"''There's a strange kind of infatuation [in South Korea] with North Korea,'' Professor Cha said. ''[South Koreans] see it as, at worst, a decrepit regime, or a crazy uncle in the attic; either way, not very threatening. Many people would argue there is great naïveté in that view.''"
-Man's Bridge To North Korea Is Seen as Link To Espionage, NY Times. Originally published November 5, 2003, available online.
Showing posts with label Korea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Korea. Show all posts
Monday, July 27, 2009
Friday, August 22, 2008
Thoughts in an airport
I sit in the Incheon International Airport, a scant 9 weeks after my arrival in 韩国 AKA Ko Rea. It's been a halcyon, whirlwind penultimate week; with an ever-dwindling number of students, final meals to be shared, goodbyes to be said (most poignant: my bidding farewell to the bustling and cheap fried chicken stand near work...), and hella packing what to do up, I remained in constant (or at least, consistent) movement over the past four or five days.
I'm sure I'll later confront more directly my break-down of the summer, and those musings will comprise the cornerstone of another update; but, for the moment, I'm content to sit, satiated by the ever-passing moment. Let me paint a picture for those of you not embroiled, at the moment, in the unique, ubiquitous milieu of the international airport.
To my right: a dark sky gives way to rushing clouds. As piscine white scales slink by, the sun peeks coyly out from behind them, vacillating between hiding herself and teasing us with portents of glad weather.
In Korea, I've found her character to be that of a scintillating ingenue: in the last week, our relationship has been a tempestuous (though yet short of actually abusive) and attractive one. Three days of joyful, walk-about weather (we went running through the park Thursday afternoon; we'll always have that) gave way to a final Friday of fat, loud raindrops drumming in a cavalcade of tiny , frantic impacts against the windows of my building and the drenched Seoul streets outside. But she relented from her tantrum (my boss, at lunch yesterday: "I think Seoul is crying, that you are leaving"), coming out to bid me farewell today; I appreciate it.
Baby blue planes striped with white and emblazoned with the Korea Airlines symbol dot the runway, taxiing lazily into the gate. Below, airline workers bustle about, unhurried but efficient. From their pace and bearing, I imagine their conversation to be laconic, comfortable. Familiar.
I'm at my Gate. A line of passengers ebbs before me; from the demographics represented therein, I assume (is that ever safe?) that it is a midwest-bound flight. Obvious G.I.'s (a safe assumption, judging by the "JAMES" "ARMY" velcro-patch firmly attached to backpack) mingle with what looks like a college students' basketball team - ridiculous, in gym shorts, t-shirt, and tourist-issue rice paddy hat (he will never wear it in the States; it will lie in the corner of his dorm room, wind up as a frat house cast-off story, or in his basement) - and Korean mothers and fathers placating their hyperactive children. A White woman walks by me, bumblebee-yellow neck pillow already affixed: after the sartorial standards of Korea, it is hard to forget (but I will, I shall, forgive) the sight of loose sweatpants, threadbare ragged hems dragging under thin sandals, a loosely-worn hoodie bulging over a t-shirt one or two sizes too large.
The line empties. Two last basketball girls wait for their friend; she ambles out of the bathroom, gathering up her baggage. Her t-shirt (she looks like an M; it is an L; I notice these things now. Good or bad or what?) reads, in starkly white-on-black, off-centred, comedic (think Comic-Sans sans-cliche) typography: POLLY'S KITCHEN
SEOUL, KOREA,
an epitome of expatriated, exported culture(?). (I mean the t-shirt, and not the girl)
One last White woman jogs up, gulping for breath. An Asian man follows her, headphones askew and bouncing.
All is quiet on this front.
