I have decided, after about 10 minutes of deep thought, to discontinue Dana in Soko (v.2) at this domain. I've been getting increasingly frustrated with Blogger.com for being an unresponsive and horrifically slow beast. Seriously, I can only access my blog (and other blogspot sites) about 30-40% of the time; for some unnamed reason, it keeps "timing out" the rest of the time. WHY DO YOU DO THIS, BLOGGER? I have things that need saying!
I know, I know. This is kind of inopportune timing, given the new batch of Fellow babies and all, but it's a new (lunar) year and it was time for a change, anyway.
Don't despair, though - just because I'm no longer using Blogger doesn't mean that I am no longer blogging. I've set myself up a new account at http://danainsoko.wordpress.com/ (I know, REALLY CREATIVE NAME, RIGHT?). This site at Blogger will remain up as an archive. Please visit me at WordPress to keep up with my really awesome and exciting life.
I am touched and honored to have had such increased readership over the past few months. Thank you all, and please consider subscribing to the WordPress version!
Love,
D.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
설날*
* = lunar new year
One bowl of 떡국 (ddeokguk, rice cake soup) later, and I'm now [officially] 24 years old in Korean age. Even I am still unclear as to why, exactly, Korea forces me to be closer to age 30 than I physically am, but measuring age according to the lunar calendar is kind of bizarre in and of itself. Take a person like me, born in October - the minute I was born, I was considered one year old. Upon the [lunar] new year, everyone in the population - myself included - gains another year. So as a 3-4 month old baby, I was technically 2 years old in Korea. As it happens, if your birthday is later in the year (Sept - Dec), you will spend a grand part of the year being two Korean years older than you actually are - in 2010, I was 23 in Korea, but spent most of the actual year being 21. The really fascinating thing about this system of age-numbering is that it very neatly categorizes age differences between people - for example, if you ask me how many years there are between me and JM, I'll say, "3 and a half." If you ask her, she'll say "3." Because no matter how physically old we are, every New Year, she will always gain one year and so will I. This year, all people born in 1985 are 27, and all people born in 1988 are 24. Three years' difference, always - no less, no more. This also has the fantastic effect of creating barriers between people according to age: as mentioned before, older Koreans are never to be addressed by name by those younger than them, and the Lunar New Year stands as a marker of this. A person born in March, after the Lunar New Year, is considered a full year younger than someone born in the middle/end of January, before the Lunar New Year - and therefore they can't be friends! This, however, is a post for another time, and if enough people beg me out of curiosity, I'll do it soon.
[interesting note for future Lighters/folks studying in Korea: when Korean people ask you your age, do not answer in numbers unless you're positive you've got your Korean age right and that people will understand you to be talking about your Korean age and not your American age! This is particularly important because of 호칭, proper forms of address. For example, last year I told some guys I met in Korea that I was 20, which I was (in America). They said that they were 21, and that I should call them 오빠, or older brother. Later, it came out that that they were 21 in Korea, making them 19 in America, and thus making me 누나, or older sister.
How should you give your age, then? Just answer with the year you were born, like this: 저는 88년생이에요 (effectively translated to, "I was born in 1988.") But be careful - if you were born before the Lunar New Year, you are considered part of the age group of the preceding year. So, a friend of mine born on January 21, 1987 says that she is "빠른 87," translated as "fast 1987," meaning that she is considered the same age year as those born in 1986 after the Lunar New Year. Has your head fallen off yet? Come to Korea!]
Anyway, I was afraid that I was going to spend the Lunar New Year alone, mostly because it's a very family-oriented holiday that often winds up being pretttttty involved because of 제사 (Je-sah), a practice I don't really understand all that well beyond knowing that it has something to do with making offerings to ancestors. I didn't really expect to be invited anywhere, and therefore made plans to stock up on convenience store essentials, but then! My wonderful, amazing friend Nahee Unni contacted me from Yale, where she is studying, and asked me if I would like to spend the holiday with her family in Bucheon, a suburb of Seoul. At first, I was slightly apprehensive - prior to the New Year, I'd never met anyone in Nahee Unni's family, and given that she was studying in the States, she wouldn't even be there. But who was I to turn away such a generous and warm invitation? I gladly accepted, went to Hyundai Dept Store to buy her family a gift of red ginseng to thank them (gift-giving is a general practice, although the gifts certainly vary - I spent an hour wandering around the basement of the department store fending off the overeager sales pitches of saleswomen dressed in Korean traditional garb before deciding on it), and a few days later, found myself on a bus to the outskirts of the city.
[It must be noted that Seoul turns into a veritable ghost town on the Lunar New Year - almost nothing is open or running, save for 24 hour convenience stores and public transport. If you're traveling on the New Year, make sure to adjust your travel time for a lack of traffic - Nahee Unni said it would take about 1 hour by bus to get from Sinchon to Bucheon, but because the streets were so empty, I made the trip in 30 minutes flat and got to her house ridiculously early.]
Unsurprisingly, and much to my delight, Nahee Unni's family was welcoming, warm, and lovely. While a lot of people celebrate the holiday with extended family and elaboration, I was the only non-immediate-family guest at the Song house that day; but given that Nahee Unni has two older sisters and a kid brother, the house felt full and loud. I really, really enjoyed getting to know all of them and getting to put in a full days' worth of Korean practice - but I was unprepared to find that both of Nahee Unni's parents spoke 사투리 (sa-tu-ri), a slangish kind of "country" Korean that's used in a lot of provinces/cities outside of Seoul (like Busan). The pronunciation and even some of the vocab is very, very difficult to understand if you've only ever been exposed to "Seoul Korean," so it's not worth beating yourself up over it if you can't comprehend anything that's being said to you. Needless to say, it was kind of hard to communicate with Nahee Unni's mom because of the language barrier, but her sisters helped me out a lot and I think she liked me enough [lolz]. She gave me a ridiculous ton of food to take home. 넘 감사드렸어 ㅋㅋ
I also finally learned how to play 윷놀이 (kind of - I was only half paying attention while we were playing because Nahee Unni skyped us during the game) and 고스톱 (Go-stop), a Korean card game popular among gamblers. Go-stop is actually ridiculously fun, but a little tricky to get down for a first-timer. It took me upwards of 10 rounds before I could actually play on my own. We didn't gamble, but perhaps now I should start...? Can't read mah go-stop face. Sorry, that was horrible. I should strike that out, but I'm not going to.
I've been on vacation since Wednesday, the day before the actual New Year, but after getting home from Nahee Unni's house, I started to not feel very well. My stomach began acting up - at first, I thought maybe I'd overeaten or that something I'd eaten at her place hadn't sat well with me, but I spent the better part of Thursday night and yesterday running a fever and being unable to eat solid food beyond a few saltines, so I guess I must have caught some 24-hour flu. I woke up this morning feeling like crap, but I've felt gradually better and have (so far) been able to keep down a little bit of bread, a little bit of fruit, and some 죽 (jook, Korean rice porridge). I hope I continue to get better - I haven't felt well enough to do ANYTHING, and so I wasted all of the time I intended to use reviewing and previewing for next week's classes sleeping or watching internet TV in bed. Plus, I plan to watch the Superbowl on Monday morning (shhh), and my stomach better be in solid enough condition for 8:30am beers and snacks!
As I understand it, Korea's (and China's, and Japan's) latest batch of Light Fellows have been chosen! 축하합니다! I'll take this opportunity to put it out there that I'm available to answer any questions or take comments on Korea, living here, going to Sogang, etc etc. I'll also be breaking with my tradition of completely ignoring the question in the Light Fellowship weekly email to post an "advice for future Fellows" blog sometime in the near future. Wait for it, wait for it.
