Seoul Lights Up for the Holiday Season - Korea.net

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they are perceived as reliable and not too expensive; but
they are not grasped as Korean the way a Mercedes car is
bought because it is German. South Korea as a trademark,
in spite of recent progress due to its leading export companies,
is still moderately acknowledged. Is this weak brand
recognition due to insufficient efforts to promote South
Korea as such? To a certain extent, yes, South Korean governments
never packaged the Korean identity as a clear
message nor promoted it in a systematic way, as Japan did
in the 60s and still does. True enough, the message escapes
easy definition. How to promote Korea when the country itself
is divided? How to promote modern South Korea alone
as it is so different from ancient Korea? How to send a unifying
message when the South Korean people are so greatly
diversified by region and religion?
The solution to these dilemmas could very well emerge
from the art world. South Korea now is popular abroad not
only thanks to its industrial exports; artists do play a decisive
role. Beware of the ambiguities however. The so-called
Korean Wave is carrying American rock music to an enthusiastic
Chinese audience: the music is played by Koreans but
it is hardly related to Pansori. Korean television sitcoms
may be closer to the true Korean soul; we know how they
have been useful in bringing together the Japanese and the
South Koreans in a more thorough way than many years of
diligent diplomacy. Eventually, I consider that to really understand
the South Korean identity, the South Korean
movies and contemporary art have been more revealing
than pop entertainment.
Im Kwon-taek’s “Painted Fire,” Kim Jee-woon’s “A Tale
of Two Sisters”, Park Chan-wook’s, “Old Boy”, have
brought to an international audience a unique civilization,
Asian but definitely not Chinese and definitely not
Japanese. These movies have produced in the West a culture
shock comparable to the European discovery of
Japanese prints in the late 19th century. In fine arts, similarly,
the video art pioneer Paik Nam June and his follower
Jheon Soo-cheon have opened the eyes of art lovers
everywhere; thanks to these artists, South Korea has been
discovered as if it were a new continent. Korea was there
but we, in the West, could hardly see it.
Can these artists, to whom I shall add the writer Yi Munyeol,
help us understand who South Korea is at sixty? It is the
Morning Calm and Dynamism simultaneously. When Jheon
Soo-cheon displays his installations in Seoul , Venice , Paris
or New York, ancient funeral statuettes in a contemporary
light, he connects the oldest tradition with cutting edge
modernity: like Yi Mun-yeol’s novel , “Hail to the Emperor”,
he makes evident the continuity from Shamanism to
Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity and the postmodern
nihilism of Old Boy.
Because of this outstanding continuity, we celebrate
South Korea’s sixtieth birthday today as well as its 3000-
year-old civilization. This is a reason why, when visiting the
National Museum of Korea in Seoul, I regret that it does not
incorporate the most recent creation of contemporary
artists: the continuity would be for all to see. It would make
clear that South Korea does not lack identity but does suffer
from a still weak identity promotion policy.
What use would be such a policy? It would convey some
economic benefits. Strong national brands sell: world consumers
buy French perfumes because they are French,
Germans cars because they are German, Japanese technology
because it is Japanese. Korean products sell for many
reasons but rarely because they are Korean. Among industrial
advanced nations, South Korea, so far, has not yet built
a decisive cultural advantage.
Rising Expectations
In sixty years, however, South Korea went from one of the
poorest countries on earth to one of the most successful. Its
civilization alone would not have permitted such progress
if the right strategy had not been followed, a free market
economy and a progressive shift from enlightened despotism
to full-blown democracy. For the younger generation
who takes South Korea’s present status for granted, it is
difficult to imagine a different evolution. But a glance at
the neighboring countries which benefit from superior basic
resources show how communism could bring nations to
their knees.
History has thus proven that South Korean leaders
made the right choices at an early stage when liberal
democracy did not necessarily look like a winning choice:
whatever the rational (resist North Korea? emulate Japan?
follow the United States?), South Korea had it right. This
needs to be reaffirmed as Korean society at sixty doesn’t
escape the turmoil which goes with maturity. Is South
Korea in a crisis? Of course it is; only stagnant nations
mired in poverty, under despotic regimes, ignore crisis.
Because it is an actual democracy, and a modern economy,
South Korea has entered into the cycle of rising expectation:
only when life is improving do you start wondering
why it is not improving more rapidly. When free speech is
allowed, why not become vociferous?
As seen from abroad, especially from Western Europe,
the street demonstrations and strikes which take place in
South Korea do not surprise us: we have lived through those
kind of events before and we still live with them. In democratic
countries, elections never fully solve social conflicts;
the purpose of elections is to quiet those conflicts so that
they would not degenerate into civil war. What we now see
in South Korea is business as usual in Western democracies.
Are South Koreans disappointed with democracy? This is
common as well: democracy is always disappointing while
people expect too much of it. It is an imperfect regime but
it is non-violent and it doesn’t pretend to dictate individual
life. Maybe South Koreans are not yet accustomed to the inherent
modesty of democratic institutions.
They also are not fully reconciled - no nation is - with
the imperfections of the free market economy. Free market
economy brought South Koreans out of poverty; this was
hardly debated when the growth rate hovered around ten
percent. When the growth rate plummets to four percent,
enthusiasm for the market tends to decline. The very high
growth rate could absorb many imperfections of the system
such as long work hours, unequal redistribution, brutal exodus
from traditional activities to mass industry.
But a slower growth rate underlines these imperfections:
hard work is less well-tolerated, the gap between rich and
poor, between regular and irregular workers fall under
harsher scrutiny. A slower growth rate generates social frustration
from the less educated toward the better educated,
from the less paid toward the wealthy entrepreneurs. The
search for scapegoats (the Americans, the chaebol), and a
fiery nationalism, close to jingoism, take root easily when
expectations are not met. Shall we conclude that South
Korea is in a crisis, or in a transition? It seems to me as a
transition to the next stage, when South Korea will become
a major global player on the world scene.
Global Player
South Korea at sixty has unique resources that remain untapped:
its civilization as mentioned above is the most evident.
By promoting its cultural resources, from its museums
to its cuisine, by pursuing the globalization of its
economy, South Korea could be better recognized as a
global player. A stronger economy, more cultural value
would bring a stronger diplomatic position; South Korea
does not need to remain dwarfed between China and
Japan. More global clout would make reunification easier
against those who do not want it. Not only against North
Korea, which is an economic midget but against China and
Video artist Paik Nam-jun’s works
Japan as well; those two countries are not enthusiastic
about Korea’s reunification.
The goal of a unified Korea, which is now closer than
ever, could be the ambition of a new generation, the success
of the present administration and a tremendous booster for
the Korean economy. How will it happen? It is anybody’s
guess but, based on my knowledge of North Korea and my
memories of Russia, I bet on an implosion of North Korea
under the stress of mass poverty. The North Korean people
are no longer ignorant of the global reality.
Many in South Korea fear the cost of this reunification;
but the benefits in terms of market opportunities and new
work force would rapidly offset the costs. Moreover it
would bring peace to North East Asia, which remains unstable
and very much depending on the good will of the
U.S. military. A stronger and larger Korea could balance its
influence between Japan and China with the ultimate goal
of a North East Asian economic zone, following the lines of
the European Union. Such a grand design could become the
new national ambition of the South Koreans and overcome
short-term domestic conflicts or short-sighted nationalism.
This grand design should not exclude some significant
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