Finding kindness in Korea

Courtesy of Andrew Thornebrooke

By David Tizzard

We live in a society where all acts of kindness are treated with suspicion. Seen as a shallow marketing ploy for the person's own benefit or social status rather than providing any genuine help to others.

Politicians across the board stand accused of standing on the memory of all those lost young souls in the Itaewon tragedy for their own goals ― whether it be to solidify their own position as a recipient of our hard-earned tax money or to attack their political opponents. For many, rather than visit the homes of those who have lost loved ones, to demonstrate genuine kindness, they are using the incident as a way to demonstrate their own virtue and attack the competence of their opponents. This narrative and performative grief is what dominates the tragedy for many at the moment.

Then there are the recent discussions around 'poverty porn'. While I continually detect a high degree of misogyny in the attacks against women close to political power in South Korea, something perhaps further reflected in the countless physical crimes carried out by high-ranking party members against women, here we have a situation in which visiting young children in hospital is portrayed as the management of a media profile. Branding oneself. Being so far from the situation, I have no genuine knowledge as to the extent or reality of how those pictures came about. Nevertheless, I do know that many will now probably think twice about visiting hospitals or having such photos taken because of the backlash these have caused. The cynicism and fervent attacks will drive us even further from kindness and into inaction, petrified of a puritanical lambasting.

And, more removed from political power or influence than ever, we have a member of the country's third party posting photos on social media enjoying the sights and sounds of the Qatar World Cup. While domestically the party is seen as a champion of the oppressed, advocating for increased rights and protections for the disabled, the country's laborers, and sexual minorities, the smiling photos taken in Qatar produced huge vitriol domestically here in Korea as people wondered where those principles had suddenly disappeared considering Doha's own serious and well-documented problems.

It feels like society is full of people with principles, but only when it benefits them. They do not maintain said principles when they no longer bring any financial, social, cultural, or political benefit. Instead they are conveniently forgotten or quickly swept under the rug in the face of power or financial gain. Which therefore makes them no longer principles but rather techniques of social advancement. If one advocates love and peace as well as the rights of all, is it correct to take money to perform in Doha? You can take the money or you can stand firm on your principles. And the choice will be entirely yours. But it doesn't feel like you can do both.

But there is hope. And there is genuine kindness in society. It just unfortunately doesn't always get the coverage or publicity such behavior deserves.

Last week, I spoke to an educated young woman called Jeon Seoyeon. She has been using her privilege and position to help those less fortunate than her in a variety of ways. She has financially supported people through their education, mentored people in rural areas of Korea, and provided English tutoring to young Syrian refugees. Her ultimate goal is to use her degrees and qualifications in landscape architecture to create a safer world for the socially and economically underprivileged, better protecting them from the ravages of nature, be they earthquakes, flooding, or rising temperatures. She has observed how many working on such issues are only interested in the number of causalities created rather than actually providing preventions and doing something ahead of time. A situation is only deemed worthy of focus if the number of lives lost is high enough to demand media air time. This makes everything sadly ad-hoc by nature.

Seoyeon credits her mother for her current attitude. She was raised by someone who has worked continually for social minorities and that has naturally passed on to her as a life value. A clear message, if ever there were one, that what we do today can, and perhaps will, reverberate for generations to come. Cynicism and inaction from us today will shape the next leaders' behavior just as genuine kindness, empathy, and support could also become the characteristics of the future.

When I asked her what she got out of her acts of kindness and selflessness that are carried out far from the eyes of the nation's media and headlines, she confessed that is a difficult choice to continually work for others because it is time-consuming and in a hyper-competitive society it puts her at somewhat of a disadvantage to her peers. Nevertheless, she reflects on how much she has received from others during her life and therefore understands the importance of passing that on.

The bored-of-it-all generation surrounded by product placement, manipulation, new shoes, beautiful hair, false information, saccharine ballads, selfies, and the self-constructed palace of me is not all there is here. Korea is not lost. It is there: away from the politicians, the cash-filled envelopes, and the scandal-filled newspaper headlines. It is instead in people like Seoyeon. In the small pieces of humanity we pay forward to the next generation. Knowing that their gain is also our gain. That our 'loss' today, can provide untold advantages for many more in the future.

Dr. David A. Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) has a Ph.D. in Korean Studies and lectures at Seoul Women's University and Hanyang University. He is a social/cultural commentator and musician who has lived in Korea for nearly two decades. He is also the host of the Korea Deconstructed podcast, which can be found online. The views expressed in the article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.