South Koreas New Nationalism: The End of "One Korea"? 9781626375628

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SOUTH KOREA’S NEW NATIONALISM

SOUTH KOREA’S NEW NATIONALISM 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 Acknowledgments Note on Romanization and Terminology

ix xi 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 List of References List of Interviews Index

189 191 207 217

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 language, 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

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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.”

Acknowledgments

This book owes much to the generous support and encouragement of many family members, friends, and colleagues. I cannot mention them all, but particular thanks must go to Professor Paul Hutchcroft, Professor Hyung-a Kim, Professor Ed Aspinall, Professor Ken Wells, Professor Hyae-weol Choi, Professor Brendan Taylor, and many other colleagues at the Australian National University (ANU) for their support. I would especially like to thank Professor Tessa Morris-Suzuki—an inspirational academic, mentor, and friend. I want to acknowledge my family in Australia, who warmly welcomed me following my move to Canberra, in particular Meg Farrington for her friendship and Dr. Tom Campbell for his early support of my work. In Korea I would like to thank Sohn Yelin; Professor Park Myung-gu and all the team at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies; Frank Oh; my former colleagues at NKDB, especially Lee Ja-un; and Lee Eun Koo, a great friend and activist. I would like to thank the ANU’s Korea Institute, the Korean Studies Association of Australasia, the Korea Foundation, the Cheung Kong Endeavour Fellowship Programme, the Australia-Korea Foundation, and the ANU for their financial and moral support throughout the research that led to this book. I am also indebted to Dr. Emma Ruckley for her advice and expertise. My sincere thanks go to Lynne Rienner and Carrie Broadwell-Tkach at FirstForumPress for the opportunity to publish my book and for their ready and helpful advice and admirable support and encouragement. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for the insightful comments that led to significant improvements in my manuscript. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the following people: Professor Hagen Koo, Assistant Professor Amy Catalinac, Park Hyun-a, Paik Yonjae, Ku Jeongyoon, Scott Winsor, Katrina Wotton, Jenny Huh, Ruth Young, Dr. Bronwen Dalton, Jim Maher, Dan Maher, Sally and Ross Farrington, Frances Hawker, and Bruce Campbell. I am extremely grateful to all the students and experts who gave their valuable time to be interviewed for this book. I hope the book xi

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

reflects the extraordinary struggles and great potential of this current generation of young South Koreans. Finally, I would like to thank my wonderful parents for their support. This book is dedicated to them. I am especially grateful to my father, Quentin Campbell, for his tireless efforts reading, checking, and editing the final drafts of the manuscript.

Note on Romanization and Terminology

The term “Korea” is used to refer to both the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and pre-partition Korea. South Korea is used for emphasis where required. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is referred to throughout as North Korea. All Korean words have been Romanized according to the Revised Romanization system. Exceptions are names of authors who have published in English using a different spelling and where direct quotations, bibliographic references, and well-known names of people, places, or publications use another form of Romanization. Examples of this are former Korean president Park Chung Hee and the newspaper title Chosun Ilbo. Korean names are written according to the standard usage in Korean with family name preceding given names.

xiii

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! Psalm 133:1—King James Version (KJV)

1

Nationalism in South Korea

“Unite our country! Korea is one!” —Im Su-gyeong, the South Korean student who traveled illegally to Pyongyang in 1989 to attend the 13th Annual International Student Youth Festival. She was arrested and jailed on her return to the South. “To be honest, I don’t care if unification is achieved or not.” —South Korean university student in 2010.

It is June 2010 in Seoul. South Korea is in the midst of the 2010 Football World Cup and the nation is watching television. “Dasihanbeon!” (one more time), demands the South Korea Telecom advertisement, with the comedian and popstar Psy calling on South Korean players and fans to repeat the performance of the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup. The World and Olympic Champion ice skater Kim Yu-na and Korean boy band “Big Bang” perform their “Shouting Korea” soccer supporters’ song and dance (on behalf of Hyundai Motors). Almost every advertisement references the South Korean soccer team in some way, and by the end of the five minute commercial break the viewer’s patriotic devotion to the South Korean team and nation is sealed. This selection of advertisements neatly characterizes the research that is the heart of this book: we witness the vigor of Korean youth culture, the strength of South Korean nationalism, the ubiquitous presence of Korea’s economy and the jaebol, and the power of national symbols; and we witness the perfect absence of North Korea. The absence of even token references to North Korea or the North Korean soccer team from the selection of advertisements would be less notable but for the fact that this was the first Football World Cup where teams from both the North and the South participated.1 It was symbolic of something interesting and significant. 1

2

South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

Korea, albeit divided, is said to be a nation built upon ethnic nationalism and the idea of a single ethnic nation (danil minjok), where the majority of people hope for unification (Shin 2006; IPUS 2012). In the past, elites have even discussed the prospect of unified Korean teams competing in international sporting events. Thus the deafening silence regarding the North Korean team during coverage of the 2010 Football World Cup was painfully conspicuous when set against the fever-pitched atmosphere surrounding South Korea and its team. South Korean games brought thousands of supporters onto the streets to watch their team on huge screens. North Korean games attracted only a few spectators who stopped by chance to watch.2 North Korea may as well have been any other minor nation participating in the tournament. Indeed, the South Korean audience was more interested in the teams of Brazil, Argentina and England than the team of their brothers in the North. It was not always like this. Despite the division of Korea following the Second World War, and the subsequent catastrophe of the Korean War that pitched the North against the South, definitions of nation and nationalism shared by young people in the South had included the territory and people of the North. This inclusion was often evident in the rhetoric and actions of the South’s youth and student movement, a movement which defined and influenced much of the oppositional political ideology throughout South Korea’s authoritarian era (N. Lee 2007). The nationalist discourse of the student movement demanded democracy and development in South Korea and opposed perceived neocolonialist relationships with Japan and the United States. There were also frequent expressions of nationalist sentiment that expressed the desire for Korean unification and the unity of the North Korean and South Korean people. This unification-based nationalism continued until the 1990s. By the late 1990s, however, attitudes to unification and North Korea were changing. Unification no longer played a prominent role in the discourse of the student movement and young people, and opinion polls on unification began to show a trend toward more negative sentiment. With the arrival of the new millennium, anecdotal evidence—and gradually survey data—was suggesting not only that young people were becoming increasingly hesitant and nervous about unification, but also that a growing number were explicitly opposed to unification (Breen 2008; S. Lee 2006). These changing attitudes to unification and identity reflect the emergence of a new nationalism and national identity among young people in South Korea. This generation of South Korean young people in their twenties, known in Korean as the isipdae,3 has been constructed and shaped by an entirely new South Korean context. They have grown up

Nationalism in South Korea

3

knowing only a democratic, economically prosperous and stable South Korea. These young people have no memory of relatives and family in the North, and no experience of the authoritarian era or the democracy movement. They are highly educated, well-traveled, technologically savvy, and fashion conscious, and their life experiences are different in almost every way to that of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. Korea is a country transforming so quickly that even oldest and youngest siblings can find themselves growing up in very different worlds. Given this dramatic pace of change in South Korea, South Korea’s twentysomethings are not only part of a different generation, but also a different nation. They define themselves and their national identity in terms wholly unfamiliar to those in the older generations. This is the first generation which defines itself in terms of the southern part of the peninsula. This is the first generation of South Koreans. The Central Puzzle

Long-held demands in South Korea for unification have been dramatically challenged in recent years, especially among young South Koreans. That change may seem a puzzle to those observers whose understanding of South Korea is primarily informed by the traditional ethnically-based analysis of nation and nationalism. This book provides the answer to that puzzle by demonstrating the emergence of a new sense of the South Korean nation and national identity which is inspired by a new type of nationalism. For many South Korean twenty-something young people, their nationalism and national identity is expressed only in terms of the Republic of Korea, South Korea, and this group of young people define uri nara, meaning “our nation,” as South Korea. This new South Korean nationalism manifests itself in the lives of South Korean young people through expressions of pride in South Korea’s modernity, cosmopolitanism and status, and can be categorized as a globalized cultural nationalism. As a result, the importance of ethnicity in expressions of national identity is waning. This new South Korean globalized cultural nationalism represents a new category of nationalism. It is a nationalism that requires adherence to definite cultural norms in order for an individual to be included in the national unit. The globalized element of this new nationalism represents the importance of concepts of the global and international in its expressions and formation. This book analyzes the development and nature of this new type of nationalism and will describe how the globalization of young people’s lives, democracy and “banal nationalism”

4

South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

operate to challenge the dominance of ethnic nationalism and to construct new expressions of identity. Further, it will argue that young people are actively adopting and embracing this new South Korean globalized cultural nationalism because of the changes brought about by the globalization of South Korean society. The fear of unification and its possible social and economic consequences encourage young people to reject a unified Korean identity and embrace the South Korean national identity as they face challenges in South Korea including intense competition in the social, educational and academic sphere and increased economic uncertainty. This book will also examine how the globalized cultural characteristics of South Korea’s emerging nationalism are expressed in practice. It will focus on growing perceptions of difference and separation between South Korean young people and ethnic Korean immigrants to South Korea, as well as this new nationalism’s capacity to include non-ethnic Korean immigrants when imagining the Korean nation, highlighting the decreasing importance of ethnic ties in explaining South Korean national identity. Theoretical Framework: The Three-Level Analysis of Nationalism

Understanding this new South Korean nationalism requires three levels of analysis. Firstly, one must address the question of how South Korean nationalism and the South Korean nation come into existence. This can be answered using the “causal theories” of nationalism, and in particular the constructivist approaches proposed by Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson along with the instrumentalist approaches proposed by scholars including Elie Kedourie.4 At the next level, there is the question of what is the category or type of this new South Korean nationalism. An analysis of the “category” or “type” of nationalism provides an understanding of the nature of the nationalism that has come into existence. Categories of nationalism (for example, civic, ethnic, religious, multicultural) define membership and who may or may not qualify to be accepted within a nation. An ethnic nationalism, for example, may exclude someone based on their ethnicity or ancestry, while a civic nationalism may preclude potential members because of their political affiliation. Uncovering the category or type of nationalism may, in part, rely on a third level of analysis: an examination of the manifestations or characteristics of the nationalism and the nationalist sentiment. While the characteristics or manifestations of nationalism are not “types” of nationalism in

Nationalism in South Korea

5

themselves, they are expressions of national identity in daily life which can help to identify the category of nationalism that is salient. For example, nationalist manifestations might include an emphasis upon adherence to cultural tradition or directing anger toward those who associate outside of the ethnic group, and such manifestations may suggest the existence of an ethnic nationalism. Figure 1.1 outlines the theoretical framework for analyzing this new South Korean nationalism emerging among young people. Figure 1.1 Theoretical Framework for Analyzing the Emerging New South Korean Nationalism

Casual theories of nationalism Analysis of the emergence of nationalism Primorialist, Constructivist, Instrumentalist Smith, Gellner, Anderson, Kedourie, Billig, Yack

Categories or types of nationalism Analysis of who may and who may not be a member of the nation Civic, ethnic or ethnocultural, multi-cultural, religious, globalized cultural, diaspora Brubaker, Brown

Manifestations or characteristics of nationalism Analysis of how nationalism is manifested in daily life Modern, traditional, populist, developmental, defensive, cosmopolitanism, status-oriented

6

South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

Causal Theories of Nationalism and the Analysis of the Emergence of Nations

The well-known theoretical discussions on nations and nationalism focus upon the constructivist, the instrumentalist and the primordialist analyses of the origins of nations. One of the most vibrant debates has taken place within the “classical school” of nationalism whose proponents include Benedict Anderson, Ernest Gellner, Anthony Smith and Elie Kedourie. These scholars are united in their claim that nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon and the core mode of identity in modern society. Their approaches differ, however, in terms of how and why nations first come into being. Primordial ideas of nationalism advanced by Smith (1986) propose that nations are deeply rooted in history arising from what Smith terms an “ethnie,” and it is this history upon which the modern nation is built. Countering this argument are constructivist or modernist scholars, such as Gellner and Anderson, who point to social interactions, processes and networks that arose only in the modern era and provided the basis for the construction of nations. Instrumentalists, such as Kedourie, believe that nations are consciously created by social and political actors and are used to justify a secondary purpose. Classical constructivist and instrumentalist analyses, such as those by authors like Gellner, Anderson and Kedourie, provide the most useful approaches to understanding why a new South Korean nationalism is emerging among young people. However, combining the classic constructivist analyses of the origins of nations with contemporary constructivist models provide additional tools and allows for a more relevant application of constructivist theory in understanding the evolution of new nationalisms. Examples of contemporary constructivist approaches include Michael Billig’s theory of banal nationalism and Bernard Yack’s analysis of the role of democracy in promoting the formation of national units and nationalism. These approaches are used in this book alongside an analysis of the role of globalization to examine the emergence of globalized cultural nationalism. The framework for the analysis that has been outlined above will also use an instrumentalist approach to argue that the adoption and acceptance of the South Korean globalized cultural nationalism by young people has been a conscious choice in order to protect their common interests and goals. This approach reveals a bottom-up, and broadly collective and societal, choice among growing numbers of young people to actively accept and adopt this new national identity and question unification and a unified identity. It is interesting that these findings are different to those revealed by most instrumentalist analyses in the existing theoretical

Nationalism in South Korea

7

literature, which tend to unearth top-down or elite manipulation of nations and nationalism to achieve distinct aims. This work, therefore, has important implications for the emergence of nationalism in comparative contexts. Types and Categories of Nationalism

Identifying the “category” or “type” of this new South Korean national identity provides an understanding of who may and who may not qualify for membership of the South Korean nation. In the past, ideas of nation and nationalism in Korea have been based upon the ethnic and cultural homogeneity of all Korean people, an ethnic “type” of nationalism. However, types of nationalism operating inside a nation are not fixed and can change. Brubaker (1998, p. 298) writes that ethnic and national groups should not be assumed to be “sharply bounded, internally homogeneous ‘groups’.” Instead, “groupness” and “boundedness” must be taken “as variable, as emergent properties of particular structural or conjunctural settings.” Nations are being continually shaped by the shared experiences of their peoples and elites, often by combinations of events, especially critical ones. Postmodern networks and ties such as those based upon gender, globalization and universal human rights have further affected the evolution of nations as units of association. Because nations are constantly changing, Brubaker challenges scholars to expect evolution in the types of nationalism and national identity operating inside those societies. We see signs of such evolution in the Korean peninsula. Although divided into two political units it was, from the time of partition, conceived by young South Koreans as a single national unit. In the case of South Korea, however, that concept of the Korean peninsula as a single national unit is undergoing change. The changing attitudes to unification have signaled a possible evolution in the nature of identity and nationalism resulting in an emerging new nationalism that exists alongside, and challenges, existing concepts of the Korean nation. The question, therefore, is what type of nationalism has emerged in South Korea? The most common dichotomy in nationalist categorization is civic versus ethnic nationalism.5 Brown (2000, p. 51) defines ethnic nationalism, or as he prefers, ethno-cultural nationalism, as “a sense of community which focuses on belief in myths of common ancestry, and on the perception that these myths are validated by contemporary similarities of physiognomy, language or religion.” Civic nationalism, he writes, is “a sense of community which is focused on the belief that residence in a common territorial homeland, and commitment to its state and civil

8

South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

society institutions, generate a distinctive national character and civic culture, such that all citizens, irrespective of the diverse ancestry, comprise a community in progress with a common destiny” (Brown 2000, p. 52). The types of nationalism recognized in the academic literature, however, have increased in number as nationalisms continue to evolve in a changing world. The possible types or categories we might use now include cultural nationalism, trans-border (diaspora) nationalism, multicultural nationalism, and religious nationalism. Multiple categories of nationalism might operate at any one time in a nation (for example ethnocultural and ethno-religious nationalism). For those who argue that ethnic and cultural nationalisms are so interrelated as to be indivisible, the rise of South Korean globalized cultural nationalism demonstrates how ethnic nationalism and cultural nationalism are distinct categories of national identity, which can coexist. The key to adequately categorizing nationalism is to understand and detail the characteristics or manifestations of its operation. From this growing list of types or categories, instead of ethnic and cultural nationalism a third possible categorization for the new South Korean identity can be found: multicultural nationalism. Brown writes that multicultural nationalism “offers a vision of a community which respects and promotes the cultural autonomy and status equality of its component ethnic groups” (Brown 2000, p. 126). Critics of multicultural nationalism point to its potential to discourage a national community and to allow ethnic communities to live separately and distinctively (Lasch 1995; Huntington 2005), but others argue that the concept of multicultural nationalism can bring about a more just distribution of power and resources within a political and national community by ensuring minorities are able to have their interests recognized alongside those of the majority (Brown 2000, pp. 131–132). Analysis of the daily manifestations or expressions of nationalism among young people in South Korea shows that none of these existing types of nationalism can adequately describe and categorize the new South Korean nationalism. The analysis reveals that we are witnessing the emergence of a globalized cultural nationalism that is based upon shared cultural values—modernity, cosmopolitanism and status—influenced in their formation and expression by globalization and neo-liberal values. This represents a new category of nationalism and contests the importance of ethnicity in young people’s conception of the South Korean nation and its component members. As we will see, using this new categorization also enables us to better understand the capacity of the new South Korean nationalism for inclusion and exclusion in the South Korean national

Nationalism in South Korea

9

community. Indeed, its capacity for exclusion demonstrates less cosmopolitan characteristics of globalized cultural nationalism such as patriarchy, social class, neo-liberal and neo-colonial attitudes in determining who can be “imagined” (Anderson 1983) as a member of this changing South Korean nation. Manifestations of Nationalism

The manifestations or characteristics of nationalism describe how nationalism is exhibited in the daily lives of individual members of the nation. By focusing on the fields of social and political life in which nationalism is expressed, we can better understand the implications of the emergence or existence of a particular category of nationalism or national identity. Ethnic nationalism, for example, may be expressed through a variety of characteristics or manifestations including adherence to cultural traditions, political populism, or hostility toward a certain ethnic group. The implication for a society in which ethnic nationalism is operating, therefore, depends upon how that nationalism manifests itself and how it is expressed. In the case of South Korea, the new nationalism has manifested itself through three characteristics—modernity, cosmopolitanism and status—all of which are essentially cultural expressions. Modernity refers to pride in South Korea’s economic achievements and advancement in all aspects of Korean life; the characteristic of cosmopolitanism reflects the rise and importance of international experience and learning in Korean youth culture; and status refers to the importance placed upon South Korea’s national status and standing by young South Koreans as well as to their individual and family economic and social status (Campbell 2015). Through an exploration of these expressions of national identity in the daily lives of South Korean young people, we reveal both the causes and the form of the globalized cultural nationalism that is emerging among the isipdae in South Korea. These manifestations of nationalism are closely linked with ideas of the global and international in their formation and expression, and implicit in these globalized manifestations of identity and nation is the importance of globalization in the causation or construction of this new nation and nationalism. The manifestations of this evolving nationalism differentiate it from not only ethnic nationalism but also a civic type of nationalism. Expressions of civic nationalism focus on a commitment to national institutions and systems, rather than values such as modernity, cosmopolitanism and status expressed in this newly emerging globalized cultural national identity. Indeed, and as we will see later, a common feature in interviews

10

South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

with young people is a disillusionment with South Korea’s institutions, traditions and political culture. General Methodological Issues

The importance of analyzing the daily manifestations of nationalism is rooted in the methodological approaches that have been engaged in the research for this book: political ethnography and the case study method. Ethnography, or “political ethnography,” is useful because many methods typically used in political science research just rely on survey data, economic statistics or pooled expert opinions. These might “register the occurrence of change; they do not specify the mechanism of change” (Kubik 2009, p. 33). Political ethnography and understanding of microlevel activity is essential to any macro-level analysis, because “it is, after all the reproduction and transformation of daily lives that are observable, not ‘structural change’” (Kubik 2009, p. 33). Political ethnography, therefore, allows researchers to reach often overlooked or hidden or ambiguous sources of power and change that are important in our efforts to understand how large-scale processes take place. The case study method is particularly useful when questions such as “how” or “why” are posed in a contemporary context as in this case of an emerging South Korean globalized cultural South Korean nationalism (Yin 1994, p. 1). This method enables the study of an “in-case variation,” looking at changes over time within a specific country. It is “an allencompassing method” that allows for the analysis of a puzzle that may involve many contingent variables, and where data collection and analysis needs to be guided by the construction of a preliminary theoretical framework while at the same time also helping to inform the theory as the research progresses (Yin 1994, pp. 13, 27). In general, the bulk of academic research and data available on attitudes to unification in the period before the 1990s related only to students and student activists, rather than the wider population of young people. For the purposes of studying the “in-case variation” that is analyzed in this book, tertiary-level students were also the main source of the data that was gathered, and details of interview methods can be found below. Despite this focus on students, however, results can be assumed to reflect wider youth society in South Korea because the participation in tertiary education in South Korea is extraordinarily high, with an estimated 89 percent of young people under the age of twenty-five entering tertiary education in 2012 (OECD 2014, pp. 330–339). South Korea is a democratic nation with a vibrant civil society where freedom of speech is generally valued and protected. However a National

Nationalism in South Korea

11

Security Law (NSL), enacted in 1948, still remains in force. The NSL applies to those who engage in activities deemed to benefit the enemy (North Korea) such as spying or praising the North Korean regime. It is unlikely that the NSL influenced the responses to the questions asked, and questions were framed to avoid topics covered by NSL legislation. However, this background of anti-communism and the criminalizing of expressions of support toward the North should be borne in mind when considering responses to the questions posed. The NSL was mentioned by one young person only, who stated that he avoided speaking to North Korean immigrants in the South as he believed this to be illegal (it is not). More relevant than the NSL are the social pressures around the topic of unification. Until the early 2000s opposing unification, or even showing disinterest or apathy about unification, would have been considered socially unacceptable. This research shows how much these social attitudes have shifted. Even so, for some young people it is still considered taboo to express disagreement with unification or show antagonism toward North Koreans. It might be expected, therefore, that responses in interviews may understate the negative attitudes toward unification and North Koreans. The conclusions in this book are all the more significant for that reason. Similarly, discrimination towards both ethnic Korean and non-ethnic Korean immigrants is also considered socially unacceptable particularly among young people who have been exposed to concepts of multiculturalism and tolerance and anti-racism education. It might be expected, therefore, that expressions of support for non-ethnic and ethnic Korean immigrants in interviews may be overestimated. The fact that many young people were inclined to express strong negative sentiments toward ethnic Korean immigrants including North Koreans and Joseonjok is therefore particularly noteworthy. Practical Considerations

Recruitment methods were designed to access a wide diversity of students and included: advertising on university websites; random approaches on campuses; attendance of student campus activities; interviews of university-age friends and acquaintances and their university-age siblings and friends; and introductions to students through academic colleagues. Male interviewees included those who had completed military service as well as those yet to attend. Interview response did not appear to have a relationship with experience of military service. With the exception of four interviews, all other interviews were carried out by the author in faceto-face settings. They took place in a variety of formats and places

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

dependent upon the manner of recruitment and included both group and one-to-one discussions. All interviewees were able to choose whether the interview took place in Korean or English and the majority were conducted in Korean. Explicit consent to participate in the research was obtained from all interviewees. A breakdown by university category of the 159 students with whom interviews took place is as follows: Elite [19 students]: Seoul National University, Pusan National University, Korea University, Yonsei University; Top-tier [14 students]: Chung-Ang University, Seoul National University of Education, Sungkyunkwan University; Mid-tier [46 students]: Dongguk University, Sookmyung Women’s University, Incheon National University, Soongsil University, Myongji University; Technical College [28 students]: Kimpo University, Chongshin University, Dongyang Mirae University, Wonkwang University; Regional [45 students]: Chonnam National University, Handong Global University, Gyeongsang National University, Kyungpook (Gyeongbuk) National University, Korea National University of Education, Bugyeong University, Kyungsung University; International [6 students]: Australian National University; Other [1 student]: YBM Sisa. These universities reflected a variety of religious affiliations and academic focus and included both single-sex and mixed-gender institutions. Breakdown by academic discipline of the 159 students interviewed is as follows: Arts and Humanities 22 students; Social Sciences 30 students; Science and Engineering 30 students; Business and Accounting 8 students; Vocational Language 1 student; Other 16 students. The academic discipline studied by 52 students was not recorded. In total, 76 male and 83 female students were interviewed. A further 23 ‘experts’ were interviewed including schoolteachers, university student magazine and newspaper journalists, NGO activists and employees, academics, public policy specialists and an advertising executive. The research for this book took place during eight separate trips

Nationalism in South Korea

13

to South Korea between March 2009 and September 2014 funded by a variety of institutions including the Korea Foundation, the Korean Studies Association of Australasia, the Australian National University, the Australia-Korea Foundation, and the Cheung-Kong Australia Endeavour Fellowship. Defining Nationalism

Any analysis of this new nation and nationalism among South Korea’s young people requires a definition of nationalism. Ernest Gellner’s definition of nationalism is particularly helpful, with its separation of the tangible aspect of nationalism—when is a nation created—from the intangible element, which is nationalism as sentiment: Nationalism is primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent. Nationalism as a sentiment, or as a movement, can best be defined in terms of this principle. Nationalist sentiment is the feeling of anger aroused by the violation of the principle, or the feeling of satisfaction aroused by its fulfillment. A nationalist movement is one actuated by a sentiment of this kind. (Gellner 1983, p. 1) Using this definition of nationalism, it is possible to explain that the division of the unified Korean national unit into two political units gave rise to nationalist sentiment or anger which inspired calls for unification among young people at the time. We will explore in the next section the history of Korean nationalism and why that particular expression of nationalist sentiment persisted for so long. However, Brubaker warns us to expect evolution in the types of nationalism and national identity operating inside a society. This book is an examination of such an evolution taking place in South Korea. This evolution is revealing a contemporary South Korean nationalism for which the division of the unified Korean national unit no longer gives rise to the same levels of nationalist sentiment among young members of the new South Korean nation. Instead, these young people are increasingly comfortable with the current status-quo on the Korean peninsula. Their concept of the national unit, uri nara, is the territory of South Korea only, and this coincides with its representative political unit—the Republic of Korea and its government—which is democratically elected by popular vote. For the isipdae, their nation, the South Korean nation, is already established, and a sense of satisfaction with this South Korean nation can

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

be seen both in pride in the modernity of South Korea, and demand for South Korea to be accorded appropriate status in the international community. The significance of this change in the conception of the Korean nation, away from one based solely on ethnicity, is all the more apparent when it is examined within the historical context of discussions on South Korean nationalism. A Brief History of Korean Nationalism

The writings of Shin Chaeho at the turn of the Nineteenth Century, in particular his Doksa Sillon (A New Way of Reading History), marked the beginning of the modern nationalist debate in Korea (Em 1999; Schmid 1997). In this work, Shin equated the history of Korea (guksa or national history) with the history of the nation (minjoksa, meaning the people’s or nation’s history). It was the first time “a history of the ethnic nation, rather than a dynastic history” (Em 1999, p. 289) had been written. Shin traced the formation of the Korean nation back to the mythical figure of Dangun, so-called Father of the Korean people, and to his birthplace in Northeast China from where Dangun’s people are said to have spread out both South onto the peninsula and North into China (Schmid 1997, p. 34). These discussions took place at a time when Korea was threatened by an array of foreign adversaries including an expansionist Japan. For Shin, the idea of ethnic homogeneity, and the Korean minjok or race as the basis of the Korean nation, was integral to his efforts to resist Japanese colonial ambition that based its claim to Korea, in part, on Koreans being part of a greater Japanese race. The subsequent dominance of ethnic nationalism in South Korea is rooted in the writings of Shin, and primordial analyses of the formation of the modern Korean nation remain prevalent in contemporary academic writing (Lankov 2006).6 There are, however, a number of scholars, among them Bruce Cumings, who provide an alternative to the primordial analysis of the roots of the Korean nation. Cumings challenges the myth of Dangun as the basis of the Korean nation,7 and argues that formation was a modern event. He presents the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910) as an agrarian state with a weak central administrative reach, similar to Gellner’s prenationalist agrarian society. He describes Joseon’s subjects as living inward-looking lives, tied to the locality by economic need, with the state’s only interest being the extraction of taxes and maintaining the peace, and no interest in promoting any lateral communication between its subject communities.8 Indeed, it is likely that the peasants of the Joseon dynasty would have cared little about any shared ethnic or cultural origin with the landowners who controlled their lives; rather, they were more

Nationalism in South Korea

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concerned by famine and destitution frequently brought on by the massive taxes levied against them. As Cumings (1997, p. 121) rightly explains, “what would a slave or a butcher care for the pride of the Yangban now shamed by Japan?” The Japanese period of influence began in 1894 with a modernization and development plan for Korea known as the Kabo Reforms. Cumings (ibid., p. 120) calls this period “the birth of modern Korea.” The Kabo reforms were sweeping reforms that affected many vital aspects of the administration, economy and society of Korea (K. Lee 1984, pp. 292–293; Eckert et al. 1990, p. 226). Reforms included the modernization of local government to remove its absolute authority over the local populace, the separation of the administration of justice from the executive, and a thorough rationalization of fiscal administration and taxation. Social reforms included the abolition of slavery, the removal of class distinctions, prohibition of child marriages, the establishment of a primary school system, and legislation against a variety of other malevolent social practices and conventions (Cumings 1997). Together, these were reforms that fundamentally altered the social, economic and administrative fabric of Korea. Henry Em is another of the voices challenging the dominant primordialist nationalist historiography in South Korea. He also marks the colonial period as the crucial moment in the emergence of the Korean “nation” (minjok) (Em 1999, p. 284). Em argues that the period of Japanese colonialism was “constructive” in terms of the imagery created by both the colonizer and colonized. As Japanese policy tried to eradicate the Korean identity by closing Korean schools and forbidding the use of Korean language, they had to label people, cultures, and languages as “Korean.” Thus for the first time, Koreans could imagine a community— a nation—in which they had an interest, although under the control of a foreign power (ibid., pp. 305–308). The “imagining” of a wider community deepened among all classes of Koreans as they were forced to travel to find work or were transported by the Japanese to other parts of the peninsula, to Manchuria or to Japan, joining other “Korean” compatriots as forced labor. By the end of the period of Japanese rule, forced or coerced movement had affected as much as 40 percent of the adult population (Cumings 1997, p. 175). More generally, the arrival of the colonial era prompted many Koreans to become aware of their Korean identity. They recognized themselves as a common Korean population, albeit one that was repressed as the colonial subjects of Japan, and their sense of a national community was deepened by the presence of the colonizer. Indeed, Kim Ku, the renowned Korean nationalist and President of Korea under the Provisional Government of

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

the Republic of Korea following liberation in 1945, said that “until 1910, most adults did not even know what a nation was” (Wells 1990, p. 83). In addition to a growing sense of the ethnic Korean nation, the colonial era resulted in many other types of nationalism developing in reaction to the challenges faced by the Korean peninsula under Japanese rule. In New God New Nation: Protestants and Self-Reconstruction Nationalism in Korea 1896–1937, Kenneth Wells explores the rise of a highly cultural conception of Korean nationalism during the pre-colonial and colonial periods. This Protestant-inspired nationalism was, as Wells terms it, reconstruction nationalism. Although not denying the nationstate ideal, it separated the nation from the state, believing that individual culture and self-improvement through work and education, for example, were the most important elements of forming a strong nation (Wells, 1990). Michael Robinson describes the rise of a similar nationalism in the early 1920s, which he calls a “cultural nationalism,” in response to the colonial authorities. Cultural nationalism in this period sought to work within the constraints of the colonial system to create “a gradual program of reform, education, and economic development to lay the base for future independence” (Robinson 1988, p. 158). It was a movement that attempted to build a nation without directly confronting Japanese authority (ibid., p. 163). However, while the programs of the cultural nationalists were able to survive the control and censorship of the colonial government, the movement failed to gain wider support against the background of more appealing radical nationalist and socialist movements of the time (ibid., p. 166). Following the defeat of Japan in 1945, the Korean peninsula was divided under the occupation of the United States in the South and the USSR in the North. The first civilian government in the South was led by Rhee Syngman from 1948 to 1960 and his government relied on ethnic nationalism in the form of an anti-Japanese, pro-independence sentiment, to achieve Rhee’s goals of legitimizing his rule and maintaining power (Cheong 1992). Rhee also used ethnic nationalism and the popular sentiment that it inspired to oppose and manage the actions of the occupying U.S. forces to suit his aims (ibid.). Most notably, however, was the role of ethnic nationalism as a driver of the Korean War. Shin Giwook (2006) argues that the Korean War (1950–1953) was inspired not by ideology but by the strong sense of ethnic nationalism that existed on the peninsula and its influence on the Rhee government. Shin writes that “territorial partition on top of a strong sense of ethnic homogeneity produced irresistible pressure to recover lost national unity, which is a key factor in understanding … the Korean War” (Shin 2006, p. 152).

Nationalism in South Korea

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Park Chung Hee, who deposed Rhee’s successor as leader of South Korea, put less emphasis upon explicit ethnic nationalism (not least because he had been a member of the Japanese Imperial Army) and required the support of the United States and Japan to achieve his many development goals. Nevertheless, the Park Chung Hee era (1961–1979) was a period marked by the effective use of nationalism to legitimize and mobilize. Kim Hyung-a (2003) describes how Park’s coup was justified by the regime and its supporters “as an act of ‘patriotism’ to save the nation from crisis” created by student protest and general unrest. Indeed, throughout Park’s regime, nation and nationalism remained a key theme to legitimize his government and to justify development plans that placed a heavy burden upon South Korea’s working populace. In the early 1970s, when his economic miracle was slowing and his popularity waning, Park advanced his Heavy Chemical Industrialization (HCI) plan for Korea and imposed the highly repressive Yusin constitution which curbed political opposition. However, in an attempt to legitimate his increasingly authoritarian rule, Park introduced a policy of jaju (“self-strengthening”) and the promotion of Korean cultural traditions. This held great appeal for some Korean people and, alongside the brutal use of force, it helped to consolidate Park’s Yusin policy. This nationalism attached to the Yusin policy was also aimed at mobilizing the population and economy for a greater assertion of military autonomy following U.S. President Nixon’s détente with China, the withdrawal of the United States from Vietnam and, later on, President Carter’s discussions of military withdrawal from Korea (Koh 1984; H. Kim 2004). Chun Doo Hwan’s regime (1980–1988) had even greater problems of legitimacy having come to power through a coup at a time when the Korean people had a strong expectation of democracy. Soon after taking power, he brutally suppressed an opposition movement in the Korean city of Gwangju. This incident led to many hundreds of deaths and disappearances and came to be known as the Gwangju massacre. Chun, however, was still able to secure his position of President of Korea for a total of seven years achieved partly through good management of the economy (Chun mostly left the running of the economy to a talented team of bureaucrats), but mainly through the fierce suppression of opposition and by his effective use of nationalism. Chun’s nationalism exploited the continued perceptions of threat from North Korea, hatred of communism and populist sentiment surrounding unification (Bleiker 2005, p. 67). Although not explicit in rhetoric and nature, the regimes of both Park and Chun employed what was essentially an ethnic nationalism. Park’s regime “identified ‘national security’ and ‘development’ as the main tasks that the nation faced, and his actions were carried out in the name of the

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

nation, national unity, or modernization of the Fatherland” (Shin 2006, p. 167). Chun followed a similar discursive pattern as he bid for legitimacy by committing to rid the nation of corruption and promising a future of economic growth for the people of South Korea (Eckert et al. 1990, p. 376). Following democratization in 1987, ethnic nationalism continued to play an important role in Korean society. Some positive mobilizations of ethnic nationalism were reflected in the huge public support for the successful 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. It was also used in attempts by Presidents Roh Tae-woo, Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung to warm ties with the North. Throughout the 1990s, liberalizing policies such as the opening of domestic markets to foreign competition were rejected, in part to avoid offending the ethnic nationalist sentiments of the Korean voters. It was argued by some that by exposing the jaebol to increased competition, these policies of economic liberalization would have forced them to become more efficient. It is also argued that had those policies been adopted, South Korea could have avoided some of the worst excesses that contributed to the economic crisis it suffered during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 (Clifford 1998, pp. 336–337; Kong 2000, p. 22). Opposition to the Park and the Chun regimes, as well as broader civil society movements, have also relied heavily on nationalism for motivation and justification. Its nationalism focused on anti-American and anti-imperialist motifs, as well as ethnic nationalism, to underline the need for unification with the North. This is discussed at length in the following chapter. Current Discussions of Korean Nationalism

Shin Gi-wook’s Ethnic Nationalism in Korea, published in 2006, remains the most recent and comprehensive review of nationalism in Korea. Shin details a Korean nationalist discourse that is primarily discussed in terms of ethnicity and blood ties (ibid.). He writes of historical processes in the development of the Korean nation “by which race, ethnicity, and nation come to be conflated in Korea to produce a strong sense of oneness based on shared bloodline and ancestry” (ibid., p. 223). This ethnic nationalism, argues Shin, continues to drive desire for unification with the North, although he points out that this is stronger among older people than younger people (ibid., pp. 198–199). Shin also posits that globalization has intensified this ethnic national identity in South Korea suggesting that ethnic and national solidarity, based upon blood ties and shared history, is the reaction to the cultural and social disruption brought on by modernization and globalization (ibid., p. 214). This follows the work of

Nationalism in South Korea

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Anthony Smith who argues that “if anything, globalizing pressures have, through large-scale migration and mass communications, revitalized ethnic ties and sentiments across the globe” (Smith 2008, p. 118). However, a number of authors have pointed to the increasingly pragmatic nature of nationalist sentiment in South Korea. Lee Sook-jong (2006) asserts that young people in South Korea continue to have a shared ethnic identity with those in the North, but suggests that this ethnic sentiment has weakened and is no longer strong enough “to guarantee their willingness to pay the huge expected costs” of immediate unification. Instead, young people prefer a very gradual unification that would minimize the costs of unification to South Korean society. Similarly, Kim Byung-ro (2007) argues that young people identify themselves with the whole of Korea but have a very practical and pragmatic, even conservative, approach to expressing nationalism in regards to North Korea and unification. While these analyses briefly recognize a growing ambivalence toward unification, they fail to examine the root causes of these changing attitudes to North Korea and the event of unification. Katherine Moon (2003), in her chapter “Korean nationalism, AntiAmericanism, and democratic consolidation,” charts the anti-American movement as democracy has developed in South Korea. While not denying the persistence of nationalist sentiment, she shows how the antiAmerican movement has replaced grand narratives of anti-imperialism and unification with democratic concepts including human rights, labor rights, environmentalism and the rule of law. Thus with the demise of authoritarian government and the rise of democracy, a national identity based on anti-authoritarianism, anti-imperialism and anti-Americanism is no longer required (ibid.). Other authors highlight the growing tendency of young people, and Koreans more generally, to find more benign “ethnic” expressions of nationalism, for example through pride in sports (Shin 2006) or with culture such as Hallyu, the so-called Korean Wave (S. Lee 2006). Chung and Choe (2008) remark that even though young people fought bitterly in the 1980s and 1990s for democratic and social justice in South Korea, during more recent times, culture, history and science and technology inspire much greater national pride than, for example, politics and social welfare. With the advent of democracy, however, competing politics and policies inevitably become a source of dispute. As politics has become increasingly contentious in South Korea, Hahm Chaibong (2005) writes of the polarization of nationalism. He points to the rise of what he calls a leftist-nationalism that he defines as a populist anti-American, pro-North Korean sentiment. This manifests itself, he argues, as antipathy toward

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

economic globalization, increased self-confidence vis-à-vis the relationship with the United States, and a proactive view toward engagement with North Korea. Hahm (2006) also compares the current nationalism on the right and left to the Confucian period. At this time, the debate converged around the opposition between gaeguk (opening the nation to international influence) and swaeguk (efforts to try to build domestically without external influence). He argues that this represents the dichotomy between the pragmatic nationalism of the right in Korea and the more inward looking nationalism of the left. Some academics are now considering alternatives to “ethnic” nationalism to categorize nationalist sentiment in Korea. With more than 1.5 million foreigners in South Korea, increasing academic attention is being paid to the multicultural nature of South Korean society to discover how immigration into Korea is being addressed by society and elites (Choe 2007). Many scholars argue, however, that the rhetoric of multiculturalism is no more than surface deep and that a strong ethnic nationalism remains. As a result, multiculturalism is not being effectively translated into substantive action that can help to include new immigrants within the national unit (Kong, Yoon and Yu 2010; G. Han 2007; A. Kim 2009; Bélanger, Lee and Wang 2010). Han Kyung-ku (2007) argues that Korean nationalism is instead based on a sense of cultural superiority stemming from historical Korea, and that this (rather than race) is the basis of discrimination against others. Han reminds us that differentiation on the basis of culture might lead to as much discrimination as differentiation on the grounds of race, but his thesis is essentially no different from an ethnic “type” of nationalism. His focus remains on discrimination against non-ethnic Koreans, and thus adds little to the debate on new South Korean nationalism and national identity. Postmodern critiques of Korean nationalism are also emerging alongside these more traditional analyses. In the face of globalization, Kim Kyong Ju (2006, p. 161), for example, posits the construction of “polymorphous” or “amorphous” identities, which are leading to “a highly differentiated society.” Sheila Myoshi Jager (1996, 2003), meanwhile, provides a feminist analysis of the process of nation building in Korea. Analyzing discourse around unification, economic development, and opposition to authoritarianism, she shows how many of these processes constructed and reinforced ideas of patriarchy and conservative views on sexuality and gender in Korean society. These post-nationalist analyses provide an understanding of identity and community that are based on new ties such as gender, sexuality and class rather than on the ties of national units and nations.

Nationalism in South Korea

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There is also a growing body of work on identity that focuses on the experiences of new ethnic Korean immigrants. The “hierarchical nation” proposed by Seol and Skrentny (2009) describes the establishment of a hierarchy of ethnic Koreans within South Korea. In this hierarchy, educated Korean-Americans are placed at the top while North Korean immigrants find themselves firmly at the bottom. A number of other authors have written about the difficulties faced by North Koreans in maintaining their identity while struggling to find a place in the South Korean nation and society (Y. Kim 2009; B. Chung 2008). Although exploration of the respective experiences of ethnic Korean and non-ethnic Korean migrants in the South can be highly enlightening, most literature on the topic of migration, identity, unification or nationalism in Korea tends to address either the issue of ethnic Korean immigration (e.g. Seol and Skrentny 2009) or non-ethnic Korean immigration (e.g. A. Kim 2009). With the exception of Nora Hui-jung Kim (2008), few give attention to what she terms the “political liberals’ dilemma”: how to deal with both ethnic and non-ethnic Korean immigration in a just and equal manner. Nora Kim presents a sense of obligation to include ethnic Korean arrivals as equals in the South Korean nation, particularly those from China and North Korea. However such ethnic-based policies, no matter how well intentioned, contradict the goal of including other, non-ethnic Korean, immigrants in the South Korean nation on a non-discriminatory basis. Kim’s work highlights the importance of looking at nationalism, identity and immigration in South Korea through a wider lens so as to include both non-ethnic and ethnic Korean arrivals in any one analysis. This book does just that. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of nationalism in South Korea, and the implications of this nationalism for all those living in South Korea. Many of the available alternatives to an analysis based on ethnic nationalism are, however, unsatisfactory. Although too many scholars still cling to an ethnic understanding of the Korean nation, other analyses turn too easily to multiculturalism, almost as a ready-made alternative to the ethnic nation, without demanding a more complex analysis of South Korean society. Postmodern analyses provide challenging alternatives to the traditional ethnic suppositions, but they fail to describe and explain the explicit nationalism that continues to exist among the vast majority of South Koreans, not least its youth. The approach of this book differs from much of the existing literature by focusing specifically on young people and by addressing the complexity of South Korean society through its examination of the attitude of South Korean youth towards, and their relationship with, both non-ethnic and ethnic Koreans. It does this by detailing the emergence of a new South Korean nationalism among young

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

people and its globalized cultural characteristics. This shift has resulted in the apparent paradox of some groups of ethnic Koreans—North Koreans and Korean-Chinese (Joseonjok), for example—finding that they are excluded from the South Korean national community, while some nonethnic Korean immigrants who meet the demands of this new globalized cultural nationalism are readily “imagined” by many young people as members of the South Korean national community. The findings of this book, therefore, have implications for the conceptual understanding of identity in Korea as well as practical significance in areas such as immigration and education policy. Further, the emergence of globalized cultural nationalism also holds comparative value for understanding the evolution of nationalism in other communities and countries. Most fundamentally, however, the research findings presented here challenge the basic premise of Korean unification: the reuniting of the divided ethnic Korean nation. Chapter Outlines

The next chapter, Chapter 2, provides the detailed historical context for the research behind this book. It uses key moments in the history of the Korean student movement, from the colonial period (1910–1945) until the early 1990s, to demonstrate its nationalist nature. Chapters 3 and 4 demonstrate the existence of this new South Korean nationalism and describe its globalized cultural nature. Chapters 5 and 6 then uses constructivist and instrumentalist analyses to examine the rise and acceptance of this new nationalism, and the shaping of its manifestations and characteristics. Chapter 7 discusses the consequences of the rise of a globalized cultural nationalism for Korean society and Chapter 8 summarizes the findings and highlights the very substantial policy issues that arise from them. Notes

1. In 2014 only South Korea participated in the FIFA World Cup. 2. The author watched the North Korea versus Portugal game on one of the giant screens set up along the banks of the Han River in Seoul. At the beginning of the game there were just a handful of people watching with the author. Audience numbers did increase throughout the game but this was by chance as people on their evening stroll stopped and joined the small crowd gathered in front of the screen. 3. The term isipdae, or twenty-somethings, was coined in the late 2000s and refers to the current generation of young people who are in their twenties.

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4. The terms “primordialist,” “constructivist” and “instrumentalist” are used as proposed by Crawford Young (1993). Young writes about these terms in relation to the rise in cultural pluralism and conflict within nations. Although Young’s focus is on changes to identities within multi-ethnic societies, his categorization is useful for discussing the causal theories of nationalism. 5. Brubaker and Brown both argue against the “bad” ethnic and “good” civic distinction and labels. Brubaker argues that this characterization is unhelpful as individual civic or ethnic nationalisms may vastly differ depending on how they are manifested and expressed in their respective nations (Brubaker 1998). Brown argues that both types have the possibility to be either liberal or illiberal, depending upon the origins of the civic or ethnic nationalism: nationalism which is “reactive in origin and which is articulated by a marginalized group, is more likely to emerge in an illiberal form; but such illiberalism is not fixed, since it depends upon how nationalist elites portray the nation’s enemies” (Brown 2000). 6. Lankov (2006) describes the role of this ethnic-based nationalist historiography in the pursuance of issues including so-called “historical sovereignty” over Goguryeo. The Goguryeo dynasty was one of the most successful dynasties in the history of the Northeast Asian region. Korea’s historical sovereignty over Goguryeo is disputed by China as the ancient Goguryeo dynasty covered a large section of modern day Northeast China. Encouraged by a number of domestic and nationalist considerations, both China and Korea seek to claim Goguryeo as their own national history. 7. Cumings (1997, p. 25) writes in regard to the Dangun myth: “Korea is indeed one of the most homogeneous nations on earth, where ethnicity and nationality coincide. It is pleasant for Koreans to think they were always that way; it is a dire mistake to think that this relative homogeneity signifies a common “bloodline” or imbues all Koreans with similar characteristics.” 8. Cumings (1997, p. 73) writes that “Korea’s agrarian bureaucracy was superficially strong but actually rather weak at the center. The state ostensibly dominated the society, but in practice landed aristocratic families could keep the state at bay and perpetuate their local power for centuries.” For the average citizen of Joseon, their experience of “Korea” therefore, would extend no further than their immediate environment and possibly to the agents of landowners collecting taxes, with a huge population of slaves and very low castes in trades such as butchery and leather, who were again separated from other parts of society by lateral divisions (K. Lee 1984, pp. 184–188).

2

South Korea’s Nationalist Student Movement

“Whose land is this, in which we cannot come and go?” —South Korean students in 1961 supporting a student conference on unification in Seoul (Chosun Ilbo, 14 May 1961).1 “I hope that unification does not happen.” —Some South Korean students interviewed by author in 2009–2014.

