Category Archives: Korea (South)

Koreanism of the Month – Fan Death

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Non-koreans, but Westerners especially, in Korea immediately notice that Koreans will argue for concepts – particularly related to food, healthcare, Korean physiology, and Korean nationality – that we inevitably find singular if not peculiar. This is common in cross-cultural interaction of course, but still, I have found more unique cultural positions or ‘myths’ here than I have in the other places I have lived or travelled to over the years. I thought it might be interesting to record them as they pop-up

The most famous one among the expat community here is Fan Death. On the ‘mechanics’ of fan-induced asphyxiation or hypothermia, check the wiki entry. Also put ‘fan death’ or ‘fan death korea’ into Google and drift around the sites. Try this one, and check out the scanned graphic half-way down.

Fan Death seems wholly unique to Korea. No one I know and nothing I have read has ever noted its existence elsewhere, even in Asia. It is the koreanism most common ridiculed by foreigners, and which westerners most reliably roll out in those tiresome arguments over Korea’s ‘modernity.’ It also makes for great humor:

Fan Death

WARNING: The video contains profanity.

I honestly don’t know what to make of this. Lots of Koreans genuinely believe it, as fans sold in Korea have timers installed explicitly to prevent fan death. As far as I know, fans with timers are sold in no other country. Clearly it is more than just an urban legend or goofy joke when it affects the buying decisions of 50 million consumers. In my own experience, some of the Koreans I know best – smart, educated people – swear this is true, and say that its western racism to reject it as blithely as we do.

On the other hand, the empirical, rationalist, social scientist in me is awfully doubtful. Indeed it is kinda hard NOT to see as simply surreal – like the video of Stalin dancing to techno. Comments?

Start Admitting that the US Commitment to SK is Weakening

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The Korean press has been filled for months with the coverage of the US military’s redeployment from north to south of Seoul. Usually these reports include protestations from both sides that the military commitment of the US to the South has not diminished.

I just can’t see how that can be the case. I want the US commitment to remain strong, but I think this is wishful thinking.

1. The US has slowly reduced its ground forces in Korea over the last few decades. US force totals are now around 28k and may sink below 25k by 2015. By contrast, the US has about twice that number in Japan and Germany, neither of whom are as directly threatened as SK.

The common response is that the US can provide the same level of protection with fewer people because of today’s greater lethality per US warfighter, as well as the continuing cover provided by the US air force and navy. Essentially this is a Rumsfeldian transformation argument. The ‘transformation’ of the US military has made each US solider more individually effective, so you need fewer of them for the same job. This is achieved through better training, and use of IT to coordinate firepower better. Smart soldiers and combined arms have multiplier effects we didn’t enjoy during the Cold War. So instead of blowing up a whole valley to kill the enemy, you only need the firepower to blow up a part of it, because IT (‘the networked battlefield’) will tell you exactly which part the enemy is in.

I find this moderately compelling, but the verdict is not really in yet on transformation. (See Thomas Ricks at Foreign Policy and Fred Kaplan at Slate, who have long chronicled the ups and downs of this notion.) While it seemed to work well in Afghanistan, it was an abysmal failure in Iraq, where low force totals were the single biggest US problem until the surge. Transformation and smaller forces also seem to run against a basic military lesson – more is better. Ceteris paribus, a larger force should improve options and create a greater cushion to absorb casualties and defeats. I think we all assume that NK’s military is clapped out, but it is over 1 million strong, and US totals seem awfully low. Also, should the US be involved in another war – as we are now – at the time of a conflict with the DPRK, more is again better. It just seems awfully risky.

2. US forces are being moved south of Seoul. To me, this is the most obvious sign of decreased willingness. During the Cold War, US troops were purposefully strewn along the DMZ, so that if there was a conflict, US lives would be lost almost immediately. Dead Americans would then rouse US public opinion to commit to the war. NATO followed the same logic in central Europe. The more flags on the initial coffins, the more likely collective security would be honored.

