America's Perception of South Korea

            When I first set out on the most recent blog assignment, I figured that people would be fairly familiar with my country, South Korea.  At some point, anyone who has taken basic U.S. history should at the very least be aware of the Korean War.  Also, you don’t have to be a frequent reader of the news to know that the country has been in a fairly volatile state recently.  Reporters in particular have received a lot of publicity after some were imprisoned in North Korea.  There was fairly extensive coverage of the nuclear missile tests that North Korea was conducting, endangering many South Koreans.  Despite all of the history that the country has been through as well as the current events taking place, I found it astonishing how little many people knew.

            When deciding on my interview subjects, I decided to look for a broad range of ages.  That way, while younger generations may not have much knowledge of South Korea, older generations could compensate.

I first interviewed 52-year-old Don MacLeod and 55-year-old Helen Frost.  Both are originally Canadian citizens that moved to California 20 years ago.  Don, who went to college for two years, but did not get a degree, knew a lot about South Korea.  When asked about events that had taken place, he was able to answer a lot of information about the Korean War as well as stating many of the current events that I discussed earlier.  Also, he talked about how the current leader is passing the government onto his 27-year-old son, despite many accusations that the son is psychotic.  For him, the first thing he thought of when asked about South Korea was the fact that “they are almost always on the brink of war.”

All six of my interview subjects mentioned the Korean War when asked about a historical event involving South Korea in the past century.  Their knowledge of the event ranged from simply knowing that it happened to knowing exact dates and significant events that took place within the war.

Helen, on the other hand, had different perceptions of the country.  She was able to state many of the same historical facts and current issues in the country as Don did, but also discussed how Lisa Ling’s sister was recently released from North Korea after being held captive for quite some time.  To her, the first thing that came to mind when asked about South Korea was not their volatile political state, but rather how “hardworking and industrious” the people are.

During many of the interviews I conducted, people mentioned events that had actually happened in North Korea.  In some cases South Koreans were involved, however, it was still interesting to see how little people differentiated between the two countries.  Given the conflict that has taken place between the two, it was strange that people still paired them together so much.

In stark contrast to Helen and Don, both in their 50’s, I also interviewed 16-year-old Sara MacLeod who is currently a sophomore in high school.  She knew very few facts about the country aside from it being in Asia and that it was “not the best place to be living.”  At one point, she even admitted that she didn’t know anything and that she was “such an ignorant American.”  According to her, aside from mostly United States history and some European history, she wasn’t very educated on events taking place outside of our country.

Finally, I interviewed three Cal Poly sophomores.  Elizabeth Chan, a Civil Engineer, knew that the Korean War had taken place and that some reporters had been arrested, but couldn’t name the country’s capital.  Chris Hebert, an Aerospace engineer, also talked about the War and in great detail, but couldn’t name more current news.  Lance Toppen, a Biology major, talked about Kim Jung Il being sick and how the country of North Korea had been at the Beijing Olympics-so he assumed South Korea had too.  On a rather funny note, when he said what came to mind when asked about South Korea, he said “dogs.”

Ultimately, this assignment was quite eye opening.  In high school, my history class focused a lot on the Korean war, and I also watch the news enough to know events that have taken place there in the last few years.  Because of this, I thought that many people, especially my peers, would have similar knowledge.  I was definitely caught off-guard when many people couldn’t name recent events or go into much detail about the Korean War.  Also, many people failed to differentiate between North and South Korea, almost pairing the two together.  In addition, I found it striking that people were even willing to admit that they were ignorant Americans.  It just goes to show how little our country emphasizes foreign news.

-Lindsay MacLeod