Dear Friends and Family,

Post-travel laundry is fogging up the windows of my kitchen, the lady that peddles my favorite soup has scolded me “long time, no see,” I’ve met with friends to celebrate my birthday, and sated my craving for kimchi. It feels good to be home in Korea from Beijing. Now falling into routine, I took myself for my usual morning run at the gym, placing myself on a treadmill in front of multiple television screens flashing Val Kilmer in The Saint (although it is a bit of a mystery how I identified an 11 year-old movie that I have never seen). Handsome as Val Kilmer is, I quickly became distracted by other TV screens featuring a news story of black roof tiles licked by destructive orange flames. That news story continued and continued past the hour that it took me to complete my run. Korean news is presented a lot like our news; that burning building had to be important.

It was. Last night, South Korean National Treasure Number 1, the Namdaemun Gate, considered the oldest wood-built structure remaining in Seoul, burned ‘til it collapsed. Completed in 1398, the southern-facing Namdaemun Gate was built to protect the people of the new Joseon Dynasty capital, Seoul, against thieves, attacks and wild tigers. In fact, building city walls must’ve been en vogue during that time as just a few years later, in 1435, the Ming Dynasty of China completed its city wall. The southern-facing Qianmen Gate from that wall has been much renovated and yet remains just south of Beijing’s famous Tiananmen Square.

"People's hearts will ache," Korean President-elect Lee Myung-bak was quoted this morning. Although the gate’s age must be debatable (it had been renovated as late as the 1960s), nonetheless that gate was important to Koreans. And having returned from a week of pouring over a multitude of historic artifacts in Beijing, my sensitivity is rather high. So even I felt the prickle of tears unrelated to the pace that I was running when I realized what had been destroyed. How easily historic relics vanish.

The Times of London Story
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BBC Pictures from the February 10, 2008 fire

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Of course, Korea and China have a lot more in common than stylish city walls and gate buildings. The history of both countries has been entwined for millennia. Over time, Confucianism, the lunar calendar, art, architecture, and language, amongst other things, flowed from China to Korea. The two states were especially close during the 500 years or so that Korea spent as a Chinese tributary state. China’s influence on Korea is marked, pervasive.

Knowing about that influence, but not truly understanding the details, I’ve been split on the notion of visiting China. Geographically, I am amazingly close to China. How could I not seize the opportunity to visit The Forbidden City, the Great Wall, eat Dim Sum, Peking duck, and hand-shaved noodles? Yet on the other hand, China is the least modern state of the Asian Triad (as I’ve mentally dubbed Japan, Korea & China.) I find the governmental situation and cultural norms of the country unsettling, its geographical size daunting, and its language inaccessible. And after months of discomfort with Korean cultural norms, I began downright fearful of placing myself in the middle of even more intense Chinese cultural norms.

One day I admitted my fear aloud. During a travel discussion, I confided to my co-worker, “I am really scared to go to China.” His reaction was to wrinkle his brow, his wordless method of telling me that I am illogical. He does a lot of this which causes me to walk away mentally pulling apart my thoughts in order to examine and logically reassemble them. But in the case of China, my fear did not stand up to logical assembly. Also, since departing the States it has been my resolution to not let illogical fears stop me from experiencing life to the fullest. I greatly fear climbing to heights but up Angkor for the majestic view I went. I fear scorn but cannot let that stop me from engaging with people, even when I do not speak their language. I am terrified of motorcycles but I spent a day motoring myself around on one in Sumatra. But most of all, I’m petrified that I will let life slip by without living it to the fullest. I had to go to China.

So I bought the LP on China, wrangled an agency out of a Visa; I eyed the calendar for travel time and surfed the web for specials to Beijing. And I arrived in Beijing with an overarching question: how much of Korean culture is related to Chinese culture? Or, asked another way, how are the Chinese and Koreans similar? How are they different?

I have spent nearly 485 days in Korea. I spent 7 days in Beijing. While in Beijing, I soaked in everything I could and while I was able to make many observations, I cannot be certain about the accuracy of my conclusions. Because here’s the thing: one cannot establish an understanding of a country, especially one as large and complicated as China, merely by doing a bit of reading and visiting its capital for seven days. This would be like a Chinese person coming to Washington D.C., staying for a week, visiting the White House, the Smithsonian, taking a tour to Mt. Vernon, and feeling that no further understanding of the United States is necessary.

Pithy descriptions of China say things like, “From the treasures of dynasties to economic dynamo, China presents a culture of the astonishing…” OR “China isn't a country - it's it's own world. From shop-till-you-drop metropolises to the epic grasslands of Inner Mongolia - with deserts, sacred peaks, astounding caves, and imperial ruins - it's a land of cultural and geographic schisms.” OR “Animated by a palpable sense of pride, and with the Beijing Olympics on the cusp of arrival, the Chinese are reveling in their country’s ascendancy.” And indeed, I did feel evidence of what these glowing descriptions were trying to speak to. It did seem that the atmosphere of Beijing felt rife with possibility. The city felt like a flower, long closed to the world, now spreading its pedals while the world is bending over to peer at it. I found the atmosphere somehow different than Korea, a country that continues to deeply want the world to peer at it while it is mired to it ankles in habits leftover from when Korea was otherwise known as “The Hermit Kingdom.” Possibility doesn’t feel rife in Korea, but then, economically Korea has already produced its own miracle.