It seems willful blindness to say that the US is not looking to avoid casualties and therefore the public opinion chain-gang effect by this southward move. This may be good for the US. It lowers the likelihood of an immediate public outcry, and so gives DoD and the White House some time in a crisis. But if I were South Koreans, I would be nervous.

Similarly, US forces will no longer be located between Seoul, the capital, and the DMZ. 20m people live in greater Seoul – 40% of the national population. It is extremely exposed. It is only 30 miles from the DMZ; it is extremely dense, and it is filled with skyscrapers and high apartment tower blocks that would fall easily if it hit by NK artillery. (Picture the horrifying WTC collapse happening dozens of times.) I imagine the ROK army will be put in the US place, but still if I were a Korean, I would be pretty spooked that the US is no longer protecting what would obviously be the primary target if the DPRK drove south.

3. In 2012, the US will relinquish wartime authority to control SK forces. This abolition of Combined Forces Command (CFC) is marketed as restoring sovereignty and control to the South, but an obvious extra for the US is that it is no longer obligated to command in the case of a war. Again, this gives the US more wiggle room.

4. Finally, I think US public opinion is hardly deeply committed the defense of SK anymore. The Cold War is over. If SK were to go communist now, it would not matter to US security as much as before. And Americans are exhausted from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the general stress of the GWoT. To the extent Americans even know where SK is, most of their political images will be of a wealthy country (Samsung TVs, etc, etc) that should be able to defend itself. The American attitude, and probably that of DoD, is burden-sharing. Allies should carry more of their own defense. NK is SK’s problem, let them fix it; it’s their war, let them fight it.  Only 41% of Americans think we should aid the South against the North with combat troops (p. 18 here).

In sum, the bulk of smaller US forces will be 100 miles from the DMZ, south of Seoul, and we don’t have the authority to command the SK military in a fight most Americans won’t see as critical for national security. In other words, we are reserving options for ourselves, including just how much we want to commit.

3 Areas where South Korea Isn’t ‘Modern’ Yet

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South Koreans worry a great deal about their status or position in the world, especially in relation to the West and other OECD countries. On the whole, South Korea is modern and pleasant. Income per capita exceeds $20k per annum. All the toys we associate with modernity are here – HDTVs, cell phones, cool cars, whatever. And to boot SK is an open liberal democracy, so it is a comfortable place to live. But Koreans like to talk about themselves; national auto-dissection is a cottage industry. A constant meme over which they like to speak with Westerners is the question of its modernization, and one of the sleights from foreigners that angers Koreans most is to tell them Korea is still in the third world or a developing country. No one in the rest of the world thinks that, I say all the time, but still, it is a conversation I have surprisingly often here. Some of this comes off as fishing for complements or national therapy. Koreans seem to enjoy hearing Westerners tell them they are modern. But some of it, I imagine is also, fear that SK’s achievements are precarious, if only because the traditional agrarian past is so close. Nation-wide literacy, eg, is only two generations old.

So after the usual remarks I make to my interlocutors about the Miracle on the Han, democracy, pluralism, how I like living here, etc, here are 3 areas where it strikes me that Korea is still struggling.

1. Traffic

Nothing in my everyday experience could reinforce the ‘still a developing country’ line as much as the chaotic traffic patterns. Its not India or Egypt, but its not the West either. Koreans run red lights too frequently for my comfort, and stop signs are almost non-existent, so many smaller intersections are simply a mish-mash of whoever is pushiest gets through first. Pedestrians will walk about in the streets with great abandon. Tailgating is widespread, as is speeding. Gridock is a terrible problem, especially in Seoul and Busan. Koreans have also picked up the Indian practice of nudging slowly into traffic, waiting for someone to give way. Frequently this results in unsafe ‘pinching’ of the perpendicular traffic. Streets with room enough only for one car are frequently used for 2-way traffic, resulting in snarls that mean one car must carefully back up, and the cars behind it must back-up too. Finally, parking is only partially organized, with only about half of my experiences in a parked car being in a properly painted parking space. Friends have said this is driving in Asia, but its not this way in Japan and Singapore, so I am unconvinced. I have a Korean drivers license, but honestly, I am too afraid to drive.

