Introduction
A term Minjok
is one of the words that most frequently follows most of Koreans from their
births to deaths. Both consciously and unconsciously, Koreans acquires
opportunity to think what Minjok is,
and what it is like to be Korean. Like others, I also took the same path.
Until I was in middle school, I believed
that Minjok, or identity as Korean,
is somehow related to merely development of our country. Additionally, I
thought that to strengthen it, contributing to our country is necessary, as a
number of celebrities in Korea’s history who are known to be Minjoky, were simultaneously those who
brought national benefits. From this viewpoint, when I was applying for this
school, KMLA, I also wrote that my objective is to dedicate to Korea’s development
by learning true meaning of Minjok.
The interview day came, and during the
interview based on the application, my sight toward Minjok was totally changed thanks to a deep conversation with
librarian teacher regarding it. He fiercely refuted what I wrote on my
application, by suggesting bunch of plausible cases and examples. He asked me
questions such as, “Why does contributing to our country’s development is
related to Minjok?” or “What if a
foreigner changes his nationality and becomes Korean? Could he also can be said
to have Korean identity? What about his inherent ethnicity?” I was bewildered
by those rebuttals, and I cannot even remember how I answered to them. The
interview I had made me recognize lots of flaws and loopholes of my perspective
toward Korean identity. What I became so concrete after the interview was that Minjok is the term that should not be
approached by ethnic view, and those two are totally distinct concepts.
Clearly recognizing drawbacks that should
be improved, this essay would like to discuss Minjok in much more professional and academic way. Specifically, starting
from the origin of Minjok, it will
explain what it means to our society, and its prospect in the future.
Factor
that should be considered
Before
we go on, when we deal with the term Minjok, there is a very important factor that we have to take into our
account, in order to prevent it from being misinterpreted. It should never be
regarded as identical with nationality, because of mainly two reasons. Initially,
relationship between identity and nationality. Based on the question I received
during the interview for KMLA, about the one who changed his nationality, I
concluded that Minjok and race are
totally distinct terms, and should be carefully distinguished. Even though one
decided to be a citizen of a different country, one can still maintain identity
of his motherland. He can also put emphasis either on the identity of
the new country, or even on both. The identity of a person depends on one’s
decision and how one lives, rather than the country one is included in.
However, it is not negligible that one who is ethnically Korean has absolutely
high possibility to have Minjok. Not
many people can deny the fact that people in North Korea still shares same
identity as Korean, even though they are living in the society in which almost
all the aspects, such as social, economic, or political structure, are
apparently different from those of South Korea. Therefore, it could be said
that there is a link between Minjok
and race, but we should not beg the question that a person who is
ethnically Korean has the identity as Korean.
In
addition, explaining Minjok with race is quite a dangerous
thinking. This was apparently proved by Nazi’s ethnocentricism, prospered during the
World War 2. Adolf Hitler was the one who utilized Minjok on conducting
countless of crimes against humanity, which should never happen in human's
history ever again. He emphasized the superiority of Germanic race, by
insisting that any other tribes in the world are way more inferior, and should
be eliminated. Unfortunately, this abnormal assertion dramatically fascinated
and thrilled Germans, whose society was gloomy and hopeless due to social and
economic devastation that the Word War 1 brought. Germans started to worship Hitler,
and under Hitler and Nazi's order, the public consolidated and progressed only
for the victory of German army and Germanic tribe. The result was terrible.
This ethnocentricism caused an extreme nationalism, massacring 6 million Jews
people by various cruel methods, such as sending them to Auschwitz, a
well-known unethical POW camp that Nazi made. This case obviously showed how
easily the meaning of Minjok could be twisted and distorted. Now, having set all of these, let us move on to development process of Minjok, and take a closer
look on it.
What
made Minjok come out?
Lots of people believe that Minjok was originated from Japanese colonization era. However, it is almost
impossible to create something out of nothing. Although it is true that Minjok was first utilized in Japanese
imperialism, it was not created in that period; what actually happened was that
Minjok was elicited from Korean
society, which had existed implicitly in vague form.
When we look at Korea’s history, one of the
notions that we can most easily face is ‘homogeneous country’. Since the
ancient era, starting from Dangun mythology, Koreans have put great emphasis on
having ‘pure blood’, under the name of ‘the white-clad folk’. They have
believed that inheriting this pure blood is indispensable, and regarded it as
prerequisite of being Korean. This characteristic has created a special custom
called Jokbo, a book that records
family tree of the family. For a huge amount of time, Jokbo has been one of the most important items that one should keep
in Korea, and it has been so much influential that it even determined social
status of a person; one with cleaner Jokbo
had much higher possibility to be successful. Furthermore, fading its purity
were regarded as bringing the largest disgrace on the family, which made one
who did be kicked out from it. Horaejasik,
a slang which is still used today, was also originated from this perspective.
After a war between Chosun and Qing, called Byeongjahoran,
a number of women became pregnant because of sexual harassment of Qing’s
soldiers. This caused a serious social problem; hundreds of women committed suicide
in order to keep fidelity, and the number of divorce action skyrocketed during
the period of King Injo’s reign. These victims of the war were expelled from
their family, and their unwanted children were discriminated by the whole
society, being called Horaejasik,
which means ‘offspring of barbarian’.
