The Grand Narrative

( “Gravity” by nickwheeleroz)

Korea and the World

At the end of Part One, I mentioned that the Korean education system is routinely held up as a model for the West by foreign observers, and gave an example from The Economist magazine here. Here is a more recent example from The New York Times too. 

Now before I came to Korea, I had a great deal of respect for both news sources, but the longer I’m here and the more articles about Korea I read in them, I realise that I can’t trust the accuracy of either.  Anyone with just a few months of teaching experience in either a Korean university, public-school, or after-school institute knows that the system as a whole possesses numerous and systematic flaws, and that Korean parents themselves are simply desperate to have their children taught overseas. So what gives? Why do reporters that supposedly “read between the lines,” always “question everything,” and are paid to do the research that I do for free routinely produce such complete crap about Korea? If I lived in, say, Syria, would I find the same of English-language articles produced about that country? Or is this something…surely not unique, but more pronounced in Korea than elsewhere?

Scott Burgeson, introduced in Part 1, makes a convincing case for the latter. To finish my discussion of his thoughts on the decline of Korean Studies programs overseas:

…the fact of the matter is that it is almost impossible for a non-Korean critic to make a decent living writing about Korean culture for English-speaking readers. Thus, the lack of public or private grant assistance for Western critics covering Korean culture means that it is difficult to find commenters on Korean culture in the popular English-language press who actually know what they’re talking about (or who are not simply hacks).

I remember when I interviewed the Japanese director Suzuki Seijun in Tokyo nearly ten years ago, the staff at the Japan Foundation were extremely happy to hear about my work and went out of their way to provide stills from his films to print in my magazine at no cost to myself. They did not care whether I had a degree behind my name or not, but were simply pleased that I was helping to promote Japanese culture to an English-speaking readership — and I might note that an extremely transgressive director Suzuki is hardly a “respectable” standard-bearer of Japanese culture. My interactions with the Korea Foundation have been, well, in the interests of being diplomatic, quite the opposite. Perhaps I am burning bridges by posting this kind of message to the List, but since I gave up applying for grants here many years ago, I know that it will not affect me one way or the other so I really don’t care anymore.

There are many reasons why Korean culture is and shall continue to remain relatively obscure on the world stage, and my experiences as an independent critic here are just one more example of why this is so.

As explained in Part One, much of the problem is most Koreans thinking that only those affiliated to a university are “qualified” to write about Korea. Sure, there would be no direct link between that and those reporters mentioned above, but it reduces the already limited pool of people “engaged” with Korea, and like I explain here, their connections with Korea and Koreans have an impact far greater than they may at first appear. Hence, for one, the ultimately unsustainable nature of the Korean Wave compared to its Japanese counterpart, which I’ve discussed in many posts here.

(Image by gyoul)

This reminds me of what GordSellar has described as:

…the standard, near-universal conviction among Koreans that a positive image of Korea must be presented to the world. It goes without saying that, in this sense, the image can only really be positive if it’s presented in terms that will appear positive on the world’s terms, rather than on Korea’s terms.

And the fact that, in Korea:

…on some level, for many Koreans, a discussion is also a promo-op, a chance to represent the nation in a positive light, to make people think well of their nation; or, if it is not that, it devolves into a more basic “defense” of the nation, which is hardly any more useful for finding out people’s real opinions.

Previously I’d thought that the monstrosities in the English-language media presenting news of the “success” of the Korean Wave overseas were as bad as they were because they primarily for a domestic audience; over 95% of the readers of the English-language Korea Herald, for instance, are Koreans. And for sure, that still plays a large role, as too does the fact that most Korean authors on the Korean Wave are well aware that they’re writing propaganda rather than actual news. But seeing as how most Koreans think that Korea must always be presented positively to non-Koreans, but positive in their terms rather than Koreans’, then I’m increasingly convinced many of those authors are genuinely convinced that what they’re writing is what non-Koreans want and will respond positively to. That the results are usually anything but is, I think, a reflection of the self-imposed relative isolation of Korea that I’ve described in these two posts.

