Cultural and Societal Reflections
Born and raised in Idaho, Bibiana Ortiz, they/them, is a third year student pursuing their undergraduate degree in Sociology and Ethnic Studies with a minor in Korean and certificate in Data Science. Their career goal is to work in spaces where they can simultaneously grow their creative potential and advocate for queer, trans, gender non-conforming communities of color within policy, education, and media. Bibiana believes writing and reading everyday is essential for life. Currently you can find Bibiana engaging in social distancing, practicing Fender guitar tutorials, and co-hosting/producing their queer film podcast, Bitch Box, which you can find all mainstream podcast services.
Cultural and Societal Reflections
In my first week of Korean 101, my professor informed me to eat boogers. Confused and mortified, I observed as she kept repeating the same action of scooping up an imaginary bowl and spoon to mouth, opening wide to swallow, and then saying boogers four times.
Growing up as a child of Spanish-dominate, Mexican immigrants, my Spanish/English bilingualism alloted great benefit and privilege as I could navigate multiple spaces — my English only classrooms, my multilingual playgrounds, and my Spanish mercados. However, during that August of Korean basics, I was at a loss for words, even with two languages at my disposal. Upon clarification from my instructor, the results were final: my Korean professor was teaching me “먹어” (meok-eo) in Korean, but my Spanish ears caught “moco” instead which translates in English to “boogers”. “먹어” in Korean does not mean “boogers”; it means “to eat”.
It was the first week of my Korean learning and I was already struggling. Nonetheless, that journey has now tunneled me through a steep, narrow curve and after several years, my studies have finally brought me to Korea. Because my studies are rooted in critiquing the ways power creates and forms cultures and their peoples, I was excited to be in Seoul for ten months — it also being the first time I was leaving the United States. As such, there are two components of Korean culture I have experienced throughout my four months here that I find extremely worth noting: conservatism and how queerness lives within Korea and collectivism and conformity within Korea’s drinking culture.
Firstly, a majority of Korean cultural habits can be linked to a certain moment or movement in their unique, complex history. The historical, consistent power struggles of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Christianity as the common, dominant religion gives way to a conservative influence on individual expression, interpersonal interactions, and societal acceptance within Korea, specifically sexuality. While a shift is occuring within Korea’s youth for acceptance of queer and trans people, discrimation is normalized and a ordinary occurence towards folks of minority sexualities and gender expressions. As an open and out, pansexual, trans nonbinary student at a predominantly white institution that holds extremely heternormative standards, I have nonetheless had the privilege of being in spaces of community with other queer and trans students of color through clubs, poetry nights, and community events to share our experiences together. I knew it was going to be a different experience trying to find queer and trans communities while in Korea because of the conservatism I already knew about.
When attempting to find community once I was here, I noticed that I could not accessibly locate queer spaces, less they were in bar scenes, and often, cis gay men would stick to gay men clubs and cis lesbian womxn would stick to lesbian womxn clubs. Even when I looked on college campuses, I was not able to find student groups or clubs for LGBTIQ+ community. More so, while I am still learning Korean, I recognize my own inability to fully understand Korean adds another barrier for myself. However, it was not until week twelve of the semester where after dealing with an experience of having to ask someone why they used the word “faggot” so casually to describe people, I went to a drag show on an off whim from a classmate’s word. It was rejuvenating. I got to meet queer Korean individuals, do an impromptu dance number, and be in community with people who understood me, if even for one night.
Additionally, my queer, trans experience seeped into my studies while giving a presentation on the influence of Western and Eastern religions on the lives of queer and trans youth. While my research was factual and backed with academic sources, the importance of vulnerability was a priority to this moment — to place an actual living human in front of them to tangibilize these situations — so I shared about my own experiences: of knowing for a long time that I was queer, coming out to my conservative, Christian immigrant parents to save them embarrasment from finding out from someone other than myself, that they cut me off because of their religious believes, that they no longer support me attending college, and that I was living without contact with my parents. Healing is and always will be cyclical, so my anxieties were strongly present, but I wanted to make a greater connection and relatability to my peers. What I did not expect was the reaction: six Korean students individually thanked me for my story after my presentation and if I would be willing to share my information with them. I did not expect to have such a communal reaction from my classmates; it illustrated to me the potential of honest, story sharing. While the queer and trans community is very much hidden and unacknowledged in conservative Korea, the power of vulnerability through stories can bring people together to find community. I am sure I will keep on relearning this as I grow individually and as I continue to connect more with the queer community in conservative Korea.
