Korea’s “God Gene”

Walking to work this morning I passed an elderly Catholic nun who I often see strolling along the street outside my home. Bracing against the cold and thinking about how hard it’s going to be to kick my coffee habit at the onset of winter my mind turned to the ubiquity of religion in South Korea.

So when I opened my computer I was surpirsed to see this in today’s IHT, a biological explanation for the Evolution of religion throughout human history. I found this passage particulary pertinent to the Korean context.

In natural selection, it is genes that enable their owners to leave more surviving progeny that become more common. The idea that natural selection can favor groups, instead of acting directly on individuals, is highly controversial. Though Darwin proposed the idea, the traditional view among biologists is that selection on individuals would stamp out altruistic behavior (the altruists who spent time helping others would leave fewer children of their own) far faster than group-level selection could favor it.

But group selection has recently gained two powerful champions, the biologists David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson, who argued that two special circumstances in recent human evolution would have given group selection much more of an edge than usual. One is the highly egalitarian nature of hunter-gatherer societies, which makes everyone behave alike and gives individual altruists a better chance of passing on their genes. The other is intense warfare between groups, which enhances group-level selection in favor of community-benefiting behaviors such as altruism and religion.

South Korea is no doubt a very group-oriented society, a fact that is often used to distinguish itself from its Western counterpart. Korea is also a very religious society, as seen in the proliferation of crosses that dot urban skylines in the South or the cult of personality in the North.

But does Korea’s history of war and invasion mean that Koreans are more “hard-wired” to believe? And more to the point, does it mean there is nothing more to these beliefs than simple programming?

Korea road trip

The key is avoiding the traffic out of Seoul. Do that and its smooth sailing all the way to Busan, with a stop along the way to peer at the stars in Mt. Jiri National Park and a quick tour of Taejeon on the way home.

About 10 kilometers past the town of Hwagae – known for its tea plantations and cherry blossoms – is the village of Uishin, which lies in a valley below rolling mountains that are home to dozens of small hermitages. One of these, Wontong Temple, is supposedly the site where Hyu-jong, who led an army of monks against Japanese invaders 500 years ago, first shaved his head and took the monastic oath.

Wontong Temple

We were told to park the car in front of a small guest house, behind which a trail began that meandered its way up to the small temple. A little boy stared from across the road as we packed what we’d need for the night, waddling over to get a closer look. The air was crisp, clean and invigorating after months of breathing in exhaust fumes while standing at jammed intersections.

We walked for about 40 minutes, soaking in the first signs of spring that were everwhere along the trail and wondering whether we’d taken a wrong turn until we heard the distinctive knock-knock of the wooden moktak used in prayer ceremonies. “You’ve gotten fat!”

I looked up to see a spritely older monk with bronzed skin that belied his 60 plus years. An old friend of my wife’s, it had been almost 10 years since we last met and I’d put on a few pounds. He stood below a cluster of bamboo that hid the temple, grinning as we huffed and puffed our way up to greet him.

Mt. Jiri National Park

The view was stunning, blue mountains with a coating of fog that stretched to the horizon. Not an apartment block or skyscraper in sight, just clouds and sky and a sense of lightness that permeated the whole place.

We sat over endless cups of tea, taking in the view as we reminisced on the past decade. Dinner was a simple meal of pickled vegetables and rice followed by shots of home made herbal liquor, then cognac, and finally wine as the stars slowly filled the sky. Our host broke out his flute.

“How will you manage here when you get older,” my wife asked. “How will you get down on your own?”

“Who needs to come down.”

Homeless drunk or spiritual guide?

Homeless in Seoul

There’s a homeless guy I pass in the train station every night on my way home from work. He reeks, in a tattered winter coat and pants that end in shreds around his cracked black feet. He stands motionless, bedroll in hand, staring into space as throngs of well-dressed Seoulites hustle about giving him a wide birth. I wonder whether they’re any better than he is. Or whether I am?

I don’t know what the general attitude about homelessness is in Korea. I mean, with all the crosses dotting the skyline you’d think it would be a paradise for the underprivileged, but somehow I get the feeling that isn’t the case. The country has been through a lot in recent decades and that’s engendered a sort of “life’s tough” attitude. Maybe the Confucian influence plays a part too, that it’s some sort of moral flaw that has led to a person’s degraded circumstances. Buddhism would say it’s karma.

A scene from the biography of St. Francis springs to mind, when the young son of an Italian merchant encounters a homeless man in his path. Horrified at first, he comes to believe that in fact it is Jesus before him, overcoming his revulsion and embarking on a life of extreme poverty and faith.

Truth be told he’s most likely mentally disturbed, his demons fed by a steady diet of soju and scorn. But that fear he strikes in people is real and its that fear that St. Francis had to confront before undergoing his spiritual transformation. It’s that same fear I admit to myself every night that I will most likely never get over.

Still, while not a Christian, I’ve always remembered that story and every night it makes me wince as I shut off a part of my humanity so that I can join the others in pretending not to see him. But I do see him, and the old lady sitting night after night with her tray of coins, and the two feet sticking out from under the box in a pile of food scraps and filth. I see it on my way to my warm home, closing the door on the biting cold of winter and those outside. And I wonder whether I’m not closing the door on myself as well.