2. the Grey Cash  Economy

The retail sector in Korean is highly disaggregated, with many small dealers selling furniture, housewares, small appliances, etc. out of mom-and-pop corner stores. (For those of you who want to see the non-Walmart world of ‘main street’ mom-&-pops, come to Korea.) I have been surprised how much tax evasion occurs in this sector, and the government has taken extraordinary measures to prevent vendors from engaging in off-the-books sales (consumers are offered a tax rebate for cash purchases, which requires the vendor to give you a receipt, and so, record the purchase). I had to buy furniture for my apartment here. In the US, one would simply charge all this, nor even consider a side or ‘private’ deal with the vendor. But in Korea, these dealers frequently prefer cash, and give you a discount if you do. The point is to avoid a receipt. I didn’t understand this until it was explained to me that this is to avoid paying taxes on the sales. I was pretty shocked at this. There is a whole revenue stream untapped by the government creating a grey economy of underground cash deals.

3. the Queue

Another surprise was Koreans’ only partial willingness to wait on line, unless mandated by a number taking system. As friend has said, respecting the queue is basic element of social order. Yet Koreans will frequently push their way to the front of lines at counters, in stores, the subway, bus stops, etc. This can be pretty disconcerting when you are accustomed to the social norm of ‘waiting your turn.’ Perhaps the most disturbing practice is for someone to walk up to a counter and hover about you or stand right next to you – frequently glaring at you or interrupting you – while you are conversing with the clerk behind the counter. I try to tolerate this in the interest of cultural adjustment, tolerance, and all that, but once it happened to me at a hospital while I was discussing my health information with a nurse. Given the intimacy the conversation, I simply waited for the nurse to ask him to go sit back down. I promptly got annoyed looks from him, the nurse, and my translator. One of the most amusing sights in Korea is watching Koreans enter and exit busy subway cars during rush hour. The most efficient system would be to allow those exiting to leave first, and then those entering would then fill the newly opened space. Arrows are even painted onto the subway platform to encourage this behavior. But frequently those entering will simply push on first anyway, creating a pellmell of people coming and going, banging into each other. I have simply taken to standing back and waiting for it to end; then I get on. The irony is that a more orderly off-on process would actually be faster for all.

Al Qaeda vs SK? Seriously? Why? The Enemies List isn’t Long Enough Yet?

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Most of the work on terrorism says that al Qaeda is an intelligent, serious organization of dedicated loyalists deeply committed to the cause. In the language of Cindy Combs, AQ is not a crazy or a criminal but a crusader.

This is an important insight, as our reflex is to respond angrily by denigrating them as  mad, crazy, nihilists. During WWII, we used to caricature Hitler as chewing the carpet in wild rages that almost certainly never happened. The reality is that AQ – and Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, and most of history’s horribles – are rational, strategic, and intelligent. These various opponents of liberal democracy have different values and pursue different (ie, awful) political goals, but they are rarely stupid or simply nihilistic.

So if AQ is rational, I don’t understand the value of attacking South Koreans. Why are the South Koreans, of all people, now ‘infidels’ too? I understand of course that in a maximal binladenist reading, a vast swathe of humanity, including Shiites, are the enemy. But if AQ is in fact acting strategically, can’t the Koreans wait their turn for elimination after the more proximate and threatening opponents (the West/Christianity, Israel/Jews, India/Hindus)? More practically, shouldn’t AQ just simply be trying to survive the GWoT right now, rather than adding another opponent?

AQ appears to see the world as a clash of civilizations. Islam, in this view, is encircled and already in conflict with errant pre-Islamic monotheisms (Christianity & Judaism), polytheistic Hinduism, and ‘pagan’ African animism/naturalism. Why open another potentially huge front by targeting Buddhist-Confucian states? It seems like a gigantic risk, especially if Japan and China read this as a religious assault on Confucianism and/or Buddhism (which seems to be the point, as AQ refers to the S Korean victims as ‘infidels.’)

