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Kor 110M: Themes in Modern and Contemporary Culture of Korea: History, Memory, And Nostalgia
Guess what I'm doing, teamliquid?
I'm writing one of the worst essays I've ever written in my life right now. I'm taking a Korean Studies history class that sort of examines the reconstruction of Korean national and cultural self-identity after Japanese decolonization through today.
And...that burned a good minute or so.
What're you all up to?
   
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Just curious are you taking a Korean Studies class because you were influenced by the SC korean pro scene or were you always just interested in Korean studies or you're Korean?
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#1 reason: My university cut the number of classes held this quarter by nearly 20%. I need elective classes outside my major to graduate. This class had one spot open.
#2 reason: I'm Korean.
The Korean pro SC scene is a horrible representation of Korean culture, quite frankly. Everyone seems to forget that these are nerdy little teenage kids with virtually no social life playing for hours on end. Then they all go out and make assumptions on the rest of Korea based on that.
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I see ^^, I know the Korean pro scene doesn't represent the Korean culture at all. I visited Korea for about 5 days when I traveled to Hong Kong and didn't see or hear anything about SC at all other than the TV, but I guess I just did mostly touristy stuff.
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\Everyone seems to forget that these are nerdy little teenage kids with virtually no social life playing for hours on end. Then they all go out and make assumptions on the rest of Korea based on that.
social life is overrated. go achieve something great, not everyone needs to be equally "social" or whatever.
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No social life definitely contributes towards awkward public appearances and the boring interview answers we get, does it not?
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I'd rather see immense skill and greatness on the pro matches rather than "engaging" and "exciting" public appearances and interviews.
It's funny to see how a lot of people here seem to consider "having no social life" as one of the biggest insults one can hurl. I would think not having a clear goal in life and no passion for one's trade is far worse.
Essentially, we shan't give pressure and pass judgment just because one doesn't seem to have much of a "social life." Perhaps, he has more important things in mind.
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On November 05 2009 18:03 phosphorylation wrote: I'd rather see immense skill and greatness on the pro matches rather than "engaging" and "exciting" public appearances and interviews.
It's funny to see how a lot of people here seem to consider "having no social life" as one of the biggest insults one can hurl. I would think not having a clear goal in life and no passion for one's trade is far worse.
Essentially, we shan't give pressure and pass judgment just because one doesn't seem to have much of a "social life." Perhaps, he has more important things in mind. What the fuck are you talking about?
The Korean pro SC scene is a horrible representation of Korean culture, quite frankly. Everyone seems to forget that these are nerdy little teenage kids with virtually no social life playing for hours on end. Then they all go out and make assumptions on the rest of Korea based on that. All this says is that professional SC players don't give an accurate representation of average Korean culture because they're fucking PROFESSIONAL VIDEOGAME PLAYERS. He's not fucking slandering these kids for what they're doing, he's stating a fact. They play SC all day, so they're not the best representative sample of what Korean life/culture is like. Your post is completely missing the point.
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I dont know about you but " nerdy little teenage kids with virtually no social life playing for hours on end" seems like a bit of slanderous description of korean progamers, dontya think?
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No, actually littlechava is mostly right. I'm not slandering them...they're trading a social life for making lots and lots of money with a kind of self-discipline and perseverance and resolve that you just don't see at that age.
I was pointing out that people bitch and moan about cookie cutter answers and uninteresting "docile" personalities from progamers. They need to stop and consider the facts. What I said is what the progamers are...nerdy kids with no social life. Why would you expect more than what you're getting? And then they dare blame it on Korean culture? They think Korea as a whole is a such a dumb, docile, antisocial place?
Fuck that.
I think you're just insecure about your own lack of a social life, no? Otherwise there's no excuse for missing my point that badly and taking offense.
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I know what your main point is. And of course, that I agree with. But, your description of progamers was certainly excessively negative -- that, my friend, is slander. And I was responding to your unnecessary negativity. My social life is doing just fine, thank you. Way to make ridiculous assumptions..
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Sorry guy. No matter how I look at it, you're being way, way too sensitive over this, and you're taking it way too personally, lol.
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slander (n.) 1. Law. Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation. 2. A false and malicious statement or report about someone.
If you agree with PH's main point, that means you admit that his description of progamers was true even if you considered it 'excessively negative' ... which means it's not slander. -.-
To consider an accusation of having no social life as an insult extreme enough to be called slanderous is completely ridiculous, especially when the intent of the original context isn't to deride progamers but to state a fact.
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LOL.
Looks like you're in the vast minority, phosphrylation.
