Pride and inferiority

KIM SEUNG-JUNG
The author is an archaeology professor at the University of Toronto.

An essay by Susan Yoon, a friend of mine in Toronto, was published in the New York Times last weekend. Susan, who recently debuted as a children’s author, visited Korea for the first time in 25 years last summer, and an essay about her experience in Korea was selected as a column for the paper.

Reading her work, I realized how the Western perception of Korea has changed over the past two decades. Street vendors, who used to draw attention with ni hao and konnichiwa now solicit in perfect tone and accent annyeonghaseyo.

I’ve heard that Western teenagers become big fans of K-pop and take Korean language classes. Many complain that such classes at the University of Toronto have long waiting lists. Overnight, Korea seems to have become an advanced country.

But there is also a sense of inferiority among Koreans that Colin Marshall, an American writer living in Korea, mentioned in a Covid-related article for the New Yorker’s April 14, 2020 issue.

“South Koreans themselves have a tendency to see their country as, in essence, still a hujinguk [underdeveloped country],” he wrote, citing negative Japanese propaganda during colonial rule. It is the legacy of that era.

In this context, we have a lot to learn from the relationship between ancient Greece and ancient Rome. The Roman Empire occupied all of Greek territory, colonized it and ruled it, but Romans recognized the “superiority” of Greek culture. Romans preferred using Greek rather than Latin for academic writing, and many Greek works were copied and collected.

Greeks were enslaved and often became philosophy teachers, but they were still full of pride in their history and culture with no sense of inferiority. We must not underestimate or overestimate our own capabilities now. We must grasp our place in world history and continue our creative progress.