The answer is likely that SK is a US ally, but this doesn’t seem like enough to explain 2 quick attacks and the infidel rhetoric. SK is an American ally, but it is hardly involved in the GWoT. Koreans know little about Islam, and there are less than 100 Muslims in the whole country. Given the NK menace, its forces can hardly deploy out-of-area anyway. Although it has a sizeable Christian population now, its deep religious roots are Buddhist-Confucian. And Buddhism and Confucianism are scarcely germane to  the fiery theistic conflicts that divide deep partisans of Judaism, Islam, Christianity and Hinduism.

I suppose we can only hope that AQ and radical Islam are foolish enough to declare war on all the world’s (non-Sunni) non-Muslims simultaneously.

How to Deal with NK? More of the Same

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There has been lots of good commentary since the missile launch on how to respond. Ideas have included a big bang deal to create a breakthrough, malign neglect, confrontation, and just neglect. Most of it castigates Washington officials for policy incoherence, lack of cultural understanding, lack of guts, etc. All that strikes me as pretty unfair though, especially now that, living in SK, it has become far more clear to me just how unpredictable NK really is. So give Washington (Seoul and Tokyo) a break. Like the financial crisis, no one really knows what to do. NK is just too erratic, opaque and downright weird. (Remember Kim Jong Il is on record saying long hair on men is bad for socialism. Also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4157121.stm.)

All the handwringing overlooks that the likely response is probably more of the same – tedious, torturesome negotiations, with a huge amount of skepticism that the North Koreans are probably negotiating in bad faith and cheating, and a general goal of slowing down as much as possible the nuclear and ballistic march and more broadly containing NK bad behavior as much as possible.

This uninspiring ‘muddling through’ is probably about the best course anyway. If this feels incoherent, then so be it, because the NK problem is too messy and unpredictable for some big aggressive framework. If we must give it a title so that it can be called a ‘strategy,’ how about, “chronic threat management through skeptical negotiation”?

In other words, its pretty clear that NK probably won’t meaningfully de-nuclearize or de-missile-ize (as S Africa or the Ukraine did). As Brian Meyers has noted, the confrontation with the US has become central to NK existential justification. Without that standoff, NK just becomes a poor man’s SK, likely to last about as long as the GDR after the Wall fell. Any ‘big deal’ is likely to die in artificial NK objections over this or that detail, etc., etc. Even if they agreed to some big deal, they’d probably cheat anyway. Simply ignoring them is not an option, because S Korea and Japan simply can’t.  Similarly, confrontation risks 20 million people in Seoul (SK’s proximate city-hostage gift to NK that makes a hard stance almost impossible).

15 years after the Agreed Framework, it is pretty obvious that obfuscating, stalling for time, flim-flamming the 6 party talks, asking for favors with faux-goodwill, etc. is not just a negotiating strategy for the North, it is its foreign policy goal. The process, and keeping the process going indefinitely, is the whole point. It keeps NK relevant in the world, coughs up gifts from time to time, justifies domestic misery to its people. As JL Gaddis said about the SU, we are probably just going to have to hang tough on this one until NK finally implodes on its own.

The big factors in NK foreign policy – NK elite and Chinese opinion – are simply out of our (SK, Japan, US) hands. So the best attitude is the same we have always pursued – cautious long-term crisis management, sticking close to the allies, trying to get deals if possible, shooting for small betterments like family reunifications, trying to stop the worst, most threatening security externalities (like dealing with AQ Khan or Syria) unilaterally if necessary. Its sloppy and headache-inducing, but the alternatives are worse.

The Tragicomedy of US Soft Power: Exporting Banality to Korea (1)

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The term soft power seems to have a acquired a good amount of play in the last few years. Nye of course is the major exponent, but the EU openly uses the term and the Obama people seem to have picked up it too. (The IR scholar in me, of course, is green with envy over the extra-academic success of Nye’s work; that is how you get the real dollars, cool gigs, and policy relevance in this field. And Nye is a great scholar to boot. Very nice.)

