When in Rome.....

We always hear about a powerful West taking advantage of the rest of the world and the atrocities of past colonialism and present capitalism.  But what if people in other countries are now using our own cultural thinking against us and playing on the past for their own advantage?  This process can be consciously done or may even be an unconscious way of getting ahead.

A blog post by Sam Harris perked my interest the other day where he published a question and answer session with his twitter followers.  One answer to a particular question got me thinking about life in the Far East and the double-standard many people live by when it comes to dialogue and understanding between different cultures.

Adam Dorr ‏@adam_dorr You seem to avoid political morality. Care to engage? Is conservativism inherently less moral than liberalism? 

"I touch on this briefly in The Moral Landscape and Free Will. These views have different strengths and weaknesses. Depending on the context, one can be less in touch with reality than the other and conducive to greater harm. One of the virtues of liberalism is self-doubt and a willingness to consider the other person’s point of view. In the presence of antagonists who don’t have a point of view worth considering (e.g. psychopaths, religious maniacs), liberalism can be a recipe for masochism and moral cowardice. Conservatives tend not have this problem. But when conservatives are wrong, they often lack the corrective mechanisms of liberals. It’s hard to generalize, but it is worth noting that there is a structural asymmetry here: liberalism can be exploited in a way that conservatism cannot."

Although the Western world has its conservatives and the Eastern world has its liberals, I don't think it would be controversial to say that - generally speaking - the West has a much more liberal mindset than the East.  This is perhaps starting to create situations where exploitation of Westerners and Western countries is commonplace.  Much has been said about the problems faced by Muslim culture entering our societies and the way many of their principles are not challenged enough within Western countries.  This is an area that I will leave to others, however, as I have much more experience in the Far East and in Korea especially.

When in Rome do as the Romans do

Conservative Korea has its cultural practices and its principles and most of the people stick to them.  This is fine sometimes and I admire some aspects of conservatism for standing up for their opinions and fighting for them, however a considerable weakness of the Korean way of thinking is the inability to accept another argument.  Age and tradition trumps reason and this causes significant problems in accepting or understanding the ways of other cultures.  Another problem is that, just as Sam Harris says in his above reply to the questioner, liberal Westerners come to Korea and show a fairly unhealthy degree of masochism and moral cowardice and it isn't only psychopaths and religious maniacs we can give way to.

I have discovered on many occasions that Koreans know the above saying, 'When in Rome do as the Romans do', extremely well (although they tend to say 'when in Rome follow the Roman way'), and if I have ever expressed a hint of dissent about any aspect of my duties in Korea - at work or with my Korean family - this proverb comes out pretty regularly as a conversation ender.  The insinuation is that you are in Korea and you must follow the Korean way, and that there is nothing you can say.  The fact that they use the proverbial wisdom from Western culture seems to make this argument even more difficult to go up against.  

Perhaps the most annoying thing is that many don't really believe in it; my wife often complains about Koreans when they travel to other countries that they stay only within their own groups, eat only Korean food, and can be blissfully unaware of the customs of the culture that they are in (bear in mind that these are my Korean wife's complaints about some other Koreans, especially the older ones).  These are precisely the kind of people that might use this saying against people who come to their own country.

I am always one for famous quotes that impart the wisdom of the ages, but this is not one of my favourites.  For a start, there is a definite feel of a threat embedded in it.  'Do as the Romans do....or else!'  This has always the context I have felt when I have had this saying thrown at me and was surely an important factor in the developing of it in the first place, because if you didn't do as the Romans do, you'd be discovered, tortured, and thrown into the river Tiber.  To 'do as the Romans do' is either to be sensible in the face of a very real threat, to genuinely enjoy a new cultural experience, or to simply be a coward.  

So what is the threat that Koreans have to back-up what they say about following their culture?  In my case, my parents in-law can threaten the relationship between my wife and I, but in most cases of foreigners living in Korea the threat is to lose your job and therefore your visa or to have a life that is made very difficult indeed.  And I have known some quite unreasonable and unscrupulous ways in which some Korean employers have achieved this with foreign employees they have disliked.

I think foreigners living in Korea (including myself) do show moral cowardice; our natural inclination is to give way and this isn't only due to being humble in a part of the world that we know little about but is also sometimes down to arrogance and a feeling of magnanimous superiority.  Plenty of foreigners come to Korea and do what their told whilst at the same time thinking that the the Korean people they are placating are simply not worth respecting on the inside and that they really know next to nothing compared to them (sometimes this is justified and sometimes not).  Maybe there are even issues of guilt to do with wealth and past history also.  One thing should be abundantly clear and that is conforming does not necessarily entail respecting.

Perhaps giving way, relinquishing our principles, and conforming are really the only way we can all get along but I think this is troubling.  What side is trying to do the understanding, what side is ready to adapt, accept, and conform?  Too often it is only one and I think this should not go unnoticed.  

I am regularly astounded about how incredibly ignorant most Korean people are of Western core principles; they think they know them but it is amazing how they don't really understand it (the frequent observation that Westerners are selfish is an example of this) and if they can comprehend them they certainly don't make concessions for them.  Their knowledge of almost every other aspect of Western culture is surprisingly good (especially the bad parts, which they often embrace).  Westerners on the other hand tend to be far more able to understand arguments and principles from the perspective of another culture but are woefully ignorant of many other aspects.  This could well be the liberal/conservative mindset at work and the fact that Western popular culture is envied by the rest of the world at this time.

I think it is time we started to disrespect the old saying 'When in Rome do as the Romans do' and suggest something else.  How about; when in another culture try your best to understand, be polite, be humble, open to new ways of thinking and doing things, and be willing to learn.  However, do not relinquish all of your dignity, your principles, or your self-respect.  If refusing to give way on these issues brings you into direct conflict with others, then so be it.  If refusing to give way puts you in harms way - whether this be physical, mental, or whatever - you can pretend to be respectful, but not genuinely, and you should be suspicious of their motives and of this aspect of their culture.  Not quite as pithy and eloquent as the 'Romans' proverb but it is a vast improvement.

