Scribblings of the Metropolitician

I Am Not an Idiot

As I stated in my first post on the subject, the dictionary was last published in 1994, which made the most recent publication at the time I acquired the book 2 years prior. After some people in a discussion board started wending their way into subjects far away from what I had been talking about, the subject of "who" was "responsible" for Korea's racial attitudes came up. Apparently, because "whitey" wrote the book, or because it must have been published by mysterious racist missionaries 50 years ago, Koreans are off the hook. Don't I know that there was racism in America, too? Obviously, according to one poster, I am worthy of being labeled an "idiot." But what this self-anointed "genius" fails to see is that while such facts are "true" – the subject of of racism in America has been the focus of some of my posts – this is not the point of the present post.

Regardless of whatever obvious connections there are between Korean attitudes and other countries – namely the United States and Japan, which I pointed out clearly in another post on the subject – the point is that the dictionary entries and other learning materials were what Korean children had in front of them at that time, regardless of the origins. Hence, the name of the post being "Where Do Koreans' Ideas about Race Come From?" The point here is that through materials such these were were focused many Korean people's negative view of African Americans. Well, at least through 1973 to 1996, when I had acquired a copy. My students were reading it –  that's the point.

If you are really interested in the background of the book, I offer the only existing publishing information, printed on the publication card that is included in the back of all Korean books. Such publication records are far more informative than the publication information found in American books, making it easier to see the lifespan of a work at a glance.

First printing: 1973.
Last printing (at that time): 1994.

So, although, like many books, the first printing was indeed in the 1970's, the book was considered appropriate for sale and distribution, which was printed along with an update in 1981 and a new printing in 1994. And for the information of the reader who called me an "idiot" while linking the fact that the book bragged about being printed "In 4 Colors!" to it having been necessarily published in the 1970s – if you had been through archives of textbooks like I have, and were in possession of a stack of books personally collected in the mid-1990's, you would know that bragging about being printed in color and on thicker paper stock (as the dictionary is) meant that this was a niiiiice, "deluxe" book. All textbooks at the time were printed on the cheapest paper stock available and only had about 6 pages of color printing on the end pages, which was usually reserved for a picture of the Korean national flag, the Rose of Sharon, and other images of national power and growth. So thanks for stopping to consider that you might not know everything before labeling others fools and "idiots."

Hines Ward – What If?

Well, it looks like the initial Hines Ward love-fest has complexified somewhat into an introspection-fest as well, which is all good, the way I see it. Korean media, while still driving the wave of Ward-as-National-Treasure, is also inevitably taking a harder look back at the situation of Korean society. If anyone still doubts that the bright, shining light of truth can still effect positive social change, witness the Korean government's change in stance about mixed-race children not being allowed to serve in the military.

Now, for me personally, that's an exemption I'd define as a pretty coveted option in Korean society, but then again, this can also be a liability later. I do hope that this change in policy will also be matched with a similar change within the institution as to what treatment mixed-race men will receive, considering the still-significant animosity toward them and the more direct possibility of hazing and physical abuse that exists, especially as we know, in the Korean military. I don't know if mixed-race boys and men are now jumping for joy at the "opportunity" to be included in compulsory military service, but at least we can see that international exposure does effect changes in both institutions and behavior. We'll see how this plays out as the sage continues.

"It Couldn't Happen Here"

Lifted from the February 8th edition of the English Chosun Ilbo:

"The banner reads, "Hines Ward turns the American Dream into reality." The half-Korean athlete, who grew up with a struggling single mother in Atlanta, Georgia has become a major story in the Korean press after he was named Most Valuable Player in the U.S. Super Bowl. One of the construction workers asks himself, "I wonder what would have become of Hines if he had stayed in Korea."

At the bottom of the picture, two mixed-race Koreans, who are often treated as outsiders here, are struggling under their load of bricks."

I also checked out Naver.com's video search function (which makes Google's look like...well, you don't need anyone to compare to – Google video sucks more than be expressed in words), which kicks major ass. Here are a few key vids that I'd like to watch later, when I get to a Windoze-variety computer at work. I haven't been able to play them, since I'm part of the 3M group – Marginalized Macintosh Minority™ – that I have come to simply accept with a sigh, and as even a badge I am proud to wear. But to Naver's credit, all of the links to the shows contain the transcripts, so you don't even have to really watch. Here's a few of them, with my liberal translations:

Mixed-Blood Kid, Have You No Place to Stand Up? Still 'Outsiders'

혼혈아, 설 자리 없나? 아직도 '이방인'

[Focus] Mixed-Blood Hero, However In Our Society..."

[포커스]“혼혈 영웅, 하지만 우리 사회는…”

[Closeup] Mixed Race People as Alien as Ever

[집중취재] 혼혈인, 여전히 이방인

One news story is on the piece KBS did 8 years ago, when both Hines Ward and mom came to Korea. Here's a piece talking about that. So Korean media's initial attempt to make the present trip a "first time" triumphant homecoming falls pretty short of the facts. More problematic at the present moment, now that Hines Ward has explicitly stated how he defines his identity (as both Korean and African-American), is how the Korean media still tends to deal with Mr. Ward as a "Korean" or only considers his identity insofar as he defines his Korean "side."

More than any conspiracy to deprive Mr. Ward of his right to self-definition, I would rather suggest that commentators, writers, and general citizens are inexplicably going against the grain of the normal "taint" view of Asianness (or whiteness, for that matter) – that if you're part anything else, you're not Asian. The "one-drop rule" for African-Americans is the opposite, however, in which any black ancestry – or the slightest hint of "impurity" – means you're black.

It's interesting to see Korea, then, claiming him as "full" Korean while ignoring the black side altogether – when it comes to talking about his identity. What would be really interesting to see is a discourse in which Koreanness is talked about outside of the "zero-sum" game of identity, in which Hines Ward can be Korean in Korea and when he wants to be defined that way, and Black when he wants and need to be. It's not being "fake" or choosing, but thinking outside of that restrictive box.

That's why I talk about Asian American identity in my classes and play with notions of "authenticity" when I am teaching a Korean American history class, or am in a group of non-Asians talking about Asian folks. It's also why I check off "black" only on the census, because we needed more black folks in my district in Oakland.

Anyway, looks like a new discourse is starting. I'm curious to see how this develops.

Where Do Koreans' Ideas about Race Come From?

Well, obviously, there's no single answer to that question. But in my research, I come across a lot of interesting little tidbits that offer little insights. When you put together a lot of tidbits and organize those insights, you get an idea, a thesis, you see a pattern. A few years ago, flipping through a middle school English dictionary that I lifted from the school from my 2 years spent as an English teacher in a little school on Cheju Island, I got a glimpse of why my students – innocent as they were – seemed to have to most screwed-up ideas about black people. With the help of the trusty scanner I bought to help get some images I need for the book, I offer you a few sample entries from that book that seemed to form a fishy pattern of racial and gender representation. And since a picture's worth a thousand words, for an innocent middle school kid in Korean during the 1990's, materials like these spoke volumes.

So these are the kids who are now in their mid-20's – when you look at even a small sample of what they were learning from, the ideas held by a lot of people – the patterns in thought, speech, expression you hear about you – seem to make a lot more sense, considering the context of their educational content.

Here's the cover of the book in question. I'll get the publisher's card in the back later.

"A" is for Africa, where there are no people, just lions.

Americans are white, kinda standoffish?

All the pictures in the book tend to be of white people, especially when it comes to the question of positive words and body parts.

All's fun in the land of cotton, eh? Couldn't we get a picture of a cotton puff, or the plant? Negro, please.

The comfortable and familiar colonial relationship between civilized and savage.

