President Barack Obama Series: The Korean's Thoughts

The Korean is quite happy about this result. When the Korean first saw Barack Obama – at his televised speech at the Democratic National Convention four years ago, the Korean was convinced that Obama was going to be the president someday. He just didn’t think it would happen so soon. Especially as a racial minority, the rise of Barack Obama to the top truly gives the Korean hope.

But beyond the Korean’s personal reaction, what more can be said about the significance about the Obama presidency? That was the question that faced the Korean as he set out to write his reaction piece. The Korean does not believe in wasting in words, and he hates talking about things that had been ably articulated already.

The Korean likes to talk about race relations, and this election obviously presents a lot to talk about. But because of the historic nature of this election, writers with far greater skills and time than the Korean have already explored all kinds of angles. The effect of this election in other country’s race relations? Check. The effect of this election in America’s whites? Yup. What about this election’s effect on fat-thin relations of our nation? To quote Sarah Palin, you betcha.

However, there is one angle that people have not been talking about just yet – perhaps because the question is a little too delicate to be asked. But this is one question that has been nagging the Korean during the entire Obama campaign: doesn’t Obama’s victory eliminate all excuses for black men of America?

One recurring theme in American racial politics is the various explanations for the status of black men in America. The statistics are clear – African American men are more likely to be incarcerated, more likely to be jobless and in poverty, etc. To an uninformed mind, the natural question that follows is: what’s wrong with black men? Why can’t they get a job or stay out of jail?

To this, racial politics provided various reasons, all of them tracing back to racism in mainstream America. The police uses racial profiling; the jury is more likely to convict a black man; the employers are less likely to hire black men, and quicker to fire them, etc. And so far, these explanations have held water.

But now, we have a flippin’ BLACK PRESIDENT. The President! Of the United States! You can’t get higher than that! All the racism in the world didn’t stop him from reaching the highest possible place in the world! The Korean can’t stop using the exclamation marks! It’s unbelievably unbelievable!

To be sure, the Korean is NOT saying that the election of Obama made all racial problems magically disappear. The Korean doubts that anyone in America truly believes that. However, the Korean thinks that a subtle shift in gears is inevitable for mainstream America. By having a black president, an example of personal responsibility against all odds has become very, very available. Now, if anyone tries to explain the unique challenges that black men in America face due to racial discrimination – perhaps in a debate about Affirmative Action? – half the listeners will think to themselves: “that didn’t stop President Obama.”

This shift will be more pronounced because of Barack Obama himself. Obama did not endorse the old-school racial politics, in which black politicians are supposed to embody the interests of the African American subgroup, and fight the systemic bias against racial minorities in the mainstream society. (In fact, if Obama took to this line, it would have been a guaranteed loss for him.) While Obama recognized the larger forces of discrimination, his message for racial minorities never wavered from the idea of personal responsibility.

His most revealing moment was his Father’s Day speech. It’s not just that Obama emphasized that black fathers need to step up and take personal responsibility – it’s that he did that with incredible specificity. The Father’s Day speech literally drew a picture of a lazy black father for the whole world: “don't just sit in the house and watch "SportsCenter" all weekend long.” In another campaign stop, Obama told a mostly African American crowd that they can’t let their children have “eight sodas a day,” “a bag of potato chips for lunch,” or “cold Popeyes for breakfast.”

The Korean’s reaction to this was: is Obama crazy? Does he have a death wish (for his campaign)? Did he decide that he doesn’t need black votes anymore? How is airing out black folks’ dirty laundry going to help him? Of course, it turned out that the Korean was wrong – Obama was just fine getting African American votes. Perhaps African Americans themselves are getting tired of the old racial politics as well.

Nonetheless, the forces of systemic, societal racism are still very real, and they daily affect the lives of racial minorities. The fight against such forces must continue. But -- irony of ironies -- as a black man rises to assume the presidency, the fight against racial discrimination may have gotten more difficult.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com

President Barack Obama Series: Interlude

Now, for a moment of levity --

In 8 years, there will be schools named after Barack Obama! There will be "Barack H. Obama Elementary School" or "OHS - Obama High School".

Even more amusing is, what would the school mascot be for OHS? The mascot for every single John F. Kennedy High School that the Korean knows of is "Fighting Irish", a decidedly racial mascot. So what about Barack Obama High School? "Black Knights"? "Hapa Warriors"? Suggestions are welcome!

