The Unseen Anchor: A Korean 아버지 (Father)

In my observation of and participation in various Korean homes, as well as throughout countless conversations with friends, I've come to see a very different kind of father than the "absent father figures" we lament in the states.

There are relatively few single mother in Korea. If parents divorce, the Grandparents often take care of the children so that they will have a stable, "normal" home. Indeed, a normal Korean home usually consists of a stay-at-home mother, (More on the topic of women's roles in society in a different post.) two children, grandparents and other relatives coming and going freely, and of course, a father, 아버지 (abeojee). A mother with a job, more - or less - than 2 children, infrequent contact with relatives, and an involved father are all cultural abnormalities.

It is the mother's, and the Grandparents' and aunts', job to raise the children. The fathers' job is to have a job. Most jobs in Korea begin before 8am and can last til 10pm, and if not required to stay this late, the employee can be "required" to go out and drink with coworkers and superiors. Weekends are therefore the only chance a family has to interact with their 아버지. By then he is tired, often sleeping til after noon, by which time the rest of the family has already set out on their own routines.

A recent poll taken of young people in Korea asked them to rank the level of closeness they felt with each member of their family. In every case, the father came last. Most of my friends hold their 아버지s in respect, as they have been taught, which necessitates distance. Fear of their ill opinion, disappointed hopes for their approval, and dread of taking care of them as they age characterize the views of young men toward their fathers. Young women seem to view their fathers as a sort of vending machine who will only provide their allowance if they perform better than their peers.  While there are certainly exceptions to these perspectives, they seem to dominate in most homes and families.

Although his the family would have no financial support and no name without him, his role is limited to this. The emotional support comes from the mother, the discipline comes from everyone who is older, and the relationships come from friends. The 아버지, the anchor of the family, is rarely seen in any other capacity.

On a Scale of 1 to Amanda Seyfried...

Within 2 days of arriving in Korea, the general populace seemed to have settled on my celebrity look-alike: Amanda Seyfried. (Although I never considered her to be terribly attractive, I decided to take it as a compliment.) Since that first week, I have repeatedly and from very different sources been told that I look just like her. By "varying sources", I mean varying Korean sources. It had never before crossed my mind that I looked *anything* like her, so when I arrived here and all-of-a-sudden looked *just* like her, I wondered what changed.

When I ask Koreans why they think I look like her, their answers generally include at least 2 of the following:
"You are really pretty."
"Blond hair."
"Big eyes."
"Light skin."
"Green eyes."
(I have since learned that the last 4 equal the first 1 here.)

When I asked my american friends if they saw the resemblance, most of them made comments such as:
"Well if she wasn't caked in makeup..."
"I guess you both have big eyes."
"Your facial structure is similar."
"Maybe I can see that."
"Well if your hair was lighter..."
And nobody said, but everybody thought:
"Well if you were skinnier..."

This is me at prom with my friend JJ in May 2010.

Amanda 2 days ago with Korean Kpop singer Taecyeon.

Amanda is a "stunning blond" actress/model.

I am a lowly college student and ambitious blogger.

While us Americans tend to categorize hair by colors such as blond, dirty blond, strawberry blond, brown, dark brown, light brown, black, red, or auburn, the Koreans view hair as light or Korean. We see eyes as big or normal, green, hazel, blue, bright blue, brown, and even "eyes like the sea after a storm". Koreans view eyes as either big or Korean, and either light or Korean. We view skin as light or tan, they see either light skin or Korean. Facial structure doesn't even cross their radar. And finally, being skinny in America is often equated with being attractive. Same in Korea. Unless you have non-Korean features - then you are pretty.

And I learned all this just because I suddenly looked like Amanda Seyfried when I landed in South Korea!

Breaking out of the Hierarchy

I recently met a Korean who neither drinks, nor asked me my age.

You may wonder why this is significant, and you may wonder if those are related. Well, you're in luck because I have the answers to both of those queries!

