Sogogi 2

The uproar over the resumption of Korean imports of US beef has only been growing since I last wrote about it. There is tremendous opposition from lawmakers and civic groups.

On my bus ride down to Erma's parents' place yesterday, live legislative hearings were showing on the bus TV the whole way. The hearings were supposed to be about the proposed Korean-US Free Trade Agreement, but everyone just talked about beef.

Apparently when imports were banned by the last government, a huge amount of American beef was sitting in Korean warehouses. Instead of destroying it or sending it back, it just sat there frozen. So now the plan is to release it. Apparently the meat contains bone, spinal column, and other cow parts that are acknowledged to be the most dangerous parts for spreading mad cow disease.

With the new agreement, all that meat was going to be released immediately. It's causing a furor here, especially because the previous government issued all these reports about how dangerous that meat was. There have been large candle-light vigils protesting the beef, attended by tens of thousands of people in Seoul.

(Picture taken from here.)

The intense opposition has led the government to agree to a delay of about a week. But so far it still looks like the beef will be released into the market. (The delay does mean I won't accidentally eat any of it before I go.) I'm highly sympathetic to the Koreans who are opposed to this agreement. I don't want to be eating bone-laden American beef either, and I think they have good reason to be concerned.

Sogogi

I'm sure all of you followed the details of Korean President Lee Myung-Bak's visit to the US. Am I right?

So you probably know that one result of the visit was that President Lee agreed to reopen Korea's markets to the importation of American beef, despite concerns about mad cow disease. This was after Bush made Lee eat a steak.

Reading this news presented me with a bit of a conundrum. For some years now Erma and I have not been eating American beef, unless we are fairly confident that it is organic, natural, or otherwise not being fed ground up brains of other mammals. This is because of our suspicion that the beef supply isn't really safe in the US -- a suspicion that seems to be confirmed every few months by news of an infected cow or of unsanitary practices at slaughterhouses.

Thankfully, it looks like American beef imports into Korea won't begin until I'm safely home and within striking distance of a Whole Foods.

As it happens, the beef import issue came up in class on two different occasions last week, offering me two different Korean perspectives. The first teacher who mentioned it said that Korean were mostly pleased. They didn't want to eat the American beef, of course, but its presence on the market would hopefully drive down the prices of Korean and Australian beef, helping the average consumer. It was the meat industry people, said the teacher, who opposed the importation, since it would drive down prices and profits. And, of course, Koreans could still make sure to buy Australian or Korean beef at the markets. (Students eating at cheap restaurants would not have the luxury of selecting the source of their beef, though.)

We have three different teachers, who come on different days of the week. The second teacher also raised the issue. She said most Koreans were opposed. They feared that even if they bought Korean or Australian beef, it might be sliced up with a knife that had touched American beef. In short, there was no way to defend oneself against the possibility of infection by mad cow disease. (Not eating beef would probably never occur to most Koreans as an option.)

She said something else interesting. Most Koreans believe that Korean beef is of exceptionally high quality, and those who can afford it are willing to pay almost twice as much for it. But this teacher said that her husband suspects that Korean beef really isn't so great. Why? Because the Japanese, who are famously discerning in their beef choices, don't eat it. So he only eats Australian beef!

From what I can tell looking at the news media, the second teacher seems to be right: most Koreans are not pleased with the concessions made by President Lee. See, for example, this recent news item.

Seongeo 2

A quick update on election results. President Lee Myung-Bak's party, the conservative Grand National Party (한 나라당), did not do as well as originally expected, but did manage to capture a slim majority in the legislature, with 153 seats out of 299. (I think these might be the guys in blue in my previous post, but I'm not sure.) The former majority party, the United Democratic Party (통합민주당), suffered serious losses.

Given his slim parliamentary majority, Lee Myung-Bak will probably be able to implement a good chunk of his domestic program, which includes business-friendly policies to help promote economic growth. He's also expected to take a harder line with North Korea than the previous more liberal administrations.

Turnout in this election was extremely low; there's been a lot of discussion of the reasons for such voter apathy, especially since the turnout was pretty high for the presidential election last winter, and there is widespread anxiety about the economic situation here.

The low turnout was despite the fact that the government was giving away vouchers for government-run museums and parks worth 2,000 won (about US $2) to anyone who voted!

(Sorry, no pictures this time!)
(By the way, this is Post #100!)

Election coverage

It's a little unfair for me to write about election coverage, because we turned on the TV only half an hour before a winner was declared. Still, that was enough time for us to see some amusing coverage, including this depiction of the election as a marathon. Here's Lee Myung-bak running way in the lead, passing the signpost for Gangwon Province.

And here's the cluster of candidates at the back of the pack.

Just after the winner was declared, Lee is shown winning the race. At his feet you can see the tape that he has just broken through.

Finally, here are the two announcers who had been narrating the marathon. One of them has a Lee face on and is apparently imitating his speech style. Seems kind of low budget compared to the marathon.  You'd think they could have made Lee's head more life-sized.  