Avoiding Conflict and the Korean in-Laws

Those of you who read one of my first articles on this site, ‘My Korean Family’, will know that I definitely do not fit the description of the perfect son in-law in a Korean family.  I don’t give gifts (except at birthdays, Chuseok, and Seollal), I will refuse an invitation to go and see them if I have made other plans, and generally I don’t automatically respect what they have to say, and do what they wish of me.  I think they must know all of this by now, but to their credit I think they are basically content in the fact that I treat their daughter well.  There are, however, still a few problems I have with the culture at large, which manifests itself in their expectations of me.

I’ll be honest, I tend to try and avoid the Korean in-laws if at all possible.  I will visit them as often as I need to and no more than that because it simply is not a comfortable atmosphere.  The problem is that I soon as I step foot in their house or meet them in a restaurant or any other place, I am to follow their instructions without argument.  This means they dictate what I do, how I should behave, where I go, for how long I stay, and even to some degree how I should feel about it all.  They are not nasty about it, they are the nicest people you could possibly meet, but their cultural expectations create something of a benign dictatorship in relations between us.  It is simply unthinkable for me to excuse myself and go home after a long day in their company, for example, or in fact to have any polite disagreement with them at all.  So a bit like a North Korean defector, I slink away under the fence to get away and avoid an argument or any conflict whatsoever.  

My wife and I do this by lying, inventing little stories so that it is easier for me to get away.  It sounds terrible doesn't it, but it is the only way, and I have commented before that in my experience many older Koreans would rather be transparently lied to than have their children or younger family members tell the truth in direct confrontation with them.  I think many underestimate just how much of a factor this kind of cultural thinking plays in the creation of an Orwellian state such as North Korea.  It sounds almost offensive for me to compare my in-laws to Kim Jong Un, but the cultural mindset is the same and along with it the attitude that your parents are owed your 100% compliance and are not to be ever disagreed with, which I am sure is not really the case, but the feeling is there nonetheless.

I see the lack of conflict within Korean families, the workplace, and in Korean society in general to be an aspect of the culture that is flawed and could do with some changing.  Honest discussion - and the intellectual and verbal conflict that arises from it - is how we all move forward because, after all, there is no light without heat.  No light (quite literally if you look at the satellite image of the country at night) has been created in North Korea because there is no healthy disagreement with how things are being done.  Everyone just does what they are told, nothing moves forward, and North Korea is famously stuck in the past because of it.

The fact of the importance of conflict is something that is also lost on an ever-increasingly overly-liberalised Western culture, where many think we just have to accept and respect everyone else’s point of view as equally valid, especially those of a different society, or shout ‘racist’ or ‘bigot’ as a conversation finisher at anyone with a controversial opinion about the behaviour of any group of people other than the particular one that we belong to.  There is also a rather odd attitude present within our own societies (and especially in mine) of bending over backwards to accommodate and understand other cultures, but at the same time – when we travel to other countries – we should always ‘do as the Romans do’ and do our best to conform to others.  With particular attention to Korea and native English teachers, I think part of their role is to give students and their co-workers a true experience of working with people of Western culture.  We would all help Koreans much more if we stuck to our principles and conformed less, because they could learn so much more from it.  But we don’t, we just tend to do what we are told most of the time or try and weasel out of difficult situations like I do with my in-laws.  We all do this in order not to offend, and perhaps also keep our jobs and not get into trouble, although I really believe we shouldn’t, and I readily admit that I find it extremely difficult myself.

Back to my in-laws, and I am often confounded by the reaction I receive when I talk ill of my in-laws by saying I dislike spending too much time with them.  I usually get a range of responses depending on who I’m talking to and how much someone knows about me.  If I am talking to a Western person (who is married or in a long-term relationship) who does not know I am married to a Korean, I am usually met with a reaction along the lines of this, ‘yeah, I know, the in-laws are a pain in the neck sometimes aren’t they.’  If I am talking to a Korean friend or acquaintance and complaining about my in-laws, I also – pretty much 100% of the time – get the same kind of sympathetic response and also complaints about their own in-laws in return.  This is no surprise really as many Koreans – especially women – really do bear a significant burden from their in-laws.  But also, when you think about it, is it really that much of a controversial thing to say that you don’t like spending time with your in-laws?  Is this a rare feeling in people generally around the world?  I think not.  However, you wouldn’t know this if you could hear the criticism I receive sometimes from Western liberal-minded people, who know I am married to a Korean woman.  If I complain about my in-laws then, it is common to receive a barrage of comments saying that I should have known what the culture was like and I need to adapt to it and accept it and that I am simply not trying hard enough.  That is not how it should work, I should compromise on some things because of politeness and custom, but I will not bow down to everything they say because I need to accept their culture.  When it comes to respecting someone to the degree that you cannot engage in honest debate and disagreement with them, no respect shall be given and I say this from a logical, reasonable, and moral stand-point, the difference in culture is irrelevant.

To not be able to speak openly and honestly with someone without fear of reprisal and dire consequences is something that I cannot respect, accept, adapt to, or feel comfortable with.  This is the position I find I am forced into in relations with my in-laws.  The best I can do is tolerate it, I’m afraid.  I love my wife and I put myself through it all because of her, fortunately I do not have to meet her parents all that often and my attitude of trying not to feel guilty about having these feelings means that I can avoid meeting them more than is absolutely necessary.  The horrible thing about it all is that I actually like my in-laws, they are nice, caring, and kind people, it is simply this one aspect of their culture that makes dealings with them much more difficult than it should be.

In Korea, I am uncomfortable that the right to disagree, argue, and debate honestly seems to be taken away from many people.  It is not enshrined in law or indeed in principle, but it is in practice.  The frustrating thing is that to notice this and complain about it in writing or even to friends is often seen as something worthy of shame, stubbornness, laziness, and sometimes even bigotry and racism.  It appears that the West is engaging in restricting debate and freedom of speech as well.  We talk a good game, and freedom to express ourselves may even be written in our constitutions, but again in practice we still try to silence and smear others to end arguments and stop the controversy to avoid a conflict.  Disagreements in opinions and ideas leads to a better understanding of each other, a greater knowledge of your own subject and position, an ability to change and move forward, the acknowledgement of problems and their possible solutions, and – perhaps the most importantly of all – the avoidance of violent conflict or other disastrous consequences in the future.

