one.” (p, 56)

Moreover:

What is also of interest is that paradoxically, measures are taken by the company to actively disguise the impersonal nature of the experience of shopping [there]….Though on the one hand the company’s training literature is entirely open about the importance of giving the consumer a common experience on entering the store in whatever country, on the other, any hint that efforts are being made to control such an experience are hidden from the customer’s actual perception of the shopping environment.” (p.57, my italics).

(Photo by fnktrm)

Finally, there is the whole process of how the consumer arrived at the store in the first place:

It is in the interest of [all] companies to channel consumers in certain directions in order to make the production process more straightforward and less costly. This, indeed, is the basic philosophy behind any mass production process which thereby ensures that the demand for a particular product is maintained at a particular level….This polarized process, whereby consumers feel as though they are free as they see fit and yet at the same time can only choose goods from a selection constructed for them by [advanced capitalist] forces beyond their personal control, lies at the centre of the consumer paradox which this essay attempts to explore. (p.58)

But not at the heart of this post! But I include all of the above partially because it is interesting it’s own right, and primarily to introduce the very real notion of atmospheres created for consumers, for want of a better term. After the above, Miles argues that the uncertainties of life for young people  - irregular jobs, the costs of education, the environment, shifting gender roles, and so on - mean that they positively embrace the predictable nature of consumption, because it gives them a much-needed sense of control and certainty in their lives. I agree with this in principle, but not to the degree he does, primarily because in 2008 uncertainty about the future is taking for granted, whereas when Miles was writing he was specifically responding to Ritzer, in his mid-fifties when he first wrote McDonaldization in 1993, who was clearly of a generation of academics that lamented the changes rather than realising that people could actively and positively respond to them. Regardless of what you think of all that, that argument is what led him to write this conclusion, which simply blew me away:

As far as young people are concerned then, the McDonaldization of the sports store, can, therefore, actually be perceived to be liberating. Upon entering the sports store the young people I observed were able to forget, indeed, escape from, their everyday concerns. They became immersed in another culture, a culture symbolised by the street life portrayed by MTV. In a world characterised by insecurity and uncertainty as to the future, as well as the present, young people can open this “window of stability” and enter a whole new world - a world in which, regardless of family background or work prospects, they can be treated as equals, in the sense that they have equal access, depending upon resources, to the cultural capital of consumption. (p.61)

And yes, just like that, finally, what has probably been obvious to you all along, I realised that my “visions” were nothing profound, nothing unique, but no more than mere fantasies.

A Manifesto for a Korean Fantastique

(Photo by justpedalhard)

What were the effects on me of finding out that something I’d thought so profound, and invested so much mental and emotional energy in, was a mere fantasy? Well for starters, I couldn’t go to dance parties anymore, and haven’t since 2003. Partially, this was because back in the early-2000s there wasn’t much of a dance party scene in Korea anyway (still isn’t as far as I know), and also partially because trance music isn’t popular at all in Korea anyway (unlike Japan, which I think is telling), but primarily because once I was there, I could no longer just switch off and go to that “place” anymore. Instead, all I could think about was the crappy lighting, the exorbitant cost of the drinks, the then 5.5 hour bus trip from Jinju to Seoul, the cost of the motel and ticket to the dance party…all for the sake of dancing by myself in dingy club in a city where I knew no-one (you don’t go to dance parties to meet people). And that was before I read an article entitled The night is still young: Tokyo’s club scene pulses with recession-beating energy in the May 2003 copy of Japan Inc. that I picked up on a trip to Tokyo a few months later, from which I learned that the dance club industry is just as capitalist and manipulative as that of sports stores described above. Maybe even more so. Take this for instance:

After running a monthly party at Twilo, Takahashi was approached by the management of Womb, which was struggling to find a visionary concept of its own. “They were attracting about 150 people a night at that point,” Takahashi recalls. “Now over 1,000 people are coming to the club on Fridays and Saturdays.” The reason for the shift, says co-producer Takeo Yatabe, is that “we made a culture out of the club scene.”

This culture embodies not only a night out dancing, but a complete urban lifestyle, including everything from what people drink, wear, listen to, think and shampoo their hair with in the morning. The concept was arguably first given life by the London club Ministry of Sound, which today refers to its club concept as a “dance brand.” Its interests range from nightclubs–including its recently opened venue in Bangkok–to record production, magazines and festivals. In 2001, 3i, Europe’s leading venture capitalist, invested 24 million pounds in this “dance brand.”