Korean society is based entirely on hierarchy. And that hierarchy is based exclusively on age. "Juniors" HAVE to do what their "Seniors" ask or demand. A senior is anyone who was born any year before you. And yes, this extends from families, to friends, to classmates, to coworkers. If your senior tells you that you are going to go and drink with him, then you go. And you drink as much as he buys you.

Independence and innovation are not valued nearly as highly as respect and interaction with seniors.

I've heard many of my friends and classmates complain that they are limited by the past - the oldest people in the company make the decisions. Or they are limited by the future - their senior invited them to go out and drink tonight, so they have to finish everything today so that if they are forced to drink too much, they have to time to recover in the morning.

Because the social hierarchy is built around age, it is typical to be asked your age during the first encounter. From that question it is set in stone who will be buying and who will be following, who will be bowing and who will be leading.

So what does alcohol have to do with it? Well, to say that Korea has a "drinking culture" is an understatement. Many Koreans don't like drinking, most do it anyway. Because their senior - for one reason or another - decided that drinking would be the sport for the night. Every night. This is not limited to college students, nor is it divided along religious lines. Everyone drinks. Especially when their senior buys it for them.

Except my new friend.

He is a software developer at Kakao Talk, Korea's own extremely popular social network. Their company policy includes: never asking 1) academic background - often used to discriminate and divide, or 2) age - always used to determine hierarchy. And how does he pull off not drinking? Well, without the age delineation, no one can tell anyone else what to do.

So for all my Korean friends who feel that they have no hope of ever escaping the cycle of hierarchy and are afraid that they will be locked in stagnant companies for the rest of their alcohol-ridden lives...I want them to know that a modern society based on ability is possible - even for "the capital of Confucianism". Keep fighting, my fine friends!

Genie Talks

If you don't get the reference: http://genietalk.etri.re.kr/english.html...

For those of you who know me, you know that I am not terribly politically active and rarely even express political opinions. For those of you who don't know me, well, now you know me a little better... I am not apathetic regarding political issues, and I like to listen to opposing ideas and all possible perspectives. So I was intrigued when my Korean History teacher, Genie, expressed her opinion on President Obama.

Genie is an extremely intelligent student who is currently finishing her Doctoral studies in Korean Studies on scholarship from the Korean government. She has traveled to over 40 countries both for academic and professional reasons. She is married with one daughter. She teaches to supplement her scholarship - Modern Korean History to Korean high school students, and the Survey of Korean History to five international students here at Soonchunhyang.

Instead of commenting on the pros or cons of President Obama's fiscal or global policies, she looked at his presidency from a very historical view point. In the broad scheme of all history, America has been around for only a very short time. In that time, a man whose ancestors had been slaves for over a century and a half, less than a century and a half ago, came to hold the most powerful position, arguably, in the world. Not by bloodshed or by terror, but by popular, democratic vote.

Regardless of your view on democracy, history, Obama, politics, or even slavery and race, this is remarkable. Historically, emancipation has always been a difficult decision, and assimilation an even more difficult process. It is no small thing that our country has come so far in this area.

At least, that is the way Genie translated it.

On a scale of 1 to 10...

...I seem to be a perfect Westerner.

Body image is an enormous and pervasive issue in our culture. There is a huge amount of pressure put on people to look like the models whose pictures they see plastered everywhere. Be skinnier, be more tan, be more toned, have sexier hair, be taller, have thinner thighs, etc. I was curious when coming here, how the issue would play out. What I've found leaves me sad and befuddled.

Yes, they should be skinny and toned, but mostly their standard is this: have a light complexion, be tall and curvy; use any amount of make-up necessary to look like you have big eyes and "double eyelids"; dye your hair and get it permed to make sure it's not straight or black; go through any length you have to - usually plastic surgery - to make your face look less round and more oval. To sum it all up, look as "western" as you possibly can!