I'm looking forward to seeing something similar on CNN next year.

This just in

We have a winner. Lee Myung-bak (a.k.a. candidate number 2, a.k.a. the front-runner, a.k.a. the guy with the dance) has just gotten enough votes to be declared the winner. I guess in Korea you don't have to wait around for your opponents to concede.


You heard it here first. More on the election coverage shortly.

Daeseon

The South Korean presidential election will be held tomorrow, December 19th. It's always hard to understand the details of another country's politics, especially when there is a language barrier, but as our stay here coincides with the height of election campaigning, we've tried to take the opportunity to learn a little about it.

Official campaign activity began a few weeks ago, and each candidate was assigned an official number. All around town (and presumably around the country) you can see posters of the candidates and their official numbers, like this:


There are trucks that drive around the streets with people on board talking into loudspeakers and mini-rallies with music and dancing. These rallies seem to be rah-rah type events, and I wonder whether substantive information about the candidates' positions can be conveyed. The candidates all seem to have a theme song, and a theme color, and supporters wear matching outfits and dance along to the theme song.

In the crowded field of twelve candidates, there seem to be three serious contenders, Numbers 1, 2, and 12. Candidate number 1, Chung Dong-young, is the ruling party candidate. Like the current president, Roh Moo-hyun, Chung is considered to be a liberal and his main campaign position is to continue engagement with North Korea. However, Roh, who is wrapping up the single five-year term that he is limited to, is currently very unpopular and the members of his party have changed its name from the Uri Party (Our Party) to the United New Democratic Party in an effort to distance themselves from him. Despite the name change, Chung is running a distant second.

The apparent front-runner is candidate number 2, Lee Myung-bak, of the Grand National Party. A former businessman, he served as mayor of Seoul and instituted a number of changes that even we, as newcomers to the city, can see now. He completely reworked the Seoul bus system, changing the routings and installing bus-only lanes. He also oversaw the daylighting of Cheonggyecheon, a stream that runs through the center of Seoul which was covered by an elevated highway for about 40 years. Lee has been dogged by scandals, and the parliament has just voted to open an investigation into fraud allegations against him. However, many Koreans seem not to be bothered by potential ethical issues. Koreans seem to feel that the current economy is bad, and based on his track record as mayor of Seoul, many people see Lee as a pragmatist who can get things done.

Running a close third is candidate number 12, Lee Hoi-chang. This Lee founded the Grand National Party, and was the party's candidate in the previous two elections, but retired from politics after losing to Roh in a close race in 2002. In November, Lee suddenly entered this year's race as an independent, much later than all the other candidates. The most conservative of the three major candidates, Lee explained his un-retirement by claiming to be dissatisfied with Lee Myung-bak's candidacy, particularly his stance toward North Korea. The Grand National Party seems to have moved to the center since he left the party, and overall Koreans seem less concerned with the issue of North-South relations.

This is, of course, a very simplified summary of the election. I'd welcome comments from anyone who knows more about the subject.

Hanguk

All of my previous trips to Korea were brief, and my impressions largely superficial. On my first visit ten years ago, I am reported to have said (Erma has a good memory for such things) that Korea struck me as a cross between Japan and Taiwan.

I've now lived in Seoul for about three months. Although my contact with Korean people and culture is still somewhat superficial, I feel that I've started to develop a reliable sense of how Koreans in Seoul live.

One of the impressions that has grown deeper over the last few months is how prosperous Korea is. Seoul is full of people out spending money and having a good time. Cafés and restaurants are full to bursting. Koreans are sophisticated, worldly, and materialistic. (I don't intend the last descriptor to be pejorative.) They are incredibly technologically savvy. In many ways the country seems more advanced and functional than the US.

Prosperous Koreans strolling at Cheonggyecheon 청계천, the recently daylighted stream that runs through the heart of downtown Seoul

One negative characteristic of Koreans is impatience. (The Koreans themselves often describe their own national personality type as geup hada 급하다 "rushed".) They don't like to wait; they park illegally; they weave through traffic; they shove past people on the sidewalks. But even this characteristic seems to be ameliorating. Younger Koreans wait patiently on the subway platform while riders exit (even while their older compatriots shove their way on and fight for seats).

I don't know when Korea made the transition from being a developing country to a developed country, but it is fully entrenched in the latter category now. It also has a vibrantly functioning democracy, in contrast with the repressive military dictatorships that were the norm, with US support, through the 1980s.

Koreans no longer need to think about catching up to the West, or catching up to the States. Whereas before the '80s emigrating to the US was commonly viewed as the major pathway to an improved life, many Koreans can look forward to a better standard of living and greater career and educational opportunities if they stay here.

Freed from the need to catch the West, and freed from the burdens of political repression, Koreans now have the confidence and capability to shape their own future on their own terms. Where will they go?

Of course, Korea's current prosperity and freedom may be something of an historical aberration. Two serious dangers loom on the horizon.