Happy New Year to all ~ 먼 곳에 있는 친구들, 우리 같이 설날 보낼 수 있었으면 좋겠죠? 앞으로 늘 건강하시구요, 늘 행복하게 사시구요, 늘 낙찬적으로 생활하시기를 :) 사랑해요 ♥
One bowl of 떡국 (ddeokguk, rice cake soup) later, and I'm now [officially] 24 years old in Korean age. Even I am still unclear as to why, exactly, Korea forces me to be closer to age 30 than I physically am, but measuring age according to the lunar calendar is kind of bizarre in and of itself. Take a person like me, born in October - the minute I was born, I was considered one year old. Upon the [lunar] new year, everyone in the population - myself included - gains another year. So as a 3-4 month old baby, I was technically 2 years old in Korea. As it happens, if your birthday is later in the year (Sept - Dec), you will spend a grand part of the year being two Korean years older than you actually are - in 2010, I was 23 in Korea, but spent most of the actual year being 21. The really fascinating thing about this system of age-numbering is that it very neatly categorizes age differences between people - for example, if you ask me how many years there are between me and JM, I'll say, "3 and a half." If you ask her, she'll say "3." Because no matter how physically old we are, every New Year, she will always gain one year and so will I. This year, all people born in 1985 are 27, and all people born in 1988 are 24. Three years' difference, always - no less, no more. This also has the fantastic effect of creating barriers between people according to age: as mentioned before, older Koreans are never to be addressed by name by those younger than them, and the Lunar New Year stands as a marker of this. A person born in March, after the Lunar New Year, is considered a full year younger than someone born in the middle/end of January, before the Lunar New Year - and therefore they can't be friends! This, however, is a post for another time, and if enough people beg me out of curiosity, I'll do it soon.
[interesting note for future Lighters/folks studying in Korea: when Korean people ask you your age, do not answer in numbers unless you're positive you've got your Korean age right and that people will understand you to be talking about your Korean age and not your American age! This is particularly important because of 호칭, proper forms of address. For example, last year I told some guys I met in Korea that I was 20, which I was (in America). They said that they were 21, and that I should call them 오빠, or older brother. Later, it came out that that they were 21 in Korea, making them 19 in America, and thus making me 누나, or older sister.
How should you give your age, then? Just answer with the year you were born, like this: 저는 88년생이에요 (effectively translated to, "I was born in 1988.") But be careful - if you were born before the Lunar New Year, you are considered part of the age group of the preceding year. So, a friend of mine born on January 21, 1987 says that she is "빠른 87," translated as "fast 1987," meaning that she is considered the same age year as those born in 1986 after the Lunar New Year. Has your head fallen off yet? Come to Korea!]
Anyway, I was afraid that I was going to spend the Lunar New Year alone, mostly because it's a very family-oriented holiday that often winds up being pretttttty involved because of 제사 (Je-sah), a practice I don't really understand all that well beyond knowing that it has something to do with making offerings to ancestors. I didn't really expect to be invited anywhere, and therefore made plans to stock up on convenience store essentials, but then! My wonderful, amazing friend Nahee Unni contacted me from Yale, where she is studying, and asked me if I would like to spend the holiday with her family in Bucheon, a suburb of Seoul. At first, I was slightly apprehensive - prior to the New Year, I'd never met anyone in Nahee Unni's family, and given that she was studying in the States, she wouldn't even be there. But who was I to turn away such a generous and warm invitation? I gladly accepted, went to Hyundai Dept Store to buy her family a gift of red ginseng to thank them (gift-giving is a general practice, although the gifts certainly vary - I spent an hour wandering around the basement of the department store fending off the overeager sales pitches of saleswomen dressed in Korean traditional garb before deciding on it), and a few days later, found myself on a bus to the outskirts of the city.
[It must be noted that Seoul turns into a veritable ghost town on the Lunar New Year - almost nothing is open or running, save for 24 hour convenience stores and public transport. If you're traveling on the New Year, make sure to adjust your travel time for a lack of traffic - Nahee Unni said it would take about 1 hour by bus to get from Sinchon to Bucheon, but because the streets were so empty, I made the trip in 30 minutes flat and got to her house ridiculously early.]
Unsurprisingly, and much to my delight, Nahee Unni's family was welcoming, warm, and lovely. While a lot of people celebrate the holiday with extended family and elaboration, I was the only non-immediate-family guest at the Song house that day; but given that Nahee Unni has two older sisters and a kid brother, the house felt full and loud. I really, really enjoyed getting to know all of them and getting to put in a full days' worth of Korean practice - but I was unprepared to find that both of Nahee Unni's parents spoke 사투리 (sa-tu-ri), a slangish kind of "country" Korean that's used in a lot of provinces/cities outside of Seoul (like Busan). The pronunciation and even some of the vocab is very, very difficult to understand if you've only ever been exposed to "Seoul Korean," so it's not worth beating yourself up over it if you can't comprehend anything that's being said to you. Needless to say, it was kind of hard to communicate with Nahee Unni's mom because of the language barrier, but her sisters helped me out a lot and I think she liked me enough [lolz]. She gave me a ridiculous ton of food to take home. 넘 감사드렸어 ㅋㅋ
I also finally learned how to play 윷놀이 (kind of - I was only half paying attention while we were playing because Nahee Unni skyped us during the game) and 고스톱 (Go-stop), a Korean card game popular among gamblers. Go-stop is actually ridiculously fun, but a little tricky to get down for a first-timer. It took me upwards of 10 rounds before I could actually play on my own. We didn't gamble, but perhaps now I should start...? Can't read mah go-stop face. Sorry, that was horrible. I should strike that out, but I'm not going to.
I've been on vacation since Wednesday, the day before the actual New Year, but after getting home from Nahee Unni's house, I started to not feel very well. My stomach began acting up - at first, I thought maybe I'd overeaten or that something I'd eaten at her place hadn't sat well with me, but I spent the better part of Thursday night and yesterday running a fever and being unable to eat solid food beyond a few saltines, so I guess I must have caught some 24-hour flu. I woke up this morning feeling like crap, but I've felt gradually better and have (so far) been able to keep down a little bit of bread, a little bit of fruit, and some 죽 (jook, Korean rice porridge). I hope I continue to get better - I haven't felt well enough to do ANYTHING, and so I wasted all of the time I intended to use reviewing and previewing for next week's classes sleeping or watching internet TV in bed. Plus, I plan to watch the Superbowl on Monday morning (shhh), and my stomach better be in solid enough condition for 8:30am beers and snacks!
As I understand it, Korea's (and China's, and Japan's) latest batch of Light Fellows have been chosen! 축하합니다! I'll take this opportunity to put it out there that I'm available to answer any questions or take comments on Korea, living here, going to Sogang, etc etc. I'll also be breaking with my tradition of completely ignoring the question in the Light Fellowship weekly email to post an "advice for future Fellows" blog sometime in the near future. Wait for it, wait for it.
Happy New Year to all ~ 먼 곳에 있는 친구들, 우리 같이 설날 보낼 수 있었으면 좋겠죠? 앞으로 늘 건강하시구요, 늘 행복하게 사시구요, 늘 낙찬적으로 생활하시기를 :) 사랑해요 ♥
Saturday, January 29, 2011
내 하고싶은 말*
* = what I want to say.
Am I killing my readers with the overposting these days? 미안안안 (sorryyyyyyy).
I don't read Yale publications terribly often; I usually only run into an interesting piece in the YDN, the Yale Herald, etc if a friend links to it on Facebook or points me in that direction. But I found this article in the online edition of the Yale Herald today, and that, coupled with the fact that I now (fondly) recall that I received news of my Light Fellowship funding to come back to Korea for a full year almost exactly one year ago, prompts me to post today.
For those of you who don't wish to read the article (shame on you! I even hyperlinked it!), it essentially talks about the pursuit of a 4.0 GPA at Yale and delves a bit into 1) what the achievement of such high grades means and requires, 2) the general perceptions that students carry regarding grades, success, and personal merit, and 3) the implications of the first two items. It's a difficult piece to summarize with a definitive point, so I will just post the paragraphs that I found the most interesting.
When I look back on the courses that I took at Yale, sometimes there are things I felt I should have done that I didn't - I never took econ, despite the fact that I have long known that my own understanding of economics is crippling, and I missed the chance to take Keith Darden's seminar on nationalism (though I did manage to make it into the lecture). But overall, I was happy with my courses, and for the most part, I enjoyed taking them and feel like they really enhanced my academic and educational experience. And aren't those the most important things?
