whose graduates end up with the plum jobs in industry and government.
This “success escalator” is narrow and crowded, and the competition to stay on it grows more fierce as it goes up. Students must pass highly competitive entrance examinations for each higher level of school—a system that makes junior, middle, and senior high school a “living hell” for the more ambitious students. High school students are pressured by their parents—especially their mothers—to study hard in school and then continue their studies at home for up to six more hours each weekday evening. Many mothers arrange their lives and manage their households in support of the study efforts of their children, especially their sons. Because of this unrelenting pressure, many students are burned out by the time they enter college and literally coast through their university years.
In the early 1990s the ministry of education took a number of steps to alleviate the pressure on Korean students competing to get into the most prestigious high schools and universities by adopting a universal quota system separate from entrance examination scores. Some students are now admitted to schools on qualifications other than test scores.
Han 한 Hahn
The “Force” Is with Them
There is always something in the cultures of nations that defines the character and personality of the people—something that is responsible for the essence that we label American, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. The nature of this essence is influenced by geography, climate, the flora and fauna of the region, religions, political systems, the proximity to other cultures, and so on. At the same time, there is an inherent spiritual quality in most people that encourages them to endure under the most trying of circumstances and, when the opportunity arises, to improve the quality of their lives dramatically.
There is, perhaps, no better example of all this than the Koreans, a people who have not only survived the hardships of nature and the depravities of their own fellow men but were so tempered by the experience that, once freed from the more onerous restraints and oppressions of the past, they astounded the world with their rapid intellectual and material progress.
Among the forces that were responsible for the character, personality, and aspirations of the Korean people, none were more fateful, for good and bad, than the feudalistic form of government imposed on them from the dawn of their history until the last decades of the twentieth century. It was within this crucible that the essence of the Korean people was forged.
There is a single word in Korean that encompasses and explains to a remarkable degree the spirit, the aspirations, the strength, and the fierce will of the Korean people. This word is han (hahn). Han is an abbreviation of the phrase han tan (hahn tahn), which is defined by Korean sociologists as “unrequited resentments.” But its meaning is far stronger than this definition implies. It refers to a degree of anger and bitterness that wells up from the very depths of the soul and has been passed on from one generation to the next. It is a word that, like primordial matter compressed into a tiny ball, contains unbounded energy and a universe of references and meanings.
Korean social and medical authorities identify many different kinds of han, all of them spawned by the spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical oppression under which the Koreans lived for so many centuries. There is the han of political abuse, the han of status immobility, the han of sexual discrimination, the han of poverty, the han of wartime suffering, the han of stifled ambitions—all of the institutionalized limitations on human freedom and all of the hardships the people of Korea were forced to endure over the ages.
Expressed in another way, han refers to the buildup of unrequited yearnings that were created by oppressive religious and political systems; by life in a society in which most of the normal human drives were subverted or totally denied; by a state of constant fear; and by intense and permanent feelings of frustration, repressed anger, regret, remorse, grief, deprivation, and helplessness.
For centuries, political leaders kept the people of Korea inside a sealed cage that prevented them from developing even a fraction of their potential. They became like steel springs pressed nearly flat, with no way to release their energy, curiosity, or creativity. In an article on the values of the Korean people, essayist In Hoe Kim noted that the feelings of han had a kind of magical power that could cause disaster, because it could easily turn into hatred that became a curse.
Submerged in the psyche of every Korean is the heart and soul of a fierce warrior. When pushed just a little too far, the warrior returns with a rush that shocks the uninitiated foreigner. (This can be particularly disconcerting to foreign men who unintentionally unleash the warrior in Korean women.)
Korean poetry abounds with expressions of han—deep feelings of sadness, frustration, and resentment. The submissiveness of Koreans throughout their feudal history was related directly to the degree of power holding them down. Any lessening of that power resulted in an equal increase in their aggressiveness. If the pressure went beyond a certain point, however, they exploded in violence.
Psychologist Tae Rim Yun attributes this dual nature of Koreans to contradictions between their cultural programming in humility, harmony, and the inherent goodness of man and the harsh reality they actually faced. In his book The Koreans: The Structure of Their Minds, Yun says that although Koreans were forced to be submissive and obedient no matter what the provocations, the “knife of resistance” was turning in their hearts and souls.
All of this repressed energy, all of the repressed needs and aspirations of the Koreans over a period of some five thousand years, is what makes up the han, or the psychic force, that motivates and energizes those Koreans who are now free for the first time in their history. It is this released energy of han that drives Koreans to get an education; to work with a kind of frenzy; to be adaptable, disciplined, and tenacious; to sacrifice themselves for the betterment of their families and their country.
The political, economic, and social successes of South Korea since the mid-1950s demonstrate that no matter how heavy, how old, or how widespread the burdens of han, once the yoke of political oppression has been removed, people can and will help themselves to rise to the level of their abilities.
Nothing produced more han for Koreans than the annexation of the country by Japan in 1910 and the mental and physical pain inflicted on them by the Japanese over the next thirty-five years. Many Koreans say openly that this han is the driving force behind their efforts to outdo the Japanese economically and become a member in good standing of the international community. Certainly the old as well as the new han that continues to influence the attitudes and behavior of Koreans provides much of the himssuda (heem-ssuu-dah), or propensity for Koreans to be “diligent, industrious” and “exert” themselves beyond the norm, noted Korean cultural authority Dr. Martin H. Sours, Professor of International Studies [Ret.] at Thunderbird School of Global Management.
Hanbok 한복 Hahn-boak
People in White
The traditional national costume of Korean men and women is known as hanbok (hahn-boak), which literally means “Korean dress.” One of the more intriguing things about hanbok is that it is so different from the traditional costumes of China and Japan that one might question the cultural relationship among the three countries.
Perhaps because of the influence of Buddhism and Taoism, which promoted a sedate manner and prolonged periods of inactivity, the primary characteristic of the formal traditional costumes of China and Japan is that they were extremely confining. Consisting of full-length “robes” that wrapped around the body more or less like straitjackets, they forced the wearers to take short, mincing steps and limited all other physical actions. Chinese history reveals that many of China’s battles with less civilized tribes of the North and West were lost because the ground-length robes worn by Chinese troops made it impossible for them to move freely and quickly.