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vast minority lol...you seem to be very happy about your two cronies i don't care what you say; you were overly harsh in your wording in your first post about progamers i responded to that; nothing more nothing less you seem really worked up for some reason
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ha i was about to take that class but my advisor said no
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On November 06 2009 10:53 phosphorylation wrote: vast minority lol...you seem to be very happy about your two cronies i don't care what you say; you were overly harsh in your wording in your first post about progamers i responded to that; nothing more nothing less you seem really worked up for some reason No. I just really don't like you at this point.
On November 06 2009 12:21 theron[wdt] wrote: ha i was about to take that class but my advisor said no Dude, you're sooo lucky. You dodged a fucking bullet. This is NOT an easy class. T_T
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On November 06 2009 10:53 phosphorylation wrote: vast minority lol...you seem to be very happy about your two cronies
Yay, I've been delegated as a cronie.
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FuDDx
United States5007 Posts
On November 06 2009 10:53 phosphorylation wrote: vast minority lol...you seem to be very happy about your two cronies i don't care what you say; you were overly harsh in your wording in your first post about progamers i responded to that; nothing more nothing less you seem really worked up for some reason
Just stfu already please.
Edit: gogo college its fun no?
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Fuck I want to take a class like this. The closest my school has is Modern East Asian History and I can't take that because of conflicts. Sounds fun though.
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so much hostility jeez i haven't insulted anyone in this thread; i just found the descrirption entirely unfair and shared my opinion that there can be more important things than having a "social life" certainly not the type of thing that should inspire this kind of contempt
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@FuDDx: I guess it's fun. It's nice learning all this stuff and having that much wider and varied a perspective on things. But still...the workload makes it very easy to forget that. T_T
@Athos: What kind of school do you go to? Is it a smaller one? One of the nice things about going to a public university like I chose to do is that there are a lot of random classes like this where the professors are really just teaching a subject they really like or are deeply involved with.
@phosphorylation: No one share your point of view, your view is beyond rationalization at this point (mainly due to your stubbornness about it), and the worst part is, you keep coming back to this thread.
You are seeing things that aren't there in what I say, and are slandering me, by firefoot77's definition. Of course no one's going to like you. -_-;;
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Yeah I go to a smaller private school (Brandeis). Thing is, there are a lot of classes that are random and specific like this one, hell I'm taking modern Russian history next semester. There just aren't any specific Korean history ones. Again, I'm sure a lot of this content is covered in Modern Asian history.
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I am certainly not slandering you. wtf Your description of progamers is far more slanderous (I admit that it was an unfortunate word choice) than my ... responses to you.
What are the things that I see that doesn't exist? Amazingly enough, you still haven't responded to my initial criticism of how you decided to describe korean progamers -- and that is the only problem I had with in your initial post. Of course, you were quite unsavory in your subsequent posts. but that just seems to be your character.
Anyway, I am actually interested in what you wrote for the essay. So how was the korean cultural and national identity reconstructed after the occupation?
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On November 06 2009 15:57 Athos wrote: Yeah I go to a smaller private school (Brandeis). Thing is, there are a lot of classes that are random and specific like this one, hell I'm taking modern Russian history next semester. There just aren't any specific Korean history ones. Again, I'm sure a lot of this content is covered in Modern Asian history. Oh no shit! My dad got his doctorate at Brandeis!
And I see. I guess for this kind of class, it would vary from school to school depending on the faculty there at the time. :\
On November 06 2009 16:13 phosphorylation wrote: I am certainly not slandering you. wtf Your description of progamers is far more slanderous (I admit that it was an unfortunate word choice) than my ... responses to you.
What are the things that I see that doesn't exist? Amazingly enough, you still haven't responded to my initial criticism of how you decided to describe korean progamers -- and that is the only problem I had with in your initial post. Of course, you were quite unsavory in your subsequent posts. but that just seems to be your character.
Anyway, I am actually interested in what you wrote for the essay. So how was the korean cultural and national identity reconstructed after the occupation?
Thanks for giving me one more thing to waste my time with as I study for exams. (:
So...
slander (n.) 1. Law. Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation. 2. A false and malicious statement or report about someone.
You've made statements accusing me of speaking badly of Korean progamers, and you somehow came to assume that I also insulted people who have no social lives. You also by some mysterious line of thought completely beyond me that seem to believe I consider saying someone has no social life to be a horrible insult.
Then you continue to (in my earnest opinion, stubbornly) disagree with everything I and everyone else in this thread say and hold to your original opinion, and continue to call me out as some nerd-bashing asshole with a superiority complex.