The second cultural component I have learned and observed while in Korea is collectivism and conformity within Korea’s drinking culture and its potential impacts. Often in most Eastern societies, an individual will define self through membership to a community and then as an individual where in comparison to Western societies, the self is interpreted as an individual first and then through membership to a community. As such, the influence of collectiveness caters towards considering the essence and stability of the group before the individual. In Korea, saving face in a group and for the group is prioritized over confrontation. In correspondence to the drinking culture in Korea, drinking firstly does not hold a negative stigma and I think it is partly because it is used more so as a means to get people together and be with each other. I spent Chuseok with my Korean friend’s family and everyone in the family drank except for the younger children. My other Korean friends have shared with me too that often drinking is a form of networking for jobs and if you do not partake, you may be considered an outsider or loner. This leads me to consider the ways in which Korean society is extremely communal and collective, even with their drinking culture, however, there is a lot of peer pressure to conform to not feel left out.
Furthermore, club conformity culture mixed with alcohol can lead some to believe that they are not accountable for their actions, however, one is always responsible for their actions and the impact of their consequences regardless of their country of origin. One of the earliest experiences I had in Seoul involved being at a club, leaning over the counter as I drank water because I don’t particularly enjoy alcohol, having my rear end smacked by a lingering, large hand and then hearing laughs behind me. In that moment, I whipped around to be horseshoed by three Korean men whose faces changed from chuckles to shock as I confronted each one of them, asking in the most colorful, vibrant, biting language (I’m paraphrasing a bit here) if they had put their nasty, disgusting, crusty sausage fingers on my abundant, sturdy rear end because my abundant, sturdy rear end was in fact, sanctified, and not theirs to touch, hold, grab, or speak about without my consent. They reeked of liquor from their breath and shame from their body as they all bowed to me, apologized through their slurred words, and left me instantaneously.
The experience was one to remember because I spoke out for myself, but I shouldn’t have to experience being sexually assaulted at a club or have the future anxiety and fear of that happening again. Furthermore, I know these occurrences do not strictly happen to foreigners nor strictly just in bars. While I am still learning Korean, I noticed a Korean flyer on a public bathroom stall which translated to “me too” with at least eight differently signed “me too”s in Korean below the flyer written on the stall itself. I sat in shock knowing that there were other Korean folks who were willing to speak out about their sexual assault and sexual harrasment experiences, even on a flyer and through their writings of a bathroom stall. I will continue to hone my own language skills to reduce the barrier it causes in not being able to connect and reach more communities and people in Korea.
In conclusion, I can recognize these nuances: transphobia, queerphobia, and the patriarchy are all well and alive in Korea as it is in the United States (frankly, the United States has always been a mess) and that tragically, sexual assault and sexual harrasment happens everywhere. My questions arise though: what does it look like for Koreans to speak candidly about the experiences of how conformity and the pressure to not agitate groups leads to the silencing of sexual assault? What does it look like for queer and trans Korean people to live their lives unapolegetically without being discriminated or made to feel shame for who they are? While my time so far in Korea has been extremely brief, I have learned so much and know that I will continue to do so this coming second semester. It is clear that Korea is going through shifts socially, economically, structurally and many more so I am privileged to be living in the moment where I am. For the above questions, I don’t know the answer for I don’t even know how to answer it back in the United States, but I offer them as a means to frame how I will continue to question and grow into my own identities, experiences, communities, and life while in Korea and after I leave to expand my own cultural humility and cultural awareness and to be vulnerable to share my own observations and stories as well.