Finding the Seoul of Korea

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — Full from a monstrous and ridiculously inexpensive plate of omurice—which is, more or less, an omelet stuffed with rice—I can’t help but smile as T-Pain’s “Get Low” blasts from the Western-themed sports bar across the street from my apartment. Sitting in a sticky, hot room listening to music a few months past its prime, I might as well be at a Harvard dorm party.

But this particular sweaty sketch-fest is far removed from the blowouts I’ve hosted in my Kirkland suite or in the basement of my house in Queens. I’m in Seoul, but if it weren’t for the Korean welcome signs at the airport, I might never have guessed.

There are certain parts of Seoul that I can only describe as Times Square on steroids: more neon, more corporate billboards, and the hookers are still around. Near where I’m staying, I can grab a Big Mac just as easily as I can have a bowl of ramen with some kimchi. There’s a 7/11 around the corner, just like at school, and this one even sells alcohol after 11 p.m.

Indeed, globalization has wrapped its tentacles around Seoul, and in some cases, Koreans do America better than Americans: All of the Wal-Marts in this country were bought up by a Korean company in 2006.

Yet, even as golden arches and Slurpees pervade every corner of Seoul, this city remains distinctly Korean—starting with its people. To a New Yorker coming to Korea by way of Harvard, human interaction in Seoul takes place on a whole different level. Courtesy among strangers is expected, rather than pleasantly surprising. In the haggle-only markets, transactions manage to take place with an air of cordiality, and more than once I’ve walked away from getting ripped off for a shirt or pair of sunglasses with a smile on my face. In the still significant number of privately-owned restaurants, the husband and wife teams that man the kitchens make me feel like the foreign exchange student they never had.

Filial piety is still all the rage, and the level of respect reserved for one’s elders is admirable, if sometimes perplexing. Coming from a society in which older people are approached with a familiarity that occasionally borders on disrespect, it’s refreshing when I see students at the academy where I teach SAT classes bow deferentially to the school’s director. However, this reverence for elders can sometimes go over the top: My summer roommate Peter, a Brown student and Korean citizen, is required to use the honorific form of Korean when he speaks to Vince, a staff member at the academy who is only a year older than him.

Much of this can be attributed to the slowly loosening but still stifling vice grip of Confucianism. While Buddha and Jesus battle over the eternal souls of the Korean faithful, neither the Enlightened One nor the Anointed One has the same influence that Confucius does over people’s daily lives. The man of many proverbs has his hand in it all, from the relentless work ethic that keeps my students in school until 10 p.m. five days a week during the summer, to the drinking culture in which the younger generation must be constantly ready with a refill should an elder finish his beverage, to, unfortunately, a diminished but still prevalent tradition of sexism and intolerance of “unconventional” lifestyles.

Thankfully, social repression leads to defiant counterculture in Korea, just like anywhere else. Young people flock to packed and pulsating club areas ready to bump and grind to American hits and the sounds of the immortal Korean rapper Crown J. The gay community heads off to party at “Homo Hill” in Itaewon, the international district. And wasted government officials delay their trips to “massage parlors” to accost groups of Americans and buy them rounds of whiskey bombs. (Thanks, Mr. Choo!).

These small rebellions are pleasant reminders that people are still people. For all the differences I’ve seen between Korean culture and my own, I’ve also noticed that some traits are universal: Kids still hate getting homework, old folks still can’t stand loud teenagers, and cars will still honk after almost killing you in an ill-advised jaywalking attempt.

At the risk of sounding like some Ivy League tool who believes he’s discovered the fundamental unity of mankind and relays his epiphany to the world through wildly uninformed observations taken down after just three weeks in a country, I think there is something reassuring in the idea that this expanding global community that seems to threaten the individuality of unique and vibrant societies has actually been around all along, and what is happening now is just the natural progression of things. At least, that is what I tell myself as Ronald McDonald watches me wash down my bulgogi burger with a refreshing Coca-Cola.

—Loren Amor '10, a Crimson sports editor, is a history and literature concentrator in Kirkland House.