Cultural sameness

Seoul, South Korea – When we were flying into Japan – en route to Seoul, South Korea – I was glued to the window. After more than 12 hours on a trans-Pacific flight, we were all excited to see land, and I was ready to catch my first glimpse of Asia. As we neared the ground and it came into focus, I could make out a sign with the airport’s name on it, written “NIKITA” in Latin characters, not Japanese.

It was as if Columbus had reached the New World only to find a sign that said, “Bienvenidos.”

A few hours later, as we navigated the traffic on a well-lit, American-esque highway traveling to Seoul, a friend turned to me and said, “You could forget that we aren’t in Indiana.”

That’s what much of this first part of my stay in Korea has been about: digesting the unexpected degree of sameness.

Sinchon, where Yonsei University is located and where we are housed, could pass for Greenwich Village. There’s a coffee shop every block or so, and a McDonald’s and Burger King within walking distance from the campus. We’ve watched Project Runway Korea on TV and even went to a Korean concert where an American-style pop band sang “Greased Lightning.”

So far, my journey to the other end of the world has often felt suspiciously like home.
That’s not to say that there haven’t been major differences. We’ve been to places like a traditional Korean bath house and restaurants where we’ve tasted kimchi and bulgogi, so in lots of ways the people and culture are very different from Indiana.
It’s just that I was expecting lots of cultural differences, and to experience culture shock. I wasn’t prepared for all the similarities.

Before we left for this trip, our class spent a semester discussing globalization and how it has affected Korea. Westernization, universalization and de-territorialization are all things that we had discussed, and that I am now seeing played out.

But the students we have interacted with are largely privileged, upper-middle class 20-year-olds from one of the world’s most modern nations. Is it any wonder they seem familiar?

Thomas Friedman argues that the playing field has been leveled, that, because of globalization, people the world over can now make connections and recognize similarities. Our expensive stay with the Yonsei students has testified to that.

But there’s more to it than that. Globalization hasn’t broken down the differences between rural Koreans and the people who live in Seoul. Instead, it has heightened them. And because of globalization, the urban South Koreans are in many ways more similar to Americans than they are to their North Korean counterparts.

This is where the globalization-flattens-the-world idea breaks down. As Ed Leamer has argued convincingly, while globalization eliminates some differences, it amplifies others. Globalization has made it so we Americans feel close to the people here in Seoul, while those just outside the city feel much farther away.