One of my papers for the International Reporting class at the J-School

Paper Topic 3. UNFAMILIAR IDEA: Select a foreign political ideology, religion, culture, tradition or armed movement that you believe is poorly understood in the United States. In about 1,500 words, give specific examples (from more than one news organization) of how the movement or issue is commonly covered in the news media, and how you believe it might be covered better. Assume the space devoted to the topic in the news media will not grow; the task here is to say how coverage could be improved within the same space it now receives.

                                                                                                         

Kosuke Takahashi

Nov. 6, 2002

I selected as a paper topic a South Korean ideology, culture, tradition or history that I believe is poorly understood in the United States. One of the major reasons I picked up this country is that I am familiar with its history and culture: I grew up in a Koreatown near Tokyo (although my parents are Japanese) and have been studying Korean Peninsula affairs since university.

While I was in Tokyo last summer, Japan was holding the FIFA World Cup 2002 with South Korea. And there I read so many articles about South Korea. I noticed that some of those articles included half-baked and misleading interpretations of South Korea, which were quite visible especially in the Western media, including mainstream U.S. media such as The New York Times.

Those media repeatedly reported South Koreans who massed in the streets by millions and in the stadiums by thousands during the World Cup, all dressed in the colors of their team, the Red Devils, loudly chanting "Daehan Minguk," a country name in Hangul that literally means, "great Korea people's nation." And then some of those media labeled South Koreans as fierce nationalists and jingoists. It seems to me that their stories lacked historical knowledge and sensibility about the Korean people.

As specific examples of those articles, in this paper I picked up a June 30, 2002, New York Times article, a June 25, 2002, Associated Press article, and  a July 1, 2002 Financial Times article(USA edition).

In a June 30, 2002, New York Times article headlined "Soccer Must Keep The Ball Rolling," George Vecsey, a well-known veteran sports writer at The New York Times, wrote about a questionable refereeing or call, which happened in a match between South Korea and Spain on June 22.

Although he focused on refereeing issues, he wrote "Some fans and national officials see these questionable calls as part of a plot favoring South Korea, a blend of jingoism and paranoia that is quite unbecoming," in the last seventh paragraph. I thought that the phrase "a plot favoring South Korea, a blend of jingoism and paranoia that is quite unbecoming" is a crucial and crude label.

If I had been the writer of this story, I would have omitted this sentence. I have four reasons to do so.

First, since the article focused on refereeing issues, this sentence was not an essential element of the article. The flow of the article also would not be affected at all without that sentence.

Second, I wonder who some fans and national officials were. These sources were vague for readers, and if the writer had wanted to show the names of those fans and national officials in the article, the space devoted to the article would have grown a little bit.

Third, if the writer wants to use the words such as jingoism and paranoia, I think at least that writer have to explain briefly why such jingoism and paranoia are apparent in Korea from a historical perspective. This would be a lot to put into the column, and a reason to leave the reference out. (Personally, I think the writer should not use those words.)

Fourth, FIFA, football's international governing body, actually acclaimed non-violent behavior of the fans in South Korea as well as Japan. Therefore, it is unfair to use the words jingoism and paranoia to mention Korean fans' behavior.

Here I would like to explain the background of my third reason briefly. To me, it seems very natural that the World Cup triggered a strong desire for a national identity, nationalism, and patriotism because Korea has long suffered from surrounding powers such as China, Japan, Russia, and the U.S.

Korea is often described proverbially as "the shrimp that gets caught in the middle of a whales' fight," by many scholars such as Bruce Cumings, a leading U.S. scholar on Korean studies, referring to its geopolitical situation. The history of modern Korea has been dictated largely by international rivalries and power politics. It can be said that the 20^th century history of Korea consists of imperialist colonialism in the first half and cold war conflicts in the second half. For Koreans the end of the Second World War meant the starting point of the Cold War. Korea remains divided even today and have suffered enormously for a national identity.

The Korean people, whose historical education has been emphasized by the Government to gain a national identity, also knew that Japan plundered Korea of seven things such as a sovereign (emperor), lands, names, languages, and lives during Japan's occupation. Moreover, they knew that only two U.S. high  ranking officials such as Dean Rusk, selected an appropriate dividing line, or the 38th parallel, which has distressed them until now, given only 30 minutes in August 1945. And they also knew that the Korean War, the war between the same race, was triggered by a U.S Secretary of State Dean Acheson's speech in Jan. 1950, which had implied that the Korean Peninsula lay outside the all-important "defense perimeter" of the U.S.

If writers, especially American writers, know these above-mentioned facts, they can not easily use the words jingoism and paranoia.

In a June 25, 2002, Associated Press article headlined "Record crowds watch South Korea lose semifinal to Germany," written in an upbeat voice, described South Koreans' uninterrupted frenzy of the World Cup despite the team's loss against Germany. It informed readers that Koreans gained a sense of national unity and pride through the World Cup. In the very last paragraph, the writer explained the background of people's intense excitement, saying "The success has been a huge boost in this land of 47 million that has long suffered from an inferiority complex, being squeezed between China and Japan, who often invaded and subjugated the country."

If I had been the writer, I would have changed the last sentence in the following way. "The success has been a huge boost in this land of 47 million that has learned to mistrust foreign powers since the late 19th century - invaded by China and Japan, then caught up after World War II in the Cold War competition among the United States, China and Russia."

The reason why I add Russia and the U.S. to the sentence is that Koreans know the Korean Peninsula is the only place in the world that remains divided even in the post-Cold war era because of these two powers. And Koreans did show excessive excitement, especially when the team played a match against the U.S. For these reasons, it seems to me natural to add these two countries.

In a July 1, 2002 Financial Times article (USA edition) headlined "World Cup  passions that reflect the real world: If only intolerance and hatred of other cultures and religions could be replaced by the pursuit of perfect ball control,”Dominique Moisi wrote that the World Cup reflected geopolitics, citing many countries which appeared in the soccer tournament. 

In the latter part of the article, he used such phrases as "with the Intense yet superficial exultation of national identity through soccer" and "the cheap exultation of jingoism." The writer did not specify which countries actually have such exultation. But readers who watched the World Cup on television would have an impression that South Korea was the country which has such exultation because as one of the co-hosts South Korea showed wild excitement to the world.

If I had been the writer, I would have just crossed out "yet superficial" and "cheap" from the above-mentioned phrases, and would have used "national identity" instead of "jingoism." For countries such as South Korea which have been tormented by the history, I think that was not any "cheap" or "superficial" exultation.

I would say this article was written from the perspective of the West, which colonized many developing countries, brought about a sea change in the world order and the history of the civilization, and sometimes tends to forget about the people's minds, which have been tortured by the history.

I like to say to those writers who used the words such as jingoism, paranoia, cheap or superficial exultation towards the South Korean people, "Did you think twice why Koreans were so excited about the team's victories over footfall powers during the World Cup? They were just regaining a sense of solidarity and kinship with each other."