It’s a long shot, and for sure there is bad English all over the world, but nothing symbolizes this to me more than the signage at stadiums for the 2002 World Cup here. Billions spent on what in many cases have become little more than white elephants 6 years later, but the designers of things specifically designed for non-Koreans didn’t feel the need to consult even a dictionary, let alone the opinions of an actual non-Korean:

(Source)

(Update: There wasn’t really any appropriate place for it in this post, but I did want to mention this factoid often uncritically accepted overseas too. See this article on that too, and thanks to GordSellar for passing it on)

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(Source)

Don’t worry, I’m not going to rail against the Wondergirls again. But whatever you make of what I’ve said about their clothes and dancing in previous advertisements of theirs, once you hear about their less than stellar academic achievements you can’t help but laugh at them being used as ambassadors for Korean education.

Man, what will they be used for next? The Wondergirls phenomenon has got to stop!

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I’m probably over-analysing it when I say that, to me, this recent ad of Kim Tae-Hee’s (김태희) is another example of a distinctive “2000s” style, but then that would hardly be a first for me:

(Found via Mongdori)

I’ve been humming it for days now. Here’s a recent song that it immediately reminded me of:

I like both despite myself. Bob Dylan or Tracy Chapman probably wouldn’t approve, and 10 years ago an ex-Sandinista guerilla lecturer of mine didn’t think much of Barbie Girl either, but then us Generation Xers will take what shared icons and sources of identity we can thank you very much.

So too, will Generation Y Koreans.  No matter what I say about the Wondergirls, I’ll be the first to admit that the popularity of “Tell Me” is primarily because it’s just so difficult to shake the (not all that bad) rhythm out your head. Hell, our 15 year-old students will probably still be singing and dancing to it at 노래방s in 2038:

As will I be of the aptly-named “Can’t Get You Out of my Head” by Kylie Minogue, which followed me on computers all around Malaysia on my 2 week trip there in 2002. The song is haunting enough in its own right, but has special meaning to me as a personal symbol of globalisation:

Admit it, you’re humming along to at least one of those videos by now…

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(Update2: Those technical problems in turn mean that I can’t reply to a notorious troll over there, but fortunately his comments don’t really deserve a reply. Still, he’s no ordinary troll, and you have to admire his skill in trying to goad me into a response)

(Update: I’d like to thank bumfromkorea over at the Marmot’s Hole for telling me about Time and Cinderella, two movies that deal with the Korean plastic surgery industry. I would thank (probably) him there, but for some reason every time I write a comment on that post it just disappears)  

(“Liberty Leading the People“ by Eugène Delacroix)

Introduction

Today’s post is a bit of a light-hearted break from all the intense and/or very academic posts I’ve been writing recently, but I think that the points I’m making are still quite valid. Sure, if I’d wanted to convey that impression more effectively then probably I should have used a different title instead, but then I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t usually choose them with SEO in mind (Search Engine Optimization to non-bloggers). Sorry if that sounds a little cynical, but then consider this internet classic on the differences between what people say they read and what they actually do read on the internet. Meanwhile, if pictures of Lee Hyori are what you’re really after, then you’ll find plently to choose from here.

Korean Celebrity Culture 1: Different Standards

(Photo by lej pics. Yes, I know Lee Eun-ju/이은주 on the right committed suicide in 2005, but rather than making my choice of picture tasteless, actually I think that that illustrates my points all the more)

The original motivation for this post was my volunteering to translate this ”news” article about Lee Hyori’s recent chest X-rays for readers over at Dave’s ESL Cafe (I guess I’m a real glutton for punishment). I did last night, but PopSeoul! has already translated something very similar here, saving me the trouble of putting it up.

The article I translated is stupid, as is the endless speculation about whether or not Lee Hyori has received breast enlargement surgery: for one, you can see the before and after evidence for yourself here, and I discuss that in more detail here. Of course she has. Like I say there, I think she was very attractive without them, but they certainly didn’t harm her career, and while I may often sound critical of plastic surgery, I’m not against it per se. But why then, this endless, repetitive speculation? Because she refuses to admit it. Or rather, ironically, being a celebrity means that she’s not allowed to admit it, at least in Korea.