Interesting that "Korean" is the reification of "tradition." What about a Korean scientist? A Korean greeting a non-Korean? A Korean standing in front of the Kyeongbokkung? Interesting again, given the fact that almost all of the other people in the book are white, although it's made by a Korean company.

You know, us niggers got some big-ass lips! Fo' sho'!

Uncivilized, bone-in-the-nose, savage. Uga buga!

Lord have mercy. This is just beyond any attempt at witty commentary.

It's no mystery why plastic surgery has fast become a standard rite of passage. Any pretty Koreans out there? Guess not.

Daddy Warbucks. "The rich are not always happy." He sho' looks happy, do'.

Whole lotta mess here. Schoolgirls, schoolboys, scientists – normal and positive is white in this book.

Hmm. A white master holding a whip over slaves who look kinda...white? Whitewashing, anyone? Oh, while totally and uncritically reinforcing notions of natural superiority over blacks.

Gender norms. My sister makes clothes for me to wear, cleans the house. Most images reinforce clear gender roles in this dictionary.

OK, boys and girls. White is good, white is wise, the white president lives in the white house, nurses are pure and white, white people are attacked by Indians?!

As natives clearly stand on their own turf and probably have a basic Freudian sense of id and self, as a European ship comes up over the horizon, the natives were discovered by the outsider and revealed to them as...themselves?

Pretty scary stuff people. Problematic historical representations, the complete dismissal of any agency or self-awareness on the part of the "coloreds" and "natives," combined insidiously with the normalization of whiteness itself – to Korean people – are all the foundation for further implications about the nature of racial hierarchy that is presented as natural in the US and stretches all the way to Korea.

Is it any wonder Korean people still have the most screwed-up opinions about black people? Here's a recent article "critical" of Koreans' attitudes – but look at the frickin' drawing. Even on Hines Ward's worst day, does he look like the animalisitic drawings here? Lawd.

Sheee-it. If I had beeneducated in Korean school and picked up similar signals throughout Korean society, I wouldn't talk to me neither. I would have to practice spitting upon myself, though.

On "Korean Blood," Social Policy, and the Dangers of Race-Based Nationalism

So many things to talk about, so little time – but also what a perfect opportunity, what with the public discourse in Korea focusing on race, blood, nationality, and claims of belonging. So, despite the potential for carpal tunneling myself out of doing the other work I'm supposed to be doing, I'm gonna post away here.

First off, I should remind ya'll where I'm coming from with this issue and why it holds so much of my interest. I'm a doctoral candidate in the Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, presently working on – albeit not quickly enough – my doctoral dissertation. I'm presently stuck between working for a living and making time to finally slay the beast, something I'm going to really re-tackle once I settle my schedule in March. The title of the diss, which is actually partially fleshed out after a few conference presentations and a few inspired bouts of writing and research over the last two years, is "Justifying the Nation: Race and the Discourse of Koreanness in Post-Development South Korea." In it, I deal with the history of the notion of "race" as it is specific to Asia, as well as how this topic is constructed in the 1980's and 1990's.

Without boring you to tears, let me get right to the point: in the West, the discourse about race has largely been argued through "genes." Hence, we have the "eugenics" movement and its main boosters in Western Europe and the United States, racist arguments that misapplied Darwin's biological theory to human societies in overtly genetic terms, or the extreme racial ideology that undergirded National Socialism in Germany. Central to this Western discourse about race are genes, their relationships to character traits, or social "fitness" in Social Darwinist model. Notions of "purity" are genetic and concomitant with the notion that the "race" will suffer dilution, degradation, and degeneration.

Now, the East – specifically and inevitably, I am speaking about Japan – was picking up on racist Western social theory, but interpreting and applying it in its own unique way. Most of the works from the West that anyone Korea (and to a lesser extent, China) was reading was first translated into Japanese frmo the original language before then being translated from Japanese into Korean. Many books were also translated directly into Chinese as well, which were also then translated into Korean. Here's the kicker and the ultimate historical irony: it can safely be asserted that all of what Koreans "knew" about race and its relationship to the nation were a mix of Western notions as they were largely filtered through Japan, or what one could call Japanese ideas in themselves.

In fact, even the very notion of "minjok" (민족) – which in Korean is used to alternatively mean "people" or "race" or "ethnicity" all at the same time, and is analogous to the German term "Volk" – did not exist before just about 1900 (which you can learn more about from Andre Schmid's amazingly helpful book Korea Between Empires) when the Chinese term "民族" (민족) started being applied to the newly formed Japanese idea of a society-as-extended-family. The Chinese characters as they appeared together had never been used to refer to the Korean people specifically, in the way that it is used today. When you historicize the concept (one which most Korean people extends back to the mythical 5,000 years when bears, caves, and garlic supposedly created the "Korean people"), it usually breaks down under scrutiny, as they do in just about any society that has created such false social constructions. Many Koreans and Japanese think their own countries to be exceptional cases – and many Westerners buy into these countries' self-orientalized myth of their' "true" racial "purity" – but these two countries are no more racially or culturally "pure" than is American culture, which is an amalgam of so many more distinct cultures that came together with the force and violence that characterizes American history.

Korean notions of society organized into overlapping concentric circles of patriarchal spheres of authority is inescapably Japanese; authority figures of increasing and overlapping power in Japan could be described roughly as traveling up from father, teacher (commander), emperor. When Korea gained its "independence" in 1948, conceptually, the only difference was replacing "emperor" with "president." There is also much irony to be found in the fact that the distinction between "emperor" and "president" became a fairly academic one through much of Korea's modern history. The facts that emperor-president Pak Chung hee was trained by the Japanese and served in that country's military as a low-grade officer and felt as comfortable speaking Japanese as he did Korean simply raise the level of irony to the point of nearly comedic sublimity.

Indeed, not many people take issue with Japan's putative influence on the infrastructure of the Korean economy (jaebeol/zaibatsu), Japanese-style management and authority structures, the school system, academic disciplines, etc. One can see the concrete influence of the mixture of Japanese occupation even against the new influence of American cultural and economic power– for better or for worse, people tend to walk on the left and drive on the right, and the #1 line subway still runs with tracks on the left due to it being still hooked up to the Korean railway system, which was built by largely Japanese companies, even as the subway lines that came after #1 all run according to American-style public transportation sensibilities.

The examples are endless; my point is that it should be of little wonder to note that, in addition to physical, economic, and political structures that take their cues from Japan, that metal structures too find their origins in Japanese thinking. I am not saying that Koreans are Japanese; only the most simple-minded reductionist would actually read that interpretation out of this post. I am merely saying that the tools for conceptualizing the national self are the same, even though the specific content of Korean nationalism and identity are, of course, historically specific and different. The containers are the same, but the juice is different. That is the nature of the intimate relationship between Japan and Korea.

Now, here's where it gets interesting, as well as relevant to the present discussion. Down to the smallest detail, Korean notions about blood and resultant notions of a greater, national consanguinity (which means people sharing a common ancestor according to shared bloodlines) are also Japanese. Take the "harmless" notion that blood type and character traits are associated (a myth that is shared, you might coincidentally, only in East Asian countries that were or are heavily influenced by Japan) – that one has a particularly easy origin, as the Japanese anthropologist Takeji Furukawa published in a series of papers called "The Study of Temperament Through Blood Type" as part of the then-ongoing imperial project to classify the native Ainu as racially (consanguinally) inferior. Just like the construction of genetic notions of "degeneracy" and dilution and the construction of America's "one drop" rule of blackness, the very categorizations of race and all its inner workings come out of an effort to dominate. Categorization almost never comes without hierarchicalization – and when it comes to human tribal groups, religions, or ethnicities (all of which are far easier types of clearly constructed, yet "real" groups to classify), race is no different.