With me personally, my relationship with my Korean in-laws will always be a difficult and somewhat of an awkward one, which teeters on a knife edge, perhaps prone to a fatal collapse one day.  It is all because we really don’t know each other, in over three years we have never talked openly and honestly about anything, every situation being mired in courtesy, custom, and fear of saying the wrong thing.  At best we tolerate each other, we don’t genuinely respect each other and this situation can be translated to many thorny situations around the world and especially within multi-cultural nations.

To hell with ‘tolerance’ and to hell with causing ‘offence’, I want to truly understand and respect people, not just pretend to.  This is an up-swelling of frustration that has afflicted me since living in South Korea, the feeling that every day I am too much of a coward to really get to know people and that I am valued as a person for holding back on my principles in this regard and cowering away from confrontation.  The fact is though, I should stop beating myself up because at this time the straitjacket would be applied everywhere, not just in Korea.  Most of us are cowards, we need to be and I will settle back into the routine after writing this article of being nice to and conforming to the wishes of others who I really have no respect for whatsoever because, out of a fear of offending them (and vice versa), I have never really known them and they have never really known me.  No wonder we cannot truly respect and understand one another.

Note: This post was first written by me for asiapundits.com but I thought I would re-post it on my own blog as well.

Should We Respect North Korea?

The short and obvious answer to this question is of course not, they are not worthy of any respect at all.  Their actions are ridiculous, dangerous, and the regime are more interested in respect than the well-being of their people.  Therefore we should hold our ground and give them nothing, right?

The thing is though, after reading an article about the North Korea issue from the Huffington Post, I was given pause to think about whether sticking to our principles is the right way forward and if we could all do with thinking about the problem from another angle.   The article is fairly correct in a few ways (Note: before I get accusations of supporting the entirety of this article and being anti-american, I should just say that I do not believe the US is the cause of most of the world's problems, but I do think they try and sort everything out when it is perhaps beyond their ability to do so) but I am going to focus on one aspect in particular because I have written so much about the subject on this blog, summed-up by this line:

"North Korea wants respect, not war."

For anyone who has spent any time living in South Korea, this one line should be blindingly obvious when you think about it.  I have written on this blog, perhaps ad nauseam, about the role respect culture plays in every day life in South Korea and how those of higher status want your respect and compliance.  They are not after a debate, conflict, or finding the truth about things that even they would be better off knowing a bit about, they want you to conform to their wishes and show respect, this is of prime importance.

If showing respect and conforming means telling some of the most transparent lies possible and simply placating them then that is fine.  I have found that South Koreans who believe they are of higher status will accept even the most hollow of shows of respect to avoid any conflict.  This is especially true when dealing with the older generation who, as I mentioned over at Asiapundits, are starkly different to the younger generation and share far more in common with those in North Korea.

If any country in the world must be suffering from a bout of bruised pride then North Korea must surely be one the the best candidates for it.  For those in the country that know the situation in the South and the economic success of the USA, it must grate like nails on a chalk board.  The US have respect, the South has it too, and the North has none, it is a joke, a crazy crackpot regime, stuck in the past in more ways than one and is fit to be made fun of time and time again.  What is the only thing they have to get the rest of the world to take them seriously?  The potential for a nuclear bomb, and it uses the threat of it frequently in order to gain some respect and it works.  Why would they want to give that up?  War would be the last thing they would want to do, because as weird and crazy as the North is, they are not suicidal.  However, they want to be noticed and recognised as a player on the world scene and the sabre-rattling achieves this nicely.

I think that for a Western mindset it is sometimes positively skin-crawling to bow down and give respect to those who you think don't deserve it.  An American friend of mine from a few years ago would never do it to anyone in Korea or when he lived in Japan, and in principle at least, I kind of agree with him.  To me, when I think about it too much, bowing is offensive in more ways than one. As much as anything else, you are being dishonest by showing respect when you don't really believe it (this happens on some occasions) and to me this seems even less respectful.  The moral value of equality also appears to be compromised in many of the situations I find myself bowing in.

That matters not on the Korean peninsula, many South Koreans and the North Korean regime don't give a damn if things aren't fair, aren't honest, or whether your pride is compromised and they certainly don't give a damn about logic and moral principles.  What is right is what the higher status person says is right, plain and simple.  If you have ever wondered why Korean people appear to have some strange logic sometimes, it is precisely because of this.  Questioning the status quo does not come naturally and when an outsider or someone younger points out any problems or argues against this, they are not credited with knowing anything as they are not worthy of high status and therefore respect.  The old ways change in South Korea only when they are shown to be unprofitable or are embarrassing to the people as a whole.

What to do then with North Korea?  Placate them; do the same as all of us do who live in South Korea and want an easy ride, suck up to them a little, tell them exactly what they want to hear and don't believe any of it.  We don't have to be clever, we don't even need to really back up what we say with any meaningful actions, we just need to make a bit of a show to save the face of the North Korean regime and Kim Jong Un.  The question is, can the world do this with North Korea and should we do this with North Korea?  If the answer to both questions is no, then surely it is wrong for anyone to do it with the elders of the South, but we do it everyday nonetheless under the name of getting by in the world.

In principle, I am totally with those on the right of the argument, we are in the right, our values trump those of North Korea and they are the ones who need to start acting responsibly and change their ways.  But in practice, I am on the left, but only out of a sense of the reality of the difficulty of the situation. The US and its allies are not big enough to benevolently change the whole world, we learned this the hard way in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Again, in principle, it is a good thing to rid the world of Saddam Hussain, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda but changing the hearts, minds, and culture embedded in people through thousands of years of history is beyond us all at this moment in time and is largely a futile exercise.

Standing up for Western principles is something we should never be ashamed to do within our own countries and even promoting them to others through dialogue is not a bad idea, but we cannot really hope to force the issue effectively away from home, as much as we would love to show the whole world the way forward (and I genuinely believe that the Western world is the most enlightened at this period of time, but that is not to say it is perfect).  Some radical elements of the Muslim world live among us in our countries and in Europe increasing Muslim populations - many with wholly differing values - are coming head to head with Western principles.  We must hold firm to this challenge and assert our belief that personal freedom, freedom of speech, reasoned argument, equality, and human rights for all will never be suppressed and if anyone doesn't like this they are more than welcome to go to a country without any of them and see how they like living there.