(Photo by mona)

I’ve already written a great deal about the differences between Western and Korean celebrity culture, so let me just give the briefest outlines of them here.

Discounting the big differences between Western countries, to a greater or lesser extent Westerners almost expect their celebrities to live hedonistic lives, and the public and the justice system as a whole gives them a great deal of leniency to do so that is not granted to ordinary mortals like ourselves. But Korea is the exact opposite, and female celebrities in particular are held to impossibly higher standards. Hence when it is revealed that they have taken drugs or had sex before marriage, for instance, then the public reaction is swift and severe, even if they didn’t actually do the heinous crimes of which they’re accused.

And so while Korea has one of the largest plastic surgery industries in the world, and a majority of women have had some form of operation or another, Koreans seem to want to keep this a secret from non-Koreans, and celebrities in particular definitely can’t admit to having received it themselves (with exceptions for aspiring stars).

I think that the movie 200 Pounds Beauty/미녀는 귀로워? is one of the rare popular Korean movies that draws attention to this (I discuss it here); if readers know of any others, please let me know. I also think that the dichotomy between the Korean public’s standards for themselves and for celebrities also partially plays a role in the their toleration of sexually-suggestive dancing and provocative clothes from the Wondergirls/원더걸스 too, because many parents, say, that regard both as innocent and cute would never tolerate the same from their own daughters. But after all the virtual ink I’ve already spilled on that, I’ll wisely stop there and let readers make their own judgements.

Korean Celebrity Culture 2: Promotion of the Mundane

(D-War/디워)

Amongst non-Koreans living in Korea at least, the both the Korean and especially English-language Korean media is notorious for portraying any cultural product destined for overseas consumption as world-class, on a par with Hollywood productions (if it is a film), and enthusiastically received by non-Korean audiences, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Gordsellar describes it as a “standard, near-universal conviction among Koreans that a positive image of Korea must be presented to the world”, and I myself (somewhere amongst these posts) have interpreted the effects of this on the Korean media to be its portrayal of the Korean Wave/한류 as Koreans would like it be received rather than it actually is, and even if this was the only problem the Korean media had, then it would be in a very sorry state indeed. Unfortunately, it’s not, as this and the following case reveals.

By this stage, you may well be asking how on Earth the Korean Wave is related to Lee Hyori’s breasts? Are they a cultural product? Well…yes. Consider this article about her trip to Hong Kong in 2003, but before you do, let me provide some background:

• Men like women’s breasts
• There are some men in Hong Kong
• Lee Hyori has breasts
• Lee Hyori went to Hong Kong

Therefore, even before the big event I would have bet money on some men in Hong Kong liking her breasts while she was there. An article about the test of that hypothesis is not news, and of course the fact that it was in a Korean tabloid also means that it wasn’t news too. But ironically, this celebration of Hong Kong men’s interest in Lee Hyori’s breasts is news precisely because it was in a Korean tabloid.

The mainstream Korean news media is amongst the most populist, unprofessional, racist and xenophobic in the world, and is more than happy to portray all non-Korean men as perverted, pedophilic sexual predators whenever it suits them, so you can imagine what the tabolid press is like. Not unsurprisingly, this means that many Korean men (but by no means all) are resentful of Korean women in relationships with non-Koreans. Hence KoreaBeat points out that it was simply bizarre that a Korean tabloid newspaper would revel in non-Korean men ogling one of “their” women, and I’m suprised that I didn’t notice the incongruity myself when I read it at the time.

Now, I’d be the last person to describe Lee Hyori’s breasts as mundane…but sorry, at the end of the day, they’re still just breasts. So considering all the above, is there any other explanation for the positive spin of the article other than the desire for self-promotion overriding the xenophobia, which, after all, is usually just a mere convenient device to use when Koreans want to deflect attention away from their own problems?

