Fukuoka---where there is an airport, a
Korean consulate,...and many other places most visa-renewing
expatriates have neither the time, cash nor interest to visit.
Fukuoka---where everything important
seems to cost over five-thousand yen, and most expatriates forget to
bring just that last five-thousand yen.
And, Fukuoka---the place where frustrated
Korea-philes salivate, dreaming of wide, clean sidewalks devoid of
careening, demented scooter pilots and polite people.
There was the book, though, and the flu.
Two days in Fukuoka just seemed like two days in a foreign place,
torn from a recognizable language, a house with warm ondol floor, a
warm girlfriend, and a refrigerator full of food. Also, there were
the three-dollar subway rides and the five-dollar beers.
But, upon arrival, the wooing started.
Like a cheap whore in a stolen designer gown, "Japan, Inc." rolled
out the high-tech parade of cute gadgets. There was the computer
board on the bus, efficiently alerting passengers of their exact
toll. Next, although you may need an engineering degree, was the
toilet fitted with a computer, four padded buttons, and a flusher.
The subway trains were wider and more stable. And, that driving on
the left is oh so cute!
("Getting It Wrong")
http://www.feer.com/_0102_15/p065tales.html
Arriving in Fukuoka, I feel I am entering
a theme park or a factory during an inspection. The streets are too
clean, the people too polite, and the gadgets too impressive. Only
the letters on the storefront signs deviate from the straight path.
Of course, many people believe the same about Koreans, but no one
waxes nostalgic about Korean technological ingenuity. No one would
mistake a robot and a Korean. No one would rate a Korean manufacture
very generously.
As a matter of fact, some people seem to
regard Korea as a pale reflection of the Japan they encounter in
their travels and in the media. It is easy to notice family
resemblances: certain holidays, television programs, the way money
is counted, comic books and film animation, certain foods. Korea and
Japan are like squabbling siblings of the same Chinese parent, each
one unwilling to admit the influence each has on the other. Their
histories are punctuated by catastrophes and transgressions:
the 16th Century invasions, Occupation, the 1923 earthquake, comfort
women. And one more fact: the North Korean invasion of the South on
June 25, 1950 halted the liberalization of the Japanese economy and
the decriminalization of the Japanese wartime oligarchy. Because the
Americans needed Japanese assistance to defeat the North Koreans,
the US turned a blind eye to the criminals, including Hirohito, who
were turning Japan into a land of gadgets and polite samurai robots.
I started reading Japan: A
Reinterpretation the day before I boarded the visa shuttle for
Fukuoka. The author, Patrick Smith, a correspondent and editor with
several publications, began slowly talking about robots and
proceeded to peer into the history and social psychology of their
human manufacturers. Perhaps, as my feet were still on Korean soil,
I could not help but compare Japanese sarariman
and Korean salarymen, those legendary warriors of
the battle against globalization. I also, perhaps with a shiver,
devoured the section on education, fighting a touch of nausea. By
the time the plane landed, I thought I was returning to the scene of
a crime.
Smith argues, that, despite brief,
fleeting periods, during the Taisho period of the 20's, and
immediately following the Pacific War, unemployed, former Japanese
samurai created a Japan modeled on the warrior ideals of
self-sacrifice and class and gender stratification. Later, Japanese
bureaucrats turned the Empire of the Rising Sun into Japan, Inc.
Smith uncovers the brutality of this process of samuraization, and
the quest for a Japanese identity beyond the straightjacket of
bureaucratic conscription.
I recently spent two months teaching
English at Dongsung NSC in Shinpyong. Everyday my two students
arrived at 7:20 clutching the most god-awful boring textbook I have
ever had to pretend to teach with, and sporting matching
multi-colored button-downed, plaid, flannel shirts,
putrid-blue-green Eisenhower jackets, cornflower-blue, pleated denim
pants. Although common expressions in English eluded them, words
like "protons" and "epoxy resin" spilled from their lips. Sometimes,
one or both was hungover or just absent following a late-night "team
meeting". I knew classtime was over, because the overhead speaker
suddenly blared Souza or a military march. A few women in
same-colored vests, white blouses, and polyester skirts shuffled
through the halls like frightened zombies. After class, they
exercised.
I have also taught the pampered royalty
of Korean kindergarten, as well as elementary level, middle-school,
and high school-level students. Somewhere following elementary
school comes the "turn": slightly overactive, brutally-honest,
sugar-addicted little savages become silent, kow-towing robots,
whose only relief comes in gossip, computer games, and fast food.
One day the teacher is trying to subdue wild animals, the next just
getting an intelligible grunt takes an hour.
I could not help, but think I had entered
enemy territory:
Japan: Robot Disneyland on Speed!
Japan: Sexual Cartoon Crack House!
Japan: Hidden Bomb without a Fuse Sitting
in a Microwave!
One of the chapters in Smith's book
discussed foreign workers in Japan, including Koreans. I, too, met a
Korean-Japanese woman, who owned and operated a Korean-goods shop
located between the Tojinmachi subway station and the Korean
consulate. I had been there a year before, and was eager to see, if
the shop was still in business. I bought Korean ramyon, kimuchi
(homemade, but not fermented), oe sobbaggi, and a ginseng drink. She
spoke passing English, but no Korean. She giggled and cheered when I
spoke some Korean for her, as if it were some fugitive treat. I
recommend the food highly.
Maybe it was the fact, that my flu had
cleared the next day as I returned to Pusan, or the weather had
improved, but I was relieved to leave Techno-Samurai World. Now
having finished Smith's book, I seriously have to ask: is Japan
worth imitating? Is it worth turning Korea into a factory to enter
the First World? How much concrete can Korea pour before the
peninsula becomes a sidewalk with skyscrapers? How expensive does
rice have to become before Koreans start wondering about their
grocery bills? Do children learn better when a teacher pours facts,
slanted history, and outright lies and errors down their throats
like sludge? Are women entitled to a life of slavery and quiet
suffering? Is there a Korea distinct from Japan?
Korea begins and ends in the villages,
but not the ones that are artificially subsidized to harvest
regardless of their profitability. There is the sound of the kayakum
and drum, and the charm of pansori. Fermented bean paste, red pepper
paste, and rice wine say a mouthful. So why do Koreans have to be
like the Japanese? Why do any of us have to admire sadistic robots?
Are we all masochists? Koreans need to ask themselves what the
Japanese have failed to accomplish:
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