As you eat your lunch in the Seoul National University cafeteria, you could easily find yourself wondering about the scenes you would have encountered during the heady days of student protests in past decades. You imagine smoky cafeterias filled with earnest young people contemplating new political ideas, discussing strategy, and planning the protests that would shape the path of South Korea’s twentieth century political journey. Your mind comes back to the present and you look at the table of young men in front of you, dressed in Ralph Lauren and Nike and checking their Samsung smartphones. You wonder if this current generation of students is aware of the legacy left by their alumni, for it involves an engrossing story of struggle, idealism, and a devotion to the Korean nation that has left a deep and lasting impact on Korea’s political, social and economic landscape. This chapter analyzes the events that contributed to this legacy by examining the Korean student movement from the colonial era (1910– 1945) until the 1990s, the role of nationalism in the movement and the types of nationalist sentiment that motivated the student participants. While other issues—democracy, social justice, and campus autonomy— played an important role, nationalism was the underlying rationale and

25

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

driving force behind many of the key events of a student movement that left an indelible mark on Korea. It is useful to recall Gellner’s definition of political nationalism which describes how nations arise when the political unit and the “imagined” national unit coincide. Nationalist sentiment in the form of anger, Gellner explains, can arise when the national and political unit do not correspond and can also be stirred by the satisfaction of witnessing the realization of a nation. The analysis of the Korean student movement in this chapter will demonstrate that three forms of nationalist sentiment motivated the young people involved in this movement. The first relates to the perceived threat from neo-colonialist influences that sparked a nationalist anger expressed in the form of anti-Americanism or antiJapanese rhetoric. The second was a nationalist sentiment inspired by the division of the Korean nation and its people which gave rise to a national unification movement. These two nationalist sentiments reflected frustration around the discord between the national unit and the political unit. The third form of nationalist sentiment relates to expressions of satisfaction at the realization of a nation and was inspired by the release of the Korean nation from Japanese colonialism. This prompted demands for the fulfillment of national goals beyond unification such as democracy and prosperity. These expressions of nationalist sentiment all reflect the ethnic type of nationalism that existed on the peninsula throughout this period. One scholar has already used descriptions of nationalist sentiment that align closely with Gellner’s definitions in order to delineate the evolution of the South Korean student movement. Kauh (1968) differentiated between the pre-1945 and post-1945 student movement by describing the pre-1945 movement as a resistance to foreign aggression, and the post-1945 movement as aiming instead to fulfill nationalist goals such as democracy. He is correct in his assertion that post-1945 Korean student actors reflected a sense of duty towards the fulfillment of an independent, democratic, socially just, and developed nation, at least in the South,2 but following division, young people also continued to believe that national independence was fragile. As a result, the student movement still focused attention on perceived neo-colonialist threats of foreign control or influence, in particular from Japan or the United States, and this persisted well into the 1980s and early 1990s. Moreover, following division, the issue of unification itself constituted an important element of the student movement. Certainly, in post-division South Korea, discussion of unification and North Korea was perilous because it opened up opportunities to label opposition as communist sympathizers or pro-North Korean. However, at various times

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27

through the decades—particularly the 1950s, early 1960s and the 1980s— the issue of North Korea and unification constituted an important nationalist element of the South Korean student movement. The periodic role of unification in the nationalism of students provides a useful comparative context for South Korea’s contemporary youth and student movement. Moreover, there is additional comparative value in examining the historic student movement because of the important role of ethnic nationalism and, at least until the 1980s, the capacity of students to reflect mainstream attitudes toward the nation and its politics. As will be discussed, the student movement was often seen as the conscience of the nation and attracted popular support from the middle class, labor and churches. The Colonial and Pre-Division Era

Still celebrated today in both South and North Korea, the March First Independence Movement is the most famous of the anti-colonial protests during Japanese occupation. The March First Movement of 1919 involved mass protests across the whole of Korea that demanded independence from Japanese colonialism, and it was inspired in part by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s call for self-determination for all nations which was made at the Versailles Peace Conference at the end of the First World War (Eckert et al. 1990; Cumings 1997). However, a month prior to the proclamation that launched the March First Movement in Korea, the first proclamation of independence from colonial rule was made by a small group of Korean students studying in Japan. Korean students in Japan had access to foreign literature that inspired their political thought. Most became ardent nationalists who aspired to Korean independence from the Japanese colonial master and who made use of their relative freedom in Japan to agitate and excite the nationalist debate. On 8 February 1919, these overseas students established the Korean Youth Independence Corps (Joseon Cheongnyeon Dongnipdan) and the same morning drafted their Declaration of Independence. They distributed the declaration to officials in Japan, including Japanese cabinet members, and sent it to the Governor-General of Korea. In the afternoon of 8 February, they held a rally involving some two hundred Korean students, many of whom were summarily arrested (D. Kim 1991, p. 116). Pre-empting the action of the Japanese authorities, however, a representative of the Korean student group in Tokyo had already been sent to Korea to meet with domestic nationalist activists. The actions of the students in Tokyo and the enthusiasm of the exile community gave

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

encouragement to the leaders of the March First Movement in Korea to pursue their aim of Korea’s independence through direct action.3 The leadership of the March First Movement came primarily from religious organizations that had been harboring the covert nationalist activity taking place in occupied Korea. The large numbers on the streets were made up of many ordinary Koreans who had also been inspired to protest by the death of Emperor King Gojong, purportedly at the hands of the Japanese (Eckert et al. 1990, p. 277). Student groups acted as intermediaries by organizing demonstrations in cities across Korea, and they played an important role in mobilizing significant numbers of fellow university and high school students as well as community members. Indeed, one of the signatories to the March First Movement Proclamation of Independence was a student and this suggested that the “leaders of this movement recognized the growth of student power and the significance of student mobilization” (D. Kim 1991, p. 113). Authors differ on the numbers involved but at least 1 million Koreans participated in protests across the whole Korean peninsula. Panicked Japanese officials used the military to violently suppress crowds of activists and it is estimated that as many as 7,500 people died, 15,000 were injured, and 45,000 were arrested (ibid., pp. 276–281). Many students were among the casualties or included in the numbers who were arrested. Ultimately, the March First Independence Movement, faced with a determined and brutal colonial Japan, failed in its attempt to gain any autonomy for Korea from the Japanese occupiers. However, it marked the arrival of students as a major protest force and “provided a catalyst for the expansion of the nationalist movement as a whole” (ibid., p. 279). The March First Movement was followed by a series of challenges against the Japanese authorities that continued for the remainder of the colonial period, and these acts of defiance were primarily planned or led by students (D. Kim 1991, p. 123). The most important of these resulted in the 1929 Gwangju Incident, which began when a Korean girl was harassed by a male Japanese student. Korean youths who witnessed the incident demanded an apology from the Japanese boy, and in response the Korean youths were attacked by Japanese students. When the colonial police intervened, only the Korean students were arrested and this spurred large-scale student protests in Gwangju that spread to other schools and colleges across the country (D. Kim 1991). These protests lasted for five months. The rhetoric of the protests had pro-communist elements as leftist ideology had grown in popularity among the student community, but the sentiment was also heavily nationalist, reflecting anti-Japanese feelings, frustration with colonial rule, and a strong sense of Korean patriotism (S. Kim 1964).

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As the Japanese colonial regime became increasingly brutal, protest became more difficult and ideological divisions arose within the student movement. From a broader perspective, however, it is clear that the colonial period provided the critical impetus and the development of the political thought that led to the modern Korean student movement. The movement’s nationalist roots can be traced to the colonial period, and this nationalist conviction very much defined the student movement that followed liberation from the Japanese. Sa-il-gu and the Demise of the Rhee Syngman Regime

Rhee Syngman, the President of the First Republic of Korea, was inaugurated in 1948 replacing the U.S. Army Military Government in Korea which had administered the country since Japan’s surrender in 1945. Rhee was a devoted patriot and fervent anti-communist who had spent most of his life in the United States, and received his education at Princeton and Harvard (Eckert et al. 1990, p. 342; Cumings 1997, p. 195). He came to power in Korea at the age of 73 and the corrupt, undemocratic, and brutal government that he directed showed little trace of his experience in the pluralist political system and society of the United States. Rhee presided over Korea for twelve years from 1948 to 1960. During this time he rejected the trusteeship plan that would have seen a unified Korea managed under a four-power trusteeship (Eckert et al. 1990, p. 340) and agreed to the South’s participation in the flawed U.N.-observed elections that took place without the North’s involvement and so institutionalized division on the peninsula. In the aftermath of this, Rhee led South Korea through the devastating Korean War (June 1950 to July 1953) that saw 415,000 soldiers from the South Korean army killed, and a further 429,000 wounded. It is estimated that over 1 million South Koreans died in total (Hastings 1987, p. 407).4 Overall, the lives of South Koreans saw little improvement during his time in office: poverty remained endemic, the South Korean populace was beholden to the United States for aid, elections were rigged, corruption abounded and opposition was brutally suppressed (C. Choi 1995). It is estimated that as many as 60,000 people died in just one incident of suppression of alleged communist sympathizers on the island of Jeju (Cumings 1997, p. 222). Life for many Koreans under the Rhee regime was not much better than it had been under colonial rule. In 1960, when President Rhee “was at his absolute worst” (Cumings 1997, p. 340), a tidal wave of protest erupted that toppled the Rhee administration. This event is now known as the April Revolution or Sa-ilgu (“4.19” or April 19) and it was initiated and led by high school and

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

university students. Despite its name, Sa-il-gu began in early March 1960 with small-scale demonstrations centered at high-schools in Daegu. The demonstrations targeted corruption, political coercion, and electoral rigging by the Rhee authorities (C. Kim 2007). News of these actions by students soon spread and further demonstrations followed in support, firstly in Masan among high school students, then nationwide with the participation of university students and intellectuals. This wave of demonstrations culminated in large-scale student action in Seoul on the 19 April 1960 that resulted in the deaths of at least 115 young people after authorities, on Rhee’s orders, opened fire on the protestors (Cumings 1997, p. 344). President Rhee was eventually forced to resign on the 26 April 1960 after sustained action by students and intellectuals who were buoyed by widespread support from the general population (Eckert et al. 1990, p. 355). Charles R. Kim (2012; 2007, p. 7) argues that nationalism was the underlying motivation for the April Revolution, and it was the nationalist sentiment that characterized the April Revolution which enabled student participants to attract mainstream support, maintain momentum, and finally topple the government. Kim terms Sa-il-gu “a revolution” that, through the actions of the students, delivered the nation from an internal peril, that of Rhee’s government. Indeed, strong ethnic nationalist rhetoric was evident across the Sa-il-gu movement. In the discussions among activists leading up to the final demonstration on 19 April, one student justified their action saying: “It is best to take the initiative, if we would do it at all, for our nation. We should live up to the tradition of the nationalistic struggle against Japanese colonialism” (Q. Kim 1983, p. 78). During the Daegu marches, a teacher voiced support for the activists, calling out: “No! They are not communists; they are not bastards. They are the sons of Korea!” (ibid., p. 44). When a wounded boy was taken to hospital on the 19 April only to die on the operating table, “slowly and softly, the doctors, nurses, and students joined together in singing the national anthem, but the sorrow of the moment overpowered them and they could not finish” (ibid., pp. 124–125). The nationalist sentiment of the Sa-il-gu movement reflects the responsibility that students felt for protecting and building the Korean nation, and that inspired them to challenge the inept, corrupt, and brutal government of Rhee. This sense of national responsibility, borne mainly by students, had come about through a particular set of circumstances including the legacy of the students’ colonial era role, and the form of education experienced by Korean students in the 1950s that had made them the “moral conscience” of the nation. Throughout the Rhee era, national duty had been the cornerstone of the Korean school curriculum,

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and students were encouraged to carry out community work as “patriotic national citizens” and to consider the national interest in all their actions. Textbooks instructed students that, as national citizens, it was their responsibility to carry out “moral protests on behalf of the nation against unjust, undemocratic authority.” The Rhee administration was of course referring to the Japanese or North Korean authorities, but it was not difficult to see the Rhee government as an equally “unjust, undemocratic authority” (C. Kim 2007, p. 21). Korean students felt a sense of duty to protect their nation’s morality, conscience and well-being, and recognition of this duty was reflected in the language and discourse among university students and intellectuals. Student and alumni writers discussed how to safeguard and contribute to a prosperous, strong, and unified future Korea, and university students were commonly referred to as “pioneers,” “pillars of the nation,” and the “protagonists of the nation’s future” (ibid., p. 172). Another source of the students’ nationalist sentiment was frustration with the continued division of the peninsula, coupled with the perception that the Rhee regime’s policies were perpetuating this division. There was deep impatience about the long drawn-out division, and those on the political left condemned the path that Rhee had followed: rejecting the trusteeship plan, embracing the U.N. elections which institutionalized separate governments, and maintaining a devout hatred of communists. Although the North had invaded South Korea on the 25 June 1950, “Rhee had always had two political priorities: one, to maintain himself in power in South Korea; two, to unify the country by force during his lifetime” (Choy 1984, p. 60). The methods of the corrupt and ageing southern regime, however, failed to bring about any reconciliation. Writing of unification, Stephen Bradner (1961, p. 414), who was in Korea at the time that the Rhee government was toppled, stated that “probably no other issue revealed so dramatically the split between the older generation and the youth.” In general, there was a distrust of the older generation and their ability to carry out their nationalist responsibility of unifying the nation, and the memory of the Korean War weighed heavily on the whole population. In the 1956 election, despite his efforts to rig the ballot, Rhee’s vote collapsed and although economic issues played an important role in this, Kim has argued that “many of those in Seoul who voted against Rhee blamed him for their misfortunes during the Korean War, especially during the early phase of the tragedy” (Q. Kim 1983, p. 31). The fact that the students’ role in the April Revolution was characterized as nationalist and moral, together with their avoidance of dogmatic ideology in their rhetoric, enabled students to attract widespread support from the rest of the population. Such labels also provided them

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with some measure of protection against the extremes of the Rhee regime’s brutality. Indeed, after the bloody suppression of students on the 19 April 1960, it was the public’s rejection of increasing levels of violence against the students that finally forced Rhee to resign (Sohn 1989). Students had, for the first time, changed the course of Korean politics. In the decades that followed the Korean War, participation in higher education grew dramatically, and the number of universities in Korea increased from 28 to 85 between 1945 and 1960. The number of college students rose from nearly 8,000 to more than 140,000 (Q. Kim 1996), and students were now an important political constituency in both size and influence. Following on from the colonial tradition of student protest, the April Revolution and its nationalist ideals provided inspiration for this growing body of potential activists and the many student actions that followed. The Rise to Power of Park Chung Hee, Normalization of Relations with Japan and the Yusin Constitution

The importance of the Park Chung Hee era (1961–1979) in the building of modern South Korea is reflected in the continued attention given to the scholarly and mainstream debate about his legacy (H. Kim 2004; Moon 2009; B. Kim and Vogel 2011), but the role of students in establishing an effective civil society during this period is also significant. Despite the rigidly authoritarian nature of Park’s regime, students continued to play the role of the nation’s “moral conscience.” They challenged the Park regime throughout its reign, and they resurrected for themselves a role from the colonial era that positioned them as defenders of the nation from external threats. There were two key periods of the student movement’s oppositional activity to Park: the protests during negotiations for normalization of Korea-Japan relations beginning in 1962, and opposition to the repressive Yusin constitution which was instituted in 1972 and remained in place until Park’s death in 1979. Ironically, students were also pivotal in Park’s rise to power. Their passionate nationalist demonstrations in 1960, demanding unification and domestic political change, created a deep social instability that provided Park Chung Hee with justification for a military coup. The Rise to Power of Park Chung Hee

The story of student involvement in Park’s rise to power began during Korea’s short period of democracy in the second half of August 1960.

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Following Rhee Syngman’s ousting, Korea’s Second Republic was instituted with a new constitution that provided for the establishment of a Westminster-style parliamentary system, and U.S.-educated Chang Myon (John M. Chang) was popularly elected as Prime Minister. This new democratic system of governance allowed for open dissent, but instead of prompting considered debate, discord erupted. Protests occurred daily, and the press directed attacks on the administration without reserve or responsibility. Considering themselves the “fourth branch of government” and “self-appointed caretakers of the political process,” students held highly disruptive demonstrations or launched themselves upon the National Assembly whenever legislation did not correspond with their demands (S. Kim 1971, p. 30; Cumings 1997, p. 346). It was effectively an abuse of freedom (S. Kim 1971, pp. 33–35), although, as in 1960, student agitations were driven by a sense of national duty and conscience. Accompanying this was a demand for national independence—for a Korea that did not rely upon foreign aid and that could resist foreign influence. An example of these various nationalisms in action was the “New Life Movement” which endeavored to restore public morality by challenging official corruption, encouraging economic austerity, and boycotting foreign goods (ibid., pp. 31, 100). The heavy reliance on U.S. aid and the perception that Chang’s relations with the United States were “sadae” (serving the great) only served to fuel the passions of many students (Cumings 1997, p. 54). For all their good intentions, the students’ disruptive and often violent activities created an atmosphere of intense social and political instability. Nonetheless, students used the new democratic system of governance to advance their goal of unification, and to campaign for a militarily neutral Korean peninsula. Indeed, the unification debate took place with such fervor that Hong (2002, p. 1238) writes: “this period still represents the most intense discussion of the issue in South Korea to date.” For many young people, blame for the continued division of the peninsula lay squarely at the feet of the older generation who lacked the necessary “patriotism and national pride” to engage with the issue of unification (Bradner 1961, p. 414). Students rapidly took up the debate by forming a number of organizations, the most active of which was the Mintongnyeon (League for National Unification). The Mintongnyeon called for neutral unification and the adoption of a non-alignment policy that would “free Korea from the grips of the Cold War … and facilitate political unification of the country” (S. Kim 1971, p. 31). The unification movement, however, caused deep unease among elites, particularly because the call for neutralization directly challenged the Cold War realism that directed their ideology (ibid., p. 31). In August 1960, South Korean students held mass

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

demonstrations calling for a meeting with their northern counterparts at Panmunjeom on the border, to which the northern leader Kim Il-sung assented. Predictably, the potential for uncontrolled interactions with the northern enemy, when the war had halted only seven years previously, spread panic throughout the right wing and the military (Cumings 1997, pp. 346–347). As a result, what had “started out as a noble task” ultimately created a situation that the military could use as an excuse to assume power (S. Kim 1971, p. 34). The students’ passionate nationalist sentiment had driven them to proactively participate in democracy in order to achieve their national aims, but it had also created deep instability and optimum conditions for a coup. With the Korean War a recent memory, it is unsurprising that the societal instability created insecurity among the population, and it is “not too difficult to understand how the coup leaders would have won over the public” and “how they were able to promote their coup as an act of ‘patriotism’ to save the nation from crisis” (H. Kim 2003, p. 125). The military had taken ownership of the students’ nationalism, and in doing so had provided a nationalist legitimacy for their own coup d’état in the South Korean state. South Korean students and intellectuals played a further paradoxical role in facilitating the rise of the military. The students’ challenge to the old order of Rhee and Chang was accompanied by a vibrant intellectual debate. Articles, which appeared in forums like Sasanggye (The World of Ideas), a leading intellectual journal, demanded political reform, a cleanup of corruption and, significantly, strong leadership (ibid., p. 131). Indeed, the call for “strong leadership” among intellectuals was at least as vocal as the debate calling for the imposition of liberal democracy, and the debate was framed using nationalist rhetoric like “national independence” or “national autonomy” and “revolution of nationalist spirit” (ibid., pp. 125–134). It is telling that many students and the intellectual elites initially welcomed the coup (D. Kim 1991), and Kim Hyung-a (2003) argues that these ideas inspired the principles that directed Park Chung Hee’s coup and later his government’s national development programs. An analysis of Park’s rise to power demonstrates the importance of nationalism within the South Korean student movement at this time. The nationalism of the student movement not only played a complex but central role in Park’s rise to power in South Korea, but also soon began to inspire opposition from the student movement to the Park regime and its policies.

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Korea-Japan Normalization Negotiations

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When Park Chung Hee came to power as President of South Korea’s Third Republic in 1961, the country’s economic and security outlook was precarious.5 Park’s plans to develop Korea required stability and investment, and the normalization of relations with Japan would be an important step to achieving both. Memories of Japan’s colonization of the Korean peninsula, however, were still fresh among the population. Any effort to restore relations with Japan was likely to ignite strong nationalist feelings, and negotiations would require resolution of highly contentious national issues: identity (of Koreans living in Japan); sovereignty (over disputed territories and the wider jurisdiction of Korea); and decolonization (the resolution of claims from both sides regarding reparations from the colonial period) (C. Lee 1962, p. 315). The negotiations began early in this Third Republic and were not finalized until 1965, and Park’s government faced sustained hostility from students throughout this period. Protests were motivated by a variety of nationalist concerns. Firstly, Japan’s perceived intransigence suggested to the student protesters that Japan was not sincere in renouncing its colonial history. Japan refused to show leeway on key issues including discrimination against Koreans in Japan and the sovereignty of Dokdo (islands located between Japan and Korea). The Japanese government also refused to apologize for wartime atrocities and sought compensation for Japanese colonial properties in Korea confiscated following Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War (ibid., p. 321). While it was inconceivable that Japan would be able to reimpose direct colonial control upon South Korea in the postwar environment, many envisaged a creeping economic and political dependence that would render Korea a colony in all but name (Mobius 1966). Secondly, students’ nationalist sentiments were aroused by the apparent lack of procedural transparency in the negotiation process. Soon after the discussions began, student protestors called for a transparent and consultative procedural process that could assure the population that the Korean national interest would be protected (S. Kim 1964). It appeared to many in the student movement that the normal diplomatic process was being undermined when it was discovered that Prime Minister Kim Jongpil was making secret deals and hidden agreements with the Japanese delegates (ibid.) and given the sensitivity of these negotiations, the lack of transparency elicited deep suspicion and unease among students. Thirdly, many students saw another emerging threat to the integrity of the Korean national unit from a new imperial power—the United States. Students believed that the United States was pushing Korea to normalize

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relations with Japan out of self-interest, because the United States and Japan required access to foreign markets, such as Korea, to maintain the growth of their burgeoning economies (Mobius 1966, p. 242). They believed that the United States was attempting to revive Japan’s suzerainty over Korea (Yi 2002) because it favored Japan and considered Korea to be dispensable within the context of their foreign-policy aims. They felt that the United States allowed Japan to “assume a haughty posture in dealing with Korea” (Mobius 1966, p. 245). Many recalled Woodrow Wilson’s call for self-determination for all countries at the Versailles Peace Conference but believed that the United States had effectively “permitted” Japan’s colonization of Korea by not standing up to the Japanese at the time.6 Writing when the protests were taking place, J. Mark Mobius (1966, p. 241) noted “a persistent anti-American tone” in the opposition to normalization discussions as students urged the United States to refrain from involvement. Student protests against normalization used chants such as “Yankee, keep silent,” and when 500 high school pupils protested against the normalization treaty in March 1964, it was no coincidence that they chose to hold their “sit-in” in front of the U.S. Embassy in downtown Seoul. Support for and against the normalization treaty was rooted in a complex set of concerns regarding Korea’s national identity, sovereignty and economic future. While students protested to protect their nation from what they believed to be a double imperialist threat posed by Japan and the United States, the Park government continued discussions with Japan, and from April 1965, was putting plans in place for tens of thousands of Korean troops to be sent to fight alongside the U.S. in Vietnam (Cumings 1997, p. 321; Yi 2002, p. 658). The opposing stances of the Park regime and the student movement demonstrated the complexity of the challenges facing Korea in the post-war world: the country needed to come to terms with its suffering at the hands of its neighbor Japan, but at the same time Korean elites were trying to integrate and exploit the opportunities of an international political and economic system (Yi 2002, p. 648). With such strong anti-Japanese sentiment, however, any pragmatic considerations were irrelevant to the student activists, and the student movement put up a powerful challenge to the Park government. In 1964, the cabinet resigned as a result of strong opposition to the negotiations and the government faced collapse. In 1965, the normalization bill was pushed through the legislature while opposition members were physically barred from the Assembly. When students began to protest, Park imposed martial law and sent troops into a number of university campuses (Clifford 1998, p. 306). From early on in Park’s administration, therefore, students had

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shown that they would continue to contest his illegitimate presidential authority. The Student Movement Under the Yusin Constitution

Student protests in 1970 and 1971, leading up to the imposition of the Yusin constitution in 1972, were regular, widespread, and involved large sections of the student community (P. Chang 2015; Oh 1991, p. 95). Students were motivated both by their frustration with authoritarian rule, the militarization of universities, and by the visit of the Japanese Prime Minister to Korea around this time (Oh 1991, p. 94). In addition, students protested in support of laborers who continued to suffer a lack of rights in the face of appalling working conditions, and student actions included protests in sympathy with Jeon Tae-il, the young textile worker who had self-immolated in 1970 to bring attention to the plight of factory workers. Students continued to receive widespread support from many sections of Korean society, and this demonstrated their ongoing position as the “nation’s conscience” in opposition to authoritarian government. The Yusin constitution tightened Park’s grip on the levers of government and provided him with extraordinary powers. Yusin (meaning revitalization) was designed to create socio-political restructuring as well as heavy and chemical industrialization (H. Kim 2004), but it also allowed Park to perpetuate his monopoly of power, justified by the goals of “national security” and “peaceful unification” (S. Kim 1998, p. 228). As soon as the Yusin restrictions were imposed in 1972, students were arrested and organizations closed. Student demonstrations were not seen for more than a year following its imposition, and Yusin enabled Park to run Korea as if it were under a permanent state of emergency. As a result, much of the student movement went underground during the Yusin period (Oh 1991, p. 96). The first significant protests following the imposition of Yusin were in response to the kidnapping in Japan of Kim Dae-jung by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) in August 1973. In April 1974 student protests grew and a declaration was issued by a new student organization calling itself the Mincheonghangnyeon (National Federation of Democratic Youth and Students) (Sohn 1989, p. 65). Protests spread across Korean campuses, and students demanded the release of Kim and imprisoned students, the end of the Yusin system, and the return to democracy (Oh 1991, p. 203). In response to this, the Park government began introducing “Emergency Measures” which further outlawed many student activities and gave the security forces extraordinary powers to deal with protestors. A total of nine Emergency Measures were issued

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during the eight-year period of Yusin, targeting students and others who challenged the regime. Park clearly feared the power of the students because student protests reflected a more general discontent held by the wider middle classes; it was from this class, of course, that the majority of students originated. This discontent centered on the levels of repression that touched many lives, even among the middle classes, and the wider Korean population increasingly challenged the premise that economic development and national security justified the levels of repression (ibid., p. 265). The brutal and absolute nature of the Yusin system, and the events that took place under its constitution, marked a new stage for the student movement. Politically-minded members of the Christian community joined with students through groups such as the Mincheonghangnyeon in the fight, unable to stand on the sidelines as student and labor activists fought for their country and its democratic rights (Sohn 1989, p. 71; S. Kim 1998). Through a variety of organizations, “the church became a guardian of young full-time dissidents, mostly composed of expelled students from universities, and it acted as a care provider for the labor force by articulating its demands” (S. Kim 1998, p. 229). When church groups, as representatives of the middle classes, began to actively support the students, the South Korean student movement became a much more national movement. Kim Sunhyuk (1998, p. 229) writes that “as church activists were arrested and incarcerated for their opposition to the government, angry protest movements spread through the then rapidly growing Christian community, awakening it to what the persecuted church leaders considered the plight of the country.” This civil action, which had been started by the students, continued to expand. The students joined with other civil society groups to enter into an anti-Yusin alliance with the conservative opposition party, the New Democratic Party (NDP). The alliance between students and more conservative elements of society allowed students to continue to present themselves as nationalist campaigners and representatives of the nation, and this provided momentum for the campaigns that continued throughout the 1970s. In mid-October 1979, the final protests of the Yusin period took place in Kim Young-sam’s home province of Gyeongsang, in the cities of Busan and Masan. Kim Young-sam was an opposition politician from the New Democratic Party, and the protestors campaigned against his exclusion from the mainstream political process. The protests involved many thousands of students, workers, and religious activists in a part of South Korea that was a traditionally conservative region. This posed a significant threat to the stability of the Park regime and it is rumored that divergence on how the Gyeongsang student unrest should be dealt with

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led to major disagreements within the regime. In the midst of this turbulence, on 26 October 1979, the Director of the Korean CIA, Kim Chae-gyu, assassinated Park, thus bringing his regime to an end (J. Kim 2011, p. 197). The most important opposition to the Park regime throughout his eighteen-year reign was South Korea’s student movement. Many students suffered terribly as a consequence of their participation in the movement. Student activists were often temporarily or permanently suspended from their university thereby ruining their future job prospects, and they were frequently conscripted into the army or imprisoned, where rumors of torture were widespread. Families also suffered, especially if the parents were government workers (D. Kim 1991, p. 188). The inspirational power of nationalism helps to explain why many of these students made such huge sacrifices. It also sheds light on the widespread mainstream support for the movement that existed, despite the frequent violence. Indeed, one of the most important achievements of the student movement of this time was their cooperation with wider civil society and organized political parties. During this period it is noteworthy that the issue of unification played a lesser role in the nationalist rhetoric of students and the more established political opposition. Kim Sunhyuk (1998) argues that a demand for unification would have placed more conservative opposition at a disadvantage as it left them vulnerable to accusations of being “North Korean or communist sympathizers.” Indeed, such suspicions could lead to tragic consequences. Some associated with the Mincheonghangnyeon movement were charged with “spying for North Korea” and subsequently executed (M. Park 2008, p. 61). Since suppression of the opposition by the Park regime was an ever present threat, the issue of unification was played down. Instead, the opposition focused on the “democratic struggle against the military dictatorship, and this allowed multiple actors in civil society—students, church leaders, and labor activists—to cooperate with the opposition party to delegitimize the Park regime” (ibid., p. 231). Notwithstanding the relative absence of unification sentiment, the continued presence of ethnic nationalism, the dogged determination of the student movement in the face of brutal suppression and this inclusive cooperation with intellectuals, social leaders, labor and religious groups enabled the growth of the dissident movement. It led to the formation of a number of large civic organizations that would be the foundations of the wider civic movement in the 1980s, the cornerstone campaign issues of which would be the call for democracy and unification (Sohn 1989, p. 126; S. Kim 1998).

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

The 1980s: Gwangju, Anti-Americanism and Unification

General Chun Doo Hwan came to power by coup d’état in December 1980, not long after the assassination of Park Chung Hee. General Chun justified his assumption of power, just like his predecessor and mentor President Park had done, by “denouncing past corruption, and promising a new age of economic growth, probity and justice” (Eckert et al. 1990, p. 376). At the first sign of opposition, however, Chun declared martial law and asserted his authority across the whole political and social fabric of Korea. After nearly twenty years of Park’s dictatorship, students across the country reacted with passion to this return to authoritarianism. The fiercest of the demonstrations took place in the city of Gwangju, Jeolla province. The response of General Chun was equally fierce. In May 1980, Chun’s brutal suppression of students and citizens of Gwangju resulted in the deaths of more than 500 people while many thousands more were wounded or arrested (Shin 2003).7 In spite of Chun’s violent reaction to opposition so early in his rule, the student movement was extremely active throughout the Chun era. It provided what Lee Namhee terms “a counter-public sphere” through which the voice of broader opposition to the Chun regime could be heard (N. Lee 2007, 2002), and the student and general opposition movement fashioned themselves as a “counter-image” to what they regarded as illegitimate authority (N. Lee 2007). The protest movement, or undonggwon, addressed “unpublic” or difficult issues which, if openly discussed, risked arrest, detention or accusations of communist sympathy for the speaker. By addressing these difficult matters, the movement challenged the state on the neglected issues, such as unification, that were central to the future of Korean youth and the Korean nation (ibid.). In characterizing this period of student activism some authors have focused on the debate around ideology, which grew in importance throughout the 1980s. However, the role of nationalism and nationalist sentiment continued to be at least as important. The role of nationalism in the 1980s student movement is explored here through the examination of three key themes and the events that surrounded them. All involved confrontation between the Chun regime and the Korean student movement: (1) the Gwangju Democratic Uprising; (2) anti-Americanism; and (3) the unification movement. The Gwangju Democratic Uprising8

Memories of the terrible events that took place in Gwangju in May 1980 are still palpable as you walk through the streets of South Jeolla’s old

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capital city past the uprising’s infamous landmarks that were its backdrop—Chonnam National University, Gwangju Train Station, and Provincial Hall. More than thirty years on, there are still many visitors to the graves at the two Gwangju memorials on the outskirts of the city.9 The Gwangju Democratic Uprising arose from a complex set of circumstances and there remains a lack of consensus as to what motivated those who participated. Possible factors include: a demand for democracy and an end to repression; regional advocates demanding more recognition and support for Jeolla province; and a sense of national responsibility inspired by Jeolla’s tradition of protest (Shin 2003). Students were the instigators of the Gwangju Democratic Uprising and they constituted the majority of the leadership (J. Choi 2003). However, as well as students, the Gwangju Uprising involved a wide range of other community members such as clergy, laborers and intellectuals. Significant scholarship has been devoted to the Gwangju Uprising. The aim of this section is not to challenge existing conclusions but to highlight the recurrence of nationalism as a theme across the many accounts, and the ways in which the rhetoric, language, and selfcharacterization of the uprising directly displayed its nationalist character. The language that emerged from confrontations with the authorities focused not only on localized or ideological interests but also expressed what students and protestors considered to be the concerns of the wider nation. Choi Jung-woon (1999, 2003, p. 11) writes of the protesters that it “felt like the ‘Korean nation’ to them. Gwangju citizens saw the image of ‘our country’ while fighting paratroopers to defend their hometown … they sang the national anthem and ‘our wish is reunification’ and waved the national flag.” This sense of the broader nation was echoed in the concept of the “Gwangju Republic” (Hwang 2003, p. 133) or the “absolute community” (J. Choi 1999, 2003) that appeared in the rhetoric of pamphlets and banners. The absolute community or Gwangju Republic was not conceived to be an entity independent of Korea. It instead reflected what the protestors believed to be the true Republic of Korea, representing the hopes of the people of a unified peninsula, and it visualized the existing territory, including the North, as merely occupied by illegitimate autocrats. The power of this idea was reflected in a journalist’s writing at the time: It was in Gwangju that I first felt myself trembling so vehemently at the singing of our representative folksong, Arirang …. Standing alone on top of the darkened Provincial Office, I saw a crowd waving Korean flags coming in my direction. The moment I heard the strains of Arirang,

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

I felt an intense shuddering coursing through my veins. My mind went blank and I began to weep uncontrollably. (Cited in J. Choi 2003, p. 6)

Linked to the idea of defending the nation was the characterization of the military and police forces sent by the Chun government to quell the protests as being foreign, outsiders, or invaders. The paratroopers were likened to communists (Lewis 1988; J. Choi 1999), were considered not really “our” soldiers (Clark 1988) and more cruel than the Japanese police (J. Choi 1999). This notion of a “foreign attack” legitimized the protests of the students and citizens of Gwangju: “while fury expresses a strong emotional state, self-defense is a legal concept, an offensive defense carried out with a cool head” (J. Choi 1999). The representation of the soldiers not just as enemies but as invaders enabled the students’ response to be characterized as “self-defense” and to create an image of violated community boundaries (Baker 2003). The nationalism that underpinned the Gwangju Democratic Uprising reflected a wider tradition of protest and rebellion in Jeolla that had spanned generations. It was noted by one author that the fathers and grandfathers of the Gwangju Uprising protestors would have been members of the Gwangju Student Uprising of 1929 or the Donghak movement, both nationalist movements of their time (McCann 1988). Students of Chonnam National University and its predecessor institutions had always played important roles in agitations against the colonial rulers and the authoritarian regimes of Presidents Rhee and Park (Hwang 2003; McCann 1988). Once again, the youth of Jeolla province were paying the price to defend the interests of the wider Korean nation. Anti-Americanism

Anti-Americanism had not played a significant part in the Gwangju Uprising. Indeed, many in Gwangju hoped that the Americans would come to rescue them from the so-called “invaders,” just as they had come to rescue South Korea from North Korean invasion during the Korean War (Shorrock 1986). All military on the Korean peninsula were part of the Combined Forces Command (CFC) in periods of threat, and the CFC was under the command of United States Army General John A. Wickham,10 but the United States did not come to Gwangju’s aid. Instead, by not intervening to prevent the deployment of the South Korean military to Gwangju, the U.S. effectively endorsed Chun’s decision to dispatch troops. As this became widely understood, anger towards the United States grew within the student movement (Lew 1993; Dong 1987). The sense of anger was very strong for, as one American civil group wrote,

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“anti-Americanism is a simplistic label for the emotions that have been generated … [it is] the intense feeling of having been deceived and betrayed by somebody you trusted and had high hopes in” (Shorrock 1986, p. 1203). The experience of Gwangju encouraged students to review the role of the United States in Korea’s history, and they came to the conclusion that the earlier student movements had an “illusion about the role of the United States” (M. Park 2005, p. 271). Gwangju continued to drive anti-American feelings throughout the remainder of the decade. In May 1985, students occupied the United States Information Service (USIS) building in Seoul and demanded that the “U.S. government apologize for its role in Gwangju” (N. Lee 2007, p. 122), while in a letter to the U.S. Ambassador, Richard L. Walker, student protestors reminded the United States and Korean governments that “the Gwangju Incident is not a by-gone episode, but a pending, vital issue” (Dong 1987, p. 245). It was clear that Gwangju was going to provide fuel for anti-American sentiment at least until Chun Doo Hwan was called to account for his role in Gwangju or was removed from office. However, Chun Doo Hwan’s impunity would continue as long as the United States extended support to the Chun regime. The rise in antiAmericanism in Korea was sustained by the munificent treatment of the Chun regime by the new Reagan administration (Clark 1988).11 Chun Doo Hwan, fresh from the horror of Gwangju, was the first head of state to be invited by Reagan to the White House (Cumings 1997). Korea’s student movement began to link Korea’s internal repression to what they argued was a history of American imperialism. The actions of the Reagan administration seemed to demonstrate a policy continuum, and students began to focus on the notion of an inseparable relationship between the United States and Korea’s authoritarian governments. They identified this relationship as “the root cause of almost all the political, economic and cultural problems confronting South Korea” (Dong 1987, p. 237). South Korea’s authoritarian system was seen as an “inevitable product” of the “American system” and U.S. security and economic policy. As such, nationalism in the form of anti-Americanism came to be the “hegemonic position” of student activism and an integral element of the student democratization movement (N. Lee 2007; Dong 1987). Unification

Unification was central to the student movement from the Gwangju Uprising until the 1987 democracy protests, and even into the early 1990s. During Gwangju, the call for unification was expressed in both a literal and symbolic manner. By calling for unification while defending their

44

South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

own lives in the midst of carnage, the protestors aimed to emphasize their own nationalist credentials as superior to those of the Chun regime. They emphasized that the Korean nation, their nation, extended across the whole of the peninsula, and although they did not condone the North’s communist regime, they presented their vision of a unified Korean nation as a way of expressing opposition to their own government who they believed was ruled by “military authorities and paratroopers” (J. Choi 1999, p. 11). Following Gwangju, by the mid-1980s, the student movement had essentially divided into two ideological streams. The first was represented by Jamintu, or National Liberation (NL). At the core of the NL movement was nationalism and dedication to the North Korean ideology of Juche, the philosophy of political and economic self-determination. NL believed that South Korea was a puppet of the United States, and that U.S. presence on the peninsula was an obstacle to unification. Furthermore, NL believed that without unification and national independence, South Korea could not achieve democracy and social justice (Lew 1993; Hart-Landsberg 1988). The second stream was represented by Minmintu, or the People’s Democracy (PD) grouping. This had an ideology based on MarxistLeninist class struggle as a means of achieving its goals for the nation. It believed that unification would come about as a result of a rebellion originating with the people of South Korea. In essence, NL called for unification to bring about social and political change, while PD called for social and political change to bring about unification. It was NL, however, that controlled Jeondaehyeop (National Council of Student Representatives), the national student organization. NL dominated the student movement because its antiforeign and anti-imperialist stance, and its emphasis on unification, was more palatable and attractive to students than the Marxist beliefs of the PD (Lew 1993, p. 31). In June 1987, the death by torture of a student, the continued brutal repression of the student movement and the nomination of General Roh Tae-woo as Chun’s successor brought a wider group of South Korean citizens onto the streets. This time students were joined not only by their traditional allies (e.g. labor and the activist religious groups), but also by the middle classes.12 In response to this overwhelming citizens’ movement, Roh Tae-woo announced direct elections, granted amnesties for many political prisoners (including Kim Dae-jung), and relaxed restrictions on organized labor. Roh won the December election because the opposition vote was split between Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam. Following the achievement of direct elections, “unification replaced democratization as the number one theme.” Writing in the Washington

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Post in May 1988, Peter Maass (1988) noted that many students increasingly blamed the United States for the division of Korea and that this feeling fed the anti-Americanism that had stemmed from Gwangju. The actions of some students, however, were becoming increasingly violent and on the margins of the student community. As the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul approached, radical students called for a meeting with the North at Panmunjeom, and they also called for the North to co-host the Olympics. The vehement nature of the student protests placed President Roh Tae-woo under tremendous pressure. Partly in response to the protests, Roh advanced his Northern Diplomacy policy (H. Kim 2010, p. 305). The nationalism of the student movement had elicited real change in the political environment of South Korea. However, democracy had been achieved and with it came a change in the attitude of students. They increasingly withdrew from the movement, choosing instead to pursue academic and economic opportunities in their rapidly developing nation of South Korea. The 1990s

With Korea’s democratic transition, much of the raison d’être for the student movement had been lost. From the late 1980s onwards, the power of the student movement began to weaken and the popular support it had attracted dissipated. The collapse of the communist bloc also created ideological fissures within the traditionally left-wing student movement and this began to cause serious divisions. The student movement found it increasingly difficult to locate itself within the wider civil society movement, and their message of social revolution seemed wholly inappropriate to the newly democratizing Korea (N. Lee 2007, pp. 299– 303). However, Korea remained divided and small but vocal groups of students continued to protest under the banner of unification, while others participated within the labor movement. However, these activists represented a tiny minority of the overall student population. Indeed, the movement came to be perceived as extreme and located on the fringes of society and there was growing unease among the general population and other students with the behavior of the remaining activists (H. Choi 1991, p. 183; Grinker 1998, pp. 213–214). The efforts of the Kim Young-sam administration to reach out to this minority of students were rejected and they became increasingly violent; there were accusations that the student movement was being directed by the North and the movement was no longer able to portray itself as “pure” or “pillars of the nation” as it had in the past (Grinker 1998, p. 185). Support for a crackdown on students came

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

from across the political spectrum and society, particularly after seven riot policemen were burned to death in Busan in May 1989 as a result of Molotov cocktails thrown by students (Choi 1991, p. 183). The students had effectively lost their right to be the nation’s conscience, and they could no longer present themselves as uniquely endowed with the mandate of the people. Conclusion

Scholars of the Korean student movement are nearly unanimous in their assessment of its importance in the political, economic and social development of twentieth-century Korea (Lew 1993; Dong 1993). In an earlier paper, Dong Wonmo (1987, p. 233) goes further and writes that students have been “the single most persistent, cohesive and autonomous political opposition force in Korea.” When writing about the role and importance of nationalism in the Korean student movement, some scholars have been more equivocal. Yet nationalism was central to each one of the key events of the student movement and has been “a crucial force checking abuse of political powers and advocating social justice and national self-respect” [emphasis added] (H. Choi 1991, p. 176). In the colonial and pre-division era, the student movement was driven by the nationalist desire to rid Korea of their Japanese colonial masters. Following division and under the First Republic, nationalism encouraged students to demand democracy and to fight the inept and corrupt regime of Rhee Syngman. During the military government of Park Chung Hee, students defended their nation against perceived neo-colonialist threats and were able to build on their role as representatives of the nation by drawing wider support from the middle classes. In the 1980s, the student movement battled the brutal dictatorship of Chun and challenged his U.S. allies, who were blamed for perpetuating both division and authoritarianism on the Korean peninsula. Throughout all this, the ability of students to frame their role as the “conscience of the nation” or “defender of the nation” provided them with a measure of protection from repression and enabled them to attract wider societal support. This in turn helped them to achieve their many acknowledged political successes. A discussion of the prominence and role of nationalism in Korea’s historic student movement provides valuable context for analyzing current attitudes to nation and nationalism among young people. Firstly, it is important to note the presence of an ethnic type of nationalism throughout the historic student movement both prior to and after the division of the Korean peninsula. Ethnic nationalism was evident, for

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example, in the anti-imperialist sentiment present from the beginning of the movement in the colonial era until the 1980s, and in the ideals of the “Gwangju Republic” or “Absolute Community” during the Gwangju Democratic Uprising. It was also present in the pro-unification sentiment that was visible at various points in the student movement following division of the peninsula. Indeed, the presence of unification as an issue driving the post-1948 student movement demonstrated the importance of North Korea to the idea of nation. While under the intense repression of Park’s Yusin constitution, discussions of North Korea and unification were muted. However, at other times the ease with which students referred to unification suggests that they had little difficulty in imagining North Koreans as members of the same community, notwithstanding the absence of opportunity to interact with the northern population. This imagining of a unified national unit endured in the midst of the northern military threat, government propaganda, and rigorous anti-communist education that demonized the North. The persistence of the concept of a unified peninsula as the national unit provides the backdrop against which to compare the nationalism emerging among today’s South Korean young people. Lastly, the capacity of the historic student movement to attract popular support from the broader Korean population and to reflect their views meant that the movement embodied fundamental economic, political and social shifts that were taking place in Korea. Thus, it provides a useful context for the analysis of the current isipdae, a study that will not only uncover the seismic changes taking place within this generation of South Koreans, but also the fundamental shifts that are ensuing in Korea’s wider economic, political and social fabric. Notes

1. Quoted in Seuk-ryule Hong 2002. 2. It should be noted here that the period between 1945 and 1948, when official division begins, needs to be examined separately. This period was marked by sharp division between right-wing and left-wing student groups based upon their political ideologies. See Cumings (1997, pp. 185–236), Chapter 4, “The Passions: 1945–1948.” 3. Kim Doh-jong (1991) writes that although “the movement had no practical effect, news of the Korean students’ declaration of independence in Japan provided a spark for the leaders in Korea. While the leaders were contemplating an independence movement, Son Kye-baek arrived from Japan with a draft of the [students’ independence] declaration. The declaration was used to secure the approval of Son Byung-hi, the supreme leader of Cheondogyo [religious order], who is reported to have said: ‘At a time when young students are carrying out this

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

kind of righteous action, we cannot just sit and watch.’ It was decided thereupon that a movement for independence would be carried out on a national scale in cooperation with other nationalist groups and religions.” 4. Perhaps as many as 3 million Koreans died across the whole of the peninsula, at least half of them civilians (Cumings 2010). 5. South Korea was predominantly an agricultural economy with three out of every five Koreans living off the land. Per capita GNP was less than $100 per year making it one of the poorest countries in the world and its per capita electricity consumption was around 2 percent of that of the United States. Notably, it was behind North Korea in many aspects of its economic development (Clifford 1998). 6. For a brief description of the Versailles conference in relation to Korea see Eckert et al. (1990). 7. Other estimates put the number of dead or missing in the thousands (Cumings 1997). 8. This book terms the movement the Gwangju Democratic Uprising or Gwangju Uprising according to the English title given by the May 18 History Compilation Committee of Gwangju (D. Kim et al. 2010). However, there are other terms used by authors for the May 18 Gwangju Democratic Uprising. “Typically ‘5-18’ or ‘Gwangju’ are combined with such terms as ‘People’s Uprising’ (Minjung Hangjaeng) or ‘Democratization Movement’ (Minjuhwa Undong) to produce such terms as 5-18 Minjung Hangjaeng (5-18 People’s Uprising), 518 Minjuhwa Undong (5-18 Democratization Movement), Gwangju Minjung Hangjaeng (Gwangju Peoples’ Uprising), Gwangju Minjuhwa Undong (Gwangju Democratization Movement) and so on to try and define the horror, the aims and the significance of the event” (Shin 2003). 9. There are two memorials to the Gwangju Democratic Uprising. One is the official memorial, opened by Kim Young-sam in May 1997 and the location for all official memorial events. The second is the original location. Many mourners prefer to visit the original site believing that the new government memorial does not reflect the spirit of the Gwangju movement. The original site has become the focus for many contemporary political campaigns (Yea 2002). 10. The U.S.-Korea Combined Forces Command to this day remains under the command of a U.S. general. An agreement between President Barack Obama and President Lee Myung-bak to return wartime command of the Republic of Korea military to the R.O.K. in 2015 has been placed on hold (S. Choe 2014). 11. Clark wrote that “history may record that the anger against the U.S. has been proportionate to the degree of warmth which the U.S. government has shown toward the Chun Doo Hwan Regime” (Clark 1988, p. 79). 12. Cumings writes that disaffected sectors of the middle class included small and medium-sized businesses which had lost out to the state and the jaebol, the regionally disadvantaged, families that could not make ends meet and educate their children, and parents observing the abuse of students. In addition, the participation of many Christian leaders encouraged wider participation of the Christian middle classes (Cumings 1997).

3

Changing Attitudes to Unification

“When I say ‘uri nara’, it should refer to a community in which everybody can communicate and share each other’s ideas, but with South and North Korea it is not the case. They are not one country.” —South Korean university student in 2009.