Koreans – or Japanese – are about as racially "pure" as I am. The only difference is that I don't have a category created that defines people like me as a "pure type." It's a circular argument: I'm "pure" because I'm descended from "pure" people, whom I defined only recently as "pure." It's as useless and meaningless as the American broad categorization of "black" – despite fact that all my parents are share genetic traits with so-called "whites" since the slave ships, all my ancestors are "black." So the definition stretches from Colin Powell to Wesley Snipes, from Mariah Carey to Whoopie Goldberg. So the "pure" body is defined and concretized – to the point that the big, blue birthmark that is really part and parcel of East Asian genes in general – get called "foreign", an impure leftover on the "pure" Korean body: the 몽골반점, or "Mongolian birthmark."

So you get people debating about the purity of the Korean culture, nation, and "race," and actually have that argument extended to comparison with other racial and national groups. After the 1980's, you catch Korean intellectuals referring to Korea's racial purity as the reason the economy does so well and Nigeria doesn't. The seemingly insignificant fact of decades of economic aid packages from the United States and Japan that amounted to billions of dollars in the forms of loans and outright grants suddenly fades from even the most hardcore economist's explanation, as does the fact of America's umbrella of direct military protection.

So prominent economists assert such things, or even go on to predict (during the early 1990's), as Song Byeong Nak of Seoul National University did, that Korea was destined to overtake Japan as an economic competitor because the dictates of Koreans' greater amount of racial purity made this an inevitability. Don't believe he said it? Check out his book (in Korean) The Economy and Mythology of the Korean People. I have a copy of that book (경제와 한국인의 신화), but the only thing I could find online for you to peruse is "한국인의 신화 일본을 앞선다," which seems to be an excerpt from the book dealing with the Japan argument. Koreans, being as they are decended from superior, northern Asian racial stock, are essentially better anyway, than the 왜놈 (wae-barbarians) that became the shorter, stubbier, savage Japanese people.

Or you could check out Yi O-Ryeong's wildly racist and Korean supremacist chapter from a children's book – ahem –  Mommy, I'm Korean, Aren't I? In this whopper, the author argues that humanity's origins are indeed found in Africa, but that some of the smarter, better people left the inferior ones to "live in mud huts" in the "jungle" and started on the "Great Migration" north; these people became lighter in complexion as they went "up," and became the more advanced Europeans. But there were some who wanted more, so they packed their bags and went to the East, where they became even greater, and even extended over to the Americas, as recent research has borne out. But Yi goes on to assert that "everyone, from the tip of South America to East Asia" is part of the superior Asian race, and he links the facts of negative racial traits to the present conditions of Africa and the poorer countries in the Americas, as strongly as he links the successes of Koreans getting perfect scores on the SAT's to their inherent, pure, superiority.

And these are best-sellers, people. One – Song Byeong Nak – is a recognized academic, the other – Yi O-Ryoeng – is taken less seriously outside of the world of literature, but is fairly characterized as Korea's most famous and prolific public intellectual. In other words, a lot of everyday people buy their many books and nod "mmm hmm's" and "ahhhh, that makes sense" while reading their words on the subway, lunch break at work, or before going to bed.

And that's before even getting to the architect of Korean historiography and arguably, the shape of modern Korean identity itself – Shin Chae Ho. The first to really link nation, history, and race together to write a truly Korean history, he was also an arch-racist in that he believed the assumptions of Social Darwinism and other race-based notions of nation to be as true as Darwin's explanation of the differentiation of finches, and built a competitive, proud nationalism to get Korea to the top (quoting from Michael Robinson quoting Shin):

"The nation is an organic body formed out of the spirit of the people. If we disregard nations which have descended through a pure blood line and consider only those which have brought together various tribes in a complex mixture, still there must be always at their center a particular privileged tribe which dominates them. Such a people can be called a nation. If, like sand scattered about on a plate, one people from the west, and still others gather from the north and south and the viewpoints of these people's leaders differ from those of our own, then there cannot be firm government under one chief and a single community cannot be fully established. Under there conditions how can we discuss the question of building a nation?"

Shin, like many Chinese and Japanese intellectuals channeling Western racist sociology, history, and anthropology around the turn of the past century, assumed the fact of the inferiority of certain races in the world, the need to dominate them and not be in turn dominated, and that this is all inherent in the genes – which Asia sort of molded into a more blood-based model. Whichever – in the end, Shin fully supported and gave endless accolades to the Japanese for taking Taiwan from the Chinese and then colonizing it. Most of the Korean Enlightenment intellectuals were fully aboard the Japanese imperial project before the hungry, colonizing eye started looking at Korea as a target, instead of a potential junior partner.

With the latent – and overt – assumptions about race extant in Korean national culture from the beginning, which is then topped with racist American media images from the 1950's, combined with the bitter cocktail of sour grape and envy that is created from having been a potential willing partner cum colonized victim of the Japanese, combined with being essentially indebted to an all-new colonial "master" – is it any wonder that Korean notions of nation, race, and identity itself are notoriously fractured and conflicted?

In any case, at this point, I think I've adequately prefaced the problematic quote from the JoongAng Daily editorial, listed below. The editorial is indeed also printed (probably originally) in Korean, but in the seeming sea of web pages floating around my Bookmarks and History lists, I seem to have lost track of it. Note the assumption of the fact of Korean blood's "purity" and the suggestion that we need to just deemphasize that fact a bit more. It also partially pathologizes the victim here, such that we "normal" Koreans should "treat the social and psychological distress of mixed blood Koreans" and make room for their "peculiar nature." I will give the benefit of the doubt and write off the "peculiar" word choice as the probably unfortunate artifact of poor translation of "색다른" or "특수한" – which would be something more neutral and closer to "particularly special" in reference to mixed-blood Korean's circumstances.

In any case, armed with a bit of the background knowledge above and combined with stuff you all bring to the table, I invite you to do a critical deconstruction of the piece below. And as extra credit homework, leave it as a comment!

Pure hearts, not blood

Korean society is excited about the success story of U.S. football star Hines Ward and his Korean mother. However, we wonder whether the mother and son could have been so successful had they lived in Korea, which is concealing its embarrassing habit of discrimination against mixed blood people.
Kim Young-hee, Ward's mother, had to immigrate to the United States because her own family in Korea turned their backs on her. The son and mother faced a cold treatment in Korean-American society after moving to the United States. "It was discrimination by Korean people that I felt was the most difficult to overcome," Ms. Kim said tearfully in an interview.
According to a support group of mixed blood people, about 35,000 such people are living in Korea, but there is no accurate figure. This is an example of Korea's indifference to these people.
Until now, we have overly emphasized the significance of our homogeneous society and have had too much pride about our pure blood tradition. But that does not mean much in this era of globalization.
Discrimination against mixed blood people is destined to bring about problems in our society. Mixed blood children often become outsiders at schools. Foreign mothers who are not fluent in Korean have difficulty helping their children study. After being pushed out from Korea's education system, mixed blood people will be stuck in a vicious cycle of unemployment and poverty. As this population grows, they will become the cause of social conflicts and we will have to face undesirable troubles.
It is time to establish a cultural foundation on which Korean children and mixed blood children will be able to mingle naturally.
The government should provide a system to treat the social and psychological distress of mixed blood Koreans.
Their peculiar nature should be taken into account when providing employment; a welfare policy to help them escape from poverty is also a must. Schools should provide education on the culture of diversity in which different ethic groups can live together.
The most important thing is our awareness of ethnic diversity.
Unless we change our thinking, no policy ― no matter how good ― will work. We should open our minds and hold their hands to raise the second and the third Hines Ward in Korea.

