Korea Dispatch

   

Offerings to ancestors

A close friend (who shall remain anonymous) called recently, needing someone to talk to. I could hear her voice sobbing over the phone as she spoke to my wife, explaining how she’d run up the credit card bills and was now forced into declaring bankruptcy, a move that would spell disaster for her entire family. While her circumstances are particularly unique, the theme seems all too common here in Korea. Another broken family. (Read Miyuki Miyabe’s All She Was Worth for more on predatory lending.) 

She said bankruptcy would mean the loss of her mother’s house, which is under her name. What’s worse, her mother’s house is where her sister lives with her two sons, in virtual hiding from an abusive (and deranged) husband. In addition, to protect her own family’s apartment from being foreclosed, she’s decided to divorce her husband, under whose name their own apartment is under. It’s a terrible situation, emotionally devastating.

At 44, Mi Young (not her real name) has been in a wheelchair all her life. She was struck with polio as an infant and has not walked since. Nevertheless, while in her twenties she met a man slightly older than herself and afflicted with the same condition. They fell in love, got married, and have managed to raise two beautiful kids in a society not necessarily kind to the handicapped.

They did it all on their own, despite the odds. She once told me how when she was younger there were all these things she wanted to do, like learn to drive, have kids and raise a family. She smiled as she said this, sitting behind the wheel, maneuvering the brakes and gas with specially designed levers, on her way to pick her kids up from school.

Whenever I get down on Korea, I think of them. They are by far the warmest and most graceful people I have ever met, and they don’t deserve this. But there it is, another torn family. The longer I’m in Korea the more shocked I am at the state of Korean families. I’m no moralist. I’m not opposed to divorce, and I’ve also met plenty of “normal” families in Korea. But still, it’s shocking to see what’s happening here. 

I live on the outskirts of Seoul, on a small, tree-lined street of residential houses, under the shadow of a lush, rolling mountain. Most of the residents are elderly, and have been here for decades. More than a few live with their grandkids, left behind by divorced parents hoping to start anew. 

Hyerin is a cheerful eight-year-old who lives up the street. She often comes knocking to play with our young son, almost like a big sister to him. She recently told my wife that she’d found her dad, who lives in South Africa and was coming to get her, after years of being apart. She said she didn’t know where her mother was, and hadn’t seen her in years. (See here for an article on discrimination against divorced women in Korea.)

Below us is a young ten-year-old girl living with her grandparents. Her father comes by once every so often, though I’ve never seen the mother. Her cousins come by on the weekends, their parents divorced as well.

A friend came to visit not long ago. Just making conversation I told him about the kids on the street, not realizing until later that he too was recently divorced and struggling over visiting rights. Trying to put a bright spin on it I said it must be nice to have a little independence. He frowned and changed the subject.

For the families that aren’t divorced, relations are commonly so distant as to be almost non-existent. Fathers who work endlessly and then drink until the wee-hours, or children who are pushed relentlessly to study, study, study. They leave in the morning and don’t come home until well into the night, only to turn on the computer or zone out into text-messaging with their friends. 

At the extreme end are what’s known as goose fathers, men who’ve sent their wives and children to live in another country, often to learn English, while they remain alone in Korea. On a random hike up a local mountain I met a young man on his bike. He said he’d lived in the US, in Seattle, and that his wife and son were still there. “They’ve been there five years now.” Another father  told me his wife and daughter live in the Philippines, and that he sees them at most twice a year. He said of late he’s been regretting his decision.

I’ve heard several theories on why this is happening. An article that appeared in the New York Times Sunday Magazine highlighted Korea’s low birth rate, one of the lowest in the world, and another offshoot of the crisis Korean families are undergoing. It pointed to the fact that birth rates are in decline in countries where men are often non-existent in the home, and women’s status continues to be inferior to that of men, as in Korea. 

A former college advisor who majored in Korean studies shared a conversation she’d had with a Korean colleague. The man, a professor of Korean history, said that traditionally Korean men have been seen as the providers of the family, but that there is often little emotional attachment. Personally, I think while this may sound good as an academic theory one look at the divorced father’s faces I’ve met shows just how much emotion is involved. 

Korea’s recent history no doubt has helped to further erode the family structure. Colonialism and war, followed by military rule and a desperate struggle to lift the country out of poverty (as fast as humanly possible). A fledgling democracy in the 80’s and then an influx of new wealth, a burgeoning middle class and a flood of media and technology, all tearing at the seams of Korea’s traditional roots. 

According to Confucius, the family was seen as both the model and the foundation of the nation, it’s structure thought to mirror the relationship between heaven, the ruler and his people. The twin pillars of family and education were paramount. In Korea, while the latter is in full-throttle, the former is in serious decline. The family has defined tradition here for millennia. Yet today, while lip-service is still paid to family values, the reality appears quite different.