Then! Suddenly, out of nowhere, it seems, a rush. More out-of-breath travelers - the dilatory crowd - bolts up: a mother and her son, a tall Black man, and a few others. The procrastinators empty in, and again serenity takes her place in line. The people-mover scrolls by, travelers bound for other gates and destinations (Dubai? Mumbai? The Bay?) scanning past, as the waiting area lies dormant, deserted: floor lined with thin strips of cheap laminated-looking dark wood, cush L-back leather seats, and a sprinkling of early travelers either accustomed to caution or unaccustomed to traveling.
The Korean Job is over; now the Beijing Journey.
Post Scriptum, Visions of Seoul redux: A young girl in the airport passes, carting a small wheeled carry-on. Her shirt: AMERICANPIE AND FITCH. Clever parody or simply plagiarism? You decide.
Post Scriptum, Part Second: [excerpted from gchat]
P: hahahahahhahaa
Me: like an hour
[a few minutes later]
I'm sure I'll later confront more directly my break-down of the summer, and those musings will comprise the cornerstone of another update; but, for the moment, I'm content to sit, satiated by the ever-passing moment. Let me paint a picture for those of you not embroiled, at the moment, in the unique, ubiquitous milieu of the international airport.
To my right: a dark sky gives way to rushing clouds. As piscine white scales slink by, the sun peeks coyly out from behind them, vacillating between hiding herself and teasing us with portents of glad weather.
In Korea, I've found her character to be that of a scintillating ingenue: in the last week, our relationship has been a tempestuous (though yet short of actually abusive) and attractive one. Three days of joyful, walk-about weather (we went running through the park Thursday afternoon; we'll always have that) gave way to a final Friday of fat, loud raindrops drumming in a cavalcade of tiny , frantic impacts against the windows of my building and the drenched Seoul streets outside. But she relented from her tantrum (my boss, at lunch yesterday: "I think Seoul is crying, that you are leaving"), coming out to bid me farewell today; I appreciate it.
Baby blue planes striped with white and emblazoned with the Korea Airlines symbol dot the runway, taxiing lazily into the gate. Below, airline workers bustle about, unhurried but efficient. From their pace and bearing, I imagine their conversation to be laconic, comfortable. Familiar.
I'm at my Gate. A line of passengers ebbs before me; from the demographics represented therein, I assume (is that ever safe?) that it is a midwest-bound flight. Obvious G.I.'s (a safe assumption, judging by the "JAMES" "ARMY" velcro-patch firmly attached to backpack) mingle with what looks like a college students' basketball team - ridiculous, in gym shorts, t-shirt, and tourist-issue rice paddy hat (he will never wear it in the States; it will lie in the corner of his dorm room, wind up as a frat house cast-off story, or in his basement) - and Korean mothers and fathers placating their hyperactive children. A White woman walks by me, bumblebee-yellow neck pillow already affixed: after the sartorial standards of Korea, it is hard to forget (but I will, I shall, forgive) the sight of loose sweatpants, threadbare ragged hems dragging under thin sandals, a loosely-worn hoodie bulging over a t-shirt one or two sizes too large.
The line empties. Two last basketball girls wait for their friend; she ambles out of the bathroom, gathering up her baggage. Her t-shirt (she looks like an M; it is an L; I notice these things now. Good or bad or what?) reads, in starkly white-on-black, off-centred, comedic (think Comic-Sans sans-cliche) typography: POLLY'S KITCHEN
SEOUL, KOREA,
an epitome of expatriated, exported culture(?). (I mean the t-shirt, and not the girl)
One last White woman jogs up, gulping for breath. An Asian man follows her, headphones askew and bouncing.
All is quiet on this front.
Then! Suddenly, out of nowhere, it seems, a rush. More out-of-breath travelers - the dilatory crowd - bolts up: a mother and her son, a tall Black man, and a few others. The procrastinators empty in, and again serenity takes her place in line. The people-mover scrolls by, travelers bound for other gates and destinations (Dubai? Mumbai? The Bay?) scanning past, as the waiting area lies dormant, deserted: floor lined with thin strips of cheap laminated-looking dark wood, cush L-back leather seats, and a sprinkling of early travelers either accustomed to caution or unaccustomed to traveling.