I would love to see the North Korean regime get its just desserts, it is mad and causes untold suffering among its own people.  But it is difficult to help people who don't want to be helped and if in the process of pitting our values against theirs it causes the deaths of possibly hundreds and thousands of people, I think I might be able to swallow my pride and placate them a little, pretty much exactly like I do every day in South Korea to live an easier life.  The thing that really makes me unsure, however, is standing-by all these years has undoubtedly caused the deaths of possibly millions of North Koreans.  This causes a genuine moral dilemma.  Would it in fact be worth risking the destruction of a city like Seoul or Tokyo in order to save potentially millions of North Koreans now and in the future?  Maybe it is easy to understand why the world has not reached a satisfactory solution to the problem and the stalemate will probably continue for some time yet.

The Hidden Meanings of 'Gentleman' and 'Gangnam Style' are Completely Lost on Korea and the World (and Maybe Even on PSY)

This post follows on from an article I wrote for asiapundits last week, where I called into question the image that Psy is creating for himself, and that because the country is so much in his corner, the image of Korea in many people's eyes also. 

If you hadn't figured it out, yes there are hidden messages in Psy's new song 'Gentleman' so perhaps it isn't all that bad after all.  This maybe no surprise, but they are fiendishly difficult to detect for most and especially those who live outside Korea.  Let's analyse the song in a bit more detail.

The translated lyrics first:

-I-I I’m a, I-I-I I’m a
I-I-I I’m a, mother-father-gentleman

I-I-I I’m a, I-I-I I’m a
I-I-I I’m a, mother-father-gentleman

I-I-I I’m a, I-I-I I’m a
I-I-I I’m a, mother-father-gentleman

Gonna make you sweat
Gonna make you wet
You know who I am, west side
Gonna make you sweat
Gonna make you wet
You know who I am, west side

I-I-I I’m a, I-I-I I’m a
I-I-I I’m a, mother-father-gentleman

I-I-I I’m a, I-I-I I’m a
I-I-I I’m a, mother-father-gentleman

I-I-I I’m a, I-I-I I’m a
I-I-I I’m a, mother-father-gentleman

I don't know if you know why it needs to be hot 
I don't know if you know why it needs to be clean 
I don't know if you know, it'll be a problem if you're confused 
I don't know if you know but we like, we we we like to party

Hey there
If I'm going to introduce myself 
I'm a cool guy with courage, spirit and craziness 
What you wanna hear, what you wanna do is me 
Damn! Girl! You so freakin sexy!

Ah Ah Ah Ah I'm a...
Ah Ah Ah Ah I'm a... 
Ah Ah Ah Ah I'm a mother father gentleman

Ah Ah Ah Ah I'm a...
Ah Ah Ah Ah I'm a... 
Ah Ah Ah Ah I'm a mother father gentleman

I'm a, ah I'm a
I'm a mother father gentleman 
I'm a, ah I'm a 
I'm a mother father gentleman

I'm a, ah I'm a
I'm a mother father gentleman 
I'm a, ah I'm a 
I'm a mother father gentleman

I'm a, ah I'm a
I'm a mother father gentleman 
I'm a, ah I'm a 
I'm a mother father gentleman

I don't know if you know why it needs to be smooth
I don't know if you know why it needs to be sexy 
I don't know if you know darling, hurry and come be crazy 
I don't know if you know, it's crazy, crazy, hurry up

Hey there
Your head, waist, legs, calves 
Good! Feeling feeling? Good! It's soft 
I'll make you gasp and I'll make you scream 
Damn! Girl! I'm a party mafia!

Ah Ah Ah Ah I'm a...
Ah Ah Ah Ah I'm a... 
Ah Ah Ah Ah I'm a mother father gentleman

Ah Ah Ah Ah I'm a...
Ah Ah Ah Ah I'm a... 
Ah Ah Ah Ah I'm a mother father gentleman

I'm a, ah I'm a
I'm a mother father gentleman 
I'm a, ah I'm a 
I'm a mother father gentleman

Gonna make you sweat.
Gonna make you wet 
You know who I am Wet PSY

Gonna make you sweat.
Gonna make you wet. 
You know who I am 
Wet PSY! Wet PSY! Wet PSY! Wet PSY! PSY! PSY! PSY! 

Ah I'm a mother father gentleman

I'm a,  ah I'm a 
I'm a mother father gentleman 
I'm a, ah I'm a,  I'm a mother father gentleman

Mother father gentleman

Mother father gentleman 

Source: http://www.policymic.com

Alright, so maybe the lyrics aren't that great, but we are assured that there is cutting satire at the heart of it all when combined with the video; I will let a blog in the Wall Street Journal explain:

• If it ain’t broke: PSY could have appeased critics by releasing something completely different from his shock blockbuster; instead, he deliberately chose not to jolt fans, issuing a song that’s candidly similar in sound, and pairing it with a video that’s not just familiar, it’s arguably a direct continuation of the first viral clip — set in the same surreal version of Seoul and featuring many of the same characters. Which should make it clear that PSY is trying to…
• Tell a continuing story: In case this needs reinforcement, the PSY we see in “Gangnam Style” and “Gentleman” is a fictional character; he bears little relationship to Park Jae-Song, the artist who plays that role (Park is, by all reports, a rather nice guy). But PSY, which is short for “psycho,” is a persona that Park has been workshopping for over a decade, across six albums, each of which can be seen as chapters in PSY’s evolution (they’re even more or less presented that way — after his debut, PSY from the PSYcho World, his subsequent releases have mostly been numbered, with his current EP, PSY 6, coming on the heels of his last full album PSYfive). People soon realized that “Gangnam Style” was more than just prankster dada — it was a sly, intentional riff on Korean materialism and classist inequality; “Gentleman” could be seen as planting the same satirical barb into the world of the gender dynamics of Korean society, which is decidedly male-dominated. No, Korean men don’t usually give women the stinkfinger or yank chairs out from under them — but, PSY seems to suggest, the way that males treat females in a patriarchal Confucian society isn’t really that different. He also allows Son Ga-In to give him his comeuppance at the video’s end, before closing off with scenes that show both Ga-In and PSY hilariously aping the cliche exotic-dancer inspired moves that mark both Western hip hop and a growing number of K-Pop videos. (I would be surprised if there weren’t at least a third chapter to the “PSY trilogy” that tips another of Korea’s sacred cows. PSY dancing in the DMZ? Haha, we’ll see. Meanwhile, the details above show how PSY is always careful to…
• Pay attention to the little things: PSY is as close as you get to an artist-auteur as you’ll see in Korean pop music’s hyper-managed ecology — he writes his music and lyrics, co-directs his videos and actively participates in choreographing the outlandish dance moves that go with his grooves. (For “Gentleman,” he adapted the Brown Eyed Girls’ well-known “Arrogance Dance” from 2009’s “Abracadabra,” even paying a fee to that song’s choreography team, Yama & Hotchicks, for the right to do so.) PSY’s level of meticulousness can be seen in nuances like the hypnotically switching ponytails of the dancers during the song’s signature hipsway, as well as the song’s tongue-in-cheek gangsta elements — the “mother father gentleman” chorus and the shoutout at the end, not to the West Side, but to “Wet PSY.”

