Getting a feel for Korea

It took me a while to find Korea. I came as a China Scholar. I still think of myself as a China Scholar. But I came to Korea to be with Christian, to broaden my view of Asia, to calm down and figure myself out, and to earn money. I had a hard time separating my understanding of Korea from my understanding of China-- most of what I saw in Korea were things borrowed from China. I knew that a lot of what I understood as China I should really understand as Asia, but at the same time China has been an 'exporter of culture' for thousands of years in Asia. A lot of things that seem Chinese here are, or were.

... I started this post in a coffee shop in City Hall. I am now sitting at a kind of play/gathering ground (explanation in a moment) by the coast where, bless Korea, there is public wireless internet. There are coffee shops and bakeries popping up all over the place-- a Western fad. (There is also SPAM everywhere-- a product of American military influence in building South Korea's economy after/during the war...) This is a better place to think, and a good example for me to try to untangle my ideas of China and Korea. 

There is a long concrete wall behind me. It was I think recently painted a pale yellow, and has raised sculptures of fish and octopodes and Jeju Women Divers. On the other side of the wall is the ocean, which just switched from a deep turquoise to almost black with the setting of the sun, though there were clouds blocking the sunset for an hour or so.

I am sitting on the top of four large concrete steps that lead down to a large concrete court. The concrete is swirls and blocks of color-- blue and pink and yellow, I think, though I have almost always been here when the sun has been low and the yellow streetlamps distorting the color scale. This court ends maybe another hundred feet in front of me, and stretches probably half a mile from side to side. The area far to my right has basketball and other courts. Along the other edge are vendors. Some of them sell food, and most of them are renting some kind of equipment. Bicycles (for 1 to 4 riders), rollerblades and skates and pads,  child-sized electric cars, balls to throw around. There is only a small crowd out tonight, as it is Sunday, but there are still lots of families and more than a few sweethearts walking up and down the seawall or riding something around in circles. There is a constant murmur of parents telling their kids not to get so far away, or laughing or cheering their approval of some feat of balance, or children who have run out of feats and need a hug. It sounds like a community.

To get here I walked 20 minutes or so downhill from City Hall. The road I took was full of shops-- bags and shoes and pets and clothes-- and to cross the last main road I had to go underground and walk a hundred feet through the shopping strip that runs for a mile (I think?) under Jungangro. I am drinking a bottle of Tropicana Spirit: Juice100 &Sparkling, White Grape flavor. It was part of a 1+1 deal at the FamilyMart (a Japanese chain which competes with the Korean GS25) near my house. And, you will recall, I have my new black netbook on my knees, surfing the web and writing this to you fine people.

Okay. So, this court/public square feeling area could be in China, more or less. I have seen similar places at the center of cities where rollerblades are rented-- it is a good time in any country! But of course, in China the paved public pedestrian areas big enough for this are the People's Squares in the middle of cities (generally in the place where Something Else stood before 1949). But they are used in much the same way. I didn't ever live near the coast in China, and most of Korea is near the coast-- so we can chalk the salt tang in the air up to geographic differences.

Korea went through its lightning fast economic development in the 60s-80s, so the air here feels calmer as well. In China I often feel heavy with the emotional intensity that comes from Chinese people trying to keep up with the changes of the last century and keep track of their identity-- I say that or something like it often and am never sure if I'm getting quite what I mean across. This feeling is a lot of what makes China fascinating for me, though I struggle with it. I know I still do not have a good feeling for Korea's changes in the last century, because so many people here are so comfortable with them. I don't feel that struggle, but I know I also don't feel whatever was lost in it.

Korea is one of Asia's "four tigers" of economic development, and they* are conscious of being taken as an economic model by other 'developing' countries. My East Asian Economics/Economies** professor liked the description of Asian economies as a flock of geese-- Japan is the lead goose, and Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong flank it.

As an American (particularly as a white person, sadly) and walking symbol of the economic development that  both of these countries are aiming for, I am treated differently here. Differently from the way I am treated in American and differently from the way that most people are treated here. Overall, I am not given as much attention here in Korea, but I am definitely noticed. Understandably, not everyone is sure what to do with me. Do they like what my identity represents? Can they interact with me like a regular person? Can I understand even one word of their language?

The vast majority of people I have encountered in both countries have been incredibly welcoming-- embarassingly so, when I think of the way that foreigners, and especially foreigners who don't speak English, are talked about and treated in America. There are cases of discrimination, but they are not the rule. Definitely the main difference between China and Korea is that in China-- at least if you get away from big tourist areas like Beijing and Shanghai-- people are much more intrigued and excited to see a foreigner. Though I have had people in both countries tell me that I was the first foreigner they had ever talked to, or sometimes even seen in person.

Hmm... I think I'm going to stop here and try to come back with another entry just on Korea in the near future. It's I'm still struggling to put my finger on words to describe how these countries feel so very different. There are here, I'll just keep writing til they come out!

*I say 'they' and mean it in a way that is so general as to be pretty much inaccurate. There are plenty of people here who are contentedly clueless about politics and economic development in a lot of ways, just as there are most places.

**I really love that the lines around concepts are different in every language.