When Koreans are asked to describe their characteristic approach to life, the words “ppalli ppalli,” or “hurry-hurry,” is a typical response. It is a trait that makes many Koreans proud as they survey the speed of their nation’s development and progress.1 Ppalli is indeed an apt adjective to describe modern South Korea, whether for Korea’s economic rise, the daily commute or the rate of soju2 consumption on a night out. In this word we see the rapid pace of change that makes the Korea of five years ago significantly different from the Korea of today, the Korea of ten years ago a distant memory, and the Korea of fifteen years ago almost unrecognizable. A student described the situation to the author thus: This is a time of rapid change and I find that I am different from people only five or six years older than me. We have different tastes and culture. A five-year age difference almost constitutes a generation gap. (Student Interview 2010)

The impact of this rapid change, and the profound differences in experience between generations, is evident in South Korea’s contemporary youth. The current isipdae are the first South Koreans to have lived their entire life in post-1987 democratic South Korea. They have grown up amid prosperity and relative peace and are Korea’s most highly educated and internationally connected generation. These 20-somethings are the third or fourth generation of post-division South Koreans. As a result, the current isipdae hold attitudes that are both novel and distinct 49

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

from Korea’s older generations and from previous generations of young people. These differences are particularly evident in their attitudes to North Korea and unification. We saw in Chapter 2 how the disjuncture of the political and national unit, following the division of the Korean peninsula, triggered nationalist sentiment and prompted passionate calls for unification from the youth and student movement in times past. We will see that such feeling no longer holds true for many young South Koreans. There are falling levels of interest in unification and growing antiunification sentiment among the isipdae and the division of the peninsula no longer inspires the fervent nationalist sentiment seen among previous generations of South Korean youth. These changing attitudes to unification and North Korea signify a fundamental shift in the understanding of nation among South Korea’s contemporary 20-somethings. This transformation in attitudes to unification has occurred because, for many young South Koreans, the concept of the national unit, their “imagined community,” includes only the people and territory of the southern part of the peninsula; the people of North Korea are regularly seen as different, foreign, and not part of the national unit. This is confirmed by the isipdae’s understanding of the words uri nara (our nation): South Korea, uri nara, has become a separate and independent people and nation. For rising numbers of young people in the South, then, the political unit and the national unit coincide in the South Korean nation and their sense of political nationalism is fulfilled. Thus, these young people show signs of a separate emerging national identity. They are a generation of South Koreans who increasingly define themselves in terms of the southern part of the peninsula, and through this we see the emergence of a new South Korean nationalism. “North Korea Fatigue”: Falling Levels of Interest in North Korea and Unification

The passionate pro-unification sentiment that was conspicuously present throughout South Korea’s early youth and student movements is now conspicuously absent among young people today. “North Korea Fatigue” was how Dr. Yoo Ho Yeol, Professor of North Korean Studies at Korea University, termed the declining levels of interest in North Korea among young people in South Korea, and he has outlined important generational differences in attitudes towards unification:

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The first generation [following division] have relatives in the North and their idea about unification is that unification is natural and it is kind of a requirement for them to achieve regardless of cost or burden. The second generation is the so-called 386 generation.3 They are educated and they have experienced democratization in South Korea. Ideologically they are very favorable to unification. The third generation is different. They think they are South Korean and they can’t identify themselves as a member of the one unified Korea. A unified Korea may be good in terms of economic or other personal interests but … once they have considered the costs and burden they do not think it is natural to have a unified Korea. (Academic Interview 2010)

Over recent years a host of valuable articles and commentaries have appeared that recount anecdotal experiences, similar to those of Professor Yoo, which describe changing attitudes to unification (Brinkley 2012). Michael Breen, a long-term follower of Korean culture and social trends, wrote in 2008 that for most Koreans in their twenties and thirties “North Korea has receded into irrelevance.” Breen suggests that the growing disinterest in North Korea and unification is a result of young Koreans’ preoccupation with their own lives as they try to survive Korea’s rapidly changing and competitive society (Breen 2008). Lee Sook-jong (2006) arrives at a similar conclusion in a broader study of nationalism among Korea’s youth. She finds that many are ambivalent toward the issue of North Korea and are only prepared to consider unification if it is likely to be peaceful, gradual, and does not threaten their current standard of living. Survey trends confirm that disinterest in unification among young people is a widespread phenomenon. In the early 1990s, around 80 percent of students expressed an interest in the topic of unification4 (Bae and Kim 1992) decreasing slightly to 69 percent by 1997 (H. Lee 1997). By 2007, however, only 52 percent of students expressed an interest (National Unification Advisory Council 2007). Furthermore, in 2004, more than 75 percent of students said they never or hardly ever discussed unification (Shim 2004), compared with the early 1990s when more than 60 percent of students said they discussed unification sometimes or often (Bae and Kim 1992). These survey results were confirmed by the interviews conducted between 2009 and 2014 which also explained the personal experiences of young people and their relationship with the topic of unification:5 This is the first time [I’ve discussed unification]. (Student Interview 2014) I’ve never thought about unification. (Student Interview 2014a)

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

We don’t really talk about [unification] much. We did in the army. But once we finished our service we got caught up in life. We tend to talk more about school and girls. (Student Interview 2014b) Yes [I talk about unification]. But most of my friends are foreigners. (Student Interview 2014c) I do not have any young friends around me that are interested [in unification]. When we meet together we only talk about some gossip or entertainment—not about unification. We only talk about our private life and social life, not about unification. And I am related [in my job] to North Korean affairs so sometimes I talk about it with my friends but you can guess from their behavior and what they are talking about that they do not have any interest. That is why I think that they do not have any interest in unification. That is my guess. (Activist Interview 2009)

One consequence of this lack of interest is a dearth of support for organizations related to North Korea who find it difficult to attract young volunteers and participants—in stark contrast to earlier generations. One such organization is a large and established youth group in South Korea that “aims to provide a platform to discuss topics such as democratization, human rights and social issues.” This organization runs a variety of programs that bring together young South and North Koreans living in the South through educational programs and other campaigns. The Seoulbased Director General of this organization alluded to the problem of “North Korea fatigue” in an interview saying: “I think young people are not much interested in reunification issues because there are many political conflicts between North and South Korea and so South Korean young people are tired of hearing about it” (Activist Interview 2010). When asked about recruiting young people to participate in their programs, given these low levels of interest, the Director-General replied: We go through university websites and volunteering websites. Actually last year we had a North Korean human rights campaign but at that time it was very hard to find volunteers. For the education program it was very easy to find volunteers, but for the North Korean human rights and reunification issues it is quite difficult to find someone. Education [programs] sound very good [on CVs] …South Korean students don’t want to participate in the political issues and political activities….For them getting a good job is more important than the future of Korea (ibid.).

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The absence of interest in unification is perhaps most conspicuous on the university campuses of Korea’s big cities, where you will find many political banners and posters, far more indeed, than might be found on a typical Australian or British campus. The subjects of these posters cover a wide range of issues, including the environment, democracy, feminism, and social and economic justice. However during months of fieldwork on these campuses, I saw only a few banners relating to North Korea and these only appeared during the time of increased cross-border tension in late 2012 and early 2013. Even during times of serious tension, where North Korea obviously became a more frequent topic of conversation, it did not follow that unification was also discussed. It is unsurprising, then, that in a 2012 survey carried out by the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University, an overwhelming 99 percent of young people said that they had not participated in any activities relating to the support or aid of North Koreans (IPUS 2012). Furthermore, the results of a historical review of two student newspapers from previous hubs of student activism, Yonsei University and Ewha Womans University, neatly summarizes the decline in importance of unification as a topic relevant to readers on university campuses (see Table 3.1).

Frequency of appearance of words

Table 3.1 Appearance of North Korea and Unification-Related Words in Two Student Newspapers6 200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20

0 1985

1990

1995

Yonsei

Ewha

2000

2005

2010

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South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

The evidence presented in Table 3.1 is underlined by the comments of the editor of another student newspaper:7 Most student newspapers don’t really deal with unification. Many of us think that it is not really relevant to us, as it was a long time since we separated and there have been no big problems or change between North and South Korea … in old times we were crazy about Communism or conflict between Communism and other ideologies and so in the older editions there are many articles about North Korea in the 70s or 80s [editions of the newspaper]. But nowadays …. young people are not thinking about any serious matters to do with North Korea or unification. They don’t care much about these. [Students think] they’re not my issues. (Journalist Interview 2010)

We see that across Korea’s young people and students, and on its university campuses, the division of the Korean peninsula no longer gives rise to the same nationalist sentiment seen in previous generations of students. This reflects the fact that, for many young people, North Korea holds little relevance to their daily lives. However, negative attitudes toward unification extend beyond disinterest. Growing numbers of South Korea’s youth are moving beyond mere disregard and are now willing to display, openly, ambivalent and antagonistic attitudes toward the unification of the Korean peninsula. Ambivalence and Antagonism to Unification

The call for unification has long been the cornerstone of South Korea’s national identity and student movement, and unification was assumed to be the hope and duty of every South Korean. However, among the isipdae, the historic pro-unification sentiment is being replaced by growing ambivalence and antagonism. This is accompanied by an increased willingness to openly express such views, which a decade ago would have been considered by many South Koreans to be unacceptable. The number of students opposing unification has been increasing since the 1990s. In 1994, a national survey found that only 11 percent of young people thought that unification was unnecessary (KINU 1994). By 2012, in a similar national survey, this had increased to 29 percent. A further 25 percent of young people did not feel strongly either way. Only a mere 16 percent felt that unification was very necessary (IPUS 2012). In other words, by 2012 well over 50 percent of young people gave a response that could be classed as either negative or ambivalent about unification. The growing antipathy was evident in the face-to-face interviews conducted by the author, which provided a chance for students and young people to

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express their opposition to unification, and many of the responses were very direct:8 I don’t want unification. (Student Interview 2011) [As an architecture student], unification may be an opportunity for architects, but I’m against it because it will be costly. (Student Interview 2014d) I am against unification because I am very satisfied with my life as it is. (Student Interview 2010b) I hope that it won’t happen. (Student Interview 2014e) I am not positive about unification. As I see it, there won’t be any benefits for South Korea. (Student Interview 2010c) I’d rather not have unification. I think it would be best if the two Koreas worked to build an amicable relationship, existing side by side. I think that after sixty years of division, assimilation will be difficult and unification would present significant economic challenges for South Korea. I think a system of federation or confederation will be a more workable option. I can accept unification if it can’t be avoided but I don’t really want it. (Student Interview 2009) To be honest, I don’t care if unification is achieved or not. (Student Interview 2010d)

This increasing antipathy towards unification is recognized and reflected in wider youth culture. Advertising provides a useful insight into the interests of young people, and while nationalist themes might be attractive to advertisers, unification is not. Steve Yi, Head of Strategy for Grey Group Korea (part of WPP, the world’s largest advertising agency), commented that unification would not be considered for inclusion in any advertising aimed at South Korean young people because “a lot of Koreans are actually very, very, agitated about unification … they really think it might wreck the economy … it really hasn’t been a theme in advertising” (Expert Interview 2010). However, this “agitation” about unification does not only apply to those young people who openly reject unification. It also covers the significant number who still express a desire to achieve “one Korea.” Support for unification expressed by contemporary South Korean isipdae holds little similarity with the passionate and nationalistic hope for unification of their predecessors. With the exception of some young

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people who do remain passionate about North Korean issues, most positive responses toward unification come with caveats. In other words, among those who profess support for unification, there is also—and paradoxically—significant evidence of antagonism and ambivalence. For example, in the interviews with young people who expressed a desire for unification, almost all did not want it to take place immediately. Further, the desire for unification was dependent upon removal or mitigation of expected disruption to life in South Korea.9 In a 2012 survey (IPUS 2012), over 80 percent of young people preferred to carry out unification gradually or maintain the status quo. Indeed, more young people stated that they had no interest in unification than those who believed that unification should take place at any cost. One student, when asked during an interview if he wanted unification, replied: “Absolutely. But not in my lifetime” (Student Interview 2010e). Other typical responses included:10 I think that we should wait at least twenty years before we unify, and then it should be in the form of one country two systems. (Student Interview 2010f) I want unification but not now. I want to wait until Korea becomes richer, rich enough to support North Korea before we think about unification. (Student Interview 2010g) I will not agree if the unification process is [to be] completed in ten years. It will cause more tragedy for our society. I think we need thirty or forty years. We don’t want to hurry especially because our generation is not ready for unification. (Student Interview 2009a) I think that North Korea should achieve economic growth through reform and opening policies before we consider unifying with the North. (Student Interview 2010h) I hope [unification] will be achieved later. Just before I am really old. (Student Interview 2014f)

The paradoxes and contradictions in many of these statements may, in part, reflect that unification is still the default policy of the South Korean government and the majority view across wider society.11 The division of the Korean nation resulted from the occupation of the peninsula by foreign armies and, for many, to accept division as a fait accompli is unfathomable. Young people who are anxious about unification, but are unable to reject unification outright because of the burden of Korea’s recent history, manage this paradoxical position by

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supporting the idea of unification but favoring a long deferral of its realization. When seen in this light, the open opposition to unification expressed by many young people should be considered particularly significant. Thus, for many young people, the nationalist sentiment that once drove the unification activism of South Korea’s students and young people, often at immense personal risk, has significantly diminished. For some of South Korea’s youth, that nationalist sentiment has completely disappeared. It now seems possible that many of the isipdae can contemplate a perpetually divided Korea—including some who profess support for unification. The contemporary isipdae are therefore highly unlikely to express their nationalist sentiment through concerns about division. Indeed, as long as the South’s national interests are protected, they can accept a divided peninsula. Through this we see the extraordinary beginnings of a new nationalist sentiment. It is a nationalist sentiment that is motivated by a concern for the interests and welfare of an “imagined community” that is South Korea rather than the unified Korean peninsula. Perceptions (and Realities) of Difference Between North and South Korea

In academic literature on nationalism and nations, primordialists believe that the Korean nation, based upon the Korean “ethnie,” is perpetual and ongoing despite division (see, for example, Smith 1986). From this theoretical standpoint they may argue that contemporary disinterest and negativity towards unification among young South Koreans merely reflects concerns about the financial, political, and social instability that unification is likely to bring. They will then argue that the primordial elements of the Korean ethnie will ultimately overcome these concerns, and will sufficiently bond people to create a unified nation and nationalism. This argument, however, can be countered by exploring changing attitudes among young South Koreans towards North Korean people themselves. North Koreans were once considered equals and ethnic brethren (a concept expressed through the term danil minjok), but South Korean young people today commonly perceive a less equal relationship between the North and the South and that perception is strengthened by some tangible differences between the two peoples. The dominant discourse regarding nation, identity, and unification in South Korea has until recently been based upon the concept of danil minjok and the idea of the ethnic homogeneity of all Korean people. The word danil means “one” or “single” but minjok is a more subtle and

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powerful word meaning “nation,” “people,” “ethnic group” and “race.” Of this last meaning of minjok, Shin Gi-wook (2006, p. 4) writes that “race has served as a marker that strengthened ethnic identity, which in turn was instrumental in defining the nation. Race, ethnicity, and nation were conflated, and this is reflected in the multiple uses of the term minjok, the most widely used term for ‘nation,’ which can also refer to ‘ethnic’ or ‘race’.” Ideas of ethnic homogeneity between North and South Korea continue to be perpetuated in a number of forms, including in a public holiday called Gaecheonjeol or the “Festival of the Opening of Heaven.” This is officially known as National Foundation Day and is celebrated in South Korea on the 3 October each year. It marks the mythical founding of Korea and the Korean race in the year 2,333 BC by the legendary godking Dangun. However, these myths of unified nationhood are being increasingly challenged among South Korean young people by their growing sense of difference and distance from North Koreans. Against the background of ideas of racial purity and ethnic sameness, this separation in identities between the North and the South appears all the more significant. The first generation of Koreans who grew up in the South following division would not have considered those in the North to be any different to them in culture or identity (except perhaps in regards to ideology). Many of this generation had fled from the North or had family that had remained in the North. The 386 generation that followed learned about the North through the first-hand experiences of their parents. They rebelled against the images of the North propagated by the authoritarian regimes of Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo Hwan and created their own image of the northern brethren as their brothers and sisters. Today’s generation of 20-somethings has formed its own image of North Koreans through a quite different lens. Perhaps most importantly, they have had the opportunity to meet North Koreans whose lifetime experiences and expectations are so wholly different to their own. Grinker (1998, p. 54) talks about the excitement his South Korean research assistant felt in the mid 1990s when she talked to a “real” North Korean on the phone, but today, 22 percent of all isipdae say they have met a North Korean (IPUS 2012). Their perceptions of northerners are shaped through actual encounters with the more than 28,000 North Koreans living in the South. They also encounter North Koreans outside the peninsula, for example while traveling or studying in China,12 and interactions with other ethnicKorean immigrants, in particular the Joseonjok (Korean-Chinese), have shaped perceptions of North Koreans and ideas of the wider ethnic Korean nation.13

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Here lies a great irony. As South Koreans’ opportunities to meet and engage with North Koreans have increased, so perceptions of difference have grown. The ideas of a common nation between North and South Korea persisted throughout the historic student movements despite the presence of anti-North propaganda and education. Also absent, however, was interaction with North Koreans. This barrier meant that the differences between the North and South, brought about by an extended separation, were invisible. Thus, it was easier to contemplate the people of the North as part of the same “imagined” national community. Now, however, there is no need to imagine. Understandings of North Koreans are developed through firsthand experiences or through media involving North Koreans now living in the South. These interactions, rather than forming the beginnings of a unified society are instead delineating and highlighting the differences between those from North Korea and South Korea. In the significant media coverage devoted to the plight of North Koreans struggling with chronic food and fuel shortages, the treacherous journeys taken by many North Koreans to escape their country, or the challenges facing North Koreans settled in the South, we see the portrayal of an existence so unlike that which is lived by young South Koreans. Increasingly, this generation’s image of North Koreans is one of difference. One example of this “difference” is language. As a result of the interactions with North Koreans, young South Koreans have begun to perceive the North Korean language as different to their own. In 2012, over 85 percent of South Korean young people said they considered the North Korean language to be different to that used by South Koreans (IPUS 2012). This difference in language is increasingly raised as an issue by young people when discussing unification. For some, it provides further evidence of the separation between the northern and southern identities, or of why unification might not succeed:14 We have different languages, different cultures. After more than fifty years of separation, we have become separate countries. The problem is I have no idea of what North Korea is like. (Student Interview 2009b) In elementary school I had a North Korean classmate. I had an impression he was from another country so I didn’t try to become close to him. [He seemed foreign because] his pronunciation was different and the way he thought was different. [North Koreans] are a little bit frightening. (Student Interview 2014g) I’m a little worried that if Korea is reunited immediately … it would not be possible for them to get any jobs or take some good positions in South

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Korea … our language is different and our emotions and thinking is different. (Student Interview 2013) Such a long time has passed since the division of the peninsula. On the one hand I feel we need unification because of the families that were separated by the war. On the other hand, we have to consider the huge problems that will arise because the South is democratic and the North has only known Communism. There are also differences in language. (Student Interview 2010i)

Yeon Jaehoon (2008, p. 148) argues that, although there are insufficient differences to claim that the two languages are separate, “there exists a large linguistic gap between South and North Korea.” Differences appear in alphabetical ordering, vocabulary, phonetics, and syntax. Stylistics, in particular, mark out the North Korean language as different from its southern counterpart: “in North Korean, style, as a powerful weapon for revolution, is regarded as one of the most important elements in carrying out the social function of language” (ibid.). In North Korean, for example, there is “a preference for short sentences to express militant emotion; preference for a style embodying commands and exclamation, and for an emphatic style achieved through the use of repetition” (ibid.). Another particular stylistic difference, in this case with the South Korean language, is the use of “loan words” (mainly borrowed from English, but also from other languages including Japanese and German), a phenomenon that South Korean young people appear to have embraced with enthusiasm. These linguistic differences are recognized by many young South Koreans with one student pointing out that “North Korea’s language is slightly different to ours. In South Korea we use a lot of loan words [from English]” (Student Interview 2010j). North Koreans, too, have recognized these differences, and among some North Koreans living in the South, there is a perception that the South Korean dialect, with its many English-derived words, is more sophisticated than the North Korean dialect: The South Korean dialect has authority and power in that its words are considered good, fashionable, intelligent, and elegant, whereas North Korean words are perceived (by North Korean immigrants) as uncultivated, uncivilized and unfashionable. By comparing the two dialects in class, North Korean immigrants begin to objectify themselves as excluded, uncivilized and culturally inferior in their new society. Their initial assertion of cultural sameness and inclusion became pointless as they realized they were separated from South Koreans. (Y. Kim 2009, p. 172)

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The differences that have emerged between the two Korean languages, and in particular the stylistic differences, work to undermine a sense of a unified identity. The expectation of sameness that is perpetuated through the myth of ethnic and cultural homogeneity makes these linguistic differences even starker. Of course, differences in language do not necessarily lead to the construction of separate nations, but the shift in attitudes regarding the North Korean language, and the growing sense of difference that accompanies this shift, signifies a widening of the gap between North and South Korean identities. The sense of difference in language is accompanied by a perceived difference in lifestyle and customs. The rising awareness of these variances in lifestyle and customs has further eroded the idea of ethnocultural homogeneity on the peninsula. In 1998, only 18 percent of students thought that family life in North Korea was very different to that in the South (Y. Lee 1998),15 but by 2012, 83 percent of young people thought that family life and customs were very different in the North (IPUS 2012). Young people reiterated this sense of difference with North Koreans in interviews:16 [North Koreans] are weird and at the same time I feel sorry for them. (Student Interview 2011a) I wouldn’t marry a North Korean. I would be uncomfortable. (Student Interview 2014h) North Korea has held onto a communal culture whereas South Korea is adopting more and more individualism. North Korea tries hard to preserve the traditional culture while South Korea does not hesitate to accept foreign culture. I am concerned about these differences. (Student Interview 2010k) I find North Koreans quite different and strange. (Student Interview 2011b) We have been separated for so long and our cultures have diverged so much that I think it would be difficult to recombine them. (Student Interview 2014i)

Perhaps because of this sense of cultural difference, young people in the South exhibit measurable levels of distrust toward North Koreans. In a 2012 national survey, for example, 34 percent of young people disliked the idea of a North Korean business partner, and 46 percent disapproved of the idea of marriage with someone from North Korea (IPUS 2012).

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This distrust may stem, in part, from the importance of economic status in social interactions in contemporary South Korean society (Koo 2007a). North Korean immigrants typically have a relatively low socioeconomic position, and this can make it difficult to achieve acceptance in wider South Korean society. The system of welfare payments and support provided to North Korean immigrants to help them establish their new lives is also a source of distrust for some South Koreans. These welfare programs give rise to complaints of unfairness from South Koreans, and they appear to confirm the stereotype that North Korean immigrants are poor. These circumstances affect not only how immigrants perceive their own identity, but also how their identity is perceived by native-born South Koreans (Y. Kim 2009). Yoon Young Kim remarks that an interview with a school teacher (whose school included many North Korean immigrant children) illustrated a number of biases held by South Korean students. These included the belief that “North Korean immigrants are not really citizens of South Korea and that they will return to North Korea someday” (ibid., p. 180), and that “North Korean immigrants are considered immoral troublemakers who lie and break the law” (ibid.). Similar attitudes are confirmed in surveys. In 2012, for example, we see that 75 percent of young people stated a belief that crime and disorder would become worse after the achievement of unification (IPUS 2012). Those from the North are not trusted by many South Koreans, nor are they considered fully committed to the South, and these beliefs make it difficult for South Koreans to consider North Koreans as citizens of uri nara, our nation. Some tangible differences also emphasize the gap between North and South Koreans. Statistics collected by international agencies show that stark differences exist between those who live in the North and those who live in the South. Average life expectancy at birth in North Korea (male and female) is 69 years, while in South Korea it is 81 years.17 In North Korea, approximately one in every three children is chronically malnourished or “stunted,” meaning they are too short for their age (WFP 2013) and anemia is considered to be a serious public health problem there.18 The economist Daniel Schwekendiek (2009) writes that “for socioeconomic reasons, pre-school children raised in [the] developing country of North Korea are up to 13 centimeters shorter and up to 7 kilograms lighter than children brought up in South Korea. North Korean women are also found to weigh up to 9 kilograms less than their southern counterparts.” In an interview with the author, one South Korean student commented: “I took a class on Confucianism and the teacher introduced [the new students] as North Koreans. They look different” (Student

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Interview 2010m). This student may well have been witnessing these increasing physical differences. When there was absolute separation of the North from the South, with no opportunity for contact with North Koreans and little information about the North, it was possible to imagine that people on either side of the border were mostly the same. But as we have shown in this section, interaction between North and South Koreans has highlighted both perceived and real differences, for example in language, lifestyle and appearance. When one student attended a lecture by a North Korean while at high school, she explained her feelings: There was a sense of kinship but also sympathy. When I saw [the North Korean] I had to think about how hard her life must have been. But it meant that I couldn’t think of her as an ordinary South Korean. In my mind, I know they are the same ethnicity, but in real life, when I actually meet a North Korean, there is a difference or gap between us. (Student Interview 2014j)

For many young South Koreans, these differences render unification less meaningful on the basis of “sameness,” while for others the differences simply underline the foreignness of North Korea. That latter feeling was voiced by a student who commented that, in the event of unification, “North Koreans would need some time to adapt to our foreign culture” (Student Interview 2010n). For many of the isipdae, the very real differences they see among North Koreans are challenging earlier assumptions of homogeneity between the South and the North. This confounding of long-held assumptions has important implications for the evolving sense of South Korean national identity. Motivations for Unification: Han Minjok and Uri Nara

It is important to acknowledge that there are still many young people in South Korea who express support for unification when their views are canvassed by pollsters and researchers. Exploring their reasons for supporting unification helps us to uncover the complexity of the attitudes that young people have towards North Korea, nationalism and identity. The most frequent justification for supporting unification remains “one people.” Some South Korean young people hold a profound concern for the plight of North Koreans, and this drives them to push for unification. A few of these come from families who have been separated by division (although these stories are increasingly rare with the passing of the older

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generation that had memories of family in the North), while others continue to believe in the ethnic nation and a sense of common nationality and community:19 I heard the UN recommended that Korea should not use these words [danil minjok or han minjok (one ethnic people)].20 The concept of danil minjok, or han minjok, was taught to me from when I was young. Though South and North have been separate for more than fifty years, we are still the same people because we share a long history. Moreover, North Koreans and South Koreans are the same people because we speak the same language and I feel close to North Koreans because I believe that if people speak the same language, they will have a similar way of thinking. (Student Interview 2009c) I am on the positive side [regarding unification]. A few days ago there was a reunion of separated families. I watched it and it made me so sad. That’s mostly why I want unification to happen. (Student Interview 2014k) I think that we should unify because we are one ethnicity. There is the economic benefit of course, but the fundamental reason for unification is that we are the same people. (Student Interview 2014m)

Many others, however, are confused about ideas of homogeneity and its relationship with unification. In the textbooks that have guided the education of these young people in matters such as unification, there has been a trend toward emphasizing heterogeneity in the social and economic life of the North and South (Grinker 1998). In other areas of education however, including history and geography, we see the homogeneity of the people of the North and South still being taught. Primordial myths such as Dangun, and views about the ethnic purity of the Korean race and the historical perpetuity of the Korean nation, have remained an important part of the curriculum (Teacher Interview 2010). While young people are now less likely than older age groups to provide “one people” as their motivation for unification, this aspect of their education described by the teacher means that ideas of ethnic homogeneity of the Korean race and the primordial basis of the Korean nation still appears in the rhetoric of many young South Koreans. In a recent survey, 37 percent of young people gave “one people” as a reason for wanting to achieve unification (IPUS 2012). That apparently high figure needs to be treated with caution, however, given the lack of interest in North Korean issues among young people. One possible explanation for the survey result is the persistence of an ethnic type of nationalism but it is also likely that young people resort to learned responses like “one people” or “sameness” when pressed

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to answer an unexpected question about unification. It is helpful, therefore, to analyze some interview responses which reveal the internal struggle that some South Korean young people have with the concepts of identity, ethnic sameness, and unification. Two different cases are presented below. They are students from the same university (Sungkyunkwan University) interviewed on the same day: Case Study 1

Statement 1: Question: What do you feel about unification? Answer: “For one thing we have to achieve unification because we are the same people … [but] I think we need more time.” Statement 2: Question: What does uri nara mean to you? Answer: “When it comes to uri nara I only think of South Korea. I don’t think of unification that much in my life. I think North and South Korea are two separate countries.” Statement 3: Question: Have you ever participated in a North Korea-related organization? Answer: “I once met a North Korean when I was a high school student; a man from North Korea came to my school to give a speech. I saw him then … by the way, he looked like a South Korean, because although he had spent a long time in North Korea, he didn’t look any different from us.” Statement 4: Question: Do you think that foreign immigrants can become Korean? Answer: “If immigrants get to know the Korean culture well, spend a long time here, can fully communicate with us even though they were not born in Korea and if they adopt the Korean culture, they can live as a Korean with Koreans together” (Student Interview 2010o). Case Study 1 above demonstrates the inconsistency of labeling those from the North as “one people” with the South while simultaneously using ideas of “us” (uri) to refer only to those in the South. For this student, the idea of “us” or “our” seems to only refer to the South. The student states that North Koreans are the same people, but also believes that it is important for North Koreans to resemble “us” in order to qualify as a member of the same nation, uri nara, South Korea. In this respect, North Koreans are not that different from other foreign immigrants described by the student. Both North Koreans and foreign immigrants can be

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considered as “the same people,” but only if they conform to the norms of South Korea. If they do not conform, we can assume that they must be considered “different” and not part of the Korean nation. Case Study 2

Statement 1: Question: What do you think about unification? Answer: “We must achieve unification no matter what. We are the same Korean people.” Statement 2: Question: Would it be acceptable for unification to take place immediately? Answer: “We can’t possibly unify right now, but we will be able to achieve it eventually and relatively smoothly through diplomatic negotiations.” Statement 3: Question: Do you think that North and South Korea are the same country? Answer: “I think that North and South Korea are the same country.” Statement 4: Question: What are your feelings toward North Koreans? Answer: “I feel really sorry for them [North Koreans]. They must recognize us as the same people as them, and want to be friendly. But they can’t because of their ideology so I really feel sorry for them.” Statement 5: Question: Is democracy important to your identity? Answer: “Yes. Under a dictatorship, people have no choice but to adopt the ideology propagated by the rulers. Under democratic rule, however, we can extend our own personality, I think.” Statement 6: Question: Do you think that immigrants can become Korean? Answer: “Sure. I have a friend who is an immigrant. I don’t remember where she is from—somewhere in Southeast Asia.” Statement 7: Question: Do you think that Joseonjok [Korean-Chinese] can become Korean? Answer: “If Joseonjok want to become Korean they can” (Student Interview 2010p). For the student in Case Study 2, northerners and southerners are the same people—but not quite yet—and the student believes that North Koreans need to recognize that they are the same as the South (not,

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significantly, the other way round). The implication of statement five is that the highly repressive political system in the DPRK deprives North Koreans of a political voice, and that, as a result, North Koreans are less developed as people because, in the student’s own words, they cannot “extend their own personality.” Furthermore, there is the suggestion that their political circumstances have prevented North Koreans from realizing their “Korean-ness” in the “correct” image of the South. They must therefore “recognize the South as the same people” and “want to be friendly” in order to become one people again. From the perspective of this student, the North lacks both democracy and the individuality of South Korea, and it is this that has created a barrier between North and South. As such, the onus is on North Koreans to change. In addition, the expression of pity toward those from the North could certainly be seen as condescending, although it is driven no doubt by a genuine sense of concern. It is also interesting that this student appears to quite readily accept the idea that non-ethnic immigrants can become Korean. Indeed, a friend who the student describes as an immigrant is sufficiently Korean that the student cannot even remember the friend’s country of origin. This idea is underlined when the student adds that Korean-Chinese (Joseonjok) are welcome to “become” Korean if they choose. This suggests that ideas of sameness and “one people” are not necessarily about ethnicity, but are instead about adhering to South Korean cultural norms. All of these responses are suggesting that northerners are not quite perceived as part of the same whole. Such answers do not in themselves suggest the demise of the Korean ethnic nation. However, they do illustrate the complexity of ideas of nationhood and the national unit in South Korea, as young people confront a nation of people in the North who they perceive as very different from themselves but who are supposed to be the same. Motivations for Unification: “South Korean Motivations” and Colonialism

Even in its confused or superficial form, the idea of ethnic homogeneity as a motivation for unification is decreasing in importance among young people. So what else may be motivating young South Koreans to support unification? One striking characteristic common among young South Koreans who support unification is that they do so for reasons that are best described as “South Korean (nationalist) motivations.” This means that some young people support unification because they believe it could benefit South Korea, for example by providing economic growth and

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increased national power and prestige. In a similar way, others have stated in interviews that they support unification because it would allow the South to exploit the North’s natural resources, provide access to cheap labor, put an end to the civilian military draft in South Korea, and stop other nations (particularly China and Russia) from expanding their interests in the North. Survey data shows that the relative importance of South Korean motivations (such as economic gains and peace and stability) has increased while more peninsula-wide reasons for desiring unification (such as “one people” and “divided families”) have declined. In a 1994 survey, for example, more than 65 percent of young people were motivated by “peninsula-wide” reasons for wanting to achieve unification (KINU 1994). By 2012 this had fallen to less than 50 percent (IPUS 2012). The changing attitudes of young people are reflected in their commitment to South Korea and its interests when contemplating unification and some of the more typical examples of these South-Korean motives are reflected in the following responses from students during interviews:21 I want unification because the current situation of being divided into two different nations is causing lots of difficulties for South Korea in many aspects like economics and politics. So when North Korea is having missile experiments then the stock market in South Korea falls significantly, and I heard that there are some institutions that grade nations for their credit but they cannot give [South] Korea the best grade because of this problem. And we have to spend a lot of money on military, young men have to do the military service and I think it is a great waste of their life. And [there is] the tax problem as well. We spend a lot of money on the defense part in preparation for the war, since the war has not ended yet and so on. (Student Interview 2010q) I am a Korean man and so I will have to complete my military service. If South and North Korea establish friendly relations, life would be much easier for me in the military. I might be able to spend less time in the army. Unification might mean the end of conscription. (Student Interview 2009d) I am a Christian … “love our neighbors” is important. We have to absorb them [North Koreans] into our society. But I think that in the long run reunification can bring much more benefit [for South Korea], specifically [it] can also bring territorial expansion between North and South Korea. Now we are just half a peninsula. Sure we have enough economic power and military power [but] we still lack … some certain power because of the lack of territory. Because of the expansion of the territory [after unification] we can maximize and realize more power in [the] global society. (Student Interview 2013a)

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South Korea is not big enough to succeed in the global community. We must reunify to become a truly developed country. Hyundai reported that Korea will become the 7th largest economy by 2050. In order to achieve that goal, we must unify. (Student Interview 2014n)

North Korea has the larger share of the peninsula’s mineral deposits, and unification would give South Korea access to them. The many natural resource opportunities in the North include high-grade coal, iron ore, nonferrous metals such as zinc and copper, and precious metals such as gold and silver. It is also one of the world’s primary sources of magnesite, a refractory material used in the steel industry and North Korea’s deposits of this raw material is of global significance (EIU 2008a). Other natural resources of North Korea include its mountains, uplands and forests which cover about 75-80 percent of the total area of the country. Notwithstanding their degradation and poor management under the current regime, they could provide future forestry and hydroelectric opportunities, as well as attractive tourist destinations for South Koreans known for their love of hiking (EIU 2008a; 2008b). Apart from having the larger share of natural resources, the North is also seen as having human resources that could be a source of cheap labor for South Korean companies. Indeed, South Korean companies already benefit from this cheap labor through joint enterprises they have set up with the North located in the Gaeseong Industrial Complex. However, some of the reoccurring South Korean-focused justifications for unification have a strong colonial tone—the perceived economic benefits unification would bring by facilitating economic growth through the exploitation of the North’s natural resources and its cheap labor; and the belief that South Korean dominance of the peninsular would increase national prestige and security, giving it the ability to better contain the influence of its powerful neighbors to the North—China and Russia. The colonial quality of the discourse on unification in South Korea has been highlighted before by scholars such as Grinker (1998) and Clark (2002), but these new South Korean justifications for unification have further intensified the colonial tone of unification discourse. According to the Penguin Dictionary of Politics (Robertson 1993), colonialism requires two conditions: “the land that is held as a colony should have no real political independence from the ‘mother country’, but also the relationship must be one of forthright exploitation. The entire reason for having colonies is to increase the wealth and welfare of the colonial power.” It then adds that colonial government is often justified “sincerely or otherwise, as an attempt to spread ‘civilization’ to socially underdeveloped societies.”

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If we think of the future of the Korean peninsula using these terms of reference, the mother country is South Korea. South Korea is (and will remain) economically and politically the dominant partner, and it would be expected to determine the direction of any type of unification or cooperation between the North and the South.22 Opportunities in the North, including cheap labor and natural resources, are openly discussed as a justification for unification, and this places discussion of unification within the paradigm of colonialism. This should give rise to serious concerns because when combined with the use of “civilizing” terms such as liberation, paternalism, and freedom, those justifications for unification too neatly fit the definition of colonialism. For example:23 I think we must achieve unification. This country is much more likely to develop economically, culturally and politically if we achieve unification. For example, currently we can’t make use of natural resources in North Korea. (Student Interview 2009e) North Korea has abundant natural resources, and we’ll need to achieve unification in order to obtain those resources. (Student Interview 2009f) Unification will reduce the cost of defense and enable us to devote that spending to make a better society. We’ll be able to do more cultural and economic exchanges after unification. And natural resources are abundant in North Korea—that will help to boost the economy. (Student Interview 2009g) If we don’t achieve unification and stay as we are the gap between the cultures of South and North Korean will continue to widen and become increasingly strained. So it would be much better if we could achieve unification. For example, because North Korea is separated from the South, the North is demanding too much in regards to the South’s activities in the Geumgang mountain tourist district. Unification will put an end to these kinds of difficulties. (Student Interview 2010r)

The reference to “put[ting] an end to these kinds of difficulties” in the last interview extract could be interpreted as alluding to the likely dominance of the peninsula by South Korea after unification. That dominance, in the mind of the interviewee, would remove difficulties that are encountered when dealing with the North. After reading this particular interview, my research assistant became rather agitated and remarked, somewhat despondently, that “South Korean students seem to think natural resources and tourist attractions will become disposable [assets to be used] for South Korea’s sake once unification is achieved!”

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Colonial undertones are also reflected in the desire expressed by some South Korean young people to “protect” the North from exploitation by others (whether China, Russia or the current regime in the DPRK). In this we see the latent colonialism being wrapped up with expressions of paternalism and humanitarianism:24 Yes, I want unification because it is better for North Korea not to be dependent upon China and to be with us because the Chinese will exploit them … the Chinese don’t think about the North Koreans’ welfare and just exploit them and do what they want. But if the South takes the North and exploits it, some South Koreans will [speak out] about humanitarian [issues]. (Student Interview 2009h) I quite support reunification … we have been separated for more than sixty years. We have the same historical experience … the same background, same language and same history, so I think … we should reunify. I am just generally worrying about them [North Koreans] because they are our family and if their own government can’t [take] care [of] … their own people then it should be us [South Korea] who should care about them…. I think it should be us that solves this sort of thing and I want it to be sooner…. I worry about that, there is China and Chinese are so generally concerned about North Korea … and I worry that when they [North Korea] collapse, they will prefer China … that is why I am concerned about that. (Student Interview 2013b)

Alongside the colonial undertone associated with the desire to “take care of” and “protect,” feelings of sympathy for North Koreans that are expressed in interviews can be condescending and patronizing in tone. North Koreans are often described as pitiable, and needing help and guidance from the South. The Korean verb bulssanghada, translated as “to pity” or to “feel sorry for,” comes up frequently:25 A North Korean refugee came to make a speech at my school. He had a difficult time trying to escape from North Korea and in the process he lost his father. Listening to that lecture, I wanted to achieve unification quickly. However, now, seeing what the North Korean regime is doing, I realized that it would be really difficult to achieve unification with the North. I really feel sorry for North Koreans. (Student Interview 2010t) I really pity them. (Student Interview 2011c) I really pity all North Koreans because of the people in power there. It’s like the powerful people are treating the common people as their possessions or pets. (Student Interview 2010u)

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The colonial attitudes that are evident in South Korean discourse around the question of unification are emphasized by the South Korean disdain for the northern population’s social, cultural and political values. They disregard the contribution that such values could make to South Korea’s own society. Indeed, there is little consideration in the unification discourse of the positive elements that the North could bring to a unified nation. This may seem reasonable given the association of the North’s cultural and political values with the brutal DPRK government, but it fails to recognize that the people of the North might see their own cultural and political identity as something that is separate from that of the DPRK government. For example, the North has its own food and language culture and a recent historical tradition of being the industrial and entrepreneurial heartland of Korea. This latter trait has been reignited in the North in recent years, particularly among the many North Korean women who have become individual entrepreneurs and market traders in order to survive (Lankov 2009). There are also many regional histories and traditions specific to the North that are often forgotten in Korean historiographies (S. Kim 2013; 2010, pp. 3–17). The failure of some young people in the South to recognize that the people of the North may have a separate sense of identity means that many young South Koreans see unification, not as a unification, but as a take-over or absorption of the North. Grinker (1998) warned that the continued idea of unification based on the belief of ethnic homogeneity, without the exploration of heterogeneity and South Korean identity, has distorted the unification discussion. The essence of Grinker’s argument can be stated in the question: Is South Korea a more genuine representation of Korea, and of being Korean, than the North? It is a question that many young South Koreans need to ask themselves as they seek to reconcile their national identity and passion for South Korea with their desire to support unification. The challenge for them is to find in their answer some kind of equality and negotiation between the two identities. If they fail to do this then their justifications for unification will increasingly resemble a paradigm of colonialism. The Meaning of “Uri Nara”

Perhaps the simplest way to demonstrate the existence of a South Korean national identity is to ask young people what their nation is, and who their compatriots are. Koreans will often characterize themselves as a collective people (Na 2008). They define themselves not only by what they might do or achieve as individuals, but also by their relationships to others within their family, school, workplace, or other association or grouping.

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The word “uri” exemplifies this and it is used everywhere in Korean conversation. It may refer to family members, for example, “our” mother or “our” father or “our” family, in the way that some English-speakers might use “my.” A student explained that “we often use the expression uri as the word ‘we’ or ‘our’. I think it is because of Koreans’ community spirit. We feel that we share many things with others in the community” (Student Interview 2009i). Uri nara is one example of this. In the lexicographic sense uri nara means “our nation” or “our country,” and is a phrase commonly used in discussions of country, nation and identity. Data from surveys of young people illustrate the wider meaning of uri nara and its implications for unification and national identity. A 2006 survey showed that 36 percent of South Korean young people (those in their 20s) believed that uri yeongto (“our territory”) referred to the Republic of Korea only (W. Kang 2007). By 2010, this had increased to 57 percent of young people (W. Kang 2011). In a 2010 survey, young people were asked to select one word for North Koreans: enemy; outsider; brother / sister; we (uri) or neighbor. Only 15 percent of young people selected uri (ibid., p. 39). This is compared to 2005 when 37 percent of young people selected uri (ibid.). Responses to questions on uri nara during interviews revealed similar insights. During a visit to a university political science lecture, every student raised their hands to indicate (only) South Korea when asked by the author what uri nara meant to them. In interviews, young people consistently stated that uri nara “means South Korea.” An analysis of individual responses is particularly illuminating. In one interview, a student commented: “I only mean a South Korean when I refer to a person from uri nara. I don’t want to call a North Korean a person from uri nara” (Student Interview 2010v). In another, a student stated: “I mean South Korea, I guess. When I say uri nara, it should refer to a community in which everybody can communicate and share each other’s ideas, but with South and North Korea it is not the case. They are not one country” (Student Interview 2009j). Conclusion

This chapter has taken us through an exploration of changing attitudes to unification and North Korea among young people in South Korea. The highly qualified nature of support for unification, inconsistency around the idea of the Korean ethnic nation, South Korean motivations for unification and, of course, the more obvious rejection or antipathy towards unification, is suggestive of an evolution in ideas of nation and nationalism among many young people in South Korea, and a waning in

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the importance of ethnicity and the concept of one united ethnic Korean nation. The Profound Nature of These Changing Attitudes

Just how profound these changing attitudes are is revealed through the insights of three students who are particularly thoughtful about issues to do with unification, North Korea, and the arrival of North Koreans in South Korea. They are three young people who are students with international experience, who are progressive in their political outlook, and who have had contact with (indeed, have worked directly with) North Koreans. In their interviews with the author they acknowledged that they had struggled with the implications of their experiences and warned that their conclusions might be difficult to comprehend and even shocking. What they say in their statements below demonstrates that there is a chasm of understanding between the ways in which people from the North and South view themselves and each other: Student 1 There are lots of question marks [about unification]. From a cultural perspective there is a huge cultural gap between South and North Korea: in language, habits, ways of thinking. The gap is much bigger than one can expect. I experienced refugees from North Korea reacting sharply to my trivial gestures and language and also I sometimes misinterpreted the way they communicated. These differences, I suppose will be a barrier to unification. And I ask myself: “Are Koreans ready to try their best to overcome this barrier to achieve unification?” I guess not. (Student Interview 2009k)

Student 2 At first, due to the serious human rights situation in North Korea, I thought that we should unify together because the situation is very sad and has to be corrected as soon as possible, and because of that I thought we should be unified. But while working I realized that we are not the same people, we are absolutely different people because [the northerners] have very unique ideas about daily lives and everything and their logical sense is totally different from South Koreans. I am aware that they had a different environment and [are] in [a] new environment, but there are some times and some moments that we argue. And after arguing we did not agree with each other, I just kept my own idea and he or she, the North Korean, kept their own idea. We cannot agree [and] we cannot compromise. And the way they talk is very

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different. I don’t just mean accent or dialect. It is not about dialect, it is about how they talk. They just insist on their own ideas. I try to persuade them or suggest my own idea but they never accept it. They just only insist on their own idea and I was so surprised. I think that unification has advantages and disadvantages for South Korea and the disadvantage would be [that] on the surface we are unified, we can be unified, but deep down in our minds there is no unification, for about one hundred years. I’m not sure we can live together…. I am not sure they could understand our lifestyle when unification was done. (Student Interview 2009m)

Student 3 I used to think that we could unify because I was told that we need unification since I was a child because they [North Koreans] are our brothers and sisters. Then I got that unfriendly email [from a North Korean refugee in reply to my offer to help at their organization which helps North Koreans].26 I was so angry I felt like it was like a war. I really wanted to help as South Koreans are so good at using the internet. There was also a nice and intelligent writer from the North [that I had previously met]. I haven’t met many North Koreans, about ten or so, [but] according to my feelings, most of them, it’s my guess, that most of them are like the unfriendly guy [not the nice guy]. (Student Interview 2010w)

These statements show the power of this chapter’s argument—that many South Korean young people no longer naturally consider North Korea to be part of their national unit. South Korean young people are increasingly ambivalent or antagonistic toward unification and consider those in the North to be different and foreign. This is because uri nara, the national unit, has been formed in the image of South Korea, and this unit coincides with a political unit—a democratic government elected by the people of South Korea. As such, for many young South Koreans, a South Korean nation and nationalism is emerging, and Gellner’s definition of nation in the image of South Korea has been realized. It is possible, of course, that given a dramatic event, some of the attitudes to unification detailed in this chapter may change. Interest in North Korea or discussions about unification might increase in the context of serious belligerence by the North or evidence of political change within the DPRK regime; and the desire to unify might intensify if China, for example, became heavily involved in North Korea. Notwithstanding the potential for such events, the underlying conclusion of the analysis in this chapter—the emergence of a South Korean nationalism—is likely to hold firm.

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Notes

1. When asked what made her most proud about being Korean, one student replied “I think Korea’s hurry-hurry culture is good” (Student 2010a Interview). The author first traveled to Seoul in 1998 and recalls many occasions since, when Koreans explained the traditional trait of hurrying in South Korean life, and their feeling of pride that it had delivered such rapid development. 2. Korean vodka. 3. The 386 generation label was created in the early 2000s to describe ardent supporters of Roh Moo-hyun in his successful run for presidential office. It was so termed because the people in this group were in their thirties when Roh Moohyun was elected to presidential office, were at university during the student protests in the eighties, and were born in the sixties. 4. Bae and Kim (1992) survey of students in Daegu region of South Korea only. 5. These quotations were in response to the question: “Are your friends interested in unification?” 6. The frequency of appearance of the following words in the Yonsei University and Ewha University Korean language student newspapers were counted and analyzed: “Bukhan” (“North Korea”), “tongil” (“unification”) and “Jeondaehyop” which reformed under the name “Hanchongnyeon” in 1993 (it is a student group that focused on unification and North Korean issues). 7. This quotation was in response to the question: “Are your readers interested in unification?” 8. These quotations were in response to the questions: “What do you think about unification?” and “Do you want unification?” 9. An anthropological study of North Korean refugees suggests that the attitudes of the South Koreans discussed here are vastly different to those of North Korean refugees. North Korean expatriates living in Seoul are often shocked by the attitudes of many South Koreans to unification: A [North Korean] immigrant student came to me one day, very angry over something that had happened in morning class. The teacher had asked the students to raise their hands if they wanted unification of the Korean peninsula. Few of the South Korean students raised their hands. This surprised and upset the North Korean immigrant students. They were disappointed that their South Korean classmates did not care about reunification. In addition, they had heard that South Koreans do not want unification because it would result in a deteriorating economy in South Korea. (Y. Kim 2009) 10. These quotations were in response to the questions: “What do you think about unification?” and “When do you want unification to take place?” 11. The 2012 IPUS survey shows for the South Korean population as a whole that 57 percent of people think that unification is necessary, 21 percent are negative about unification and 22 percent are ambivalent (IPUS 2012). 12. There are many North Korean-run restaurants and other enterprises in the major cities of Northeast China and these serve Chinese and foreigners, including South Koreans.