Let's do a little analysis of this shall we.

Point 1 

Psy is simply a genius for sticking with the same 'tired and tested' formula (sorry 'tried and tested'), he could have appeased his critics but he chose to do a song and video that are so similar that everyone who was happy with 'Gangnam Style' must surely be happy with 'Gentleman'.  Good on him.  Or could it just be that he could not have produced anything else and was worried that any originality would not create the desired response?

Point 2

He is a genius again this time for producing two songs that are so subtle in poking fun at first materialism and second the treatment of women in a patriarchal society like Korea.  It is surprising and shows greater depth to his music than anyone thought there could be.

Seeing as Psy is so smart, perhaps he should realise that the overwhelming message that both 'Gangnam Style' and 'Gentleman' sends is that of horsing around (quite literally), which there is nothing wrong with but let's not try to give it anymore credit than that.  The message is so subtle and so covered in dirt in the video of 'Gentleman' that you wouldn't know there was a message there at all unless you were told so.  The deeper message in 'Gentleman' is comparable to belching and farting the tune to REM's 'Everybody Hurts' and expecting those grieving lost loved ones to find it meaningful.  'Gentleman' is not likely to highlight or improve the plight of woman in a patriarchal Confucian society (unless he does some serious work outside of the song to campaign for better treatment), but there might be a few more farts flying in their faces and stolen bikinis. 

Since the release of 'Gangnam Style' I have not noticed Koreans or people from any other country changing the way they look at their increasingly materialistic lifestyles, the underlying statement of that song has gone almost completely unnoticed by people in his own country and it is therefore highly likely in the rest of the world also.  I can't also help but notice that Psy has promoted countless products in TV adverts since his big hit, including products from LG and Samsung, he also advertised beer, soju, facial products, Ramen and many more.  It seems that the hidden messages aren't even getting through to him.  He himself appears to be a Gangnam 'Oppa' and proud of it.

Point 3

He is a genius, he is a music artist that writes his own songs (not always) and co-directs his videos (rare in South Korea maybe, but not in the rest of the world).  He is also a genius for not coming up with an original dance routine but copying another one from another group and including them in the video.  Or could it just be that he was desperate to develop another crazy dance move and was finding it difficult to come up with anything that hadn't been done before.  Again, there really is nothing wrong with any of this, but let's not attribute any of this to nuance and genius.


There is more.  This post from the Korean Gender Cafe shows even more hints of Psy's refinement and meticulous nature in producing his music and videos.  I know he is from Korea, and it is understandable he is aiming all the subtlety at his Korean audience, but I wonder how many of them get it either.  Will they only understand these subtle messages if someone ends up pointing it out to them?

This post is turning into a bit of a rant on my part, and I am not usually persuaded to use this style of writing and perhaps I am wrong about Psy and he really is showing an extremely deep and meaningful side to his art.  He is certainly intelligent, I will give him that, he has produced a song that has rocked the world and now maybe a second, and they aren't even that good.  He must know what the people want.

I don't really dislike Psy or any of his work that much really, but the hype over it, and the meaning some are attributing to it, is starting to get my goat a little bit.  The tireless promotion and obsession about Psy by many South Koreans also makes me worry just how other countries will view Korean culture as a whole - as I wrote about in asiapundits - in that, although the deep hidden message isn't vulgar and crude, the crassness of it all is precisely what most of the world will see and the obsessive pride Koreans have in it. 

I wonder what the true motivation for making his music videos really is.  Is it to highlight problems in society and bring about social change or is it simply to be clever?  Or is to make a crude video that gets panned by supposed intellectuals just so he can then turn round and say 'haha, I am really smarter than you, you didn't see all this stuff.'  He is right most of us did need some help to see it, but it is still simply an excuse for a crude video in my eyes.  Bit of fun, maybe, enlightened and concerned social commentator and activist, I don't buy it.

Psy is smart, no doubt, and many attribute more to his music than there is to see at first glance, so if he is so smart why can't he see that his style is counter-productive to getting any deeper information over to the public?  Perhaps it really is not his intention to convey anything deep, just to create an interesting piece of music and video, but he does seem to take extraordinary care in placing these subtle aspects into his music.  The problem is, however, the serious stuff can't be taken seriously when the overall tone is so crude.  To me it seems a bit of a waste of time to put all this time in to a video that hardly anyone will understand and, if they do, will largely ignore anyway.  But who knows, maybe that is why I am not a successful music artist.

One other thing I am curious about, is if I were really concerned about how people in my country were too materialistic, or too misogynistic I would be really anxious to make sure my music was understood for what the true meaning is.  Maybe I am wrong, but Psy doesn't seem too bothered that the vast majority of his audience don't care for or at least don't notice his messages.  I don't know anything about the man, so this is just a theory; I think that he is not too worried as long as the money and the youtube views keep rolling in, but I am waiting to be proved wrong about that.

'Gentleman' is simply bad taste, full-stop, no amount of disguised nuance can take that away and the vast majority of all those millions that will watch on youtube and buy his music will take the childish messages rather than the enlightened ones.  I don't want to sound snobby but his kind of music will not appeal to the kind of people who will understand or receive the nuance meaning of it all. 

Each to his own, and if 'Gentleman' is as successful as 'Gangnam Style' you would have to say well done.  I am not knocking the guy really, if he wants to produce music and videos like this, then great, but let us not big him up to anything other than finding a formula that is appealing to the masses.  I would urge Korean people not to get too preoccupied with promoting him (or using him to promote Korea) because the association could very well end up back-firing on the culture at large in the long-run.  Without the hype, honestly, is the music really that good and is it really worth being proud of?

