There are guys who say that women should go to the army too... but I don’t think that’s necessary.
KATUSA Some Korean conscripts are seconded to the US Army in a program named KATUSA. Such soldiers are considered lucky—they get to practice English, and even go home at night rather than staying in barracks.
PUTTING KOREA ON THE MAP KOREA AS NUMBER ONE
Since the days of President Park Chung-hee, Koreans have had it drummed into them that their nation absolutely has to stack up against others, when it comes to anything that can be measured in numbers. That includes economic data, such as the value of Korean exports—but it now also extends to intellectual, cultural, and sporting fields. Whenever a Nobel prize ceremony goes by without a Korean winner, disappointed newspaper columnists churn out laments.
Major sporting events result in big displays of national pride. But it’s also great fun: there’s no party like a World Cup party in Korea.
President Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000. To date, he remains Korea’s only Nobel laureate.
WHY DOES KOREA NEED TO BE NUMBER ONE?
This desire to measure up is a result of Korea’s troubled history. Korea is a small nation that has long been subject to the whims of larger, more powerful ones. In particular, Japanese colonization (1910–1945) created a sense of humiliation, and a desire to improve Korea’s power and stature. The division of Korea into North and South heightened this. Reduced not just in terms of size and population but also in terms of power and security, both countries reacted in extreme ways.
For North Korea, that meant bulking up militarily, but for the South under Park Chung-hee, it meant pursuing economic growth. Economic performance is of course measured numerically, and Park himself was personally obsessed with Korean economic data. He would become angry at underlings who could not match his knowledge of inflation and export statistics. And over time, the national preoccupation with numbers spread into other areas of human achievement.
A surprisingly high number of Koreans know the size of national GDP, and how this stacks up against other countries. They know that Korea is the number one country in shipbuilding and semiconductors. They also know that the Korean Olympic team’s medal table rank has been consistently improving, and that Psy’s “Gangnam Style” hit number two in the US pop chart. In fact, “Gangnam Style” not making number one was itself a story. When will Korea have its first US Billboard number one, ran the headlines?
Psy horse-dancing. Psy became the most famous Korean ever during the summer of 2012. He is a hero to many Koreans for putting their country on the map. The government responded in kind, by putting him on a series of postage stamps.
Times Square A Samsung advert in Times Square, New York. Korean businesses, campaigners, and government officials all consider New York as the prime place in which to launch any promotion. This reflects the importance of America in the South Korean psyche.
“BIG BROTHER” AMERICA
Since the division of Korea, the South has felt great political, economic, and cultural influence from “big brother” America. The land of Uncle Sam was held out to Koreans as the model seonjinguk—advanced nation—that they needed to emulate. Some Koreans love America, and some hate it, but nobody ignores it. This is why the US pop chart number one is the holy grail for a Korean pop star. Top Korean labels like SM Entertainment have spent millions of dollars on promoting their acts in America.
It is not inaccurate to state that Korea has a certain inferiority complex with regard to the US. This is a country that wants to be recognized, particularly by Americans. Whenever Korean activist groups want to draw attention to territorial disputes with Japan, they take out adverts in The New York Times. It is also likely the reason why the government spent US$5 million opening a Korean restaurant in New York.
The ironic thing is though that Korea has in many ways overtaken the US. Its citizens live longer, and are healthier, better educated, less likely to be unemployed, and less likely to live in poverty. According to surveys though, Koreans are nowhere near as happy as Americans—because of their stressful, competition-filled lives.
Korea meets America, in the Seoul district of Itaewon.
The Latest “It” Gadget: Anipang
Trends come and go from Korea—as they do anywhere else—but they move more quickly here, thanks to neophilia, the love of the new. They also embed themselves very deeply for the brief duration of their popularity. It is hard to live in Korea and be immune to the latest “it” gadget, fashion, or slang word.
As I write, the young woman sat opposite from me in this cafe is playing a game named Anipang. Anipang is a little like the old classic Tetris, and is played on smartphones. So far I have resisted its charms, but 12 million others in this country have not. That is almost 25 percent of the Korean population. Six months previously, nobody had heard of Anipang. And I suspect that six months from now, it will be more a case of “Do you remember Anipang?”
NAEMBI GEUNSEONG: THE BOILING POINT
There is a phrase in Korean, naembi geunseong, which means “boiling-pot disposition.” It is similar in character to the coming and going of trends like Anipang, but relates more to anger which bubbles over when heat is applied, but cools down soon afterwards. When a politician does something wrong, he has no place to hide—everyone is out to get him. But the scandal usually blows over quickly, and soon enough, he is back in frontline politics.
The summer 2008 “beef protests” illustrated naembi geunseong quite well, when around a million people took to the streets of Seoul in fury at the government. The demonstrations had a number of disparate causes, but the spark was undoubtedly President Lee Myung-bak’s decision to reintroduce American beef imports in spite of alleged cases of mad cow disease.
By 2010, Korea was the number one importer of American beef in Asia. People eat it now without a moment’s thought. And nobody protests against it.
ALL TOGETHER NOW
I write for a living. That means I inevitably spend a large part of any day alone. Unless I have a specific appointment, I’ll work by myself in cafes, and have lunch by myself, too. It doesn’t bother me—in fact, I rather like it.
One drawback is that I’m limited in terms of the places I can go. Korea is all about the group, so even the most casual restaurants, for instance, are set up for a minimum of two. Individual restaurant seating, as found commonly in Japan, is hard to come by. There’s nothing to stop me from taking a table by myself, but it would just seem a little odd—making me look like a wangtta (“outcast”). What’s more, most of my favorite Korean dishes, such as dakdori-tang, a spicy chicken stew, come in big pots to be shared between three or four. You can’t order an individual portion.
HAVE A GOOD EXCUSE!
During my days