[Mr. Menard] The Faction

It all started when she was called by one of the Korean teachers to have lunch together. It was not as if she had any sort of strong feelings towards him, either positive or negative. She only wondered why she was suddenly asked to eat lunch with the Korean teacher, whom she was not even close with. Violet, an outgoing celebrity of the school, deferentially sat in front of Mr. Byun with her dish. As soon as she raised her head, she could find quite a few teachers with familiar faces. Once again, she vowed politely.

Anxiously waiting for Mr. Byun, or anyone, to start telling her the “reason” why she could not enjoy lunch with her friends, Violet meaninglessly stared at her rice and smiled awkwardly. Finally, Mr. Byun opened his mouth.

“What are you interested in, Violet?” said Mr. Byun with his usual, pretentious smirk.

Assuming he was talking about what subject she liked, Violet answered in her bright tone, “I like Chemistry!”

Soon Mr. Byun’s face twisted with mysterious facial expression that seemed to be neither pleased nor offended. It was more likely to be “disparaging” or “condescending” than anything else. He murmured some words, which Violet could not catch.

“Why do you want to study Chemistry, Violet?” asked Mr. Byun, once again with his mannered smile.

“It’s fun! I mean, isn’t it so exciting to realize that every single interaction among people is based on chemistry? All the molecules and stuff,” naïve as a lamb and happy as a bee, Violet did not hesitate for a second to claim her interest in Chemistry.

Now almost feeling insulted, as Violet did not get any of his implications on her “interest”, Mr. Byun reproached her in an angry voice. “Listen girl, studying should not be your foremost value. You are a girl. And you are supposed to be interested in how you are going to marry a fine guy! That’s what you should be concerned about!”

Frightened with a sudden attack, Violet asked back, “What did you just say, Mr. Byun?” She wanted to believe it just as a hilarious remark to encourage her to study more, rather than a severely reprimanding one. It's not a Chosun dynasty, nor was it the Park-Jung-Hee brainwashing era.

“Don’t you understand what I mean? Marrying a guy and serving him! as a good wife! That’s all you should want! That’s all for a girl!” Mr. Byun was now so mad that he could have thrown his spoon into the floor if Mr. Kang, another Korean Language teacher, took his side on rebuking her.

“It’s all true, what he has just said. You don’t know this? How come? What kind of parents do you have? Chemistry? Give that crap to dogs.” Mr. Kang yelled at her with evil eyes shining like black holes.

“Okay. I’m not listening to this kind of comments anymore. I leaving” Violet was quite hot-tempered when it came to the topic of unjust inequality. She stood up and left with her plate, which was still full of food.

“What in the world are you doing right now? You want to get detentions? Okay, I’m giving you penalty points for your "not girlish" behavior,” shouted Mr. Byun, “understand?”

Without any hesitation, Violet left the cafeteria as soon as she stood up. On coming Thursday, she received 10 penalty points for her insolent attitude and not following teacher’s direction. She did not regret what she had done, though. She could have gone insane if she stayed in front of those teachers for even one more second.

Ironically, this incident became an edifying lesson for Violet. She learned how to react to those who lack the most basic “Common Sense.”

“It’s a waste of time to even get angry at those people,” she murmured.

[Mr. Menard] Reflection on myself and the community

How is an individual related to the society that he or she belongs to? Does everyone even belong to a certain community? In "The Conversion of the Jews" by philip Roth, the main character Ozzie stands against the unreasonable conventions of the Jewish society in New York City that he lives in. Wondering about his identity and the relationship with the community, he basically rebels to the orthodoxy. He questions some of the most fundamental beliefs, which most others could not even imagine defying. This novella shows how a member of the community, who has been on the fringe, finally speaks. While reading it, I could not stop myself from thinking about my own identity and how I belong to the society that I seem to belong. 

Currently, I live in a society called Korea, not too small, not too broad. In my view, which most Koreans would probably agree upon, Korea is a country where the concept of family unit is considered very important. Compared to any other Democratic societies, Korea values conformity with the most amount of respect. By stating "with respect", it means anyone can be considered "weird," if he or she does not fit into what most people are in. Wearing clothes that do not seem like those of all others, looking different, or having special accents, especially if it's the accent of a specific region that Park Jung Hee and his followers used to isolate which I dare to mention, can all be the categories in which people can be seen as "strangers." For example, it is not difficult to find Koreans in their 20s, as well as the old ones, who would make condescending comments on people with disorderly outlooking that does not fit into the conformity of styles. The turned-strong version of cultural unity in Korea basically excludes anything that does not go with "the most". 

Furthermore, Korea is a strictly male chauvinist society. Though it seems like an open, equal community, there are still a myriad number of barriers that prevent equal opportunities for women. Even most of the females in Korea bear stereotypes on themselves. Especially obsessed with the attitudes and roles of women, many Korean people unconditionally believe in the traditional views of women: how girls have to be quiet, how moms have to cook whether she works or not, etc. Regardless of their political views, most people have legitimate preconditions in such an orthodox. I was incredibly shocked to figure out the unexpected number of Korean teachers expressing their disparaging remarks on female students, or female in general, in KMLA, which is quite a huge society for me. They even asked me why I would want to study chemistry when learning is not a real goal for girls, but marrying a husband in a "high level" is so. Those teachers are not the ones with extreme rightist views in politics; they are the ones who frequently got angry at the conservative society and claimed "justice" among everyone. This shows how people's "societal beliefs" don't always go with "righteous" convictions that they think they believe in.