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13. South Korea’s aging population, low birth rate and highly educated populace have left it with a shortage of workers in unskilled professions. To help make up this shortage, Joseonjok and other ethnic Korean migrants (such as Goryeoin, ethnic Koreans from the former USSR) have been encouraged to move to South Korea through preferential visa programs which allow them to find work at salaries much higher than could be earned in their home country. 14. These quotations were in response to the question: “What do you think about unification?” 15. IPUS data based on surveyed “young people” (aged in their twenties). Lee Yong Gyun (1998) data for “students.” 16. These quotations were in response to the questions: “What do you think about unification?” and “What are your feelings toward North Koreans?” 17. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN (accessed 15 September 2015). 18. http://www.wfp.org/countries/korea-democratic-peoples-republic (accessed 15 September 2015). The WFP’s operation in North Korea targets 2.4 million of the most vulnerable women and children and food insecure families. 19. These quotations were in response to the question: “What does danil minjok or han minjok mean to you?” 20. [because it implies racism] 21. These quotations were in response to the questions: “Do you think that unification will benefit you?” and “What do you think about unification?” 22. It is recognized that other nations such as China may also play a significant role in events on the peninsula. For the purposes of this discussion, however, the assumption that the South Korean state would be dominant over the North Korean state is a reasonable one, even if China were to become involved, as the competing interests would be between South Korea and China. 23. These quotations were in response to the question: “What do you think about unification?” 24. Ut sup. 25. These quotations were in response to the questions: “Have you ever met someone from North Korea?” and “What are your feelings toward North Koreans?” 26. The email, which the author viewed, was from an NGO run by North Korean defectors. The student had written to the NGO to offer help with translation and other activities on a voluntary basis. In her application she highlighted her (impressive) educational credentials as a student at one of Korea’s elite educational institutions. The email refused the student’s offer of help and criticized her for bragging about her educational background stating that they were capable of running the NGO themselves without her assistance.

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New Nationalist Attitudes in Action

“I feel some grand new and Great Spirit will come from the Korean people. When that spirit is born in Korea, it will help all mankind.” —Kim Chi Ha, Korean poet imprisoned under the Chun Doo-hwan regime. “Large [Korean] companies are producing high quality products and exporting them globally. They are promoting Korea to the rest of the world. I am so proud of Korea’s achievements.” —South Korean Student, 2010.

Daehanminguk! O Pilseung Korea! (Republic of Korea! Oh, victorious Korea!). These familiar chants heard at South Korean soccer matches are examples of nationalist sentiment talked about by Gellner that express satisfaction when political nationalism is fulfilled (H. Lee 2008). It is a demonstration of pride in being a citizen of that nation, a desire to see that nation succeed (in this case through soccer), and an expression of belonging. Indeed, nationalist sentiment is very evident among this generation of young South Koreans: in the last World Values Survey (WVS) in 2010, nearly 90 percent of young South Koreans declared that they were quite proud or very proud of their nationality (WVS 2010).1 An obvious question arises about this strong sense of pride and nationalism evident among young Koreans. If there is a decline in ethnic nationalism, as we have seen in the last chapter, what are the characteristics of the new and evolving South Korean nationalism and national sentiment? In such evolutions of nationalism, as Brubaker (1998) suggests, there are no absolutes and the emerging nationalism that defines South Korean identity among young people is one of complexity, simultaneity and multiplicity. However, one aspect of this evolving nationalism is apparent and this is its globalized cultural quality that reflects shared 79

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cultural values, influenced by Korea’s rapid development and globalization. In this chapter, daily expressions of South Korean nationalism among young people are examined in order to witness these new South Korean nationalist attitudes in action. Globalized and cultural concepts including modernity, cosmopolitanism and status are the new means through which the isipdae express national pride and national identity in their daily lives. These concepts have their roots laid deep in the neo-liberal and globalization policies that have shaped South Korea in the last decades. As key attributes of a new nationalism, these concepts contrast with the traditional image of Korea as a paradigmatic example of ethnic nationalism and they challenge the dominance of ethnic nationalism as the sole or main mode for expressing national identity among young South Koreans. The three key attributes of this new nationalism—modernity, cosmopolitanism and status—inspire and display a deep sense of national pride among young South Koreans: through their admiration and desire for all things modern; through the importance they attach to learning, worldliness and sophistication; through their commitment to various “enlightened” social causes; and through their preoccupation with their own status and that of their nation. Modernity

Modernity is a key component of the emerging South Korean nationalist sentiment and a source of considerable pride among the younger generation. There is great pride in South Korea’s “economic miracle”2 and the country’s rise from the poverty and destruction of the Korean War to become one of the world’s largest economies. In particular, many young people feel proud that South Korea’s rapid modernization has transformed it from aid recipient to aid donor, thus making Korea a “role model” for other nations:3 There was great economic development … that could be one thing [I’m proud of]. It’s not the fact that Koreans had economic development—it doesn’t just end there. It’s the fact that other developing countries can have hope. (Student Interview 2013c) [Korea] use to be one of the poorest countries in the world, but now it is among the ten most advanced countries. I am proud of this. (Student Interview 2014o) Being Korean means being a link between people in developed countries and developing countries. Being Korean means being a

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member of a national Asian power.... I can understand Chinese and Indians, but at the same time I can also understand Germans, Danish and British ... so in regards to globalization I feel like Koreans have a bridging role. (Student Interview 2009n) Korea used to receive aid. Now it gives aid to other countries. I think that Korea should be more active in giving help to other countries who have problems. (Student Interview 2010w)

As part of that pride in Korea’s economic growth, the achievements of large South Korean conglomerates or jaebol (such as Samsung, LG, and Hyundai) also inspire explicit expressions of nationalist sentiment among young people. Their pride in the jaebol relates not only to their absolute size and profitability, but also to their position as global leaders in cutting edge technologies. Samsung, for example, is ranked 7th in the Interbrand’s “Best Global Brands,”4 which puts it ahead of Nike, McDonald’s and Mercedes Benz, and it has the number one global market share for many of its products including memory technology, visual display units and mobile phones (Samsung 2014). Hyundai, as well as being one of the largest, internationally recognized, car manufacturers, is also the world’s largest shipbuilder with 15 percent of total market share.5 Unlike their contemporaries in other OECD countries, including Germany, Chile, Spain and the U.S., South Korean young people have high levels of trust in their major companies (WVS 2010). As a result, young people frequently express great pride in these prominent symbols of South Korea’s modernity:6 Korea is a small country, but the fact that it has great companies like Samsung is admirable. (Student Interview 2014p) I don’t think [foreigners] really knew about Korea in the past. However, we now have major companies like Samsung enhancing our national prestige. (Student Interview 2010x) Korea is famous for its culture, electronic equipment, rapid development and IT industry. I am really proud of all of these aspects. (Student Interview 2010y) [I am most proud of] the electronics part, Samsung, LG. And when they ask me in the US about Korea I just ask them about their cellphone and that it is made in Korea and they didn’t know. (Student Interview 2010z)

Their pride is such that any failure to recognize these achievements can incite nationalist anger or frustration (H. Lee 2010). Young South

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Koreans who have traveled overseas express considerable irritation about the preoccupation of foreigners with North Korea, and their tendency to confuse modern South Korea with “backward” North Korea:7 [Foreigners] have no idea about Korea. When I was in the United States, I found people there only knew China, Japan, and North Korea among the Asian nations. That really annoyed me and it made me think “what the heck is Korea doing?” At that time I even admired Kim Jong-il for managing to become world-famous! Americans had no idea who the President of South Korea was, but all of them knew Kim Jong-il. I was really angry that my country was performing so badly and even Kim Jong-il was doing better! (Student Interview 2010aa) I lived in Montreal for a year. Many people there had heard of Korea but didn’t know much about the country. The first thing that they asked me when they found out I was Korean was if I came from the North or South! And lots of people thought that companies like LG and Samsung were Japanese because they are not properly promoted as Korean. When they think of Korea (Hanguk), the first thing that comes to their mind is the division of the peninsula, and second that North Korea is an evil country. That makes me pretty unhappy! (Student Interview 2010bb) I read some news articles about national branding and Korea. South Korea is ranked relatively low compared to its economic competitiveness because people associate South Korea with North Korean issues and all the nuclear problems and instabilities. So foreigners tend to see South Korea as a very unstable country and that people are living under an unstable peace…. I guess [unification] will benefit South Korea economically and also help to improve its national branding. (Student Interview 2009o) When I say I’m from Korea, foreigners ask “North or South!” (Student Interview 2014q)

In large part, these frustrations stem from a disconnection between how young South Koreans view themselves and how they are viewed by others. While foreigners may associate South Koreans with North Koreans, young South Koreans are much more likely to see similarities between themselves and citizens of other modern and developed nations, in particular the United States. In a 2012 survey by Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies (IPUS), students were asked which nation they felt closest to and more than 64 percent pointed to the United States (IPUS 2012). “To be honest,” remarked one student, “South and North are almost different countries. Americans or

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Europeans are more similar to us in their way of thinking than North Koreans” (Student Interview 2010cc). Given the extent to which young South Koreans take pride in their nation’s modernity, it is perhaps unsurprising that they also demand modernity for themselves and that they seek to express their modernity in all aspects of their lives. Being current and fashionable is vital to the isipdae, and displaying modern and cutting-edge products is an increasingly important means of expressing one’s self and one’s identity. Steve Yi, Head of Strategy at WPP-Korea, commented in an interview that although young people still prefer Korean brands (as an expression of their loyalty to South Korea), their desire for modernity means they will choose non-Korean brands if they are more modern and of a higher quality: The iPhone is an example of one of those items that transcends cultural barriers…. Whether you like it or not, things like the Sony Playstation, you can’t copy it, there’s no Korean equivalent ... if it’s copiable then they will try to copy it and make a better version. But if it’s not then young Koreans accept the fact that it’s the best out there and there’s no reason why they should settle for second best. (Expert Interview 2010)

This preoccupation with modernity is also accompanied by an increasingly ambivalent attitude towards tradition. The 2010 World Values Survey revealed that nearly 70 percent of young South Koreans think that tradition is unimportant—a much higher proportion when compared to other age groups—and advertisers are now careful to avoid any references to “tradition” in campaigns that target young consumers (WVS 2010). As Steve Yi explains: [Young people] always want to move with the new so definitely you would avoid any sort of traditional communications … which means avoiding things like using Chinese characters. Even if they could understand them they would think that they are old…. Korean traditional dress or historical communications automatically says old. You would have to be really creative to make that work. Using traditional ideas is very dangerous because it can backfire really quickly. (Expert Interview 2010)

It is not surprising to find that young people today are less traditional than older generations. Yet “traditional” ideas of culture, as an expression of national identity, were an important element of South Korean student activism in the 1970s and 1980s which took place in the form of the minjung movement. The minjung movement embraced rural customs and

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historical rituals and practices such as madangguk (folk drama), talchum (mask dances) and pungmul (four-instrument music groups). It used these forms of traditional national identity to depict the unfairness of the authoritarian regime, to express solidarity with the oppressed elements of Korean society—the minjung—and to register protest.8 Through such portrayals of identity, the students were able to present a national “counter-image” to the military dictatorship, and to the Korean conglomerates and foreign powers, which they believed dominated national power and national identity (N. Lee 2007, pp. 187–212). In contrast to this, we see among the twenty-somethings in contemporary Korean society, a portrayal of national identity that has been thoroughly transformed to a modernized concept of South Korean culture and nation. This demand for the modern is reflected in many of contemporary Korea’s arts, particularly those attracting the interest of young people as performers and audiences. This does not necessarily mean a rejection of older styles of music and performance, but it does require an adaptation and presentation of classical cultural forms in exciting and innovative ways. Drumming shows such as Dulsori are good examples of this.9 Dulsori uses Korean percussion traditions that are performed by young, classically trained, drummers who present their music in modern and engaging ways. By representing Korea as youthful, contemporary and exciting, Dulsori has enticed both young audiences abroad and at home in Korea (Brown 2007).10 Another example of this demand for the (very) modern is b-boy dancing. B-boy dancing developed from break dancing, which has its heritage in African-American youth culture, yet b-boy dancing has become a completely new representation of Korean national culture. Korean b-boys are now world leaders in this style of dance, with teams from Korea winning six of the last ten “Battle of the Year” competitions, the most prestigious competition in team b-boy dancing.11 The b-boy style of dance has a huge following among young South Koreans and the influence of this modern Korean cultural phenomenon is so deep that it is now considered an integral part of any representation of Korean culture in overseas and domestic cultural events. B-boy competitions and b-boy shows attract major support and funding from Korean government bodies. In 2007 the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism established the annual R16 B-boy tournament in Seoul which is now one of the major annual international b-boy competitions.12 Other examples of the importance of modernity in youth culture includes Korean cinema where the domestic market demands homegrown movies of the “blockbuster” quality, comparable in status and scale to Hollywood productions. The Korean movie industry produces films that

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successfully compete with Hollywood productions in the Korean domestic market and, occasionally, in overseas markets. The “modernity” and international standard of movies, for example cutting-edge special effects, are often included in the marketing strategies to attract the young domestic audience. The 2007 Korean movie “D-War,” a movie aimed at both the international and local market, was promoted in Korea using a combination of its modern production techniques and nationalism to attract a domestic audience. In the Korean version of this movie, the director included an epilogue that highlighted “the director’s personal struggles and patriotic motivation for making a movie that so graphically displays the high technological achievements of Korean cinema,” giving prominence to the film’s modernity and appealing “to nationalist sentiment so as to maximize profit in South Korea” (N. Lee 2011, p. 57). Lee writes that “such nationalist marketing gave birth to a fanatical fan base that almost blindly defended the film from criticism. Online advocates, for example, violently attacked anyone who dared to express negative views about D-War” (ibid., p.57). Similarly, for the 2006 movie “The Host” (or “Gwoemul”), its domestic promotion emphasized that the movie had its premiere at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Footage of the movie’s director, Bong Joon-ho, at the Cannes screening “among an applauding foreign audience was included in television advertising spots and served to cement perceptions of the director as an internationally recognized talent. The Host was thus positioned as a vehicle allowing the excellent quality of South Korean cinema to be shown to the world.” It achieved, at the time, Korea’s highest ever box office revenue (ibid., p. 56). Outside of the arts, other cultural traditions are being modernized by and for young people. The recent resurgence in popularity of makgeolli is an example of this. Makgeolli is a fermented beverage that is traditionally brewed from rice. It was originally a popular alcoholic drink of the older generations and favored by farmers and the working class. It became a popular drink among young people as part of the minjung tradition during the protest era of the 1980s, but it fell out of favor with youthful drinkers in the 1990s. Makgeolli once again became hugely popular with young people beginning in the late 2000s. Interestingly, though, this trend was not based upon makgeolli as a traditional drink, nor as an expression of folk culture or protest as it had been during the minjung period. Instead, new bars specializing in makgeolli opened in Seoul’s affluent and trendy areas of Apgujeong and Cheongdam. These bars were styled using modern design and served makgeolli in innovative and luxurious ways, such as flavored or iced, and presented in stylish crockery. Celebrities and society’s elites flocked to these bars to enjoy, and to be seen to enjoy,

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makgeolli in this fashionable environment. The new trend for makgeolli later spread beyond the elites to more mainstream youth society. The consumption of rice, the nation’s staple food, has also undergone modernization (K. Kim 2010). Quality, presentation and use of rice have been adapted to reflect modern ways of eating, particularly among the young. A savory porridge called juk, which was previously eaten as a way of making grains stretch further in times of shortage, is now served with a host of additions, from pine nuts to abalone, as a so-called “well-being” food. Another example of this adaption of traditional Korean cuisine are a variety of rice cakes called garaettok. These were once given as ritual offerings in ancestor worship and are still served in soup on traditional holidays. Garaettok have become extremely popular among younger people in a dish called tteokbokki, which are rice cakes cooked in a sweet, spicy sauce (K. Kim 2010, p. 28). Normally a dish served from street stalls, tteokbokki is now being sold in trendy restaurants such as the “School Food” chain. Here you can eat Italian Carbonara style-tteokbokki and drink cocktails whilst listening to quality local DJs.13 Just as elements of traditional culture can be modernized, so expressions of modernity are not necessarily a wholesale rejection of norms and values passed down from previous generations of South Koreans. They can, instead, be a reinvention of values to represent the modern identity of the younger generation. This can be seen, for example, in the ways that the younger generation interact with family. The importance of family to South Korean young people, especially in terms of filial duty, remains strong (Eun 2008). In the 2010 World Values Survey, 85 percent of young people said that family was “very important” and nearly 90 percent agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “one of my main goals has been to make my parents proud” (WVS 2010). In this modernized South Korea, mobile phone use between parents and children has become an important element of filial duty and close family ties. Yoon Kyongwon (2006) shows how close family structures, community networks and even some hierarchical and patriarchal social structures embodying Confucian family norms have remained intact and are reflected in mobile phone usage. In other words, these familial ties have been modernized rather than replaced by technology, and in so doing, this “new technology is perceived and consumed through local filters including social relations” (ibid., p. 767). Similar trends can be seen in the use of the internet. While the internet might have been expected to demolish social hierarchies, the online world has instead developed its own power relationships. Status is achieved through skills in online gaming or by demonstrating deep knowledge of popular topical issues or by writing on subjects that appeal and attract a following. These leaders

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or “jjang” (“the best”) can influence their followers in a variety of fields from consumption to voting patterns (Choi and Ross 2006, p. 424; S. Kim et. al. 2010). This modernization or reinvention of traditional culture among young people has been written about by Dianne Hoffman (1993) in relation to the reinvention and reinterpretation of the concept of uri. We saw in the last chapter that uri, meaning “our,” “we” or “us,” reflects the communal values in South Korean society. Hoffman compares the 1970s and 1980s concepts of national identity, such as anti-Americanism, with newly emerging ideas of identity and uri. In the 1970s and 1980s, ideas of uri were defined among young people in binary opposition to “threatening others” such as the United States and the authoritarian government. In contrast, contemporary young people are instead re-imagining Korean culture to represent both the pride in their cultural heritage and the modernity of their new South Korean identity so that they can “accommodate divergent personal experiences as well as cultural alternatives from foreign sources” (Hoffman 1993, p. 16). In this [current] generation, she says, “we find a strong conviction of the inherent superiority of Korean cultural traditions albeit a need to ‘adapt’ them to suit modern lifestyles” (ibid., p. 17). In doing so, young people demonstrate their nationalist pride in a South Korean cultural identity that is particular to their changing nation. Yet it is a thoroughly contemporary identity, representing the importance of modernity to South Korea’s young people, and one that is in stark contrast to an ethnic identity rooted in historic myths, traditions and a unified peninsula. Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism is a second characteristic of the emerging national identity and accompanying nationalist sentiment of many young South Koreans. Cosmopolitanism represents experience and familiarity with different countries and cultures, and an ability to appear knowing and aware. In the case of South Korean young people’s identity and daily lives, it manifests itself through a rise in importance of international experience and knowledge, of learning and education in youth culture, and a demonstration of cultural sophistication linked to these understandings. It can be expressed in a number of different ways including: through one’s “spec”; through one’s appearance; and through one’s participation in various types of South Korean-focused “enlightened” activism.

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Spec

The concept of individual achievement and advancement is integral to the emerging new ideas of identity and national pride in South Korea. The continuing importance of education in Korean culture (Seth 2002) and the deeply competitive nature of Korean society means that academic achievement is central to acceptance and success as a young person in South Korea. More importantly, for many of the isipdae there is a close link between individual achievement and national success, an idea that reoccurs in the responses of young people who were interviewed. When discussing Korea’s success, for example, one student expressed pride in “such rapid growth coupled with persistently endeavoring people” (Student Interview 2014r) and another stated that he was proud because “Koreans are well educated. This has some side effects but Koreans are used to studying new ideas and theories. That’s how Korea grew so quickly and became an icon of development” (Student Interview 2014s). Yet another student commented that, while Korea did not have many natural resources, “the main resource was its people, its human resources” (Student Interview 2014t). This theme continued to be echoed by young people who expressed pride in Koreans’ diligence or perseverance and linked this to Korea’s national success (e.g. Student Interview 2014u).14 Because many young people hold the view that their individual success is directly linked to the success of South Korea, young people often defend the elitist nature of the Korean education system believing that the system will ultimately enhance the global competitiveness of Korea (Abelmann, Park, and Kim 2009, p. 235). It has also been argued that the insistent demand for English language skills is driven, in part, by the belief that Korea needs English speakers to succeed in the English language-oriented international environment (Park and Abelmann 2004). In the minds of young South Koreans, elitism and competition at the individual level are valuable precisely because they produce highachieving individuals who will ultimately improve South Korea’s global standing (Abelmann, Park, and Kim 2009): People in their fifties seem to think that if the nation benefits then they will also benefit. Contrary to this way of thinking, young people believe that if they benefit, then their benefit will lead to a benefit for the nation. Young people think that their benefit comes first and benefits for the nation follow. (Student Interview 2010dd)15 [Globalization means] that Korea should increase its competency…. I have heard that we should adapt to the global age, that we should learn

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English…. For me, globalization means speaking English and for Korea it’s about gaining competency. (Student Interview 2009p)

The efforts of these young people to achieve, either as individuals or as an extension of the nation’s success, are reflected in the idea of “spec” (스펙 or seupek). Spec (derived from the English word “specifications”) is described in a university magazine as the achievement of “better academic grades than other competitors, more qualifications than others, and even more certifications and licenses as well. The race is getting ever fiercer and fiercer” (An 2010, p. 29). The term is used mainly by young people in their teens and twenties, and it embodies the idea that an individual is a profit-seeker who must make himself or herself as attractive and competitive as possible. So intense is the need to accumulate “spec” it has become a central element of the life and identity of South Korea’s youth. A senior at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies quoted by Jang (2013) described this “need to pile up ‘specs’” thus: Currently, we say that we should have at least nine “specs” to get a good job: which university you graduated from (selective one or not), a high GPA, a high English score, overseas study experience, certificates, a career of winning contests, internship experience, volunteer work and plastic surgery.

In essence, young people have embraced the idea of “selfmanagement” (jagi gwalli). Abelmann, Park and Kim (2009, pp. 232– 233) observed that the “new model student is an autonomous studentconsumer who is responsible for managing his or her own lifelong creative capital development.” Many young Koreans now make educational choices and appraisals using economic rationality and concepts of market value because, as Abelmann and colleagues (ibid., p. 242) have argued, neo-liberal concepts such as self-management have been internalized by students across all tiers and types of university, and these students “accept the ‘burden’ of managing their personal formation.” As one student journalist explained: “now eighty-five percent of Korean students go to university so a university diploma does not really guarantee a job … [students] try really hard to get extra spec like English scores or Chinese scores or something like that or extracurricular activities … university students only focus on spec instead of pursuing their dreams so it is kind of a big social issue” (Journalist Interview 2013). Young people’s search for “spec” has been encouraged and enabled by the huge market that has grown up around education in South Korea. Korean households with children spent more on education in 2012 than

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on any other household expense (Yonhap 2013b). Steve Yi, Head of Strategy at the advertising agency WPP-Korea, suggests that this growing education market has created a superficial and commercial attitude to education, underpinned by a belief that skills and sophistication can be easily purchased: Students think there are a lot of easy fixes to very difficult or complex issues. You can’t fix the fact that your English skill might not be very good by going to an English private institute for six straight months intensively, it just doesn’t work that way. I believe that this is an example of complex issues that they try and simplify. Young people try to simplify education just like they consume products. (Expert Interview 2010)

The rapid embrace by the education sector of neo-liberal restructuring and globalization has, as Abelmann, Park, and Kim (2009, p. 229) have argued, accentuated differences in the “brand capital” of universities. They write that “central to that brand capital is globalization itself, namely universities’ differential ability to go global (e.g. the extent of study abroad opportunities, of English-language course offerings etc.)”—in other words, the cosmopolitan credentials of an educational institution. The growing importance of (and student preoccupation with) the brand capital of universities is reflected in the sort of articles that increasingly appear in university newspapers. The editor of a mid-tier Seoul university newspaper observed that students at his institution were particularly interested in articles about the university’s successes. They believed that their chances in life were inextricably linked with the prestige of their university and so were “very aware of the position of their university” (Journalist Interview 2010). Analysis of the most-read articles in the Dongguk University Korean language newspaper in May 2010 revealed a similar story. Three of the top five articles in this newspaper reported the sorts of successes that would add to the prestige of a university: an article on Dongguk University’s second place national ranking for teacher training; an article celebrating Dongguk University students’ success in the judiciary examination; and an article on the achievement of Dongguk students in the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) examinations. For many students, choosing the “right” university is increasingly based on a university’s prestige, international opportunities and associated alumni network opportunities, rather than the quality of education the university can provide (Seth 2002, pp. 249–251). This shift reflects the growing influence of neo-liberalism and globalization on the priorities of South Korean young people.

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As the Hankuk University senior quoted above demonstrates, the search for “spec” goes beyond items that can be included in curriculum vitae. Aesthetic plastic surgery in South Korea is common and has become particularly popular among women.16 Holliday and ElfvingHwang (2012) have argued that the existing “feminine or culturally imperialist” analyses of the reasons behind this popularity are insufficient for understanding the widespread adoption of cosmetic procedures in Korea. They describe the practice of “marriage cosmetic surgery” and “employment cosmetic surgery” (ibid., p. 73)—procedures undergone by women and men—through which young people attempt to improve their appearance in order to gain advantage in the competitive job and marriage markets. Such surgery has become an element of improving one’s “spec” as “good looks are so equated with success, [and] because the fast pace of contemporary Korean urban life demands quick fixes to any perceived ‘problems’ with one’s body” (ibid., p. 74). Young people can also express their cosmopolitanism and enhance their “spec” by demonstrating their worldliness or “savoir faire.” It is now expected that young South Koreans will be culturally adept in a variety of situations, particularly in an international context, and mastering a foreign language (especially English) is a key attribute of the cosmopolitan. A great many authors have written on the importance of English in determining status in Korea (Seth 2002; Lett 1998; Park and Abelmann 2004; Chosun Ilbo 2010), but Park and Abelmann in particular have argued that “what it means to be South Korean is transforming: increasingly, to be South Korean means to be South Korean ‘in the world’—a prospect that calls for the mastery of fluency in English as an index of cosmopolitan striving” (ibid., p. 650). One can also demonstrate cosmopolitanism and worldliness through foreign experience and travel, and it is becoming increasingly important to study abroad, not only for skills and knowledge but also as “a superficial matter of conferring influence and status” (W. Kim and Song 2007). In an interview, one student proudly remarked: I think there are so many talented people [in Korea]. Like yesterday I was having lunch with a professor and some of the students in our class and he was asking us to say what they are going to do in the summer. Every Korean of our age are living so busily and we’re so competitive because our country is so small but there are so many talented people among the younger people. Everyone had plans to do internships or are studying Spanish or going to India for a conference…. (Journalist Interview 2010a)

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While not every South Korean student can live up to this standard of savoir faire, many work extremely hard to attain something close to it. Participation in tertiary education in Korea is extraordinarily high. According to the OECD, an estimated 89 percent of young people under the age of twenty-five entered tertiary education in 2012 (OECD 2014, pp. 330-339), and over 220,000 young Koreans of university age went overseas to study in 2014 (Chosun Ilbo 2014). These statistics show that overseas study is no longer just an opportunity reserved for elite youth, but is instead a general expectation for this new South Korean generation. As a result of these pressures and the neo-liberal celebration of individual competition, a person’s “spec” is increasingly viewed as a marker of a successful member of the South Korean national unit. This means, therefore, that non-ethnic Koreans with the right “spec” (for example, graduates from Ivy League universities or people with experience at high profile companies) can potentially qualify, in the eyes of the isipdae at least, as part of the South Korean community. Coming from overseas, with native English language skills and other cosmopolitan attributes, there is increasing scope for such people to be considered as fellow “imagined” members of the national unit. Without the right “spec,” however, even some groups of ethnic Koreans struggle to find a place in South Korean society. For North Korean expatriates in South Korea, the expectation of “spec” and savoir faire are particularly problematic. They generally have very low levels of English ability and limited social and economic acumen. They have not had the opportunities provided by a modern education nor the experience afforded by overseas travel (their incidental experience as refugees in China would hardly equate to a semester at an Ivy League college in the eyes of the isipdae). Moreover, their native Korean language is perceived to be colloquial and backward. Thus with limited opportunities to develop international fluency, the exclusion of expatriate North Koreans from the emerging South Korean identity is further entrenched. Myeongpum

In addition to being well traveled and well educated, young South Koreans can also express their cosmopolitanism through their appearance. This mostly involves purchasing internationally-branded clothing and accessories and possessing and displaying myeongpum (“branded goods”). Young people, in their quest for cosmopolitanism, are now overtaking older age groups as the main consumers of global luxury brands (Park, Rabolt, and Jeon 2008). Alongside this, Korea has recently experienced an influx of low-price, high-fashion, international high-street

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brands including Zara, Gap, Uniqlo, H&M and Mango. These are competing with the Korean brands that previously dominated, such as the Samsung-owned Bean Pole. Koo (2007a, p. 8) argues that globalization has increased access to luxury goods and international brands because “new fashions and lifestyles [are] now instantly disseminated to the Korean market from the global center [the West].” Extensive marketing has encouraged a passion for myeongpum and the consumption of foreign (rather than Korean) luxury goods is becoming more acceptable and desirable. Labels such as Louis Vuitton, Prada, and BMW have been carefully promoted as a means of achieving the sophisticated, cosmopolitan and high class identity that South Koreans (and particularly the young) increasingly yearn for in order to reinforce their South Korean identity. And as Koreans become more sophisticated in their taste, more cutting edge brands that appeal particularly to young people are breaking into the Korean market; these include Goyard, Celine and Alexander Wang (Song 2014). Koreans on average own nine designer label goods and buy at least two items per year despite the financial burden this might impose (Yonhap 2013a; Chosun Ilbo 2013a). These purchasing preferences help make South Korea’s $8.3 billion luxury goods market the 8th largest in the world (Song 2014). According to a representative of the Lotte Department Store (one of Korea’s most exclusive department store chains), “the young, unlike their parents, have grown up surrounded by luxury goods, and to them designer brands are simply a means to express themselves rather than an unnecessary indulgence” (Chosun Ilbo 2009b). Brand marketing research suggests that in the Korean luxury goods market there are “positive relationships between purchasing intentions and social related values” (Park, Rabolt, and Jeon 2008, p. 256). These values are “conformity” and “uniqueness,” and while these may appear contradictory, they make sense in the context of the cosmopolitanism and savoir faire aspects of the South Korean identity. The display of a luxury item symbolizes uniqueness, in that the product is expensive and possessing it demonstrates a “unique” ability to purchase luxury. Hence the paradox in which a display of socalled uniqueness is required by young people in order to “conform” in this South Korean society. For those who cannot afford these symbols of sophistication or “uniqueness and conformity,” Koo notes the trend of purchasing fake luxury goods. He writes that “those who were most intimately affected by the myeongpum craze in Korea were the young people in their twenties and thirties. Obviously, most of them would not be able to afford the real myeongpum products, but they were so pressured by this myeongpum syndrome that they turned to purchasing fake myeongpum products in

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black markets” (Koo 2007a, p. 9). More recently, young people have begun embracing foreign mid-priced brands such as Zara and Uniqlo in combination with couture labels as a way of showing their international style on a budget. One Korean fashion expert wrote that “young people like to mix and match their outfits such as wearing H&M clothes but carrying a Hermes bag” as the ultimate demonstration of an identity that aims to express internationalism, sophistication and confidence (Song 2014). “Enlightened” Activism

While young South Koreans have withdrawn from participation in activities related to North Korea and unification, many express an interest in other movements whose goals reflect their cosmopolitanism and savoir faire (and can improve their “spec”). There are those, for example, who have taken inspiration from the saying that “a nation is judged by how it treats its minorities” (Lévesque 1978). Korea’s failure to meet perceived international standards of behavior in this regard has fueled a deep sense of shame among some young people:17 I think that Korea has built a good reputation in the world. Like I said before, Korea is exemplary in that the country has achieved economic growth and democratization. But recently Korea is hurting its own image by treating migrant workers badly. They return to their country and spread a bad image of Korea. (Student Interview 2009q) When Korea gets criticized I feel really ashamed. When Korea is involved in shameful things, I feel sad and guilty. (Student Interview 2009r) There is a lot to be proud of but when I go overseas I am also ashamed of some of the things that Koreans do. I think there are lots of bad things about Korea and I think we’re still in the process of developing and improving those things. (Student Interview 2009s)

One result of this sense of shame is that young people are motivated to be active in movements that have the potential to improve Korea’s international reputation. This is no longer through participation in traditional politics, where they are under-represented in national elections (S. Cho 2008, p. 65).18 Instead they participate through what can be termed enlightened activism—activism that demonstrates their cosmopolitanism and, by extension, the cosmopolitanism of modern South Korea. Any

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movement that has the potential to rehabilitate Korea’s image internationally attracts far more attention than movements that appear peripheral or harmful to that image, such as the unification movement:19 My prime concern is not unification. Issues like women’s rights, workers’ rights, and young people’s rights are much more important to me. I am also interested in the rights of conscripts in the Korean Army, and peace—in a different sense to unification—means a lot to me. (Student Interview 2009t)

Thus young people demonstrate their commitment to cosmopolitanism by involving themselves in “worthy” international and domestic causes. Campaigns relating to education,20 the environment,21 democracy and justice,22 social enterprise,23 and overseas development and aid24 are among such causes. It is not difficult to find domestic issues that might motivate young people to campaign so as to boost Korea’s international reputation. To take one example, South Korea is consistently ranked lowest among OECD nations on indicators that measure the position of women in society, including the gender pay gap and female representation in management (Chosun Ilbo 2008; 2009; 2012). This is linked to patriarchal attitudes that, although gradually being challenged, are still very prevalent in South Korea.25 The anonymous student from Seoul National University quoted above gave priority to his concerns about rights, including women’s rights. Many other young people in South Korea share that view and are inspired to campaign for those issues. Another domestic issue that inspires activism in the current generation of young people is the environmental movement. This has historical links to earlier student campaigns for democracy.26 Environmental groups including Hwanggyeong Undong Yeonhap (Korea Federation for Environmental Movements),27 Hwanggyeong Jeongui (Movement for Environmental Justice),28 and Nuksaek Yeonhap (Green Korea),29 have attracted considerable support from the younger generation. Although the environmental movement is focused upon the interests of South Korea and South Koreans, there is also growing interest in wider global environmental issues; in the 2010 World Values Survey, young South Koreans pointed to environmental issues as one of the most important problems facing the international community.30 Indeed, a number of the environmental groups have international ties—for example, Friends of the Earth are represented in Korea by Hwanggyeong Undong Yeonhap—and Greenpeace recently opened a branch in Seoul. While the environmental movement involves activists of all ages, particular environmental issues have attracted large-scale youth interest.

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One such issue is the Sadaegang project (the Four Rivers Project), “a mammoth water project that would dredge and develop hundreds more miles of waterways and put added stress on the country’s remaining wildlife” (Card 2009). For young South Koreans, the issues surrounding the Sadaegang project relate not only to the environmental damage the project will cause, but also to the perceived failure of the government to listen to their opinions when those opinions are in competition with other dominant interests. As part of an advanced, “enlightened” society, young people believe that they have a right to be heard, and the government’s failure to listen to them regarding this issue has raised broader concerns about the resilience of South Korea’s democracy. These concerns, and a desire to protect the environment, have inspired young people to participate in Sadaegang protests:31 I have to talk about Sadaegang. It’s really stupid. (Student Interview 2010ee) Yes I worry about issues of democracy and the environment. He is ruining our environment… President Lee’s regime is ruining our country. I don’t like anything about him. Like he doesn’t allow us the right of protest. I was there two years ago. It was so bad. I was at the candlelight vigils. (Student Interview 2010ff) Nowadays the situation is different [from the political apathy during the late Roh Moo-hyun period] because our President, Lee Myung-bak has some awful policies like Sadaegang … [young] people don’t like the policy and so in future elections, our generation will support a progressive candidate. (Student Interview 2010gg)

A corollary of environmentalism, and a demonstration of young South Koreans’ commitment to cosmopolitanism, is the “well-being movement.” Welbing (a Koreanized pronunciation of well-being) or the “well-being tribe” describes those “devoted to individualized consumption of nature and the personalization of green values for the sake of their own well-being” (M. Cho 2004, p. 162). The well-being movement has fueled the popularity of so-called well-being products, including organic rice, “natural” beauty products, and clothing made from traditional materials. Hagen Koo (2007a, p. 10) argues that the rise in popularity of these goods is a nationalist reaction, where “the dominant ethos expressed in this cultural response is ‘ours is best’,” as well as a reaction against the perceived threat of cheaper imports, particularly agricultural products from China. Thus, says Koo, “consuming indigenous Korean products has become something that requires more money and more discriminating

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taste, therefore part of ‘well-being’,” demonstrating both national pride and sophistication (ibid.). However, despite this passion for “enlightened” causes such as the environment, there is little interest in the North’s well-documented environmental challenges, all of which continue to threaten the welfare of North Korea’s population (Watts 2004). Only one “environmental” issue relating to the North was mentioned by young people in interviews—the flooding of the southern Imjin River, following a large release of dam water by the North, and the subsequent deaths of six South Korean civilians (BBC News Online 2009; Hankyoreh 2009b)—but this issue was discussed in terms of South Korea’s national security rather than out of concern for North Korea’s current environmental situation (e.g. Student Interview 2009u). This lack of interest in North Korean environmental issues, particularly given young people’s general commitment to environmental activism, illuminates the extent to which their interest in, and concern for, North Korea has dissipated. We have seen that the isipdae are expressing their South Korean nationalism through their participation in social movements but these social movements need to be able to link their cause with South Korean national interests in order to engage young South Koreans. For this reason, the unification movement holds little interest. Young people are instead drawn to movements that appeal to their own cosmopolitan values and can demonstrate to the outside world the sophistication and benevolence of their nation, South Korea. Status

For young South Koreans, status is another core component of their emerging national identity. The importance that young South Koreans attach to the status of South Korea is apparent in their passionate responses to Korea’s economic achievements, to its standing in international forums (such as the arts or academia), and to the appointment of Koreans to high international office. Hallyu (the Korean Wave) describes the massive popularity of Korean drama, music, movies, fashion, and style across Asia, including China, Japan and Vietnam and as far away as Nepal (Maliangkay 2006). With the recent success of the Korean pop star Psy, the Korean Wave has now reached the English-speaking world as well, and the world-wide popularity of Hallyu inspires deep pride among young people. For a large number of the isipdae, it is a welcome reminder of the sophistication and cosmopolitanism of their own national culture. Thus it is a worthy example of how Korean culture can, and should be, “properly” recognized in the international community:32

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I am most proud of the Korean Wave phenomenon. The Korean Wave has swept China, Taiwan, and Japan. In the past, Korea rarely influenced the culture of other countries. Korea has always been accepting and adopting music, film, and architectural styles from Japan and China; now we’re the one to influence those other countries. I am so proud of the Korean Wave. (Student Interview 2010hh) [I am proud] when we make a mark in the international community. For instance, K-pop has helped the Korean Wave spread throughout the world. I’m proud when Korea’s image gains strength globally. (Student Interview 2014v)

Internationally renowned Koreans who inspire particular pride among young people include the pop star Psy, Grammy Award-winning soprano Sumi Cho; “Lost” and “Shiri” actress Kim Yun-jin; principal ballerina of the Stuttgart Ballet, Kang Sue-jin; United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon; and (on a somewhat different level) “Pororo the little penguin,” an animated cartoon for children that was a worldwide hit.33 The nation’s sporting achievements also stir immense national pride among young South Koreans. Across Korea, one finds ubiquitous images of famous Korean sports personalities including US baseball star Ryu Hyun-jin; golfer Park In-bee; the former Manchester United striker Park Ji-sung, and Kim Yu-na, the Olympic and World Champion ice skater. Advertisers use their images to exploit young Koreans’ desire to emulate the international success of these talented sports stars:34 I am proud when Korean sports people do well in the World Cup or the Olympics. They win gold meals and silver medals even though Korea is just a small country. I am so proud when I see them winning medals. (Student Interview 2010ii) Though Korea is a small country, we have some of the greatest sports players like Kim Yu-na, or Choi Min-ho, the judo player. Korea has an influential position in the international sports realm. (Student Interview 2010ww)

In response to these tangible achievements, a strong sense of South Korean nationalist sentiment drives young people to demand recognition of Korea’s successes from the wider community, and to expect that the international community will engage with South Korea as an equal partner:35 Yeah sure [I am proud to be Korean]. Like I hear the news that Korea has been ranked at the 12th or 13th in the world for economic power but

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after attending some international conferences I personally felt that Korea was underrepresented as compared with its relative competitiveness as an economic power. So I think Korea should play more of an international actor or responsible regional actor [role] to improve its influence and at the same time improve its national branding because I think that Korea is kind of underrepresented or underestimated in some countries compared to its economic power. (Student Interview 2009v) I have heard that foreigners do not really know about Korea, so I’ll make up my mind about globalization after Korea is better known by foreigners. (Student Interview 2014w)

This desire for appropriate international recognition and respect is particularly evident in the attitudes of young South Koreans towards two disputes involving the country’s close neighbor, Japan. The first dispute is over the naming of the Sea of Japan and the second and more sensitive dispute is about the content of history textbooks used in Japanese schools. Both of these issues have incited passionate nationalist anger. The version of history that is presented in Japanese school textbooks (and, claims Korea, attempts to deny or justify Japan’s wartime actions on the Korean peninsula) has aroused public and political anger in South Korea towards Japan (W. Lee 2001; Schneider 2008). So has the dispute over whether the ocean that lies between the east coast of the Korean peninsula and Japan should be called the East Sea (as opposed to the Sea of Japan) to reflect the importance of Korea in the region.36 Two territorial disputes have also provoked considerable nationalist sentiment among young South Koreans: the controversy over Dokdo and the Goguryeo dispute. The controversy over Dokdo relates to the Japanese claim of sovereignty over a group of islands in the East Sea which are about 87 kilometers east of the Korean island of Ulleungdo. The disputed islands are currently under the administration of South Korea. Dokdo has been a source of contention since the seventeenth century, but the contemporary dispute relates to ambiguity over the sovereignty of the islands following the end of the Second World War (Dokdo was not included in the 1952 San Francisco Treaty that settled issues of sovereignty for former colonies of Japan following its defeat). The sovereignty of Dokdo stirs up intense passions in South Korea, and there are many organizations that campaign on the issue, including the Dokdo Research Institute, the Dokdo Institute, the Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK), the Dokdo Museum, and the Dokdo Children’s Museum.37 Dokdo inspires passionate activism among young people, and trips to Dokdo are a favorite for young people and students, despite its considerable distance from most major Korean cities. One of the more famous Dokdo-related

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actions involved a small group of students from Seoul National University who embarked on “global races” around the world to carry the message regarding Korea’s sovereignty over Dokdo. They took a year off from university and traveled to thirty cities in fifty countries. On their journey, they passed out T-shirts printed with the South Korean flag and the phrase “Dokdo is Korea’s beautiful island” in sixteen languages. They also presented seminars on the Dokdo issue at foreign universities and performed Korean folk music and martial arts. Mapmakers and publishers were visited to ask for the name of the islands to be labeled Dokdo rather than “Takeshima” (the Japanese name) or “Liancourt Rocks” (the English name) (Chosun Ilbo 2009a). The Dokdo issue has also been taken up by a number of young celebrities. When South Korea beat Japan to win a Bronze Medal in football at the 2012 London Olympics, the 24-year old footballer Park Jung-woo ran a lap of honor with a sign saying “Dokdo is our land” (and was barred from attending the medal ceremony as a result) (Chosun Ilbo 2012b; 2013). Popular actor Song Il-gook took part in a relay swim to Dokdo in 2012 on the day that marks Korea’s independence from Japan, while in 2009, Girls Generation—one of the most popular bands in South Korea—sang a song entitled “Dokdo is our land” at a concert in Seoul (Chosun Ilbo 2012a). The Goguryeo dispute centers on “historical sovereignty” over a large swathe of Northeast China that once constituted part of the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo. This ancient kingdom is particularly attractive to those with a Korean nationalist agenda as it was one of the most powerful and successful of the many dynasties that existed on the Korean peninsula. During its height in the fifth and sixth centuries, Goguryeo’s sphere of influence covered the largest territory of any previous or subsequent dynasty in this region, and many in Korea claim that Goguryeo is the “origination country of Korea.”38 Korea claims that China has a scheme to alter the history of Goguryeo and turn it into a “Chinese regional kingdom,”39 a reference to the Chinese Government’s “Northeast Asian Project” which purports to carry out scientific and historical research in this area but which shows increasing interest in the history of Goguryeo as part of its own national history.40 Like the Dokdo issue, a number of organizations have been established in Korea to carry out research and campaign on this issue, including the Goguryeo History Association and the Society for Korean Ancient History. The intense anger and nationalist sentiment aroused in young South Koreans over these four issues—Japanese history textbooks, the Sea of Japan naming dispute, Dokdo, and the Goguryeo dispute—was often overwhelming in interviews. The four quotes below are just a sample of the many passionate comments made to the author:41

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I have something to say about Dokdo. Only a few days ago a Japanese geography academic drew a map and marked Dokdo as Korean territory. That should surely mean that the dispute is settled! I heard that the Japanese tried to hide the evidence, but some Koreans managed to offer a large amount of money to smuggle it into Korea. Despite that, Japan still asserts that Dokdo is part of Japanese territory. If you ask a thousand Koreans, you will get the same answer. (Student Interview 2010jj) The island is ours and we are in a position where it is about to be taken by the Japanese. With unification, nobody is trying to steal anything. It’s just two regions that have been separated. I think protecting what is ours is much more important [than unification]. (Student Interview 2014x) China is working on the Northeast project to steal the history of Goguryeo … by claiming the history of Goguryeo, China is trying to regard Koreans as Chinese. History is connected to the present. For example … if Goguryeo is considered as an ethnic minority in China, Korea can be looked upon as a tributary state to China, without its own distinct national identity. (Student Interview 2010kk) The sovereignty that Japan claim to have over the territory is absurd. This is related to our pride and ego. We cannot accept such a violation. (Student Interview 2014y)

Indeed, the responses of young people towards these issues are so passionate that many have become involved with organizations such as the Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK). This is a civic organization, funded by donations, that channels the efforts of school and university students into “correcting errors about South Korea produced abroad.” VANK is strongly nationalist in its tone, and historical issues currently listed on their website for action include the Dokdo-Takeshima sovereignty dispute, the Japanese textbook controversy, the East Sea/Sea of Japan naming dispute, and the Goguryeo “historical sovereignty” issue, as well as the Gando issue (a second, smaller land dispute with China). Another more recent VANK project is the “May We Speak?” campaign, the aim of which is to “introduce the idea of continuing Japanese imperialism to the general public.” Activities have included the establishment of a website, visits to international universities and the hosting of a film festival which focused on “promoting the brutality of Japanese war crimes, including the ‘comfort women’ issue.” The “May We Speak?” campaign uses frequent comparisons with the Holocaust “as a means for non-Koreans to understand the idea more clearly.”42 VANK also traveled

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to the United States to protest outside of Apple and Google headquarters over the labeling of Dokdo and the East Sea in online maps (Chosun Ilbo 2012c). Many school and university students act as “cyberdiplomats” for VANK, bombarding organizations with emails and letters about controversial issues. VANK claims that its achievements include the addition of the term East Sea to numerous maps and references (including those used by the World Health Organization, Business Week, and the Office of the French President). One student who is active in the organization described her efforts and the motivation behind them: I feel really proud of Korean history and I feel really proud of what VANK is doing as they are making changes to what people think about Korea. They are making lots of printed materials that are really helpful and I took many of them back to my school [in the US] and I showed them to my teachers, and I have the [VANK] map hung in my dorm. You can see Korea’s location in the world map. (Activist Interview 2009a)

Interestingly, despite VANK’s heavily nationalistic leanings, there are only two minor references to unification with North Korea on the VANK website. From a VANK perspective, it is clear that nationalist sentiment is firmly rooted in the integrity of South Korea, in South Korea’s position on the global stage, and in the dissemination of South Korean culture. The national territory for them is the political unit of the Republic of Korea. While young people are actively trying to defend the status of South Korea internationally, they are also demanding more effort from their own authorities to position South Korea at the center of the international community. Such sentiments were expressed in a forthright manner during interviews:43 As for Korea’s challenge, Korea should build strength and become adept at diplomacy (though I think Koreans are already very intelligent people). We should develop the strength of the country in both economic and academic aspects. You know, politicians actually fight in the National Assembly! Also Korea is acting in total servility to other world powers and can be unfair toward weaker countries. Maybe that is the only way for Korea to survive. But I want Korea to exceed the level of Japan and to act with confidence. (Student Interview 2009w) I strongly believe that Dokdo is ours, but it is sad that we don’t have strong power compared to … Japan and that is why we are in this situation … we are not strong enough. (Student Interview 2013d)

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As a result of this preoccupation with Korea’s global status, young people demand a high standard of behavior from those who represent Korea overseas as well as those who represent it at home. Uncivilized or gauche behavior by Koreans overseas inspires deep feelings of national shame. This is exemplified in the reaction to newspaper reports in 2009 where it emerged that Korean men who traveled to the Philippines for study, business or leisure were involved in the exploitation of Filipino women. A trend had emerged of Korean men engaging in relationships or paid sex with Filipino women that often resulted in the birth of children who were then abandoned by their Korean fathers. The numbers of women involved are so substantial that welfare centers in the Philippines have been established to assist these women and their children. Many Koreans consider the existence of these fatherless “Kopinos” to be a national disgrace (Hicap 2009): I am very proud of Korea, but sometimes I also feel quite ashamed ... some ugly behavior in Asia for example, some Korean men went to the Philippines and they just had fun with many women…. I think this is one of the problems we have. (Student Interview 2009y) I think Korea has built a good reputation in the world ... [but] Korea’s reputation has been damaged. Koreans have been reported as doing strange things when they travel in Southeast Asian countries…. (Student Interview 2009z)44

Just as firmly in their sights is the behavior at home of South Korean politicians who have an unwelcome ability to attract scandal. This, along with the tendency for violence to erupt in the National Assembly, inspires a deep sense of shame and embarrassment among many young people who see this sort of conduct as damaging to Korea’s international brand. The cover story of the September 2009 edition of the Korea University Granite Tower magazine demonstrates this particularly well. The story— entitled “The Great Letdown: National Assembly Violence”—discussed the frustration that many young people felt with the behavior of Korea’s politicians in the National Assembly. One incident was described thus: The GNP [Grand National Party], eager to knock down a reinvestigation into the issue [of charges relating to alleged stock manipulation by then Presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak], barricades the main hall of the National Assembly with metal pipes and steel chains and stages a twoday sit-in. However, the arrival of an electric saw proves the UNDP [United New Democratic Party] master of creativity, and amid shrieked insults, assaulted cheeks, and strangled throats, the stand is won by those

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in favor of the new probe bill and the impeachment of the original prosecutors for the case. (Im and Oh 2009, p. 10).