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(Photo by Bad Comrade)

Sorry for the five days since my last post, a long time for me. First up, some quick admin:

• My job situation is a bit up in the air at the moment. Naturally I can’t say much more than that online, just that if all goes well I’ll be working at another branch of my present company come April, but unfortunately have a lot less freetime available for the blog. If so, that won’t be disastrous, but it will mean less frequent, but hopefully higher quality posts. I’ll keep you posted (no pun intended).
• They may not sound or look like much, but I’ve followed some blogging advice and decluttered and made many small changes to the blog, mostly to my sidebar. I won’t bore you with the tedious and very very time-consuming mechanics of them, which I’m still in the process of, but the biggest changes are that I’ve renamed and reduced the number of post categories to 20, and also have only assigned posts to categories if they directly discuss those subjects, rather than just being vaguely related like before. After all, some of my earlier posts weren’t that bad, and the world would be a better place if more people read them, but the previous alphabet soup of categories was making them difficult for even me to find them.

And now for the 4th and final part of this series, easily the shortest but ironically probably more popular than the other three combined!

To quickly recap: part one was first about some Japan-themed art I liked, the inspiration for the series, then discussions of cyperpunk and its relationship to how Westerners view Japan and Korea; part two was about trance music - with many free samples for you to listen to - and the thoughts and feelings it induced in me; and finally the first part of three was very academic, dealing with popular culture, McDonaldization, and the dance party industry, but then it turned highly personal, discussing the cynicism that came with realising how base, capitalist, and manipulative were those things, like the vibes at dance parties, that I’d previously held so dear. In hindsight, that was a very depressing and misleading note to end on, because the whole point of the series, after all, was to show how I plan to overcome that cynicism and rediscover some of my youthful passion for life, and for living in Korea. Better late than never.

(Photo by Full Frame Chris) 

To warm up, let me quote one of my favourite books, a short-story collection called Personals: Dreams and Nightmares from the Lives of 20 Young Writers (1998). Sorry to keep referring to it, but then so few people have read all of the previous posts in the series that most people wouldn’t have noticed. I’m using the book again here because, without readers knowing what the writing of this series has meant to me personally, then the solution to my above “problem” might make less sense, and editor Thomas Beller puts it so much better than I could:

Some of these essays function as an elaborate mechanism by which the author removes, or at least scratches at, a particular thorn in his or her side. (p. ix)

With 12,000+ words already spent on the topic, I certainly do have something to get off my chest! He goes on:

Part of growing up, beyond finding your life’s career or the ideal relationship, is understanding that the forces that shape you and the forces that compel you are not always within your control. Sometimes you cling to control as tightly as possible, and sometimes you casually fling it away (p. xi)

Realising that is precisely what my whole epiphany described in part three was about. And although it meant a lot to me at the time, and still is, fortunately I’ve come to terms with the fact that on one level it was just a normal part of growing up like he says. Strictly speaking though, with that quote he’s introducing the stories in the collection about drug addiction, one of the authors of which:

…is particularly good at describing that uncomfortable moment when the complex, private, and at times contradictory truths of one’s own inner life smash up against forces that have no facility for ambiguity…(p. xi)

I’ll come back to that later. He concludes the whole introduction by saying:

Reading these essays, you will want to get to know their authors well, sometimes more than you might want. If in some cases you draw back, surprised by the odd turns someone’s life may have taken and the sense that they have made of it, so in others you might lean in closer, sensing a kinship with the conscious being unfurling on the page and wanting to know more. (p. xiii)

Okay…at least I wanted to know more. I am indeed surprised that at 32 (today!) I’ve ended up…ahem…a sad, cynical, miserable bastard, and find it difficult to get passionate and interested about things as much as I did in my early twenties. That’s not unusual for 30-somethings, but living in Korea has compounded things, as living as an expat for a long time in any country, particularly one in which you don’t speak the language, ultimately makes even the bubbliest and most vivacious of us prone to cynicism and negativity all by itself. By coincidence, to me my Korean ability epitomises all of that, as on the one hand I so desperately want to acheive fluency, but on the other find it so difficult to get motivated enough to put in the time required. How to change?