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

President Barack Obama Series: Korea's Reaction

Dear Korean,

What is the Korean news media saying about our new president-elect Barack Obama? My mom reports that according to some Korean radio program, an Obama administration would not be beneficial for South Korea. 진짜? Is that the consensus in S. Korea?

Annalog


Dear Annalog,

First, a shout-out to your lovely blog.

For the ease of writing, “Koreans” in this post means “Koreans in Korea,” not “Korean Americans.”

There are mainly two reactions from Korea about the Obama administration: admiration for American democracy that enabled black presidency, and caution for his stance on free trade and U.S. military outside of America.

First, Koreans are genuinely impressed by the fact that America did elect a black president. Because there is so much publicity about the history of racism in America, Koreans have a perception that America is an extremely racist country. The fact that a black candidate won shatters that perception.

Certainly, there are some detractors. Some media outlets in Korea are noting that Obama is half-white, practically raised as a white child by his white mother and maternal grandparents in a relatively racism-free Hawaii, or that his father was not a descendant of a slave, but a well-off Kenyan elite. However, overwhelming majority of Korean newspapers are expressing nothing about admiration on this point, some using this opportunity to look back upon Korean people’s own (crappy) treatment of racial minorities in Korea.

However, Koreans are concerned about what Obama administration may bring to the U.S.-Korea relations based on Obama’s campaign stumps. Essentially, Korea needs two things from U.S.: trading in a preferred status, and military guarantee in case of a North Korean invasion. McCain administration would have guaranteed both. John McCain repeatedly asserted the virtue of free trade agreements, and no one would doubt that McCain would react swiftly and decisively if there were a North Korean invasion of South Korea.

On the other hand, the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and the South Korean auto industry were two of Barack Obama’s favorite whipping boys during his campaign. Obama consistently stressed that KORUS FTA was not fair with respect to its auto industry arrangements, suggesting that he would renegotiate it.

Few Americans know about KORUS FTA, but all Koreans know what KORUS FTA does for Korea. Except for a small group of vocal minority (farmers who would lose business to cheap U.S. agricultural products,) everyone in Korea loves the FTA. Koreans realize that they must trade or perish, and they fully understand the benefits of KORUS FTA. Indeed, although the presidency of Roh Moo-Hyun, preceding the current president, is considered an unmitigated disaster, his success in negotiating KORUS FTA is considered a significant achievement.

So it does concern Koreans a great deal when Obama calls KORUS FTA “badly flawed”. In fact, how Obama presidency would affect the FTA is the dominating headline in Korean newspapers right now. This is probably where Annalog’s mother was coming from.

The Korean thinks Obama was not serious about these characterizations. Democrats need union voters, and union voters dislike free trade agreements. If you remember, one of the issues during the Democratic primary was whether Obama and Hillary Clinton opposed NAFTA strongly enough. Once past the primary, Obama could not turn around and say that he favored free trade agreements; he had to continue the same message, not in the least because he needed to differentiate himself from McCain, who is vocally pro-free trade agreements.

So the Korean personally thinks that Obama will not go as far as his rhetoric may have suggested. But truly, no one knows if Obama meant what he said, or was throwing out campaign-specific sugar words. If Obama seriously tries to significantly alter KORUS FTA, Korean people’s opinion of him will quickly turn.

Another possibility is more remote, but potentially much more disastrous for Korea. Before the economy dominated the headlines for the last month of the campaign, the war in Iraq was the top priority in the presidential campaign. And Obama’s stance was quite clear: Iraq war was a mistake, and the U.S. military will get out as soon as practicable.

This gave rise to a valid concern: is the United States heading toward more isolationism under Barack Obama? It would not be very surprising if it is – American people are tired of dealing with another country’s mess, especially when they have their own economic mess to deal with. Then, as a country that depends heavily upon the U.S. military for its security, Korea may be in a more precarious position that it was before.

Of course, North Korea is not Iraq. No one was thinking about preemptively attacking North Korea, and such attack definitely would not happen under Obama administration. Thus, Korean War II would only happen when North Korea, again, invades the South. The chance that U.S. would not assist South Korea in such case appears quite remote.

