"A Message from One American"
One thing that has long frustrated me about being an American in Korea has been the way America, its history, and its people have been understood by most Korean people. For most Koreans I know, America is a place of extreme fantasy: either an imperialist nation characterized by discrimination and hypocrisy, or a perfect land of freedom and plenty. Of course, it's neither.
But on top of this fantasy vision of America, Koreans over the last 8 years have been essentially exposed to America at its very worst: unilateralism, closemindedness, and a general mean-spiritedness exemplified by our soon-to-be former president George W. Bush. In 2004, when he was re-elected, many of my Korean friends were aghast and couldn't understand how just over half of the American population voted for him. It was at this moment, I think, that Koreans most vividly realized that they really, really didn't understand America or Americans.
We are, essentially, a very conservative people. Most Koreans seem quite surprised to hear that, but those Koreans who have lived in America (and not as a partying exchange student) understand this. Essentially, we're a land in which public drunkenness at the office party is frowned upon, there is no such thing as a "room salon", and where the shorts skirts and high heels of many Korean women would draw stares. No matter our wilder media, real American life is in fact, pretty boring. Sex and the City is a fantasy; no one could ever have that much sex or buy the clothes they wear. No one on Friends could ever afford to live in those apartments with the jobs they had. And no, despite negative news stories, I've never been shot, seen anyone shot, nor do I own a gun. The wild west America Koreans see on TV largely does not exist.
It's obvious that most images of America have been formed by Hollywood fantasy or sensationalistic news stories that don't at all define the everyday life and thinking of Americans. In the same way, if all Americans knew of Korea was from the news and Korean movies and television, we'd think that Korea was a country full of Cinderella love triangles, black-suited gangsters, and that everyone lived in a 100-pyeong house.
Korean reality is very different, and is marked by an extreme pragmatism. In a Korean 20th century marked by colonial occupation, wars, extreme poverty, dictatorship, and a political culture that has not earned its own people's trust, a worldly pragmatism has been necessary to survive. I can totally understand that, since I am quite familiar with Korean history and have lived here half of my adult life. For a country that only gained anything close to real democracy about 15 years ago, it's understandable to see people who still distrust government, who don't have faith in institutions, who know that the "rule of law" is a very weak thing. .
But I come from a different political culture. For one, the United States has the oldest political and democratic institutions of any country that presently exists. Put more simply, the United States is the oldest country in the world. It may seem counterintuitive to a people constantly taught that Korean history is "5000 years" but in fact, it is not. When talking about the everyday life, the political institutions that control one's world, educational and social structures, Korea is quite young.
Which brings me to the real subject at hand -- Barack Obama and what this moment in history means to me, both as an American, as well as a member of the international community.
What I wish Koreans could really feel at this moment is what the election of Barack Obama means to many Americans. It's more than the fact that he's "the first black president" -- he's much, much more than that. In some conversations I've had here, I've realized that some Koreans think he got some special advantage because he's black, or that most black people voted for him for that reason. Absolutely wrong. There have been black candidates for president before, and the majority of black people did NOT vote for them. Regarding that office, it's the one place that even black people still believed that no black person could go, and it reminded everyone that, despite our reputation for being dreamers, America still had its limits.
Still, American culture is very much an idealistic one, in which children are told "you can do anything"; and many of us truly believe it, which is what explains why one of the youngest CULTURES in the world has invented nearly every modern object used by people across the world, from the steam engine to the car, airplane to the laser, microchip to nanobots. Sure, other countries perfect them and make them faster or smaller, but we INVENT them. Why? Because of our natural resources? Historical luck? It's more than that.
But it's also because ours was the culture that got rid of rigid social classes, hierarchies, and barriers. Yes, our nation was founded in slavery and the extermination of native peoples, but there is also a historical tendency towards greater freedom and equality, as our nation has outgrown its bloody past and repudiated old ways of thinking. In the space of the just over 150 years that passed since the early 1800's, when America became a maturing nation, the amount of economic, technological, and social progress in America has been astonishing. And this progress -- from the radio to the television to the computer to the Internet -- has affected everyone in the entire world.