Basically, the soft power argument is: hard power coercion is expensive. Militaries costs money, violence destroys lives and economies. Isn’t it much better if we re-make others ideologically to want what we want? This is actually a social constructivist, 3rd face of power argument. If we can reshape their preferences, then our interests will align, not collide. So the US should broadcast its exciting, fun, liberal-democratic, modernist, universalist cultural tropes to the world. Others will see the attractions, and a secret lifestyle yearning will arise. Frictions with the allies will decline as they ‘Americanize.’ And if those living in repressive authoritarian or traditional societies can pick up this stuff up too (and it is awfully hard to be isolated in the globalized world), then there will be a slow grassroots revolution of rising expectations that pressure the state’s elites to soften toward the US. My own sense is this theoretic logic is basically correct.

Consequences from this argument include:

1. Liberals like soft power, because it suggests it might be substitute for hard power (especially attractive if you don’t want to pay for a military). Hence one can be a ‘civilian superpower’ (EU, Japan). NK, the Georgian war, 9/11, etc. have disproved this idea, but the EU doesn’t seem to have gotten the message.

2. Diplomats and academics like soft power. a) It means that diplomacy isn’t just gabbing, but can serve a national security purpose (trying to open closed states so that western/American culture can get in), and it keep things like Voice of America and al-Arabiya alive. b) Maybe our academic work means something! Someone on the other side might read it and be influenced by it, and then maybe bring those new preferences to the state. This is the idea that Gorby’s reformers read US IR, realized that we weren’t so bad and didn’t want to invade the SU, and therefore winding down the Cold War would not destroy the USSR.

3. American Conservatives like it because it lionizes the US way-of-life as the envy of everyone else and confirms that immovable and deeply-held US belief that everyone else really, secretly, in their heart-of-hearts wishes they were like us. (They they just won’t admit it to our faces – those damn French.)  Specifically, it reinforces post-Cold War liberal-democratic triumphalism. There’s a ‘we-won-the-Cold-War-and-that’s-a-helluva-good-thing’ feel to it that American exceptionalists and nationalists (basically, most of the country) just love. It’s pretty cool when an esteemed liberal academic tells you that we really are the last best hope for mankind living in a city on the hill in the greatest country on earth at the end of history.

4. There is a nice inevitability to soft power’s triumph over tyranny. As T Friedman would say, closed systems fall behind rapidly, because technology improves and diffusion ensures wide adoption. This puts authoritarian systems in a terrible dilemma. Opening up risks exposure to soft power forces like the influx of West German or SK TV shows. But perpetual closure means decay and irrelevance. Cuba and NK opted for decay. The USSR tried opening, but so late, that it blew up. The PRC too is trying opening, but no ones knows if it can avoid a Velvet Revolution-style popular revolt. And there does seem to be growing empirical evidence that soft power can work in long ideologcal stalemates. Liberals have generally argued that the CW ended not because Reagan spent the SU into the round, but because the Helsinki accords opened a chink in the Iron Curtain, through which flowed lots of liberalism. Or think about the painful opening of NK civil society and growing paranoia of the DPRK because of the flood of SK VHS from China after the introduction of DVDs in SK in the 1990s. Consider also the slow burn of the youth movement in Iran, desperate to connect to modernity.

5, But no one seems to pay much attention to a) the internal colonialist dimension of soft power, or b) the possibility of blowback from those who resist. 

a. I agree that it is cheaper for us to get our way if ‘they’ are like ‘us.’ (I think Nye is correct.) But isn’t it culturally imperialist to make them like us and to baldly say that this is a US foreign policy goal? Should they be like us? Do they want to be? Shouldn’t we care about that? It is astonishing hubris and arrogance to say we should try ‘remake’ others to be like us. That’s Americanism on steroids. And just how much Americanism do we want them to share? How far down should this Americanization go? Is it enough that they are liberal, democratic and capitalist, or do they have to share other US values like individualism, wide social tolerance of minorities, protestantized religiosity, consumerism, sports, food, Pimp My Ride, etc, etc? Just how totalist is this project? Whenever I hear liberals praise soft power, I always think of 1) the song “America, F— Yeah!” from Team America: World Police, and 2) that colonel in Full Metal Jacket who says, ‘we are fighting this war, because inside every gook there is an American trying to get out.’ How different is the logic?