The Joys of Living in Korea

Out of a very British sense of fairness perhaps, I am feeling a little uncomfortable with the amount of bad news or negative stories I have been writing about Korea recently on this blog and the general malaise about North Korea as well.  Believe me when I say that things aren't all bad, indeed they are very often good and better than back home in England in many regards.  This goes without saying really when you think about it, because if everything is bad then why the hell have I stayed here for so long?

So here is a list of reasons why I think Korea is actually a pretty decent place to live most of the time. 

Life is simplified (for a foreigner or native English teacher)

It really is stupidly easy to live here, even if you cannot speak the language.  When you arrive everything is usually sorted out for you; you have an apartment without looking for one, furniture without shopping, and are set up with a bank account. 

Life generally is made exceptionally easy with great delivery services, you don't have to search around for the best energy providers, public transport is efficient and cheap, and if you live in even a small city or town a convenience store, supermarket, gym, department store, doctors, dentists, pharmacy, a variety of restaurants, and all the services you can possibly need are all just around the corner.

Korean Food

As a man who is from a country well known for terrible food (for good reason), I can tell you that I really love the food here, and enjoy being introduced to such a wide variety of different Korean foods.  Korean people take great pride in their food, and for this reason I am never short of generous souls to take me out for lunch or dinner to a different restaurant so they can watch me gleefully gorge myself on another new Korean dish.  I have met some foreigners who say there is little variety and that it is all the same spicy taste, but I think they have simply not gone out there and experimented or tried enough different Korean foods.  There is great variety here, and most of it is extremely healthy, yet another tick in the box for Korean cuisine.  You can even travel to experience specialty food, something that I seem to be doing more often.  Korea has a rich culinary tradition and certain foods are considered especially delicious in different parts of the country where they specialise in them and this is well worth exploring.

Finding Work and the Work Itself

As a native English speaker, finding work in Korea is easy and for me as a man who is married to a Korean it becomes exceptionally easy.  As long as you give your work as a teacher here its own meaning and try to excel at your job, you will be appreciated and at the same time as finding work as an English teacher quite undemanding, you will be challenged enough to make things interesting.  This challenge is greater when you have to plan all your lessons without the aid of textbooks or any syllabus, like I have to.  This takes extra time and effort but is rewarding as it gives me an intellectual freedom in my job that I really enjoy.  Even for teachers without this amount of freedom, relishing the challenge of teaching and motivating students whose language it not your own is the key to enjoying the native English teacher experience.

The Lack of Petty Crime

There will always be stories that can be shared that are exceptions to this rule, but it is nice to be able to walk around with at least some level of faith that nothing will be stolen or if you lose something it might get returned to you.  As I have mentioned before on this blog, some shop owners just store their stock outside on the street under some shelter from the rain and no one steals anything.  I could not imagine this happening in Britain.  Also, if you lose your wallet you do have a great chance of getting it back with everything still inside.  Reckless vandalism also appears to be almost non-existent.  Perhaps much of this is because of a Confucian based culture's greater respect for authority, an aspect of their culture to which I have pointed out a fair amount of downsides to, but this happens to be a happy result of it.

The Lack of Politically Correct Nonsense


None of this nonsense in Korea.

Sometimes in my British world of forcing school kids to wear goggles for a game of conkers, law suits for tripping on cracks in the street, failure to criticise anyone within a group of people for fear of giving offence, and everyone wins sports for the young, I yearn for some spade calling bluntness and this is what you can get in Korea.  Kids are wondering around at night buying street-food without fear of abduction or anyone reporting their parents to social services, obese people are called lazy people who need to exercise more and this is widely accepted, my high schoolers are given the responsibility for cleaning their classrooms and changing light bulbs without the fear of them having an asthma attack from dust or killing themselves with electric shocks (no one has died yet), and people trip up and make a mistake by not looking where they are going and slink off in an embarrassed manner without looking for the nearest person to claim money off of.  There are many more examples I could go through.  Sometimes they are too harsh, too blunt, and don't consider individuals very much or empathise with them but mostly I do appreciate their clarity and no-nonsense approach.

Random Acts of Kindness

I sometimes experience a level of sweetness in Korea that I rarely experience back home.  This can be in the form of offering food, surrendering an umbrella or lending one when it is raining, the offering of lifts in a car when I have looked lost and other kind gestures.  Whether these acts occur out of a sense of duty or not they can be very heart-warming.  One of the situations where I often find kind acts being done to me is while hiking, where offers of food, drink or assistance seem to be particularly common.

Exploring the Country

With a little bit of knowledge of Korean it is possible to explore the whole country just by taking public transport - which ties in with what I said about the ease of living.  With mountains, beaches, gorges, forests, islands, different foods, temples and historical landmarks, Korea is a great place to travel around with the added bonus - especially for a skin-flint like me - of not breaking the bank either.  It is a great country to explore and one that is still relatively free of tourists, so a genuine feel of the culture can be experienced.

Young People

I am very fond of young people in Korea, especially between the ages of about 11-20.  Really young kids just annoy me, period, regardless of their nationality, but that is just my personality.  Young people in Korea, in my opinion are especially kind, fun, friendly, open-minded, and polite.  Contrary to what some believe, I find them generally highly respectful of foreign teachers - something I explained in a previous post, here.  Reverse the situation and have Koreans teaching in English schools and I doubt whether student behaviour would be so kindly.  The reason for their affability might be because of their respect culture and the fact they are slightly oppressed by it, both in their dealings everyday with elders and their monumental amounts of study.  Respect culture is something I profoundly dislike but I must admit it does seem to create nice kids, perhaps exactly because they are slightly down-trodden by it.

There is Always Plenty of Controversy and Conflict

Some might think that this is a bad thing, but if you can embrace the difference in the culture here, you will never be short of a talking point over dinner.  Some people think embracing a culture means accepting it, I disagree.  Arguing against things you believe are wrong is important regardless of culture.  I have conflicts with Korean culture all the time but I don't necessarily accept their point of view as equally valid, I enjoy the battle against it, even if many of these battles have to be fought in my head or keyboard in hand on my blog.  If you want a debate, to write, or to be intellectually stimulated, there can be few better places to be in the world than in Korea with so much up for discussion.  This more than makes up for the stresses of clashing with the culture sometimes.  If you want a stress-free life that doesn't challenge your principles, go home or stay away.  If you want a bit of spice and interest and have your worldviews challenged, come to Korea and enjoy the ride.