The Korean Job is over; now the Beijing Journey.
Post Scriptum, Visions of Seoul redux: A young girl in the airport passes, carting a small wheeled carry-on. Her shirt: AMERICANPIE AND FITCH. Clever parody or simply plagiarism? You decide.
Post Scriptum, Part Second: [excerpted from gchat]
Me: ...the 30-something woman with a young child sitting next to me is taking like 10 pictures of herself Myspace-style
P: hahahahahhahaa
awesome
are you in airport
how long until boarding
Me: like an hour
[a few minutes later]
Me: ....she's still taking photos
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Louis this, Gucci that: thoughts on aspirational consumerism in Seoul
[Disclaimer: this is written with the full knowledge that its very author may also be implicated as complicit in abetting and supporting the behavior critiqued within. See explanation below.]
The very first time I jumped on the subway from Ju-Yeop into Seoul, I was unprepared for the veritable flood of luxury items with which I was confronted. As, frankly, a confessed brand monitor, if not outright follower, I had thought that my trips around SoHo and Broadway/5th Avenue (not to mention, 4 undergraduate years at a ridiculously wealthy school) had inoculated me against the vast human drive to consume.
Not so, apparently. Over the course of my first trip into Seoul - not to mention subsequent jaunts around town - I am nigh-certain that I saw more Louis Vuitton monogrammata than in the preceding 22 years of my modestly accomplished (if overly self-congratulatory) life. My current estimation grants something like 1 in every 7 or 8 women (and 1 in every 15-20 men) on the subway/street in my corner of Korea (including in church, in the mall, on the bus, etc.) an aspirationally branded carryall, purse, or other sort of bag; not to mention the belts, wallets, etc. and the like which parade themselves in front of me on a weekly basis.
Aspirational brands? I hope not, for - if so - these Ko Rean citizens sleep fitfully and dreamlessly.
Far be it from me to criticize a foreign culture (I say as I prepare to plunge into exactly such a piece of critical work), and I do hold out hope that this one niche impression in a sole field of Ko Rean life is merely some quixotic quirk of the cultural milieu, but this overabundance of luxury goods has inculcated in me an instinctive reaction to the very hint of a Prada nameplate, the Gucci interlocked G's, or the brown/tan patchwork of a Louis bag: to wit, I have begun loathing the trappings of conspicuous consumption.
Actually and honestly loathing: my reaction has taken on a visceral note; I nearly (and occasionally literally) cringe at the sight of another overexposed high-fashion brand, and have been (thankfully, not often, and only, I pray, in exaggerated rhetorical jest) struck by the desire to bear down on the next bearer of such an item, wielding vengeance in my own fist.
Of course, this is an odd confession from an avowed fan of, well, consumption. Let's be blunt here. I am straight up a purchaser: I will subsist on $5 a day but then drop $40-80 on a pair of shoes like it is not even a thing. And perhaps, in some indirect way, this is an indictment of my own habits.
But I think there are some distinguishing features of this particular obsession which particularly sadden me, in ways that (I hope) my own spending patterns remain innocuous (though it still provokes thought). Mainly, my arguments fall into two categories: (1) that such an obsession, if not the actual physical ubiquitousness of such items, is a sad reflection on the status of popular culture and spending trends, and (2-4) that such acquisition is actually statistically self-defeating.
1) Statistics: either Koreans are madd rich, or people are far over-reaching their means.
The prevalence of Louis Vuitton bags is such that either 12-18% of the population in Seoul (at least, that part of the population within my sampled demographic) is wealthy enough to spend multiple thousands of dollars (that is, multiple millions of Korean Won) on a single cosmetic item; or what I consider the more likely scenario (and again, it is a presumption on my part that Seoul does not have precisely such a well-earning population), that a large percentage of the population considers the status of owning a Louis bag (what status is this? see below) to grant sufficient utility such that it outweighs the additional work required (or benefits sacrificed) to earn the extra few thousand dollars to purchase the item.
