Korea Deconstructed

Jinu sees himself as a humble musician who focuses on providing solidarity to those suffering from oppression, violence, and health problems. He describes having seen firsthand young hired thugs (‘용역’) and police carry out acts of violence against the workers of Noryangjin fish market in central Seoul, workers who are often elderly women. They are decent people, citizens of Seoul who enjoy trot music, television dramas, and living the lives they have. Yet water cannons and excavators are used to forcibly move those who don’t agree with the plans to relocate the workers of the fish market. The new fish market into which the vendors are expected to move is described as a collusion between government and large financial enterprises. No longer a public market supported by officials and taxpayers’ money to provide quality goods at reasonable prices, the responsibility has been left to capitalist enterprises. This could just be understood as a normal story about capitalism and gentrification to which we are becoming ever accustomed. A process in which we tear down the old and create newer, smaller, and more expensive places. The tragedy is that this removes stories, characters, and traditions, and then substitutes them for lifeless, cookie-cutter objects that do not speak to us on a human level much of the time—devoid of soul, alienated from reality. But if it was just that, many could provide rational and logical arguments about capitalism, profit, modernity, and such forth. What does seem inexcusable, however, is the violence that takes place to make this happen. 

Chan is an artist and a friend. She is 100% Korean in terms of nationality but has at times distanced herself from this identity. Her friends call her a 외국인 (foreigner) but she identifies as a TCK (third culture kid). She has often tried to look different from other people and loves standing out, avoiding clichés and stereotypes where possible. In Korea she has received lots of comments on her tanned skin and found it difficult to find cosmetics that suit her. Looking forward, she wants to be in a place where she is treated equally, regardless of social position. She talks about the vibe and aura emitted by other TCKs, the mutual understanding and the open body language that results. She has found a great sense of community in touch rugby. She closes our chat with hopes that TCKs can be proud of who they are and seeks to challenge the negative portrayal of TCKs having privileges from studying abroad and receiving easier access to the country’s top universities. She wants to reduce alienation. And she hopes people will stop asking TCKs to speak English as a party trick. But, on top of all this, she has a positive outlook for the future.

Jasmine Lee came to South Korea in the 1990s. Here she talks of her early experiences with South Korean culture, people, and language. This leads to ideas of multiculturalism, family, identity, and nationalism. Jasmine became a nationalized Korean but still found trouble in terms of acceptance despite speaking the language fluently and having a Korean passport. After a successful television and media career, she made her way into politics and became the first non-ethnic Korean lawmaker in the national assembly. She worked first with the ruling conservative party and then more recently the Justice Party. Despite her efforts, she feels a lot of government efforts and policies were simply adopted because they were trendy rather than geared towards long-term sustainable success. She also sees a lot of stagnation and hesitancy in adopting policies to safeguard the lives of minorities in Korea because it’s not politically expedient and the main parties are generally in agreement over them.

Jae Chong grew up the son of first generation Korean immigrant parents in California listening to Ozzy Osbourne and Van Halen. An early experience with Jeff Buckley pushed him further towards music and he was soon playing guitar, drums, bass, and piano. He sent an album recorded on a 4-track in his bedroom over to Korea in the early 1990s and started down a path that would see him play a revolutionary role in the modern Korean music scene. Jae wrote and produced all the music for his group Solid and their 1995 second album, with hits such as 이밤의 끝을 잡고, was pivotal in introducing R&B to Korea and sold millions. He describes the experience as being “too Asian for America and too American for Asia”, being the first Korean-Americans seen on domestic television, as well as the difficulty in getting any dance music on the screen in the early 90s. Jae spent time working and learning from masters 김형석 and 신승훈, understanding the 응착 in Korean music and a work ethic to write and produce at the top level. Jae talks of his respect for 서태지 and other OGs in the Korean music scene that introduced previously unheard music to the country and how the media played his group Solid (솔리드) and 서태지 off of each other. Korean entertainment companies looked to Jae for the equipment he used and the sounds he was making, hoping to emulate his success. One of my favourite songs in his discography, Boa’s 1999 Let U Go, Jae doesn’t even remember writing! He speaks of his affection for the Solid fanbase and the support they showed during their 2018 comeback album and hopes that K-pop will continue going from strength to strength and develop more depth to its sounds.