Like this, Koreans have already regarded
maintaining ethnic as important, even without the actual concept of Minjok. It seems that this tendency has
been really concrete and persisting, as we still introduce our country by using
the term ‘homogeneous country’ even though it is not.
How
did the term Minjok originate?
As I mentioned above, while 5,000 years of
Korean history had developed Minjok
implicitly, Japanese colonization period finally brought it out to our society.
In 1910, as a cornerstone of their ‘Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere’
plan, Japan colonized Korean peninsula. At first, they conducted forced ruling
to Korea, in order to deter power of opposing forces and authorities. However,
this caused a huge side effect; in March 1st, 1919, a peace
demonstration was brought up in a nationwide grand scale, participated by
millions of people. Japanese Empire, which was substantially shocked by this
movement, decided to alter its ruling method. It believed that destroying
nature of the ethnicity is needed to fully control over it, so rather than
ruling with harsh violence, it started to annihilate Korean identity, by
disseminating Japanese ideology, such as forcing people to change their family
names into Japanese, or to believe Shintoism and worship Japanese Emperor.
In this status quo, a number of fighters
for independence felt a huge sense of crisis. They thought that in order to
gain enough support for their activities, faith and consolidation of people are
necessary. This made them find appropriate motivation for people, which became Minjok. The term Minjok was first introduced by Daehanmaeil
Shinbo in 1906. Through its column, it insisted that independency of Korean
race should be separated from that of both Japan and Asia. It also mentioned
that Korean people should firmly join each other in order to get out from
Japanese nationalism. In this social trend in which importance of group bound
together by a common identity grew bigger and bigger, history of Korea was
naturally emphasized. To be more specific, many celebrities such as Park
Eun-Sik or Shin Chae-Ho started to put gravity on Dangun mythology, with
assertion that people need a national symbol that can lead their ideas and
thoughts. Moreover, Joo Si-Kyung, Ahn Chang-Ho, and many other people built
private schools in order to provide education, and enlighten the public from
distorted education given by Japan. Under the specific figure and continuous
education, Korean
people achieved social unification, being fascinated by historical and ethnic
identity that they had never had opportunity to be directly told. Ultimately,
being supported by this strong social bond, national liberation movements
against Japanese Imperialism such as the establishment of de facto government,
were hot up, and Koreans were able to be freed from colonization.
How
does Minjok influence our society?
It seems that the meaning of Minjok changes as time passes. For
thousands of years, it had been a word to explain purity in ethnic term, but
since 1910s, it has become a method to induce social unification. President
Park Jung-Hee also took advantage on this characteristic. In 1963, Park mounted
a coup, and started 17 years of dictatorship. In order to solve significant social
instability, he believed that abundance should be given to the public, which
made him progress an economic development program. Like fighters for independence
in Japanese colonization period did, Park felt a strong necessity of motivation
for his project. Using his authority, Park emphasized history education to the public, and was successful on integrating the society. Under his charisma, strong driving force, and Minjok, people of Korea were firmly bounded together, sacrificed rights of individuals for benefits of the whole society. Miners and nurses headed to Germany, and lots of young adults entered the Vietnam War to earn foreign currency. Of course there are some criticisms toward Park's method of ruling that its process was unethical and inappropriate, but Park was able to achieve dramatic economic boom of Korea, which made our lives much more convenient. Again, Minjok made the public unify, and go for the development of the society.
The meaning of Minjok was changed again when it came to late 20th
century. It became much more spontaneous; rather than being used as a method of
authorities, it became a supporting energy for the public to gather by
themselves in order to achieve social development. During 2002 Korea Japan
World Cup, Koreans showed dynamic cheering culture, which had not been emerged
in former World Cups. Thousands of Koreans gathered on squares in front of huge
screens broadcasting soccer matches, and they all shouted for team Korea’s
victory, calling themselves ‘Red Devils’. Thanks to the enthusiastic support of
the public, team Korea was able to be placed on the fourth, first time ever
among Asian countries. This case apparently showed that Minjok has become a fundamental factor for integration of the society.
The
future of Minjok
I have illustrated how Minjok was originated, how it was
developed, and various meanings it had in Korea’s history
so far. Then, from today’s view, how would Minjok
be in the future? It seems that
the spontaneity of Minjok would not easily
change in spite of pass of time. In this advanced democratic society in which
rights of individuals are respected and protected, the method that President
Park took would be no longer effective. Hence, the public would maintain the
current trend: gathering on together by themselves for better society. In this
fast-moving modernized society, a number of people from the past generation are
worried about the young who do not care about Minjok
and facets related to Korean identity. However, considering other recent cases
that clearly showed solidarity of Korean society, such as West Sea that
recovered from oil spill in an incredible speed thanks to voluntary actions of millions of people, I
strongly believe that these people also have enough potentials to join together
under Minjok, Korean identity, and wisely
solve crises they face, as their ancestors did.
A video explaining how much Nazism was influential to German people
G20 Seoul Summit 2010 Video - Real Story of Korea
Bibliography
-『병자호란과 이혼』, Park Joo (Hongik University, 2001)
-『먼나라 이웃나라 9권 우리나라』, Lee Won-Bok (김영사, 2002)
-『구한말 단일 민족주의의 형성과 고찰』, Kim Soo-Ja (The National Assembly Library, 2008)
- What was life like for young people in Nazi Germany,
- G20 Seoul Summit 2010 Video - Real Story of Korea,
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