2) Removing the "luxury" from "luxury brand".
All the brands whose prevalence has been increasingly obnoxious to me are brands whose hallmark is that they are, definitionally, aspirational: that is, to own such an item from such a brand ought to be something to which one aspires, and then, in a culminating moment, in the apex of one's consumerism, attains. The permeation of such items into Korean society cheapens this aspirational aspect: if everyone has a Prada bag or a Louis belt or a Gucci wallet, then acquisition becomes no longer joyful. It is, in some perverted sense, mandatory.
3) "A little Louis better than no Louis at all"... nah.
The items which I have been seeing have, as a general rule (with several exceptions), been smaller-ticket items. A small belt, a small wallet, the smaller-sized (and more simply designed) purse or carryall. This is one of the points which seems self-defeating to me: the very idea of an aspirational luxury item is that it serves as an ostentatious display of wealth. LV and other aspirational brands produce small lower-price-range items for two reasons: (i) to provide corollary goods for those high-rollers wealthy enough to purchase the large-ticket items (i.e. you get the LV backpack... and you get the belt to match. You get the Gucci kicks, or windbreaker, and the wallet to match) and (ii) to cajole those without the financial werewithal to purchase the more expensive items into spending their money on secondary items. A preponderance of small-ticket items without a large-ticket item conveys a sense that the wearer/bearer falls into (ii): someone without the means to purchase a more expensive brand item, who wants, but cannot and does not actually have, the status associated with said brand. This is the epitome of ironic self-defeat: in purchasing and bearing supposed luxury goods, the consumer actually expresses their lack of economic status.
4) "Youse all biters!" (Beat Street); swagger jacking.
Stylistically, this seems self-defeating as well (a bone which I have to pick with much of Korean society at large... but I don't want to get too aggy on 'em at this moment yet [Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em!]). The very essence of a luxury good lies in connoting to others the sense of classic style and coolness: that the {w,b}earer is sufficiently entitled such that they can afford time and money on something which is stylish, functional, and blings hella bread. By cheapening the idea of a stylistic luxury item to the level of a common accessory, the idea of good taste flies out the window: if you wear a Louis item like a nouveau riche, it is not serving to lend you an air of class; you are lending it an air of banality.
What does it all mean?
So, then, why do so many desire the status conveyed by these items? What do these items say about an individual, if anything?
As I touched on in (1) and (2), above, the status of carrying such an item cannot be that one is wealthy: the prevalence of such items likely (I suspect) implies that owning an aspirational item does not necessitate the purchaser's entrance into a particular social class. Rather, it only implies that one values such an item as greater than the utility of other goods, services, and benefits which could be purchased for an equal amount of money (which is a troubling realization, in general, regarding aspirational items, especially when compared against the cost of, say, feeding or educating children, widows, etc., in much of the third world... but more acceptable, for various reasons which I may later articulate, for those with immense disposable incomes; less so, perhaps, for those without).
Also fairly obvious (again: highly subjective words) is that the value of such items does not lie in their ability to serve as accoutrements to a certain style or fashion of attire. I have seen luxury items acting in blatant counterpoint to the dress of the person carrying them: in fact, such a use of said items seems purposeful, highlighting flamboyant wealth through stark juxtaposition. It's tacky and tasteless: worse than meaningless, it points out a deficiency of fashion sense and style.
So, it seems, this is the purpose of such items: the brusque display of gross wealth.
But again: isn't this simply the purview of the nouveau-riche? Or the rustic fakir, making pretense of wealth but spending grotesque quantities of money in the wrong places: the entry-level BMW with the baller status rims.
I submit, then, that this is the sad state of affairs: aspirational brands, due to overexposure in popular society (along with a lack of imagination and comprehension of the source of such brands' popularity), have transformed from status symbol to sign of misappropriated and likely misused funds.