Well. Those things are very important if you have an unreasonably high level of self-esteem and are able to shrug off the scrutiny of your peers like water off a duck's back. But most of us are human, most of us are unable to do that, and to be upfront and honest, I was routinely berated for my choices at Yale and painfully so. It was rarely done to my face - that would have been smallest kindness - but word always got back to me. What were the criticisms? To put them succinctly:
1) Dana only takes classes that are easy and will get her a high GPA.
2) Dana is actually just stupid and can't do math or science. She doesn't take those classes because they'll hurt her GPA. She is taking the easy way out.
3) Dana's high GPA doesn't accurately reflect how smart she is because all of her classes were too easy. She's not as smart as say, someone who is double-majoring in a science and a humanities.
4) Dana's class choices are completely useless.
Thank you, the court has heard the criticisms. Now, please allow me to present my defense.
You're right. I am terrible at math and most sciences, principally because the fields of physics and chemistry do involve a lot of math (I'm almost disgustingly good at biology, but nobody ever acknowledged that because it's the "easy science" that just involves a lot of memorizing. Nevertheless, ask me if I can still recall almost every detail of the oxidative phosphorylation process - just try it). On that vein, it should be noted that I absolutely despise math. It frustrates me to no end, I hate doing it, I hated taking classes that involved it, and once I was finished with a torturous full year of high school AP calculus, I vowed to myself that my future profession would involve the minimal level of mathematics - preferably limited to balancing my checkbook and depositing large checks in the bank.
And of course, with that being said, it's obviously true (and I was well aware) that taking math and science classes would have ruthlessly murdered and dismembered my GPA. It's also true that my grades from my science and QR (quantitative reasoning) required classes at Yale are the worst on my transcript.
But (and this bears repeating), I just do not like math. I'm not good at it. I did not feel the need to torture myself by forcing myself to take classes that would have made me both miserable and would have seriously called into question my ability to have a future. So I avoided classes I would have hated (math) and took classes I was sure I would enjoy (various selections from language, humanities, and the social sciences). Does that mean that the GPA I earned from taking those classes is an inaccurate reflection of my intelligence? Should I have taken a bunch of math and science classes for a more accurate measure of how truly smart (or truly stupid) I am?
Even close friends used to say privately behind my back that they thought I was stupid, the "dumbest in my suite." I knew how they felt about my choices, and you know what? It hurt. Because of their malice and their words, I felt stupid. I felt of sub-par intelligence. I felt that I didn't deserve to be at Yale. Even today, I'll readily admit that the "numbers game" of measuring intelligence by GPA is seriously flawed because I know that even the most difficult political science class pales in comparison to organic chemistry or waste water treatment. I truly believe that some of my friends probably possess a greater degree of intelligence than I do, but that isn't reflected on paper.
Does that mean that my "smarter" friends who chose difficult majors shouldn't have done so? Does it mean that they should have taken the "easy way out" and majored in history?
No, of course it doesn't. It comes down to personal choice, what you want to do and what you are happy doing. I would have been miserable as a science/math major; one of my former roommates, who majored in biology, probably would have been similarly miserable as a humanities major. In fact, if I recall correctly, she avoided humanities classes like the plague (I remember she got a C on her first paper in Writing 116) - but to my knowledge, no one ever made fun of her inability to write long, theoretically-informed papers or called her stupid or berated her intelligence the way they did mine. Suppose me and this roommate switched places - we would have both wound up with horrifically low GPAs and less-than-fond memories of classes taken during college. We would have been miserable.
I always wanted to say to my college roommates that I was happy, that I was doing things that I loved doing, and that my GPA was always less of a factor in my selection of classes than was personal choice, personal potential growth, and personal gain. And as it happened, probably because I was more in my element, I performed decently in those classes and achieved decent scores. And don't think there weren't struggles - Leslie Brisman's "The Bible as Literature" seminar was easily, easily one of the most intellectually stimulating and challenging classes I ever took (I got one paper back with four pages of single-spaced typed criticism - no fake). But no, people - particularly those at Yale - are vicious in their judgment, and everything is a competition, and to them, I suppose it looked like I was winning unfairly because I was doing "easy" things. But I wasn't trying to win, you fucking morons, any more than you were trying to "lose" by taking science and math classes that make PhD candidates want to rip their hair out! I was following my bliss and you were, I hope, following yours! We are all smart and intelligent and capable people - it just may manifest itself in different ways.
[As an aside, if anyone - I mean it, anyone - ever calls one of my musician friends "stupid" ever again (either to my face or privately and word gets back to me, you gossip-mongering horrors), I will never, ever, ever, ever speak to you ever again.]
Beyond vindication, I do have a point here, and I want to address it to people who are following their bliss:
People have expressed to me both private and public criticism of my decision to take and pursue Korean. At Yale, Korean is almost a "gut" language; it's really hard to get lower than an A or A-, and the class progresses at a ridiculously slow pace sometimes. It's not as academically rigorous as Chinese, not as notable in popular culture as is Japanese, and (here was the criticism I heard the most), it's "not useful." Even though Korean is an incredibly, unbelievably, frustratingly difficult language to master, people at Yale used to look at the class as little more than a GPA boost because of the nature of the way it's taught. I'll be the first to admit that the Korean department needs a bit of a makeover, but let me say this clearly:
I did not take Korean because it was an easy A.
I did not take Korean because the class was fun (the shock! the horror! a Yale class, fun? but if it's fun, you're not learning!).
I did not take Korean because I had elaborate plans of how, exactly, I would implement the language into my professional future.
I did not take Korean so that I could put it on my resume (I'm looking at some of my Chinese-language learning peers).
I did not take Korean because I couldn't handle Chinese.
I did not take Korean because I am lazy, stupid, incompetent, or any combination of those things.
I took Korean because I fell in love with it. Learning Korean and learning about Korea made me infinitely happy. Because of Korean, I found my passion - my truest passion - and I know that I will continue to follow it for as long as I live. Because of Korean, I feel every day that what I am doing has great purpose to my life. Because of Korean, I have met my best friends, talented musicians, brilliant educators, and astonishing intellectuals. I have lived in a country that has taught me more about life, learning, and success than did four years at one of America's most prestigious institutions of higher learning.
To all of the Yale students who will be awarded Light Fellowships to study in Korea, to all of those who aspire to do so, and to all who live in fear of scrutiny of their peers simply for following their dreams and passions: don't let anyone talk you out of your heart's desire. Don't let the one-track minded Yalies whose dreams can be summed up in two years at an investment banking firm make you feel stupid or unaccomplished for following your path. Don't worry about what is useful or useless in the eyes of everyone around you. Do not begrudge others their happiness, but most importantly, pursue your own.
"내가 하는 일은 바로 내 일이라서 한다는 사명감을 가져야 합니다. 이게 성숙한 사람 아닐까요? 일을 잘 했느냐? 못 했는냐? 가치가 있는 일이냐? 가치가 없는 일이냐? 이런 생각에 빠지거나 다른 사람의 평가에 흔들리면 안 됩니다...우리가 이 세상에서 할 일은 내가 되어서 내 일을 하는 것입니다. 그러면 사는 것이 간단하고 쉽지요. 우리는 누구의 기대에 맞추려고 사는 것이 아닙니다."
Translation: "Because the work that I do is my work, it should carry with it a call of duty. Is this not the reflection of a mature person? Can I do this well? Can I not do this well? Is this a valuable job? Is this not a valuable job? Don't think about these sorts of things and don't be swayed by the analysis of others. In this world, the work I choose to do is my work. So living is simple and easy. We do not live to live up to the expectations of others."
[excerpted from Sogang's Level 6 reading textbook, Lesson 6, "나의 일, 나의 길".]
포기하지마. Don't give up.
Love,
D.
Am I killing my readers with the overposting these days? 미안안안 (sorryyyyyyy).