Historically, the Chinese have a lot to brag about their creations benefiting mankind: the development of iron and steel, silk-making, kites, wheelbarrows, noodles, paper, umbrellas, playing cards, moveable printing, suspension bridges, acupuncture, and gunpowder, amongst other innovations. And of course, China was one of the first nation-states in the sense we identify them today. China centered and even linked the nations around it through trade and diplomatic relations, and influenced a region-wide understanding of the principles, norms, and rules that regulated interactions of their world. Korea, as a tributary, acted as a Confucian-style little brother state to China, benefiting from those contributions, and modifying those contributions to suit their needs. Koreans are very good adopt and modifiers – to this day – but they are not particularly good innovators.

One day in Beijing, I was on the way to Tiananmen Square when I found myself in a pleasant conversation with a university student. When I told her that I teach in Korea she asked, “Don’t Korean people look like Chinese people?”

I had already considered this and didn’t pause before replying, “Not really.” Meaning both that I don’t think all Asians are alike as well as meaning that I do not think that Chinese and Koreans look alike. Generally, I find the Chinese shorter (although not all short – I did see a Chinese man tall enough to remind of Chinese-born NBA star Yao Ming), their faces looked careworn, and they sported fewer do-dads and less quality clothing than Koreans. Which made the plethora of rhinestone studded, obviously plastic boots that seem currently popular with the Beijing subway-riding set a bit incongruous. In comparison, Koreans are taller in stature, are able to take better care of their facial skin, and the quality of their clothing is better. Koreans adore rhinestones although happily (in my opinion), studding their boots with them has yet to become the rage here. And I’m hard-pressed to explain how, but I felt that Korean and Chinese facial features and body shapes also differ. I find Koreans the more attractive.

Many people in both countries intensely dislike Japan; the atrocities during the early part of the 20^th century are far from forgotten. This was made clear to me by my Great Wall tour guide when I asked him what the Chinese thought about Koreans.

“People our age are learning to like Korean fashions and their music.” He replied.

“Really?” I was intrigued. “I often think that Korean fashion and music is influenced by Japan. Is Chinese pop culture interested in Japan too?”

“No.” He replied. And then he lowered his voice in deference to my then-sleeping Japanese tour companion. “We Chinese cannot forget the bad things that Japan did not so long ago. And we are very angry that to this day, textbooks in Japan do not tell the truth about that time.”

I was surprised. Many Koreans harbor a very similar sentiment towards Japan but I get the sense that Koreans are willing to overlook or move on from the past for economic reasons. And because Japan produces super-radical Hello Kitty products!

Although generally I believe that both China and Korea have a hate-love relationship with foreigners. The Chinese look like a more diverse lot than the Koreans. China is comprised of a “Han people” majority but other groups in China include the Manchus, the Mongols, the Tibetans, and other groups that I’m not familiar with such as the Zhuang, the Hui and the Miao. I don’t know if this makes Chinese a tad kinder towards other Asians but I hope so. As for how I, a definite Westerner, was treated in China, most of the time I felt rendered invisible. Service people were dull-eyed and uninterested and preferred, when possible, to ignore me. Almost no one wanted to talk to me. Few people on the street would even go so far as to make eye contact with me and usually when someone made contact, they wanted to sell me into something. Mostly for this reason, I believe, for the first time in my travels I felt lonely in Beijing. On the other hand, Koreans as a rule are no more fond of foreigners; they can be very unkind to other Asians, especially South East Asians, and even worse to Blacks. However, in every place I’ve traveled, including Seoul, many have been eager to assist me the moment I look confused, many like to practice their English with me, and even more are often happy to exchange bows with me. Sometimes I get obvious deference due to my obvious teacher “status” (here the word teacher is used more similarly to how we use titles in English) which I cannot find uncongenial. And honestly, Western foreigners such as myself actually get too much attention here – crowds of elementary students sometimes want our autographs, we get many shouts of “hello,” and we get stared at all the time. Not that I haven’t met my share of unpleasant people here in Korea, but my number of unpleasant encounters have been far exceeded by wonderful people moments in Korea which has lead me to conclude that Koreans are more interested in foreigners than they say they are.

So, going back to the question of how are the Chinese and Koreans are similar and how they are different? I cannot truly say. But from this trip I can say that they are less similar than I supposed - their cultures vary in both subtle and distinct ways. My ultimate conclusion was that in the future, I must return to spend more than 7 days in China, visit more than just the capital, and then re-attempt to better answer my curiosity.

Someday....--L

The Quianmen Gate with the Quianmen Archery Tower in the background marks the southern edge of Tiananmen Square in Beijing.