The first is North Korea. Although technically it is still a military threat (the North Koreans could probably reduce Seoul to rubble if they made an all-out missile attack), war seems highly unlikely because of the fragile state of the isolated North Korean regime. And the North is certainly no longer a political threat, thanks to the end of the Cold War. South Korea was once obsessed with Communists, infiltrators from the North, a fifth column in the country. (One of our acquaintances said that when he went abroad to Scotland for a few weeks in college in the 1980s, he had to first watch a propaganda film about the dangers of fraternizing with any North Koreans one might meet overseas.) South Koreans and their government seem now to have realized that there is no need for all that paranoid nonsense now, and that for the most part it's better to just ignore the North and go about one's business. (This isn't to say that implementing a policy for dealing with the North isn't a major concern of the South Korean government; it certainly is.)

The true danger that is posed by the North is economic: should the regime fail and the South be forced to take over administration of the North, the economic and cultural strain will be enormous and potentially destabilizing.

The second, and in my view more serious, long-term threat is China. Korea is a very small country attached to a very large regional military power. China will eventually dominate Asia economically, politically, and militarily, and it's not clear how much true autonomy Korea will be able to maintain for itself. (In part it may depend on whether the US continues to station a large contingent of forces here and in Japan.)

This seems like a historically special time for Korea not only because it enjoys so much prosperity and autonomy, but also because it is culturally ascendant in Asia right now. When I lived in Hong Kong in 2001, I became aware of the widespread popularity there of Korean films and pop music. In China and Japan too Korean pop culture continues to be extremely popular. It's not just economic opportunity that is bringing so many foreign students to Korea to learn Korean; I've encountered many students at our language institute who are here because they love Korean television soap operas.

It is interesting for me to contrast these impressions of Korea with my impressions of China. Many Chinese people I've met are still deeply obsessed with nursing national grievances and with the perceived struggle to catch up with the West. I remember talking with a man in a bus in Fujian, when I was doing fieldwork there, who was bemoaning the fact that even though the Chinese economy was improving so dramatically, it would still be decades before China "caught up" with the West. I asked him why it was so important to "catch up" with the West, and what China would do after that happened. He couldn't really answer those questions; he didn't know how to think about them. In my experience in America and European countries, citizens don't worry about catching up to or comparing themselves with other countries. They worry about how best to improve their own societies. It seemed to me that it would be healthier for the Chinese to think about what they want their country to be like, and to work toward that, instead of viewing the world as a battleground for ascendancy between China and the West. (To be fair, I know that many intellectuals in America view a future conflict with China as an inevitable feature of the coming century.)

I think part of the mentality derives from a sense that China would never have become so backward if they hadn't been humiliated at the hands of Western imperialists in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This sense of grievance drives national attitudes in a way that often seems unhealthy and counter-productive.

This past weekend I was at a party at which several mainland Chinese were present as well as one Taiwanese guy. I'm used to educational settings in the US where there are students from both Taiwan and mainland China studying together, so I'd forgotten that for most Chinese it's a rarity to meet and speak to someone from Taiwan. This was the first time that these Chinese had had a chance to do so in their lives.

The first thing the Chinese were surprised to learn is that, contrary to what is reported in their media, it is not the case that all Taiwanese wish to reunite with the mainland. There was some further discussion about the political status of Taiwan, and then one of the Chinese guys said something that struck me as very strange.

"The reason we want Taiwan back," he said, "is because for centuries China has been bullied and humiliated by the West. Now China is finally strong again, and we can reclaim the territory that should have been ours all along. We got Macau and Hong Kong back, and we want Taiwan back too."

Nursing a grievance against 19th-century Western imperialism doesn't strike me as the best basis for formulating foreign policy today. Nor does it strike me as a justification for ignoring the interests and well-being of the Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. But I think in the minds of many Chinese the two simply can't be separated.

Not long after this conversation I read a passage in Peter Hessler's Oracle Bones that reminded me of it. In a discussion of the upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympics, Hessler notes that the primary driving force behind Chinese international sports competition has been shame, not pride (p. 265). In his view, China competes not for the joy and pride of athletic success, but to erase perceived humiliations by beating the West at their own game.

I can't resist ending this blog entry by plugging Hessler's book. It's fantastic. It's the book that I and many of my friends who've lived in China have always wanted to write. Hessler's experiences reverberate because they are so similar in many respects to mine, and because as a gifted writer, he is able to distill and describe those experiences vividly and thoughtfully.

Hessler interweaves his observations about modern China with reportage about academic work on China's ancient past. He has interviewed many archeologists and philologists, and it's astounding how many points of intersection there are with my own life. Just a few examples: He profiles a guy who was a graduate student colleague in my department; he profiles the professor from whom I first learned to read oracle bones; he mentions some of my current colleagues and their recent work. Somehow he's taken these academic topics that I'd previously imagined could never be popularized and woven them into a compelling and thought-provoking account for the general reader.