People are Genuinely Interested in you

A year or so ago I took a trip to Indonesia and I was constantly disappointed by how many times someone would start a friendly conversation with me that always, in the end, turned out to be an emotional blackmailing tactic for me to buy something off of them.  You just never experience this in Korea, people are genuinely interested in you and where you come from or they want to practice their English with you.  It leads to many unexpected and pleasant conversations that can put a little smile on your face.  I have always felt a touch of innocence in many of the people in Korea in this regard and it is a very charming trait about them.

These are my own personal joys about living in Korea.  If any of my readers would like to add to this, by commenting below, I would be really interested to know if I have left anything out.

Asiapundits

This is a short announcement for any followers of my blog.

I am currently writing some articles for asiapundits.com, as well as writing on here, and here is a list of recent articles in case any of you are interested.  I usually don't re-blog these articles on my site but I might occasionally in the future.  All of the articles listed below have not appeared on my site.

1. Deals with the similarities between North and South Korea.
http://www.asiapundits.com/regions/korea/understanding-north-korea-by-seeing-the-similarities-with-the-south/

2. Private schools from the perspective of Korean students, showing what a misery they can be.
http://www.asiapundits.com/regions/korea/the-misery-of-private-schools-hagwons-in-korea/

3. Examining the big differences between the old and the young in Korea.
http://www.asiapundits.com/regions/korea/the-generation-gap-in-south-korea/

4. The old chestnut of prejudice of white Western men and Asian women, but why do the same issues keep cropping-up?  A reminder of what can be experienced by such a couple.
http://www.asiapundits.com/regions/white-western-men-with-asian-women/

5. Sexual harassment of nurses in Korea.
http://www.asiapundits.com/regions/korea/the-sexual-harassment-and-abuse-of-nurses-in-korea/

6. Stories of the past in Korea told by my Korean grandmother.
http://www.asiapundits.com/regions/korea/my-korean-grandmothers-memories-of-the-japanese-occupation-and-the-korean-war/

7. Chinese tourists are becoming more prevalent and create real issues.
http://www.asiapundits.com/asia_life/the-rise-of-the-chinese-tourist/

8. Bullying in South Korea, especially in the workplace.
http://www.asiapundits.com/regions/korea/bullying-in-south-korea/

A Response to Wangjangnim's Rebuttal on Hagwons in Korea

The debate I am currently having with a hagwon (private academy) owner at wangjangnim.com is proving more topical than I realised because of the reaction to some adverts aimed at students in Korea involving getting down to study in Korea.  Have a look at this post from Koreabang.

Translated from the left ad: Now that the new term has begun you will start spending more time with you friends, saying it is for your friendship.  Every time you do that the study you planned to do will be postponed little by little.  But what to do.... you can't postpone college entrance exams.  Don't start wavering now, your friends will not study for you.

Upper right: Let's make them study to death!

Lower right: Only send them home to sleep.

Last week I posted about an ethical dilemma posed by being a hagwon boss in Korea.  I highlighted a couple of articles I read from a website called wangjangnim.com.  The writer of these posts was a hagwon owner himself and I thought he posed some interesting issues on a very thoughtful blog.

He posted a rebuttal to my article which can be viewed here.  I actually think on reading this last post that we agree far more than maybe we both realised to begin with, but we still do have some differences.  What is interesting is that we do come at the problem from two different perspectives, me as a teacher and someone who has close connections with Koreans through my wife's family, and he as an actual owner of a hagwon.  Here is my response to his points.

Point 1 - Excess Study

I entirely agree with everything he wrote on this point, and yes it is easy to condemn, but I do not think that it is therefore wrong to condemn excess study.  I was trying to be objective.  Without voicing disapproval of such things, nothing changes.

Point 2 - Feeling Sorry and Western Arrogance

I do feel sorry for the kids, I can't help it.  I think they are being let down by the Korean mindset with regard to progressing in life.  If this is arrogant to say, then I admit to being an arrogant Westerner.  My wife is a hagwon teacher too and she feels desperately sorry for not just hagwon students but most students in Korea, she lived through it and rebelled against it in her youth and I think it is fair to say she hates the system far more than me.  She learned far more English when she left full-time education and persued an interest in it by travelling to other countries.  She was motivated and this is the key.  Is she arrogant as well for having the same opinion as me?

Point 3 - Ignorance of Hagwon Regulations

I will freely admit that this was a little bit of a woolly assertion on my part as I don't know about regulations.  Wangjangnim is in a better position to know about it than me, but I do know of Koreans who have started study rooms (a bit like small Hagwons) that are not subject to any regulations if they don't have a foreign teacher.  My other question that I raised on the asiapundits website still stands and this is about the regulations regarding Korean owners of Hagwons - not foreigners like wangjangnim - and are there any regulations regarding the quality of the books and materials they use to teach and assessments of the quality of the teaching?

Point 4 - Value over Content?

Not 100% clear on this point but my point of view is that parents are making sacrifices in an ever increasing arms race to better equip their children.  Whether they need to make such sacrifices is debatable, but even if they did have to, I think the system is broken and it shouldn't have to be that way.  I accept that with the way the system currently operates, it is difficult as a parent to break free of this way of educating children.  I also acknowledge that many parents work and that hagwons are serving as a babysitter for them.

Point 5 - I Don't Hear you Complaining About Fast Food Businesses

This is because I am writing a blog about South Korea and issues that effect Korean students.  If I was writing about an obesity problem I might well have a problem with fast food restaurants but even then the comparison is not entirely fair.  I would hope that most people know the ramifications of eating too much fast food and know that it is unhealthy.  They are therefore making and informed free choice to be unhealthy when they go, fair enough.  The lack of understanding of English in Korea makes knowledge of progress rather unclear I think, both for the student (because they maybe too young to understand) and the parent (who often has no knowledge of English).  The industry is also almost solely focused on giving a service to children and it is their time and effort they are taking.  Parents are responsible for what children eat to a large extent and their money buys fast food.  They know it is unhealthy yet they still buy it or give them the money for it, therefore I believe the moral responsibility lies more towards them than the business.  I am only saying there is a more equal balance in the case of hagwons.  I do think fast-food restaurants have moral responsibility for the effects of their food when they market so heavily to young people, though.