I don't read Yale publications terribly often; I usually only run into an interesting piece in the YDN, the Yale Herald, etc if a friend links to it on Facebook or points me in that direction. But I found this article in the online edition of the Yale Herald today, and that, coupled with the fact that I now (fondly) recall that I received news of my Light Fellowship funding to come back to Korea for a full year almost exactly one year ago, prompts me to post today.
For those of you who don't wish to read the article (shame on you! I even hyperlinked it!), it essentially talks about the pursuit of a 4.0 GPA at Yale and delves a bit into 1) what the achievement of such high grades means and requires, 2) the general perceptions that students carry regarding grades, success, and personal merit, and 3) the implications of the first two items. It's a difficult piece to summarize with a definitive point, so I will just post the paragraphs that I found the most interesting.
Professors often attempt to highlight the future insignificance of GPA by pushing students to take risks while at Yale. Fadiman believes that grades “can discourage students from taking risks, since it’s so tempting to keep on doing what has already earned them A’s in the past.” She finds that with the grade incentive removed it is often the case that students work “even harder than they would have for a grade” because “they can feel secure that they want to write because they love it and not because of a sense of obligation.”
Dean Besirevic-Regan, too, encourages her students not too place too much emphasis on the pursuit of a number, adding that she is not always “as impressed with a student who has a 4.0 but has done nothing else.” She advises her students to step outside their comfort zone, often finding that they are “more proud of getting a B-plus in a hard class than getting an easy A.” The “saddest thing” for her is seeing a senior take basic drawing for the first time only to find that “this is their passion and what they love.” Saussy encourages students to remember why they’re at Yale. “Previous human experience has shown that garnering rewards at one stage of life is no guarantee that you will be rewarded, or simply happy, at the next stage.”I'll bite, I had a decent GPA at Yale - high enough to graduate with honors. I was never UPSET if I got a low grade (I was, in fact, mostly happy with even my crappy grades, because I received them in classes where the expected outcome was mediocrity at best). Rather, I tried to emphasize classes and content more than simply just looking at grades. This lead to some interesting choices on my transcript - a class on food history (one of my favorites at Yale), two classes on biblical scholarship (not even tangentially related to what I was planning to do), a political science seminar on bioethics (hey, the lecture was really good), and a history course on the Roman emperor Nero (taught by the foremost leading historian on the Classics in the United States). Oh, and of course - Korean.
When I look back on the courses that I took at Yale, sometimes there are things I felt I should have done that I didn't - I never took econ, despite the fact that I have long known that my own understanding of economics is crippling, and I missed the chance to take Keith Darden's seminar on nationalism (though I did manage to make it into the lecture). But overall, I was happy with my courses, and for the most part, I enjoyed taking them and feel like they really enhanced my academic and educational experience. And aren't those the most important things?
Well. Those things are very important if you have an unreasonably high level of self-esteem and are able to shrug off the scrutiny of your peers like water off a duck's back. But most of us are human, most of us are unable to do that, and to be upfront and honest, I was routinely berated for my choices at Yale and painfully so. It was rarely done to my face - that would have been smallest kindness - but word always got back to me. What were the criticisms? To put them succinctly:
1) Dana only takes classes that are easy and will get her a high GPA.
2) Dana is actually just stupid and can't do math or science. She doesn't take those classes because they'll hurt her GPA. She is taking the easy way out.
3) Dana's high GPA doesn't accurately reflect how smart she is because all of her classes were too easy. She's not as smart as say, someone who is double-majoring in a science and a humanities.
4) Dana's class choices are completely useless.
Thank you, the court has heard the criticisms. Now, please allow me to present my defense.
You're right. I am terrible at math and most sciences, principally because the fields of physics and chemistry do involve a lot of math (I'm almost disgustingly good at biology, but nobody ever acknowledged that because it's the "easy science" that just involves a lot of memorizing. Nevertheless, ask me if I can still recall almost every detail of the oxidative phosphorylation process - just try it). On that vein, it should be noted that I absolutely despise math. It frustrates me to no end, I hate doing it, I hated taking classes that involved it, and once I was finished with a torturous full year of high school AP calculus, I vowed to myself that my future profession would involve the minimal level of mathematics - preferably limited to balancing my checkbook and depositing large checks in the bank.
And of course, with that being said, it's obviously true (and I was well aware) that taking math and science classes would have ruthlessly murdered and dismembered my GPA. It's also true that my grades from my science and QR (quantitative reasoning) required classes at Yale are the worst on my transcript.
But (and this bears repeating), I just do not like math. I'm not good at it. I did not feel the need to torture myself by forcing myself to take classes that would have made me both miserable and would have seriously called into question my ability to have a future. So I avoided classes I would have hated (math) and took classes I was sure I would enjoy (various selections from language, humanities, and the social sciences). Does that mean that the GPA I earned from taking those classes is an inaccurate reflection of my intelligence? Should I have taken a bunch of math and science classes for a more accurate measure of how truly smart (or truly stupid) I am?
Even close friends used to say privately behind my back that they thought I was stupid, the "dumbest in my suite." I knew how they felt about my choices, and you know what? It hurt. Because of their malice and their words, I felt stupid. I felt of sub-par intelligence. I felt that I didn't deserve to be at Yale. Even today, I'll readily admit that the "numbers game" of measuring intelligence by GPA is seriously flawed because I know that even the most difficult political science class pales in comparison to organic chemistry or waste water treatment. I truly believe that some of my friends probably possess a greater degree of intelligence than I do, but that isn't reflected on paper.
Does that mean that my "smarter" friends who chose difficult majors shouldn't have done so? Does it mean that they should have taken the "easy way out" and majored in history?
No, of course it doesn't. It comes down to personal choice, what you want to do and what you are happy doing. I would have been miserable as a science/math major; one of my former roommates, who majored in biology, probably would have been similarly miserable as a humanities major. In fact, if I recall correctly, she avoided humanities classes like the plague (I remember she got a C on her first paper in Writing 116) - but to my knowledge, no one ever made fun of her inability to write long, theoretically-informed papers or called her stupid or berated her intelligence the way they did mine. Suppose me and this roommate switched places - we would have both wound up with horrifically low GPAs and less-than-fond memories of classes taken during college. We would have been miserable.
I always wanted to say to my college roommates that I was happy, that I was doing things that I loved doing, and that my GPA was always less of a factor in my selection of classes than was personal choice, personal potential growth, and personal gain. And as it happened, probably because I was more in my element, I performed decently in those classes and achieved decent scores. And don't think there weren't struggles - Leslie Brisman's "The Bible as Literature" seminar was easily, easily one of the most intellectually stimulating and challenging classes I ever took (I got one paper back with four pages of single-spaced typed criticism - no fake). But no, people - particularly those at Yale - are vicious in their judgment, and everything is a competition, and to them, I suppose it looked like I was winning unfairly because I was doing "easy" things. But I wasn't trying to win
[As an aside, if anyone - I mean it, anyone - ever calls one of my musician friends "stupid" ever again (either to my face or privately and word gets back to me, you gossip-mongering horrors), I will never, ever, ever, ever speak to you ever again.]
Beyond vindication, I do have a point here, and I want to address it to people who are following their bliss:
People have expressed to me both private and public criticism of my decision to take and pursue Korean. At Yale, Korean is almost a "gut" language; it's really hard to get lower than an A or A-, and the class progresses at a ridiculously slow pace sometimes. It's not as academically rigorous as Chinese, not as notable in popular culture as is Japanese, and (here was the criticism I heard the most), it's "not useful." Even though Korean is an incredibly, unbelievably, frustratingly difficult language to master, people at Yale used to look at the class as little more than a GPA boost because of the nature of the way it's taught. I'll be the first to admit that the Korean department needs a bit of a makeover, but let me say this clearly:
I did not take Korean because it was an easy A.
I did not take Korean because the class was fun (the shock! the horror! a Yale class, fun? but if it's fun, you're not learning!).
I did not take Korean because I had elaborate plans of how, exactly, I would implement the language into my professional future.
I did not take Korean so that I could put it on my resume (I'm looking at some of my Chinese-language learning peers).
I did not take Korean because I couldn't handle Chinese.