Corollary I - Fakes, and the negligible effects thereof:
Of course, it has come (and been brought) to my attention: such items may be, in large part, fakes. A sham, a gilded brass ring.
But does this change my argument in the slightest? Not at all. In fact, it only advances my argument that aspirational brands' function as status symbol has been surplanted by their status as emblem of a tragic lack of sartorial imagination and farcical aspersion to wealth, for reasons that ought to be fairly obvious.
The very first time I jumped on the subway from Ju-Yeop into Seoul, I was unprepared for the veritable flood of luxury items with which I was confronted. As, frankly, a confessed brand monitor, if not outright follower, I had thought that my trips around SoHo and Broadway/5th Avenue (not to mention, 4 undergraduate years at a ridiculously wealthy school) had inoculated me against the vast human drive to consume.
Not so, apparently. Over the course of my first trip into Seoul - not to mention subsequent jaunts around town - I am nigh-certain that I saw more Louis Vuitton monogrammata than in the preceding 22 years of my modestly accomplished (if overly self-congratulatory) life. My current estimation grants something like 1 in every 7 or 8 women (and 1 in every 15-20 men) on the subway/street in my corner of Korea (including in church, in the mall, on the bus, etc.) an aspirationally branded carryall, purse, or other sort of bag; not to mention the belts, wallets, etc. and the like which parade themselves in front of me on a weekly basis.
Aspirational brands? I hope not, for - if so - these Ko Rean citizens sleep fitfully and dreamlessly.
Far be it from me to criticize a foreign culture (I say as I prepare to plunge into exactly such a piece of critical work), and I do hold out hope that this one niche impression in a sole field of Ko Rean life is merely some quixotic quirk of the cultural milieu, but this overabundance of luxury goods has inculcated in me an instinctive reaction to the very hint of a Prada nameplate, the Gucci interlocked G's, or the brown/tan patchwork of a Louis bag: to wit, I have begun loathing the trappings of conspicuous consumption.
Actually and honestly loathing: my reaction has taken on a visceral note; I nearly (and occasionally literally) cringe at the sight of another overexposed high-fashion brand, and have been (thankfully, not often, and only, I pray, in exaggerated rhetorical jest) struck by the desire to bear down on the next bearer of such an item, wielding vengeance in my own fist.
Of course, this is an odd confession from an avowed fan of, well, consumption. Let's be blunt here. I am straight up a purchaser: I will subsist on $5 a day but then drop $40-80 on a pair of shoes like it is not even a thing. And perhaps, in some indirect way, this is an indictment of my own habits.
But I think there are some distinguishing features of this particular obsession which particularly sadden me, in ways that (I hope) my own spending patterns remain innocuous (though it still provokes thought). Mainly, my arguments fall into two categories: (1) that such an obsession, if not the actual physical ubiquitousness of such items, is a sad reflection on the status of popular culture and spending trends, and (2-4) that such acquisition is actually statistically self-defeating.
1) Statistics: either Koreans are madd rich, or people are far over-reaching their means.
The prevalence of Louis Vuitton bags is such that either 12-18% of the population in Seoul (at least, that part of the population within my sampled demographic) is wealthy enough to spend multiple thousands of dollars (that is, multiple millions of Korean Won) on a single cosmetic item; or what I consider the more likely scenario (and again, it is a presumption on my part that Seoul does not have precisely such a well-earning population), that a large percentage of the population considers the status of owning a Louis bag (what status is this? see below) to grant sufficient utility such that it outweighs the additional work required (or benefits sacrificed) to earn the extra few thousand dollars to purchase the item.
2) Removing the "luxury" from "luxury brand".
All the brands whose prevalence has been increasingly obnoxious to me are brands whose hallmark is that they are, definitionally, aspirational: that is, to own such an item from such a brand ought to be something to which one aspires, and then, in a culminating moment, in the apex of one's consumerism, attains. The permeation of such items into Korean society cheapens this aspirational aspect: if everyone has a Prada bag or a Louis belt or a Gucci wallet, then acquisition becomes no longer joyful. It is, in some perverted sense, mandatory.
