PETALED BLUE PEOPLE AND ONE LONG LONG NIGHT: MInjok and the 21st Century: and Me in KMLA

I had never really thought about the term 'minjok' much before.

To be honest, I hadn't even thoroughly contemplated the idea even when preparing for the admission interviews for KMLA (Korean Minjok Leadership Academy; I obviously should have). Come to think of it, it was up to a rather strange level that I so unconditionally accepted the term and its general meaning: the population of a nation with relations much like family (民族, composed of 'min', subjects or citizens, and 'jok', meaning kin and the same character used in 家族, 가족, family). How could a whole country filled with persons and personas of all different shapes, sizes and color be considered to have one common identity as a family? And how could I not have thought that over once? Questions rose immediately upon the first touch I made of the topic.

What is 'minjok'? The Australian Research Council linkage project on Languages of Security in the Asia Pacific has an interesting article on the word 'minjok', how the idea evolved, and its underlying concepts.

Well, the first sentence freaked me out.

"The concept of ‘nation’ (민족 (民族) minjok) is new in Korean. The term was first used only around 1905 and is a loanword from the Japanese word ‘minzoku’."

Gasp.
So this word 'minjok', the word we (yes, we) most often use to describe our (yes, our) culture, our history, our race, our nation, our ethnicity and our country's people is actually recent and, in fact, Japanese. Double gasp. We hate the Japanese!

What
HAPPENED
H E R E

POINT ONE
WAY BACK IN HISTORY

I, presumably like most of the 'minjok' of Korea, thought the idea of minjok was a cultural heritage of Korea; that it may be outdated and nationalistic because it really was

well,

old.

When I thought of minjok, I thought of this:

We are a race that are 5000 years old! We have lived on the Korean Peninsula for half a 10-thousand years now! Dangun fathered all of us! We have tradition! Look at all the wonderful things from Chosun Dynasty! Such pretty colors in Danchung: they are traditional! Hanbok is the best clothing in the world! From Ancient Chosun to ROK, we have built up thousands of years of history that all of us minjok share!

No.

Who are 'we' anyway: why that's such a silly question! Of course we are the Han minjok, the descendants of Dangun and the sole main population of the Korean Peninsula throughout history!

Yes, WE ARE MINJOK!

No.

I'd thought Koreans shared a history; a history in which we'd always stuck to each other and held in ourselves that we were all Korean. We'd always been a minjok, proud to keep borders closed and invasions out. We'd always thought of ourselves as one minjok that shared everything to do with ethnicity and nationallity.

No.

POINT TWO

IT TURNED OUT; NO

So, no.

As it turned out, that was not what really happened. The idea had formed in around 1905, as a means of emotional background for retalliation against the Japanese and colonization, and their idea of unifying the world. Korea was not the same as Japan, was not part of it, and would not be part of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. Korea was on its own. This seems like a very positive start for minjok. We were forming an identity.

People constantly struggle to build self-identity. Countries, I think, do as well. But Korea hadn't been exposed enough to wake up and start forming an identity called Korea. It had its borders closed, and it didn't have anything much to differentiate itself from. Japanese invasion happened. Koreans were endangered. The people were there, but were they Japanese? Were they Korean?

So they became MINJOK.

Then things turned downhill. People were being united as minjok for a different purpose. They were one, and they were subject to one. The military regime took over Korea, and called the people minjok. This minjok needed to unite! It was poor, and it was devastated, according to the head.

They actually needed to go back in under Japan.

POINT THREE
NOW?

SO NOW WHERE ARE WE? WHAT ARE WE HEADING TOWARDS?

Shin Gi Wook of Stanford University is quite an expert on the matter. He has spent a lot of his life invested in studying minjok, and one of the results is this: The Paradox of Korean Globalization.

Here, he talks about how Korea is in the trend recently (2003) of heading for globalization, but how nationalism is all the more getting stronger. This is a paradox, but one that will happen.

Ten years from then, Korea has become much more globalized, but the basic logic of 2003 still works. I personally believe that the more influx of foreign material and culture flows in, the stronger Koreans will bind under the term 'minjok'.

In the past, 'minjok' was not for big foreign identities were not.

Big foreign identities emerged, and finally colonized this scattered population of the Korean Peninsula. 'Minjok' appeared.

More big foreign identities emerged, and Korea needed their help. Particular people in Korea needed their help as well. 'Minjok' was strengthened.

Now Korea has become the big foreign identity. It is striding out onto the globe, and it needs an idea to hold the people of the big identity together.

Is 'minjok' appropriate?

See, the problems with 'minjok' are that it is highly exclusive. Korea has this weird idea that we are all of one race, and one race only. This is what 'minjok' means essentially.

And this family gets angry.

"We are all one big angry family! We are angry at Japan! We are angry at strange dark skinned people trying to sneak into our family! We are angry at white men stealing our women! We are proud to be a family that rose out of the most terrible economic state imaginable into a good, proud, affluent nation! We are morning calm and we are angry! We are angry at you! Neuuahahaaaaaah!"