At this point, I invite readers to pause for a moment, and think: what would you do? Remember that I have a wife, child, and 8 week-old foetus to support - suddenly dropping everything and moving jobs and or cities is out of the question. Despite those constraints, I think anyone can relate to my solution, which hopefully makes this post more than being just about me.

A Manifesto for A Korean Fantastique

After that build-up, readers may justifiably expect something inspiring and revolutionary, but actually it’ll be quite the opposite. Which is kind of the whole point.

(Photo by Digitalnut)

Again letting more gifted writers do my speaking for me, two years ago, in my never-ending quest to get out of ESL, I bought my first-ever self-help book, the What Should I Do With My Life? The True Story of People Who Answered The Ultimate Question (2003), a US Bestseller by Po Bronson. As you’d expect, the 55 or so chapters in that book are each about people who’ve attempted to change their circumstances and surroundings, although not all how they intended and/or successfully. In the conclusion, Bronson acknowledges that the success stories paradoxically look both exceptional and easy in hindsight, and that ordinary people often feel that they don’t have enough money or time to do the same. To which he responds: 

Never enough time? On the contrary - the saving grace is time. The people in this book didn’t fix their situation overnight. For most, it took many attempts over many years. When I began my research, I thought this was a weakness in their stories; I wished they had exhibited more commanding control over their changes. Now, I admire their patience, and I find it more interesting that they’ve made their changes despite lacking control.

Now I wonder - why was it supposedly more admirable for someone to have made their change cleanly and overnight? Why did I ever want stores that weren’t clouded by luck, pain, and ghosts? Why was that the kind of story I thought I wanted to hear? Answer: Because that’s the story-telling convention. The Self-Made Person. We’ve been boxed in by that myth. We’ve edited our lives to sound more like that myth. We’ve judged ourselves negatively because we haven’t measured up to that myth. We’ve stopped trying because we know we don’t have mythic strength. (p. 390)

Reading that reminded me of myself nearly a decade ago, making excuses for a late paper to a demanding but inspirational lecturer, to which he responded along the lines of: ”The world is full of smart guys, but there are very few disciplined ones.” He was right, and I wish I’d realised that much closer to when he said that rather than years later, when I began to suffer the consequences of my (in)actions. That is another reason why I want to become fluent in Korean, because it is a symbol to me - unless I’m speaking it 24/7 then there’s no other way to achieve that other than by the hard slog and discipline of daily, often tedious study that he describes, and if I do, then I would seriously feel that there’s little else I couldn’t achieve.

(Photo by theturninggate)

Hence, although I woke up 32 today, and…ahem…cut out all the pages in my diary up to today (March birthdays are good for re-resolutions!), I’m not going to pretend for an instant that I’m not the same, cynical, jaded, lazy person that I was last night. And unless I nearly die in a car accident say, albeit entirely possible in Korea, then indeed my personality never will change so soon. Hmmm…no, it has changed quickly before, so to be more precise, I can’t force yourself to become a different person overnight, I can certainly do things to help, but like Po Bronson demonstrated, the change will still probably be a slow gradual process, and all I can do is begin it and stick to it. At least, I’ve already come to terms with this reality for getting out of the ESL industry, which is why I quoted Thomas Beller earlier, as my job pretensions certainly do ”smash up against forces that have no facility for ambiguity,” a more poetic way of describing the bizarre lack of demand here for BA graduates that can’t speak Korean. But as for my 30-something angst? Finishing this series of posts marks my beginning to seek out the interesting, inspirational, original, creative and wonderful in Korea, or at least trying to look at what was previously ordinary and mundane in a new light. If you didn’t “get” the photos in this post, that was their theme, and hence the title of this series.

(Photo by june1777)

And that’s that. Frustrating, anti-climatic…but a lot like real life? I did actually intend to finish on a more positive, active, carpe diem note through giving some examples, I have a good 20 to go through as I type this, but now I realise that those would fit ackwardly onto the end of this 1800 word post. Instead, I’ll do that in the next post, probably up on Sunday. Fortuitously, this new project of mine will mean a lot of very short posts drawing people’s attention to them - maybe only 200 words long, I kid you not - and these will hopefully be a nice balance to the rather academic subjects I’ll be covering soon.