Hines Ward – Nail on the Head

OK – so it must be clear by now that I've developed a pretty strong interest in following this Hines Ward business. I haven't been so piqued about something for a really long time, I think it's good for me on a lot of fronts (for example I haven't slogged through a Korean newspaper article in waaay too long), and frankly, Mr. Ward's case is one of the most interesting social experiments I'd ever be able to hope to watch. And how often is a "biracial" Korean and African-American man going to take the center of the public stage? This should be fun and intellectually – and personally – interesting.

For starters, here's the most recent article I've found thanks to the help of tracking back to the sites referring people into my blog. It's an Associated Press piece distributed through Yahoo. I must say that Mr. Ward's trip is looking like it'll be blowing the dust off this issue for the first real close inspection in Korean society – ever. A tip of the hat goes to that friend I talked about in my "Korean Folks Don't Like Black People" post – sounds like her optimism about the Hines Ward visit was well-placed; my initial pessimism is quickly fading, although I do find major problems with the media treatment of the subject.

Also, someone out there has put up a summary of the subject in a Korean blog under the title "하인스 워드는 좋아도 흑인은 싫어," which translates most accurately into "I May Like Hines Ward, But Still Don't Like Black People," along with a link to my blog post "Korean Folks Don't Like Black People" and the attached comments on the subject "worth reading" and "helpful" for "government officials, reporters, and media people." Thanks, "DonQ" – the blog's never been written up in Korean before:

"이 이야기 중에 링크된 글과 Comments도 읽어볼 만 한다. 워드나 인순이, 박일준 등에 관심있는 정부관리, 기자 등 언론인이 읽어보면 도움이 되겠다."

Let me just say that if and when this trip starts turning into something that will benefit Amerasian kids, it will happen not because but despite the Korean media's original spin direction on this issue. And as awareness of Mr. Ward's visit is now seeming to be formed with an inherent inclusion of the broader issues related to Korea's attitudes towards race, of course the media will start to cover things from that angle. If that's the way people are framing the issue, in other words, the Korean media will mirror that framing. So kudos to those Korean pundits and professors, foreign bloggers, and others who raised these issues from the git-go as Mr. Ward's name has been coming up. The more we speak out, the more we help frame this visit in a way that makes it more socially useful. Now, unlike when Alice Walker came to Seoul with me sneaking in amidst the Korean press corps to ask the sole critical question in her firs press conference, I believe that someone will be bringing this subject up fo' sho' the day Hines Ward alights off that plane. And maybe the side effects of this visit will be a bit more critical introspection and general interest in social problems in South Korean society – along with the knowledge that just because it gets exposed to the outside world doesn't mean Koreans are going to keel over and die on the spot from a chronic spasm of communal shame. Ah, what an interesting social experiment this turned out to be.

Actually, I should confess that I was briefly considering conducting a social experiment of my own. After reading about a marriage service's survey that reported that over 60% of women would consider marrying a white mixed-race person, while only .4% would consider that same with a black mixed-race person, I almost up and volunteered myself to sign up to see what happened, while recording my experience along the way. But in a way, Hines Ward's coming to Korea is a much better case to watch, and there'll be a lot of media and public reaction to monitor. And anyway, there is so much artificial attention being brought to the subject – in what's looking like a good way – that the test conditions look like they'd be tainted anyway.

And I'm also happy to report that I'm pleasantly surprised with this article from The Korea Herald, which has not only surpassed my expectations for seeing this issue in a broader context, but also even alluded to one of the most important things that usually doesn't get included in almost any conversation about race – and that is its very falsity as a category, its social construction.

That's one of the reasons that I don't like to use the words "mixed" or "biracial" or "multiracial," for it simply reinforces the idea that there are "pure" races to begin with. That's the hardest thing to get away from, because the concepts are built into the structure of the language itself. How do you refer to yourself without having to say "I'm 1/2 black, 1/2 Korean?" And if you think about what that means, it's completely ridiculous. Here's a few reasons:

1) Geneticists have been insisting since the 1960's that race is a complete social fallacy and has nothing to do with biology. We're just dividing people up according to the few meaningless and highly-variable traits that we happen to be able to see. If we wanted to make more useful categorizations, I would say – although why do we have to categorize? – why not divide up according to blood type, or genes that make us susceptible to certain diseases? Maybe people with recessive sickle-cell anemia genes could avoid each other. I'm obviously being facetious here, since I don't want to live in GATTACA, but I'm sure you get the point.

2) Has "racial purity" ever been used to support anything positive? We all know the answer to that. Even the very notion, in countries in which it's accepted that there are "pure" races, is dismissed by any serious thinker. With all the mixing and mangling going on throughout the history of this peninsula, what "pure" people are we talking about again? And even on the islands that are now called Japan, how many "native" groups – Ainu and Barakumin are just ones we focus on today – came into the many back-and-forth movements of people and cultures from the mainland? Let's not even get into the use of "race" and "purity" in Nazi Germany, or the politics of creating "pure" categories in the New World to justify the system of slavery or western expansion. To quote Salman Rushdie: "Doesn't the idea of pure cultures, in urgent need of being kept free from alien contamination, lead us inexorably toward apartheid, toward ethnic cleansing, toward the gas chamber?" Heavy.

3) Why do people – especially race-obssessed Americans – feel the constant urge to categorize and classify racially? The problem with people constantly wanting to know what you "really" are is that then people assign all kinds of automatic, assumed traits/characteristics to you that you may or may not lay claim to. If I say, "I'm Korean and Black" to someone, they usually nod and say, "Ahhh" or "That makes sense." WHAT makes sense? So do I eat kim chee and do taekwondo, while singing in Baptist choirs and stealing hubcaps? As much as many Americans place stock in being able to read one's racial resumé – and in fact are often uncomfortable unless they are told what you "are" – knowing the "race" of my parents doesn't in fact say much about me. "What are your hobbies?" would even be a better question.

So how do I answer? If I am absolutely pushed to answer the question, which I often am, if I am not in the mood to make the querier uncomfortable or even pissed off for not answering, I just give them the standard, mostly factual statement: "My mother is Korean, my father African-American." I then allow people's assumptions to fill in all the blank spots that allow me to finish my dinner or conversation in peace. Most people don't think about the fact that, upon meeting someone for the first time, it isn't standard or polite procedure to ask, "Where/how did your parents meet?" or "Are you equally close to your parents?" or "How close are you to your Korean relatives" or any number of questions that I might in fact be happy to answer once I got past the point of my level of the relationship, which, for me, is usually still at "What was your name again?"

ME: "Hi. I'm Michael."

THEM: "Hi – hey! Are you mixed/biracial/multiracial/interracial/Polynesian/Malaysian/Micronesian/Samoan/Mexican/Filipino?!"

ME, OPTION #1: "Ummm, yes." (for first four options.)

ME, OPTION #2: "Ummm, no." (for anything else)

THEM, VARIATION#1: "So, what are you?"
THEM, VARIATION#2: "So, what's your nationality?"
THEM, VARIATION#3: "So, what's your ethnic background?"

ME, DODGING ANSWER #1: "American."
ME, DODGING ANSWER #2: "American."
ME, DODGING ANSWER #3: "American."

THEM: "Noooo. You know what I mean. What are you?"

ME, SCRIPTED ANSWER: "My mother is Korean, my father African-American."

THEM, POLITE VERSION: "Oh, coooooooool."

THEM, NOSY VERSION: "Oh, coooooooool. So how did they meet?"

