Aloha means Hello...

All,
I have decided to add my thoughts to the blogosphere. At first, putting my thoughts out for the entire world to see seemed a bit self-important. Then, I thought, why should that stop me? After all, getting to live in a foreign country provides me with an endless amount of jokes and anecdotes that can be told in an utterly self-serving manner.

What can I say about Korea after two months? Well, I think that no matter what you say about Korea, the opposite can also be true. I'll give you an example. My friend Mark is an American of Korean extraction. Like nearly all Koreans and gyopos (people of Korean descent who live outside the peninsula), his family has some fairly shocking tales about the Japanese occupation of the peninsula. I think "ethnic cleansing" is a good way of characterizing the way Japan treated Korea during the occupation. The Japanese did not actually try to exterminate the Koreans like the Germans did with the Jews, but they basically tried to erase any vestige of Korean language, culture, and national identity. Many who resisted were killed. Others were kidnapped into sexual slavery. More were taken to Japan and used as slave labor. To this day, Koreans in Japan face discrimination.
Not surprisingly, the very act of living in Korea dims one's view of Japan, as anti-Japanese sentiments are fairly routine around here. Koreans don't like the Japanese, you might say. Oh, but it is not that simple. Mark and I were thinking about taking a trip when we get our vacation here in a couple of months. Where to go? Tokyo, of course! This is not an uncommon line of thinking in Korea, either. Seoul-Tokyo is one of the busiest air corridors on the planet. When Tokyo's Haneda Airport re-opened to international flights a few years ago, the first city served was Seoul. NHK (one of the Japanese national broadcasters) is available on many cable systems in Korea. Korean players appear in the Japanese baseball leagues. The Japanese are vigorous consumers of various forms of Korean pop culture, and vice-versa.
It's not so surprising that Korea and Japan have been able to build a successful working relationship in the post-war years. After all, many former enemies in Europe and Asia have developed alliances over the past few decades. What is surprising is that something that is seen by many foreigners as a key component of the national identity (Korean disdain for Japan) is oftentimes the very opposite. As a former social scientist, living in a foreign country is really helpful in terms of exploring how concepts like "culture" and "national identity" can be useful and limited at the same time. I will return to this idea later. Now, I need to go to bed.