In class essay #4: Minjok: importance of extent.

Being a minjok? Hmm..

           The word minjok, translated as ethnic group or race, is often used by Koreans to show off their nationality and strong bond between them. For instance, when the World Cup is being held, thousands of Koreans gather together in front of huge screens and cheer their team up, based on the thought that they are one minjok.

           The thing is, however, is that people considering minjok as a natural phenomenon, just because they have the same blood flowing inside them. Moreover, history of Dangun, Korean dynasty, Joseon dynasty, and hardships Koreans went through such as 1592 Japanese Invasion are the evidences of minjok Koreans are proposing. However, what meaning do these convey? People at the time in these hardships may have felt ethnicity, but I thought these meant nothing to people in present. Because these are the only things Koreans are utilizing to prove minjok, I believe the minjok concept is actually ambiguous.

       On the other hand, I cannot neglect and deny the concept of minjok because as a Korean, I’m feeling a kind of bond between Koreans, too. To give my personal experiences, the first one is when I went to Canada when I was a 4th grader in elementary school. As I’d seen lots of movies and dramas with the plot of Americans bullying Asian transfer students, I had fear before going to the school. However, it was the exact opposite. Canadian friends treated me as a special being, not a weird one, just because I’m Korean. They approached me earlier than I did to them, so I was able to easily adapt to the school. From such experiences, I started to feel proud about my nation and being part of Korean minjok. Although I mentioned there is no specific evidence of minjok, I surely did sense what being a part of Korea meant.

      In addition, I was one of the people I mentioned above, the one who cheered my team enthusiastically in front of the screen. When the Korean team was struggling against a statistically-better team, all of us shouted ‘fighting!’ and wished our team the best. When the team won, we cheered throughout the whole night, and when it lost, we posted quotes like, ‘cheer up, you did your best’ on the Internet to soothe their disappointment. I was never compelled to cheer only the ‘Korean’ team, but I guess some kind of invisible bond led me to.

     After such experiences, I still doubted whether the minjok exists or not. The fact that I cannot explain logically why I sensed these feelings in the experiences above really complicated my thoughts about minjok. As I was thinking continuously, one conclusion came up to my mind: Being a minjok doesn’t have to be explained with logic. As a Korean, I have always felt proud and linked to my nation Korea, which is one of the reasons I applied at KMLA. On the other hand, I couldn’t illustrate why such feeling exists, so I decided to consider it as an implicit human nature, like love or friendship. Every citizen of every country has it, but individuals just have difference in extent. For example, Koreans are unique because they are known to have greater extent of ethnicity than any other nations.

Minjok- always good??

     There’s one more thing to be considered: is the concept of minjok always good? The answer is absolutely ‘no’. Minjok, ethnicity in other word, is always related to nations. If the extent of minjok increases to a level in which people regard the nation equal to each individual, a problem of serious nationalism occurs. The notion ‘nationalism’ is not a bad thing itself, but there were lots of historical examples how severe nationalism led to bad endings of nations such as Nazis. Adolf Hitler’s nationalism was so serious that he differentiated every other country from his own, and even suppressed races such as Jews. This tells how dangerous the concept of minjok can be, as it can make an illusion that one’s nation the best in everything.

     Then which level is Korean minjok in? To be frank, Koreans have one of the strongest ethnicity in world. There are lots of real-life examples of how Koreans ostracize other races and nations, especially inside Korea. There’s even a slight sign of nationalism, and the best example is a Korean anchor’s tears. When it was announced that PyeongChang, a city in Korea, will hold 2018 winter Olympics, an anchor dropped her tears because she was really touched by the fact. Though lots of people shared her feelings, some raised questions about it really seriously. They thought that the anchor crying publically because of nation’s happy occasion implies, ‘country’s good equals individual’s good’, the basic concept of nationalism. Although it is a great thing our country holds the Olympics, I also agree that the extent of that anchor’s ethnicity was a bit much. The thing is that this is not only her problem. It includes every Korean, and Koreans should learn from an ancient idiom, ‘too much is as bad as too little’, and should lower the level of ethnicity.

Kim Ju Ha crying for PyeongChang

no severe nationalism!

     So as a conclusion, though the existence of minjok cannot be explained logically, it does exist as all people are experiencing it every second. The existence of it is advisable, because it enhances relationships and cooperation between people, so the concept itself is not a problem. The only problem is ‘extent’. No one gets any disadvantage just because people have strong bond between the same races. However, if the extent becomes too much, lots of people are harmed. As Koreans are developing more intense ethnicity as the time passes, we should always keep in mind; too much is as bad as too little. Through such thought, Koreans should maintain reasonable extent of minjok, which will lead to a harmony of both nation and the world.