On that note, off to VIPS now…no luxury spared for this blogger on his birthday!

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(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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Given how much child abuse has become such a topical issue in the Korean blogosphere recently (see here and here for starters), naturally I assumed the worst when I saw the pictures and article below. Fortunately, the truth is completely benign, but…jumping ahead, let’s just say that I have mixed feelings about it.

중고생들 왜이러나? 졸업식 뒤 막장 ‘알몸 뒤풀이’ 2008-02-19

What on Earth are Middle School Students Doing? Naked Graduation Antics

[중앙일보 김진희] 최근 인터넷에 중고생의 ‘알몸 졸업식 뒤풀이’ 사진이 잇따라 올라와 충격을 주고 있다.

[Joong-Ang Ilbo Kim Jin-Hee] Recent Pictures of Middle School Student’s ‘Naked Graduation Antics’ Create Quite a Stir on the Internet

지난 15일 서울 중랑천변에서 남자 중학생 10여명이 졸업 기념으로 벌거벗고 물놀이를 하다가 경찰에 조사를 받은 데 이어 개인 블로그나 주요 커뮤니티에는 전국 곳곳에서 행해진 알몸 뒤풀이 목격담이 이어지고 있다.

On the 15th of February at Jungrang riverside in Seoul, about 10 middle-school boys were observed stripping themselves to celebrate graduating middle-school, prompting a nation-wide police investigation of personal blogs and internet communities with similar accounts of middle-school children stripping.

네티즌 ID’탄젠트’는 “최근 노원역 모 백화점 앞에서 졸업빵 후 교복이 찢겨진 여학생을 실제로 봤다”며 “팬티만 입고 가슴은 손으로 가리고 뛰어가더라”고 전했다. 그는 “밀가루 뿌리고 계란 던지는 일은 봤어도 옷을 찢는 것은 처음 봐 무척 깜짝 놀랐다”고 말했다.

One netizen with the ID ‘Tangent’ was very surprised at seeing some virtually naked female students running in front of a department store in the No-won station area. He or she said that ”their uniforms were ripped and torn, and they were only wearing panties while covering their breasts with their hands,” and added that “Of course, I’ve seen graduating students throwing flour and eggs at each other before, but never anything like this.”

인터넷에 올라오고 있는 사진에는 여학생들이 주로 속옷만 걸친 채 밀가루를 흠뻑 뒤집어 쓰고 있고 남학생들은 속옷까지 벗어 던진 모습이 담겨있다. 네티즌들은 “시대가 변해도 너무 변했다” “도를 넘어섰다”고 비난하고 있다.

Also on the internet are pictures of female students only wearing underwear and covered in flour, and some of boys completely removing their underwear and throwing it away. Netizens are saying that “times have definitely changed,” but criticised the students, saying that behaviour like that is “over the limit.”

문제는 일부 학생들의 일탈 행위가 자칫 유행처럼 번질 수 있고, 졸업식 후에 행해지기 때문에 학생들을 단속하기도 쉽지 않다는데 있다.

Although only a minority of students do things like this, this behaviour has the potential to become a new trend. Unfortunately it is difficult to prevent, as students do it after official graduation ceremonies, when they are unsupervised.

서울 교육청 관계자는 “알몸 뒤풀이는 요즘 들어 많이 나오고 있는 일탈 행위인데 학교 안에서 하지 못하니까 밖에서 하는 것 같다”며 “앞으로 졸업식에서 장학금 지원이나 참고서·교복 물려주기 등 건전한 방식으로 뒤풀이를 하도록 학생들을 지도해야 할 것”이라고 말했다.

According to a spokesperson for the Seoul Education Office, “These nude post-graduation antics are becoming very popular recently, and because they can’t be done at school then they must all be occurring in public,” and so “it is much healthier if we encourage students to give their books and uniforms to their juniors rather than ripping them up, perhaps by offering scholarships to those who set good examples.”

