Arrival in Hwawon: The Many Faces of Korea

I arrived today at the city and school I will be teaching for the next year Hwawon Middle/High School. The city of Hwawon is in the county of Haenam and is a 30 minutes drive from the major port city Mokpo. The city is fairly small with a modest variety of shops and restaurants. Nearly all the families here farm for their income and transport their produce to feed the hungry neighbouring markets. The houses here are small bungles with either a garden or cages for live stock such as pig, goat, and deer. To my knowledge I am the only native English speaker in the town of Hwawon although there is apparently many in Mokpo and Haenam city.

Before arriving here I attended the closing ceremony of my one week training session in Gwangju city where our regional director once again made a startling admission to the audience. He said that Koreans are guilty of expecting foreigners to be "Caucasian” and urged the school principles and teaching assistants in attendance to be open and avoid prejudicial views. Following this speech the English teachers were paired with the representatives of their new school. Unfortunately due to some miscommunication my teaching assistant and principle did not attend the closing ceremony so I accompanied the Haenam regional director to Haenam city where I was introduced to Mr. Cho who is one of the many teachers I will be working with.

Mr. Cho is a substitute teacher from Mokpo city who teaches Middle School English in Hwawon and like many of the teachers he commutes daily to the small rural community to work. Mr. Cho's comprehension of Enlgish is pretty impressive when spoken to at a comfortable pace but when he speaks his sentences are sometimes fragmented or lack the correct suffix. Overall there were barriers hindering our communication. When I asked Mr. Cho in the car what there was to do in Hwanam, he simply smiled and said with a quick staccato “sight see”.

Our first day was spent in the city of Mokpo where I received a comprehensive medical exam at the city hospital which is needed for my alien registration card (ARC) that will substitute my passport for identification. Afterwards we went shopping in Mokpo where I bought groceries and household items for my apartment at a three story department store called Lotte Mart, which is the equivalent of Wal-mart in South Korea. The ales of the store were often lined with more sales attendants than customers and each politely bowed as you walked by saying “Ka-sa-ham-nee-da” or in English “thank you”. Playing over the intercom system were hot and sexy American pop tunes from the likes of Ciara and Britany Spears. The in-store advertisements featured skinny Korean models with thin faces, wide eyes, and pale skin. If I didn't know better I could have sworn that I was still in North America.

When you turn on a T.V or pass a trendy clothing store, it is unmistakably obvious that American culture is a prominent feature of modern South Korea. It is so common place that almost all electronic devices, street signs, and vehicle have English labels in place of or next to Korean Hangeul despite only a small minority of the population speak the language. But while this cultural curiosity might be viewed as an innocent indulgence or a compromise to accommodate foreigners, it does have its uglier side. Western homogenization in Korea has not simply been the adoption of language but also its aesthetics.

In cosmetic print ad, T.V show, or department store check out counter, the Western practice of extending white privilege maintains its hierarchal status. Not only are there Caucasian whites featured prominently but there is the widespread use of light skinned Koreans to mimic the Western aesthetic. What is startling is that as a foreigner one gets exposure to the range of Korean skin tones like the “sandy” and “bronze” shades that are underrepresented in the media and tourist publications. It is this same “idealized” white man and woman that has been reproduced, distributed, and sold to Koreans and Americans alike. White is apparently the image of consumerism everywhere.

When I asked one of my co-teacher, Mr. Cho, whether light skinned Koreans received better treatment than those of dark skin, he simply repeated my question and said nothing in response. I chose not to push the matter further as it may have been a sensitive issue for him as a dark skin Korean male. Maybe he is not the only one to remain silent about the matter? Here in lies the danger and denial of the diversity that persist within the walls of Korea. As American culture continues to permeating everywhere, so too will the spread of its race dynamics even with a culture that is largely of the same ethnicity. According to survey conducted by Synovate "in Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan, 4 of every 10 women use a whitening cream." With Asian countries all adopting this aesthetic perhaps it is not so much of a secrete anymore? Does the absence of people of color in Korea media attests to how successful Western culture has been maintaining social inequality? Or is this something indiginous to Korean culture?