But while the chance may be remote, it did increase by a little bit by having Obama administration rather than McCain administration. For example, consider this scenario: around March 2009, Kim Jong-Il suddenly dies. The top two factions of North Korea began to commandeer their own section of the army and begin a civil war. One of the factions, sensing defeat, asks for Chinese intervention. Chinese army gathers by the Yalu River, and begins the march toward Pyongyang.

South Korean government, sensing once-in-a-century opportunity for reunification and a real danger of Chinese occupation of half of Korean Peninsula, decides to roll its military in a race toward Pyongyang. Of course, South Korean government does not realistically expect that it can win a war against China; it is counting on the fact that, if South Korea were ever seriously threatened, U.S. military would intervene. Meanwhile, the U.S. military is still mostly tied up in Iraq.

Everything above is a realistic scenario, and the question is – would the Obama administration provide military support? The Korean is inclined to say yes, if South Korea is seriously threatened. (U.S. may, however, let the South Korean army get destroyed in Pyongyang.) However, this is just an educated guess, and America, under President Obama, may as well say no. Then it would be a disaster scenario for South Korea.

So all in all, the future of Korea-U.S. relations under the Obama administration is not all sprinkles of flowers and candies. As an American, the Korean prefers Barack Obama. (Although, unlike other liberals, the Korean would not have minded John McCain presidency.) However, Korea just needs two things from the U.S.: trade and security. McCain would have guaranteed both. Whether Obama would provide those two things are not as certain. There is the source of Korean people’s concern over the coming Obama presidency.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

President Barack Obama: The Series

Dear readers,

It’s a new day in America.

This morning, the Korean walked around a three-block radius to find a copy of New York Times to keep, but every New Yorker apparently had the same idea – every newsstand has completely run out of newspapers.

For this historical occasion, the Korean prepared a two-part series on Obama administration – how Koreans in Korea see this election, and the Korean’s own reaction. The posts will come this evening.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

The Korean would like to urge all Americans to get out and vote.

Ancient Yellow Fever Sold Here

Dear Korean,

Were there any intermarriage between Koreans and other ethnicities (during the 1500s-1800s) and if so, what were the ethnicities likely to be? I've been very curious to know if in fact we are mixed because we are often mistaken for Japanese or mixed with Caucasian. I know that this "mix" is not recent and was probably during that period.

Grace K.


Dear Grace,

The Korean thinks what you said is a little odd – how does “mixed with Caucasian” equate to Japanese? And how did you come up with those three centuries, when the history of Korea goes for several millennia?

At any rate, it may surprise people that Koreans did have some degree of genetic mixing (otherwise known as horizontal mambo) with non-Koreans, or even non-East Asians. Early Korean history is full of accounts in which heroic figures were born from an egg that floated from faraway land. Korean historians now believe that such legends are metaphorical indications that there were immigrations from Southeast Asia or South Asia to Korea. (It sounds silly written this way, but the evidence – in terms of artifacts or matches between legends of Korea and legends of South Asia, etc. makes it the theory sound at least plausible.)

Earliest case that concretely recorded a non-East Asian emigrating to the Korean peninsula happened around 11th century, when Goryeo dynasty established a trading post in Byeokran-do, an island at the mouth of Yeseong river (near Gaeseong, North Korea.) The picture is a re-creation of the Byeokran-do trading post, built for a historical drama. (Source)


Byeokran-do was frequented by hundreds of Arabian merchants, who were known to trade with China via sea. In fact, historians usually credit these merchants for the name “Korea”, a derivation of Goryeo. Koreans called the merchants saekmok’in, “people with colored eyes.”

Historical records show at least one Arabian merchant staying Korea, presumably marrying a local Korean woman. The Goryeo king awarded him a Korean name of Jang Sunryong, who became the starting point of Deoksu Jang clan. (More discussion about Korean surnames here.) The Korean would not be surprised if there were many more such cases not recorded into history. The picture is Goryeo people's rendition of the Arabian merchants. (Source)


Another instance of non-East Asian immigration is with a person named Seol Son. Seol was an ethnic Uyghur, who live in what is now western China, bordering the “stan” countries. He had an official position in China, and immigrated to Korea in order to run away from a rebellion in 1358. He received an official position and a surname from the Korean king.