Is this arrogant to say? I don't think so. It's merely a fact, and something that I can proudly point to as a proud aspect of my culture. But I'm not just talking about technology; I am also talking about another kind of progress: 50 years ago, black people could not even sit next to a white person in a public place, and now we have a black President of the United States.
Can you imagine what that means for Americans? All Americans? This is not just a triumph for blacks -- it's a reaffirmation of ALL AMERICANS' ability to have FAITH in our beliefs again, to dare to dream again. This is what Barack Obama called "the audacity of hope." He has given us that audacity again. Barack Obama only appeared on the national political scene 4 years ago, when he spoke at the Democratic National Convention about helping to end America's "political darkness." But it was more than that -- it was an ideological darkness, in which America had become a negative, divisive, even seemingly foreign place to live. He was a sudden ray of hope.
We've always been a nation of ideals, and we've spent our entire existence trying to achieve them -- that is one aspect of the greatness of America, even if there have been contradictions and challenges. America has always best been defined by what Obama yesterday called the "enduring power of our ideals" -- and not our temporary, transitory reality; at one time, our country had black people in chains, women could not vote, racist immigration laws stopped Chinese from immigrating to our country.
Yes, the realities of our history had oftentimes been harsh. So, for us, two days ago marked one of the most important points in our history -- when the original sin of our country's history seemed to be symbolically cancelled by a black man becoming president. This was the instant when some parents who had always lied to their children in saying "Yes, dear. You can do anything. You can even be President" no longer had to. It was no longer a lie. In a single instant, the range of what already-optimistic Americans thought we could do had broadened -- WE put a man on the moon, WE made a black man President of the United States.
So, I urge Koreans who want to understand what this means to an American like me to try to think about this not in terms of being a Korean. Yours is a totally different history than ours, and even when thinking about America, it's usually through a narrow and distorted lens, and usually only in terms of how American policy affects Korea, say as in the tank accident of 2002 or the American beef issue of this year.
America, if you really understand it, is more than a few bad GI's, English teachers you don't want dating your women, or the whipping boy for Korean society's frustration for an out-of-control private education/English industry -- or even the last 8 years of George W. Bush. America, as both a nation and an idea, is much broader and more complex than that. If there's one way I'd explain America, I'll do it in the words of our next President of the United States, which upon hearing, I began to cry. I have only cried twice in my life as an adult man -- at my father's funeral and during Barack Obama's acceptance speech. Here are the words that moved me so:
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.
It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.
We are, and always will be, the United States of America.
It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
This was the beginning. And when I heard this, it was when I knew the nightmare was over, that my kind of idealism and that it was now OK for an old-fashioned, very American way of thinking to come to the fore again:
And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.
To those -- to those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.
That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
Those are the moments when many of the Americans you see crying on television broke down -- all at once, it was a repudiation of the previous 8 years, as well as an affirmation of the hope we still had for America. And that it was going to be possible, for many of us, to be proud to be American again.
For the first time in nearly a decade, I want to fly an American flag outside my window. Because it won't be a symbol of cynicism, or unilateral arrogance, of an expression of anger over 9/11, blind patriotism, or any of that. It can now be a symbol of hope, of inclusiveness and unity, and of the spirit of "Yes, we can." Suddenly, all the nice things that American is SUPPOSED to be, what we were taught in elementary school and perhaps snickered at in middle school -- it seems like it could actually come true.
People all over the world are proud of their cultures and nations. But many Americans have had to be embarrassed about and apolgetic of our country's actions for the last couple decades, especially the last one. Now, something has changed. It started with the symbol of our electing Obama. And under him, we have faith that we can build an America that not only Americans, but other countries around the world, can once again believe in.
As those of us who helped elect Obama chanted yesterday, "Yes, we can!" We believe it. And we hope that non-Americans around the world can believe with us, too.
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