b. Also, what if they really actually don’t want to be like us (contrary to point 3 above)? Won’t there be blowback? I am thinking here of the Arab-Muslim Middle East and the Islamic revival ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to al Qaeda. Remember that Sayyad Qutb went to the US and came home convinced that the Middle East should absolutely NOT become like the US. The intellectual descent from Qutb to bin Laden is very clear. If the Iranians set up the ‘Voice of Shiite Islam’ in Toronto and beamed it into the US with declared intent of converting Americans in order to improve US-Iranian relations, we would flip out. Foreingers will be a lot more recpetive to American cultural inputs if those inputs seem casually available and selected by the conusmer. If transmission of our lifestyle looks like a brainwashing plot to reduce friction to US power in the world, they will be far more resistant. And shouldn’t they be?

Next, I want to look at the South Korean case as a study of US soft power.

That ‘Significant’ EU-Korea Relationship – Yawn…

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Last week I attended the opening of a study center on the European Union at my university. The EU apparently opens these things all over the world at universities. The irony is just how weak the relationship between Korea and the EU actually is.

Consider:

1. The EU ambassador to Korea doesn’t speak Korean. (By contrast the US consul in Busan can.) He spoke in English to a room with less than 10 westerners, and 100+ Koreans. Nor did he bow before speaking, nor even say ‘hello’ or ‘thank you’ in Korean (even I have learned that stuff). Come on already.

2. He told us about the ‘significance’ of the EU-Korea relationship, but two days later the EU-Korea FTA collapsed. I quietly laughed at that one…

3. These sorts of speeches usually reel off a list of statistics about how much such-and-such western state trades with Korea and vice versa. I am guilty too, but at least when Americans talk, we can expand on combined defense, shared values, a long-standing alliance. (I try to.) The EU ambassador, to his credit, didn’t even bother, because the EU just isn’t even trying out here anymore. After a few perfunctory words about the EU’s ‘commitment’ to peace on the Korean peninsula, it was all just economics and trade (how ‘bout those Samsung TVs?). If the significant relationship is just utilitarian, then the relationship with SK is not much different than that with Iran with whom European firms trade also.

4. The ambassador couldn’t even cough up a few words of solidarity over the imminent NK missile launch. That was a pretty glaring and sad omission.

All this made me think about my previous post about EU’s slow self-neutering of its hard power capability and its growing propensity to navel gaze. A few European states fought in the UN coalition of the war, but today it is all an American show. Does anyone really expect the Europeans do do anything to help SK if things get really hairy with the North, or worse, with China? The South Koreans surely don’t.

All this is a pretty disappointing commentary on the EU, its posturing about soft power, and its language of human rights and multilateralism against cowboy aggressiveness. Liberated from the Soviet threat, the EU can’t seem to find a few good words about another democracy threatened by the last bastion of stalinism. Liberalism in Korea is a philosophical transplant of European values. This is high praise for Europe’s heritage, as Confucian societies have struggled a good deal with the pluralism liberalism implies. How about a little Enlightenment solidarity with one of its strongest outposts in Asia?  

5 Things I Like about Korea

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I guess it was inevitable that I post this sort of list. Just about every expat blogger in Korea does. Frequently this degenerates into blather and mawkish navel gazing, but then I have found that Koreans seem to like this sort of ‘tell us what you think about us, foreigner?’ stuff more than we do. Yakking about Korean culture is a cottage industry for Koreans, and the breadth of the cultural gap means the westerners here usually have lots to say too.

As for my qualifications to pass judgment, they are – of course – pathetic. I have only been in country 7 months. I don’t speak Korean. Most of my time has been spent in Busan, Seoul, and Pyongtaek (where Korean friends live). On the upside, I have a Korean girlfriend, and I work with and teach Koreans regularly.

1. The Food

This was pretty unexpected. Like most Americans, I think, my sense of Asian food was Chinese (mediocre take-out usually) and Japanese (cool steakhouses and sushi). I had a sense that Vietnamese food was distinct, but not Korean. I don’t think I ever saw a Korean restaurant in Ohio, where I lived most of my life in the US. What a surprise when I got here and learned that Korean food is pretty unique. Given how culturally close Korea is to China, this surprised me. And the food is quite good too. But like most westerners here, I think I have begun to overdose on rice and kimchi with every meal.