And with the nosy people, it goes on and on, eventually getting into facts I usually reserve for closer friends – as is natural – such as the fact that my father actually passed away a few years ago. The standard response is "Oooh. I'm sorry." At that point, even the most reasonable person tends to realize that they've sort of stepped into way more personal territory than they've earned any right to, especially since they just met me 10 minutes prior. Hopefully, the wages of nosiness is indeed embarrassment, as I would like to think. And in the case of the building "pride" of Koreans in Hines Ward, I pessimistically predicted that the visit itself would bear out my belief that the wages of quick, self-centered, national pride would be cheek-burning embarrassment in the face of a huge, ironic contradiction.

But who knows? Perhaps the wages of Koreans' sudden apparent "pride" in Hines Ward will be the betterment of some of the people who share Mr. Ward's demographically difficult disposition.

Hines Ward – Lost in Translation

A quick check over to the Chosun Ilbo had me a bit surprised – according to that paper, Hines Ward had been quoted as saying:

"미국프로풋볼(NFL) 슈퍼볼 최우수선수(MVP) 로 뽑힌 하인스 워드(30.피츠버그 스틸러스)는 며칠 전 미 전국일간지 USA 투데이와 인터뷰에서 “나는 절반이 한국인인 만큼 한인 공동체를 위해 최선을 다하겠다”고 말했다."

Hines Ward, chosen as American pro football's "most valuable player" (MVP), said a few days ago in an interview with the nationwide daily newspaper USA Today, "For the sake of Korean community and to the extent that I am half-Korean, I will try my absolute best."

Well, I checked within the USA Today site and Google to bring up any and all articles from that paper. The article that I am almost sure they were "quoting" reads quite a bit differently than Korean readers are being led to believe.

"I can't even describe to you what it would mean to win a Super Bowl for her. The whole world is watching, and I'm representing the Korean community. That's part of who I am. I'm half Korean and half African-American.

Hmm. Well, maybe this is a liberal translation. But then why did they edit out the teensy-weensy part about being African-American as well as Korean? Another case of the Korean media reporting what it wants to hear? Or simple incompetence that led to egregious misrepresentation of what the man actually said? Either way, it doesn't reflect too well on that paper.

Let the claim game begin.

Korean Folks Don't Like Black People

OK, I'm angry again. Well, more like peeved. I've been quiet to this point; as a person with Black and Korean parentage, I've been biting my tongue, even as the Korean media has been reproducing ages-old racist stereotypes by now starting to ogle and sexually fetishize "mixed-race" people, culminating in the recent drool-fest over Daniel Henny, the man with "the best of both worlds."

But now, I gotta say something, especially before the inevitable media madness begins over Hines Ward begins.

And I'm not trying to playa-hate; Mr. Denny, for example, is a handsome man, worthy of his model status. I'm not here to debate whether or not he's a delectable piece of man-meat.

What I am here to criticize is the way his race and its apparent "mixture" is being talked about. Considering the extent to which South Korean culture is still essentially in thrall to Americanness and whiteness – the expected rant about people surgically mutilating their faces and bodies to look more Caucasian and the amazing power and privilege that white skin brings in Korean society will be mercifully skipped here – this new caveat of "multiracial" beauty and its obvious sexualization is getting pretty vomitous. Here's a quote from the Marmot, who was himself quoting:

"A professor at SungKongHoe University warned that while interest in mixed-race stars was better than no interest at all, there was the danger that the minority of success stories might lead some to transfer responsibility for the failures from society onto the individuals."

Now, we have the cherry on the cake. Hines Ward, Super Bowl MVP and "the good son" extraordinaire, is coming to Korea. Now, let me make this clear: I don't have anything against Mr. Ward, and from what I see, he seems like a pretty nice guy. This isn't a beef with him – it's a beef with the hypocrisy I saw in the very absence of the conversation people should be having now that one of "the lowest of the low" is making his way back to the homeland.

I started reading about him – because I don't own a TV and I don't follow spectator sports – from the Marmot (here's a good post with many links), Nomad's and GI Korea's several posts about multiracial folks with Korean backgrounds and lately, Mr. Ward himself. And then I heard he's coming to Korea. So I did a bit of Googling.

Initially, all the Korean media reports seemed to be journalistically lazy quote lifts from a single CNN/Sports Illustrated interview with Mr. Ward, in which he talks lovingly about his mother and all her sacrifices. A great story, and it sounds like mom was an amazing woman. Korean moms and sacrifice – blood, sweat, and tears – who can quarrel with that?

What I did find suspicious was the way in which the everyday people interviewed and the writers themselves started the big feeding frenzy over claiming Mr. Hines as "Korean." He's even going to given an award for that fact. Even some of my mixed friends were doing the claiming. I don't know Hines, I never saw him comment on his "identity," nor do I feel there is any need to – it's his business. So I was surprised to see everybody talking about Hines Ward's identity – except Mr. Ward himself.

And whence this sudden motivation to claim a black/Korean mixed race person as Korea's own? And especially considering the problematic circumstances of being suddenly "claimed?" Well, considering the way that black people, those who marry black people, and the way the "offspring" are generally denigrated and looked upon with derision in this country, I was a little surprised to see the sudden public lovefest over him. And the more I thought about it, the more angry I became.

So – what do the people in the subway, whom I saw two years ago all ogle, stare, whisper, even point and snicker at a fly-ass Korean woman with a fine-ass Black man as they merely walked into the car as if they had just stepped in from a music video shoot – have to say to Hines Ward? I also wonder to myself if any of the people on antimigun.org (which means "Anti-American soldier" in Korean), who, during the 2002 protests over the death of the middle school girls, posted this picture of a woman (which I have mosaicked to protect identities, since this woman could still potentially receive "손해" for even being in this picture today) who had apparently been inside a military base standing next to an African-American soldier. She was castigated by netizens as a "slut who slept with nigger dogs" and other epithets, ad infinitum. I posted, in Korean, that such racism wasn't warranted, and that I was the product of such a "mongrel" union. I did, to some people's credit, receive a few heartfelt apologies from some reasonable netizens; but I also was invited to go back to my "mongrel" home and received further castigation for being a symbol of race-mixing and dilution of the Korean race. Apparently, I was embarrassing to a lot of people. Funny thing was, no matter what you might say about whether they were a crazy minority of posters or not, antimigun.org did not take down the offending post, even when I wrote an email to them. I didn't even receive a reply. Apparently, antimigun.org approves of such blatant racism; apparently, given the relative lack of any postings to cease in such racist harangue, so do most of the people who were on that site.

Are they going to ask him at the inevitable press conference "whether your success came from your Korean side?" A friend of mine, who seems to be rooting for Mr. Ward defining himself as Korean, defended her position by making note of the fact that his African-American father left Hines and his mother, was basically a deadbeat dad. So that an identity makes? Because he loves his mom, who is Korean, he must therefore hate his father, and by extension, have a contentious relationship with blackness? Being seen as a Black man, treated as a Black man, welcomed into the Black community (the "one-drop rule" is still in effect for better or worse) while most likely not being seen as Asian, even and especially by other Asians – that doesn't play a part one's identity?

One dangerous tendency I noted, from not only conversations with my friend, but also with the way the Korean media talks about him, is the way Ward's mother's "good" seems played against the African-American father's "bad." This is what's responsible for my friend's easy assumption that Mr. Hines may have a contentious relationship with blackness, which resembles the somewhat "disciplinary" tone that I sense in the way blackness-as-deadbeat-father  is or may be played against sacrifice-as-Korean-mother.

