Multiculturalism, masculinity and citizenship

Han is constantly reminding us that the questions to be asked are who should be the actors in the discussion of multiculturalism and what the discussion should be about. Like Viola, I think as multiculturalism as this utopian flower which even Canada does not know how to grow. The major problem with this multicultural concept in Korea seems to be how the concept is defined. For both of the authors (Kim and Han), claiming South Korea as multicultural is false. 

By the use of multicultural policies, they are simply dislocating the problem of the nation to the foreign bodies (mostly female if we follow what Kim HM says). The rural unmarried man is not the tumor of the nation anymore; this tumor is transferred to their new foreign wife. The masculinity of the man is not hurt anymore, but the new wife’s femininity is challenged and reconstructed by the Korean standards. However, Kim notes that the problem of birth low rates were not solved by the migrant wives, since the women who were assimilated to fit the Korean context, reacted the same as a Korean women would: divorcing them or ending up having one kid.  In this way, Kim is not totally separating the Korean female bodies and aspirations with the foreign females’ ones; they are both inspiring to a better life than the rural poor life allowed with the low status of the Korean husbands. Ideal femininity is shared by the foreign women who come to Korea and to the Korean rural women who decide to go to urban areas and having urban husbands. I found it quite interesting how Han compares international marriages to human trafficking. Even though I found her explanations a little lacking, I found myself asking myself the same thing when I was reading Kim's article about multiculturalism.  

Even though it quite obvious that the media portrays and control in way the identity of foreign communities, it is quite interesting to think about WHY do they portray otherness (and I am thinking here about the example of African community that Han relates (44)). Do they gain something, or are they are simply insights of the ‘Korean’ mentality? I tend to believe that by portraying ‘others’ in some primitive way sometimes, they are constructing a more closed nationalism, but also put somewhat Korean culture on a pedestal.

Personal story. When I was in Korea to study, one of our professors was giving front row tickets for free to one of the award show since one of his good friends was a director for this award show. My professor explains that the director was looking for foreigners; his reasons were that he needed foreigners to be easily captured during the award show to demonstrate the popularity of Kmusic and promote the unison and unity between foreigners and Koreans by this common interest in the ‘awesome’ Hallyu wave. Media is portraying an ideal, but is this ideal really an ambition? 

On Kwon's article, masculinity, citizenship and nationalism are closely linked and gendered. Since her article was written in 2001, I am quite curious about how is this discourse can take place today, after the death of Kim Jong Il. I was quite septic when Kwon is making the point that there was no opposition to the conscription; maybe there was no formal one but like she underlines, people are trying to find their way out of the system. And like she is quoting Professor Ha Taehun, thinking about that thinking about how to escape the system is actually "the beginning of the resistance of the military service itself" (31). Having that in mind, what would trigger a formal resistance? and what the 'possible' unification would effect the conscription and nationalism sentiment? There is a sense in Kwon's interviews that mandatory conscription would be over- since there would be no 'threat' anymore - but the conscription is such a important place and tool for the state to build nationalism that I doubt it would not be used to build a new nationalistic feeling. 

I would leave the rest for our conversation later today.