Today’s headlines:

Seoul on high alert after N.K. threats

President reshuffles deck

Buddhist relics found

No Chocopie for Muslims

Korea more egalitarian ’cause of Japan

Korea c. 1904

An article in the IHT by Norimitsu Onishi about the buraku of Japan and their slow rise out of the traditional depths of Japan’s ancient social hierarchy, a rise — and article — that took inspiration from Obama’s election in the U.S. What caught my attention was a short graf in the middle that referred to Korea’s more egalitarian society, a result, says Onishi, of the wars and invasions that swept the peninsula and Japan’s colonial occupation.

…nearly identical groups of outcasts remain in a few other places in Asia, like Tibet and Nepal, with the same Buddhist background; they have disappeared only in South Korea, not because prejudice vanished, but because decades of colonialism, war and division made it impossible to identify the outcasts there.

As far as I know, it is factually true that the successive wars that erupted in Korea destroyed among other things the family records of thousands born into slavery. Those same people were then freed from their traditional lower status, with some even gaining the ranks of the elite yangban.

Still, the statement did make me pause because it seemed like a casual snub at Korea. But an interesting read nonetheless.

Disconnected

Ichon Station

I assumed in coming to Korea that I would be automatically connected to the society around me, as if simply being here was enough to plug in and feel a part of my surroundings. Not so.

I realize now that connecting is more than just being there. You have to actively engage in the people and events around you and not expect them to somehow incorporate you into their flow. Or you can sit back and fall into a semi-comfortable routine of CSI reruns and Starbucks coffee, completely removed from what’s right in front of your face.

It’s obvious really, but the realization dawned on me as I was speaking with a co-worker about Korean cimena that I knew almost nothing about it. And beyond that, I know squat about the arts here and I don’t speak the language. Which leaves me sort of isolated from what most folks on the street are tuned into.

Granted, I follow the news, but again in English. So what I’m getting is a sort of diluted flow of information one or two steps removed from the main source. Which leaves me feeling kind of lonely really.

I mean, Seoul is already a bit of a cold city. Not that people are unfriendly, but there is a sort of disconnected feel among strangers on the steet. Very few people who live in Seoul are actually from here. Most hail from outlying provinces or cities. Hence the traffic jams on major holidays as folks head back home to see family.

People seem to operate in circles of familiarity, whether among co-workers, classmates or friends. I rarely see strangers socializing here the way I did back home. I feel it most acutely on those days when I have lunch by myself. Seems like no one here eats alone and even I’ve become sort of desperate for company over lunch.

I remember sitting in the airport in Delhi about 12 years ago with a friend romanticizing about the life of an ascetic, needing no one and utterly free from society’s bonds. The more sagely one – though I didn’t recognize it at the time – my friend replied simply that no man was an isalnd. I’m starting to come to terms with that now, which means taking a more pro-active approach to life here in Korea.

Today’s headlines:

Korean Americans embarrased by US beef

Korea turning tropical

“Something out of nothing, with two bare fists”

South Korean Buddhist monk attempts harakiri

Yesterday’s JoongAng Ilbo reported on a South Korean Buddhist monk who attempted to disembowl himself at Seoul’s Joggye Temple, during protests against President’s Lee Myung-bak’s discriminatory religious policies.

“We” the people – Korean democracy

South Korea's national flag

As democrats cheer their candidate in Denver celebrating American democracy, another kind of democracy is taking shape in Korea, where masses have been turning out since the inauguration of the new government to check state authority. It is a movement whose solidarity finds its base in a communal “we,” as opposed to America’s “I,” and is a model for democracies the world over.

In grey robed masses Korea’s Buddhist faithful turned out on Wednesday from across the country, gathering in front of Seoul’s city hall to protest what they see as a government hostile to their faith. With estimates ranging from 60 to 200,000, protesters marched, chanted and prayed in an outpouring of religious and political will overwhelming in its unity.

Ode to Korea’s mts.

Yeonju Hermitage

She stood at the bus stop gazing out across the empty field , back turned to the rain soaked avenue as she peered up at the mighty peak. She was smiling, eyes lost in some far off dream as cars whizzed by and commuters drearily awaited their bus’ arrival. I too was looking up at the mountain, framed by a spider’s web woven into the chainlink fence that surrounds the field.

The ‘bulldozer’ and the Buddha: Korea’s dangerous middle

Lee's holy warriors

There’s so much frenetic energy here in Seoul, constant movement and tension as the country’s politics, religion and economy collide amidst a backdrop of smog, traffic and soju. It’s palpable on the street, as if charged by the humidity in the air.

The standoff between the administration and Jogye Temple, headquarters of the country’s largest Buddhist order, continues, with plain clothed police surrounding all exits in and out of the temple for the past month, as militant organizers of last month’s beef protests sit camped on the temple grounds. The cops are all young and baby-faced, not like cops in the US with razor mustaches and guns at the waist. These guys barely look out of high school, and are probably doing police duty as an alternative to military service.

Profile: 30 years as a Buddhist nun in Korea

Altar at Songlimsa

This week we focus on Buddhism with a look into the life of Dong-gi Sunim, a nun who has spent nearly thirty years in the monastic community. Living in a lush valley tucked in between grape farms and rolling mountains, her temple, called Songlimsa (Pine Forest temple), is worlds away from Seoul. Here she discusses her early years as a nun, as well as the many changes that have taken place in Korean society, and the meaning of Buddhism.