The Granite Tower magazine article also noted that another violent incident in the National Assembly in July 2009—reported widely at the time by the foreign press including the Wall Street Journal, Associated Press (AP), and Agence France-Presse (AFP)—prompted “a fresh wave of stolid but profound political disappointment within the younger generation” (Im and Oh 2009, p. 11). Interviews with students confirmed these sentiments:45 I am worried about political issues. The ruling party and the oppositional party should not exist just to fight with each other. They should be exchanging opinions to come up with the best options for governing Korea. But they simply blame each other rather than trying to find common ground. I always see them fight on television. Why can’t they just work it out? (Student Interview 2010mm) I want to be proud, but in reality … before the “Korean Wave” there was nothing to be proud of in my country. Look at the news about Korea on the BBC or CNN showing the politicians fighting in the National Assembly. That makes me so ashamed! (Student Interview 2009aa) I am not [proud of Korea]. When Korea gets criticized I feel really ashamed. When Korea is involved in shameful things, I feel sad and guilty. (Student Interview 2009bb)

The sinking of the ferry Sewol in April 2014,46 which resulted in the deaths of more than 300 people, most of them children, gave rise to similar sentiments of disappointment and shame among young people. Their anger following this tragedy was palpable in interviews. This was not just a reaction to the intense grief felt across the South Korean nation but was also driven by the sudden awareness of their vulnerability to those corrupt and incompetent members of the older generations who exert influence in South Korea. This could be seen, for example, in the frustrations that were expressed by young people at the failure of South Korea’s politicians to protect its citizens - particularly its children - by setting and enforcing the safety standards expected of a developed country like Korea: The adults that were involved in the incident left the students to die while trying to protect their economic interests … [and we have] an education system that requires students to do as they are told. The Sewol [ferry] incident represents how problematic Korean society is right now. (Student Interview 2014z)

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In some countries, assemblymen are the hardest working people. But Korean politicians drive expensive cars, use luxurious offices…they don’t work for the country because they are too busy hiding their corruption. Speaking of which, at the moment, they are trying to manage the public anger aimed at them over the Sewol [ferry] incident. (Student Interview 2014aa)

Conclusion

As this new globalized cultural South Korean nationalism emerges, its manifestations of modernity, cosmopolitanism and status contrast with the typical characteristics of ethnic nationalism. The close relationship between this emerging new South Korean nationalism and the process of globalization and neo-liberalization that is shaping South Korea and the lives of its young people, further underlines the evolution of young South Korean’s sense of nation and identity. It no longer reflects ethnic nationalist traits such as tradition, local heritage—and in the case of the Korean peninsula—the hope for unification with North Korea. The characteristics of this new nationalism also provides us with a clearer idea of young South Koreans’ relationship with the wider global community. We see how the isipdae’s identity is influenced by, and in turn hopes to influence, an international audience; they measure Korea against international standards; and they shape their own identities to include their international experience. In this we begin to understand the importance of globalization in both the formation and expression of the South Korean identity. It also highlights the disconnection between this globalized emerging identity and the paradigmatic ethnic nationalism of Korea-past. Finally, by analyzing these new nationalist attitudes in action, we can focus attention on the potential difficulties faced by some communities, and the opportunities presented to others, as new arrivals to South Korea attempt to adopt this new national identity. Having the means to be able to adopt the characteristics of modernity, cosmopolitanism and status demonstrates the opportunities provided by a nation which is relatively wealthy, developed, and successful. Those opportunities are more easily available to young South Koreans, as well as some non-ethnic Korean foreigners, who have grown up in this sort of environment and have made the most of the opportunities available to them for education, travel, technology, and so on. For the more recent arrivals to South Korea who have not lived in the same sort of enabling environment—especially those

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arriving from the North—it will be much harder to acquire and demonstrate the manifestations of the emerging South Korean nationalism and identity. Notes

1. World Values Survey data for the group “young people” covers the age range 15–29. 2. South Korea is now Asia’s fifth largest economy in terms of GDP, behind only China, Japan, India, and Australia (EIU 2015) and a member of the G20 and the OECD. 3. These quotations were in response to the questions: “What makes you most proud of Korea?” and “What does globalization mean to Korea?” 4. http://interbrand.com/best-brands/best-global-brands/2015/ranking (accessed 22 October 2015). 5. See http://www.hhiir.com/EN/company/busiPart_01.asp (accessed 22 October 2015). 6. These quotations were in response to the question: “What makes you most proud of Korea?” 7. These quotations were in response to the questions: “What benefits, if any, do you think unification will bring?” and “What do you think foreigners understand about Korea?” 8. For a history of the Minjung see Wells (1995) and N. Lee (2007). Wells proposes a general understanding of the Minjung to be “Koreans, predominantly workers in agriculture and urban industries, who retained the values and sentiments of the Korean masses in the face of militaristic rule and cultural and economic systems imposed directly or otherwise by foreign governments or interests, along with those among intellectuals, writers, politicians, and professionals who have supported their aspirations” (1995, p. 2). 9. See http://www.dulsori.com/english2 and http://www.youtube.com/user/dulsori (accessed 22 September 2015). 10. Nanta is another example of a modern percussion show. Premiering in Seoul in 1997, it has been successful with both domestic and international audiences and is the longest running entertainment show in Korean theatre history (H. Lee 2008). 11. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCxdku8sx-A for one of the most famous examples of Korean b-boy dancing, which uses the backdrop of the North-South Korean border at Panmunjom (accessed 19 September 2015). 12. See http://www.r16korea.com/?lang=en (accessed 19 September 2015). 13. See http://www.schoolfood.co.kr/ for images of School Food restaurants and examples of its menu and restaurant events (accessed 19 September 2015). 14. The foregoing quotations and expressions of views were in response to the question: “What makes you most proud of Korea?” The link between individual achievement and national success has impacted academics as well as students. The story of disgraced Professor Hwang Woo-suk demonstrates the wider national pressure placed upon those who represent the Korean nation in the international community. Hwang Woo-suk, a professor at Seoul National University, became world famous, and a national hero, for supposed achievements in stem cell and cloning technology. After investigation, however, it was

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revealed that his work had been produced using fraudulent data and that he had engaged in unethical behavior in the course of his research. See the sites http://www.nature.com/news/specials/hwang/index.html for details of the story and http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2681686 for a nationalist perspective on the story (both accessed 23 September 2015). 15. This quotation was in response to the question: “Do you think there is a generational difference between those in their twenties and older generations?” 16. “South Koreans have more plastic surgery than any other nation” according to 2011 figures from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (ISAPS); reported in the on-line Daily Mail, 25 April 2013, http://www .dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2314647/Has-plastic-surgery-20-Korean-beauty -pageant-contestants-look-Pictures-contest-hopefuls-goes-viral.html (accessed 23 September 2015). 17. These quotations were in response to the questions: “What makes you most proud of Korea?” and “How do you rate the international reputation of Korea?” 18. Although young people in South Korea may be less involved in traditional politics and party activity, they do involve themselves in online groups that can have political influence. These groups focus on discreet cosmopolitan issues—what Cho Dae-yop (2008) calls the “fourth-tier … electronic public and flexible, voluntary groups”—and have attracted significant youth interest. They can be extremely powerful, as was demonstrated by the internet activism that mobilized enough young people to secure Roh Moo-hyun’s presidential election victory in 2002 (Yun 2003). 19. This quotation was in response to the question: “Are you involved in any unification-related organizations?” 20. See Hakbuloemneun Sahoe, The Movement to Oppose Academic Cliques, http://www.antihakbul.org (accessed 22 September 2015). 21. See Hwanggyeong Undong Yeonhap, The Korea Federation for Environmental Movement, http://www.kfem.or.kr (accessed 22 September 2015). 22. See Minjusahoerul Byeonhosa Moim, Lawyers for a Democratic Society, http://www.minbyun.org; and Chamyeo Yeondae, Citizens Movement for Democracy, http://www.peoplepower21.org (accessed 22 September 2015). 23. See Huimang Jejakso, The Hope Institute, http://www.makehope.org; and Areumdaun Jaedan, The Beautiful Foundation, http://www.beautifulfund.org (accessed 22 September 2015). 24. See Good Neighbors, an international aid and development NGO, http://www.goodneighbors.org; and http://www.worldvision.or.kr, the World Vision Korea site (both accessed 22 September 2015). 25. In the 2010 World Values Survey, around one third of the general population of South Korea believed that when jobs were scarce men should have more right to a job than should a women; just over 40 percent thought that men made better business executives than women; and 44 percent said that men make better political leaders than women (WVS 2010). 26. South Korea’s environmental activism began as a corollary to the more general democratic movement led by students in the 1970s and 1980s, but it then began to focus on achieving local redress for specific environmental problems, many of which arose as a result of Korea’s rapid industrialization (Ku 2004). The contemporary environmental movement focuses on broader concerns of quality of life and civil and environmental rights, and the growing sophistication and

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broadening of the environmental movement represents the relatively advanced state of and South Korean society (ibid.). 27. http://www.kfem.or.kr (accessed 22 September 2015). 28. http://www.eco.or.kr (accessed 22 September 2015). 29. http://www.greenkorea.org (accessed 22 September 2015). 30. Young people (aged 15–29) were given the choice of five problems and asked to select the “most serious problem of the world.” The choices were: people living in poverty and need; discrimination against girls and women; poor sanitation and infectious diseases; inadequate education; and environmental pollution. Of South Korean young people surveyed, 40 percent selected “environmental pollution” second only to “people living in poverty and need” which 42 percent indicated as the most serious problem (WVS 2010). 31. These quotations were in response to the question: “What issues most concern you?” 32. These quotations were in response to the question: “What makes you most proud of Korea?” 33. See http://www.korea.net/NewsFocus/Culture/view?articleId=105098 (accessed 23 September 2015) 34. These quotations were in response to the question: “What makes you most proud of Korea?” 35. These quotations were in response to the questions: “What makes you most proud of Korea?” and “What do you think about Globalization?” 36. In 2007, then President Roh Moo-hyun proposed re-naming the East Sea the “Sea of Peace.” This was rejected by Japan and proved unpopular in South Korea (Chosun Ilbo 2007a). Advertising campaigns in major international newspapers have also been carried out by Korean activists with regard to the East Sea / Sea of Japan naming dispute. 37. Since 2005, activists have gone so far as to fund advertisements in foreign newspapers—including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post—protesting Japan’s claim of sovereignty over the islands (Chosun Ilbo 2008a, H. Kim and Ro 2007). 38. http://www.mykoguryo.com (accessed 23 September 2015). 39. http://www.prkorea.com, the website of the Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (accessed 23 September 2015). 40. For a full discussion of the China-Korea dispute over Goguryeo see Lankov (2006). 41. These quotations were in response to the questions: “What social, political or economic issues concern you?”; “What are you views on the issue of Dokdo/Goguryeo?” and “Which issue is more important to you: unification or Dokdo?” 42. http://maywespeak.com/ (accessed 22 September 2015). 43. These quotations were in response to the questions: “What are Korea’s major future challenges?”; “What do you think about the Dokdo issue?” and “What does globalization mean to Korea?” 44. These quotations were in response to the question: “What makes you most proud of Korea?” 45. These quotations were in response to the questions: “What issues most concern you?” and “What makes you most proud of Korea?” 46. BBC report of the sinking http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27045512 (accessed 25 September 2015).

5

Globalization and Nation Building

“Neither nations nor states exist at all times and in all circumstance…. Nationalism holds that they were destined for each other; that either without the other is incomplete, and constitutes a tragedy. But before they could become intended for each other, each of them had to emerge, and their emergence was independent and contingent.” —Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism

The previous chapter has described the new globalized cultural nationalism and its modernized, cosmopolitan and status-oriented characteristics. The question remains as to how and why this new national identity has emerged among South Korea’s youth. In this chapter, we examine the forces that have constructed this new South Korean national identity while marginalizing ethnicity as the basis for belonging to the South Korean national unit. The three constructivist forces operating to shape this emerging nationalism among the isipdae have all impacted South Korea most visibly in the last 20 years. They are: (1) the flourishing of democracy and the democratization of the country’s political institutions and processes; (2) the daily presence in South Korea of what Michael Billig (1995) has termed “banal nationalism” with its continued reinforcement of South Korean identity through everyday behaviors and practices; and (3) the global networks that facilitate travel, overseas education, migration, and international exchange exposing young people to new perspectives on national identity. Each of these constructivist processes has exerted a powerful influence on how the isipdae view themselves and their nation, and on how young people determine who belongs and who does not belong to their nation. As a result, young people have come to view themselves as South Korean and are able to contemplate welcoming others to the South Korean national community regardless of their ethnicity while increasingly 109

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regarding North Korea and its people as separate and distinct—more different than they are similar to South Koreans. In this chapter we also discover how an emphasis on the international and global, alongside the diffusion of neo-liberal values into South Korean society, has shaped the characteristics and attitudes that define this emerging globalized cultural South Korean national identity. Democracy and South Korean Identity

A brief examination of Taiwan, where democracy has played a central role in shaping a new Taiwanese identity (Chang and Wang 2005), illuminates the transformational effect democracy can have on people’s concepts of nation and identity, and provides a useful comparative backdrop against which to view the impact of democracy on the emergence of South Korean nationalism. In Taiwan, democracy contributed to the emergence of a Taiwanese identity in a number of ways. Firstly, the formation of a democratic parliament with sovereignty over the Republic of Taiwan and its offshore islands clearly delineated a Taiwanese community with the potential to be “imagined” as a national community separate from Mainland China (Jacobs 2005, pp. 36–37). Further, the removal in 1997 of a provincial level of government (originally established to represent Taiwan as a province of a unified Republic of China) meant that Taiwan could be more easily conceptualized as a nation. At the same time, democracy provided the Taiwanese with political space to discuss and debate questions of identity and Taiwan’s relationship with Mainland China and “coincided with a burst of ‘Taiwan consciousness’” (ibid., p. 38). Democracy also allowed contested versions of Taiwanese identity and history to be expressed in the public realm and the classroom so that the unified identity with the Mainland was no longer the only possibility for imagining the Taiwanese national community (Wang 2005). These factors have contributed to a shift away from an officially imposed Chinese or unified identity and toward a new Chinese-Taiwanese identity that embraces a sense of “Taiwanese-ness.” This new identity is particularly prevalent among Taiwan’s young people who, similar to the lack of “connection” with North Korea that their contemporaries in South Korean have, also share few emotional and familial ties to Mainland China. This “Taiwanese-ness” has also been accompanied by an increase in political support among the younger generation for the maintenance of the status quo between Taiwan and China (as opposed to unification) and, to a lesser extent, for Taiwanese independence (Chang and Wang 2005, p. 42).

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While there are many differences between Taiwan and Korea, there are also a number of similarities that makes the Taiwanese experience relevant for understanding the emergence of South Korean nationalism. Similarities include their respective transitions from military authoritarianism to democracy and the impact of this transition upon their conceptions of national identity. For South Koreans, this transition occurred in 1987. After nearly three decades of authoritarian government, South Koreans enjoyed their first direct Presidential and National Assembly elections. Since those elections, there has been significant progress in the development of democracy in South Korea. Elections at all levels have generally progressed freely and fairly, and many of the institutions and behaviors of the authoritarian era have been dismantled. Progress has also been made in breaking down potentially corrupt statebusiness ties (Jung and Jeong 2002; D. Lee and J. Lee 2008). As important have been achievements in institutionalizing political parties and dismantling the traditional regional and personalized system that previously defined political loyalty and voting behavior (Reilly 2007). Checks and balances on the business of government have progressed; there have been improvements in judicial autonomy (J. Kim 2007); an independent media and a vibrant civil society continues to develop, albeit with challenges (S. Kim 2007; Kwak 2005; Steinberg 2002); and there have been important institutional changes made to facilitate the discovery and investigation of corruption (Transparency International 2006; D. Lee and J. Lee 2008; Lie and Kim 2007).1 In spite of this progress, much remains to be done in South Korea. However, Freedom House has categorized South Korea as “free” since 19982 and the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2014 democracy index ranked South Korea at 21 out of 167 countries and territories (EIU 2015). While young South Koreans may not show a great deal of interest in mainstream political participation, in interviews they demonstrate that the goal of a democratic South Korea is important to them and their national identity. Many young people cite the presence of democracy as a key difference between the North and the South. They also mention democratic progress and the general state of democracy in South Korea when discussing their pride in, and concern for, Korean society. For others, however, democracy is simply taken as a given—the only political system that they have known:3 I am proud [of Korean democracy]. People fought against the dictatorial government and now we have the right to vote under democratic rule. I think democracy in Korea is well established. (Student Interview 2010nn)

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Apart from democracy I cannot think of any other system. And democracy was achieved in Korea as a result of the sacrifice of so many people. But now I feel we are going back to the 1950s. Democracy is somehow dying. (Student Interview 2010oo) I am so ashamed [of Korean democracy]. Korean people have expressed their opinion through demonstration and protest. And so, the government is now trying to discourage an exchange of diverse opinions by introducing the internet real name system.4 People’s opinions are being ignored. (Student Interview 2010pp) I think democracy in Korea is still immature. Democracy is still kind of new in Korea. But of course it is much better that we have democracy compared to the political system in North Korea. However, it’s still immature. (Student Interview 2010qq) I lived in China, which is also [like North Korea] a socialist country. Of course they have adopted reform and opening policies, but China is still a totalitarian society in some aspects and I hated it. So I am against the current regime of North Korea. I really pity North Koreans. They don’t even know what is wrong. (Student Interview 2010rr) [Korean democracy] is still learning. I am proud of what they have achieved but we still have a long way to go. Yesterday was the anniversary of the pro-democracy movement sa-il-gu [the April 19th Revolution in 1960 led by students and intellectuals that toppled the Rhee Syngman government]. I’m really grateful for what they did but there’s still a long way to go. (Student Interview 2010ss)

As in Taiwan, South Korea’s transition to democracy signals a major difference between the lives of young people today and previous generations of young people. In South Korea the isipdae have only ever lived under democratically elected governments. But as noted in the comments of students above, many young people have issues with the general state of democracy in South Korea. Among them all, however, is a ready acceptance of key principles that underpin democracy such as popular sovereignty and the institutionalization of democratic processes. These have already altered young people’s concepts of nation and national identity. This has been reinforced among the isipdae as a result of democratization’s impact upon education and the school syllabus, with the isipdae the first generation of South Koreans to receive their whole school and university education under democratic governance. Education and its importance is looked at in detail in a later section.

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Popular Sovereignty

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The Oxford Dictionary of Social Sciences (online edition 2001) states that the doctrine of popular sovereignty allows the formation of a ruling state “as constituted by a loan of authority from the inalienably sovereign people, contingent on its faithfulness to the people’s interests.” According to Yack, popular sovereignty can contribute to the rise and spread of nationalism because it has the power to both “nationalize political loyalties” and “politicize national loyalties” (Yack 2003, p. 39). When political loyalties are nationalized, a political community—the “sovereign people”—is transformed into a national community, and when national loyalties are politicized, the image of the national community is employed for political purposes. South Korea has experienced both of these processes, and together they have contributed to the construction of a South Korean national unit. The doctrine of popular sovereignty in South Korea is enshrined in Article 1, Section 2, of the Korean Constitution which states that “the sovereignty of the Republic of Korea shall reside in the people and all state authority shall emanate from the people.” In theory, this applies to all people on the peninsula (note that, like the North, the Republic of Korea considers the whole peninsula to be its territory), but in practice this doctrine of popular sovereignty has referred only to South Korea. The authority of South Korea’s democratically elected governments since 1987 has come from the South Korean population and these governments have governed exclusively for and on behalf of the people of South Korea. Further, North Koreans, except those settled in the South, have been unable to participate in the South Korean political process and so it has been South Koreans—and South Koreans alone—who have legitimated successive governments through their participation in the democratic process. Billig (1995, p. 94) has argued that the people who hold “the sovereignty of the people” in this way are not just any people; they are “the people of the particular democratic state.” Thus the practice of everyday (democratic) politics by the people of the Republic of Korea has constructed and reinforced the concept of a South Korean nation that is separate and distinct from its North Korean neighbors—South Korea as a “particular democratic state” [emphasis added] (ibid.). In other words, the nationalizing of political loyalties is taking place in the Republic of Korea. The South Korean democratic process is a powerful shaping force for young South Koreans with no memory of a unified Korean peninsula and it has imbued the isipdae with the sense that they belong to a distinct national unit—South Korea. When considering this apparent shift in

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national identity, it is crucial to remember that the current generation of isipdae has only experienced a democratic South Korea and a legitimate South Korean political community, and that its sense of nationhood and identity has developed within this political context. Older generations had (and, in some cases, still have) a broader sense of community that more often than not included the North. But they were ruled by non-democratic regimes that failed to successfully define a South Korean political community or a sovereign people from whom they could source legitimacy.5 Given the distinct experience of young South Koreans, it is easy to see how their sense of political identity could more easily become nationalized than in previous generations. This doctrine of popular sovereignty has, at the same time, produced a powerful and politicized sense of ownership, loyalty and pride in the national unit. The legitimacy for governing that is provided by political sovereignty requires that governance must also be expressed through laws, rules, politics, and ideas of state and sovereignty. These can help bind people to each other, to the political system and to the national territory, in this case South Korea. Thus with the arrival of democracy, national and territorial loyalties no longer need to be solely based upon “natural” ideas like ethnicity. It is loyalty to the South Korean national unit—and its democratic processes, ideas of state and sovereignty, its economic system and so on—that binds people to each other and forges a sense of community. This is turn creates a powerful sense of communal control over their national territory. The effects of this politicization of national loyalties in South Korea can be seen in the evident dichotomy between the passionate way that young people have embraced the question of the sovereignty of Dokdo and their ambivalence towards the cause of ethnically-based unity with the North. When asked which of the issues was more important the majority of students replied that it was the Dokdo issue. South Korea’s legal sovereignty over Dokdo—a tiny collection of islands totaling just under 0.2 square kilometers and with a population of three—inspires deep nationalist anger in the face of perceived Japanese dominance. The issue of unifying with North Korea—a territory that totals 122,760 square kilometers and which boasts a population of 24 million people of the same ethnic heritage—no longer inspires the same nationalist sentiment. Those who do not participate in the democratic process, who are not subject to the same laws, and who are unable to vote in the same elections—namely North Koreans—are not part of the political community and, as a result, are no longer easily “imagined” as part of the national community.

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In contrast to non-participating North Koreans, new non-ethnic Korean immigrants who participate in South Korea’s political community can be increasingly “imagined” as part of the nation—a development that democratization and its impact on laws such as South Korea’s immigration policy has made possible. While many of the younger generation are beginning to embrace the possibility of a South Korean national unit that is inclusive of non-ethnic Koreans, the broader political community has been slower to accept the concept of a multi-ethnic Korean nation. South Korean immigration policy still operates on a needs-based platform, emphasizing temporary working visas with a continuing bias towards ethnic-Korean immigrants (Seol and Skrentny 2009). However, democracy and its accompanying institutions are gradually changing the immigrant experience in South Korea, and certain immigrants are beginning to be conceptualized as part of the national unit. The evolution of Germany’s immigration model provides a useful comparative illustration of how procedural democracy can impact a nation’s immigration policy and, as a result, attitudes towards immigrants. Until recently, Germany also adhered to a needs-based immigration policy that allowed foreigners to come to Germany as “guest workers”6 but maintained an ethnic concept of citizenship that prevented most of the immigrants from obtaining permanent German citizenship (T. Lim 2008). It was hoped that immigrant workers would ultimately return to their respective nations, however many workers established themselves in Germany and wished to remain. The institutions of democracy, most importantly the judiciary, operated to extend protections to workers while they lived and worked in Germany, and to extend residency rights to immigrants as they established more permanent homes. As Lim explains, these institutions did not aim to “dictate specific outcomes; rather, the existence of democratic norms and procedures creates a (domestic) framework that constrains the power or capacity of states in ways that make it exceedingly difficult (although not impossible) to block the migratory process” (ibid., p. 32). As a result, a legal change has taken place that has led to Germany adopting a citizen-based, rather than an ethnic-based, criteria for membership of the German nation (Huyssen 1994).7 Korea is experiencing a similar evolution, and its judiciary, civil society groups, and labor unions have succeeded in extending rights and protections to immigrants despite state opposition (T. Lim 2008). As part of the democratic process, Korea established the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) in 2001, the remit of which includes investigating racial discrimination and unfair treatment of migrants.8 In

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the course of its work, the NHRCK has called for government action on racially discriminatory articles that appear in the media, and for separate legislation to define the illegality of racism. It has also announced its intention to formulate a set of guidelines for the human rights of migrants “with an aim to influence the government’s policy on migrants.”9 Although the decisions of the commission are not legally enforceable, it can exert pressure on the government by publicizing negative findings (indeed, the Lee administration was accused of working to weaken the Commission’s power to criticize and shame the government [AHRC 2010]).10 The issue of immigrant rights has also been aided by the government’s fear of international embarrassment at being portrayed as discriminatory and exploitative. In 2014, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on racism, Mutuma Ruteere, urged Korea “to enact a wideranging anti-discrimination law” noting particularly its history of ethnic and cultural homogeneity and the increase in foreigners and migrant workers living in the country.11 In a 2009 report by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UNESCR), the Korean government was criticized for the absence of a comprehensive anti-discrimination law, the failure to apply rights under the constitution to migrant workers, and the ongoing exploitation of migrant workers.12 Amnesty International and the International Labor Organization (ILO) have also criticized South Korea for the treatment of migrant labor activists, some of whom have been arrested and deported (see also H. Lee 2012).13 The humiliation of being continually criticized by United Nations institutions including the CERD (Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination), the ILO, and groups like Amnesty International have provoked discussion of immigrant issues not only within interested civil society spheres, but also within the mainstream media. The South Korean media follow closely any comments on their nation that are made by international bodies,14 and a number of young people commented on the embarrassment caused by such criticism and the need for South Korea to adhere to international norms. Despite the absence of specific anti-discrimination legislation (as of late 2015), activists have also been able to use particular clauses in the South Korean constitution to challenge laws and actions that are seen as discriminatory. Article 11, Section 1, for example, states that “all citizens shall be equal before the law, and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic, social or cultural life on account of sex, religion or social status.” Article 32, Section 3, states that “standards of working conditions shall be determined in such a way as to guarantee human dignity.” Lawyers and civil society groups (for example, the Joint

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Committee with Migrants in Korea)15 are already challenging the legality of restrictions such as the Employment Permit System (EPS or E9 visa) which restricts the movement of migrant workers between employers.16 There is also a growing movement within a number of civil society groups and political parties to push for comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation that would allow powerful challenges to be made against the current immigrant labor system.17 As a result of both domestic and international pressure, the government has been forced to legislate to protect foreign workers but they have done so reluctantly and on a piecemeal basis.18 The legislative changes have included the passing of the “Basic Law Pertaining to Foreigners in Korea” aimed at providing an “institutional framework” for improving the conditions of foreign residents in Korea (B. Lee and Kim 2011). Expectations of fairness and access have also forced the government to set up advice centers that provide information and advocacy to foreign workers.19 The judiciary has also played a role in introducing protections for migrant labor. Most strikingly, the Supreme Court of Korea confirmed in 2015 the right of the Migrants’ Trade Union (MTU) to exist. The MTU was established to protect both legal and undocumented overseas labor working in South Korea and the court concluded that “even foreigners who are not permitted to work [in Korea], fall under the definition of workers as defined by the Act.20 Consequently, they are free to form and join labor unions.” This is a huge step in establishing a legal entity in Korea able to work on behalf of migrant workers, particularly those who are undocumented, and demand equitable treatment within the Korean national unit (Hankyoreh 2015a). Although there is a long way to go, rights for non-ethnic Korean migrants are gradually becoming institutionally accepted and integrated, and they will be increasingly difficult to reverse. The institutionalizing of more inclusive attitudes, and the political debates that are accompanying this evolution, have accelerated changing attitudes among young people, and across the wider Korean society, toward immigrants and immigration. South Korea appears to be replicating the German experience. As inclusion and non-discrimination become more entrenched in the legal and institutional life of democratic South Korea, the concept of a South Korean nation and national identity that is inclusive of non-ethnic Koreans continues to strengthen—a development that has been aided in no small part by the democratization of the country.

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Education

Democracy has also brought about changes to the education system which have further contributed to the re-shaping of young people’s conceptions of identity and nation. These changes were prompted by South Korea’s post-democratization participation in the international community. The country’s membership of international organizations has allowed Korean civil society to engage with external bodies, such as UNESCO, to support efforts to change the South Korean school curriculum. Since the early 2000s, various UN bodies including the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) have placed considerable pressure on Korean education authorities to teach ideas of nationality and belonging that are based on civic or cultural ideas rather than ethnicity or blood ties (Chosun Ilbo 2007). The changes proposed in the 2009 South Korean National Curriculum review were an effort to respond to some of these criticisms and pressure by removing ethnocentric descriptions of nation from the syllabus and by reflecting the “transitions” that are taking place in South Korea (M. Kang 2015, p. 14). The social transitions that the review proposed be reflected in a new curriculum included: (a) South Korea’s move from an ethnocentric nation to a “multicultural era”; and (b) the shift towards an increasingly globalized and neo-liberal South Korea “where the interdependence of self-motivated economic units is emphasized” (ibid., p. 14). The review also encouraged the use of multicultural language, at the same time removing terms such as “one ethnic group” (ibid., p. 14). However there were a number of contradictions in the review because aspects of it reaffirmed ethnocentric traditions including, for example, the encouragement of North Korean integration into the South Korean society on the basis of shared ethnic heritage (ibid., p. 112). This contradiction—that of encouraging the use of concepts and language that promotes the multi-cultural aspects of Korean society, while focusing upon North Koreans’ ethnicity as the basis for facilitating their integration into South Korea—is reminiscent of Nora Hui-jung Kim’s socalled “political liberals’ dilemma.” She coined the phrase in the context of changes to Korean immigration policy that were being made at the time. The “dilemma,” she warns, “divides political liberals and weakens their overall political leverage” (N. Kim 2008). It can be paraphrased thus: “It is not possible to reconcile the affording of more rights to all Korean migrant workers while at the same time guaranteeing equal treatment to all ethnic Koreans. When considered separately, each is a worthy, liberal, policy objective. When considered together they are inherently contradictory—one pushing towards a more ethnically based policy, the other

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trying to remove ethnicity as the basis for policy” (ibid.). As the isipdae try to reconcile their emerging globalized cultural identity with the language of ethnic nationalism that continues to pervade South Korean society, it is perhaps no surprise that similar contradictions are often seen in the responses of young people when they are questioned about unification, immigration and identity. The changes that democracy has brought to the education system have prompted young people to think very differently about North Korea and to view its people and its history as distinct from their own. Korean textbooks and the curriculum, particularly in the areas of history, ethics, and politics, have, historically, been tightly managed and manipulated by the state (S. Kang 2002, p. 128). With the arrival of democracy, however, there is less need to manipulate educational content in order to legitimize the government and this has allowed greater objectivity and openness to flourish in the classroom. Following on from earlier reforms made under the democratically elected Roh Tae-woo government and continuing with the Kim Young-sam textbook reforms of the mid-1990s, anti-Communist rhetoric has been toned down and textbooks have begun to explore the idea of cooperation between North and South and a peaceful unification (Grinker 1998, pp. 157–159). The young South Koreans interviewed as part of the research used in this book would have been educated using these textbooks and concepts.21 They have been encouraged to “think about the differences between North and South” and to “think about the complexities of their feelings about the North” (ibid., p. 162). Unification had in the past been presented as an act of liberation that would free people in the North from a government that functioned as a Soviet puppet, had terrorized and abused its people, and had waged war on the South (ibid., pp. 146–155). In modern textbooks, unification is presented instead as a complex problem that requires serious contemplation, discussion, and debate on topics including the possible financial and social burdens associated with unification (ibid., p. 162; see also M. Kang 2015). Students are taught about North Korea as part of the Dodeok or “ethics” curriculum. The isipdae are the first generation to receive a fundamentally different perspective on North Korea and North Koreans. For example, the social and economic plight of North Koreans is now routinely taught in schools (Expert Interview 2013). It is also now acceptable for teachers to invite debate on unification and to openly discuss topics related to North Korea in class, and this often results in discussions that challenge even the most experienced teachers: I was [previously] an ethics teacher in Middle School so I taught [students] that we have to reunify. We had one ethics textbook and we

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focused on reunification. So [in the past] South Korean students thought that reunification is kind of a duty. But yesterday I attended a class in [a local]…high school [in my new capacity working on reunification] and we made some English lesson plans on unification and we asked their opinions on unification [to encourage them] because in the school we cannot easily express our opinion. We are just educated that we have to reunify. So then I asked these high school students about unification and almost eighty percent of them said that they disagreed with unification. That was one class, and of course it could be different in other schools, but these high school students were afraid of the economic problems after the reunification. These students were seventeen or eighteen years old and from a rural area. (Activist Interview 2010a)

Outside of the popular media, the school curriculum is the major source of information on North Korea and its people for young South Koreans. It is telling that the changing attitudes toward unification of the present day isipdae coincide with two educational reforms: (1) the dramatic change in representations of North Korea in the school syllabus; and (2) the introduction of educational content that encourages students to consider alternatives to ethnicity as the basis for the Korean nation. Both of these changes have been enabled by Korea’s democratization. Banal Nationalism

While democracy has played a critical role in the construction of a new South Korean identity, the growth and acceptance of this identity has also been driven by what Michael Billig has termed “banal nationalism”— daily reminders of identity and nation that “serve to turn background space into homeland space” (Billig 1995, pp. 39–43). An obvious example of a banal and everyday symbol of nationhood and nationality is the South Korean national flag. In Seoul, one encounters it time and again, on lamp posts, uniforms, advertisements, shop signs, public transport, and in a myriad other ways in places around the city. Billig argues that everyday symbols, actions and words reinforce nationhood and nationality and inspire nationalist sentiment. They are markers of nation and denote the existence of the homeland on a daily basis (ibid., p. 93). Billig wants to remind us of the nationalisms operating in all national environments, the everyday types of nationalism that define the people of long-established entities as well as would-be nations (ibid., p. 44). The experience of South Korea develops Billig’s theory to show how banal nationalism not only perpetuates and maintains nationalism but also promotes the evolution of nationalism and national identity. Across South Korea, banal nationalism has helped construct uri nara in the image of

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South Korea. It has contributed to the rise of South Korean nationalism among young South Koreans that competes with a unified identity, and is at its most visible in political discourse and the media. Billig has shown that the language of politics and politicians has the power to define and “remind” an audience of their nationhood and national identity (even if expressing nationalist sentiment is not the explicit intention of the politician) (ibid., pp. 96–99). The inaugural speeches of two recent presidents, President Lee Myung-bak, and his predecessor, President Roh Moo-hyun, provide us with some illustrative examples of the presence of banal nationalism in South Korean political rhetoric. President Roh Moo-hyun, from the progressive Millennium Democratic Party, took office on 25 February 2003, and President Lee Myung-bak, from the conservative Grand National Party, delivered his inaugural speech on 25 February 2008. These speeches were widely reported, and were either watched, read or heard by a significant number of South Koreans, including young people. Although the speeches represent opposite ends of the political spectrum, they both provide countless examples of “flagging” the South Korean nation. These speeches demonstrate how banal nationalism can contribute to the construction of South Korean nationalism and national identity, even though it is reasonable to assume that both Presidents were favorable towards Korea’s unification at the time of their respective inaugurations.22 Firstly, both presidents refer frequently to uri—which can mean “us,” “we,” or “our”—throughout their respective speeches: Roh: Our society (uri sahoe) is also encountering diverse social problems that may have a great impact on our destiny … We (uri) can resolve them. When our whole nation joins forces (uri gungmin-i himeul hapchimyeon) there is nothing we cannot achieve. (Roh 2003a; 2003b) Lee: The miracle will continue…. I will take the lead, and with you beside me as one, we (uri) can do it. My fellow citizens! There is one thing that requires our determination (uri hamkke dajimhaeya hal geosi) at this juncture … We (uri) having flinched rather carelessly, we now witness the rest of the world excelling us (uri) by a long way. Developing countries are fast catching up. Our nation’s competitiveness has fallen, and instability in the resource and financial markets threatens our economy (uri gyeongje). (M. Lee 2008a; 2008b)

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In both speeches the audience understands “we” to be the Republic of South Korea, the sovereign people from whom the President’s authority emanates and who he is addressing. Through the exclusion of those who exist outside of the South Korean borders (including North Koreans, see Billig 1995, p. 97), both presidents define and reinforce the concept of the national community as exclusively South Korean. Both South Korean leaders emphasize this point further by referring to themselves in their speeches as the President of the Republic of Korea or Daehanminguk (대한민국 / 大韓民國). In doing so, they define the specific political and national community that is South Korea and they flag the existence of two nations (North Koreans refer to their nation as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or Joseon Minjujuui Inmin Gonghwaguk [조선 민주주의 인민공화국 / 朝鮮民主主義人民共和國]). When considered in this context, the example of post-war divided Germany is an interesting sidenote. Both German states included the historical root name Deutsch in their respective political titles.23 Billig suggests that “Two ‘Germanies’, existing side by side, indicated and preserved an ideology for unification” (1995, p. 73). This is not the case for the two Koreas. Each state uses different terminology to express “Korea” in their nation’s respective political title—Joseon for the DPRK and Hanguk for the ROK. Returning to the presidential speeches we see, secondly, that both presidents call upon the history of “our” nation to motivate and inspire, and in both speeches this history is, tellingly, the history of post-division South Korea. Billig has argued that national histories “tell of a people passing through time—‘our’ people; with ‘our’ ways of life, and ‘our’ culture” (ibid., p. 71). In Lee’s speech in particular, the history he presents constructs a powerful and patriotic South Korean identity: This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Korea [in 1948]. We fought for and regained our land that was taken from us and established our nation. We gave our best to our day’s work. As a result, our great nation achieved what no other nation ever achieved in history. In the shortest period of time, this nation achieved both industrialization and democratization…. Our forefathers who gave their lives for the sake of our independence. Our men and women in uniform who were martyred on the battlefield. Our farmers who toiled for a good harvest come rain or shine. Our laborers and workers who worked late into the night in our factories. And those who sacrificed their youth to fight for democracy, these are the stories of greatness that bring tears.

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The ordinary citizens who willingly came up with their treasured gold objects to pitch in to help pay the national debt during the 1997 financial crisis, the volunteers who recently suffered the harsh cold winds to clean up the oil leak on the winter beaches, and many citizens and civil servants who staunchly carried out their duties, these are the protagonists in this success story. (M. Lee 2008a; 2008b)

Lee reminds his audience that they are celebrating the 60th anniversary of Daehanminguk, South Korea, and he points to the Korean War as the moment when “we” fought and regained “our” lost land and “established our nation.” In both speeches, representations of North Korea—and the amount of time devoted to discussing North Korea—also shape the South Korean identity. While both presidents express a hope for unification, Roh refers to the North primarily in the foreign policy section of his speech, effectively depicting North Korea as a foreign nation and presenting the North as “other”—a people outside uri. President Lee’s speech achieves a similar effect by his greeting of the citizens of Daehanminguk and the 7 million overseas Koreans—but not the citizens of the DPRK. In doing so, there is a forgetting of the North Korean people and, once again, this omission suggests that the people of the North are not part of the national unit and are not the intended audience for the speech. As if to underline that distinction, we are reminded by President Lee of the huge differential in personal incomes that exists between the North and the South—Lee announces his plan to help bring per capita income of North Koreans to $3,000 a year. At the time of Lee’s speech, South Korea’s per capita income was around $26,000 (EIU 2011).24 Given such an income differential, people in the South would have many reasons for wanting to “forget” the North. These banal reminders of “us” and “we” and of “other” are “part of the ‘normal,’ habitual condition of contemporary state politics,” as Billig has argued (1995, p. 96). Unconsciously the language of daily politics emphasizes the existence of two separate Koreas, even if both Presidents may believe in a unified Korean peninsula. Accompanying the language of Presidents and politicians, the media also has the power to define, reinforce, and intensify national identity and nationalist sentiment. Billig has demonstrated that newspapers “flag the homeland” and remind us on a daily basis of who we are. An analysis of three South Korean news sources—the Chosun Ilbo, the Kyunghyang Shinmun, and Ohmynews.com25—reveals that the South Korean media constructs uri nara in the image of South Korea on a daily basis through articles, pictures, graphics, and advertising. An example of this that is

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particularly striking can be found in the print version of the Chosun Ilbo’s weather forecast which features a map that depicts only South Korea and renders North Korea completely invisible. Countless articles refer to South Korea as “our nation” or to South Koreans as “us” or “we.” Illustrative of this is an article that appeared in Chosun Ilbo on 28 March 2011 which reported that “small traces of radioactive material from Japan have been detected in the atmosphere of our nation” [my emphasis],26 while an article that appeared on the front page of the Kyunghyang Shinmun the same day reported on the unplanned development of the demilitarized zone between North and South, and referred to the South as “us” throughout.27 These repeated references to South Korea as uri are accompanied by innumerable expressions of nationalist sentiment in articles and advertisements that emphasize the triumphs, bravery, ingenuity, and patriotism of South Koreans.28 The way in which these news sources incorporate stories about North Korea is also revealing and has the power to subconsciously shape how South Koreans view the South and the North. Both Chosun Ilbo and the Kyunghyang Shinmun include articles on North Korea in news sections that also cover domestic South Korean issues. While articles about South Korea are presented as about “us,” articles about North Korea are presented as about “them.” This depiction of North Korea as “other” or “foreign” is also evident in the way most newspapers refer to it, choosing to treat it just as they do other foreign countries. For example, when foreign countries are discussed in South Korean newspapers, they are referred to either by their full name or their Chinese character thus: Il (日) for Japan; Jung (中) for China; Mi (美) for America, and so on. North Korea is referred to in a similar way, using the Chinese character for the North, Buk (北) or the term Bukhan (북한). The North is treated just like the foreign nations that need to be marked out or flagged. It is different from “us,” “we” or “our” and thus not assumed to be part of uri nara. The online news provider Ohmynews.com takes a rather different stance by including North Korean news in a section entitled minjok, a word that is associated with the wider Korean ethnic race but does not refer to any particular territorial space. Although this approach suggests a more inclusive attitude towards North Korea, it actually means that North Korean news is not included in the domestic political or society news sections. Instead, it appears alongside international news in a sub-section called minjok-gukje, roughly translated as “diaspora-international,” and is therefore framed as decidedly “other.” As we have seen above, just as there is an unconscious imagining and reminding of what we are, there must also be an unconscious differentiation with others. Billig calls this the “universal code of nationality”

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which stipulates “that a particular people and particular homeland are to be imagined as special, and, thereby, not so special” (1995, p. 78). Imagining a world of nations necessarily means the construction of ideas of us and them. We cannot imagine being part of our own national community unless we imagine a world of nations within which uri nara exists (ibid., p. 63). The chapters so far have provided explicit evidence that young people in South Korea perceive North and South as being two different communities. But how do the imaginings prompted by examples of banal nationalism cause this perception to evolve to become a recognition that South Korea is a different nation? And if no longer just a different community to that in the North, why can the manifestations of this perception be described as an expression of South Korean nationalism? Billig (ibid., p. 68) again provides insight here by reminding us about Anderson who writes that communities, be they religious, regional or national, are distinguished by the way they are “imagined” by their constituent members (Anderson 1983). South Korea is a nation that is lived daily in its political administration, its economic activity, and in the context of a wider international system of nation-states. South Koreans demonstrate their national particularity with their national anthem and flag and their seat at the UN, the ultimate acceptance of a nation within the international community (Billig 1995, p. 86). In the use of the words Daehanminguk and uri nara in the presidential speeches, we have seen how their references to the South Korean political community are made in the context of a nation, not of a region or local community. South Korea has created its own story as a nation with its recent history of dramatic development and economic growth. This is the history of modernization that both of the Presidents, as well as young people, cite as a point of pride and identity. They are celebrating South Korea and visualizing South Korea as a nation, not a region like Jeolla, or a metropolis like Seoul. And its identity is not compared to other regions, but to other nations like the United States, China and North Korea. It is an imagining of South Korea as a nation. While these examples of banal nationalism—in political speeches and in the media—may seem entirely predictable and obvious, it is precisely these qualities that makes banal nationalism so powerful. It means that its presence and its impact is often overlooked, but it is the existence of this kind of insidious and unremitting nationalism in South Korea that ensures that the concept of a South Korean nation is continually being constructed and reinforced. The South Korean experience shows just how the banal nationalism of contemporary state politics can not only influence the way an existing national unit renews and inspires itself but can also construct

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a new national community, particularly where an established political people or community already exists. Globalization

Globalization is not new to Korea (Hall 1991, p. 20). Interactions with “global” forces—including Chinese Dynasties, Japanese trade, foreign militaries, Cold War ideologies and western missionaries—have shaped and challenged the Korean peninsula across history. Over the past two decades, however, the pace of globalization and internationalization of Korean society has increased as has its impact on the lives of South Korean individuals. This change has given rise to both opportunities and difficulties and as a result Koreans have a complex relationship with the idea of globalization. We see an example of this in the protests against the liberalization of the agricultural sector, which have been amongst the most vociferous campaigns of recent years, noting that at the same time South Koreans express support for globalization and recognize the opportunities it has brought to their country. This latter point is underlined by survey data. In the 2014 Pew Research Centre survey, 90 percent of Korean respondents were in favor of international trade29 and in the 2010 World Values Survey, 83 percent of South Korean young people said that they viewed themselves as “a world citizen” (WVS 2010).30 Moreover, globalization has had a powerful influence on the nation’s economy and society. South Korea is the world’s 7th largest trading nation (WTO 2015) and in the 2014 A.T. Kearney Global Cities Index measuring “global engagement,” Seoul was ranked 12th ahead of cities including Sydney, Toronto, Shanghai and Berlin.31 This recent period of intense globalization has had a powerful constructive influence on South Koreans’ sense of national identity, particularly among young people. While interviews with young South Koreans reveal concerns about globalization (including how it will affect national culture and wealth distribution), their responses also illustrate the extent to which South Korean youth believe that globalization brings with it invaluable opportunities to travel, discover new things, grow the economy and promote Korean culture:32 I really like globalization. I’m a big fan of rock music so I’m happy that I can listen to rock music from South Africa, the U.S., and Australia. I think I am kind of a liberalist so I like globalization. It is actually making it possible for people all around the world to see what is in the world, so I like it. (Student Interview 2010tt)

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Globalization is good because it helps promote exports. And it means that many people from diverse backgrounds come to Korea, and it is great to absorb new cultures. (Student Interview 2014bb) I’m undecided [about globalization]….it is good that the world is cooperating and sharing diverse cultures and resources, but excessive globalization may mean compromising our traditions. (Student Interview 2014cc) We’re a small country so Free Trade Agreements can expand the market. Free trade should be promoted. And we have a natural affinity with foreign culture. Many young people travel to Europe, watch [European] soccer and listen to [Western] music. It feels quite instinctive. (Student Interview 2014dd) I am ambivalent to globalization. Sometimes I am happy with globalization because foreign trade helps our country to thrive. But sometimes I am not because it feels like only world powers such as the U.S. and Japan are taking the lead in the process. (Student Interview 2010uu) Globalization can help spread our great food across the world! (Student Interview 2014ee) The globalization of Korea means the opportunity to work abroad and a chance to introduce the Korean culture to the world. (Student Interview 2010vv)

A great deal of scholarship has focused on the relationship between globalization and the nation-state,33 but it is also important to consider the relationship between globalization and the national unit. Smith (2008) and Shin (2006) argue that globalization can, in fact, lead to an intensification of (ethnic) nationalism as a mechanism to protect against the challenges and instability that globalization brings with it. Brown (2000), however, argues that the impact of globalization on nationalism varies depending on how a nation’s elites react to the challenges it brings. Billig argues that the post-modern identities that stem from globalization—and may appear to threaten nations and nationalisms—actually operate firmly within the context of the system of nations. For example, young Americans may label themselves with post-modern identities such as African or feminist, but they still view themselves as African-American or as an American feminist (1995, pp. 139–149). Examining the impact of globalization on South Koreans’ understanding of their nation and their national identity

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offers an opportunity to build on this literature. We see how the emergence of a new South Korean national identity, as opposed to a unified Korean identity, demonstrates how globalization can construct and transform nationalisms, as well as maintain and intensify them. Globalization, Global Networks, and Travel

The democratization of South Korea has been accompanied by a dramatic growth in foreign travel driven by newfound political and social freedoms, increased wealth, and a growing desire for new experiences. Historically, only a privileged few in South Korea had the chance to go overseas, people such as officials and businessmen or selected students sponsored by the United States or Korean governments. Today, however, foreign travel is ubiquitous across Korean society and backpackers, honeymooners, businessmen, students, and families fill flights departing from Korea’s eight international airports.34 High rates of mobility and the popularity of overseas travel are not particular to Korea, but the rapid pace at which travel has grown over the last decade—especially among young people in Korea—is exceptional. South Korea sends more students overseas to study than any other country except India and China (UNESCO 2015), with nearly 220,000 going abroad to study in 2014 (Chosun Ilbo 2014). Their destinations reflect connections old and new between South Korea and other nations. The United States, for example, attracts many South Korean students, just over 70,000 in 2014 (ibid.), in part because of its long-standing economic, political, and military ties with South Korea. It is also the case that many students have family in the United States who can help and support them, and there are a number of attractive scholarship and funding opportunities to attend universities there (Student Interview 2011d). Newer ties exist between South Korea and countries such as China, Australia and the Philippines, all of which attract a significant number of South Koreans who travel there as tourists or students. Ideas about identity have been influenced in important ways by these global networks and by the experiences of young South Koreans during their travels. Traveling abroad can prompt a realization that they are specifically South Korean. Young South Koreans who gave little thought to North Korea and to their own national identity prior to their travels are often forced to consider these issues upon their arrival in a foreign country. One of the reasons for this is that mainstream overseas media generally gives North Korea more prominence (and delivers it more dramatically) than it does South Korea. Koreans are often questioned about their country in this context:

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CNN focuses on North Korean policy, the six-party talks under the Bush administration the “Axis of Evil,” and all the information that you get about Korea was about the North. You see on TV that it talks about Kim Jong-il and the nuclear missile project of North Korea, so when you see Korea for the first time in your life the image is the nuclear crisis, Kim Jong-il, dictatorship…. [Question: “Did you start to think about North Korea more when you went overseas?”] Yes. People are constantly reminding me about the existence of North Korea. When I switch on CNN it never talks about South Korea. (Student Interview 2010xx) When I was in Hawai’i, people always asked me which part of Korea I was from. Like South or North. So I realized that for many foreigners South and North Korea are different countries. (Student Interview 2009cc) When I met somebody for the first time in the U.S., I would say that I’m Korean but then someone would ask “are you from the North or the South?” And then I’d have to say South Korean. That was the question they asked most frequently. So maybe people in Korea, they consider it just as one country but people outside Korea already think of Korea as two countries. When I first went to the U.S., I was really shocked. (Student Interview 2010yy) I’ve been to Canada. When I said I was from Korea, they asked, “North or South?” (Student Interview 2014ff)35

Encounters such as these make young people conscious of being not just Korean, but South Korean. They also become aware that others perceive North Korea and South Korea as two separate and distinct nations. In this way these Korean travelers are constructed as South Korean. Furthermore, through these experiences young people take pride in the fact that South Korea is a developed country. There are always reminders of the relatively high levels of modernity and prosperity in South Korea (which are in stark contrast to the media’s depiction of poor North Korea): I lived in many countries with people from different cultures when I was working for charitable organizations. Some people from wealthy countries or Western countries would ask: “Where is Korea?” “Do you have a fridge in your house?” “Do they teach IT in your country?” I could see they didn’t know anything about Korea! (Student Interview 2009dd)36

In some ways these modern global networks resemble the colonial pilgrimages written about by Anderson (1983). The pilgrimages were

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undertaken by the bureaucratic elite for the purpose of administering their colonial lands and charges. These journeys of the colonial past allowed the elites to develop what Anderson termed a “consciousness of connectedness,” reinforcing a sense of the nation they belonged to and an understanding of whom else belonged to that nation (ibid., pp. 52–56, 122–125). Contemporary global networks have similarly prompted young South Koreans to contemplate their national identity but in their case this has encouraged an awareness of difference between North and South Korea, rather than an appreciation of similarity, and along with this is a realization that ethnicity is an insufficient basis upon which to form a nation. Through these modern global networks, young South Koreans encounter ethnic-Korean foreigners—Joseonjok, Korean-Americans, Korean-Australians, and so on, and these experiences further prompt the realization that sharing common ethnic roots does not necessarily translate into sharing a common sense of identity or nation:37 When I was in China I met several Korean-Chinese doing translation jobs. At first I thought they were just like Koreans because they spoke Korean and have Korean ancestors. So I assumed they regarded themselves as Korean, but that was not the case. They identify themselves as Chinese, looking down on Korea. But still they are coming to Korea to find well paid work. That is very weird. It’s funny they look down on Korea but are still coming to Korea to work…. [T]hey have Chinese nationality. At first I guessed they were favorable to Korea and missed their Korean homeland but they were not. They firmly believed in being Chinese. (Student Interview 2010zz) In fact, as many people say, ethnicity is a kind of “imagined community,” so one’s consciousness of an ethnic group creates one’s ethnicity. Therefore, I believe that if Chinese Koreans have a mindset as I have explained earlier [of being more attached to China than Korea], they cannot be considered as Koreans. On the other hand, if they have the mindset that they are Koreans, they can be considered as Koreans. (Student Interview 2013e) When I was in Korea I considered immigrants just as foreigners even though they had stayed in Korea for a long time. Now after I moved to New Zealand I changed my mind: even a foreigner can become Korean if they want to. (Student Interview 2013e)

Thus traveling overseas, particularly to countries with large ethnic Korean communities (such as the United States, China and New Zealand), can influence the way young South Koreans think about inclusion and immigration, and about accepting non-ethnic Koreans as Korean nationals.