Point 6 - Teachers are not the Miracle Solution

I fully concede your point.  The wider point I was making, however, is that the strategies many hagwons use for their foreign teachers are poorly thought out and in many cases counter-productive and the teacher would be better off doing their own thing.  I never meant to imply they were a solution to anything.

Point 7 and 8 - A Dog Calling a Cat Stupid

There is of course no abuse in teaching children when they want to learn or even when they don't but it is in their best interests.  My worry, however, was that there are too many students being taught when they don't want to learn and it is not in their best interests or they are too exhausted to learn, having studied excessively already.  I actually didn't use the term abuse, but I do think it is wrong to inflict forced study on students to the excesses I mentioned in my article.  Students studying all day until 11pm and having homework, come on, these kids do not want to learn, they have had quite enough and it is not in their best interests to study anymore.  Maybe not all students have had enough by the evening but my long experience in Korea, and the testimony of many a Korean, says that most of them want to have a rest and have some fun.  I am not basing this on my own experiences of childhood but on Koreans themselves.

Point 9 - Western Education Better?

I never claimed the above point.  I actually think that a combination of both cultures attitudes to education would do the world of good on both sides.  There are things I like about Korean education and things I dislike, just the same as my views on Western (or should I say British education).  I taught in England too and had many a grumble about the way we do things as well, like the way we wrap students in cotton wool and give way to their every need for an easy life.  Korean education goes in the other direction.  In the East, the child is seen as strong, flexible, and adaptable, they can take a lot of hardship.  In the West, we see children from the opposite point of view; children are weak, vulnerable and need to be protected at all costs.  I believe there is some room for a good deal of middle-ground between the two ways of viewing children.

Point 10 - Understanding Koreans

I think I understand why Koreans do as they do, but that really was not the point of my original article, which was aimed at showing the point of view of a student.  I did, however, through in the odd claim which you quite rightly corrected or at least pointed out needed greater explanation.  I know Koreans have a deep love for their children (I don't think this is greater than in the West, just equally great).  They want what is best for them, of course, and they feel guilt and pressure from society to make them successful.  They are also more reliant on their children when they are older, this is obvious as a group culture will rely on a family group more than an individualistic culture.  I do think this is a factor in wanting to make their children successful and they do - not so gently - push their children into professions they might not otherwise want to do.

I believe the well-being of students in Korea is pretty low and I think there is a better way forward, so therefore I think the current way is wrong.  I was not saying that the current way in the West was right.  The Western education system does not adequately prepare students for life and is increasingly not delving into subjects with enough detail and pandering to students too much, lowering standards (this is a very brief summary of what is wrong) I think this is wrong too.  Our expectations of students is simply lower in the West and this is why test scores are lower, we need to expect more from our students.  Also, is life and education really all about passing tests?


Regarding Criticism of Last Weeks Post

I have no idea of the situation and the student you describe so I can't really comment on you specifically, but again my wider point is that I suspect anyone with any work experience in a hagwon will know of the quiet, tired students who never speak and never improve and who have stayed at the hagwon, wasting their evenings for years.  That was the moral dilemma I was talking of; should hagwon owners keep taking their parents' money and wasting the children's time?  Even the best of intentioned hagwon owners do, I believe, or their businesses would fail, and I don't really blame them as the students they refuse would surely end up in another hagwon anyway.  That is why it is a dilemma and the system needs sorting out.  I never meant to tar all hagwon owners with the same brush of being bad people, I know they are not.

I simply don't believe that parental love is greater or more committed than in the West, it is surely the same.  It is just that love is shown in different ways.  Too much love can also be a bad thing and parents do need to step back and give their children breathing space sometimes.  They can't teach their children everything and realising this is a big step in helping them lead happy, successful, and fulfilling lives.  I worry that the culture as a whole is not getting to grips with this fact at the moment and that many young people in Korea are suffering because of it.


Confronting Criticisms I Hear a lot

I get slightly tired of defending myself against three points you raised here; arrogance, looking at things with Western blinkers on, and comparing Korean culture with my own. 

Regardless of where I am from, I think there is an objective position between other cultures where truth and the best way forward lie.  Sometimes, however, it just maybe that an aspect of one culture is right and the other culture is just wrong.  I am guarded against being too Western in my opinions and my wife usually helps me gauge when I have stepped over the line and entered into a Western-centric argument.  As a Korean, if she supports a Western aspect of culture over her own, does that mean she is only seeing things from a Western point of view?  I don't think so.  The fact is she and I weigh both sides and form an opinion.  Forming an opinion in disagreement with others is what many people do and calling it arrogant is a bizarre argument and in danger of being emotive rather than a logical.  I am being called arrogant for having an opinion, nothing more.  My opinion should be shot down with a logical argument nothing more, and the colour of my skin or where I was born should be irrelevant.

Finally, when it comes to the last point, I am damned if I do and damned if I don't.  I get heavily criticised for posts when I compare aspects of my own and Korean culture.  When I do it in favour of Korean culture I hear nothing, but when I do it in favour of my own I have calls of arrogance, ignorance, and even sometimes racism and only from Westerners.  I think this because of a kind of liberal-minded taboo that has been created in Western culture and a feeling that we should shut up and be sorry for our past prejudices and crimes.  When I don't compare mine and Korean culture (in my origin post on asiapundits and last week on this blog I did not do this other than the example of my summer holidays) I am assumed to be trumping my own cultures whole way of doing things, I can't win.  This is why I am seriously thinking of publishing another blog about the UK.  Writing a criticism on this blog of Korean culture and having to explain everything about my own in relation to it in one post is almost impossible.  I find it highly frustrating to have to defend myself against things I did not write, but are assumed of me, because I did not include it in an already long blog post.

Anyway, this one is becoming overly long so I'll wrap it up.  Many thanks to wangjangnim.com for replying so thoughtfully and I hope this post has cleared up my position.  I really don't think we disagree too much and I am sure we both have Korean student's happiness, futures, and well-being very much in mind, because if there is one thing I (and I suspect wangjangnim too) really love about Korea it is the young people and this is the sole reason I am so concerned about this subject.