Am I paranoid? Not when such thought patterns definitely exist amongst Korean relatives, friends, and general people I know. "You mother must have been the side that made you smart." Huh? Or, "you must have gone to an Ivy League school because of your mother." So my brother's success in life is despite the fact that he identifies as African-American? These loaded questions are just the tip of the iceberg compared to the established cultural trope of "model minority" that already exists in American society and that many Koreans actively buy into.

The myth, started in the media mainly by a U.S. News and World Report magazine article and propagated shortly after Asian immigration was re-opened in the United States in after 1965, was ideologically used primarily not to laud Asians but to discipline and punish African-Americans and Latinos by making unfair and unsociological comparisons. "Why can't Blacks perform" were questions that seemed to have easy answers, especially in the turbulent Civil Rights Movement days, when many Asian Americans were seen as preferable, quieter, "good" minorities. In any case, this aspect and set of assumptions makes me uncomfortable. This is just one of my many concerns.

Seems like there are a lot of assumptions swirling around out there, when the best idea is to just let Hines Ward be Hines Ward – not "the pride of Korea", which seems awfully selfish and arrogant, considering how generally Amerasian kids (especially those with a Black parent) and also Korean adoptess are considered the living embodiment of Korea's "shame." And I hate to be the one to bring it up, but when will we start being a bit more careful with throwing around the concept of "pride of Korea" already? Isn't there any irony in the Korean media? Where's the institutional memory, people?

For those who might not be getting what I'm saying – I think the raising of heroes and bandying about of Korea's "pride" is problematic because it is usually self-centered, self-serving, and often downright arrogant when it comes to making implicit comparisons with and assumptions about other cultures when we get down to the "why?" behind Korea's apparent success – "It's Koreans' hard work! Dedication! Independent, undying spirit!" What about when things go wrong? No more sweeping generalizations about "Korean" traits. Instead, we have silence.

With that, I don't feel it's right to be making all kinds of projections and predictions about "who" Hines is or even should be, especially if we truly respect the pre-emptive right of people to define themselves. I think it's awful suspicious if people start making Mr. Ward the poster-boy for interracial understanding in a country in which many people would disown their daughters for doing exactly what Korean folk and the Korean media seem to be lauding Mr. Ward's mom for having done. I know what other Koreans even married to American (white) servicemen said about my mom, who married a black man in the service. I once even walked into a clothing store that happened to be owned by a Korean, and when showing my ID for the check I was writing, looked at it, me, the ID, then back at me and said, "Oh – I know you." Well, he actually didn't know me, but he knew of my mom.

So I understand why my mom always seems to do what irritates the hell out of me, which is always mention to complete Korean strangers that I went to Brown University and then got a Fulbright, then went to grad school in Berkeley, on and on, while I just kind of roll my eyes and look embarrassed. But I don't say anything, not because I'm not humble, but because it's my mom's chance to make them eat humble pie. She got shit for her life choices and having given birth to me and my brother – who, happens, by the way to identify as African-American and thinks of Mom not as "Korean" but as most of us do, which is just as "Mom." So, no matter how embarrassed I am when she does it, I always bite my tongue when Mom talks me up, because she's earned the right, in a way that many other Korean moms – who,  despite their sacrifices and constant striving for their kids that Korean moms the world over are famous for – cannot.

From what I can see, Hines Ward's mom has more than earned her bragging rights. Working her fingers to the bone in another country, alone, cause Black father done took off, surely having to listen to incessant "I told you so's" from friends and family because of all this – Mr. Ward went on to become not only a football star but MV muthafucking P. So she's got the right to be all "me, my, son, the best, pride, tears, sweat, joy."

But for "Korea" to go jumping the gun and laying claim to him, in the way I know they will, with the welcoming smiles ("Sign here"), talk show tours ("Endorse our product"), and probable offers of sex and marriage from giddy female fans ("You're OK now") – I think it's more than disingenuous. It's dishonest and downright immoral, considering the deafening silence about what many Koreans really think about perhaps not Mr. Hines himself, but people like him. And those people are not expecting fame and accolades, but basic respect and human dignity.

For what it's worth, I do hope that Mr. Hines is aware of at least some of these issues – I'm sure Koreans' attitude towards Moms is part of Mr. Hines acknowledgment of all the hardships she overcame, so I'm sure he's not in the dark – and I hope he can use his visit to help his many despised and denied kindred who probably are looking at Mr. Hines for any hint of a nod in their direction. What I am saying – and hoping – is that Mr. Hines won't get so caught up and swept away by the inevitable media feeding frenzy when he arrives that he forgets that he is a HUGE exception that can bring light to the sad fact of an ugly rule in society – the silence and denial of Amerasian people's very humanity that exists in direct relation to this so-called "Korean Pride."

And therein lies the irony.

So, since I am an ironic man – you can read that any way you want – I point to a piece of ingenious political commentary that lays irony atop of irony. Most Americans know about Kanye West's well-intentioned, but awkwardly delivered moment of political protest, when, during a televised Katrina fundraising benefit, he stammered out the words "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

Well, I feel his sentiments. I don't know if Bush is a hater of the brother man, but he sure is a friend of the "other Man," as legendary Public Enemy once put it. I can't disagree with Kanye West's assertion, there.

But a talented rap artist then took Mr. West's chart-topping single, "Golddigger," and made some smart adjustments to the lyrics that make the remix just as good, if not better than, the original. And the political commentary doesn't bite, like Kanye West's delivery, but is biting as all hell. In a way, he's channeled what Kanye was trying to say, and even did it – partially – in Kanye's own poetry.

Now, I've done something similar, although I don't possess the talent or lyrical creativity of either rapper. It just struck me that when I replaced "George Bush" with "Korean folks," the song really took on a different meaning, yet still really worked. (Like Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On," if you replace "heart" with "fart," that simple switch actually improves on the initial product.)

In any case, I just fiddled around with one verse, and found, by using another person's poetry through which to make the half-baked attempt at expressing my own, that it said just what I wanted to say, more concisely than any blathering on and on I do in prose.

But first, listen to the remixed song, which takes a skewer to Bush in saying what everyone, including Kanye West, wants to say. You can also do this while reading the lyrics. Then watch the video. And then read my little verse. It's the closest I'd dare to either 1) writing poetry, or 2) making rap lyrics. Just be thankful I don't actually perform it.

I'm just surprised at how well the refrain fits in with the message, especially when it comes to the selfishness of "gold digging".

Remix Artist: K-Otix (AKA The Legendary KO)
Album: www.k-otix.com
Original Song: "George Bush Don't Like Black People"

Korean Folks Don't Like Black People

( "George Bush doesn't care about black people" - Kanye West, 2005)
("George Bush Don't Like Black People" - K-Otix, AKA The Legendary KO)
( "Korean folks don't like black people" - Michael Hurt, 2006)

(They take my money...)
I ain't sayin they all gold diggers
(...when we in need)
But they ain't messin with no broke niggaz
(They take my money...)
I ain't sayin they all gold diggers
(...when we in need)
But they ain't messin with no broke niggaz
(I gotta leave)
Korean folks don't like black people
(I gotta leave)
Korean folks don't like black people
(I gotta leave)
Korean folks don't like black people
(I gotta leave)
Korean folks don't like black people

Big war came through, fucked us up round here
Government actin like it's bad luck down here
Unless a rich superstar bring some bucks round here
No wonder I got my middle finger up round here
People lives on the line, they declinin to help
Since they denying our lives we survivin ourself
Just some nuns, NGO's, with some kids, in a house
Shunned by the 나라 with no way out
Five full decades in the muthafuckin attic
Can't get respect, social death is automatic
They call half-breed niggas dirty like jambalaya
But now Daniel Henny's the mixed race Messiah?
사대주의's got Koreans wanting white folk things
Craving caucasians like they lord of the rings
See, such is the reason that this caged nerd sings
Mixed kids in Korean school can't get educated
catching holy hell 'cause they's "miscegenated"
Now Hines Ward, my brother, is super bowl MVP
So Koreans love ya now - Mr. king 깜둥이