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Such thoughts when visiting a nation like the United States invites an obvious question: If Koreans can be American, then why can Americans not be Korean? If an ethnic Korean can adopt the culture, behavior, and attitudes that define them as American, it becomes conceptually possible for someone of a different ethnicity to adopt the cultural requirements that define them as South Korean. Young people’s understanding of nationalism is changing through their interactions with foreigners and overseas ethnic-Koreans and with exposure to international media and its portrayal of the Korean peninsula. As a result of their experiences with these outcomes of globalization, the attitudes of many young South Koreans are being challenged and constructed, enabling them to consider a concept of South Korean national identity that is no longer based solely on ideas of ethnicity. Conclusion

The transformation of nationalism in South Korea, from one that incorporated North Korea to a nationalism that routinely excludes it, demonstrates the importance of democracy, banal nationalism and globalization in the construction of nation and identity. These powerful forces have influenced the lives of the isipdae such that their sense of nation and identity no longer resembles the ethnic nationalism of previous generations of South Korean young people. The construction of this emerging South Korean national identity is often unconscious: it takes place through the banal reminders of the South Korean nation and the differences between South and North Korea; it is subtly shaped through the nationalizing power of democratization, constructing the sovereign people of the Republic of Korea into a South Korean national community; and it emerges as a result of the reinforcement of young people’s identity through overseas travel. Yet despite their relative subtlety, these influences are powerfully constructing a new sense of nation and nationalism among the isipdae. Moreover, the forces of democratization and globalization are contributing to the new globalized cultural nationalist attitudes that are defining the emerging South Korean nation. Democratized and globalized, young South Koreans are comfortable with the idea of a modern, cosmopolitan and status-driven society. Understanding these shifts in South Korean identity must also be central to any preparations for unification with the North, or even for any warming of ties between the North and South. Too much scholarship and rhetoric focuses upon North Koreans as products of their system, in the way that East Germans used to be presented as “products” of their own Socialist system (Bender in Grinker 1998, p. 68). It is important to

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understand that South Koreans are as much constructs of their own system and experiences. As such, neither North Korea nor South Korea represents a “truer” sense of Koreanness than the other—culture and nation in both the North and South has been affected by the many years of political, economic and social change that has taken place in each country. In the case of the South, their national identity has been constructed by their experiences of globalization, the nationalizing power of democracy and their banal encounters with nationalism in everyday life. As we have seen, identity and nation is a dynamic concept, and South Korean and North Korean identities since division have been influenced in powerful and long-lasting ways by their distinctly different experiences. Notes

1. Changes under the Roh government included legal and constitutional revisions such as the Anti-Corruption Act Amendment extending protection of whistle-blowers; the creation of the post of Citizen’s Ombudsman for local government; and the passing of a bill establishing the Corruption Investigation Office to probe high-ranking public officials suspected of corruption. In addition, the Korean Pact on Anti-Corruption and Transparency (K-PACT) signed in March 2005 was created as a collaborative effort involving the private sector, civil society, and government to fight against corruption (Transparency International 2006). 2. http://www.freedomhouse.org (accessed 29 September 2015). Note, however, that Freedom House indicate a negative trend in civil and political rights in South Korea “due to increased intimidation of political opponents of President Park Geun-hye and crackdowns on public criticism of her performance following the Sewol Ferry incident” (Freedom House 2015). 3. The following quotations were in response to the questions: “What does democracy mean to you?” and “What do you feel about North Korea?” 4. The proposed real name system would have required websites to confirm a user’s personal information, such as their real name and resident registration number, when they wanted to post comments or upload content (Hankyoreh 2009a). 5. Park Chung Hee did achieve some measure of legitimacy through the economic achievements made under his leadership and also by purporting to defend the South from the North. Such legitimacy, however, is more than matched by the kind of widespread popular legitimacy, for both the leader and system, which is provided by democracy and the ideas of popular sovereignty that emanates from democracy. We see this legitimacy-deficit demonstrated throughout the period of the Park regime in the continued protests of students who were later joined by labor and eventually the mainstream population. 6. Many of the workers who went to Germany as “guest workers” were from South Korea, and they took jobs in areas such as nursing and mining. 7. See Huyssen (1994) for a discussion of how German unification has affected social attitudes to immigration. While immigrants are legally and institutionally now included in the concept of the German nation, pockets of

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German society, most notably in the former East Germany, have not been so accepting of new immigration and non-German immigrants. This provides interesting insight into the challenges that might face South Korea or indeed a unified Korea. 8. Examples of findings relating to immigration include criticism in 2009 of the police and immigration authorities whose “actions constituting human rights violations occurred during enforcement procedures involving undocumented workers.” Other statements and actions by the NHRCK in 2014 include calls for the South Korean government to “establish a protection system for refugees in accordance with international standards” and work with broadcasters “to eliminate discriminative expressions against migrants” on Korean Television http://www.humanrights.go.kr/english/main/index.jsp (accessed 29 September 2015). 9. http://www.humanrights.go.kr/english (accessed 30 September 2015). 10. Amnesty International also criticized the Lee Myung-bak government for its policy of bringing the NHRCK under the wing of the presidential office, changing its independent status, and potentially undermining its objectives and authority to speak out. http://www.amnesty.org.au /news/comments/8373 (accessed 29 September 2015). 11. See OCHR news and events pages http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents /Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15147&LangID=E (accessed 29 September 2015). 12. UNESCR report E/C.12/KOR/CO/3. 13. Examples of the discrimination commented on in this report might include the case of Filipino migrant worker and labor activist Michel Catuira, President of the Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants’ Trade Union (MTU), who was deported. See http://www.amnesty.org.au/news/comments/24988 (accessed 29 September 2015). 14. See, for example, “Korea ranks 67th on [UN] Global AgeWatch Index” (Chosun Ilbo 2013b); “UN Concern at ‘Ethnocentric’ Korea” (Chosun Ilbo 2007); “Korean Kids Unhappiest in OECD” (Chosun Ilbo 2010a); “Korea Remains Bottom of OECD in Welfare Spending” (Chosun Ilbo 2015); etc. 15. http://www.jcmk.org (in Korean) (accessed 29 September 2015). 16. See the criticism by Amnesty International of the current Employment Permit System at http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/10/south-korea -end-rampant-abuse-migrant-farm-workers and http://www.amnesty.org.au/news /comments/29327 (accessed 21 October 2015). 17. http://www.jcmk.org (in Korean). See also http://www.lgbtact.org (accessed 29 September 2015). 18. http://www.moel.go.kr (in Korean); http://www.moel.go.kr/english/main.jsp in English for recent government legislation on the protection of foreign workers (accessed 29 September 2015). 19. http://english.seoul.go.kr/life-information/work/employment/1-scope-of -activities-and-employment-for-foreigners-in-korea (accessed 21 October 2015). For further details of the sort of measures that the Korean government has put in place for the protection and support of migrants and their families, see ROK (2003; 2006; 2009) “Report submitted by states parties (South Korea) under article 9 of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.”

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20. Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act. See International Trade Union Confederation comment on the decision of the Supreme Court http://www.ituc-csi.org/korea-supreme-court-affirms-right (accessed 2 October 2015). 21. The majority used products of the 1997 fifth and sixth textbook reforms of the Kim Young-sam government. 22. See also Chung and Park (2010) for a textual comparison of linguistic style and content of the two speeches. 23. (a) Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR). In English: German Democratic Republic (GDR). (b) Bundersrepublik Deutschland (BRD). In English: Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). 24. Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) estimate, GDP per head US$ at PPP (purchasing power parity). 25. The Chosun Ilbo is South Korea’s most widely circulated newspaper, with an average daily print circulation of 1.84 million copies in 2010 (Chosun Ilbo 2010b). Its editorial viewpoint is conservative and its journalism is of a high quality, making it analogous to Britain’s The Telegraph or Australia’s The Australian. The Kyunghyang Shinmun has a progressive viewpoint underlying its reporting, but it has a relatively low circulation of just over 290,000 (Chosun Ilbo 2010b). However, it boasts a youthful and educated audience. Ohmynews.com is one of Korea’s foremost alternative online news and current affairs providers, with a substantial youth audience. It is also considered progressive in its political stance. 26. 미량의日 방사성 물질, 우리나라 대기서도 검출 북극. Miryang-ui Il Bangsaseong Muljil, Uri Nara Daegi Seodo Geomchul Buk Geuk (Chosun Ilbo, 28 March 2011). 27. 국방부는 지난해 6 월이 공문을 국무청리실, 행정안전부 등문정부 부처와 경기-강원도 등에 보낸 것으로 확인됐다. Gukbangbu-neun Jinanhae 6wori Gongmun-eul Gungmucheongnisil, Haengjeonganjeonbu Deungmunjeongbu Bucheowa Gyeonggi-Gangwondo Deung-e Bonaen Geoseuro Hwagindwaetta (Kyunghyang Sinmun, 28 March 2011). 28. See, for example, news items in the Chosun Ilbo newspaper on 28 March 2011: A story about Korean travelers in China being at risk from eating contaminated pork (note the story is not about the risk to Chinese consumers) (ibid., A13); South Korean experts are helping the Japanese solve the nuclear crisis (ibid., A5); an opinion piece on how to encourage the reading of Korean books overseas (ibid., A35); an interview with a Korean captain of a ship saved from Somali pirates by Korean marines (ibid., A33) and so on. Emotion is immediately inspired on the front page of the Chosun Ilbo by the moving photograph of a bereaved and tearful Korean mother touching the bronze image of her son’s face at a new military memorial. Her son was one of the forty-six naval personnel killed in the 2010 sinking of the Republic of Korea naval ship the Cheonam. A second patriotic marker is an advertisement for S-Oil, one of Korea’s largest oil companies, highlighting that it exports 60 percent of its product overseas, and is thus a patriotic South Korean company supporting the nation’s economy. 29. http://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/16/country/116/ (accessed 29 September 2015). 30. This figure represents those who responded “agree” or “strongly agree” to the statement “I see myself as a world citizen.”

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31. http://www.atkearney.com.au/research-studies/global-cities-index/2015 (accessed 29 September 2015). 32. The following quotations were in response to the questions: “What do you think about globalization?” and “What is Korea’s role in globalization?” 33. Some authors have argued that globalization signals the end of the nationstate’s relevance (Ohmae 1993; 1995), while others have argued that the persistence of the nation-state suggests that globalization requires their continued existence (Billig 1995). Some contend that it merely alters the role of the nationstate (Holton 1998; Hedetoft, 1999). 34. Korea’s major international airports are Incheon, Gimpo, Jeju, and Gimhae (Busan). Smaller international airports include Cheongju, Daegu, Muan, and Yangyang Airports. 35. This and the preceding quotations were in response to the questions: “What do people know about Korea when you travel overseas?” and “Are you proud of Korea?” 36. This quotation is in response to the question: “What do people know about Korea when you travel overseas?” 37. The following quotations are in response to the question: “Do you think that Joseonjok can become Korean?”

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The Impact of Globalization on National Identity

“If I am honest actually I hate globalization. Globalization brought the economic crisis to Korea and because of globalization we have to learn English.” —South Korean university student in 2010 “Young people are so selfish and individualistic. They care about themselves and how they can achieve their aims in life, much more than issues like unification. That is what we South Koreans are like!” —South Korean university student in 2010

Life on campus for Korean students today is very different from student life in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Pay a visit to any one of the many Seoul-based university campuses and you will probably find a Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts or Caffe bene.1 It is hard to imagine the radical student leaders of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s discussing Marxism over a chain-outlet cappuccino, but these glaring symbols of globalization in Korea’s centers of learning are popular among the isipdae. They are symbolic of the growing importance of profit, market forces, and the rise of neo-liberal values in the lives of young South Koreans. The globalization of South Korea and pervasive neo-liberal values such as consumerism, individualism, and competition have deeply impacted the lives of young South Koreans. In particular, South Korea’s globalization has created an intensely competitive educational and employment culture where young people face relentless pressure as they strive to obtain exemplary credentials that they hope will lead them to a secure and rewarding career, a hope that is increasingly illusive.

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When faced with such intense competition, it is unsurprising that this generation of South Korean young people feel highly vulnerable and are increasingly risk-averse. This growing disinclination to accept risk has had a marked impact upon attitudes toward North Korea, unification and national identity. This chapter will demonstrate that the isipdae are consciously rejecting the idea of unification with North Korea and are choosing the South Korean national identity. They are motivated to protect their economic interests from the threat posed by unification and the increased people movements from North Korea to South Korea that would follow. This sense of threat is accentuated by their perceptions of German unification and their recollections of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. This chapter uses an instrumental analysis to further understand why this new South Korean nationalism is emerging among young people. The instrumentalist school of nationalism is most commonly associated with the work of Elie Kedourie (1974). Its proponents contend that nations are consciously created and manipulated by social and political actors for instrumental reasons; that is, to justify a secondary purpose. In the case of the isipdae, an instrumental analysis of the rise of South Korean nationalism reveals that young people are actively adopting this new national identity and are questioning the necessity and value of Korean unification. The secondary purpose of the isipdae in consciously embracing the new South Korean nation is to protect their economic interests. The manner in which they are adopting this new national identity and embracing the new South Korean nation is novel and thus also of theoretical interest. It is bottom-up, expressing a broadly collective and societal choice among South Korean young people. These findings are contrary to those usually found in the theoretical literature where it is more common for instrumental analyses to unearth top-down or elite manipulation of nations and nationalism to achieve distinct aims. Globalization, Education, Employment … and Marriage

Although globalization can be social, economic, or political in its nature (Baylis and Smith 1997), this chapter focuses specifically on economic globalization and the spread of market economics and neo-liberal ideology in South Korea. Neo-liberalism emphasizes economics based on individual market rationality above all other forms of social organization. At the international level it argues for “unfettered global markets and a consumer-based individualistic ethic which transcends national communities” (Tooze 1997, p. 227). It is a belief in the benefits of neo-liberalism and economic globalization that drives governments (where it is politically feasible to do so) to remove barriers to the movement of trade,

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capital, and labor. The impact of globalization and the rise of neo-liberal values on South Korea’s young people is perhaps most visible in the increasingly competitive and demanding education and employment domains. Young people are under tremendous (and ever-increasing) pressure to achieve stellar educational records (relative to their peers), and to secure jobs that are not only well paid but are also respected and valued by Korean society. These relentless pressures perpetuate a “survival of the fittest” culture2 (Woo and Park 2007; An 2010) that demands that young people fight to stand out in a society full of high achieving individuals by continuously amassing qualifications, experiences, employment records, and wealth—attributes that are seen as the critical indicators of an individual’s worth and success. The importance of formal education is emphasized across Korean society and is reflected in the high rates of school and university attendance. Confucian ideas about hierarchy and social standing (introduced to the peninsula during the Joseon dynasty, 1392–1910) are still influential in South Korea. They underpin the enormous value that is placed on education and the corresponding belief that scholarly learning is a crucial means of achieving status (Cumings 1997, pp. 59–60; Seth 2002, pp. 250–252). One consequence of this is that being a university academic or a teacher is highly regarded in South Korean society and many parents encourage their children to enter the academic or teaching professions for this reason. It is little surprise, then, that when asked what they might like to be when they grow up, it is not unusual for children to reply “professor” or “scientist.” Entrepreneurism and blue collar jobs are seen as inferior to academic careers although this is also increasingly related to the relative job and economic security that is attached to academic and teaching positions as well as with some roles in the public sector (Chosun Ilbo 2014a, 2007b). While the education system continues to require excellence in the Confucian tradition, the globalization of Korean society has had a dramatic impact on the sector. The demand for tertiary educated young people has grown and this is driven, in part, by the demands of globalization for particular skills, such as in English language and IT. We have already noted the exceptional level of participation in higher education by young people, and this has resulted in Korea having the largest proportion of tertiary educated 25–34 year olds in the OECD, according to recent indicators (OECD 2014, p. 33). This has intensified competition within the educational environment, and young people can no longer assume that attaining educational excellence will in itself secure employment opportunities, status, and wealth. Instead, young people now strive for excellence relative to the achievements of their fellow students, and they

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view these fellow students as competitors who they must consistently outperform. This educational competitiveness has driven privatization and elitism in the South Korean education system. Korea’s educational system was originally built on, and sustained by, egalitarian principles and a comprehensive and equal education system was seen as the best tool for developing a disciplined and cohesive society (S. Park 2010, p. 589). However the ascendance of neo-liberal ideology in South Korean politics has “led to the rapid dismantling of the egalitarian framework for the country’s education policymaking” (ibid., p. 579). The egalitarian educational agenda has been replaced by policy based on “such neo-liberal values as competition and efficiency” (ibid., p. 596). One of the drivers of this phenomenon has been the increased power of the middle class, which has demanded (and received) a more selective and elite-based system. This has prompted a rise in selective schools, the extension of private education, the legalization and social acceptance of private afterschool coaching, and the creation of elite specialist schools, all of which exist to provide middle class children with a greater chance of being accepted at a more highly ranked tertiary institution (ibid.). In interviews with young people, these intense educational pressures were frequently raised. It was interesting to note that for some of them there is a belief that the challenges they face are much greater than those faced by their parents. The current education environment in South Korea that is experienced by young people has only existed under successive democratic governments while the education system experienced by their parents was under successive authoritarian governments:3 In my parents’ day, people only had to do quite well to find a decent job and reach a certain status. But that is not enough for our generation. We have to be really good. It is so tough for our generation. I think that’s the difference. Parents urge us to keep working “hard” but what they mean by “hard” is very different from what we know to be the meaning of the word if we want to succeed in this day and age. (Student Interview 2010aaa) [Previous generations of 20-somethings] were able to get a job once they graduated. Although there were limitations in regards to freedom and democracy, these were not individual problems. Whereas employment problems [today] directly affect our lives as individuals. (Student Interview 2014gg) I think we have more challenges [than previous generations of 20-year olds]. When we get a job we have to prepare English, high school grades,

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plus internships and other experiences of volunteering. It is even more difficult to get a job but I guess less challenging regarding other things like democracy. (Student Interview 2010bbb)

The pressures of the education system that confront this generation of isipdae are likely to persist as long as young people are compelled to face South Korea’s intensely competitive job market upon graduation. Competition in employment has been encouraged by neo-liberal policies that have allowed the development of a low-wage and short-term employment culture making secure and rewarding positions increasingly prized. Further, with such high numbers of tertiary-educated graduates, the job market is flooded with young people holding excellent qualifications. When asked about their greatest fear or worry, nearly all of the young people interviewed explained that they were worried about their future career: Since the current economic environment is not very good I am concerned about getting a job. (Student Interview 2010ccc) My greatest worry is, how will I find work? And what kind of work will I do? It’s quite simple. And there is nothing that worries me more. (Student Interview 2014hh) Getting a job of course! (Student Interview 2011f) My biggest worry is that young people can’t get a decent job even if they graduate from Seoul National University. This is especially problematic for people like us who go to lower tier, regional colleges. (Student Interview 2014ii) I am so worried about the economy. You hear everywhere that the economy is in a bad shape. I agree with this analysis. In the past when I spent my parents’ money I didn’t really think about where it came from. Now I should be financially independent, but I have nowhere to go after graduating. I won’t be able to find a job once I’ve completed my undergraduate degree. (Student Interview 2010ddd)

A further challenge for young South Koreans in this tough employment environment is that they are not only fighting to find a job, they are also fighting to find the “right” job. One of the greatest challenges for young South Koreans is managing social expectations related to employment. Young people tend to strongly favor so-called “decent jobs” in big firms such as the jaebol (large conglomerates like Samsung). They are likely to shun entrepreneurial roles or jobs at small and medium size

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enterprises (even if they are innovative or cutting edge) and jobs at companies outside of Seoul, as these are all viewed as less worthy, less impressive, and less valuable. However these “decent jobs” are few and far between and those who take up “decent jobs” account for a mere 10 percent of the total number of newly hired young workers (Sohn et al. 2010). One SERI4 analyst explained how this demand for “decent jobs” has manifested itself in the cycle of educational competition: If students fail to enter a large company they stop searching and would rather remain economically inactive…. They live with their parents … [and] then they return to study again to try and improve their chances of a better job in a large company…. For example, they invest a huge amount of time studying English or to get as many various “certifications” as possible. But the competition to get into the large company [sector] is so intense that in the end only a small portion of them can be successful. (Expert Interview 2010a)

For those who cannot rely on their parents, cannot return to further study, or ultimately fail in securing that elusive jaebol job, then wages and conditions are frequently dismal (SERI 2012). The liberalization of the labor market has increased the temporary nature of many employment opportunities and has placed downward pressure on salaries, particularly those at the lower end or entry level of the job market. As a consequence, many graduate employees find themselves in jobs where wages are well below their expectations and at levels that are prohibitive to establishing a life independent of their parents. The number of workers hired on an irregular basis has increased sharply since the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and a culture of temporary employment has become the typical experience of young people in the South Korean workforce (Woo and Park 2007). Globalization and neo-liberal reforms have meant that the tradition of lifelong employment for new recruits has virtually disappeared. According to the OECD, “nearly one third of all employees [in Korea] are nonregular workers, and the incidence of non-regular employment among youth and older workers is particularly high” (OECD 2015). The analyst at SERI quoted above explained how young people find themselves moving between jobs: They move from one spot to another spot between very unstable parttime jobs. The Japanese call these freiter—free-arbeiter—and the South Korean young people, if they do not find a regular job they tend to get into irregular jobs without a fixed employment contract where they can be fired at any time without any severance pay. There is also a significant wage gap between regular and irregular workers…. [T]he

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probability of being hired on a temporary contract for college graduates is around 65 percent when they first enter the employment market. (Expert Interview 2010a)

The OECD notes that the incidence of low-pay is very high in Korea compared with other OECD countries and this is “driven by the high incidence of non-regular work, coupled with low mobility from nonregular to regular jobs, and large wage gaps between SMEs and large firms” (OECD 2015). Employees who do not have regular worker status are also less likely to receive benefits such as bonuses, a pension, and health insurance (Ser and Baek 2011; OECD 2015). Unlike the situation for previous generations of young people, the isipdae face further difficulties since the financial pressures that accompany irregular work and low wages are exacerbated by concerns about repaying tuition fee loans. Korean tuition fees are considered to be among the highest in the world with a 4-year degree costing around US$70,000 (Ali 2015; Hankyoreh 2015b).5 An increasing number of students now take loans to cover the cost of their higher education, but many struggle to repay these loans because of the difficulties in finding suitable employment after graduating. Defaults on student loans are growing at a rapid rate and credit delinquency (where repayments are more than six months behind schedule) has “exploded,” with a 38-fold increase in cases since 2006 (Chosun Ilbo 2011a).6 A best-selling 2007 book entitled The 880,000 Won Generation—the title of which was taken from an estimate of the average monthly salary of temporary workers in South Korea—reflected on this culture of low wage and temporary employment. The book was inspired by an advertisement for a job at the National Assembly that required skills including competence in statistics and policy-making but offered a monthly salary of just 900,000 Won (around US$790) (Woo and Park 2007, p. 20). Although the successful applicant would be highly competent and skilled, this starting salary is not enough to support even an average lifestyle, particularly in Seoul. The authors of The 880,000 Won Generation argue that economic globalization and neo-liberal reforms have had a powerful impact on the South Korean employment market and on South Korean workers. The isipdae now must struggle very hard to achieve professional success, and this has inspired a ruthlessness and uncompromising competitiveness in the world of work that reflects the broader trend toward a “survival of the fittest” culture in Korean society, a trend that was noted earlier in this chapter. As if this were not bad enough, the pressure on young South Koreans to succeed educationally and in the employment market is further

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compounded by the demands of marriage and the importance of educational and employment success when searching for a spouse. South Korean society remains relatively socially conservative on the topic of marriage, and marriage remains the ultimate goal for the majority of young people (both male and female). The huge success of commercial matchmaking companies7 demonstrates the continued cultural importance of marriage. However the marriage market in South Korea is highly competitive, particularly for men seeking wives (even among the modern, urban, educated isipdae). When selecting a partner, “suitability” is very important, and an individual’s suitability is based not only on their physical appearance, personality and family background, but also on the university they attended, their salary, and their job.8 For those without a job, chances of marriage are limited: in a survey of 75,000 young people between 2007 and 2013, it was found that an employed male was nearly three times more likely to be married than a male who was not in employment (Korea Employment Information Service quoted in Chosun Ilbo 2015a). It is also common for a potential partner to be rejected because he or she attended a university that lacks sufficient prestige, studied the “wrong” subject, or has not achieved a postgraduate qualification. To marry “well”—that is, to ensure one’s acceptance by a preferred partner with the right “suitability”—an individual must commit to building their marriage credentials from an early age. For the isipdae, then, marriage chances are added to the list of worries already facing young people in regards to their future. Thus, while the pressure to attain the right qualifications from the right university in order to secure the right job is very great, having the right education and employment is also critically important in terms of establishing one’s suitability as a marriage partner: Working in a large company is like having a product with a great brand. Working at a small company is a stigma for Korean youth. It might seem strange to other people in foreign countries but this is especially the case for Korean young men in order to get married. This is the reality. (Expert Interview 2010a)

A 2009 survey9 confirmed that many South Koreans have extremely high expectations in terms of their spouse’s income and assets. The survey found that women wanted a spouse with assets and a minimum yearly income way beyond what might be in the reach of those of average marriageable age (Duo 2009). The high youth unemployment rate and the culture of temporary work in South Korea mean that achieving this kind

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of income and wealth is a daunting, if not impossible, challenge for many isipdae. Most young people will also have limited personal assets unless they are gifted property by their parents upon marriage. Given that less than 10 percent of women said that the income of a future spouse is not a critical factor when deciding a marriage, the struggle by young people to find work is imbued with the added pressure of securing a high enough income to attract a husband or wife (Duo 2009). There is certainly an argument to be made that globalization and neoliberal reforms have created growth and opportunity in South Korea and have forced the country to become much more competitive in the global market place. Some of South Korea’s economic indicators are positive, including unemployment rates, productivity, inflation, and national debt. But as we have already seen in this chapter, one of the more challenging aspects of globalization is the instability that it brings to the workplace with the attendant risk of downward pressure on salary levels, increased job mobility, and increased demand for specific skills. All these features of the instability brought about by globalization appear to have disproportionately affected young people. Korea has the highest proportion of irregular workers in the OECD and the lowest proportion of workers who have been in the same job for ten years or more (Seol 2011). Interviews with young people demonstrate that future employment and job prospects are of grave concern to the vast majority of them. When faced with overwhelming pressure to achieve educational excellence and to stand out in the midst of a crowd of high-performing young people, as well as having considerable anxiety about student debt and poor employment prospects, it is unsurprising that the isipdae are wary of any national or political path that might bring additional risk, uncertainty and thus instability. Globalization, Unification and Uncertainty

The intense competition that young South Koreans face both in education and employment, and the significant uncertainty that they face in terms of their future prospects, has shaped the way many think about unification and nationalism. Achieving the basics of “success” in South Korea, which requires permanent employment in a major firm, a living wage and marriage, is an intimidating task. As a consequence, young South Koreans are, unsurprisingly, risk averse. Thus for many of the isipdae, any ideological appeal that unification may hold is substantially undermined by the threat of accompanying social, economic, and political upheaval and uncertainty. Unification is seen as a daunting, unsettling, and risky prospect precisely because many young people believe that the unification

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process will harm South Korea and thus threaten their own futures (and specifically their economic security). Many young South Koreans therefore believe that the risks associated with unification are simply too great, and that rejecting unification and maintaining South Korea as its own nation is the safer and more sensible option for themselves, and for South Korea as a whole. This belief is further strengthened by popular perceptions of two important historical moments that are seared in the South Korean memory: the unification of East Germany and West Germany in 1990, and the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. To most international observers, the unification of East Germany and West Germany is generally viewed as a success story. The German economy has grown significantly since unification and overall unemployment is low. For some, perhaps, the ultimate symbol of successful reconciliation is the fact that the current Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is originally from East Germany. For young South Koreans, however, the many challenges that persist in unified Germany—high unemployment in some eastern regions, anger about the amount of money invested in the east to the detriment of the rest of the nation, social fissures between “Ossies and Wessies,” and the rise of neo-Nazi movements in the east— serve only to highlight the risks involved in unifying North Korea and South Korea. Young South Koreans frequently refer to Germany’s experience when expressing concern about Korean unification. For many isipdae, the particular circumstances that exist on the Korean peninsula suggest that the potential fallout from Korea’s unification would be even greater than they perceive it to have been in Germany. Economically, the gap that would need to be bridged between North Korea and South Korea is far greater than the gap that existed between East Germany and West Germany, and South Korea does not have the financial capacity of West Germany and its European Union partners. Perhaps less well understood is the relative freedom East Germans had compared to people living in North Korea. The much deeper political and social estrangement of North Korea and South Korea would add a new dimension to the challenges of unification. The scale of this estrangement is unlike anything East and West Germany experienced. Throughout the Cold War division of Germany, West Germans were generally able to visit family in East Germany and East Germans were always able to listen to West German radio stations. With the growth of television ownership in the 1960s, East Germans could watch West German television too (Richthofen 2009, p. 103). Their exposure to such outside influences allowed East Germans to develop an independent and worldly view of their neighbors. The two Koreas, on the other hand, fought a brutal war against each other and the North Koreans have been almost totally cut off

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from any outside influence and contacts ever since. Their view of South Korea (and the wider world) is entirely formed and rigidly managed by the propaganda apparatus of the North Korean state. In light of the unique context, many young people believe that Korea faces a far greater risk of economic, social, and political upheaval as a result of unification, and many expressed this fear in interviews:10 No [Korea is not prepared for unification]…. West Germany used to be a powerful economy but West Germany had to pay a heavy price for absorbing East Germany. We’ll suffer a similar fate at unification. Many North Koreans will come to Korea and at first we will be able to hire them paying a minimal salary. But they will want more and we can’t afford that. Moreover, we will have to establish an infrastructure in the North. (Student Interview 2009ee) Germany has been unified after being divided like Korea. German unification was reached after a decade or so.11 But for us it has already been 60 years since the two countries separated. Looking at the conflict between West and East Germany [after unification] as well as the gap [between North and South Korea] in terms of the economy, politics and society. I am not that favorable toward unification. The cost of unifying must have been huge for Germany, but for us it will be even higher. I don’t know if we would be able to cover this cost. (Student Interview 2014jj) I don’t know that South Korea will benefit from unification in the shortrun because there is such a huge economic gap between the two Koreas…. Let’s take Germany’s case as an example. I have a friend from West Germany. This guy really doesn’t like people from East Germany. He says “I don’t like East Germans and they hate us.” He gets really angry about the fact that capital and resources are flowing from West Germany to East Germany. I believe that this is the case with Koreans. I don’t think that there are many benefits in the short-term. (Student Interview 2009ff)

The concerns and fears of many isipdae about the social and economic implications of unification in light of the German experience is further compounded by memory and understanding of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. This crisis remains an important (and well known) part of the national narrative, particularly the levels of unemployment that existed at that time and the anger felt towards foreign companies that profited from South Korea’s pain. Koreans recall with particular pride the gold donation campaign, where South Korean citizens donated gold to the government to help it repay the country’s debt to the IMF and other creditors. Many of the current generation of isipdae are old enough to

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remember the challenges faced by their families and the country during the crisis. Indeed, interviews with young people revealed vivid recollections of events from that time, and particularly the gold donation movement. Their responses highlight the impact the financial crisis has had on current attitudes:12 My friend’s father was made redundant so I was sad. I was proud of the gold collection movement that aimed to help clear the nation’s debts. (Student Interview 2009gg) I think that Koreans became overly conscious about employment after the Asian Financial Crisis. Many parents were laid off then so they are fixated on [their children finding] a so-called “good job.” (Student Interview 2014kk) It was when I was a high school senior. Some of my friends said that their lives became very different because they couldn’t afford college tuition. And there was the gold collecting campaign which I found very encouraging. There were mothers selling their wedding rings to support their children through the difficult period. I was so moved to see how the small acts of average people could come together to make something greater. [Question: Do you worry about a similar crisis happening in future?] Sure, once you experience it, you never forget it. It is especially hard for college students. Our generation went through the IMF crisis and then had fun at the 2002 World Cup. We are stuck between the two extremes; we feel we should be ready for crisis, while we want to enjoy our lives. It feels very unsure and unstable. (Student Interview 2009hh) My father was running a small business in 1997 and my family went through a difficult time dealing with the economic crisis. I was young and studying at primary school so I don’t remember it well but I do remember the news reports on homeless people, workers getting fired, and the increase in the suicide rate. (Student Interview 2009ii) I remember the economic crisis. I was at middle school. Compared to others we didn’t feel the crisis as much because my parents are public sector workers. My father was working as a teacher and could see the aftermath of the crisis. Like the increase in the number of students who applied for free subsidized meals. [Question: Do you worry about a similar crisis happening in the future?] Yes … financial crises lead to job shortages you know. People say that it is more difficult to get a job these days than in 1997. (Student Interview 2009jj)

Perceptions about German unification, coupled with memories of economic uncertainty and hardship during 1997 financial crisis, add to the fears surrounding Korean unification. In the mind of many young South

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Koreans, unification is equated with risk and economic insecurity, and this has made the prospect of unification increasingly unappealing to many young people who already face considerable economic uncertainty and instability in their own lives:13 I am against [unification] because I am very satisfied with my life here and now and if we unify with the North, which is so poor, South Korea is going to suffer huge economic losses. (Student Interview 2010eee) I don’t believe that unification is a path that we have to follow. It’s hard enough that we as South Korean citizens need to compete among ourselves. If unification happens, there will be more people to compete against and that is a threat. North Koreans are used to hardship so they will probably work very hard. We South Koreans are used to a more laid back and privileged life so competing against North Koreans is a threatening thought. (Student Interview 2014mm) North Koreans are so poor. Unification will just be a burden for us. (Student Interview 2011g) I am against unification. The fact that South Korea will have to take on the North’s weak economy is too burdensome. (Student Interview 2014nn) I am against unification. I attended a lecture by a North Korean defector. He asked the audience “how can you think about economics when it comes to the issue of unification?” But I don’t think that you can talk about unification without discussing economics. My friend talked about love and one people. But I am much more interested in the practical issues like economics and politics. Let’s say that unification means that everyone in the South had to pay sixty percent tax. Then who would want unification? There is a huge gap between the economies of the North and South and I don’t think that many people are willing to carry the burdens associated with unification. I think that most people agree with me. I want the South and the North to remain separate. (Student Interview 2010fff) I agree [with unification], but the economic consequences of unification do concern me because North Korea is such a poor country. (Student Interview 2014oo) We may lose our jobs to North Koreans. I’m against [unification]. (Student Interview 2014pp)

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North Korea is so poor compared to South Korea. I’m against unification because we will have to help them too much. (Student Interview 2014qq) I am not sure whether or not we need unification. When I was young we were told that we should achieve unification. We were taught a song called “our wish is unification” and similar … but as I grew older I realized how much of a burden unification will be. Things are already tough for the middle class in South Korea and if we unify then it will just get tougher. So now I am not really positive about unification. (Student Interview 2009kk)

Neo-Liberalism and the New South Korean Nationalism

The isipdae are willing to expressly reject unification because of the risks it presents to South Korea’s stability and prosperity. This is clearly observable in their interview responses. Their conscious choice to actively embrace the South Korean national identity, and its globalized, neoliberal attributes, is also observable in their actions, choices and behaviors. One such behavior relates to their participation in student activism and extra-curricular interests. The student activism and organizations of previous generations of South Korean young people broadly focused upon shared interests including anti-authoritarianism, campus autonomy and, of course, Korean unification. Contemporary campus activism and the extra-curricular activities of the current isipdae reveal the impact of the competitive educational and employment environment and the choices that young people are making as a result. As they work towards achieving that socalled “decent job,” South Korea’s young people increasingly find their extra-curricular time filled with activities aimed at individual development and improvement rather than the collective or communal goals commonly seen in the historic student movement. Student groups and societies at elite Korea University provide a particularly interesting example of this in action but it is not just confined to the elite universities. In 2010, Korea University produced a brochure describing all of its affiliated student clubs and societies to celebrate thirty years of official student society activity within the university. It introduced around thirtyfive different student groups, the majority of which showed a pragmatic self-interest as they were economically and vocationally focused rather than catering for political interests. Some provided an opportunity to practice English, while others were centered on academic disciplines and departments. One club hosted discussions of Time magazine articles (and boasted the particularly cosmopolitan name of “Eyes toward the World”),

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another ran seminars for students to “become successful and achieve their dreams” in a self-help style environment (Korea University 2010). Clubs relating to finance and investment careers are popular. One such club, linked to Korea University Business School, is called IFRA (Investment and Finance Research Association). It is run privately by student members and staff and it claims to open doors to the world of finance and banking by helping members develop the understanding and skills that are needed to secure positions in the finance and investment banking sectors. To join this particular club, individuals must submit their curriculum vitae and pass an interview. If they are accepted as a member, then with the help of a Professor of Finance, they are able to study financial markets, attend conferences (often overseas), arrange for finance professionals to speak to them, and visit investment banks. English is the only language used during all of these activities. With exclusive membership, and leveraging the tremendous contacts and experience that can be gained through the society, many members do, in fact, go on to careers in the financial sector (Chae 2009). There are similar clubs at non-elite universities such as Dongguk University, where its finance club “RICH” discusses economic issues and analyzes business prospects and stock and share information (Lim and Lee 2012), although it is unclear whether these clubs are able to replicate the success seen at Korea’s elite institutions. The flourishing of clubs and societies such as these suggests that the extra-curricular activities of young people are increasingly focused on the individual and activities that can improve one’s “spec” (and one’s future) rather than on broader community or societal issues that may not touch them directly. Despite the tradition of political protest at Korean universities (and especially Korea University), only three societies in the Korea University brochure could be classed as overtly political.14 Of course, some clubs operate outside the official student society structure and these may be more political in their activities. Other young people may participate in organizations or clubs independent of the university such as the organization VANK or in the “enlightened” movements discussed in an earlier chapter. However, during the period over which the research for this book was carried out—2009 to 2014—almost no student activity or action relating to unification was visible on the university campuses visited by the author. Where student activities did focus on wider societal issues, they often related to the direct self-interest of students. The “Youth Community Union” at Korea University, for example, aims to protect students and young people in low paid temporary work (Hankyoreh 2010a). At Yonsei University, in spring 2010, the author recorded in a notebook the wording on the banners at a small-scale protest which was

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focused on issues relating to employment and wages, campus politics, and English language learning: 내가 왜 ‘88 만원세대’ 여야하지 행복하게 노동할수 있는사회 만들라!

[Translation: Why do I have to be the “880,000 won generation” and why can’t we construct a society in which we can work happily!] 경제위기 회복되었 서 실업률은 왜 그대로?

[Translation: If we have recovered from the Global Credit Crisis, why is unemployment still so high?] 영어인증제 절대평가 폐지한다 기업에 인재위한교육 반대!

[Translation: Get rid of the sliding [relative] scoring for English language ability by the English language examination companies and reinstate absolute scoring!]

When we do find a heavily publicized example of student activism which is ostensibly of a political nature, even that can be seen as motivated by self-interest. In 2010, a female student from Korea University named Kim Ye-seul made front-page news when she put up a handwritten poster decrying the unjust and meaningless life of a Korean student in a “credential-focused university system.” She characterized the typical student as someone who works hard but is rewarded with only a minor white collar job on graduation—students being treated as “a commodity” (Hankyoreh 2010b). Kim Ye-seul “resigned” from university to make her point, but her student activism was both rational and calculated. She wanted to join the NGO sector, and the notoriety that her protest afforded her helped her to get a job in that sector. It also helped her to publish a book on her experience. It is likely that her protest was successful only because of her status as a student at the elite Korea University (Hankyoreh 2010c). Kim’s activism was, in essence, her internship and it led to the career of her choice. In the competitive environment that many young South Koreans face it is hard to be critical of her for cleverly exploiting her status in this way. However, for all its notoriety and profile, Kim Ye-seul’s activism was a self-interested shadow of the activists and activism of earlier student movements. The students in those earlier times placed national goals, not least a unified nation, ahead of individualistic and self-interested agendas. The shifting focus of student activism highlights the self-interested and self-serving priorities of contemporary students. It suggests that while interest in wider

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community activities still persists, students struggle to find the time and energy to devote to these causes. Activism relating to unification is even lower in their list of priorities. The shift away from student movements devoted to wider social and political issues, particularly unification, is partly the result of the need to focus on self-interested motives in order to survive in an ultra-competitive society. In a student magazine article entitled “Between we and I: The emergence of the ‘myself generation,’” one student commented: “I am … always overloaded with a lot of assignments and pressure to take qualification exams. I am just too busy to pay attention to others” (G. Kim 2010, p. 10). In the same article, another student remarked that “the classes I take are too difficult to keep up with unless I preview and review the textbooks day to day, so I usually spend most of the time studying. Studying seems endless and unfortunately, I guess it has already become one of my habits. If I had enough free time I would rather spend it on myself” (ibid.). This individualization of student life in South Korea was also evident in many interviews carried out for this book:15 The main argument of 880,000 Won Generation is too idealistic along the lines of “we should stop being so individualist and instead work together to change society.” I don’t agree with it. I just find it idealistic. Most people are not going to share or give up their own profit or benefit for others … so most people today have just adapted themselves to the changed world, spending their time studying their major or TOEIC to get a good grade and then a good job. I take a few classes. Apart from sleeping I spend the rest of my time on the campus…. I catch up with friends in the student union. If I have an assignment, I go to the library to work on it. I study at the library when I have exams. I am living like a typical 20-something. (Student Interview 2010ggg) These days all people think about is themselves. If they like something they do it without considering others. (Student Interview 2014rr) In general [young people] are so indifferent and only a few of them participate in political activity. We just go to school and sit in class, and hang out with friends. When we have no class, and when the class is over we look for some fun. That’s all. (Student Interview 2010hhh) What is a normal day for Korean students.... They are normally on campus during the day, they study or take class, then go to the library or back home or maybe hang around with their friends. That’s the normal life of students today. They’re not thinking about important matters, about North Korea or unification. They don’t care much about these. [They think] “they’re not my issue” … finding a job is a big issue to us. We are crazy about finding a job and we are told about finding a

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job or other exams from when we are freshmen. (Journalist Interview 2010b) Young people are worried about dieting, studying and getting a job. There is not much concern about unification and the North Korean problem. For those who have to survive in this economy, personal concerns are the most urgent and important. It is difficult to care about national issues. (Student Interview 2014ss)

Abelmann, Park, and Kim (2009, p. 243) have argued that this shift from community-focused to individual-focused priorities is a consequence of embracing neo-liberal values: “[B]y rendering individual subjects responsible for themselves, neo-liberal governing technology passes the responsibility for social risks or problems, such as poverty and unemployment onto the shoulders of individuals.” In a highly competitive environment such as that found in South Korea, young people must focus on their own interests, and Abelmann and her colleagues conclude that “this individualistic character of neo-liberal subjectivity precludes collective alliance … [and in] the logic of neo-liberal political rationality, the political subject is less a collective or social citizen than an individual citizen who obsessively pursues personal fulfillment” (ibid.). This conclusion highlights the effect that neo-liberalism has had on youth society in South Korea. Of course, there are some young people who have defied these trends and do find time to participate in collective activities that do not benefit them directly. Understandably, however, many young people choose instead to devote their time to activities that can directly advantage them in this highly competitive neo-liberal environment. Faced with the ever increasing pressures brought on by globalization, it is not surprising that this generation of isipdae have chosen a path that rejects discussion of North Korea and unification. They have instead consciously and willingly embraced and adopted a South Korean nationalism and identity that serves, protects, and represents their interests in this highly competitive environment and, crucially, does not require them to take responsibility for improving the lives of those in North Korea. Conclusion

It is useful at this point to compare the young people of this generation with the students and youth of earlier generations in South Korea. In Chapter 2, the student movement from the colonial period to the early1990s, along with its nationalist credentials, was explored in some detail.