I did not take Korean because I am lazy, stupid, incompetent, or any combination of those things.
I took Korean because I fell in love with it. Learning Korean and learning about Korea made me infinitely happy. Because of Korean, I found my passion - my truest passion - and I know that I will continue to follow it for as long as I live. Because of Korean, I feel every day that what I am doing has great purpose to my life. Because of Korean, I have met my best friends, talented musicians, brilliant educators, and astonishing intellectuals. I have lived in a country that has taught me more about life, learning, and success than did four years at one of America's most prestigious institutions of higher learning.
To all of the Yale students who will be awarded Light Fellowships to study in Korea, to all of those who aspire to do so, and to all who live in fear of scrutiny of their peers simply for following their dreams and passions: don't let anyone talk you out of your heart's desire. Don't let the one-track minded Yalies whose dreams can be summed up in two years at an investment banking firm make you feel stupid or unaccomplished for following your path. Don't worry about what is useful or useless in the eyes of everyone around you. Do not begrudge others their happiness, but most importantly, pursue your own.
"내가 하는 일은 바로 내 일이라서 한다는 사명감을 가져야 합니다. 이게 성숙한 사람 아닐까요? 일을 잘 했느냐? 못 했는냐? 가치가 있는 일이냐? 가치가 없는 일이냐? 이런 생각에 빠지거나 다른 사람의 평가에 흔들리면 안 됩니다...우리가 이 세상에서 할 일은 내가 되어서 내 일을 하는 것입니다. 그러면 사는 것이 간단하고 쉽지요. 우리는 누구의 기대에 맞추려고 사는 것이 아닙니다."
Translation: "Because the work that I do is my work, it should carry with it a call of duty. Is this not the reflection of a mature person? Can I do this well? Can I not do this well? Is this a valuable job? Is this not a valuable job? Don't think about these sorts of things and don't be swayed by the analysis of others. In this world, the work I choose to do is my work. So living is simple and easy. We do not live to live up to the expectations of others."
[excerpted from Sogang's Level 6 reading textbook, Lesson 6, "나의 일, 나의 길".]
포기하지마. Don't give up.
Love,
D.
사진 찍어줄래?*
* = want to take a picture?
Nothing new or terribly informative to report except for another bit of foreigner hilarious: after a delicious dinner of 불고기 (bulgogi, a type of Korean BBQ) with JM's parents last Thursday, her dad ordered us some 육계장, a pleasantly spicy beef soup. However, the waiter brought out not three bowls of 육계장, but two bowls of it and one bowl of a clear, mild-looking broth. Placing it in front of me, he offered this explanation to JM's parents (without looking at or addressing me): "I figured the foreigner couldn't handle the spicy soup." OHRLY. How nice of the waiter to tell me what I would like. I really couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. But the secretly hilarious part is that I think that this sort of thing happens quite frequently and is actually viewed as an act of politeness on behalf of the restaurant. Interesting, because in America, this is actually horrendously rude.
JM's mom let me eat her 육계장. And when I ate all of it, she offered to order me more. An offer that I declined, but TAKE THAT, WAITER.
Cold weather, 막걸리 (Korean rice wine), graduation in less than one month. The lunar new year is this week and I'm going to be spending it with a real live Korean family! More to come.
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| My Korean class - a picture taken for the 조선일보 (Chosun Ilbo), one of Korea's largest newspapers. I am not sure when/if coverage of Sogang's language school will be appearing, but I'll post if it does! |
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| Ice sledding / 얼음 썰매 in 안성. We went for our Level 6 소풍, translated as "picnic" but usually refers to any day trip or outing of some sort. Despite it being cold (I am bare-handed here because I lost my gloves, whine whine), it was SOMUCHFUN. I probably would have stayed out there all day if the teachers didn't make us come back to Seoul. |
Nothing new or terribly informative to report except for another bit of foreigner hilarious: after a delicious dinner of 불고기 (bulgogi, a type of Korean BBQ) with JM's parents last Thursday, her dad ordered us some 육계장, a pleasantly spicy beef soup. However, the waiter brought out not three bowls of 육계장, but two bowls of it and one bowl of a clear, mild-looking broth. Placing it in front of me, he offered this explanation to JM's parents (without looking at or addressing me): "I figured the foreigner couldn't handle the spicy soup." OHRLY. How nice of the waiter to tell me what I would like. I really couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. But the secretly hilarious part is that I think that this sort of thing happens quite frequently and is actually viewed as an act of politeness on behalf of the restaurant. Interesting, because in America, this is actually horrendously rude.
JM's mom let me eat her 육계장. And when I ate all of it, she offered to order me more. An offer that I declined, but TAKE THAT, WAITER.
Cold weather, 막걸리 (Korean rice wine), graduation in less than one month. The lunar new year is this week and I'm going to be spending it with a real live Korean family! More to come.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
처음 처럼*
* = like the first time.
A few posts back, I (rather poorly) answered a question about Korean gender perceptions, particularly in terms of dividing duties in a marriage. I am by no means an expert on this (actually, since I have basically no formal education on Korea, I am not an expert on ANYTHING to do with the country, so pretty much anything I have to say is rooted in anecdotes), but I was recently referred to a fantastic blog called The Grand Narrative, which deals with "Korean sociology through gender, advertising, and popular culture" [description quoted directly from the tagline]. Blogger James Turnbull's posts are insightful, clear, and astoundingly well-researched. As a bonus, he wins big points from me for having taken the time as an English teacher to learn to speak and read Korean. If you have any questions about sexuality in Korea (or even if you don't), I strongly suggest you check it out.
A few posts back, I (rather poorly) answered a question about Korean gender perceptions, particularly in terms of dividing duties in a marriage. I am by no means an expert on this (actually, since I have basically no formal education on Korea, I am not an expert on ANYTHING to do with the country, so pretty much anything I have to say is rooted in anecdotes), but I was recently referred to a fantastic blog called The Grand Narrative, which deals with "Korean sociology through gender, advertising, and popular culture" [description quoted directly from the tagline]. Blogger James Turnbull's posts are insightful, clear, and astoundingly well-researched. As a bonus, he wins big points from me for having taken the time as an English teacher to learn to speak and read Korean. If you have any questions about sexuality in Korea (or even if you don't), I strongly suggest you check it out.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
왜국인, 한국인, 사람*
* = foreigner, Korean, person.
Two fascinating anecdotes for today.
Yesterday I went to Gangnam to meet my language partner, Habin (who is honestly one of my favorite people in this country, to the point where I should just stop referring to her as my language partner and just call her my really good friend). She is taking GRE classes in the area, which happens to feature an American-style breakfast joint called Butterfinger's that we both wanted to go to. We went with a couple of her friends from GRE class, and it was a fabulous and extremely fun time. The food was alright - the taste wasn't exactly spot-on American, but the brick feeling of fried bread and excessive maple syrup in my stomach post-meal certainly was - and the company was amazing. We spoke in a mix of English and Korean while we stuffed ourselves and I was reminded of how truly lucky I am to be in Korea, to not be paying a damn lick for it, and to have the friends that this language has allowed me to encounter in both Korea and the US.
But. Prior to this wonderful evening was an event that pushed me to the absolute brink of foreigner anger at Korea. Followers of Dana in Soko V.2 will know that the weather in Korea has been cold and snowy, which translates to ice and generally slippery conditions. Before this most recent storm, I had fallen twice - hard - while walking around Sinchon. Nobody stopped to help me or asked me if I was okay. Of course I was, but I was shocked by the indifference of the people around me to someone basically wiping out in front of them. Some people told me that it was a "Korean" thing, that they wouldn't help anyone, but this is generalizing and I don't like that. And then I thought that maybe it was because I was a very obvious foreigner - and helping a foreigner means that one has to (OH NOES) speak English! Which is ridiculous, because helping someone up can be done wordlessly and "okay" is a word in both English AND Korean, but...the thought crossed my mind.