(I gotta leave)
Don't like black people
(I gotta leave)
Korean folks don't like black people
(I gotta leave)
Korean folks don't like black people
(I gotta leave)
Korean folks don't like black people
(I gotta leave)
Korean folks don't like

(They take my money...)
I ain't sayin he a gold digger
(...when we in need)
But they ain't lookin no broke niggaz
(They take my money...)
I ain't sayin he a gold digger
(...when we in need)
But they ain't checkin for no broke niggaz
(I gotta leave)
Korean folks don't like black people
(I gotta leave)
Korean folks don't like black people
(I gotta leave)
Korean folks don't like black people
(I gotta leave)
Korean folks don't like black people

Podcast #20 – Yongsan Walking Tour

This is the long-promised podcast – Podcast #20 – the Yongsan Electronics Market walking tour, in addition to a couple listener letters and a quick discount DVD recommendation. You can come into the tour from 3 main points, with the final destination being the new, high-end Yongsan "Jeonja Land" electronics market. Along the way, I'll show you the older building, which is connected to the new CGV complex. We'll pass by the Yonsan train station, newer electronics market (mostly prosumer/consumer stuff) in that new complex, through the old electronics market, then into our final destination, where I'll also stop by the Apple store, as well as the Apple service center.

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto!

Running Time: 57:15
File Size: 17.9 MB
File Info: 48 kbps (technically 96 kpbs stereo) at 22.050 kHz, MPEG-2, layer 3 (MP3)

Show Links:

Yeinsa DVD Store
http://www.yeinsa.com

Podcast Questions...

I just finished up the recording of the parts for Podcast #20 – Yongsan Walking Tour, and I realize that I have a few questions for you listeners out there. Please, please be generous with your feedback. You guys are the reason I do this, so the more feedback you give, the more inspired I get, which is in addition to me trying to address any questions or suggestions that will help make my podcasts better.

#1 If you've observed anything strange and/or bewildering during your stay here in Korea, please drop a line for the "What the Hell?" series. Once we get the ball rolling, I'm sure it'll be a good segment, so let's put that ball into motion! Drop me an email using the link at the top of this page, or preferably, you can use the comments section of this post to post your question.

#2 For people who attended the Metropoliticking dinner, any suggestions as to how to improve the get-together in the future, or things that might make it more interesting, since I am thinking about making it perhaps a monthly shindig and trying to do something interesting so we might make a small community that everyone can participate in, benefit from, maybe make a new friend. Please place your thoughts in as comments to this post if you can.

#3 Does anyone out there have announcements that might be of interest to our listeners? Send them to me directly at the email address above.

#4 Do you have any feedback and/or suggestions for Susan or Darcy to cover in terms of food and film, respectively? Any kinds of cuisines you'd like to know about? Restaurants to suggest? What about questions for Darcy to address? Burning questions you want answered about Korean film? Thoughts to share? Please use the comments section for this post for your feedback.

#5 Any podcast feedback in general? Leave a comment to this post!

And again and as always – thanks for taking the time to subscribe and listen!

On the Late, Great State of Korean Pop Music

Ah, Korean pop music. I just read an article on Jodi's Pages that I got hooked into via Lost Nomad. It reminded me instantly of just how much I used to like Korean pop music – and how little interest I have in it now.

And no, I don't think it's just because I'm old and jaded. I'm the biggest baby of them all – my wrapping's just 34 years-of-age. Now, with a real income, I've just moved up to bigger toys: I got a 100" image beaming out from a killer projector, an Xbox  through which I've become not only a highly-trained WWII-era, OSS-trained elite sniper, but have also piloted UFO's to lay waste to farmers and townspeople alike in the 1950's, kidnapping them for my experimenting and gene-splicing pleasure. Of course, sometimes I touchdown to reality enough to be near my Ph.D, I've done some decent artistic work, and am fairly responsible and self-motivated. I have grown up in certain ways, of course, yet I am still a kid at heard. For one thing, I've got more in sheer amount and types of music on my iPod now than I ever hoped to carry around in my Sony Sports CD Walkman from back in the day.

So I'll start everything off with the big admission – I liked Britney Spears (first two albums, only!) But my ear gets piqued by a lot of different things: heartfelt ballads with edge, good guitar hooks, rap lyrics that truly flow, and catchy pop tunes. The RIAA can kiss my fat ass because it's not MP3's that made me stop buying CD's, it's what I call the "20-percent rule" – only 2-3 songs out of 10-12 tunes on a CD are any good, whereas the rest are filler crap designed to hide the fact that you're paying $3-5 per song. If you actually have any talent, which I judge in terms of consistency and not raw singing skills, your entire CD is going to be good. That doesn't happen often in recent years, but when it does, I am more than happy to plunk down my money. It's also a reason many of my old CD's from my collection were carefully-selected "best of" and "greatest hits" compilations of singers and groups I already knew.

Back in the 50's, every good song was available as single 45's, which was generally true until laser pickups unceremoniously replaced phonograph needles in the late 1980's. In fact, I was a good customer, with crates of records bulging at their seams. And for some reason, albums seemed more well-rounded overall, so I bought a lot more of them and listened to more of them the whole way through. Most of my "illegal downloading" since the advent of the MP3 has actually been reacquiring the music I refuse to buy again, since I spent all my allowances and part-time Church's Fried Chicken money buying records that are now collecting dust and mold in a cold, dark storage room somewhere in Oakland.

But now, most of the groups are primped, managed, and modded out to fit a marketing model. If you're in your late 20's and up, try to think back to Exposé – if you can, you probably also remember how much they generally sucked. Still, they sang catchy tunes and if you liked one of their songs, you pretty much liked them all. Same was true with The Jets, Taylor Dane, and Lisa Lisa – all of their songs I'm embarrassed yet happy to have riding around in my iPod, despite the fact that Lisa Lisa was always flat (obviously I'm talking about her lack of intonation), Taylor Dane couldn't hold a tune to save her life, and the Jets were just plain corny, what Koreans rightly call "느끼해". And those were the bad ones – the good ones were even more reliable to put out something worth keeping: Madonna, Duran Duran, EPMD, Eric B. and Rakim. Even in the field of rap, there were many strong contenders out there making good stuff worth buying a whole album of.

Perhaps back then, groups had a bit more pressure to be better, since there was no easy way to skip to the next tune, besides actually standing next to the record player and eyeballing the little space between songs, into where you had to lightly drop the needle without getting that scratch sound that could blow out speaker components or damage your precious piece of vinyl. So you were often stuck just letting the record play or making a mix tape that took lots of time. Now you can make an iTunes playlist and burn a CD in the time it takes to make a trip to the bathroom to drop the kids off at the pool.

And I will return to Korea in a moment. I just need to make a quick point along the way.

On top of pent-up anger and frustration at being overcharged for music, a consumer's only got so much cash to spend. Back in the day, the VHS market was rental-oriented, with new videos priced at $119 to prevent consumers from buying them until the video stores were finished sucking them bone-dry of rental fees. Even when a certain video was set for major release, it still seemed like consumers were buying less videotapes, especially since home theater was not something everyday people could afford. Those nuts were out buying laserdiscs anyway, along with BMW's and country club memberships. I was stuck watching T2 on a 19" screen. To me, taping it from HBO was nearly as good as buying it. Back then, I indeed spent most of my cash on music.

