Two men are out hiking one crisp Autumn day, the elder has been discussing with the younger, the misfortunes and annexations which had befallen his country during previous epochs, “The kind of colonization – he says – which your country is famous for, Korea is known as the land of the morning calm, Japan, the land of the rising sun, but...do you know what we called the British Empire? – knowing full well that his companion has no answer, a short rhetorical pause ensues before he bestows the answer onto him – we called it the land of eternal dawn and do you know why?", another cursory pause, "because the empire was so vast that the sun was always rising somewhere within it", something within this statement disturbs its recipient and whilst the conversation moves on, his thoughts do not because, try as he may to distance himself from the actions of his forebears, he cannot not deny the conflicting pangs of pride which refuse to capitulate within him.
Far from being a shallow allegory, the above – but for the addition of some subtle theatrical enhancement – is based on a personal truth, but little did I know that the conflicting feelings elicited that day would prove to weave such a defining thread through my year.
Sitting - as I now am - within the hazy twilight of my Korean year it would seem the hour is late, in which to begin the lengthy dissemination of my experience here. However, I have decided that now is the time to employ my hitherto indolent fingers in the task of reflecting on my time away, having boldly set this as my desired outcome, I must hereby confess my predilection for meandering wildly awry during such exercises and offer no guarantees with regards to the destination of this entry.
Immediately my mind is turned toward those things which I hoped to achieve *'here' and if I am honest with myself - as I sometimes am - my aim was fixed primarily on obtaining some objective distance from *'there'.
*Here: A somewhat rural and entirely enchanting town in the interior of the Korean peninsular, easily distinguished from 'there' by - amongst other things - it's geographical location and love for pickled vegetables.
*There: A small town on a peculiar island in the north Atlantic replete with eccentricities and a love for - amongst other things -deep fried fish and hop based alchoholic beverages.
The obvious question to ask then is, did I achieve any such objectivity? The answer, alas, is entirely convoluted and inconclusive. It goes without saying that in undertaking such an exercise, one is essentially seeking to know ones self but the problem with removing one's self from 'there' to 'here' is that one has to bring ones self along which somewhat compromises the outcome given it's ongoing umbilical dependence on 'there', (at this point though, I will leave behind this thread of pseudo psychoanalysis and instead give you what I think I know).
One of the most recurrent feelings that has befallen me during the course of the year is – as you may gather from my opening paragraph – one of post-colonial guilt relating to national identity. The Korean people - you see - have suffered horrifically at the hands of colonization, in particular, at the hands of the Japanese and most recently during the annexation by the latter of the former during the period between 1910 and 1945. Having witnessed first hand, the damage this has done to the national psyche and the animosity it still fosters today, one cannot help but disdain the actions of my forbears in their own occupations. However, having already concluded that the individual is inseparable from the environ in which he or she is raised, and, further more, having myself been raised with a certain sense of pride in the achievements of the empire, one is really forced to examine where one's conditioning ends, and where personal values begin to override what we are given to know, the answer – the record will show – still eludes me.
The question of national identity is daily at play here, rarely does one fall by without ones own being questioned. Amongst the foreign community too, people's views are influenced by their native cultures and I have the utmost sympathy for my American friends in particular, who often - very sportingly - tolerate the anti American barbs which fly from my own tongue on the days when my frustrations at their nation’s global dominance defeat me.
If it were as clear cut as being able to claim autonomy from one’s motherland then none of these things would hold any sway, my persona is, however, heavily influenced by the English stereotype and whilst this is to be taken with more than a pinch of irony, I must – in tandem – admit an affection for it. In this way I have learned that – whilst one can stand in opposition to the actions of one’s nation – one cannot, and should not, claim immunity from its influence, we are all – to some degree – products of the state. The truths we are given, however, are subject to nuance and I am entirely grateful to have been offered the opportunity to stand beyond the boundaries of my culture in this way, and from there to recognize the partial perspectives that have been fostered therein. It is true that I have not always succeeded in overcoming them but I have now accepted my Englishness and all of its connotations. It is true that the actions of those who proceeded us were not without fault, but without everything that came before, not one of us would be who we are today.
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