김진희 기자 (Kim Jin-Hee)

(Photo by Sunderban)

For readers not based in Korea, bear in mind that Korean students usually graduate middle school at 16, and so probably just the age difference alone means that graduating middle school is much more important to most Koreans and worthy of celebrating than, say, graduating from my own middle school in New Zealand was to me when I was 12. Hence the antics more usually associated with graduating high school students in Western countries, and my wife says that she got up to similar things at that age, albeit with clothes on, when she graduated herself over ten years ago.

My gut instinct is that this is merely good, clean, harmless fun - God knows Korean teenagers get precious little enough opportunities for that - and that it is pretty tame compared to what many of their Western counterparts get up to. Hell, any complaints from teachers and parents should focus on the risks of pneumonia more than anything else.

On the other hand, I can’t shake off a nagging suspicion that it’s more than just coincidence that these sorts of games start appearing so soon after 16 year-old girls in the bare minimum of clothes have started appearing on Korean TV. Not that I’ve been looking, but I’ve been here 8 years, and it’s the first time I’ve heard of any Korean teenagers doing things like that, let alone ones that young. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that seeing the Wondergirls in mini-skirts and suggestive poses has instantly persuaded formerly innocent and pure Korean girls (and boys) to imitate them. But I do think that although Korean social and sexual mores are quickly changing, and that Korean teenagers would have eventually starting doing things like this regardless (see this post at Gusts of Popular Feeling, for instance, to learn more about the increasing sexualization of Korean teenagers since the mid-1990s), nevertheless the appearance of Korean girl groups surely had some part to play in teenagers doing this in 2008 rather than say, 2010 or 2015? We shouldn’t forget how important they are as role models.

Again, for an excellent summation of all of these issues, see Michael Hurt’s recent post.

(Update 1: There’s a thread about this at Daveseslcafe here, and through that I found an English-language article about it here)

(Update 2: For some videos, see the next post)

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Well, in so far as it’s an inane, essentially meaningless song and/or dance step, but which the whole country feels compelled to copy. Sorry if recent posts such as this, this, and this led you to expect a post about 15-year old-girls instead.

I’ve put the video up because, next time you complain about hearing “Tell Me” for the fiftieth time, then by all means rant away, but it’s healthy to remember that Korea doesn’t exactly have a monopoly on mindless fads. Like Janet over at Stranger in a Strange Land says of the video, “after a few weeks of being in Paris, I’ve seen people do this [Tecknotonik] dance in the clubs, on the streets, and on the subway. It’s pretty hilarious.” But then she learned that this dance was in fact a trademark, pushing everything from branded clothes to energy drinks. To embellish her words a little, that meant that what appeared mere harmless fun before, now left her feeling a little jaded and cynical. Similarly, while I never jumped into the whole Wondergirls furore in the blogosphere here, and won’t now either, I did follow it, and it was always good to keep this profit motive in the back of my mind. In particular, it helped me to remember why increasingly sexual images of them in the media couldn’t be dismissed as mere overanalysis, as a lot of commentators did.

Lest the Wondergirls leave me sounding jaded and cynical myself, there’s always that video in the last post to help me. And as for France, here’s still some genuinely fun, cool and creative work from there that I’ve been looking for an opportunity to share for a while:

Admit it, you liked it…especially the noises. 

It’s jumping ahead a little, but as I’ll explain in my next two posts, I’ll be looking for and highlighting similar things from Korea on the blog from now on. Watch this space.

(Update: By coincidence, just a few minutes after I finished this post I noticed that Michael Hurt had just written another post on the Wondergirls at his blog. I did say that I wouldn’t discuss them on the blog, if only because I couldn’t do the subject justice after all the time and (virtual) ink that other bloggers have already spent on them, but I couldn’t help but notice one point of his related to the above discussion: that most Koreans refuse to acknowledge that the Wondergirls are sex symbols at all. Again, this not only encourages people to dismiss qualms that their skirts are too short, or that their dancing is too suggestive, but it also deflects attention away from the various companies and individuals profiting from them doing so, instead implying some perversion in mind of the commentator for looking at schoolgirls in such a sexual way. 

