On South Korean “Superficiality”: We Are Deeper Than You Want To Know
By Guest Contributor Esther Choi
Image by Byoung Wook via Flickr Creative Commons.
Existing in very distinct manifestations of Korean American diaspora, but occupying similar spaces, we the American-born Koreans defined “fobs” (Fresh Off the Boat, more recently immigrated Koreans) by their cutesy antics, superficial looks, plastic surgery craze, and love of K-pop. We may have considered it all in good humor, but ultimately it assured us we were morally superior, a higher art form.
When I finally grew up a bit and began challenging my own internalized racism, I began to realize my judgments of “fob culture” were more about my desire to raise myself above it rather than any attempt to understand their world. Perhaps we thought that by defining ourselves against the less assimilated, we could stamp out our own sense of foreignness.
I am now living in South Korea, the place I was never from but to which my life has always been bound. Centering this society, I find a renewed appreciation for the ways that the Korean side of my bi-cultural divide has always challenged and deepened my perspectives. As I learn more about the connections between Korean society today and its incredible history of struggle and endurance, which echoes throughout the next generations and across diasporas, my identity takes new roots.
South Korea was transformed into one of the major capitalist economies in a matter of decades. Consumer culture lines the streets, and small shops that were once a main part of the economy are continuously replaced by big franchises.
Western brands are generally much more expensive and marketed as luxury. Companies in South Korea use the image of whiteness in their ads to sell capitalist culture to the people, a tactic that profits from the role of Western imperialism. This will become an increasing presence due to the recent Free Trade Agreement with the US, which was forced through despite intense protest by South Koreans.
Rags to riches is the national story, a story that has been trumpeted by various forces claiming credit, from American intervention and capitalism to nationalism to Christianity and, despite rising inequality and household debt, no one wants to admit they didn’t make it out okay.
Today’s Korean language is rife with haphazardly adopted English loan-words, to capture the existence of a rapidly changing, commodified society. Examples include style, charisma, shopping center (and many other words related to shopping), gas, romance, bar, skincare, and most relevant to this discussion, image. English loan-words don’t just replace or expand Korean vocabulary but indicate changes in the society’s relationship to those very concepts.
As a Korean American, my life has been a constant bridging of different norms, but any conclusion I try to reach about a comparison seems to mask rather than capture the truth and complexity of it all.
Enter Julia Lurie on NPR’s This American Life. Lurie, a white American English-language teacher in South Korea, decides to both educate Korean girls on why their society’s beauty standards and plastic surgery choices are worse than in the US and alert the Western world to the insanity she has discovered. Following her segment, Jezebel picks up on her story and frames it in a way that objectifies South Korean women.
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