South Korea's New Nationalism: The End of "One Korea"? PDF
Preview South Korea's New Nationalism: The End of "One Korea"?
S K ’ OUTH OREA S N N EW ATIONALISM S K ’ OUTH OREA S N N EW ATIONALISM The End of “One Korea”? Emma Campbell Published in the United States of America in 2016 by FirstForumPress A division of Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by FirstForumPress A division of Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 2016 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Campbell, Emma, 1976– Title: South Korea's new nationalism : the end of "one Korea"? / by Emma Campbell. Description: Boulder, Colorado : FirstForumPress, a division of Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015045440 | ISBN 9781626374201 (hc : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Korean reunification question (1945– ) | Nationalism—Korea (South) | Korea (South)—Politics and government. Classification: LCC DS917.444 .C22 2016 | DDC 320.54095195—dc23. LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015045440 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. This book was produced from digital files prepared by the author using the FirstForumComposer. Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5 4 3 2 1 To my parents Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xi Note on Romanization and Terminology xiii 1 Nationalism in South Korea 1 2 South Korea’s Nationalist Student Movement 25 3 Changing Attitudes to Unification 49 4 New Nationalist Attitudes in Action 79 5 Globalization and Nation Building 109 6 The Impact of Globalization on National Identity 137 7 The Demise of an Ethnic Identity 159 8 Nationalism and Korea’s Future 179 Glossary 189 List of References 191 List of Interviews 207 Index 217 vii Preface I first encountered Korea in 1996 when I was studying Chinese at a university in Beijing. Many of my fellow students were from South Korea, as by the late 1990s South Koreans constituted the majority of foreign students in China. Communicating through our common lan- guage, Chinese, my Korean friends introduced me to Korean food in restaurants run by Chaoxianzu or Joseonjok (Korean-Chinese) in the small Korea-town that had emerged to service the growing South Korean community in Beijing. I travelled to North Korea for the first time in 1997 and then in the following year to Seoul. It was during the 1990s that attitudes toward North Korea among young South Koreans appear to have started to change. These changes coincided with the growth of travel by young South Koreans for study and leisure. Koreans travelling overseas were encountering foreigners of a similar age from countries such as the UK and discovering that they had more in common with them than with the Joseonjok of Beijing or the North Koreans who, as South Koreans would soon learn, were facing starvation and escaping in ever growing numbers into China. South Korea also had its own problems in that period. In the late 1990s, the South Korean economy was on the brink of collapse following the 1997 economic crisis. For the first time, South Korea faced redundancies and the financial ruin of huge jaebol, including the Daewoo and Hanbo conglomerates. In December of the same year, the veteran opposition leader Kim Dae-jung was elected to power, becoming the eighth president of South Korea after his inauguration in February 1998. By 1999, the economy had experienced a dramatic recovery, and Kim embarked on his Sunshine Policy toward North Korea. This culminated in 2000 with the historic summit in Pyongyang between Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il, leader of North Korea. This did nothing to slow the increasing numbers of North Koreans arriving in the South, but it did make South Koreans more conscious of the North and its problems. Just at the time when many in South Korea began to understand the vulnerability of the South Korean economy and society to global economic and financial events, they also started to comprehend ix x South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”? the dire situation of North Korea and the reality of the challenges that unification might bring. Although my first visit to the Korean Peninsula was the trip I made to North Korea in 1997, it was the modern, fun, fashionable South Korea that attracted me to Korean culture. The students I met in Beijing were the epitome of this. I was impressed by the array of electronic devices the South Korean students had in their dormitory rooms. We watched Korean dramas together, drank coffee in the smart Korean-style coffee shops that had sprung up in Beijing, and ate patbingsu, a delicious Korean dessert. I copied the fashions of my female Korean friends, with their immaculate make-up and attention to style. I read for the first time the story of South Korea’s economic and political rise. Looking back to this period in my life, the themes at the heart of this book were already apparent. The pace of globalization was picking up, and new networks were beginning to develop. Typical young South Koreans were having more contact with Joseonjok either at home or abroad, and they were learning more about North Koreans. The manifestations of South Korean globalized cultural nationalism— modernity, cosmopolitanism, and status—were beginning to be formed. Hints at the possibility of foreigners being accepted into Korean society were starting to appear; Koreans and foreigners easily mingled as friends, and for the first time in South Korea, a Korean-speaking foreigner (Ida Daussy) became a television star. When I returned to Seoul in 2007 to carry out the research for this book, the shaping of South Korean globalized cultural nationalism was even more apparent. In Seoul, at least, people seemed unperturbed by dealing with foreign customers, and in shops and cafes the young people behind the counter were happy to converse in either English or Korean. Often I was served in restaurants by Joseonjok who quietly conversed with me in Chinese out of earshot of the Korean customers. It was relatively easy to meet North Koreans—as students at my university, for example, or through church or community groups. I was keen to discuss my research with South Korean friends and talk about unification and my interactions with North Korean refugees. For their part, my friends were mostly preoccupied with the pressures and problems of their own lives and careers. It often seemed that North Korea and unification were subjects too fraught with difficulties for them to want to discuss. But it is when I am in a nail salon, of all places, that I hear for the first time a young South Korean (the manicurist) say openly and passionately, and in front of her colleagues and other customers, “I hate the idea of unification.”
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