3) "A little Louis better than no Louis at all"... nah.
The items which I have been seeing have, as a general rule (with several exceptions), been smaller-ticket items. A small belt, a small wallet, the smaller-sized (and more simply designed) purse or carryall. This is one of the points which seems self-defeating to me: the very idea of an aspirational luxury item is that it serves as an ostentatious display of wealth. LV and other aspirational brands produce small lower-price-range items for two reasons: (i) to provide corollary goods for those high-rollers wealthy enough to purchase the large-ticket items (i.e. you get the LV backpack... and you get the belt to match. You get the Gucci kicks, or windbreaker, and the wallet to match) and (ii) to cajole those without the financial werewithal to purchase the more expensive items into spending their money on secondary items. A preponderance of small-ticket items without a large-ticket item conveys a sense that the wearer/bearer falls into (ii): someone without the means to purchase a more expensive brand item, who wants, but cannot and does not actually have, the status associated with said brand. This is the epitome of ironic self-defeat: in purchasing and bearing supposed luxury goods, the consumer actually expresses their lack of economic status.
4) "Youse all biters!" (Beat Street); swagger jacking.
Stylistically, this seems self-defeating as well (a bone which I have to pick with much of Korean society at large... but I don't want to get too aggy on 'em at this moment yet [Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em!]). The very essence of a luxury good lies in connoting to others the sense of classic style and coolness: that the {w,b}earer is sufficiently entitled such that they can afford time and money on something which is stylish, functional, and blings hella bread. By cheapening the idea of a stylistic luxury item to the level of a common accessory, the idea of good taste flies out the window: if you wear a Louis item like a nouveau riche, it is not serving to lend you an air of class; you are lending it an air of banality.
What does it all mean?
So, then, why do so many desire the status conveyed by these items? What do these items say about an individual, if anything?
As I touched on in (1) and (2), above, the status of carrying such an item cannot be that one is wealthy: the prevalence of such items likely (I suspect) implies that owning an aspirational item does not necessitate the purchaser's entrance into a particular social class. Rather, it only implies that one values such an item as greater than the utility of other goods, services, and benefits which could be purchased for an equal amount of money (which is a troubling realization, in general, regarding aspirational items, especially when compared against the cost of, say, feeding or educating children, widows, etc., in much of the third world... but more acceptable, for various reasons which I may later articulate, for those with immense disposable incomes; less so, perhaps, for those without).
Also fairly obvious (again: highly subjective words) is that the value of such items does not lie in their ability to serve as accoutrements to a certain style or fashion of attire. I have seen luxury items acting in blatant counterpoint to the dress of the person carrying them: in fact, such a use of said items seems purposeful, highlighting flamboyant wealth through stark juxtaposition. It's tacky and tasteless: worse than meaningless, it points out a deficiency of fashion sense and style.
So, it seems, this is the purpose of such items: the brusque display of gross wealth.
But again: isn't this simply the purview of the nouveau-riche? Or the rustic fakir, making pretense of wealth but spending grotesque quantities of money in the wrong places: the entry-level BMW with the baller status rims.
I submit, then, that this is the sad state of affairs: aspirational brands, due to overexposure in popular society (along with a lack of imagination and comprehension of the source of such brands' popularity), have transformed from status symbol to sign of misappropriated and likely misused funds.
Corollary I - Fakes, and the negligible effects thereof:
Of course, it has come (and been brought) to my attention: such items may be, in large part, fakes. A sham, a gilded brass ring.
But does this change my argument in the slightest? Not at all. In fact, it only advances my argument that aspirational brands' function as status symbol has been surplanted by their status as emblem of a tragic lack of sartorial imagination and farcical aspersion to wealth, for reasons that ought to be fairly obvious.
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