I am asked repeatedly, "Why do you
live and work in Korea?" When it seems as if the only sounds coming
from expatriates' mouths are complaints, I understand the average
Korean person's indignation. Korean students and acquaintances do
not usually ask this question, because they want an answer, but more
like, as to say, "Just leave!"
Depending on the person,
there are several variations on the answer, aside from the
completely flippant reply for drunks in bars, "None of your damn
business!" "Money!" is really not a responsible remark either.
Paying off college loans, seeking an exotic hiatus from an otherwise
boring or unsatisfying career (that's why I joined the Army,
actually), or seeking some valuable on-the-job training for a future
teaching career in a western country still does not touch the logic
behind living as a guest worker in a foreign country, when a citizen
has more civil rights. Actually, as a friend of mine (a defense
contractor married to a wonderful Korean woman) said this weekend,
"I don't have to worry about crime here!" But even that does not go
far enough to the root of the question, and, of the problem. It goes
beyond the discussion boards and the barstool chatter, because, if
it did not, there would be no reason for an article. Just a motley
crew of inebriated, self-righteous, apathetic losers slinging
insults on websites, trying to justify their half-baked opinions
with a cloak of free speech platitudes and moral-relativistic
pseudo-slogans. Some day these lame utterances will be the meat of
some sociologist's thesis, like the lewd graffiti on ancient Roman
walls.
I do feel sympathetic (in
the correct sense of the word) towards Koreans, because Americans
have already, and continue, to encounter the same problem. The
world, shrinking as rapidly as it is now, was never just a stretch
of land in each person's myopic vision, all tied together on a
low-tech, paper map. When satellites beamed photographs of that
tiny, fragile eggshell in space called Earth, many people had
already figured out, that more than just weather whipped around the
globe. The oil shocks of the 1970's acquainted Ma and Pa Kettle to
the intricacies of geo-politics, although they might have recalled
all that doom and gloom in the 50's about the encroaching shadow of
Uncle Joe and his Communist hordes. America loves to hide behind its
two beaches, the Atlantic and Pacific, only because every American
dreams a delusion, that the world is evil, and America is safe and
holy ground.
Americans and Koreans, you see,
are not that dissimilar. Only they choose different tactics: one
offensive, the other defensive. As is so many other questions,
Americans and Koreans are antithetical: language, culture, and
globalization. Leaders in the United States, buttressed by some of
the most talented wise men (Oppenheimer, Keynes, Einstein, et. al.)
assembled in one time period in history and a corpulent fear of
warring against another generation of Fascist dictators, set out to
keep America safe by extending it's borders till they circled the
globe. The fruits of the so-called pax americana can be
debated, but the point is, that it was all a matter of domestic
policy. Overnight, international became national; agriculture,
manufacturing, defense, every budget item became a matter of moral
importance. American leaders, and their European allies, fought the
last war by eliminating the roots of the world wars.
Koreans, on the other hand, prefer
the defensive approach. Hide the foreigners on Jeju Island! Restrict
those exit visas! No minority shareholder rights in "Korean"
companies! Korea, as deluded as the United States in the opposite
way, believes that there is an immutable idea called "korea",
comprehensible only to an exclusive group called "koreans", and
worthy of defending to the death (however pathetic and miserable
that death may be). Americans believe everyone in the world is
really an American dying to be freed of his/her nationalistic
constraints; Koreans just want to die undefiled by the world.
The problem is them. The
outsiders, the not-like-my-mother people who smell funny. Satellites
can click photos, using every kind of radiation known to science,
till everyone can have a custom-made screensaver. Scientists can map
the genome down to the last semi-animate particle, but there will
forever be a stranger among us. Maybe, its because we have a skin.
Bacteria and viruses are much more open-minded. Humans collect in
tribes, and destroy the enemy. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, et.
al., like to posit a brotherhood of global believers, only, not
every religion can have a hundred-billion followers. Hatred is
integral to the human animal, it makes us intelligent, loyal,
caring, and all those other moral qualities. We are one, because
there are so many others.
So, why am I here?
I am a virus, the carrier of a
disease. I study my victim, I love my victim, and thrive in its
warm, cosy innards. I love it so much, my host fashions weapons
tailor-made to annihilate me. I reduce my victim to its lowest point
of exhaustion, then I expire. But, not before, copies of me are
placed in the arsenal, to instruct the warriors of a future war. I
strengthen my victim. I give it new life. After the fever lifts,
there is the joy of living. In one big, happy world.
Actually, though, like Robert
Holley said in a recent interview, I have to work here, so I might
as well like it, too! Anything is better than working in a
jail!
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