Anyway, yesterday while walking towards the restaurant, I slipped again and landed hard on my right side. I have a couple of resultant bruises, thanks for asking, but in the two seconds that I was on the ground before I pulled myself back up, I saw a couple of people staring at me. Just looking. And then they turned around and kept going. Once again, nobody stopped, nobody asked if I was okay, and nobody helped me to my feet. And yeah, even though I cannot directly attribute this to my foreignness, and reflection has led me to believe that it's entirely possible that people just don't care about helping out someone they don't know and that has nothing to do with my ethnicity, at that moment, every bit of injustice I've ever felt as a foreigner in Korea - not being taken seriously by shopkeepers, hearing people talk about me on the subway/in coffee shops as though I'm not even there, children staring at me, etc - boiled to the top. My eyes filled with tears, and for a long two minutes (as long as it took Habin and her friends to show up), I hated, hated, hated being white in Korea.
It's important to recognize that Koreans are not really racist towards Americans - it's just that Korea is a society that is all about 단일민족, a one-race people, and outsiders are exactly that - outsiders. It's not like in America where any random person you see might have been born and raised there - people who see me in Korea KNOW that I'm not a native. The general treatment I receive is expected, and it in no way warrants me complaining about it. But that doesn't mean it doesn't bother me a little.
(Additionally, Koreans are more afraid of white people than anything, because they fear speaking English. I find this incredibly fascinating - in America, if you bump into someone randomly, you generally expect them to speak English - it's not like if you bump into an Asian, you're going to freak out that you don't know how to apologize to them in Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, etc. But nobody - nobody! I mean it! - expects me to speak Korean. And I don't mean that in the sense that my speaking Korean surprises them; rather, I mean that if I interact with anyone, they expect themselves to speak English! Since I'm on their home turf, you would think that they would react the way some Americans do (i.e. "you're in America, speak English!"), but nope. I touched upon reasons why that might be in this post if you're so inclined. The short version is English teachers generally don't learn Korean. Yeah.)
Anyway, this brings me to my second anecdote. I arrived home to a Skype message from a wonderful Korean friend studying at the Yale School of Music (aside: props to the Yale Philharmonia! You guys make me so proud!) who was very upset because she was having trouble understanding an undergraduate psych course she was attempting to audit. She told me that her academic adviser told her not to take the class, because he thought her English wasn't good enough; she then shared very dejectedly that she was afraid of foreigners, that she couldn't talk to them, and that she thought she'd never get better at English (side-note: for those wondering how a student studying at a Yale graduate school can struggle with English, know that the Yale School of Music has an absurd, ridiculous number of Koreans. It is completely possible - and I've seen it done - for students to listen to their lectures and take lessons in English while never, ever, using the language outside of class. The Koreans tend - just tend, thereis JM are exceptions! - to be insular, to eat only with each other, hang out only with each other, go to church only with each other, etc. This results in either a total deterioration of the language abilities they acquired just so they could be admitted to Yale and a complete failure to grasp the "abroad" part of "studying abroad, but these are just my opinions and I digress). I told her that when I started learning Korean at Sogang, I was a miserable, miserable speaker until I forced myself to get language partners and start using the language regularly outside of class, but she kept reiterating that foreigners scared her and that she couldn't talk to them. At this point, I felt it necessary to point out the very obvious - I AM A FOREIGNER. Am I scary? Am I going to eat you if you drop a particle in English? No...but she (in light of recent events, rather hilariously) responded, "But you're almost Korean!"
Well. Maybe if that were the case, people would help me up when I slip on ice.
post-script: Oh my God, JYJ. TVXQ, sit down. You guys just got schooled.
post-post-script: do you like the news feed and other kitschy things I added to the blog? Feelin' profesh.
Two fascinating anecdotes for today.
Yesterday I went to Gangnam to meet my language partner, Habin (who is honestly one of my favorite people in this country, to the point where I should just stop referring to her as my language partner and just call her my really good friend). She is taking GRE classes in the area, which happens to feature an American-style breakfast joint called Butterfinger's that we both wanted to go to. We went with a couple of her friends from GRE class, and it was a fabulous and extremely fun time. The food was alright - the taste wasn't exactly spot-on American, but the brick feeling of fried bread and excessive maple syrup in my stomach post-meal certainly was - and the company was amazing. We spoke in a mix of English and Korean while we stuffed ourselves and I was reminded of how truly lucky I am to be in Korea, to not be paying a damn lick for it, and to have the friends that this language has allowed me to encounter in both Korea and the US.
But. Prior to this wonderful evening was an event that pushed me to the absolute brink of foreigner anger at Korea. Followers of Dana in Soko V.2 will know that the weather in Korea has been cold and snowy, which translates to ice and generally slippery conditions. Before this most recent storm, I had fallen twice - hard - while walking around Sinchon. Nobody stopped to help me or asked me if I was okay. Of course I was, but I was shocked by the indifference of the people around me to someone basically wiping out in front of them. Some people told me that it was a "Korean" thing, that they wouldn't help anyone, but this is generalizing and I don't like that. And then I thought that maybe it was because I was a very obvious foreigner - and helping a foreigner means that one has to (OH NOES) speak English! Which is ridiculous, because helping someone up can be done wordlessly and "okay" is a word in both English AND Korean, but...the thought crossed my mind.
Anyway, yesterday while walking towards the restaurant, I slipped again and landed hard on my right side. I have a couple of resultant bruises, thanks for asking, but in the two seconds that I was on the ground before I pulled myself back up, I saw a couple of people staring at me. Just looking. And then they turned around and kept going. Once again, nobody stopped, nobody asked if I was okay, and nobody helped me to my feet. And yeah, even though I cannot directly attribute this to my foreignness, and reflection has led me to believe that it's entirely possible that people just don't care about helping out someone they don't know and that has nothing to do with my ethnicity, at that moment, every bit of injustice I've ever felt as a foreigner in Korea - not being taken seriously by shopkeepers, hearing people talk about me on the subway/in coffee shops as though I'm not even there, children staring at me, etc - boiled to the top. My eyes filled with tears, and for a long two minutes (as long as it took Habin and her friends to show up), I hated, hated, hated being white in Korea.
It's important to recognize that Koreans are not really racist towards Americans - it's just that Korea is a society that is all about 단일민족, a one-race people, and outsiders are exactly that - outsiders. It's not like in America where any random person you see might have been born and raised there - people who see me in Korea KNOW that I'm not a native. The general treatment I receive is expected, and it in no way warrants me complaining about it. But that doesn't mean it doesn't bother me a little.
(Additionally, Koreans are more afraid of white people than anything, because they fear speaking English. I find this incredibly fascinating - in America, if you bump into someone randomly, you generally expect them to speak English - it's not like if you bump into an Asian, you're going to freak out that you don't know how to apologize to them in Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, etc. But nobody - nobody! I mean it! - expects me to speak Korean. And I don't mean that in the sense that my speaking Korean surprises them; rather, I mean that if I interact with anyone, they expect themselves to speak English! Since I'm on their home turf, you would think that they would react the way some Americans do (i.e. "you're in America, speak English!"), but nope. I touched upon reasons why that might be in this post if you're so inclined. The short version is English teachers generally don't learn Korean. Yeah.)
Anyway, this brings me to my second anecdote. I arrived home to a Skype message from a wonderful Korean friend studying at the Yale School of Music (aside: props to the Yale Philharmonia! You guys make me so proud!) who was very upset because she was having trouble understanding an undergraduate psych course she was attempting to audit. She told me that her academic adviser told her not to take the class, because he thought her English wasn't good enough; she then shared very dejectedly that she was afraid of foreigners, that she couldn't talk to them, and that she thought she'd never get better at English (side-note: for those wondering how a student studying at a Yale graduate school can struggle with English, know that the Yale School of Music has an absurd, ridiculous number of Koreans. It is completely possible - and I've seen it done - for students to listen to their lectures and take lessons in English while never, ever, using the language outside of class. The Koreans tend - just tend, there
Well. Maybe if that were the case, people would help me up when I slip on ice.
post-script: Oh my God, JYJ. TVXQ, sit down. You guys just got schooled.
post-post-script: do you like the news feed and other kitschy things I added to the blog? Feelin' profesh.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
우리 유래*
* = our origin
A snowy day in Seoul means I have only left the apartment for food and to pay bills, and I almost slid down a hill and straight into a street full of heavy traffic. I've invested in three pairs of boots since I got here, but inevitably almost always wear the boots that I think look the prettiest. I recall one time JM's mom telling me over the phone to stop thinking about my appearance and dress practically. That's hilarious advice - does anyone in this country do that? As I trudge to school wrapped up in a bright blue muffler and a shapeless down jacket, I pass girls wearing extremely thin pea coats (that were probably only appropriate to wear in November, maybe early December at the latest) and heels. Heels! Given that Seodaemun-gu has done such an awful job of clearing snow and ice in a timely/safe fashion that it's almost noteworthy, I really don't understand how a leg cast doesn't accompany the ensemble. But, it must be said, at the very least they look much better than I do. And there must be some secret to being able to pull this off and not freeze to death or crack one's skull open after falling down a hill.