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We saw how the early student movement’s conception of the national unit as a unified one was expressed clearly in both words and actions. In contrast, the current generation of young people has neither the time nor motivation to participate in wider social or community issues unless these offer direct vocational or personal benefits. The analysis presented in this chapter strongly suggests that globalization has increased the importance of competition in the lives of the isipdae. It shows how Korean young people face an education system whose demands and intensity is unlike most others. Evidence of this has become so commonplace that it is visible when using public transport in the evenings. Late at night you will be surrounded by young children returning home following an evening of after-school classes and it is not unusual to encounter children and young adults in such deep sleep after their academic exertions that they miss their destination stop.16 For some young people, the educational pressures that they face can be overwhelming. This is compounded by the uncertain social and economic world that they enter upon graduation—will they be able to find a good job? Do they have enough skills, qualifications, and status to gain acceptance by their prospective parents-in-law? Is their English good enough to be successful? Even if young people wanted to involve themselves in issues to do with North Korea and unification, there is often little time for such efforts since most young people believe that they must focus on activities of educational and vocational value in whatever free time they do have. Furthermore, the many issues surrounding North Korea and unification are complex and difficult, and they come with significant political baggage. Thus for many young South Koreans, any involvement with political activism related to North Korea may be considered too risky, particularly in an environment where the ultimate goal of any activism is normally to bolster one’s curriculum vitae and future job prospects. For other young people, the rejection of unification is a clear decision to protect themselves, their families, and their future interests. They are aware of the challenges that a much wealthier West Germany faced as a consequence of unification with East Germany, and we noted that these two countries were far less socially and politically estranged than is the case with North and South Korea. That understanding serves only to reinforce the belief that the outlook for successful unification in the Korean context is very poor. Through their contacts with North Koreans and Joseonjok living in South Korea, young people have already seen the vast social, cultural, and economic differences that exist between North Korea and South Korea. It is not unreasonable for them to feel that their task in life is tough enough, and to have little desire to face additional

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challenges, including those associated with unification. Because of such considerations, they have deliberately rejected unification and a unified identity and instead are increasingly adopting and accepting a South Korean conception of national identity and uri nara, our nation. Notes

1. Caffe Bene is Korea’s largest chain of coffee with international branches in countries including China and the United States (http://www.caffebene.com). 2. The “survival of the fittest” term has been used a number of times in relation to the challenges facing young people in South Korea. As an example, the cover story of the April 2010 edition of The Granite Tower, a student magazine of Korea University, was entitled “The survival of the fittest: An outlook on our society’s extreme competition.” 3. The following quotations were in response to the questions: “Do you think that life is more difficult for this generation of 20-somethings as compared with previous generations of 20-somethings?” and “What does globalization mean to Korea?” 4. Samsung Economic Research Institute (SERI) is one of Korea’s foremost private-sector think tanks. Among other activities it publishes SERI Quarterly (SQ)—see http://www.seriquarterly.com/index.html. 5. Indeed, the issue of fees is so salient among young voters and their families that the Grand National Party of the previous president (Lee Myung-bak) pledged to offer half-price tuition to struggling families in his presidential manifesto. The GNP’s apparent backtrack on this policy, and a separate plan to privatize the publicly run Seoul National University, stirred student and wider public protests in mid-2011 (Morgan 2011). Similarly, incumbent President Park Geun-hye has promised to cover university fees for poorer families (The Economist, 1 May 2013). 6. According to the Korea Student Aid Foundation, there were 670 cases of credit delinquency in 2006 and 25,366 cases in 2010 (Chosun Ilbo 2011a). 7. How one of the more than 10,000 Korean matchmaking agencies operates can be seen here—http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/06/world/asia/06korea.html (accessed 11 October 2015). 8. Further complicating choices regarding one’s spouse, it is preferred that a potential match does not have the same surname, which can be a challenge in a nation that takes surnames from a limited pool. Given the ubiquity of the surname Kim and Lee, is it sometimes possible to marry someone with the same surname providing the genealogy is different, for example from a different Kim clan. 9. This survey involved people enrolled with Duo. Duo is Korea’s largest matchmaking/marriage bureau (http://www.duo.co.kr). It is possible that the responses come primarily from individuals from mid-level socio-economic backgrounds. Nonetheless, it is a good representation of expectations relative to realities across all levels of society. The high expectations surrounding a spouse’s assets might reflect the hope that in-laws will gift property or other assets when a marriage is confirmed. 10. The following quotations were in response to the questions: “Do you think that Korea is prepared for unification?”; “Do you think that unification will benefit South Korea?” and “What do you think of unification?”

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11. German division, in fact, lasted for 45 years from 1945 until 1990. 12. The following quotations were in response to the questions: “What are your memories of the IMF crisis?” and “What are your greatest worries?” 13. The following quotations were in response to the questions: “What do you think about unification?”; “Do you think that South Korea is prepared for unification?” and “Do you think you will benefit from unification?” 14. The first of these is the candlelight vigil movement, “Candlelight,” which uses arts and performance to express the interests of the group. The second society, named “Greenmac,” focuses on producing art to express support for student activism, while the third club brings students together to discuss current affairs. 15. The following quotations were in response to the questions: “How do you spend an average day?”; “Do you think that life is more difficult for this generation of 20-somethings as compared with previous generations of 20somethings?”; “What are your greatest worries?” and “Do you discuss unification with your friends?” 16. The author once sat next to a teenager on a Seoul subway train who was so fast asleep that it looked like she might have been unconscious or worse. The author shook the young woman until she woke up to check that she was alive and well—much to the amusement of the other commuters in the carriage and the annoyance of the young woman!

7

The Demise of an Ethnic Identity

“[Joseonjok] are a bit similar to North Koreans. We have the same ancestors but I don’t feel that they are my people.” —South Korean University Student in 2010.

Korean naturalization ceremonies now include people from countries as diverse as China, Japan, Canada, the Czech Republic, Pakistan and Ethiopia. In 2011, the Chosun Ilbo (2011b) reported that the 100,000th foreigner to receive South Korean citizenship was an Indian-born professor at Pusan University of Foreign Studies who “graduated from India’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University and the University of Delhi…. He married a Korean woman and has two daughters.” Coverage in the media of stories about naturalized foreigners often focuses on their (sometimes extraordinary) talents and abilities. We see examples such as the Burundian man granted citizenship who “is fluent in Korean … a world-class runner, holds the Korean amateur record … [and] has also won eight marathons during the last five years in Korea” (R. Lee 2010), and the four Canadian and American-born ice hockey players naturalized as Koreans who have gone on to represent Korea at international level (Park 2015). These are model examples of the kind of new citizens that South Korea now welcomes as members of their nation. Indeed, the Korean Immigration Service is “proactively inviting global talents and foreign investors … to enhance [the] country’s competitive edge” (Korean Immigration Service 2011). Korea’s immigration laws underwent a major change in 2010 to allow certain categories of people to hold dual nationality in order to encourage particular types of immigrants, including “highly skilled foreigners with exceptional talent,” to take up Korean citizenship (Chung and Kim 2012, p. 214). There are more than 1.7 million “foreigners” (including many Korean-Chinese and other ethnic-Korean immigrants) living in South 159

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Korea and they make up nearly 3.5 percent of the population (Chosun Ilbo 2015b). They have arrived as spouses, laborers, refugees, and professionals. Many of them will eventually return to their home country, but some will feel settled in Korea and they will go on to become permanent residents or even naturalized citizens of South Korea. However, history tells us that attaining legal residency or citizenship in a country does not necessarily guarantee acceptance as legitimate members of the national unit. We find in some countries that those who become naturalized, or who receive permanent resident status, may still be deemed outsiders and not accepted as members of the national unit. Depending on the type of nationalism in operation in a country, this might occur because the new arrivals are of the “wrong” ethnicity, religion, or culture, or because they are not trusted as loyal civic citizens of their adopted national unit. In other countries, though, assimilation or acceptance of people from outside has been more successful because the concepts defining the national unit have been able to accommodate new arrivals with relatively little discord. From the foregoing we can see that different types of nationalism can impact on the possibility of assimilation and acceptance in different ways. Thus the emergence of a new South Korean nationalism has important implications for new arrivals to South Korea—both ethnic Korean and non-ethnic Korean—and the extent to which they will find acceptance in their new nation. This penultimate chapter explores the implications of this emerging new nationalism and its practical consequences for new immigrants to South Korea. We will see that this new South Korean nationalism which has been embraced by young people does not easily equate to the traditional categories of ethnic, civic, multicultural and religious nationalism encountered in the scholarly literature.1 It instead represents a globalized cultural nationalism in which membership is determined by adherence to particular cultural norms: modernization, cosmopolitanism and status. This chapter uses the new category of globalized cultural nationalism to identify who can qualify for membership of uri nara, and who cannot. It will demonstrate that the possibilities for inclusion offered by this emerging nationalism are very much reflected in the attitudes of South Korean young people. By interrogating their particular attitude toward South Korea’s new growing community of immigrants, this analysis will highlight the interesting nature of those inclusion possibilities. We will see that the emerging nationalism has the capacity to include some non-ethnic Koreans arrivals, for example, but that it also has the capacity to exclude other people, including many ethnic Korean immigrants.

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The existence of this newly emerging type of nationalism, and its ability to include non-ethnic Koreans as part of the South Korean national unit, challenges the traditional ethnic discourse surrounding Korean nationalism in scholarly and mainstream debates. The Korean example shows that globalized cultural nationalism can exist as a basis for membership of a nation, independent of race and ethnicity and without reference to civic and political loyalties. This is a significant finding and means that globalized cultural nationalism needs to be acknowledged in nationalism typologies. This chapter will also explore some elements of this evolving national identity that demonstrate less cosmopolitan characteristics, such as patriarchy and the importance of social class, in determining who can be “imagined” as a member of the South Korean national community. Finally, it will highlight the practical implications of the emergence of this new South Korean nationalism in areas such as economic, education, immigration and broader social policy. Inclusion and Exclusion in the New South Korean Nationalism

We saw from earlier chapters that in the minds of young people the concept of uri nara, “our nation,” increasingly does not include North Korea or North Koreans. These exclusionary tendencies towards North Koreans are also reflected in the attitudes held by some young people towards other ethnic Korean immigrants, such as those from China. There is immense diversity among overseas Koreans, the so-called ethnic Korean dongpo (or “compatriots”). Joseonjok are the largest contingent of the Korean diaspora. In China, Joseonjok (or Chaoxianzu in Chinese which translates as “ethnic Korean”) are one of the fifty-five officially-recognized xiaoshuminzu or ethnic minorities of that country. Many Koreans moved to China during the nineteenth century, fleeing floods or famine, but the majority moved to Manchuria, now Northeastern China, during the Japanese colonial era. They often did so under duress, including as forced laborers (Eckert et al. 1990, pp. 273, 310–312). The contemporary younger generations of Joseonjok, especially those who live in larger Northeast Chinese cities like Shenyang and Changchun, often reject a Korean identity in favor of their Chinese identity. Other Joseonjok, who live in areas with larger concentrations of ethnic Koreans, such as in the city of Yanji near the North Korean border, use Korean language widely and associate more closely with a Korean identity. The Goryeoin are dispersed across the territory of the former USSR. Similarly to the Joseonjok, they began to move North in the nineteenth century as a result of famine and natural disaster. However, the majority of Koreans in this region moved to the now Russian Far East during

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Japanese colonialism (Eckert et al. 1990, p. 273). This included a large settlement of Korean forced laborers on the island of Sakhalin. During the Stalinist era, Koreans, like many other people in the Soviet Union, suffered from mass deportations and political purges. As a result, populations of Koreans are now dispersed across the former USSR in countries that include Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, the Ukraine and Russia. Unsurprisingly, there are disparate groups within the Goryeoin: some have kept in touch with their Korean traditions, but many have fully assimilated into local life and society and have lost their Korean language skills and contact with Korea (J. Kim and Kang 2009). Another important diaspora community is the Zainichi Koreans or Jaeil Gyopo, Korean Japanese, most of whom moved under duress to Japan during the colonial period, with others following as refugees around the time of division and the Korean War (Morris-Suzuki 2007; Cumings 1997, p. 176). Although many came from the South, the majority of Korean Japanese originally allied themselves with North Korea. They are represented in Japan by Chongryeon, the Korean residents association there which is affiliated with the North Korean government. However Mindan, the Korean residents association in Japan affiliated with the South Korean government, now claims that half a million out of the 700,000 “Korean compatriots” in Japan are associated with the South.2 There are also considerable populations of Koreans living in the United States, Canada, and other Western nations. This migration began in earnest in the 1960s, although there was earlier immigration to such places as Hawai’i. The retention of the Korean language and an affinity with a so-called “Korean” identity varies across region and community, as well as within families. South Korea’s aging population, low birth rate and highly educated populace, have left it with a shortage of workers in unskilled professions. To help make up this shortage, Joseonjok, and to a lesser extent Goryeoin, have been encouraged to move to South Korea through preferential visa programs which allow them to find work at salaries much higher than could be earned in their home country. Notwithstanding the state-level encouragement for these ethnic Koreans to move to South Korea, these once core members of the ethnic Korean nation now frequently find themselves on the periphery of South Korean identity. While Joseonjok are still preferred by South Korean employers over non-ethnic Koreans as workers, one study found that Joseonjok are at least as likely to report discrimination as are non-ethnic Korean foreign workers, and many Joseonjok also felt that they had suffered “disregard or insult” by Koreans (of all ages) for no clear reason when patronizing a restaurant or a shop (Seol and Skrentny 2009, p. 161–162).

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As well as Joseonjok and Goryeoin, ethnic Koreans living in OECD countries are also being encouraged to return to Korea but as highlyskilled professionals and investors. Attitudes to these types of returnees are often different to attitudes toward ethnic Koreans coming as lowskilled workers. Seol and Skrentny (2009) have proposed the idea of the “hierarchical nation” to describe the hierarchy among ethnic Koreans within South Korea. This hierarchy is enforced both socially and legally as immigration rules favor certain groups. The right of return for ethnic Koreans varies according to the applicant’s origin so, for example, Korean-Chinese applicants normally receive much more restrictive visas than Korean-Americans.3 South Koreans are, of course, at the top of the hierarchy, followed by Korean-Americans and other Western-raised Koreans. The Joseonjok are next in the hierarchy, and North Koreans are placed firmly at the bottom (Seol and Skrentny 2009). In previous generations, many young people in the unification movement saw those last two groups of ethnic Koreans as representatives of the authentic Korean nation (Grinker 1998; Shin 2006: p. 4). Now they are found at the bottom of the pile in Seol and Skrentny’s hierarchical nation. While the “hierarchical nation” assumes some remnant of ethnic nationalism in its operation, it could just as easily represent the new globalized cultural nationalism. When seen as a league table for acceptance, the “hierarchical nation” correlates strongly with the perceptions of young people about particular ethnic Korean groupings and their similarity to the globalized cultural norms of modernity, cosmopolitanism and status. Thus, modern, educated and relatively affluent KoreanAmericans thrive in South Korea, despite some speaking only limited Korean. Arrivals from the impoverished North Korean state, meanwhile (most of whom speak fluent Korean), commonly find themselves struggling for acceptance. Being ethnically Korean is now no longer sufficient for acceptance in the South Korean nation. It seems that Joseonjok, in particular, often fall outside conceptions of the South Korean national unit. Negative perceptions of Joseonjok are frequently heard in daily conversation and one might hear these Korean-Chinese described using derogatory words such as criminal, dirty or lazy. These attitudes were sometimes reflected in interviews with young South Koreans. While some South Koreans were more accepting of Joseonjok immigration, common responses show the difficulty that many have in recognizing Joseonjok as part of the South Korean national unit. Indeed, the passion with which some young people expressed their antagonism towards ethnic Koreans from China was, at times, shocking:4

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I think that [Korean-Americans], Southeast Asians, [and] Westerners can become South Korean if they want to. Except Joseonjok. In my opinion I don’t like the Joseonjok. They have some social problems. Except the Joseonjok, any kind of people who want to be Korean are okay. (Student Interview 2011h) I think that they are the same ethnicity, but they think of themselves as Chinese. I went to Yanbian [Korean Autonomous Region in China] and met some Joseonjok. I realized that they were completely Chinese and their values have little relation with Korea. (Student Interview 2014tt) Joseonjok are the same ethnicity, but I don’t have any positive feelings towards them. I don’t think any ethnic empathy exists between us and Joseonjok. (Student Interview 2014uu) If we are the same people, then why do Joseonjok commit such hideous crimes? (Student Interview 2014vv) They share the same ethnicity but we cannot say that they are included in the people of uri nara (Student Interview 2014ww) Aren’t Joseonjok those people who engage in illegal organ selling? (Student Interview 2014xx) I would not like to marry a Joseonjok. That is weird. Many Joseonjok are strange. (Student Interview 2014yy)

However, while not targeted with quite the same enmity as the Joseonjok, other ethnic Korean arrivals may not necessarily be considered as part of the national unit either. Among the other ethnic Korean minorities who are resident in South Korea, Korean-Americans, or Jaeil Gyopo, can sometimes be considered as outsiders:5 Everything is dependent upon how one thinks of him or herself. Even if we think they are the same ethnic people, if they don’t think that way then it is meaningless. (Student Interview 2014zz) I don’t think Korean-Americans are Korean…. These people don’t seem to adapt to Korean society successfully when they come to Korea. At one time they will say they are American and then later they say they are Korean, for example when they need an excuse to depend upon their parents. This irony sometimes makes me angry. (Student Interview Anonymous student 2009mm)

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It depends on how much they consider their country as Korea and love Korea [as to whether they can be considered as Koreans]. (Student Interview 2014aaa) I am cynical about the attitudes Korea has towards [Korean residents in American or Japan]. Koreans did not pay attention to these overseas Koreans until they turned up in the media as sports stars or other internationally successful people. Only then did Koreans start identifying them as part of the Korean people, feeling proud of Korea because of their achievements. But before this “success,” Korea never really respected Korean residents in the U.S. or Japan or thought they represented the Korean people. I think that this is amusing. And I’m not entirely fond of this attitude. (Student Interview 2014bbb) It is reliant upon how they see themselves. If [Korean-Americans] think of themselves as U.S. citizens, then they are Americans. But if they believe they are Koreans and wish to be part of the Korean culture, then of course they should be treated as Koreans. (Student Interview 2014ccc)

Based on these responses, however, it would be incorrect to assume that all ethnic Korean immigrants are excluded. One student voiced the more correct position by observing that overseas Koreans could “become” Korean if they wanted to (Student Interview 2010iii), and there are numerous situations where North Korean individuals have been warmly accepted into South Korean society in this way. In these cases, they are perceived to fit into the South Korean globalized cultural nation because they display the norms of this identity. Such people include the successful author and Chosun Ilbo journalist Kang Chol-hwan, actress and musician Kim Hyeyoung, and National Assemblyman Cho Myung-chul. They also include many North Korean women who have married into South Korean families, accepted the cultural and social norms, and have quietly integrated into South Korean society. In a similar way, many other ethnic Korean arrivals have had considerable success and acceptance in South Korean society. For a country whose nationalist rhetoric has for so long been ethnically based, it is surprising to find that ethnic Korean immigrants face growing antipathy. At the same time, many young people in South Korea have little difficulty imagining some foreigners or oegugin (literally “people from outside the country”) as fellow members of their national unit. Interview and survey data underlines this trend. This data shows that young people are able to conceive of foreigners as part of uri nara. When asked whether having ancestors from one’s own country should be a requirement for citizenship, 45 percent of young people said that it was not important. This result contrasted with the responses from older

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generations who placed considerably more emphasis upon having ethnic Korean ancestry (Kim 2014). Other survey data reaffirms the waning in the importance of ethnicity when accepting someone as a fellow member of the national community. For example, a 2006 Joongang Ilbo-East Asia Institute survey found that only 7 percent of people in their twenties said they would still consider ethnic Korean individuals who had chosen to give up their South Korean citizenship as continuing members of the South Korean nation. Furthermore, young people are becoming open to an ethnically-mixed Korea: in a 2010 survey, more than 66 percent of young people supported the idea of a multi-ethnic Korea (Hwang 2011, p. 189). This extends to their personal lives too, with nearly 70 percent of people in their twenties expressing a positive or neutral attitude toward marriage with a foreigner (W. Kang 2007). This is in contrast to the strong aversion to marriage with a North Korean expressed by people in the same age group: more than 46 percent of people in their twenties disliked the idea, and only 26 percent approved (IPUS 2012). From the many interviews carried out as part of the research behind this book, it was evident that there was broad support, in the rhetoric at least, for a multi-ethnic Korea where young people can conceive of non-ethnic Korean foreigners as potential Hangugin, or South Koreans:6 The most important thing is that they like Korea for real. Then I can accept that person as Korean. Even some Koreans hate Korea and leave here for another country. I think foreigners who love Korea are more Korean than Koreans who hate Korea. (Student Interview 2010jjj) I think that if a foreigner tries to adjust him or herself to our society, they can become a true Korean. (Student Interview 2014ddd) If you speak Korean fluently, it doesn’t matter where you are from. (Student Interview 2014eee) I think that [foreigners] can be considered as Koreans. The fact that they immigrated to Korea, love Korea, and share time and space together with Koreans makes them Korean. When talking with them, I can empathize with them as Koreans, and therefore I think that they can be accepted as Koreans. (Student Interview 2014fff) Some may think that ethnicity is important, but society is changing into a multi-cultural society and more and more foreigners are “appearing” like they are Korean. There are also interracial couples and their children, so today I think that many people place less importance on ethnicity and more on nationality. (Student Interview 2014ggg)

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They can completely become Korean. I live in the countryside where there are many people married to women from the Philippines, Vietnam. (Student Interview 2010kkk) Nowadays I don’t think there is any difficulty considering immigrants as Korean. (Student Interview 2010mmm) If they really love Korea [immigrants can be considered Korean]…. (Author: could you accept me as Korean?) At first you would feel distant, but once I was assured that you loved Korea, I wouldn’t have any trouble accepting you as Korean. (Student Interview 2014hhh)

Admittedly, on closer questioning there was sometimes less certainty among young people regarding the capacity for foreigners to be accepted as Koreans. For example, language was often mentioned as an important factor for recognizing immigrants as Korean, but for others, ethnicity still remained the major barrier to imagining a foreigner as Korean. As one student suggested, “Koreans tend to put a lot of weight on someone’s outer appearance, so if someone looks very different we tend to view them as not Korean” (Student Interview 2014iii). Another student felt that immigrants could become Korean only if “they try their best to become Korean.” This student had worked in a factory with a number of people from China and the Philippines, and he felt these colleagues did not qualify as Korean “since they were just visitors, they felt no responsibility for their work. I can see lots of news on the Internet about immigrants committing crimes. They are doing us harm” (Student Interview 2009nn). A number of students noted that there is a tendency (in others) to accept those from developed nations, or those of Caucasian origin, more readily than those from Africa or developing nations. These attitudes suggest racism or intolerance particularly towards African of South Asian arrivals. However, these responses might reflect the fact that achieving the cultural requirements for inclusion in the globalized modern South Korean nation is more difficult for those coming from a developing nation than those from relatively wealthy countries. Indeed, where young people were asked to contemplate non-ethnic Koreans as part of the South Korean ethnic community, they referred to the adoption of cultural norms and a passion for the South Korean nation as central to being considered a Korean. The determinants for membership of the Korean nation held by many young South Koreans, and increasingly supported by the government legislation that encourages select types of immigration, correspond closely with the new South Korean nationalism and its globalized cultural characteristics. In other words, it is the adoption of South Korean cultural norms (of modernity,

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cosmopolitanism and status) that allow acceptance into the national unit, independent of ethnicity:7 Immigrants are coming to Korea to live permanently. Immigrants get to know Korean culture as they spend time here, enabling them to fully communicate with Koreans. Even though they are not born in Korea they can live as Koreans if they learn and adopt the culture. (Student Interview 2010nnn) There are lots of foreigners in Korea, including those with a Korean spouse….although they might not share the same ethnicity, they are Koreans since they are sharing the same culture. (Student Interview 2014jjj) If someone believes that they are part of the Korean culture, and they achieved citizenship to become Korean, then I believe they are Korean. (Student Interview 2014kkk) I think by conversing with the person and seeing how similar he/she thinks and understands the cultural, political and economic issues in Korea, it may be possible [to imagine a foreigner as a Korean]. (Student Interview 2014mmm) I am okay with [a foreigner becoming Korean]. Because they love Korea, they work hard to learn Korean language and culture. I guess it must not be easy to leave their country to become Korean but it does prove their love and passion for Korea and so I am grateful. (Student Interview 2010ooo)

While this shift among young people to a conception of the national unit based on globalized cultural nationalism has provided new opportunities for inclusion into the South Korean nation, it has also provided new opportunities for exclusion. It is ironic that within uri nara, a concept that was once built upon ethnic identity, those who are now suffering the most from cultural exclusion are ethnic brethren such as North Koreans and Joseonjok. These once core members of the ethnic Korean nation now find themselves on the periphery of the nation with the emergence of the new South Korean nationalism. Gender, International Marriage and the Evolution of South Korean Nationalism

A major source of new immigrants to Korea in recent times has been the arrival of women for marriage to Korean men. Over the last decade there

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has been a surge in international marriages in Korea, partly as a result of son preference during earlier decades. The shortage of women, and the particular difficulty this presents for certain groups of males (for example, those who are divorced, who live in rural Korea and/or are from lower socio-economic backgrounds), means that Korean men are marrying women from nations such as China, Vietnam, the Philippines and North Korea (Y. Lee et al. 2006). Korean popular media provides a useful insight into the portrayal of these new Koreans and the basis for their acceptance into the national unit. A long-running and popular television show is Love in Asia on KBS, the largest Korean broadcaster. This show examines mixed marriages in Korea. Each week, Love in Asia visits one mixed-race family who are then invited to the studio to discuss their life in Korea with the Korean hosts and other foreign spouses. The show is heart-warming and affirming, celebrating the success of such marriages in Korean society. It seeks to demonstrate that these marriages are successful because the foreign wives (and, rarely, husbands) have adopted South Korean cultural norms. That is, the foreign spouses profess devotion to parents-in-law (which is lauded), have acquired Korean cooking skills and Korean language proficiency, and are integrated into the local Korean community. Foreign spouses who are highly educated or successful in business are particularly celebrated. Here, it can be argued, the globalized and neo-liberal nature of this new nationalism is revealed. It is exposed in the commoditization of immigration and acceptance based on the “value” to Korean society of the immigrant, regardless of whether they are ethnic or non-ethnic Korean. While the media often portray positive images of migrants, they “tend to describe migrants as commodities that are mobilized to maximize Korea’s national interests” and categorize them according to “those who can and those who cannot be trusted to contribute to the national interests” (S. Kim 2012). This is especially the case with migrant wives. A survey of Filipina marriage migrants, for example, found a positive association between their education level and their sense of life satisfaction in South Korea (Sung et al. 2013). This may be linked to their “human capital”—in particular the ability of many from the Philippines to speak and thus teach English—which in turn secures them better financial and social status (Sung et al. 2013). While the commoditization of migrant women is highly problematic, the pragmatic attitude towards these marriage migrants that is illustrated here does at least highlight the waning of ethnicity as the only or foremost basis for expressions of nation and nationalism in South Korea.

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The example of immigrant wives, however, also emphasizes paradoxical non-cosmopolitan attitudes which are being reinforced or enabled by South Korea’s evolving nationalism. The expectations placed upon these women to be ideal Korean mothers, wives and daughters-in-law are anything but cosmopolitan since they demonstrate a persistence of patriarchal attitudes in the realm of immigration and nation. For many immigrants to South Korea, views on gender roles have an important influence on them being welcomed as Koreans. Lee Eun-koo, a South Korean researcher from the Korean Education Development Institute (KEDI) who has more than ten years of experience working with North Koreans in the South, explained in an interview that it was very common for North Korean women to marry South Korean men but not vice versa. In the few cases where North Korean men had married South Korean women, they had done so only after the men had achieved “high status” in South Korean society. North Korean women, on the other hand, are often welcomed into families because of their willingness to marry South Korean men who might otherwise have difficulty finding partners because of their social or economic status. Women are also seen as more likely to adapt to traditional South Korean patriarchal norms and to accept the counsel of their South Korean in-laws. In interviews, some young people were able to look beyond these more conservative attitudes to marriage, but many recognized these patriarchal restrictions on marriage partner selections, and a number of female interviewees indicated that they would be unwilling to marry a North Korean man. This last point is supported by IPUS survey data which show that there is much greater antipathy among women than men regarding the possibility of marriage with a North Korean (IPUS 2012). Comments on this issue from females students interviewed for this book include: I’ve never really seen a North Korean man marrying a South Korean woman, so it’s kind of hard to imagine what it would be like. (Student Interview 2014nnn) For [South Korean] women, there is still the notion that women rely on men for financial support, and North Korean defectors cannot be relied upon to be breadwinners. So for South Korean women, it would be difficult to marry a North Korean man. (Student Interview 2014ooo) I have a friend who married a North Korean. But the man was a Pastor…the couple should be financially settled and all the elements of the marriage should be congruent with [South Korean] society. (Student Interview 2014ppp)

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Love in Asia is an example of how media portrayals of North Korean immigration are often highly feminized. Another television show, Now on My Way to Meet You, showcases North Koreans who have fled to the South. On-air discussions are uncontroversial and framed to engage the South Korean audience rather than challenge or confront issues relating to North-South relations but the majority of the North Koreans who appear on the show are young and attractive women. They appear to be culturally indistinguishable from South Korean women in their sophisticated appearance and dress although they present North Korean songs, performances and stories of life in the DPRK. They adhere to the patriarchal norms expected of immigrant women, and perhaps as a result, this program has gained wide acceptance and popularity within South Korean society. Children, Immigration and Globalized Cultural Nationalism

With increasing immigration so there have been more mixed marriages. As the children of these new arrivals and their South Korean spouses grow up, the evolution in South Korean nationalism is visible through their experiences. We find that minorities who previously felt rejected because of pervasive ethnic Korean nationalist sentiment are now finding a place within the new globalized cultural South Korean nation. Among these minorities are the children of mixed-race couples. There is a growing body of scholarly work that examines the challenges faced by mixed-race children in South Korea. Much of this work highlights the potential problems that these children face as they grow up and thus suggests that Korean society has not yet fully escaped from the homogenous ethnic ideals that have prevailed for so long. However, it is also apparent from this body of work that the discrimination faced by these children is not necessarily racial in nature, a point that is frequently missed by scholars who hold onto ethnic analyses of Korean society. Mary Lee (2008) writes about the anger that arises among other parents when they see a mixed-race child receiving additional educational support, for example with language. She attributes this to racism or ethnically based discrimination, but similar situations have been noted in attitudes towards North Korean arrivals who receive extra educational assistance (Y. Kim 2009, pp. 238–245). This suggests that the anger is not necessarily racially based but is instead related to a general sense of unfairness and disadvantage, particularly given the highly competitive nature of the South Korean education and social system. Discrimination against Eurasian children is also changing. Previously, such children were most likely to be offspring of a Korean mother and a

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father in the U.S. military. In more recent times, we see educated Korean women (and occasionally men) marrying expatriates in Korea or foreigners who they have met while traveling or studying overseas. Being children of mixed-race families with educated and apparently affluent parents is in many cases now seen as a great advantage. Race is becoming relatively less important, and having the right attributes to qualify as a member of the modern South Korean nation is becoming more important. The children discussed here usually have access to a foreign passport, bilingual skills and exciting opportunities for foreign education. They are consequently in a position to easily acquire and develop the attributes needed to compete and be accepted in this new South Korean society. In this evolving South Korean nation the government is looking to these children to be a generation of “global talents” or “global minds” who can use their experience of a multi-lingual and multi-cultural family to help Korea navigate the globalized economic and political world. Lee HunYul (2012) writes about this saying that “their multicultural background is reinterpreted in a language of pragmatism, which speaks to the neoliberal South Korean government.” This is again reflected in the media with a number of popular mixed-race Koreans receiving huge attention, especially among young South Koreans. These celebrities include singer Insooni, American football player Hines Ward, singer Yoon Mi-rae, actor Daniel Henney and three members of the girl pop group Chocolat. These are, of course, exceptional examples, but these individuals have set a precedent that allows other mixed-race Koreans to be accepted into the type of South Korean nation that so many isipdae are keen to embrace. Trends in education and government policy suggest inclusive attitudes among young people in South Korea will continue to deepen and improve for the better. In 2011, the Korean military overturned a ban on mixed-race men serving in the Korean army and amended the oath of enlistment by changing the word “minjok,” with its implications of racial purity to “citizen,” in order to avoid excluding conscripts with mixed heritage (Chosun Ilbo 2012d). As discussed in earlier chapters, South Korean schools over the past few years have ceased teaching ethnic homogeneity and the purity of the Korean bloodline as the basis for the Korean nation (Lim 2009). This change has partly come about from international pressure, with the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressing concern on a number of occasions that the “persistent ethnic-centric thinking in South Korea . . . might be an obstacle to the realization of equal treatment and respect for foreigners and people belonging to different races and cultures” (Chosun Ilbo 2007). Indeed, the narrow focus of an ethnic analyses and description ignores the complexity in the experiences of even North Korean children arriving in

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the South. Lee Eunkoo, the KEDI researcher quoted earlier in the chapter, describes how children of North Korean mothers often spend their formative years in China. By the time these children arrive in South Korea, many consider themselves Chinese and speak only Chinese, yet are supported by a South Korean system set up to deal with so-called (Korean-speaking) “compatriots” from North Korea. The young people who took part in the surveys and interviews that this book draws upon have been raised in an environment where the rhetoric and attitudes of older generations have often been steeped in the concept of the ethnic nation. Yet, quite dramatically, they have embraced non-ethnic cultural concepts for belonging. One might reasonably expect, therefore, that the next generation, with less exposure to ideas of ethnic homogeneity, will be able to imagine a South Korean nation that is even more inclusive of non-ethnic Korean immigrants. As one student commented: I was amazed when I talk to elementary students today, it doesn’t matter what they look like, black or white, if they can communicate with them they see them as a fellow citizen. It doesn’t matter who the person’s mother is. It just matters that it’s the person’s friend. They are more open. So you see some older generations wondering why someone is dating someone who is foreign but that idea is fading away and maturing as the younger generation grows and they will have kids. And by the time teenagers become [adults] . . . the idea of “foreigner” will dissipate a lot more. (Student Interview 2010ppp)

Class and Cultural Nationalism

The South Korean youth identity of the 1970s and 1980s involved students associating with the oppressed people, the minjung, which included laborers, farmers and dissidents. The national identity of the contemporary isipdae, however, is allied with the modern, cosmopolitan and status-giving aspects of society. The features of the new South Korean globalized cultural nationalism, in their close resemblance to neo-liberal, middle class values, might seem very familiar to scholars outside of the field of nationalism, and this resemblance merits discussion. Lee Hun-Yul (2012) has written that in Korea, class forms the backbone of migration. Some of the best recent scholarly work on South Korea has examined the evolution of class in contemporary South Korean society. Leading this field is sociologist Hagen Koo, who has charted the evolution of the Korean middle classes (Koo 1993, 2007a, 2007b). His most recent work examines the role of globalization in transforming the South Korean middle class. He provides a description of this middle class

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which highlights the many similarities between their aspirations and the new South Korean national identity. Koo describes the importance of status for many South Koreans, which is displayed in the form of educational attainment, international travel and experience, and myeongpum or luxury brands (Koo 2007a). The globalization of Korea and its economy, and the expansion of neo-liberal policies, have widened inequality and made the attainment of middle class status increasingly difficult. It has also created a widening gap between those who are comfortably middle class and those who are trying to maintain or achieve this class status (Koo 2007a, pp. 4, 15–16).We see that changes to the workplace and working conditions, deregulation of the labor market, more women competing for jobs, and new high-tech industries requiring higher levels of education and skills, have together resulted in it becoming more difficult to find the traditional starting point of a “middle class” job that assigns status to a person and family. In other ways, too, globalization has meant that the need to achieve the necessary international education or requisite standards of sophistication creates huge barriers to social advancement. Middle class status is reproduced through the consumption of certain goods and services, through educational attainment, and through social networks, but these are often accessible only to those who have already achieved the necessary material and social advancement. Koo remarks that structures of inequality have become “both complicated and hardened through the intricate interconnections of domestic and global factors in favor of reproduction of class privilege” (ibid., p. 16). Thus class reproduction becomes self-perpetuating, and a middle class pedigree is almost required to even begin acquiring the standards required in this increasingly competitive and globalized South Korean society. Obtaining South Korean identity functions in a similar way. Acceptance into Korean society is dependent upon accepting the neoliberal rhetoric of the Korean state’s nation-building discourse, in other words, demonstrating one’s market value (S. Lee 2012). For some people, such as educated foreigners or Korean-Americans for example, obtaining the neo-liberal, middle class elements of this globalized cultural national identity will be relatively straightforward. For others, not least the average Joseonjok labor migrant or North Korean refugee, it will be much more challenging. The barriers that make it difficult for these immigrants to improve their class status apply equally to their efforts to be accepted within the South Korean globalized cultural national unit. The links between middle class ideals and South Korean identity are laid bare in the education provided to new North Korean arrivals to the South. On arriving in Seoul, North Koreans are sent to Hanawon, the resettlement facility located south of Seoul for North Korean refugees. At

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Hanawon, following security assessments, North Korean expatriates are given training and support in developing the necessary life skills to survive and adapt to the modern, capitalist South Korean society. The Korean sociologist Chung Byung-ho has described how North Koreans are educated on how to become “a cultural citizen” at the Hanawon facility. Chung shows that the new North Korean arrivals are taught, in essence, “middle class norms and values” derived from a “particularized view of middle class society” (Chung 2008, p. 16). By accepting these culturally nationalist, middle class norms, they can become “properly” Korean and can be accepted into the national unit. Chung argues that the so-called cultural citizen education results in “contemporary South Korean cultural practices presented as modern, advanced, and civilized norms while North Koreans’ [norms] are objectified as the traditional, backward and uncivilized” (Chung 2008, p. 16–17). This process underlines the perception of cultural differences in both the minds of South Koreans citizens and North Korean refugees, and it defines Korean identity using the model of South Korean globalized cultural nationalism. Essentially, it is an assertion of the South Korean hierarchy described by Seol and Skrentny (2009), namely: In order to be accepted within the South Korean nation, the onus is upon the North Korean to aspire to and develop the characteristics necessary to climb the league table of cultural acceptance. The impact of this cultural citizen education and the desire to be accepted into the South Korean national unit can often be seen in the immediate choices made by many North Koreans, particularly younger ones, when they leave Hanawon and join mainstream South Korean society. North Koreans attempt to present themselves as South Korean by adopting new clothing, changing their accent and purchasing modern accessories such as the most recent mobile phones (Chung 2008, Y. Kim 2009, pp. 216–217). At a time when they are likely to be short of financial resources, these new arrivals to the South invest “a significant portion of their initial resettlement money on purchasing the commercialized symbols of cultural capital they feel are necessary to survive in a discriminatory class society” (Chung 2008, pp. 18–19; Y. Kim 2009, p. 216). Some manage it well, but for the majority, their obvious attempts to change their accent or to assume the trappings of South Korean modernity and success bring ambivalence, pity or even ridicule from some members of the South Korean nation that they are trying to join (Chosun Ilbo 2011; Y. Kim 2009, pp. 176–185).

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Conclusion

Conceptions of South Korean nationalism among young people are evolving. Understanding who is included and who is excluded from the idea of uri nara, the South Korean nation, determines the type of nationalism that is operating. Attitudes towards the many ethnic Korean immigrants in South Korea show that the ideal of an ethnic Korean nation is not a reality. Instead, South Korea is developing into a nation where new non-ethnic Korean immigrants can be “imagined” as fellow South Koreans while many ethnic Korean arrivals are excluded. However, developing the right characteristics and qualifications for acceptance is not necessarily straightforward. In particular, the cross-over between middle class values and the globalized cultural identity with its characteristics of modernity, cosmopolitanism and status, means that this new South Korean nationalism, notionally open for membership to all, is in fact exclusive in nature and selective of who it accepts as new members. The persistence of patriarchy is also an interesting feature of this new nationalism. The globalization of the marriage market has meant that pragmatism and prevailing patriarchal attitudes provide opportunity for some migrant women to become part of this emerging South Korean nation, but only if they are willing to accept defined roles as Korean wives, mothers and daughters-in-law. Although this is problematic with regards to the experiences and well-being of immigrant women, it does underline the move away from a South Korean national identity based solely upon ethnicity. While many of the phenomena that have given rise to this new South Korean globalized cultural nationalism are particular to the current generation of young people, older generations are not isolated from these experiences. Discriminatory attitudes to Joseonjok are already evident across the wider South Korean society, not just among members of the isipdae (Seol and Skrentny 2009). Attitudes among older South Koreans to marriage with North Koreans, or being neighbors with them or of establishing business partnerships with North Koreans, also demonstrate hesitancy about embracing these dongpo or brethren (IPUS 2012). The survey results and rhetoric that identify a putative desire among older Koreans to achieve unification need to be challenged given the growing discrimination against ethnic Koreans among older generations. Such evidence as there is of support for unification among older Koreans may, in fact, mask growing antagonism and antipathy. Indeed, as we look to the future, and new generations of South Koreans become further estranged from ideas of ethnic homogeneity and the history of a unified Korea, South Korean globalized cultural nationalism will become more distinct and

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assertive, and its capacity for inclusion and exclusion more defined—and the implications for North and South Korea will be profound indeed. Notes

1. See Chapter 1 for a discussion of “categories” of nationalism. 2. http://www.mindan.org/kr/shokai01.php [in Korean] (accessed 13 October 2015). 3. Korean-Americans, for example, have the automatic right to an F-4 visa because they are an overseas Korean and citizen of an OECD-member country. For Korean-Chinese and others, they must have certain financial, professional or educational qualifications to successfully apply for an F-4 visa. If they do not qualify for the F-4 visa, then they must apply for another entry permit dependent upon their reason for going to South Korea. Ethnic Koreans who apply for an entry permit other than the F-4 visa will receive additional rights as compared to a non-ethnic Korean applicant on a similar visa. The F-4 visa, according to the Korean Immigration Department website, offers the “most comprehensive benefits that a foreigner can have” including indefinite stay. Other visas have restrictions on employment, the period of stay, accompanying relatives and re-entry. 4. The following quotations were in response to the questions: “Do you think the Joseonjok can be considered as ‘gat-eun minjok’ (the same ethnic people) as South Koreans?” and “Do you think that ‘oeguk-in’ (foreigners) can become Korean?” 5. The following quotations were in response to the question: “Do you think that Korean residents in America and Japan can be considered as ‘gat-eun minjok’ (the same ethnic people) as South Koreans?” 6. The following quotations were given in response to the question: “Do you think that foreigners can become Korean?” 7. Ut sup.

8

Nationalism and Korea’s Future

“A stranger nearby is better than a faraway relative.” —Korean Proverb

On 10 October 2015, the DPRK Government celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Korean Workers’ Party with an extravagant parade in the center of Pyongyang. The front page of North Korea’s best known newspaper, the Nodong Sinmun featured a picture of “The Great Leader” Kim Il-sung and his son, “The Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il. The picture covered more than half of the front page. On the same Saturday in South Korea, the largest image on the front page of the Dong-A Ilbo, one of South Korea’s major newspapers, was of the Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo, advertising Tag Heuer watches. When North Koreans arrive in the South—purportedly their ethnic nation—these contrasts immediately betray the reality that, for them, South Korea is not “uri nara,” or their nation. Ethnicity is no longer a sufficient “characteristic” to enable North Koreans to be a member of a South Korean national community that so naturally associates itself with European soccer stars and luxury brands. They have arrived in a new nation where new rules determine membership, success and acceptance. In light of these contrasts, this book has sought to explain why the long-held notions of nation and nationalism based upon the ethnic and cultural homogeneity of all Korean people, have changed so dramatically, particularly among young people. It has shown that a new South Korean nationalism is emerging and that this nationalism has globalized cultural characteristics. South Korea’s young people are modern and cosmopolitan and they pay close attention to outside perceptions of status—of them as individuals and of their nation, South Korea. These South Korean young people relate to those with an international outlook; those with the 179

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right educational and employment “spec”; and those who display the right symbols of status. This is unlikely to be a North Korean. As one student commented: “To be honest, South and North are almost different countries. Americans or Europeans are more similar to us in their way of thinking than North Koreans” (Student Interview 2010qqq). There are opportunities for young people in this new and dynamic South Korea, if there are the right circumstances and they have the capacity to develop these globalized cultural characteristics. Yet for many isipdae it is also a time of great uncertainty because the new ideas of nation and nationalism are inherently linked to Korea’s globalization and neo-liberalization. One element of the country’s economic globalization is an increase in social and economic competition, a phenomenon that has been experienced particularly intensely by young people. Korea’s neoliberal policies have led to the prevalence of low wages and temporary unemployment, and these are the only options left for those who do not attain the appropriate educational achievements relative to other young people. The challenges presented by intense competition have been complicated and compounded by a fear of unification and its possible social and economic consequences. In this context, then, it is not unreasonable that young people are rejecting a unified Korean identity and embracing the South Korean national identity as they compete to survive in Korea’s increasingly globalized and neo-liberal education and employment system. This rejection of North Korea and unification is an attempt to mitigate what is certainly the greatest risk facing South Korea’s future generations. We also see that the rise of South Korean nationalism, and the growing antagonism towards a unified Korea, presents an unexpected and unquantifiable externality of Korea’s economic globalization that has immense consequences for the Korean peninsula. The rise of this new globalized cultural South Korean nationalism is challenging, head-on, the traditional assertion that ethnic ties form the basis for the Korean nation and nationalism. Given the prevailing scholarly view that ethnic nationalism still determines membership of the South Korean nation (Shin 2006), the emergence of South Korea’s globalized cultural nationalism has led to some incongruous situations. In the minds of many young people, the concept of uri nara, our nation, increasingly does not include North Korea or North Koreans. These exclusionary tendencies towards North Korea are also reflected in the attitudes held by many young people towards ethnic Korean immigrants from China (Joseonjok) who are living in the South. These once core members of the ethnic Korean nation now find themselves on the periphery of Korean identity. This is because the characteristics of South Korean globalized cultural nationalism reflect the opportunities provided

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by relatively wealthy and developed nations similar to contemporary South Korea. Thus immigrants from countries of comparable economic status to Korea have the potential to be welcomed into such a nation. For other arrivals who have not had such opportunities—especially those from North Korea—it will be much harder to acquire and demonstrate the manifestations of this emerging South Korean nationalism and be accepted into the national unit. With regards to the discussions on types of nationalism that were explored in Chapter 1, this new globalized cultural nationalism is neither an ethnic type of nationalism nor the civic type of nationalism that is rooted in a commitment to state and civil society institutions (Brown 2000, p. 52). Instead, it represents a new category of nationalism that is based upon shared cultural values influenced in their formation and expression by globalization and neo-liberalization. The evolution of Korean nationalism is interesting theoretically because of the role of globalization in shaping its characteristics. It is also notable because others have argued that globalization intensifies ethnic nationalism as a response to the uncertainties brought about by globalization (Shin 2006; Smith 2008). This book has demonstrated the opposite—that globalization, in the case of Korea, has instead caused ethnic nationalism to wane—and the emerging South Korean nationalism has, in some aspects at least, become more inclusive with regard to non-ethnic Korean immigrants. The rate of social, political and economic change in South Korea has been unprecedented. Globalization and pervasive neo-liberal values such as consumerism, individualism and competition are transforming South Korean society. Young people are faced with relentless pressures and demands in South Korea’s “survival of the fittest” culture. Their uri nara, the South Korea in which they have grown up, would be unrecognizable to the youth of previous generations. Against such a backdrop of change, it is unsurprising that the country’s sense of nation and national identity evolved. The scale of that evolution has been extraordinary and this book has shown just how dramatic its impact has been on the isipdae. This presents an interesting juxtaposition of generational differences on the issue of unification and North Korea. Young South Koreans are still proud of their nation and national identity but that identity is no longer defined by the ethnic nationalism that motivated the demands for unification from the earlier student movement. The new globalized cultural South Korean national identity that has emerged among young people suggests that it is now young people and their emerging concept of South Korean nationalism and identity that increasingly stands in the way of a unified understanding of the Korean nation.

