Teachers commonly begin their lessons by asking student what conjures up to their minds when they hear this and that. They ask, for example: ‘when you hear the term ‘globalization’ what first comes to your mind? In the history class it would often be ‘what do you know about the Soviet Union’ or ‘when you hear the name Cuba, what comes to your mind’? For countries like Germany, we would say Hitler, and then quickly rush to add ‘Benz’. Likewise, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and also Toyota, would quickly pop up in our minds for Japan; Idi Amin for Uganda, communism, economic development, cheap products for China and so on.
But we can also put it the other way round. If you hear the word ‘impossible’ or ‘corrupt’, then we can immediately conjure up the Cameroonian police force. What about other adjectives like ‘angry, ‘rude/arrogant’? To these, images of Naomi Campbell, Wayne Rooney and France would instantly flash across our minds.
I enumerate all these because as a child growing up, right up until our High School days, if one were to say ‘Korea’, we would simply stare; just like were they to say ‘Samsung’, we’ll probably tilt our little heads from east to west, and might finally manage to come up with something like ‘Japan’. Why was it so and how is it that the same High School students of today would probably perform better (than we did) on this kind of quiz? I’ll try to answer this question in one of subsequent posts but on this one, I’d just like to stay focused on my pre-arrival thoughts, imaginations, and fantasies and how I managed to develop them, letting them put me on the track of an improbable journey.
Back in the days, it was common to find university mates picking up a magazine and brochure of some university abroad, and then copying the postal address to send a letter of inquiry. The common questions would be on courses offered in this or that field, admission procedure, tuition and scholarship possibilities. Then months later, one would be called up to the administrative office and handed a huge package containing various publicity materials, application and reference forms and a whole bunch of other forms that I still remain perplexed what they were all for. Then one would rush home, burn the lights reading through and then rallying the family to give them the ‘breaking news’ – not of admission but simply of the fact that you’ve heard from a university in the United States, Britain and Canada that offers scholarships to students of this or that field. When it becomes evident that things would not work out in these countries, we’ll embark on a new search, target being Sweden, Finland, Norway. We would avoid Germany because it was hard to find courses offered in English and for some reason, we would not even think of France.
Now comes the real question: why would anyone for whatever reason have thought of Korea or taken interest in travelling there for studies? Korea – a name that sounded so far off, somewhere around nowhere, probably at furthermost end of the world or simply in the wide!
Sure in High School, to prepare for the national completion exam, we had been forced to study and memorize a brief section in the history textbook titled “The Korean War (1950 – 1953)” but we sometimes risked skipping this section, speculating that no question would be asked on this ‘unimportant topic’. Meanwhile in preparation for the Geography exam, we would spend countless hours cramming every topic on Europe and the Middle East: Lumbering in Sweden, Fishing in Norway, almost everything on Spain, France, Germany, Italy etc. In Asia, we could hurriedly get over on the Chinese Revolution, Mao Tse Tung, Communism in Russia, Chan Kai Shek’s Policies, Fishing in Japan, and ….what else?
For me, the 2002 Korea/Japan FIFA World Cup marked a significant event in igniting my interest in Korea. The breaking news that together with Japan, Korea would host the world’s biggest sports event had come as a huge surprise to me. Korea, hosting the FIFA World Cup? How humorous it sounded but this was quickly to change shortly before the games when various TV documentaries started focusing on Korea, showing the extensive road network, tourism sites and unique cultural dynamics. They narrated above all how Korea had had a difficult past, experiencing a devastating war and struggling with mass poverty, but successfully overcoming these odds and engaging in speedy economic development to the extent that the country gained international recognition as one of the ‘Asian Tigers’ along side Singapore, Hongkong and Taiwan.
During the games, besides Cameroon, all other African teams at the tournament, Brazil and England, I intently watched all Korean team games, finding myself supporting and wishing the team victory. I remember neighbors around joked whenever a Korean team game was coming up, saying ‘your ching chongs’ are playing today. (By the way, ‘ching chongs’ is a derogatory expression used in Cameroon to refer to Asian looking people, especially Chinese whose language the people prejudicially regard to basically be a repetition of words with the same rhyme scheme and syllable)
From the start, looking less aggressive, skinny, unknown and generally appearing dominated, compared to their opponents, yet, I found the team scoring goals and winning games. I remember memorizing the names of some of the players, though somewhat difficult – Ahn Jung Wan, Seoul Ki…, Park Ji Sung, who else… oh goalkeeper Lee. I remember the team bringing down three giant European soccer powerhouses (Portugal, Italy and Spain with the last through penalty kick out; but I also remember that terrible feeling of loss I had on that fateful day the team was bundled out of the competition by Miroslav Klose’s Germany.
Well, so ended my hilarious days of celebrating and dreaming of the next victory; but not my interest in the country. I dreamt of living in a world of electronics. I would see brands like Daewoo and Samsung and someone would vaguely guess they’re Korean (quite contrary to what we had thought of them as Japanese!). I would see myself learning the ‘economic miracle’ strategies, understanding how you get to be called a tiger. I would see myself sharing these strategies with others in fulfillment of my sole aspiration to work in international development through a global institution like the UN or World Bank. That’s how I found myself applying to study in Korea, an opportunity that came with a partial scholarship, despite the comparatively lower tuition cost, that is compared to European and American universities)
Truth must be spoken, at this time; Korea was not a priority destination for me personally. It was simply the country that offered me the biggest opportunity to study abroad. So it is more from this opportunity that I was able to build and gain better insight of the country than its known standing in the world as an attractive destination to live and study. I would later tell every one of those skeptics that I had indeed made the right choice. The cynics would waver around, stubbornly refusing to admit that cynicism. I would let them know that though the path had been found, it is just the beginning of my discovery of a new world: one that could light up the path for many people and nations that are interested in moving forward.
Watch out for my next post "From Rags to Riches: Korea as 21st Century’s Biggest Winner"
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