Goryeo was clearly more open to overseas trade than the dynasty followed, i.e. Joseon dynasty. Joseon was dubbed the “hermit kingdom”, as it sought self-sufficiency with minimal foreign contact. But there was at least two prominent occasions in which non-East Asians came, stayed and got married in Korea. Interestingly, they were both Dutch.

The first was a man named Jan Janse Weltevree. He was a Dutch sailor working on a ship that sailed between Jakarta, Indonesia (which at that time was a Dutch colony) and Nagasaki, Japan. In 1627, he and two of his shipmates were shipwrecked on the coast Jeju Island, the southernmost island of Korea. They were caught and sent to Hanyang, i.e. modern-day Seoul.

Weltevree and his shipmates worked as firearms instructors for the Korean military, and fought in a war against China in 1636. Only Weltevree survived the war. The Korean king at the time recognized his bravery, gave him a name Bak Yeon. (Bak = Park in many cases.) He married a Korean woman, and had one son and one daughter.

The second occasion was another group of Dutch sailors, a whopping 35 of them. The most famous one was a man named Hendrick Hamel, who eventually left/escaped Korea to return to Netherlands after thirteen years along with seven of his cohorts. Hamel later wrote a book about his experience, which ended up becoming the first book in Europe about Korea. (Source)

Similar to Weltevree, they were shipwrecked in Jeju Island in 1653, when Weltevree was 58. In fact, when the Dutch sailors were captured, Weltevree was asked to be an interpreter. Hamel's journal indicates that Weltevree's Dutch, after decades of inaction, was so poor that Hamel did not recognize it as a language at first. Korean historical records indicate that at least 10 of the 35 Dutch sailors married Korean women and settled in southwestern Korea.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

Ask a Korean! News: Japanese Air Force Chief Fired for His Remarks on WWII

The Korean wrote a four-part series on Korea-Japan relation already. On the issue of apology, this is what the Korean wrote:

To its credit, Japan did officially apologize for its colonial past several times, including at the level of the Japanese Emperor and Prime Minister. In fact, especially in the 1990s, Japanese Prime Minister Hosokawa and his successor Murayama both apologized pretty sincerely, acknowledging Japanese Imperialism to be “invasions”.

Problem is that unlike Germany, Japan somehow has trouble maintaining that party line. Each time there is an apology from Japan, there are two Japanese politicians who say such things as “the Imperial Japan in fact did a lot of good to Korea, like modernizing it.”

So the Korean definitely was not surprised when a Japanese general said Japan was not the "aggressor nation" in World War II.

JAPAN was not the aggressor in World War II, according to the country's air force chief.

The essay was authored by General Toshio Tamogami, chief of staff of Japan's Air Self-Defence Force, and won the top award in an inaugural contest aimed at describing "true views of modern history".

"Even now, there are many people who think that our country's 'aggression' caused unbearable suffering to the countries of Asia during the Greater East Asia War," said the English-language version of the essay.

"But we need to realise that many Asian countries take a positive view of the Greater East Asia War.

"In Thailand, Burma, India, Singapore, and Indonesia, the Japan that fought the Greater East Asia War is held in high esteem.

"It is certainly a false accusation to say that our country was an aggressor nation."

The Greater East Asia War was a term used by Japan to describe the conflict in the Asia-Pacific theatre, emphasising that it involved Asian nations seeking independence from the Western powers.

The essay, entitled "Was Japan an Aggressor Nation?", was posted on the website of a Japanese hotel chain which organised the contest.

Source: Here.

The Korean will give Japanese military kudos for this: they did have the decency to fire this guy. But consider the audacity of this statement. And the fact that there was an essay contest that elicited this type of answer!

Despite the passion with which Koreans hate Japan at the moment, the Korean really believes that Korean people will move on when the Japanese government officially apologizes AND stick to it on all levels. Really, Koreans are like that -- they are passionate people who get very excited easily and move on just as quickly.

Also see ROK Drop's interesting write up on this issue, touching upon the issue of Yasukuni shrine. A quick summary quote from the post:

One theme I have picked up on at the [Yasukuni shrine's WWII] museum is that every attack the Japanese conducted was only executed because of foreign colonizers threatening Japan and its neighbors. Japan never wanted to colonize any country, they just wanted to liberate Asians from foreigners. This is of course nonsense.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.