For years I have struggled with feeling that I wasn't pretty enough, because I wasn't skinny or toned or tall. Because I thought there was some objective standard of beauty that I could never attain. But since I've been here, I have been saddened to realize that although this is not true, it seems to be a common misconception. But here their "objective standard" is vastly different from ours.

This point was driven home to me yesterday in a way that breaks my heart.

The University was shooting a promotional video, and for the part about the global exchange program, they conscripted me and a few other international students, as well as some Korean students. One girl was visibly shaken because she was so nervous. When I asked her if she was ok she said "No! I am not ok. I don't look good enough." Taken aback I tried to comfort her, "Oh! I think you are pretty, your hair is really beautiful and you look really professional." She really was beautiful by my subjective standards and I wanted her to see herself through my eyes. Although countless others have hinted at this idea, her blunt response shocked me. "Me?! Oh no! You are so beautiful!! So... *here she spread her arms out to show that she thought I was off the scale*...I wish I had her skin and your hair and your EYES!"

Me - she wanted to look like ME! Why?? Why would she want to look like me when she could look like her? Why? Because the standard of beauty here screams to Korean girls that they should look Western. It's a scream that makes these beautiful girls feel intimidated by an very average American. Me. This realization continues to overwhelm me. I am humbled, but infuriated. Why, why, why are we so caught up in pursuit of this perceived "objective" beauty?! Why do we constantly strive for such a hollow and unattainable goal? Why do we let it intimidate and control us? And why am I the person who, by no choice of my own, constantly rubs this into the faces of my beautiful Korean counterparts??!

Run-in with Racism?

My Mexican suitemate, Dyanna, and I had just finished our meal at the cafeteria in the Chinese dorm. We walked over to the window to bring our dishes back, deposited the chops sticks in the first receptacle, the food scraps in the next, and then neatly stacked our trays and bowls and tried to balance them on the messy pile of trays and bowls already in the window. The annoyed-looking worker walked over to help us stack them so they wouldn't fall, and in the process uncovered a tray that had not been cleaned. In irate Korean she yelled at us and waved the dirty chop sticks attempting to get it through our thick skulls that we were supposed to put the chop sticks somewhere else. A look of disbelieving scorn crept into my face, as Dyanna, looking like a deer-in-the-headlights, took the dirty chop sticks and deposited them in the proper container.

Really? Wasn't it obvious that I was holding two trays - mine and Dyanna's? Do you really think that one of us would have emptied our tray correctly and the other wouldn't have? Or do you just assume that we are lazy because we are foreigners? Possibly.

I will never know, and really, it doesn't matter.

It's things like this that matter...

Walking back up the hill from the Seoguram Grotto when a little girl, probably barely able to say hello in Korean, saw me, pointed while her face lit up and she exclaimed, "Oah! HI!"

Made my day.

Warning: Hold onto your Jaw.

"When I was 8 years old I had a dog who I really loved. We shared everything - when I ate a bite, I gave her a bite. I even slept all cuddled up with her every night. One day I came home from school and I didn't see her, I wondered, 'Where is my dog?' but I didn't ask anyone. Later I ate dinner, it was good, but I missed sharing it with her. Finally when it was bedtime and I still hadn't seen her, I asked to my grandmother, 'Where is my dog?' And she said, 'We ate her for dinner.'

I cried and cried without stopping for two hours until I fell asleep.

But we don't do that anymore! Never never do it now!!

Sometimes people eat dogs, but never eat pets! Some people used to think that eating a dog on a very hot day would give you extra energy, but now we know that it is the same as maybe chicken or beef. But it used to be very common especially for men to eat dogs.

I know, it is a very shocking story, but we did it. But that was a long time ago and it never happens now!"

Still.....processing that one.

You know those times when you open your mouth because something is so shocking, but then you close it and swallow because there really are no words to say or to describe your reaction? When our Korean speaking teacher told us this story, all I could think was, "Calm down, you're in Korea. It's ok that it's different. Just....take it for what it is, not for how you perceive it."