He goes on to say that that “parallels the notion in idea that in Korea, people are all good, clean Confucians who don’t do dirty things (but just save it for the love motels and leave that “skeleton bone” there – hehe, yes, I meant for a double entendre to be read there!), while Americans apparently hump everybody, according to everybody not American,” and that was a healthy reminder to myself that if I did have to choose one of Korean society’s biggest flaws, it would be precisely this obstinate refusal to admit unpleasant realities.

Michael is often one of those accused of overanalysis, but in my mind this latest post of his on the issue is a very succinct and timely summary of the issues raised by the Wondergirls’ popularity. Even if you’re tired of them, I recommend checking it out)

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When I saw this “Internet DJ” video over at Mongdori, I was hooked in…well, in about 10 seconds. Sometimes I really do worry that I’ve been here too long.

In my defence, I did have my incredibly cute 2 year-old daughter singing and dancing to it on my lap when I watched it, and looking after her during the day definitely means I’m not quite as masculine as I used to be. Hell, these days I’m so cute and idiotic myself, I should be on Korean TV teaching English. But seriously, remember that you’re the ones that clicked on a post entitled “the epitome of cute,” so what did you expect? Chicks with Guns? Let those of you without sin cast the first stone and all.

I should also point out that the woman in the video is singing a song by Lee Jung-hyun/이정현 (pics here and here), in whom every red-blooded heterosexual male in Korea had a big interest in back in 2003. I used to watch her music videos to study Korean with:

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(Photo from here, with the caption “Wax 너무 이뻐졌다!! 못알아보겠어” or “Wax has become very pretty! She’s unrecognisable”)

God Works in Mysterious Ways

I would have written this post last night, but for the entire English department failing to tell me (as per usual) that the winter schedule had changed, meaning that I turned up at 1pm, expecting to teach from 2 to 4:30, only to find that the classes were now from 7 to 9:30 instead. Yep, 6 hours to kill, with only a copy of  한국어 일기 4급 to keep me company. If you have any of those books in the series of 6 (here’s level 5 below) then you’ll know that they’re not bad resources per se, they just have a monochrome format and inane topics, typical of Korean study books published around 2000, that mean that they tend to get very tedious after more than an hour spent on them at any one time. Yesterday I managed three, albeit with very lengthy breaks in between.

On the negative side, not studying at Starbucks after work as planned meant that I forgot to refill my coffee supply (Fair Trade of course). Apologies in advance for any mistakes and typos my withdrawal symptoms will cause.

Who is Wax?

Well, if you don’t know the answer to that question, then you probably haven’t been here very long. In 2000, she released “오빠/Oppa,”and culturally speaking it has become to Koreans like Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” to Westerners has. If you’d rather not think about that, then let me do it for you: it was a good song…admit it…but it was played to death at the time, and ultimately turned even the most dedicated fans off it. But whether you loathed it from the beginning, or came to loath it after listening to ad nauseum on the radio for 5 months, 11 years later all of us know the song off by heart, and will hum it when no-one’s watching. And so in a way, it’s become a defining song of our generation. Same with Oppa for Koreans, such a staple at 노래방s or karaoke rooms that it should be included in any university Korean course. But if the song still isn’t ringing any bells, try watching it:

See? Even if you’ve only been here a month, you have heard it before, yes? If you want to know more about the song and Wax herself then read here, and sorry in advance to disappoint, but I already know that it’s based on “She-bop” by Cyndi Lauper (I’m a big fan), and yep, I even know the original risqué subject matter too. If I’ve inspired you to learn Korean through it, then I provide a very detailed guide to the song here.

Her first 3 albums were a mix of stuff like that and some simply…ahem…beautiful ones too, albeit very mellow. This one from the 2nd album called “화장을 고치도” is my favorite, although it’s unfortunate literal English title of “Fixing my Make-up” doesn’t help with accusations that I have completely gay tastes in music. I should let you listen to it yourself, because the