In Japan, Takahashi has been able to sell this brand concept to Calvin Klein, Nike, Sony, liquor and cigarette companies, and others. These interests form a conspicuous presence in the club scene by sponsoring special promotions, getting their logos on all club publicity, or providing exclusive brands of beer and vodka. As a result, Takahashi has been able to spend more money on big name DJs, better lighting, promotion, decor and so on. This has been important in ensuring that Japan’s fastidious, demanding and impatient youth generation are willing to buy into the culture and concepts.

…

Liquor and cigarette companies initially started to push their products to Japan’s club generation about give years ago, when new legislation banned them from advertising to people under 20. Since you have to be over 20 to legally enter a club in Japan, clubs become the perfect forum for legitimate advertising to young people. (Advertisers know, of course, that many people under 20 are habitual clubbers who can easily get into the venues). Ishihara calls it a “closed world,” a guaranteed market of self-selected consumers. Indeed, the rapid rise of tobacco sponsorship in clubs and bars since the 1990s globally has been well documented. Corporate sponsorship started conspicuously in Japan in 1996, notes Ishihara, when Grammy award-winning producer and DJ Little Louis Vega received an unprecedented [yen] 3 million from Gordon’s Gin to spin his magic in a Tokyo club.

I’d previously found dance parties so liberating. To me, they had been the equivalent of what John Pilger said the beach was like to Australians: a place where you left your class status, ideologies, cultural baggage behind in your parked car, as they were all meaningless when you were all standing around in your swimming costumes in the sand. But I should have already known better: years earlier, a friend of mine had dated a DJ and often sat alongside him while he was performing(?), and regardless of how much of a personal bubble the dancers felt themselves to be in, she said it was amazing watching her boyfriend manipulate them like puppets on a string by the choice and tempo of his songs. But that was benign. In contrast, a ”guaranteed market of self-selected consumers” for tobacco companies? No pun intended, but it left a very bitter taste in my mouth.

(Photo by ridestate)

With previous epiphanies too, I suddenly lost all interest in the subjects that they were about. But that was fine for the academic and completely abstruse subjects that they had been on. In contrast, this was the loss of something that had given me no less than a zest for life. Of course, since then my wife and then daughter and other things have helped to replace them, but I can’t pretend that I’m as passionate about things as I used to be, and not just because I’m older. It may also be partially to blame for my not being fluent in Korean after nearly 8 years here, despite my supposedly burning desire to learn. Hence my claim to be jaded and cynical ever since. But other than my Korean ability, perhaps, I can’t think of any specific instances where being so had impacted on my life in Korea and my view of Korea and Koreans. But surely it has somehow?

Although I lack specific examples, I think, in hindsight, that it meant I stereotyped and generalized Koreans a great deal. Sure, I may not have been doing that entirely because of my new-found cynicism, but it probably didn’t help. I first became aware of this in 2005 or 2006, when I heard a radio interview of someone from the Ministry of Health discussing the number of AIDS cases in Korea, and the ways in which they’d caught the disease. By the matter-of-fact way in which both her and the interviewer spoke about it, in the space of about 5 minutes I learned that despite what all English-language books on Korea said, Koreans no longer thought it was a “foreign” or “gay” disease. Put more simply, some Korean ability had shown me that Korea was a rather more complicated place than I’d previously thought, and I could no longer claim to be as much of an expert on Korea that I liked to think. This was confirmed to me a year later by an interview of Robert Koehler of the Marmot’s Hole, by Michael Hurt of Scribblings of the Metropolitician, probably the two most popular blogs in Korea, in which they both mention how Koreans debate and argue about issues just as much as any Westerner, but if you don’t speak Korean then you are largely unaware of it, and so are more likely to generalise Koreans as all thinking the same (it’s audio podcast #28 on the left sidebar of the Metropolitician’s site. You can download it directly from there…slowly…or from iTunes).

(Photo by ~Dezz~)

I’m still hardly a saint when it comes to stereotyping Koreans either - as my drinking buddies can attest to - but at least I’m aware of it now, and am making an effort to overcome my tendency to do so. Hence, a good number of my posts (as excitinghead) on Dave’s ESL Cafe, for instance, are pointing the above out to those who say that “All Koreans do X” or Y, or whatever. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an apologist for Korea by any means, and I really only ever write there to advertise the blog, but I do say what I genuinely think (see here for a more recent, more coherent, and all-together very formal-sounding of mine about that on the Marmot’s Hole). Not only that, writing things like that serves to remind myself of the diversity and, well, “sparkle” in Korean life that I’d previously missed. That was all well and good previously, but what writing this series of posts has taught me is that to regain a sense of passion and excitement about living here, and life in general, it’s high time to do more than just be aware of this diversity intellectually, and go out and find and experience that for myself. That is what part four will be about.

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