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?

VOA finds voice with 2MB

An Associated Press story notes that Voice of America has been granted permission by the Lee Myung-bak administration to broadcast into North Korea from transmitters in the South for the first time in three decades.

That makes the signal much clearer than VOA’s long-running shortwave broadcasts from far-flung stations in the Philippines, Thailand and the South Pacific island of Saipan. Moreover, it’s an AM signal, so listening in doesn’t require a shortwave radio.

“Radio can play a big role in changing people,” said Kim Dae-sung, who fled the North in 2000 and is now a reporter at Free North Korea Radio, a shortwave radio broadcaster in Seoul. “Even if it’s simply news, it’s something that North Koreans have never heard of.”

Analysts say the North will see this as further proof the Lee is in bed with foreign powers and bent on its destruction. I’ve also heard a lot of criticism of VOA – very right of center – and I’m not keen on the whole religious aspect what with them sharing an agreement with a Christian organization to transmit the signal. I’ve always been skeptical of pushing religion on North Koreans as it seems the last thing they need is more dogma. I know church groups have done a lot of good, and I’m not ragging on that. But if you want to help these folks – ie defectors and those still in the North – then help then find their own way without cramming another belief system down their throat. Lord knows they’ve had enough of that.

Other choice tidbits from the article:

The broadcast is mainly news, with a focus on North Korea, such as its ongoing nuclear standoff with the United States and other nations.

South Korea prohibited VOA from broadcasting from its soil for carrying a 1973 report on the kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung, then a leading South Korean dissident. The authoritarian Seoul government at the time is widely believed to have been behind the abduction.

Read the rest here.

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.”

Recession boosts book sales

According to Yonhap, the financial downturn has boosted sales of books on finance, employment and religion, the last of which saw a 185 percent spike in sales last year. Cooking too was a big seller as more families are staying in to eat rather than dining out.

“Books are hardly luxury items. They are one of the most inexpensive means of entertainment that last quite long compared to movies or plays,” said Song Young-ho at Yes 24, a local Internet bookstore that sold more than 25 million books last year. “We expect to do even better this year with our increased discount services.”

“People are, naturally, trying to find answers to the financial crisis and are turning to religion and self-help books for comfort,” said Park Young-joon, the branch manager of Gwanghwamun Kyobo Book Center. “Novels are also popular during the difficult times with many people keen to escape from reality.”

Looks like the recession did what all those mothers out there couldn’t – get their kids to read more.

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.

The best falafel in town

Falafel

You’d never guess. It’s not New York, Tel aviv or Cairo.

Years ago I was travelling in the north of Thailand and found myself in the city of Chiang Mai. For those who’ve never been, Chiang Mai is everything that Bangkok is not. There I met a young Israeli, a former soldier and Sephardic Jew whose parents had immigrated to Israel from Morrocco. He invited me to join him for a meal at a little hole-in-the-wall called Mama’s Falafel.

The key to a good falafel sandwich is the pita bread. Having grown up in the Bay Area, I thought pita meant the stale, cardboard like dics you found in plastic bags on store shelves. Not so at Mama’s. The owner, an Israeli woman who married a Thai and settled in Chiang Mai, imports  all her ingredients and hand makes everything, especially the pita. Soft, warm and spongy to soak up all the spicy sauces, as my friend said, “You are lucky to find falafel like this in Israel.”

Over the meal, which included a cup of Turkish coffee so strong it set my eyeballs to quivering, he described what it felt like to lead a group of young soldiers through hostile territory. The tension, fear. I don’t recall his name, but I remember the intensity in his voice, his dark complexion revealing his Semitic roots. Then he began to talk about racism in Israel.

He said he was from the southern regions, where many of the residents were in fact Sephardic Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. He told me about how many of the Ashkanazi Israelis, those of European ancestry, looked down on their Sephardic cousins as culturally inferior, more Arab than Israeli. Blatant discrimnation is what he said.

An editorial in the New York Times by Benny Morris explains the fear that is building among Israelis about the future of their state. Demographics and geography are stacked against them, while a growing number of Arab Israelis are increasingly rejecting their nationality in favor of their Arab identity. Their Arab bretheren.

This heightened insecurity is, Morris explains, a key factor behind the latest outbreak of violence in Gaza. But what Morris doesn’t explain is the reason for the dissafection felt by scores of Arab Israelis. Why are so many of them rejecting their Israeli identity? I’ve never been to Israel, but judging from my conversation I’d venture that what my companion described has something to do with it.

Israeli bombs resound in Korea

Injured child

Several years ago I got into an argument with a co-worker over the Israeli Palestinian conflict. I don’t recall what triggered the exchange, but he in effect dismissed my position as “typical Bay area bull shit” and said Israel should have wiped the Palestinians off the map. Looks like he’s getting his wish.

