Tribute to March

March.

Physically three months ago, but it feels like years ago.

Two months in moving back to Korea, and when things were still new to me. When I was fascinated of street vendors and marts were a paradise. Where everyone talked in a familiar language, I could converse with anyone, and I didn’t have to worry about inadvertently “standing out”.

When I still missed India and my old school. Friends back in India bid me goodbye, and me reading the last text messages they’ve sent me. I was alert of every little details of my old school friends told me through facebook, sympathizing and feeling bitter that I had to miss all that. I felt like an astronaut whose cord was snapped so that I was flying away, aimlessly, in the vast space. I skyped all day everyday with friends I missed.

When I first saw snow in four years and got dead excited about it. The night when I moved in to KMLA, I was greeted by feathery, glowing snow. Snow is an amazing substance. It feels great when the soft airy ice dribble gently down on me. The ambitious but a rather timid grunch beneath my feet motivates me to stroll down the streets.

When everyone in the 18^th wave were beginning to know each other. When there were stupid cliques, but when everyone tried to befriend each other and stay together. Everyone was just so excited to come to school and meet new people.

When we had the entrance ceremony. So new, so young and fresh, we were all exhilarated to become legitimate students of KMLA. 

Hanminjok is a Han (homogeneous) Minjok?

Minjok Essay

HyeSung Roh

           Why am I so indignant about how other people saw Korea? In retrospect, I figure it’s because the sense of minjok stayed within me, resulted from after all those years of schooling in Korea, which hurt when the idealistic “we are the best” dream had to be shattered.

           People tend to place “minjok” and “nation” in the same context. I’d expect “nation” to be more document-oriented and definite, whereas “minjok” focuses more on its people and the software of a country, for example its culture or bloodline. The word minjok is composed of two Chinese characters, one that stands for people and one for family. Family. “Minjok” implies a family. A big yet intimate family composed of different people that share the same blood and culture.

The idea of Minjok provides the sheep within the fence with national pride and a sense of superiority. In Korea, the pride is sometimes depicted in the form of cheering for own national soccer team during World Cup season. To other countries, Korea is quite famous for its unique and pan-national cheering culture. During the 2002 World Cup, many foreign media were interested in how Koreans, literally thousands of them, were gathered in a single place to cheer for their country’s soccer team. It’s also interesting when a Korean man set himself in fire because he wanted to be "a ghost and the 12th player" for the national soccer team in the World Cup. This craze for one's own country, almost close to nationalism, is a result of extreme minjok. 

           Endowed with national pride in heart, it’s easy to claim that everything is Korean. Everything is ours. We are the best, and we’re the center of the world. For example, Korean schools repeatedly teach, even brainwash children how Korean stuff- its script, relics- are so genial, scientific, highly praised by other countries and everything. There also is the Sojunghwa ideology, which was widely circulated in the late Chosun Dynasty. The Sojunghwa ideology is basically claiming that because best one is gone, we are now the best. After the Chinese Ming Dynasty collapsed, majority of the Korean ruling class thought that the Chinese civilization was now dead, and therefore Chosun itself is the legitimate successor of it, and claimed Chosun as “little China”. This concept impeded Chosun’s trade with other countries and contributed in its policy of seclusion. The video clip below is worth a try too.

           Minjok is supposed to imbue patriotism and attachment to its land, even be a motivator for the people to unite. However, it may ruin relationships with other countries, and may evolve into ethnocentrism to the extent. The ideology that we are the best and superior leads us to look down on and be exclusive towards other races, which could be an obstacle in today’s multicultural, multiethnic society. UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination pointed out that now that Korea has become a multicultural society, Korean should overcome the concept of minjok. 

           Our nation, our family- we are fond of the word “our and “we”. This single word helps people unite and form a tighter bond in between. The “our” and “we” within the fence is gifted with a sense of belonging and comfort, but by this we inadvertently cross a line between “our” and “we” and everyone else. I'd wish this irrational nationalism to die away as time passes and Koreans become more open-minded towards various people. Say that a close bond between one's own ethnicity is a good thing, but "minjok" to the extent of chauvinism isn't a pleasurable thing to be a part of.