2. Bustling Cities/Nightlife

Too many American cities lack a good street life because of crime, suburbanization, bad downtown parking, whatever. But Korean residence patterns (ie, the lack wide sprawling suburbs) insure that large numbers of people live in close urban contact. Korean communitarianism (IMO, see point 5) keeps crime down and the streets safe (see point 3). Finally, Koreans seem to love hanging out after work in bars, clubs, salon rooms (bangs), etc., so there is always a mass of people to go mix and move with. Its fun.

3. Safety

I find Korea mercifully, blessedly safe. I have seen 8 year old girls prancing down the street alone (although aren’t parents worried about accidents?), or young women alone at 2 am in short skirts and heels walk by me on a darkened street without even throwing a glance. Also, I told friend how nice I found the lack of a serious drug problem in Korea. He asked me if I meant marijuana. Of course, I had in mind the meth explosion in the US, ecstasy which is all over American campuses, the heroin and coke problems that are driving Mexico to disaster, but if Koreans think marijuana is hard drug, that’s fine with me.

4. Quality Public Transportation

Like the Europeans, Koreans have got the bug for good public transportation (even if they promptly waste it by buying so many large cars and causing traffic jams all over the place). And the intercity fast trains (KTX) are better than the French TGV or DB ICE. In another experience of ‘why-can’t-this-stuff-work-so-well-at-home?,’ I find Korean urban transportation safe, clean, cheap, and timely. Nice.

5. Communitarianism

Contrary to America’s usual individualist leaning on the communitarian-liberal split, I must say I like Korea’s community cohesiveness. Koreans I know who dislike it, say that Korean is collectivist. I think that is an exaggeration. It is disturbing that this seems based mostly in shared ethnic-linguistic tradition. It makes it tough for outsiders to join, and Koreans seem to overreact to minor foreign crime. But still, it is admirable to watch Koreans think more collectively about national welfare than we do.

Bonus Banalities I Refuse List:

I tried to be concrete in this list, because usually these exercises degenerate into third-rate sociological bathos. So here is the usual trite cultural mawkishness we all know shouldn’t pass as insight. The usual banalities offered to foreigners on arrival anywhere include: We are very friendly, warm, and hospitable. Our culture is great, unique, old, rich. Our heritage is respected worldwide (cue UNESCO). Our grandmothers are the pillar of our culture and the repository of social wisdom. We are multilateralists and global citizens who love foreign guests. Our technology is cutting edge and that means we are modern and building bridges to the world. We are a regional cultural/economic ‘hub.’ Bonus snarky potshot if you are lucky and a US foreigner: we are nicer than you because George Bush ruined the world.

None of this flim-flam applies to Korea (nor anywhere else, as it is just cheesy pop multiculturalism). Every state community is unique of course, but usually in ways that aren’t that mind-blowing. So yes, Korean grandmothers are salt of the earth, but so are Russian babushkas. I don’t think Koreans are anymore friendly or charming (or rude) than any of the other non-Americans I have met. That doesn’t mean they aren’t nice, but that there is nothing particular about Korean hospitality that sets them aside. Nor do Koreans seem to possess any more gnostic wisdom on the secrets of the good life than any other culture I have experienced. Nor are they any more globalized and less nationalized. In short, their ‘culture’,’ like everyone else’s, is malleable and differentiated enough that these mindless ‘culture studies’ generalizations are just propaganda easily turned to fit your likes/dislikes. All in all, I find Korea a good place to live – a pleasant, (farirly) green/clean, wealthy, liberal democracy tolerant of social pluralism while trying to maintain a national integrity. That should be enough for anybody.

Korea – First Impressions – Politics

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I have been in Korea 6 months. I thought it wise to wait a bit before listing impressions. I will try to focus on politics, but inevitably personalisms will creep in.