Korea, where I now live, is a long way off from the Gaza Strip, but waking up to images of grieving mothers and fathers standing over dead or injured children just brought it all home, leaving me feeling saddened and helpless to do anything about it.

This from Reuters:

“Get up, boy, get up” cried the weeping father, who lost a total of 13 close relatives when an Israeli shell hit his house east of Gaza City.

“Please get up. I am your dad and I need you,” he implored helplessly.

The oldest was 4 years old. Their mother was killed too.

An article in the Atlantic claims the latest conflict is a proxy war with Iran, one Bush and Cheney “can only have contemplated.” Viewing the world as a giant chess board, I can see how one would come this conclusion. After all, this is a battle over the “soul of the Middle East.” A Hamas victory, defined as simply surviving to fight another day, will reduce Washington’s leverage in dealing with Iran, says the author.

Personally, I would not want to live under Sharia law. I find Islamic extremism about as abhorrent as Israeli indifference to human suffering. Yet the world is not a chess board, and that father pleading for his dead son to wake up is not a pawn.

In an interview with NPR last week, a resident of Gaza condemned Hamas and Israeli violence, claiming the death of one child was the death of humanity. As a father, I pray that I never find myself huddled under aerial bombardment as my son screams out in terror. Or falls silent.

Missiles, money and ribeye steak

Seoul Outback

New Year’s eve. As Israeli missiles begin to fall on Gaza, my family and I are at the Outback Steakhouse in southern Seoul waiting for a table.

It’s my first time here and the first steak I’ve eaten in about twenty years. Despite the recession, the place is packed and we stand alongside a number of others waiting for a table. I notice in the corner a young muslim family, the wife covered with only her eyes showing, the father smiling down at his young daughter playing under his feet.

We are foreigners, them and I. Even my wife, who is Korean, stands somewhat apart as she pushes my son to play with the young girl, named for a rare deer native to Saudi Arabia. Always the outgoing one, my wife begins to chat it up with the young girl. She’s five, speaks a smattering of Korean, Arabic and English she’s picked up from TV. We begin to talk, an unlikely conversation that leaves much unsaid.

“Where are you from,” I venture.

“Saudi Arabia, and you?”

“San Francisco… the U.S.”

OK. I can hear the synapses firing as all the stored up information gets pulled up. Politics, religion, identity.

“I’m sorry for all the shit my country has done to the Islamic world,” I want to say. “Terrible what’s happening in Gaza. My tax dollars at work.” I wonder what they’re thinking.

“How do you like Korea,” my wife asks, no hint of  internal dialogue behind her smile. She’s a traveler and loves meeting people.

“Korea is a good place. It is safe, people are friendly. Life here is good,” the father says. The wife is silent but her eyes speak volumes.

I’m always curious when I see another foreigner in Korea. Granted there are plenty of us, more and more all the time. But Korea is by no means LA when it comes to ethnic diversity and so I can’t help but wonder what brings people here.

I once asked the onwer of a local Indian restaurant that question. “The money,” he said matter of factly. So much for romanticism.

Our names are called and I shake hands with the young father before heading to our table. There’s more I want to ask and I contemplate fleetingly inviting them to share a table with us. The steak is mediocre, the pasta supersized and heavy.

On the way out the mother enters the elevator alone, thinking her husband and daughter had already gone ahead. My wife says they just passed her by in the hallway and she thanks her in flawless American English before hopping back out. My four-year-old son looks up at me with this quizzical expression and says, “Daddy, why was she wearing a mask?”

Korea’s shamanic past disappearing

An article in the Hankyoreh reports that an island off the southwest coast of Korea is seeking to gain official recognition from UNESCO for an ancient shamanic ritual practiced there as part of the world’s cultural heritage.

Jindo, in South Jeolla Province, is home to the ssitgimgut ritual, and advocates there are pushing the United Nations Organization to designate the practice a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. They say that as the number of Korea’s traditional shamans declines, the practice is in danger of disappearing alltogether.

The ritual involves the calling forth of the dead to resolve their worldly concerns and pray for their safe passage to the next world. It was designated a national cultural asset in 1980, but the rapid transformation of Korean society has lead to a decline in the number of shamans able to carry out the rite. Experts say the UNESCO designation will help preserve the tradition.

To support their bid, authorities in South Jeolla will host an international conference on the importance of shamanic traditions around the world. The conference will feature experts from South Korea, China, India, Hungary, Italy, Mongolia and Japan. Shamanism is Korea’s oldest religion.