I may certainly have a superiority complex, and I am most certainly an asshole, but I still solemnly believe you reacted critically (and not in a good way) over nothing. The emphasis was put on progamers being nerds with no social life because dumb western users here on TL seem to expect such people to be overflowing with personality in spite of that. As a result, not only are the progamers misunderstood and labeled as socially inept sheople, the entire nation of Korea is brought in as well.
My essay involved analyzing stuff about Korean interpersonal relations based on some essays written by random intellectuals from both inside and outside of Korea. It had shit to do with the lingering/pervading Confucianism in contemporary Korean society and how that's good and bad and contrasting Korean society to US society, blah blah blah. I wrote a terrible essay, don't worry.
How was Korean national and cultural identity reconstructed after the occupation? Well...we haven't read all that much directly on that topic yet, and I don't know myself; most of the readings so far have been geared more towards explicating what Korean culture is like in general (since you don't need to be a Korean from Korea to take this class).
How is a weird question to ask. All it takes is even a small grain of nationalism and cultural pride to build up an identity as a nation. Korea, in particular (well...maybe not in comparison to most Asian countries), has a remarkable amount of solidarity among its people, so I'm certain that helped in unifying the nation and keeping it at least fairly of one mind.
So...simply put...Korea wanted to become Korea again after having their culture ripped apart by Japan and then being a puppet satellite nation for the USSR and USA, and have worked to build themselves up to what they are now, I guess?
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I think Korean textbooks and education in general are VERY good at producing patriots. Hell, I was only in 3rd grade when I moved from Korea to the US, but I am still a die-hard Korean jingoist. Is the education biased, in terms of presentation of facts and historiography? Most likely. But as long as it is able to inspire incredible solidarity among the Korean people and steer the patriotism into something productive, I see absolutely nothing wrong with it.
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There are certainly issues with the ingrained solidarity that's an integral part of Korean culture, however. Well...there are positives to it too, but also issues.
Korea is great in that it's a nation and country full of one peoples. Everyone shares the same history, experiences, etc, and considering the amount of adversity Korea (as an identity) faced throughout the 20th century, that level of unity and solidarity was likely only strengthened. What you have now is the level of sameness and surprising amount of collectiveness you see in Korea.
Everyone has the same standards and whatnot, but it really goes beyond what you'd expect, even as a single nation of a single people.
One of the essays assigned in this class examined this. Basically, the guy wrote contrasting western Social Exchange Theory with what he considered a Confucian system of natural giving/benevolence/whatever you want to call it. The essay was written some time in the '80s, I think, and I'm not a sociology guy, so I don't know if that Exchange theory is still popular or relevant.
In any case, at the time, certainly, western sociologists broke down all interpersonal interactions as nothing more than give-and-take exchanges. People deal with others investing their own time, money, energy, in order to get out time, money or energy from the other. It's kind of a horrible way to look at things, that there is no altruism or generosity in relationships, but whatever. In a way, it can make sense...and even now, I'm hardly qualified to argue with them. Beyond that, I barely even have a grasp of what that theory is all about.
However, he looked at Korean culture and society, and argued that it was not dominated by this idea of exchange. He saw it as practicing a real-life manifestation of Confucian benevolence. The Korean people deal with each other because they are brothers and sisters. In Confucianism, the base unit of society is the family. There is no real "I", but there is a "we" ("Cheong"?). You can look at every societal unit as a member of a metaphorical family (with the president/dictator/king/whatever it was at the time being the metaphorical father/patriarch). Everyone is a member of the greater family of China because their nuclear family is.
He argues this is the origin of the cultural and social solidarity you see in Korea...at least if I read it correctly. Anyway, that's not the important thing. The important thing is that this produces an inclusive collectivist mindset among Koreans concerning their fellow Koreans. And so Koreans can, unlike in western societies, where individualism is encouraged (and thus all are separate units competing for individuality and self-expression), act outside the system of Exchange dominating western thought, acting truly outside the thought of any gain.
The flip side of this, however, is that in order to be included in that gregarious lack of exchange (and to by extension be considered a part of the greater Korean identity), the freedom one has to self-express and his individualism is rather stifled. One has to rather strictly adhere to that greater identity. If you've ever studied Heidegger, you could say that one must be inauthentic and remain a part of the Anonymous They or whatever. Being taboo in any way results in a marginalization and ostracization of fitting degree and can even destroy one's ability to be a part of his own nation.
Sadly, I think that was better written than the essay I turned in earlier today. -_-
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lol that happens all the time your ideas are crystallized AFTER you finish your assignment
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