The Periphery Will Save the Center:
Visions of Korean Literature Creating Asian Collaboration


4. Expansion of new experience and space

        The effect of globalization has not been limited to the economic sector. Every cultural activity, however local it might appear, now has to be understood as being woven into a vast, intricate global network. Every writer has to internalize this new reality.
Reality has transcended the regional. This goes beyond how we think about conflicts like the Iraq War or the North Korea Daepodong missile crisis. We can't even think about day-to-day happiness—eating, dancing, living—on a national or regional scale any more. The entire world has been entangled irrevocably. I believe that authors who want to write about Korean reality—our condition, as a nation—can no longer avoid considering the global reality—our condition, as the world.
Oh Soo-yeon, ¡°Which translation should be sent out? Which should be brought in?¡±
        Korean writers working today are in a difficult space, where the diversity recognized within our society and diversity brought forth by globalization collides. The stage each individual occupies in the world is growing, as well as how time and space is perceived. With this new frame of reference, Korean writers realize that problems stemming from how societies are structured—in other words, problems too vast and complicated to wrap one's head around—must be addressed and somehow dealt with. Otherwise, they end up becoming idle witnesses to an overwhelming array of global traumas: devastation of war, appalling conditions of refugees living in slums, dismantled communities of the Third World, dilapidated rural areas abandoned by their inhabitants.
        Globalization has brought with it an interrelated set of opportunities and dangers. Inequalities in income and standard of living point to structural problems in our socio-economic system. And our cognizance of this reality has a deep impact on how we, as individuals, lead our lives. The poorer countries suffer from a high-unemployment rate, and even the few who are lucky enough to find work receive wages that are pitiful compared to what workers in developed nations receive. Those who can't make ends meet must resort to migration—a disturbing worldwide trend that shows no signs of abating. While global productivity is increasing along with the world's collective wealth, the overwhelming majority of those who have been victimized by the new global order go ignored. Economies are becoming larger and better developed, but little effort is being made to re-distribute the accumulated wealth. Humanism becomes an abstract and outdated ideal, creaky and at the brink of collapse. Protesters may surround government buildings, and one does hear, now and then, of public uproar over the worldwide migration of labor, as well as government measures to control or stop the migration, and the discrimination and harassment the laborers face in the countries to which they have migrated. But what you might find in terms of commitment, perspicuity, or meaningful response about these matters in our literature is severely below standard. This, then, must be the continuing source of woe between the Korean writers and their neighboring artists.
        When Korean writers look at the current world order, it's easy to see that they are writing from the margin of the world marketplace. When faced with the vast size and might of the global free trade system, as well as the fact that the vast majority of the global village has already signed on to compete in this marketplace, the writers on the margin can't help but feel a crushing sense of helplessness. What would happen if a society decided to join the global market structure? The rural co-ops would have to move to the shopping center. Citizens who shopped at second-hand stores would begin patronizing large malls, becoming willing participants of global free trade. It's worth noting that during the final years of the twentieth century, a total population of 4 billion from China, India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and the former Soviet Union—for years economically segregated from the world economy for various technological or political reasons—are now participating in the global market place.
        A marketplace that has grown this powerful must have consequences on world literature. The value of a brand in a small marketplace is nominal, unable to command any absolute power. But as the marketplace becomes larger, it does begin to wield greater power. The resulting spread of commercialism has contributed directly to the deterioration of serious literature, and continues to play a key role in shaping the dominant aesthetic of this century.