Jungahn Yu was a young ballet dancer who found herself in the K-pop industry from the age of 15. After completing her training, she debuted as the rapper in Momoland under the name Daisy. Huge success followed but she eventually left the industry and went to university. She talks about auditions, training, fans, diets, mental health, creativity, and more

Bori (he/him) is a Korean leftist with visions of a pan-Asian communist future. During our conversation he suggests that despite people’s aspirations for an independent nation, South Korea was built on the basis on anti-communism and remains today under a bourgeois dictatorship. This then affects what it means to be a leftist in 21st century Korea and how the experience is often characterized by a sense of 불화 (discord). Despite the recent popularity of things like Squid Game, Bori asserts that no one willing to actively solve the problem of economic inequality is a serious contender for the upcoming presidency and that Lee Jae-myung is not a progressive candidate in any sense of the word. He holds that male-dominated political spaces are not the way forward because they create a sense of isolation; instead, social justice for various oppressed minorities in South Korea should be sought. How one becomes a leftist in Korea can depend on university and seniors promoting justice and resistance. We then discussed the contradiction that communist and Marxist thought often has starting points in the nation’s elite universities. On violence in society, the Molotov cocktail only began disappearing in the early 2000s, so we talk about the moral implications of violence and change. Bori sees the 1980s as a time of leftist revival in South Korea and stressed the importance of Kang Kyong-dae’s death in 1991. We talked about the recent KCTU labour protests, lack of media coverage, and arrest of Yang Kyeung-soo. For him, patriotism and nationalism are to be understood in terms of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism: solidarity in the negative sense, that comes from resisting larger structures of power and dominance. Bori says the Korean War was a civil war which should not be seen as a simple act of North Korean aggression. North Korea suffers from a great deal of international propaganda and being ‘othered’ by the media. In that sense, there should be more cultural and personal exchange and recognition of North Korea’s legitimacy in that part of the Korean Peninsula. Internationalism is not a utopian ideal but a practical necessity to prevent state-led war. Find Bori's work at @platformck and @redstaroverasia Korea Deconstructed by David Tizzard Artwork: Chan (https://www.instagram.com/chans_design/) Music: DisorientalZ (https://www.instagram.com/disorientalz/)

Haley Yang is a culture reporter at the Korea JoongAng Daily specializing in K-pop, Korean society and multiculturalism. She was also a big fan of K-pop growing up.  She spoke to me about how K-pop began to find its own unique style following the break from J-pop in 2007, the effects of Big Bang on the music scene as OG gender benders despite some of them later being involved in crime rings, and K-pop as a niche musical element inside Korea. Haley also called the fetishization of K-pop idols by international fans the elephant in the room and the subsequent loyalty shown to idols as being the result of the artists replaceability rather than any unique talents. She also drew attention to fan chat services by companies such as SM which encourage parasocial relationships between the fans and the stars.  In terms of media reporting, the race for YouTube views is described by Haley as a pissing contest among fans and this is causing platforms to reassess how they measure songs' real popularity. She also explains how a throwaway line on Gag Concert about TVXQ became a turning point for fans' album purchases.  The conversation ends on the subject of mental health, suicide, and social values in the entertainment industry and society more broadly as well as where one can find positivity and hope in K-pop.  *I wish the audio of this chat was a bit better because I learned a lot listening to Haley and gained some new perspectives

Heejeon Kim has worked in the Korean movie and television industry as a distributor and producer. Here she offers her own personal opinions on how she survived the toxic masculinity that characterized the early chapters of her career, the Korean film renaissance and why it took place, and the dark nature of Korean movies. She also addresses concepts of identity and what it means to be a Korean amidst all the current success as well as bicultural awareness and the need for TCKs to tell their stories. The main message she focuses on is that authentic local experiences can have global appeal. The conversation closes with some thoughts on Squid Game and the positive and negative reactions to it as well as the subtitles issues. 

In this episode of Korea Deconstructed, Kwak Yong-hwan, a certified medical doctor at Soonchunhyang University Hospital, discusses the changing trends in Korean health over time. He also explains how the current system, which benefits the customers and citizens, is based on prices set by the government which often cause hardships for doctors. The result of this is that more and more medical professionals are leaving healthcare and venturing into the aesthetic industry to make more money.  Beyond this, he discusses the politics of alternative traditional medicine before going on to suggest what he believes are the most important reasons behind Korea's relatively successful attempts at combating the Covid-19 pandemic. The conversation ends with his views on the popular local medical drama Hospital Playlist and how closely it resembles real life.

In this episode of Korea Deconstructed, Kyungeun Lee discusses how the Korean government allowed adoption to be operated as a private system until 2012, giving its newly-born children no state protections and denying them their human rights. This resulted in 200,000 young Korean children, often under the age of 1, being sent abroad.  Truth, justice, and reconciliation are required, but is Korean society ready to do it?