Now that we've got DVD's as a major source of competition – for its a market designed to be collected and replayed from initial release, just like CD's, with the added value designed for increasingly larger numbers of people with home theaters and bigger TV screens – the consumers treat DVD's as high-fidelity products made for collection and continued consumption, also just like CD's. Me, Jane Doe, and Joe Schmoe all have finite amounts of cash, and since people like me have not only bad blood with the present crappy state of music, combined with options to bypass buying songs legally, I gleefully Limewire down the 4 or 5 Britney Spears songs I like (spread over like 4 albums) and don't feel guilty one damn bit. I save my money and buy myself the 4-disc special edition of Hellboy, with dozens of hours of content for the price of a CD-and-a-half. Screw the record industry, their transparent marketing of bionically-constructed bands, and the way they try to pass off what is mostly loads of crap.

It's not that bands suck any more these days – I just feel it's marketed a lot more aggressively and sneakily – it feels like they're trying to pass off less for more money. Now, there are still people out there who are just plain good – remember, defined as putting out a consistently decent set of songs on an album – so I happily bought albums from 50 Cent, N.E.R.D., and one specially-ordered compilation of 40's German and French cabaret songs by Liane that is sweet as hell. Money well spent, I say.

Not only that, with the free, law-bucking, swashbuckling Napster from a few years back, I downloaded stuff totally unfamiliar to me that I would never have plunked down hard money to buy, untested, songs unheard. Here, I am indeed talking about country music. And not the "country" that-is-not-really-country like Clint Black or Shania Twain poser country-for-suburban-cowboys, but guitar-twanging, fist-swinging, hard-drinking, crying on the muthafucking record country. George Jones. Willie Nelson. Wayland Jennings. Back when country was big hair, trailer park, white-ass, one-black-guy-in-the-audience, Hee Haw kind of shit. Living in Ohio as a kid, I heard a lot of it wafting around the airwaves in the diner  and outta people's pickups occasionally, and some of it was quite good, actually. So I dowloaded all the names of country "sangers" I could remember, got familiar with whom I liked and whom I didn't, and eventually bought a George Jones and Willie Nelson DVD's. Again, screw the RIAA.

But what does this have to do with Korean music, ask ye?

Well, I think the same thing has happened to Korean music, except – like many things in Korea – at a much more compressed, accelerated rate. Everything is a boy band or pre-marketed ballad singer in the real K-Pop end of things, while Korean producers seem to have gotten much better at imitating American styles. Seo Taiji, one of the king imitators, yet who had some skills, seemed to have sort of lost it – when I left them for good was when I bought a poorly-produced "ultimate" DVD of them that had shaky-cam footage of some random concert in which their old classics were all redone as fad-of-the-moment punk songs. Yes, even come back home got the Limp Bizkit "Faith" treatment: Rrrrrawwr, rrrrrawwrrr, roarrrr! Umm, no thanks. And no more Seo Taiji and the Boys. Find your style again, guys. And how about throwing some music videos while you're at it?

And then, from the Lost Nomad's page, I saw news and a couple of pictures of boy and girl bands that looked more like small armies than singing groups.

What are you gonna do with like 14 people on a stage? That's too much action even for the aerobics/taebo style dancing that never seems to die in K-Pop – unless some of the people do pantomime, a few express themselves through interpretive dance, some of them hip-hoppity around, while a trio emotively sings overwrought ballad hooks as interludes to the aerobicizing action. Now that's a complete experience. With 14 fools on a stage, I want dances, drama, spoken word poetry, laser shows, and even a couple ninjas featured in a rap/dance/martial arts final showdown. And if the final moment is punctuated with a pyrotechnics-laden series of explosions and smoke bombs, I'll be part of the standing ovation.

But we all know that ain't gonna happen. We're gonna get the same few people singing and just tons more synchronized dancing. I fear that the incredible one-upsmanship that goes on here in Korea might escalate to the level of having Bali-wood-level shows with 150 backup dancers, but who knows? The point is, even in the space of 10 years, the amount of over-produced pap has simply washed over everyone else in the K-pop scene, talented or not, such that there are only a few really good people or groups out there that make it. I don't even know any names anymore, since, in the space of the several years that separated this Korea stay from my last one in 1994-1996, the physical appearance of these stars has become so homogenized through anorexic/bulimic dieting, plastic surgery, and the incredible payoffs many singers, especially the untalented ones, have to make to break into the business, that I can't even tell them apart anymore.

So I feel ya, Jodi's boyfriend. Where's the old school talent? I had a chance to see DJ DOC in concert – amazing, by the way – it was one of the best concert experiences I'd ever seen anywhere – and they still got it, even though they're older than my ass. Where's blow-your-ears-off, slapping heads, taking names Pak Mi Kyeong? (Sadly, I know – with bad nosejob, performing in ajussi nightclubs and whatnot.) What about syrupy 슬퍼 Shin Hyo Beom? King Kim Geon Mo? (Also now sadly irrelevant but doesn't seem to realize it.) But he still had dibs on claiming his song as the "Korean national anthem" back in 1994 ("잘 못 된 만남").

Back when K-Pop was good – not meaning more talented, but just more honest and earnest-sounding and deliciously goooood – it was really a joy to listen to. And even before that, the 'bbong-jjak" songs and ballads from the 70's and 80's, albeit derivative of a lot of Japanese stuff, was also solid. Now, like a lot of the "Korean Wave" – the products just seem to be slicker, higher-production value version of formulas that are imported and tweaked from elsewhere: the boy bands, the bad ballad singers, sexy girls who can't sing swinging non-existent hips onstage.

Still, I like a few from the now, but only a few. When I catch someone on TV or hear a song worth noting on the radio, I make a note to catch the title and singer. Who am I bumping now on the iPod from the present-day Korean scene? I can only pick a few, since I don't really keep up anymore. YG Family's "멋쟁이 신사" strikes me as original Korean rap, sung with Korean humor, verve, and flava. DJ DOC still has more bounce to the ounce than any of these youngstas out there.

In a completely different genre, Jang Yoon Jeong's "어머나" and her performance style has a kind of honest-yet-playful, winking-atcha, more refined kind of charm than the any of the pesudo-sexy mimicking of Beyoncé and J-Lo videos presently all the rage. I bought her CD.

They call Lee Hyo Ri the "Jennifer Lopez" of Korea; frankly, the dance style doesn't seem to work for me, since such sultry dance moves were made to accentuate parts of the body that a lot of these would-be "Jennifer Lopez-of-Koreas" just don't seem to be able to pull off without push-up bras, padding, or fetish accessories. I pose the question: why do you have to be a "Jennifer Lopez" clone to come off as sexy in your own country and culture, one that is completely different from the one "Bennifer" comes from? Can't you just be the Lee Hyo Ri of Korea™ and still charm people that way? Or do we totally have to reproduce the cultural forms and modes of the West in order to drive this wave?

Like the "Korean Wave" in general, I think it will plateau but generally continue to do well in the Asian cultural marketplace. Hey, that's a great thing for Korea. But also like many other Korean Wave products – the movies from Shiri to Taegukki come to mind – instead of overtly trying to be Hollywood-style Korean cultural products, how about being confident enough to espouse a real kind of "Korean Pride" and and make Korean-style Korean products? Riding the wave of making movies as "the Steven Spielbergs" or the "Jennifer Lopezes of Korea" is going to get old. In the end, I hope this bubble bursts soon so we can get back to seeing more real Korean movies, listening to some decent K-Pop again, and enjoying the real fruits of Korea's political, economic, and cultural growth over the last couple decades, such that a real – not derivative – "Korean Pride" and "Korean Wave" can truly gain their bearings.