5. Towards a new collective

        An alternate structure that has the potential to confront or subvert the existing structure must grow from within the existing structure. For example, while one kind of globalization assumes the role of the dominant, governing force in the world, it's possible that another kind of globalization is simultaneously sprouting within it. We might look at the hope and ambition of Korean writers in this similar light. The message of the 2004 National Literature Writers' Conference was to join hands with North Korea's Chosun Writer's Alliance and to pursue a new aesthetic that draws from a robust and vibrant regionalism, thereby asserting the strength and conviction of the Asian collective before the Afro-Asian Writers' Conference. But why? Why the need to assert the regional spirit? Why forge a relationship with Chosun Writers' Alliance? Why even the need for an Asian collective?
        First let's look at our need to focus on our regional, aboriginal spirit. While globalization has facilitated the exchange of ideas and traditions between cultures, it has also diluted the cultural identities of many distinct populations. The very language of globalization compels one to think in terms of global norms, which works to standardize world cultures. In this process, it seems only natural that writers would emerge who draw from the distinct vitality of their towns and small cities, but we have not seen enough literature that resists or protests this trend towards standardization. Korean writers seem to be struggling to mold the experience of their unique locality into something that fits the ¡°universal¡± Western form. And these efforts, however, arduous and well-meaning, have failed to produce anything mature or finished.
        Secondly, Korean literature is fast losing masters of our mother tongue. Even ten years ago, we had a handful of writers in this country who could be called veritable magicians of our regional dialects. Moreover, one of the main causes for why we, as a people, are losing our unique aesthetic is due to our country's division. When two separate governments are working as caretakers for the same language, it cannot grow to its full potential. With two governments, two opposing identities are invariably formed, and this discrepancy transforms the language differently, leading to a deep-seated ideological conflict, which then expedites the language's decay. The poet Lee Kwang-woong called a deep sea fishing vessel a ¡°far-off sea fish-catching boat¡±; the resulting Oh-Song-Hoe incident reminds us that the problems inherent in today's potentially violent political reality are largely language-based. Furthermore, statesmen from North and South continue to heighten tension with polarizing rhetoric. Citing reasons that go back to the fervent anti-communism and anti-liberalism of a bygone era, they continue to portray each other with divisive, antagonistic language full of exaggerations and simplifications. In these ways and more, the original character of our language continues to deteriorate and no serious effort is being made to address this problem. What remains of our original culture in North and South, has survived, ironically enough, due to ideological tenacity.
        Thirdly, the standard of European ¡°universality¡±—and its pattern of marginalization and cultural violence against the weaker Asian countries—wasn't established overnight. Asian history still exists within it, and our similarities in consciousness and worldview emerge from this shared history of oppression. When thinking about our collective cultures, one might see it as living in a village; if one house goes up in flames, the roofs of all the houses nearby are in jeopardy. The current world order is working with cruel indifference to remold our aesthetic standard to resemble the ruling standard. There is no good reason, however, why every aesthetic standard must conform this way. We must keep in mind that the self and the world are one, like a snail united with its shell. Nature has built my body, and what brings my heart peace and stability is the nature that has given me life: the fickle climate, the brutal cold and the dry earth that gave me my skin color, cheek bones, short neck and flat nose. I cannot erase the record that the land's shadow has cast over my body. This, then, should be the sole standard for my literature. The self has been broken by history. When collecting the pieces to put it back together, we must follow a collective standard of our own, molded after a people of a distinct religious, cultural and historical commonality.



6. The margin will save the mainstream

        Even in a world so vast, bountiful and diverse, every individual has a traditional culture, where his mind and spirit can feel at home. In the past, to go beyond one's nation meant being isolated and secluded from the culture, but now we are living in an era where changing one's nationality doesn't necessarily mean changing one's cultural orientation. More and more, we are seeing identity as something constructed and nourished by culture. If we can enter and participate in the global village with this idea in mind, we might find ourselves living in an era of greater understanding for our neighbors, an era where human beings can live in warm fellowship believing in our common destiny.
        If all this is true, what must we do next? Just as dead rivers sometimes come back to life and vanished birds and fishes return, smaller nations and their cultures, languages and aesthetics need to be revived. We must reveal the diversity of the global village as it truly is, and work to rescue the smaller voices from being washed away into oblivion by the great, silencing tide of globalization. If we move in the direction of emphasizing the personality and uniqueness of each writer and his culture, we might find that what doesn't sell in the global marketplace—what has been cast aside, what has been alienated and marginalized as inappropriate for the current commercial structure—will end up enriching and revitalizing the mainstream culture. And this, I think, is what Asia magazine is all about: pursuing our bright future on a path of hope.


[Translated into English by Chung Jae-won]