Anyway, I want to talk about a point of curiosity that's been on my mind for awhile. I would like to stress the following caveats:
1) This is not based on official data. This is based entirely on conversations with people that I have met.
2) I mean to make no assumptions or implications about people based on the beliefs that they hold.
That being said, the topic of today's post is 진화 - jinhwa, or as it is known in English, evolution.
Without generalizing, I'll say that I know very, very few Americans who do not believe in evolution, and those people were almost without fail extraordinarily strict Christians, generally of the evangelical/charismatic variety. That being said, I also know a number of extraordinarily strict Christians who believe in evolution, although they probably lean towards the intelligent-design end of the evolution spectrum. But I get the impression that in the United States, if you are a fairly liberal and educated individual (who probably lives, hails from, or studies on either the east coast or the west coast), you believe in evolution because you have studied it in school, understood the logic of the theory, and are somewhat practical about the limits of religion to explain science. You probably also do not understand how people who are properly presented with the evidence can't - or worse, don't - believe in or understand evolution as the mechanism that has made us who we are today.
Fast forward to Korea. I encountered my first Creationist while speaking at ALEC 2010, the conference run by Jinju Full Gospel Church (a brief explanation is available at the end of this long-winded post). I was discussing some of what we were studying in my Level 4 Korean class with one of the conference's organizers, a 25-year-old student at Seoul National University, which is easily the most prestigious university in the country (and damn near impossible to get into). At the time, my Korean class had just finished reading the 단군 신화 (the Dangun story, aka the Korean "founding story" myth that, like all founding myths, offers a cock-and-bull explanation involving ridiculous and fantastical events of a people's origin). The (very abbreviated) version of the Dangun myth is: there is a god who lives in the mountains. A (talking) bear and tiger approach him one day and tell him they want to be people. The god tells them that in order to accomplish this, they must live in a cave for 100 days and eat nothing but garlic and mugwort (I don't know what this is). The tiger wimps out, but the bear prevails and becomes a woman. She marries the god and gives birth to a son named Dangun. He is the founder of Korea. Anyway, after mentioning that I was studying this myth, the student scoffed and said, "That story is so ridiculous. Who on earth would believe that we came from a bear?"
"Yeah!" I replied. "We didn't come from a bear, we came from a monkey!" I then (as I am often wont to do) laughed at my own hilarious joke (I still think it's funny).
Student, however, did not find this funny. "No," she said. "No, we did not."
Our conversation caught the ears of the two Yale grad students sitting near us, both of whom are on the PhD track in biology. What followed was a conversation in which reasonable and hardly disputable scientific claims regarding evolution and prehistory were presented and then rejected based entirely on the Bible. Some of the conversation literally went like this:
Bio PhD student from Yale: "What about the fossil record? How layers of sediment have fossils that correspond to certain time periods that change over time..?"
SNU Student: "Maybe heavier fossils sunk and that's why there are different layers."
Bio PhD: "...okay, what about dinosaurs?"
SNU Student: "Well, the Bible alludes to mythical creatures, so those were probably them."
According to biblical dating, this would mean that dinosaurs were around 5000-6000 years ago. Okay. And this is from a student who goes to the best university in Korea.
But I decided to just write it off as religion. There is no point in arguing with religious fanatics. You will never win. Instead, I finished the conference, came back to Seoul, and promptly met with a much-loved friend for coffee. While recounting my experience at the conference, I expressed my shock at the SNU student's disbelief in evolution, expecting my much-loved friend - who I have always regarded as intelligent, free-thinking, and fairly non-judgmental, despite a conservative upbringing - to take my side and share in my surprise. Instead, she looked at me as though I had suggested that Bigfoot had moved into the apartment next to hers and said, "Do you really believe that we came from monkeys?"
I gaped at her with my mouth hanging open for a second and a half before telling her the conversation was over, and that if I were going to continue being her friend, it would be best if we never, ever broached the topic of evolution again.
Yeah, I could understand the extremely religious SNU student not believing in evolution, but even though I know that my friend is a Christian as well, I never expected her to subscribe to Creationism. And even though I promised myself I wouldn't talk to her about it again (and haven't), I became curious about the wider distribution of people I knew in Korea - did they believe in Creationism, too? In the US, it's almost a mark of education to dismiss Creationism, but here I was encountering well-educated, well-off Koreans who, on the other side, completely dismissed evolution.
And so I started asking people that I met. Unsurprisingly, nearly all of my Korean Christian friends believed in Creationism. But I also found a number of people who were either Catholic or nonchalant about going to church (even if they did), who believed in Creationism as well. The chief defense, expressed in mixtures of Korean and English, was generally, "We did not come from monkeys."
At this point, a few more caveats are in order:
1) Korea is not really a Christian nation. Wikipedia tells me that 29.2% of Koreans are Christians, and most of them are Protestants.
2) I can't say this for sure, but I am willing to bet that there's a decent correlation between wealth and Christianity in Korea.
3) Most of the people I know are wealthy and Christian.
4) Being wealthy often translates to access to Korea's best educational resources.
So what does that leave me with? I have a bunch of wealthy, extremely well-educated, highly intelligent Korean people who are telling me that evolution is a groundless theory. As Ask a Korean! (I know, I just love that guy) pointed out in an entry dealing with racism, it is always wrong to assume that a group of people are stupid without understanding them. So, assuming they aren't stupid (which I know they are not), what gives? Really, what gives?
Since it's entirely possible and more likely even probable that the people I have met are not representative of the population of Korea as a whole, it's hard to explain this here. But I have a few thoughts:
- The easy answer - I just happen to know a lot of Christians, and Christians don't believe in evolution. But the thing is that it doesn't just seem as though these people just believe in Creationism - rather, they treat the idea of evolution as completely implausible. It's always like, "Oh, that monkey thing? Completely ridiculous." But if you study evolution, the thing is that it's not. It's a compelling theory, and if you are going to reject it in favor of Creationism, it should be because your faith in God and faith in the Bible's veracity outweighs your belief in the plausibility of Darwinian evolution - not because the idea of people once having been monkeys seems stupid to you. And also, if your understanding of evolution is as simple as "people came from monkeys," then either you were not paying attention in school or your high school biology class failed you in some critical area.
- Which leads me to a question: how, exactly, is biology - particularly evolutionary biology - treated by the average Korean school? I really don't have an answer to this - the best I can offer is that a friend of mine shared with me that Seoul Arts High School (Christian in origin), which many of my friends (being musicians) attended, gives evolution a cursory chapter in their textbook - it's taught, and then they move on. A far cry from the entire half-a-year that ecology and evolutionary biology were given in my freshman biology class at my Catholic high school. So is it possible that Korean schools are just not emphasizing the teaching of the mechanisms of evolution to students? I wonder. Of course, I haven't met nearly enough people and have absolutely 0 understanding of what goes on in most Korean schools beyond a cursory knowledge of English language education policy...so I certainly can't say for sure. But it is something to think about. And if I am right, and schools are just not teaching evolution properly, then I will add that to my list of Things That Korean Schools Should Teach More, right next to reproduction and sexuality. I actually had to explain the menstrual cycle to a 25-year-old Korean woman once. No joke.