I was grown up in a family that fits into the Korean standards of "well being people." Having always been in the first places, my parents graduated from one of the best universities in the United States with full scholarships. Now as renowned professors in the fields of chemistry, they seem like they have come along the most guaranteed paths for their whole lives. Though I have never expressed it in front of my parents, their "greatness" has been a huge burden for me. The expectations upon me, by almost everyone around me, has always been too high. Whenever I did something well, such as "studying", most people would say it was a natural consequence for me to have, for someone born with that smart "DNAs." They never valued my effort as the foremost reason for my success, success as a student. Though at first all those comments seemed like they were to encourage me to do better, they at some time has become a significant source of my stress as time goes on and one of the most significant factors that forms my life.

Nevertheless, my parents have been the people who help me shaping my perspectives of the world, which at least I think is more liberal than those of most Koreans. "Equality" has been the most crucial value accentuated in my family. My parents have practiced their beliefs from the tiniest things in everyday life. They would take turns in cooking, visit 시댁 (where my dad's parents live) first and then 외가 (where my mom's parents live) for New Year's Day, and do vice versa for Thanksgiving. It is impossible to imagine anyone in my family to talk to another authoritatively; even my grandmother always treats my mom in a strictly polite manner. Having conversation has also been considered extremely important within my parents. Especially my dad would start up a conversation on current issues and share his thoughts with me, full of respect for one another. Grown up in such a free and equal environment, the experience I had with KMLA teachers mentioned earlier remains as the most terrible memory I have encountered here. My parents' ways of thinking and living have given me a precious opportunity to learn things that I will never earn anywhere else.

It is quite hilarious to confess that I'm a minority considering my beliefs and gender in this community, but probably a top 10% in consideration of the family I belong to and the quality of education I get. With my backgrounds perfectly fit for the standards of Korean societal values, I, as an individual, am mentally an outsider. The fact of being a girl and liberal at the same time in Korea already suggests me a hard life in the future. Sometimes, however, I feel like a hypocrite in certain situations, those directly related to me. To be honest, I try to think in the "right" way I believe only when it is the other people's matter, but make justifications for myself if it were for me to be involved. For example, I get offended whenever I hear of those in high governmental officials abusing their power for the sake of themselves. On the other hand, I have satisfactorily imagined myself with numerous servants working for me. Isn't this just so ironic?

For now, I'm not really sure about how I'm going to seek for my identity. Though I have a junk of thoughts considering the society and myself, I can't seem to put them into a nice organization full of logic. I get a stream of what factors formed my point of view, etc., but not the core of "myself." I'm in the middle of an immense confusion right now. All I can do for now is to read more, to listen to diverse opinions of various people, and to have some more time spent just for thinking about myself. Only when I figure out who I am as an individual, will I be able to search for the true relationship between me and the community.

[Mr. Menard] 090512 The Lottery

             There are numerous “traditions” that we don’t even recognize existing because they have been there for such a long time. We just follow them as everybody else does. But if we look more deeply on these seemingly traditional affairs, we can easily figure out the illogic they bear inside. “The Lottery” by Jackson depicts one of the traditional situations that have been rooted in all human beings since long time ago.

             “The Lottery” that people are doing in the story is basically choosing one person and sacrificing him or her as a “tradition” of the town. Old people in town basically force villagers to follow the rule and the villagers are deferential to do so, primarily because the rule has existed for years. However, Tessie, who was chosen as the sacrificed-for-the-day, becomes unruly when it comes to the last moment of execution. She probably would have been tractable on the rule if she weren’t the one selected, though. When she goes against following “the tradition”, town people don’t try to listen to her obstreperous excuses and eventually kill her.

             Although it sounds very antiquated of a tradition to realize that it still exists, “the tradition” is nowadays extant everywhere. People have tendencies to be desirous of sacrificing one person by no logical means. They just do that because they feel like doing so and to feel secure. People feel pleased and superior by dominating others. Since it’s hard for them to be in dominance just by themselves alone, they generally try to get allies by a so-called unification with others. In that way, they not only feel that they are superior to those whom they sacrificed, but also consider their actions as “great achievements” by the allies. This kind of actions leads them to feel more united and safe in the community they belong to.

             As people have motivations for sacrifice to feel pleasure, media constantly uses this phenomenon as a stratagem for more industrious development of their companies. They incessantly spread rumors about assiduous celebrities first to get more attention and eventually to sacrifice them for the “hedonists.” In the “South Farm,” Britney Spears was epitomized explicitly as a character that should be sacrificed by the mass. Recently in Korea, there has been a similar phenomenon going on for the girl-singing-group called Tiara. Though there is no unequivocal evidence for anyone to assume the rumor to be true, “angry” netizens are trying hard to castigate every single action of them. By doing what others are doing and being “allies” of those who censure Tiara, people seek for security.

             I’m not sure if we can find any kind of solution for this predilection of violence except waking up every single person around us. Since this indication is from the natural human desire, I’m dubious to expect any sort of “great change” even if everyone gets to realize the truth. But I think we all should at least try to keep the "immoral" desires inside, and not to consider putting into practice.

Comments

Tiffany Min: I agree with you. As shown in the Tiara incident, people tend to think that they embody justice once they become part of the majority sacrificing particular minority. But I don not think Koreans are particularly apt to engage in such collective sacrifice; it is hard to come up with a specific example but it seems like collective violence, psychological or physical, is universal to all races.

Chonghyun Ahn: I do agree that such ostracism is prevalent in our societies, but what I am reluctant to admitting is the reason behind such phenomenon. Is it really pleasure? Maybe, but there needs to be more substantiation.

JinGyeong Ryu: It was a good try to match this novel with Tiara, but I think what the author really wants to convey is somehow different with witch craft. This is more like random than the Tiara incident, don't you think so? Actually, they are similar, thought.... Anyway, I liked your ideas and the way of analyzing with various social issues.

Nuri: Hi Janey. I liked how you used specific examples like the Tiara example to illustrate your point. Some things I want to point out is you should state a clear example and make your idea clearer with a better link.