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Nationalism and Unification

The Korean expert who predicts Korean unification “is nothing but a person who makes their living out of hope,” to misquote an old saying about gambling. The 1990s had its share of hopeful scholars of Korea who predicted the demise of the North and Korea’s unification (see, for example, Eberstadt 1997; K. Kim 1996; Foster-Carter 1993). The emergence of globalized-cultural nationalism, however, provides some valuable new insights into the likelihood of unification, particularly when understood alongside existing literature on the division of Korea. None of these insights are particularly hopeful. One of the most important theorizers about the separation of North and South Korea is the scholar and activist Paik Nak-chung (1993). His “division system” theory has been influential in the debate that analyses the perpetuation of Korea’s division. The division system theory attempts to understand the situation of the Korean peninsula in the context of the wider global and international system. Paik argues that the division of Korea, or at least the perpetuation of the division of Korea, is in part a result of the interests and influence of the international system; that is, the economic interests of U.S., Japanese and South Korean capital. The division system theory is perfectly in tune with this book’s analysis of the emergence among young people of a South Korean globalized cultural nationalism. South Korean globalized cultural nationalism is a nationalism that perpetuates division and rejects unification; and the role of economic globalization and neo-liberal ideals in its rise has been central. These are exactly the requirements demanded by the interests of the international economic system. The neo-liberal ideals are fulfilled, for example, by free trade agreements and the liberalization of the labor market, both of which South Korea has readily adopted. The emergence of South Korean globalized cultural nationalism therefore affirms the continuance of division system theory, especially when seen through the behaviors of those young people who are accepting and adopting their country’s new national identity. Through his division system analysis, Paik was indeed pointing to early signs of what has turned into a full-fledged South Korean nation and nationalism. He argued that Koreans in the North and South had “diverged between themselves sufficiently to make full political unity unfeasible, the implication must be that the single ethnos has already branched out into two ‘proto nations’ at least” (Paik 1993, p. 83). He believed that the division system meant that already “coming into question are the very notions of nationhood and ethnicity, despite—or rather because of—the unusual degree of ethnic and linguistic homogeneity and the consequent

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strength of national feeling that characterize Koreans North and South” (ibid.). He also pointed out something we will readily recognize from earlier chapters; namely how internal social and political events in the South (and North) were integrally linked with intra-peninsula relations and dynamics (ibid., p. 78). Paik had already suggested in 1993 that “the preservation through amelioration of the division system” of the peaceful coexistence of North and South—which was after all “safest and most profitable”—had become the preferred goal of the South Korean elites (ibid., pp. 77-78). Although Paik argues this with the hope of eventually ending the division system that has perpetuated the separation of the North and South, we see instead that the opposite has happened. Paik’s optimism has not been fulfilled and the separation has become more entrenched. His prescient forecast, however, seems to have been realized by the continued influence of globalization and neo-liberalism on South Korea’s internal social and political events, and in particular on the isipdae. This in turn has impacted intra-peninsula relations and dynamics with the emergence of a new South Korean nation and the further entrenchment of Korean division. This further entrenchment of division does not necessarily preclude unification. Whatever our understanding may be of the South Korean nation, the future of the Korean peninsula is also heavily dependent upon the course taken by the North Korean government and its people. An obvious example is the situation that would arise if the North Korean state were to collapse. The entrenchment of division does preclude, however, a smooth, peaceful, and propitious unification of the Korean peninsula. The eminent North Korean expert Andrei Lankov, commenting on the likely outcome of unification, has said “if it is coming at all, it is coming the German way [through North Korea’s collapse and absorption by the South], but it is going to be much more violent, much more bloody, much more hectic than everything we have seen in Europe…it will be a cross between the Syrian crisis and the East German crisis of 1989/90. If it doesn’t sound good it is because it isn’t good. It is going to be a very bloody mess” (Lankov quoted in Phillips 2015). Despite the “bloody” outcome that Lankov predicts, the rhetoric of South Korean political elites (and that is all it is according to Park’s division system theory) remains the pursuit of a unified Korea. South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s vision for North Korean relations calls for “establishing a foundation for a unified Korea that ensures everyone’s happiness”. To this end, President Park established the Presidential Committee for Unification Preparation to help bring about the end of Korea’s division. It is a laudable aim that is based on the assumption that the people of South Korea await unification. This book has demonstrated

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that among the isipdae, at least, the way people think about unification is at best ambivalent and more usually antagonistic. Moreover, what “unified” and “unification” now means needs first to be understood and explored in the light of the emergence of a new South Korean nationalism. After some seventy years of division, Korean unification is arguably no more natural than the unification of two nations in Europe who share a similar heritage of culture and language (Germany and Austria for example), but are independent states. The political elite in South Korea need to face up to the reality that division is likely to be permanent. Their rhetoric should instead be seeking amelioration of the tensions that division brings and be striving for peaceful coexistence between North and South. We see, however, that the prevailing elite voices either dismiss or ignore new approaches to the problem of the North-South relationship and Korea’s unification. The Chairman of the Presidential Committee for Unification Preparation, Chung Chong-Wook, has so far maintained the traditional language regarding unification. While acknowledging the growing concern about unification among the South Korean population, there appears little willingness to recognize the existence of two separate Korean nations. Instead Chung hopes to “transform the people’s way of thinking on reunification” and dispel the “rather negative attitude” so that unification can be viewed “as a bonanza rather than a burden” (Phillips 2015). The language of that last hope is particularly notable. It reminds us of the neo-colonial characteristics of South Korean-focused motivations for unification that seem to recur in the interviews of some young people. They justify unification using the perceived economic benefits it would bring through the exploitation of the North’s natural resources and its cheap labor. They ally this to the belief that South Korean dominance of the peninsula would increase national prestige and security. Thus any research that contemplates permanent separation of North Korea and South Korea into distinct, sovereign, nations is encumbered by all sorts of political difficulties. In spite of this, the emergence of two separate Korean nations is well underway. This book will contribute to the ongoing political and scholarly debate on South Korean nationalism but that is a one-sided discourse at present. It needs to be complemented and challenged by political and scholarly debate on North Korean nationalism but there is very little data about contemporary nationalism and identity in North Korea. Some limited research has been carried out on North Korean top-down nationalism through a study of propaganda (Myers 2010) and of other regime discourse (Hayes and Scott 2011; J. Kang 2007; 2012). The acknowledged problem here is that the closed and authoritarian nature of the regime in North Korea prevents the sort of

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research that is needed to inform a discussion about nation, nationalism and identity in the daily lives of its people. For that very reason, however, there must be recognition of North Koreans as a people who are separate to the South Korean people and with agency to express their own national identity and (varied) “imagined” futures. We cannot easily discern these in the current political climate of the Korean peninsula but research into the views of the small expatriate North Korean community in the South might be a starting point. Even that is not without its own difficulties as there is no legitimate political authority representing the (likely diverse) views of the North Korean community living in South Korea. There are, however, many groups within that community that have taken leadership in the politics of unification, refugees and in challenging North Korea. An added difficulty is that even in democratic South Korea, the precarious political and social situation faced by North Korean immigrants means that free expression and discussion is constrained.1 This is particularly true if it challenges the accepted orthodoxy around social and elite attitudes to North Korea and unification. Nevertheless, North Koreans have the right to establish individual or collective identities separate from those imposed by the South and to use them to influence debate on the future of the two Koreas. Despite the political challenges it will entail, policy makers must look toward encouraging this. Until that happens, the language of integration applied to North Korean arrivals in the South will continue to assume South Korean values and identity to be the dominant or “authentic” definition of Koreanness to be “learned” by “Koreans” from the North. Indeed, this is what is “taught” in institutions such as Hanawon where North Korean refugees are initially sent on their arrival in the South. There are many problems with this approach, not least of which is that the South Korean fast-paced, globalized, neo-liberal system has flaws. Young people are burdened by a very demanding and competitive educational system. Issues of fairness, class, social justice and economic redistribution also require urgent attention in South Korea (Campbell 2012). Inequality will persist as will the low paid and temporary nature of jobs offered to young people, and there is little evidence that these will improve in the near future. The South Korean model has brought relative wealth and political freedom to the South, but it has done so in an uneven and socially divisive and costly manner. It must be questioned whether this provides anywhere near an appropriate economic, political and social model for the North. If the North were to be absorbed into the South Korean system then the large jaebols, unless challenged, will likely play a lead role in the future of North Korea. Andrei Lankov describes the risk with characteristic style and directness, saying: “If the North Korean state turns capitalist, an

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owner of a few stalls has the chance to end up as the CEO of a supermarket chain—but only as long as his or her enterprise will remain shielded from the South Korean retail giants. And the best way to achieve this is, of course, to keep the two countries separated as long as possible (or indefinitely)” (Lankov 2013). Thus the emergence of a new globalized cultural nationalism raises many fundamental questions regarding Korean unification. It highlights the growing hostility toward the idea of a unified Korea, particularly among the isipdae. It demonstrates the dangers of pursuing unification without comprehending and admitting the realities of Korea’s entrenched division and the scale of the resulting social and economic estrangement of the two nations. Most importantly, it fundamentally challenges the decades old dominant discourse of the elites and older generations which calls for unification and the restoration of “one Korean” nation. That discourse assumed the existence of a national community encompassing the people of the North and the South based on a shared, ethnic, national identity. This can no longer be assumed. With the emergence of a distinct South Korean nationalism, the notion of “one Korea” is diminishing and should no longer be relied upon as the basis for the integration of the Korean peninsula. The “End of one Korea” can be witnessed in the success of a democratic and multi-cultural South Korea. The energy and focus of its current generations are absorbed in the bustle of a society that has been transformed by globalization and neo-liberal values. As South Koreans go about their pressured and fast-paced lifestyle, the North is a distant and almost forgotten place for most of them. In the same way that most South Koreans fail to realize they are unconsciously imagining South Korea, so they also fail to realize they are forgetting the North and the unified nation. This was not always the case. During the decades of the post-division student movement, images of the North and the concept of a unified Korea were kept alive through discussions, activism and protest, because of the physical division. But no more. In more recent times, the absence among young people of discussion, discourse and inquiry about North Korea is becoming as powerful a factor as physical division in removing North Korea from the consciousness of young South Koreans. The isipdae have little sense of connection with the North, no direct experience of politics of the North (such as involvement in the student protests of the 1980s and 1990s), no recollection of family in the North, and are generations removed from those who directly experienced a unified nation and the Korean War. This separation in time and experience only adds to the hardening of the South Korean sense of identity among the isipdae. Billig (1995, p. 95) says that “just as a language will die rather for want of

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regular users, so a nation must be put to daily use.” The same can be said of the belief in unification. As their South Korean identity is flagged on a daily basis, so young people are banally forgetting the North and a unified concept of uri nara: this generation is approaching “the End of one Korea.” Notes

1. The difficulties faced when trying to encourage members of the North Korean community to become active in public debate relate to a number of social and legal factors including: the risk of being perceived in South Korea as sympathetic to the North Korean regime; worries about the consequences for families remaining in the North; and a lack of experience within the North Korean community of engaging in political debate.

Glossary

Bukhan

North Korea (South Korean terminology)

Jaebeol

Large Korean conglomerates such as Samsung

CERD

Chaoxianzu

Daehanminguk Danil minjok Tongil

Dongpo / Gyopo

Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Chinese term for Korean-Chinese The Republic of Korea One ethnic nation Unification

Members of the Korean diaspora

DPRK

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

EPS

Employment Permit System (South Korea)

EIU

Hallyu

Han minjok Hanbok

Hanguk Saram IMF

IPUS Isipdae

Economist Intelligence Unit

The “Korean Wave” One people

Korean traditional dress (South Korean terminology) A citizen of South Korea

International Monetary Fund. The IMF Crisis is often used in South Koreans to refer to the 1997 economic crisis. Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, Seoul National University Twenty-somethings 189

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Jaeil Gyopo

Korean term for Koreans living in Japan

Joseon Saram

A citizen of North Korea

Joseon

Joseonjok

Juche Sasang Goryeoin Minjok

Namhan

Ruling dynasty in the Korean peninsula region from 1392-1897 Korean term for Korean-Chinese

The ideological foundation of DPRK political thought

Ethnic-Koreans from the former USSR An idea of nation based on an ethnic people

South Korea (South Korean terminology)

NGO

Non-government organization

ROK

Republic of Korea

SNU

Seoul National University

North Korea

Sa-il-gu

SERI

South Korea

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea April 19th Revolution, the student uprising against the Rhee Syngman government in 1960 Samsung Economic Research Institute The Republic of Korea

Uri

Our, we, us

Yusin

Literally ”revitalising”. Refers to Park Chung Hee’s 1972 new constitution for the Republic of Korea.

Uri nara

Zainichi

Our nation

Japanese term for Koreans living in Japan

References

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Interviews

Non-Student Interviews

Academic. 2010. Professor Yoo Ho Yeul, Korea University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 3 May. Activist. 2009. Anonymous young professional working for North Korea-related NGO, Seoul. Interview in English by author. Recording. 17 September. Activist. 2009a. Anonymous student activist with VANK, South Korea. Interview in English by author. Recording. 1 August. Activist. 2010. Anonymous North Korea-related NGO Director General, Seoul. Interview in English by author. Recording. 17 September. Activist. 2010a. Anonymous North Korea-related NGO Director General, Seoul. Interview in English by author. Recording. 22 April. Expert. 2010. Steve Yi, Head of Strategy, Grey Group Korea, Seoul. Interview in English by author. Recording. 1 June. Expert. 2010a. Dr. Park June, Samsung Economic Research Institute (SERI), Seoul. Interview in English by author. Recording. 26 May. Expert. 2013. Anonymous Researcher, Korea Education Development Institute (KEDI), Seoul. Interview in Korean and English by author. Not recorded, handwritten notes taken during interview. 19 May. Journalist. 2010. Anonymous student newspaper editor, South Korea. Interview in English by author. Recording. 28 May. Journalist. 2010a. Anonymous student newspaper editor, South Korea. Interview in English by author. Recording. 3 June. Journalist. 2010b. Anonymous student newspaper editor, South Korea. Interview in English by author. Recording. 28 May. Journalist. 2013. Anonymous student magazine journalist, South Korea. Interview in English by author. Recording. 10 May. Teacher. 2010. Anonymous secondary-school history teacher, Seoul. Interview in Korean by author. Not recorded. 22 June.

Student Interviews

Student. 2009. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 31 August. Student. 2009a. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 20 June. Student. 2009b. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2009c. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 16 September. 207

208

South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

Student. 2009d. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2009e. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2009f. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2009g. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 19 September. Student. 2009h. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 29 June. Student. 2009i. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2009j. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2009k. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 20 June. Student. 2009m. Anonymous student and North Korea-related NGO officer, Seoul. Interview in English by author. Recording. 17 September. Student. 2009n. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 20 June. Student. 2009o. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 20 June. Student. 2009p. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2009q. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 31 August. Student. 2009r. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 16 September. Student. 2009s. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 20 June. Student. 2009t. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2009u. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2009v. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 20 June. Student. 2009w. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 18 September. Student. 2009x. Anonymous student, Soongsil University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 18 September. Student. 2009y. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 20 June. Student. 2009z. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 31 August. Student. 2009aa. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 20 June. Student. 2009bb. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 16 September. Student. 2009cc. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September.

Interviews

209

Student. 2009dd. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 20 June. Student. 2009ee. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2009ff. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 20 June. Student. 2009gg. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2009hh. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2009ii. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 18 September. Student. 2009jj. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2009kk. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2009mm. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2009nn. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 September. Student. 2010. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2010a. Anonymous student, YBM Sisa. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 29 April. Student. 2010b. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2010c. Anonymous student, Gyeongsang National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 31 May. Student. 2010d. Anonymous student, Chung-Ang University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 27 May. Student. 2010e. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2010f. Anonymous student, Gyeongsang National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 31 May. Student. 2010g. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2010h. Anonymous student, Sookmyung Women’s University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2010i. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2010j. Anonymous student, Sungkyunkwan University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2010k. Anonymous student, Sungkyunkwan University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2010m. Anonymous student, Sungkyunkwan University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 23 May. Student. 2010n. Anonymous student, Sookmyung Women’s University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2010o. Anonymous student, Sungkyunkwan University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 6 May.

210

South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

Student. 2010p. Anonymous student, Sungkyunkwan University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2010q. Anonymous student, Sungkyunkwan University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2010r. Anonymous student, Sookmyung Women’s University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2010t. Anonymous student, Sookmyung Women’s University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2010u. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2010v. Anonymous student, Sookmyung Women’s University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2010w. Anonymous student, Yonsei University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 29 April. Student. 2010x. Anonymous student, Yonsei University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 29 April. Student. 2010y. Anonymous student, YBM Sisa. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 29 April. Student. 2010z. Anonymous student, Yonsei University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 29 April. Student. 2010aa. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 May. Student. 2010bb. Anonymous student, Soongsil University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 20 April. Student. 2010cc. Anonymous student, Chung-Ang University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2010dd. Anonymous student, Sungkyunkwan University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2010ee. Anonymous student, Sungkyunkwan University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2010ff. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 21 June. Student. 2010gg. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2010hh. Anonymous student, Soongsil University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 20 April. Student. 2010ii. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2010jj. Anonymous student, Soongsil University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 20 April. Student. 2010kk. Anonymous student, Soongsil University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 20 April. Student. 2010mm. Anonymous student, Sookmyung Women’s University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2010nn. Anonymous student, Yonsei University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 29 April. Student. 2010oo. Anonymous student, Sungkyunkwan University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2010pp. Anonymous student, Soongsil University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 24 April.

Interviews

211

Student. 2010qq. Anonymous student, Soongsil University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 20 April. Student. 2010rr. Anonymous student, Sookmyung Women’s University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2010ss. Anonymous student, Seoul National University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 20 April. Student. 2010tt. Anonymous student, Sungkyunkwan University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2010uu. Anonymous student, Chung-Ang University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2010vv. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2010ww. Anonymous student, Gyeongsang National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 31 May. Student. 2010xx. Anonymous student, Yonsei University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 29 April. Student. 2010yy. Anonymous student, Yonsei University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 29 April. Student. 2010zz. Anonymous student, Sookmyung Women’s University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2010aaa. Anonymous student, Sookmyung Women’s University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2010bbb. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 23 May. Student. 2010ccc. Anonymous student, Sungkyunkwan University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2010ddd. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 May. Student. 2010eee. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 March. Student. 2010fff. Anonymous student, Chung-Ang University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 27 May. Student. 2010ggg. Anonymous student, Sungkyunkwan University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2010hhh. Anonymous student, Sungkyunkwan University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2010iii. Anonymous student, Sungkyunkwan University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2010jjj. Anonymous student, Chonnam National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 31 May. Student. 2010kkk. Anonymous student, Gyeongnam National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 31 May. Student. 2010mmm. Anonymous student, Chonnam National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 8 June. Student. 2010nnn. Anonymous student, Sungkyunkwan University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2010ooo. Anonymous student, Sookmyung Women’s University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2010ppp. Anonymous student, Yonsei University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 29 April.

212

South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

Student. 2010qqq. Anonymous student, Chung-Ang University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 6 May. Student. 2011. Anonymous student, Dongyang Mirae University. Interview in Korean by research assistant. Recording. 7 May. Student. 2011a. Anonymous student, Dongyang Mirae University. Interview in Korean by research assistant. Recording. 7 May. Student. 2011b. Anonymous student, Dongyang Mirae University. Interview in Korean by research assistant. Recording. 7 May. Student. 2011c. Anonymous student, Dongyang Mirae University. Interview in Korean by research assistant. Recording. 7 May. Student. 2011d. Anonymous student, Australian National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 12 April. Student. 2011e. Anonymous student, Australian National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 12 April. Student. 2011f. Anonymous student, Dongyang Mirae University. Interview in Korean by research assistant. Recording. 7 May. Student. 2011g. Anonymous student, Dongyang Mirae University. Interview in Korean by research assistant. Recording. 7 May. Student. 2011h. Anonymous student, Dongguk University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2013. Anonymous student, Handong Global University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 14 May. Student. 2013a. Anonymous student, Handong Global University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 14 May. Student. 2013b. Anonymous student, Handong Global University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 14 May. Student. 2013c. Anonymous student, Handong Global University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 14 May. Student. 2013d. Anonymous student, Handong Global University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 14 May. Student. 2013e. Anonymous student, Korea National University of Education. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 9 May. Student. 2014. Anonymous student, Gyeongbuk National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 29 April. Student. 2014a. Anonymous student, Myongji University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 17 April. Student. 2014b. Anonymous student, Incheon National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2014c. Anonymous student, Chongshin University. Interview in English by author. Recording. 16 April. Student. 2014d. Anonymous student, Gimpo University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 25 April. Student. 2014e. Anonymous student, Incheon National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2014f. Anonymous student, Incheon National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2014g. Anonymous student, Incheon National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2014h. Anonymous student, Chongshin University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 16 April.

Interviews

213

Student. 2014i. Anonymous student, Gimpo University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 25 April. Student. 2014j. Anonymous student, Myongji University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 17 April. Student. 2014k. Anonymous student, Gimpo University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 25 April. Student. 2014m. Anonymous student, Gyeongbuk National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 29 April. Student. 2014n. Anonymous student, Myongji University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2014o. Anonymous student, Gyeongbuk National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 29 April. Student. 2014p. Anonymous student, Kyungsung University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 30 April. Student. 2014q. Anonymous student, Myongji University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2014r. Anonymous student, Chongshin University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 16 April. Student. 2014s. Anonymous student, Incheon National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2014t. Anonymous student, Kyungsung University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 30 April. Student. 2014u. Anonymous student, Myongji University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2014v. Anonymous student, Gimpo University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 24 April. Student. 2014w. Anonymous student, Bugyeong University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 1 May. Student. 2014x. Anonymous student, Gyeongbuk National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 29 April. Student. 2014y. Anonymous student, Gyeongbuk National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 29 April. Student. 2014z. Anonymous student, Kyungsung University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 30 April. Student. 2014aa. Anonymous student, Myongji University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2014bb. Anonymous student, Kyungsung University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 30 April. Student. 2014cc. Anonymous student, Gimpo University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 25 April. Student. 2014dd. Anonymous student, Gyeongbuk National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 29 April. Student. 2014ee. Anonymous student, Gimpo University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 25 April. Student. 2014ff. Anonymous student, Myongji University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2014gg. Anonymous student, Myongji University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 17 April. Student. 2014hh. Anonymous student, Myongji University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 17 April.

214

South Korea’s New Nationalism: The End of “One Korea”?

Student. 2014ii. Anonymous student, Bugyeong University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 1 May. Student. 2014jj. Anonymous student, Myongji University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 17 April. Student. 2014kk. Anonymous student, Gyeongbuk National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 29 April. Student. 2014mm. Anonymous student, Incheon National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2014nn. Anonymous student, Myongji University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 17 April. Student. 2014oo. Anonymous student, Incheon National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2014pp. Anonymous student, Gimpo University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 25 April. Student. 2014qq. Anonymous student, Gimpo University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 25 April. Student. 2014rr. Anonymous student, Bugyeong University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 1 May. Student. 2014ss. Anonymous student, Incheon National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2014tt. Anonymous student, Myongji University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 17 April. Student. 2014uu. Anonymous student, Bugyeong University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 1 May. Student. 2014vv. Anonymous student, Myongji University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2014ww. Anonymous student, Myongji University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 17 April. Student. 2014xx. Anonymous student, Gimpo University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 25 April. Student. 2014yy. Anonymous student, Chongshin University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 16 April. Student. 2014zz. Anonymous student, Bugyeong University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 1 May. Student. 2014aaa. Anonymous student, Gimpo University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 25 April. Student. 2014bbb. Anonymous student, Incheon National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2014ccc. Anonymous student, Incheon National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2014ddd. Anonymous student, Incheon National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2014eee. Anonymous student, Gimpo University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 25 April. Student. 2014fff. Anonymous student, Chongshin University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 16 April. Student. 2014ggg. Anonymous student, Incheon National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 21 April. Student. 2014hhh. Anonymous student, Gimpo University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 25 April.

Interviews

215

Student. 2014iii. Anonymous student, Kyungsung University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 1 May. Student. 2014jjj. Anonymous student, Chongshin University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 16 April. Student. 2014kkk. Anonymous student, Incheon National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2014mmm. Anonymous student, Myongji University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 17 April. Student. 2014nnn. Anonymous student, Incheon National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2014ooo. Anonymous student, Incheon National University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 23 April. Student. 2014ppp. Anonymous student, Bugyeong University. Interview in Korean by author. Recording. 1 May.

Index 368 generation, 51, 76n3 “Absolute Community”, 41, 47 advertising: aimed at young people, 55 Amnesty International, 116, 133n10 Anderson, Benedict, 4, 6, 125, 129– 130 anti-Americanism: democratization movement, 42–43; division and, 45; Gwangju Uprising, 42–43; Korea–Japan normalization negotiations, 35–36; nationalism and, 18, 19, 33; unification and, 44, 45 anti-authoritarianism, 19, 84 anti-communism, 11 Anti-Corruption Act Amendment, 132n1 anti-discrimination legislation, 116– 117 anti-imperialism, 18, 19, 36 April Revolution (Sa-il-gu), 29–32 arts: and modernity, 84 Asian Financial Crisis, 18, 142, 147– 148 authoritarianism: North Korea, 184– 185; South Korea, 17, 42, 46, 58, 111, 140

Cheonam (naval ship): sinking of, 134n28 Cheondogyo, 47n3 children: Eurasian children, 171–172; mixed-race children, 171–173 China: Gando land dispute, 101; Korean-Chinese, 151; relationship to Taiwan, 110 Chinese-Taiwanese identity, 110 Chocolat (girl pop group), 172 Chongryeon, 162 Chonnam National University, 41, 42 Cho, Sumi, 98 Chosun Ilbo (newspaper), 123, 124, 134n25 Christian community: student movement supported by, 38, 48n12 Chun Doo Hwan regime: coup d’état, 17, 40; economic management, 17; ethnic nationalism, 17–18; Gwangju Democratic Uprising, 17, 40–42; legitimacy problems, 17, 18; representation of North, 17, 58; suppression of opposition, 17, 40– 42; U.S. support, 42–43, 48n11 Chung Chong-Wook, 184 cinema, 84–85 citizenship, 159–160 civic nationalism: defining features, 4, 7–8, 23n5; expression, 9 civil society, 111, 118, 132n1 class, cultural nationalism and, 173– 176. See also middle class Cold War, 33, 146 colonialism: definition, 69, 70; unification discourse, 69–72 colonial pilgrimages, 129–130 colonization: by Japan, 15–16, 28– 29, 35; independence movement, 27–28 Combined Forces Command (CFC), 42, 48n10

banal nationalism, 6, 120–126 Ban Ki-moon, 98 Basic Law Pertaining to Foreigners in Korea, 117 b-boy dancing, 84 Billig, Michael, 6, 113, 120–121, 122, 123, 125 Bong Joon-ho, 85 candlelight vigil movement, 157n14 case study method, 10 Catuira, Michel, 133n13 causal theories of nationalism, 4, 6–7 Chang Myon (John M. Chang), 33

217

218

Index

Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), 116 communal values, 72–73, 87 Confucianism, 139 Confucian period, 20 conscription, 68, 172 Constitution of Republic of Korea: human rights and discrimination, 116–117; popular sovereignty, 113 constructivist approach to nationalism, 4, 6, 23n4, 109 corruption, 111, 132n1 Corruption Investigation Office, 132n1 cosmetic surgery, 91 cosmopolitanism: “enlightened” activism, 94–97; myeongpum, 92–94; national identity, 9, 87– 97; “spec” (seupek), 87, 88–92 coup d’états, 17, 32, 34, 40 cuisine, 86 cultural citizen education, 175 cultural difference: between North and South, 61, 72, 74–75 cultural exports, 97–98 cultural identity, 87 cultural nationalism: in 1920s, 16; class and, 173–176; ethnic nationalism and, 8 Cumings, Bruce, 14–15

Daegu: demonstrations against Rhee regime, 30 Dangun myth, 14, 23n7, 58, 64 danil minjok (one ethnic nation), 2, 3, 57–58, 64–67 democracy: education and, 118–120; first achievement in 1987, 18, 19, 44, 111; immigration policy and, 115–117; popular sovereignty, 113–114; South Korean national identity and, 110–120; Taiwanese identity and, 110; under Second Republic, 33–34 Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. See North Korea democratization movement: antiAmericanism, 42–43; during

Chun regime, 40–42; during Park regime, 35–39 division system theory, 182 Dodeok (ethics) curriculum, 119 Dokdo: sovereignty dispute, 35, 99– 100, 101–102, 114 Dongguk University, 90, 151 Donghak movement, 42 DPRK. See North Korea Dulsori, 84

East Germany: unification, 146–147 economic status, 62 economy: Asian Financial Crisis, 18, 142, 147–148; early 1960s, 35, 36, 48n5; rapid development, 80– 81 education: competitiveness, 139–140, 142, 152; democracy and, 118– 120; employment opportunities, 139–143; fees, 156n5; importance of, 88–92, 139; neo-liberal values, 89, 90, 139–141; overseas study, 91–92, 128; participation rates, 10, 32, 92, 139, 140; privatization and elitism, 140 education policy, 140 880,000 Won Generation (Woo & Park), 143, 152, 153 elitism, 88, 140 employment: education and, 139– 143; opportunities, 141–143 Employment Permit System (EPS or E9 visa), 117 English language skills, 88–89, 91, 152 enlightened activism, 94–97 entrepreneurism, 138, 140 environmental movement, 95–96, 107–108n26 ethnic homogeneity, 57–58, 64, 67, 72, 173 ethnic Korean immigrants: attitudes towards, 11, 21, 162; exclusion from uri nara, 163, 165; hierarchy among, 163; inclusion in uri nara, 165; right of return, 163 ethnic nationalism: cultural nationalism and, 8; defining

Index 219

features, 4, 7, 23n5; expression of, 9; globalization’s impact on, 127, 181; on Korean peninsula, 2, 3, 4, 14, 16–20; Korean War and, 16; pro-unification sentiment, 17– 19, 47; Sa-il-gu movement, 30– 32 ethnography, 10 Eurasian children, 171–172 F-4 visa applications, 177n3 family structure, 86 feminist analysis of nationalism, 20 Filipinas: exploitation by Korean men, 103; marriage migrants, 169 First Republic of Korea, 29–32 Football World Cup 2010, 1–2 forced laborers, 161, 162 foreign language skills, 88–89, 91 foreign workers. See migrant workers Freedom House, 111, 132n2

Gaecheonjeol (Festival of the Opening of Heaven), 58 Gando land dispute, 101 Gellner, Ernest, 4, 6, 13, 26 gender: nationalism and, 20; roles, 170 Germany: division, 122; immigration, attitudes towards, 132–133n7; immigration policy, 115; unification, 122, 146–147 Girls Generation, 100 Globalization: ethnic nationalism and, 127, 181; South Korean national identity and, 126–131; unification and uncertainty, 145– 150; young peoples’ priorities, 88–89, 90 globalized cultural nationalism: emergence, 6, 8, 161, 182; expression, 9, 80; as new type of nationalism, 3–4, 8–9, 161, 181; in South Korea, 3–4, 6, 9–10, 160, 179–181, 182 global networks, 128–131 Goguryeo: dynasty, 23n6; historical sovereignty dispute, 100, 101 Gojong, King (Joseon dynasty) and Emperor of Korea, 28

gold donation movement, 147–148 Goryeoin, 161–162 Grand National Party (GNP), 103, 121, 156n5 Greenpeace, 95 Gwangju Democratic Uprising, 17, 40–42, 48n8 Gwangju Incident, 28 Gwangju massacre, 17, 40 “Gwangju Republic”, 41, 47 Gwangju Student Uprising of 1929, 29, 42 Gyeongsang province, 38 Hahm Chaibong, 19–20 Hallyu (Korean Wave), 19, 97–98 Hanawon, 174–175, 185 han minjok (one people), 63–67 Heavy Chemical Industrialization (HCI) plan, 17 Henney, Daniel, 172 higher education: fees, 156n5; overseas study, 91–92, 128; participation rates, 10, 32, 92, 139. See also universities humanitarianism, 71 human rights: migrants, 115–117, 133n8 hurry-hurry (ppalli ppalli) culture, 49, 76n1 Hwang Woo-suk, 106–107n14 Hyundai, 81

Imjin River: flooding of, 97 immigrants: attitudes towards, 11, 20, 21, 22; as commodities, 169; F-4 visa applications, 177n3; human rights protection, 115–116; inclusion or exclusion, 160, 161– 168; migrant wives, 168–170; migrant workers, 116–117, 133n8, 133n13. See also ethnic Korean immigrants; non-ethnic Korean immigrants; North Korean immigrants immigration law, 159 immigration policy, 115–117, 118 independence movement, 27–29 individual achievement: national success and, 88–92

220

Index

Insooni, 172 instrumentalist approach to nationalism, 4, 6–7, 23n4, 138 International Labor Organization (ILO), 116 international recognition: desire for, 98–99 international trade, 126 internet activism, 107n18 internet: real name system, 112, 132n4; use, 86 interviews. See methodology isipdae (twenty-somethings): characteristics, 49–50; on democracy, 111–112; economic security, 138–139; on globalization, 126–127; knowledge about North, 119– 120; national identity, 2–3, 50, 186–187; on North Koreans, 58– 63, 110; risk aversion, 145; term coined, 22n3; unification, antipathy towards, 54–57; unification, disinterest in, 50–54, 186; unification fears, 145–160

jaebol (conglomerates), 81, 141, 185 Jaeil Gyopo (Korean-Japanese), 162, 164–165 Jamintu (National Liberation) movement, 44 Japanese colonialism: experience of, 15–16, 28–29, 35; independence movement, 27–28; Korean diaspora and, 161–162 Japan–Korea relations. See Korea– Japan relations Jeju island, 29 Jeolla province, 40–41, 42 Jeondaehyeop (National Council of Student Representatives), 44 Jeon Tae-il, 37 job market: competitiveness, 141 Joint Committee with Migrants in Korea, 116–117 Joseon dynasty, 14–15, 23n8, 139 Joseonjok (Korean-Chinese): in China, 161; discrimination against, 162; exclusion, 22, 67, 130, 163–164; F-4 visa

applications, 177n3; identity, 161, 164; negative sentiments towards, 11, 163–164; North Koreans, 58 Juche ideology, 44 Kabo Reforms, 15 Kang Sue-jin, 98 Kazakhstan, 162 Kedourie, Elie, 4, 6, 138 Kim Chae-gyu, 39 Kim Dae-jung, 18, 37, 44 Kim Il-sung, 34, 179 Kim Jong-il, 82, 179 Kim Jong-pil, 35 Kim Ku, 15–16 Kim, Nora Hui-jung, 21, 118–119 Kim Ye-seul, 152 Kim Young-sam: opposition to Park regime, 38; opposition to Roh regime, 44 Kim Young-sam administration: education reform, 119, 134n21; ethnic nationalism, 18; student protests, 45 Kim Yu-na, 1, 98 Kim Yun-ji, 98 Koo, Hagen, 62, 93–94, 173–174 Korea–Japan relations: Dokdo dispute, 99–100, 101–102; Goguryeo dispute, 100, 101; Japanese history texts dispute, 99; normalization negotiations, 35– 37; Sea of Japan dispute, 99, 108n36; territorial disputes, 99– 102 Korean-Americans, 21, 163, 164– 165, 177n3 Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), 37, 39 Korean-Chinese. See Joseonjok (Korean-Chinese) Korean diaspora, 161–162 Korean Immigration Service, 159 Korean-Japanese (Jaeil Gyopo), 162, 164–165 Korean nationalism: current views on, 18–22; ethnic nationalism, 2, 3, 4, 14, 15–20; history, 14–18; postmodern critiques, 20, 21. See also North Korean nationalism

Index 221

and identity; South Korean nationalism Korean Pact on Anti-Corruption and Transparency (K-PACT), 132n1 Korean peninsula: colonization by Japan, 15–16; division, 16, 29; ethnic homogeneity, 57–58, 64, 67, 72; Joseon Dynasty, 14–15; occupation by U.S. and USSR, 16 Korean War, 2, 16, 29, 31, 123 Korean Wave (Hallyu), 19, 97–98 Korean Workers’ Party, 179 Korean Youth Independence Corps, 27 Korea University: status, 150, 152; student groups and societies, 150–151 Kyunghyang Shinmun (newspaper), 123, 124, 134n25 labor market liberalization, 142 labor resources, 68, 69, 77n13 labor shortage, 162 language differences: between North and South, 59–61, 72, 74–75 Lankov, Andrei, 183, 185 Lee Myung-bak: corruption allegations, 103 Lee Myung-bak administration: education policy, 156n5; human rights, 116, 133n10; inaugural presidential speech, 121–123 leftist-nationalism, 19–20 LG, 81, 82 life expectancy, 62 lifestyle differences: between North and South, 61 loan words, 60 London Olympics (2012): Dokdo protest, 100 Love in Asia (KBS television program), 169, 171 luxury goods: consumption of, 92–94

makgeolli (fermented beverage), 85– 86 March First Independence Movement, 27–28 marriage: competition for partners, 144–145; international marriages,

168–170; partner preferences, 61, 144, 156n8, 166, 170 Masan, 30, 38 matchmaking agencies, 144, 156n7 media: construction of uri nara, 123– 124; depiction of North Korea, 124; international focus on North Korea, 128–129 memorials: to Gwangju Democratic Uprising, 41, 48n9 Merkel, Angela, 146 methodology, 10–13; interviewees, 11–12; interviews, 11–13 middle class: educational elitism, 140; globalization’s impact, 173– 174; student movement supported by, 44, 48n12 migrant labor activists, 133n13 Migrants’ Trade Union (MTU), 117, 133n13 migrant workers, 116–117, 133n8 military autonomy, 17 military service: compulsory service, 68, 172; eligibility for enlistment, 172 Millennium Democratic Party, 121 Mincheonghangnyeon (National Federation of Democratic Youth and Students), 37, 39 Mindan, 162 minjok, 14 minjung movement, 83–84, 85, 106n8, 173 Minmintu (People’s Democracy), 44 Mintongnyeon (League for National Unification), 33, 38 mixed-race children, 171–173 modernity: nationalist sentiment and, 9, 14, 80–87; youth culture and, 83, 84–86, 87 Moon, Katherine, 19 movie industry, 84–85 multiculturalism, 20, 21, 118, 166 multicultural nationalism, 8 myeongpum (branded goods), 92–94 National Assembly: behaviour of politicians, 103–104 National Foundation Day, 58

222

Index

National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK), 115–116, 133n8 national identity. See North Korean nationalism and identity; South Korean national identity nationalism: bottom-up adoption of, 6, 138; categories, 4, 7–9; causal theories, 4, 6–7; constructivist approach, 4, 6, 23n4; definition, 13–14; feminist analysis, 20; instrumentalist approach, 4, 6–7, 23n4, 138; manifestations, 4–5, 9–10; new type, 3–4, 8–9, 161, 181; primordialist approach, 6, 14, 23n4, 57; three-level analysis, 4–10; top-down manipulation, 7, 138. See also Korean nationalism; North Korean nationalism and identity; South Korean nationalism nationalist sentiment: defined, 13; in student movement, 26 national loyalties: politicization of, 113–114 national pride: expression, 79 National Security Law (NSL) 1948, 10–11 naturalization ceremonies, 159 natural resources, 68, 69, 70 neo-colonialist influences, 26, 36 neo-liberalism: economic globalization and, 138; education and, 89, 90, 139–141; new South Korean nationalism and, 150–154 New Democratic Party (NDP), 38 New Life Movement, 33 NL (National Liberation/Jamintu) movement, 44 non-alignment policy, 33 non-ethnic Korean immigrants: discriminatory treatment, 11, 115–117; inclusion in uri nara, 67, 115, 130–131, 161, 166–169, 173; in nationalism literature, 20– 21; rights, 115–117; “spec” (seupek) and, 92 Northern Diplomacy policy, 45 North Korea: authoritarianism, 184; differences to South Korea, 57–

63, 180; division from South, 16, 29; environmental issues, 97; human and natural resources, 69, 70; international media coverage, 128–129; representation in South Korean media, 124; 70th anniversary of Korean Workers’ Party, 179; social and political isolation, 146–147; unification possibilities, 183 “North Korea Fatigue”, 50, 52 North Korean immigrants: attitudes towards, 62, 163; cultural citizen education, 174–175, 185; exclusion, 92, 163; as marriage partners, 61, 166, 169–170 North Korean nationalism and identity, 184–185 North Koreans: isipdae perceptions of, 58–63, 110; per capita income, 123 North Korean soccer team, 1–2 Now on My Way to Meet You (television program), 171 NSL (National Security Law) 1948, 10–11 Ohmynews.com, 123, 124, 134n25 overseas Koreans, 161 overseas study, 91–92, 128

Paik Nak-chung, 182–183 Park Chung Hee: assassination, 40; rise to power, 32–34 Park Chung Hee regime: authoritarianism, 17, 32, 42, 58; development goals, 17, 35; economic achievements, 17, 132n5; jaju policy, 17; Korea– Japan normalization negotiations, 35–37; legitimacy-deficit, 132n5; nationalism and legitimacy, 17; student protests, 35–39; U.S. support, 17; Yusin constitution, 17, 37–39 Park Geun-hye, 132n2, 156n5, 183 Park In-bee, 98 Park Ji-sung, 98 Park Jung-woo, 100 paternalism, 70, 71

Index 223

patriarchy, 170, 176 PD (People’s Democracy/Minmintu), 44 Philippines: Filipina marriage migrants, 169; Filipinas exploited by Korean men, 103 physical differences: between North and South Koreans, 62–63 political ethnography, 10 “political liberals’ dilemma”, 21, 118–119 political nationalism, 26 political participation: enlightened activism, 94–97; internet activism, 107n18 politicians: poor behaviour, 103–104 popular sovereignty, 113–114 Presidential Committee for Unification Preparation, 183, 184 primordialist approach to nationalism, 6, 14, 23n4, 57 Protestant-inspired nationalism, 16 Psy, 1, 97, 98

racial discrimination, 11, 20, 115– 116 Reagan, Ronald, 43 reconstruction nationalism, 16 Republic of Korea (ROK). See South Korea Rhee, Syngman, 16, 29, 30 Rhee Syngman regime, 16, 29–32, 42 rice consumption, 86 Roh Moo-hyun administration: inaugural presidential speech, 121–122, 123; representation of North, 123; Sea of Japan naming dispute, 108n36; young people’s support, 107n18 Roh Tae-woo administration: anticorruption measures, 132n1; education reform, 119; election, 44; ethnic nationalism, 18; Northern Diplomacy policy, 45 Ronaldo, Cristiano, 179 Russian-Koreans, 161–162 Ruteere, Mutuma, 116 Ryu, Hyun-jin, 98 Sadaegang (Four Rivers) project, 96

Sa-il-gu (April Revolution), 29–32 salaries, 143 Samsung, 81, 82 San Francisco Treaty, 99 savoir faire, 91–92 Sea of Japan: naming dispute, 99, 108n36 Second Republic of South Korea, 33– 34 self-determination of nations, 27, 36 self-management (jagi gwalli), 89 Seoul: global engagement, 126 Seoul Olympic Games (1988), 18 Sewol ferry: sinking of, 104–105, 132n2 Shin Chaeho, 14 Shin Gi-wook, 16, 18 Smith, Anthony, 6, 19 soccer, 1–2, 79 Son Byung-hi, 47–48n3 Song Il-gook, 100 Son Kye-baek, 47n3 son preference, 169 South Korea: criminalization of support for North, 11; division from North, 16, 29; First Republic, 29–32; as model for the North, 185; participation in international community, 118; Second Republic, 33–34; similarities with Taiwan, 111, 112; Third Republic, 35–39; transformation, 3, 181 South Korean National Curriculum, 118 South Korean national flag, 120 South Korean national identity: banal nationalism and, 120–126; bottom-up adoption of, 6, 138; constructivist forces, 109; cosmopolitanism, 87–97; democracy and, 110–120; exclusion of North Koreans, 92; globalization and, 126–131; modernity and, 80–87; national status and, 9, 14, 97–105. See also uri nara (our nation) South Korean nationalism: analytical framework, 4–10; constructivist analysis, 109–110; cultural

224

Index

expression, 9–10; emergence of new type, 3–4, 7–9, 13–14; globalized cultural characteristics, 3–4, 79–80, 105, 160, 179–181; instrumental analysis, 138; and neo-liberalism, 150–154; pragmatic nature, 19; unification and, 186–187 South Koreans: attitudes towards North Koreans, 57–63; differences to North Koreans, 180; per capita income, 123; perceptions of North Korea, 82– 83. See also isipdae (twentysomethings) South Korean soccer team, 1–2 “spec” (seupek), 87, 88–92 sporting achievements, 98 status (individual): importance of, 174 status (nation): national identity and, 9, 14, 97–105 student activism: neo-liberalism and, 150–154 student loans, 143 student movement: in 1980s, 40–45; in 1990s, 45–46; antiAmericanism, 26, 33, 35–36, 42– 43, 44, 45; April Revolution, 29– 32; Christian community support, 38, 48n12; colonial and predivision era, 27–29; as “fourth branch of government”, 33; ideological divisions, 44, 47n2; Korea–Japan relations, 35–37; middle class support, 44, 48n12; minjung movement, 83–84, 85; as “moral conscience” of nation, 30–32, 46; nationalism, 2, 25–27, 46–47; nationalist sentiment, 26; Park Chung Hee’s rise to power, 32–34; Park regime opposed, 37– 39; public support for, 31–32, 38, 44–46, 47, 48n12; Sa-il-gu, 29– 32; unification, 26–27, 31, 33–34, 43–45, 47; Yusin constitution, 37–39 Supreme Court of Korea, 117 “survival of the fittest” culture, 139, 143, 156n2, 181

Taiwan: relationship to China, 110 Taiwanese identity, 110 temporary employment, 142–143 Third Republic of Korea, 35–39 368 generation, 51, 58, 76n3 top-down manipulation of nationalism, 7, 138 tourism, 128 Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act, 117, 134n20 tradition: attitudes towards, 83–84 traditional culture: reinvention, 85– 87 travel, 91, 128–131 “twenty-somethings”. See isipdae (twenty-somethings)

Ukraine, 162 unification: as absorption or takeover of North, 72; antipathy towards, 54–57; changing attitudes towards, 2–3, 4, 11, 50, 73–75, 120; colonial discourse on, 69– 72, 184; complexity of, 119; ethnic nationalism and, 17–19, 47; generational differences in attitudes to, 50–51; as government policy, 56–57, 183– 184; interest in, 50–54; as liberation of North, 119; likelihood of, 182–187; motivations for, 63–72; public support for, 17–18; rejection of, 155–156; as risky prospect, 145– 150; South Korean motivations for, 67–69; student movement support for, 26–27, 31, 33–34, 43–45 unification-based nationalism, 2 unification movement, 33 United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UNESCR), 116 United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, 172 United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 118

Index 225

United New Democratic Party (UNDP), 103 United States: Korea–Japan relations, 35–36; occupation of South Korea, 16; South Korean students in, 128; support for Chun regime, 42–43, 48n11. See also Combined Forces Command (CFC) United States Army Military Government, 29 United States Information Service (USIS), 43 universities: brand capital, 90, 144, 152; disinterest in unification, 53–54, 151; student activism and organizations, 150–154 uri nara (our nation): banal nationalism and, 120–125; ethnicity and, 166–167; inclusion and exclusion, 161–168; isipdae understanding of, 3, 13, 65, 72– 73; media construction of, 123– 124; politicians’ construction of, 121–122, 125 Uzbekistan, 162 values: communal values, 72–73, 87; neo-liberal values in education, 89, 90, 139–141 Versailles Peace Conference, 27, 36 Vietnam War, 36 Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK), 99, 101–102 wages, 142, 143 Walker, Richard L, 43 Ward, Hines, 172 welfare programs, 62 well-being movement, 96–97 Wickham, John A., 42 Wilson, Woodrow, 27, 36 women: exploitation of Filipinas by Korean men, 103; migrant wives, 168–170; shortage, 169; social status and gender role, 95, 107n25, 170–171 women’s rights, 95, 107n25 Yack, Bernard, 6, 113

Yonsei University, 151–152 Yoon Mi-rae, 172 Youth Community Union, Korea University, 151 youth culture: cosmopolitanism, 9; modernity, 83, 84–86, 87 youth society: neo-liberalism and, 154 Yusin constitution, 17, 37–39

Zainichi Koreans (Korean-Japanese), 162

About the Book

Why have traditional views of national identity in South Korea—views that for years drove a demand for reunification—been challenged so dramatically in recent years? What explains the growing ambivalence and even antagonism of South Korean young people toward unification with North Korea? Emma Campbell addresses these related puzzles, exploring the emergence of a new kind of nationalism in South Korea and considering what this development means for the country’s future. Emma Campbell is visiting fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University.

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