A snowy day in Seoul means I have only left the apartment for food and to pay bills, and I almost slid down a hill and straight into a street full of heavy traffic. I've invested in three pairs of boots since I got here, but inevitably almost always wear the boots that I think look the prettiest. I recall one time JM's mom telling me over the phone to stop thinking about my appearance and dress practically. That's hilarious advice - does anyone in this country do that? As I trudge to school wrapped up in a bright blue muffler and a shapeless down jacket, I pass girls wearing extremely thin pea coats (that were probably only appropriate to wear in November, maybe early December at the latest) and heels. Heels! Given that Seodaemun-gu has done such an awful job of clearing snow and ice in a timely/safe fashion that it's almost noteworthy, I really don't understand how a leg cast doesn't accompany the ensemble. But, it must be said, at the very least they look much better than I do. And there must be some secret to being able to pull this off and not freeze to death or crack one's skull open after falling down a hill.
Anyway, I want to talk about a point of curiosity that's been on my mind for awhile. I would like to stress the following caveats:
1) This is not based on official data. This is based entirely on conversations with people that I have met.
2) I mean to make no assumptions or implications about people based on the beliefs that they hold.
That being said, the topic of today's post is 진화 - jinhwa, or as it is known in English, evolution.
Without generalizing, I'll say that I know very, very few Americans who do not believe in evolution, and those people were almost without fail extraordinarily strict Christians, generally of the evangelical/charismatic variety. That being said, I also know a number of extraordinarily strict Christians who believe in evolution, although they probably lean towards the intelligent-design end of the evolution spectrum. But I get the impression that in the United States, if you are a fairly liberal and educated individual (who probably lives, hails from, or studies on either the east coast or the west coast), you believe in evolution because you have studied it in school, understood the logic of the theory, and are somewhat practical about the limits of religion to explain science. You probably also do not understand how people who are properly presented with the evidence can't - or worse, don't - believe in or understand evolution as the mechanism that has made us who we are today.
Fast forward to Korea. I encountered my first Creationist while speaking at ALEC 2010, the conference run by Jinju Full Gospel Church (a brief explanation is available at the end of this long-winded post). I was discussing some of what we were studying in my Level 4 Korean class with one of the conference's organizers, a 25-year-old student at Seoul National University, which is easily the most prestigious university in the country (and damn near impossible to get into). At the time, my Korean class had just finished reading the 단군 신화 (the Dangun story, aka the Korean "founding story" myth that, like all founding myths, offers a cock-and-bull explanation involving ridiculous and fantastical events of a people's origin). The (very abbreviated) version of the Dangun myth is: there is a god who lives in the mountains. A (talking) bear and tiger approach him one day and tell him they want to be people. The god tells them that in order to accomplish this, they must live in a cave for 100 days and eat nothing but garlic and mugwort (I don't know what this is). The tiger wimps out, but the bear prevails and becomes a woman. She marries the god and gives birth to a son named Dangun. He is the founder of Korea. Anyway, after mentioning that I was studying this myth, the student scoffed and said, "That story is so ridiculous. Who on earth would believe that we came from a bear?"
"Yeah!" I replied. "We didn't come from a bear, we came from a monkey!" I then (as I am often wont to do) laughed at my own hilarious joke (I still think it's funny).
Student, however, did not find this funny. "No," she said. "No, we did not."
Our conversation caught the ears of the two Yale grad students sitting near us, both of whom are on the PhD track in biology. What followed was a conversation in which reasonable and hardly disputable scientific claims regarding evolution and prehistory were presented and then rejected based entirely on the Bible. Some of the conversation literally went like this:
Bio PhD student from Yale: "What about the fossil record? How layers of sediment have fossils that correspond to certain time periods that change over time..?"
SNU Student: "Maybe heavier fossils sunk and that's why there are different layers."
Bio PhD: "...okay, what about dinosaurs?"
SNU Student: "Well, the Bible alludes to mythical creatures, so those were probably them."
According to biblical dating, this would mean that dinosaurs were around 5000-6000 years ago. Okay. And this is from a student who goes to the best university in Korea.
But I decided to just write it off as religion. There is no point in arguing with religious fanatics. You will never win. Instead, I finished the conference, came back to Seoul, and promptly met with a much-loved friend for coffee. While recounting my experience at the conference, I expressed my shock at the SNU student's disbelief in evolution, expecting my much-loved friend - who I have always regarded as intelligent, free-thinking, and fairly non-judgmental, despite a conservative upbringing - to take my side and share in my surprise. Instead, she looked at me as though I had suggested that Bigfoot had moved into the apartment next to hers and said, "Do you really believe that we came from monkeys?"
I gaped at her with my mouth hanging open for a second and a half before telling her the conversation was over, and that if I were going to continue being her friend, it would be best if we never, ever broached the topic of evolution again.
Yeah, I could understand the extremely religious SNU student not believing in evolution, but even though I know that my friend is a Christian as well, I never expected her to subscribe to Creationism. And even though I promised myself I wouldn't talk to her about it again (and haven't), I became curious about the wider distribution of people I knew in Korea - did they believe in Creationism, too? In the US, it's almost a mark of education to dismiss Creationism, but here I was encountering well-educated, well-off Koreans who, on the other side, completely dismissed evolution.
And so I started asking people that I met. Unsurprisingly, nearly all of my Korean Christian friends believed in Creationism. But I also found a number of people who were either Catholic or nonchalant about going to church (even if they did), who believed in Creationism as well. The chief defense, expressed in mixtures of Korean and English, was generally, "We did not come from monkeys."
At this point, a few more caveats are in order:
1) Korea is not really a Christian nation. Wikipedia tells me that 29.2% of Koreans are Christians, and most of them are Protestants.
2) I can't say this for sure, but I am willing to bet that there's a decent correlation between wealth and Christianity in Korea.
3) Most of the people I know are wealthy and Christian.
4) Being wealthy often translates to access to Korea's best educational resources.
So what does that leave me with? I have a bunch of wealthy, extremely well-educated, highly intelligent Korean people who are telling me that evolution is a groundless theory. As Ask a Korean! (I know, I just love that guy) pointed out in an entry dealing with racism, it is always wrong to assume that a group of people are stupid without understanding them. So, assuming they aren't stupid (which I know they are not), what gives? Really, what gives?
Since it's entirely possible and more likely even probable that the people I have met are not representative of the population of Korea as a whole, it's hard to explain this here. But I have a few thoughts:
- The easy answer - I just happen to know a lot of Christians, and Christians don't believe in evolution. But the thing is that it doesn't just seem as though these people just believe in Creationism - rather, they treat the idea of evolution as completely implausible. It's always like, "Oh, that monkey thing? Completely ridiculous." But if you study evolution, the thing is that it's not. It's a compelling theory, and if you are going to reject it in favor of Creationism, it should be because your faith in God and faith in the Bible's veracity outweighs your belief in the plausibility of Darwinian evolution - not because the idea of people once having been monkeys seems stupid to you. And also, if your understanding of evolution is as simple as "people came from monkeys," then either you were not paying attention in school or your high school biology class failed you in some critical area.
- Which leads me to a question: how, exactly, is biology - particularly evolutionary biology - treated by the average Korean school? I really don't have an answer to this - the best I can offer is that a friend of mine shared with me that Seoul Arts High School (Christian in origin), which many of my friends (being musicians) attended, gives evolution a cursory chapter in their textbook - it's taught, and then they move on. A far cry from the entire half-a-year that ecology and evolutionary biology were given in my freshman biology class at my Catholic high school. So is it possible that Korean schools are just not emphasizing the teaching of the mechanisms of evolution to students? I wonder. Of course, I haven't met nearly enough people and have absolutely 0 understanding of what goes on in most Korean schools beyond a cursory knowledge of English language education policy...so I certainly can't say for sure. But it is something to think about. And if I am right, and schools are just not teaching evolution properly, then I will add that to my list of Things That Korean Schools Should Teach More, right next to reproduction and sexuality. I actually had to explain the menstrual cycle to a 25-year-old Korean woman once. No joke.
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