1. Foreign Policy

a. Getting Used to North Korea

When I was in grad school (Ohio State), we focused on lot on North Korea as an interesting case for deterrence theories, prolieferation, terrorist support & other rogue state activities. But here you just don’t see that stress. As several of my colleagues put it, we have been living next to NK for so long, we just don’t pay that much attention any more. Even now, with all the recent threats of war and escalation. What a surprise that was when I came here. I thought NK was the most important issue in Korean politics – and it is at a macro/abstract level – but the average South Korean seems to know more about the iceskater Yuna Kim or some celebrity scandal that Kim Jong-Il.

b. Japan

I saw one of those joke emails – ‘you know you’ve been in Korea too long when…’ One of the responses was, when you have a strange, inexplicable loathing for Japan. The IR scholar in me sees Japan as a critical democratic bulwark for SK, given its difficult neighborhood: NK, Russia and China. Yet this argument does not seem to move my students or friends much. Of much greater interest is the territorial saquabble over the Dokdo islands, and more than one person here has told me with a straight face that Japan will probably invade Korea again sometime. I can’t help but think of postwar France – restoration of Alsace-Lorraine and nuclear weapons pointed as much at Germany as the Soviet Union. Until Japan really apologizes – like the Germans did – historical memory will play a poisonous role.

2. Domestic Politics:

a. Restrained Presidentialization

Korean politics seems far less focused on the person of the president than ours. Korea is a semi-presidential system, so perhaps that accounts for it somewhat. But conversely, the National Assembly is far weaker than the Congress. So insitutionally, Korea does not seem more or less presidentialized than the US, but the media scrutiny of the daily schedule of the president is far less. I find that nice actually. It reduces the celebrity-rock star factor that can make US politics a little silly sometimes.

b.  Those Parliament Brawls

Asian parliaments are known in the West for their brawls, but I never realized how serious they can get. Wow. You Tube has some of these videos. Look for the recent ones involving fire extinguishers and the invasion of a committee room by physically removing the doors.

c. NK & the SK Right

NK really polarizes the domestic politics here. Conservative opinion particularly is staunchly anti-communist. It really does feel like a time warp back the first Reagan administration. The right is widely convinced that the Sunshine policy was a huge error. The right has also done a good job using North Korean human rights as a powerful political tool against the domestic left. In this the left is in a terrible quandry. Like Western European social democrats during the Cold War, the Korean left wants some kind of detente and Nordpolitik, but NK is simply so nasty to its people, it is hard to gain political traction. The right can easily attack the left for betraying the human rights of their ethnic brothers in the North.

3. Economics:

a. Conglomerates

Another lesson of grad school was how different Asian political economy was – particularly the role of the large conglomerates (kereitsu in Japan and chaebol in Korea). This is another one of those things I didn’t really grasp until I saw it. The logos of the largest chaebols are ubiquitous, and the western neoliberal will be disturbed to find a wide, seemingly unconnected horizontal integration. For example, SK, one the very biggest, is my cell phone provider, the owner of my apartment building, and a major gas station chain. Or Samsung – to Americans an electronics retailer. Yet here they are also in the grocery store business (?!), and they build cars as well. It is hard to imagine that successful cell phone providers somehow have a competitive advantage in gas stations too. Most western scholarship says this cross-sector agglormeration is politically protected, and when you see just how unrelated the sectors under the same logo are, its hard to disagree.

b. Imports

I must be a product of Walmart and Target. Where are rapcious, exploitative Chinese producers when you need them? So much that is cheap in the US is so expensive here. There is a very noticeable difference in the prices of imports here. In any large store, you will see the Korean brand item next to an import brand (frequently European or American), with a very noticeable price differential. A 6-pack of Miller Genuine Draft costs $10(!), and a regular dispenser and roll of Scotch tape costs $3.50. The protectionism is so obvious and expensive, I dearly hope the recently negotiated FTA gets through. And of course, the car industry is ridiculously protected. Korean cars account for the vast majority of cars driven. I don’t think I have seen a single Honda or Toyota yet. Yet Japanese cars are perfect for Korean streets – they are small, green, and fuel efficient.