The Birth of Korean Cool (3 page)

WHAT IS IRONY AND HOW CAN YOU GET IT?

Irony is that special privilege of wealthy nations; the best purveyors of irony live at the very height of their society’s prosperity and influence, which allows them the leisure (if not
the freedom) to wax philosophic and write. Besides, it is in times of success that decadence, bluster, hypocrisy, and all the other favored topics for satire are at a fever pitch. Aristophanes,
possibly the world’s first satirist, wrote his plays as Athens was becoming the dominant power in the region. Cervantes wrote at the height of Spain’s naval wealth. And Alexander Pope
was born the year that England defeated the Spanish Armada. First, one scrambles for wealth; then one luxuriates in mocking the effeteness that comes with it.

“Gangnam Style” and its 2013 follow-up song “Gentlemen” signaled the emergence of irony in South Korea, marking the country’s final stage in its modern evolution.
If you don’t think that irony is a measure of an elite society, think of how annoyed you  were the last time you were accused of not having any. Americans have told me that Asians have
no irony; in Europe, where I lived recently, I was told that Americans have none.

South Korea had no irony when I arrived. I can say that as honestly as I can say that it had no McDonald’s (it arrived in 1988, in Gangnam, of course). The Korean language has no word for
irony, nor for parody, which is why the Korean press has been using the English word “parody” to describe
“
Gangnam Style.”

“Gangnam Style,” the song and the video, are full of inside jokes about South Korea’s nouveaux riches. For example, in the opening shot, Psy appears to be lounging on a beach;
when the camera pulls away, it’s revealed he’s in an unattractive urban playground. Psy boasts of his tough-guy prowess, singing that he can down a coffee in one gulp, as if he were
talking about downing a shot of 100 proof alcohol. This is Psy’s way of saying, you Gangnam types may be rich and fancy, but your roots are humble, you’ve become a bunch of wusses with
too many skin products, and what’s more, this city still needs cleaning up.

During the period that I lived in South Korea—the late 1980s and early 1990s—there was a steep climb in the nation’s economic development. I witnessed Seoul’s
transformation from a grim, dangerously crowded place where all designer clothes were counterfeit to a glamorous, rich global megacity where—as Psy’s “Gangnam Style” video
shows—people are fabulously well dressed but still hang out in parking garages because Seoul is overcrowded and there isn’t enough open space.

I attended Gu-jung elementary and middle school—the highest-rated, most entitled, most hated school in the entire country. Because of our school and our neighborhood’s privileged
status, we students were expected to act in a manner befitting that reputation. My friend, who also grew up in Apgujeong, had a little brother who ended up going to high school north of the Han
River (
gangnam
means “south of the river”). When his classmates found out he was from Apgujeong, they called him
bujajip—
rich kid—and beat him bloody every
day. He started ditching class and eventually transferred to an international school.

In 1987, every schoolchild in South Korea made a mandatory donation toward the construction of the Peace Dam, a project of then-president Chun Doo-hwan. The North Koreans were allegedly building
a dam of mass destruction close to the north-south border; it would collect water flowing from the north and then one day, when we least expected it, North Korea would unleash the water and flatten
Seoul. The retaliatory Peace Dam, to be built in the south, would send the water back north. I do not pretend to understand the engineering involved.

We had all brought the recommended donation of 200 won. The teacher hit all of us that day, one at a time, with her wooden stick wrapped with black electrical tape.

“You are from Gangnam,” the teacher said, a phrase she used often, as if she were intoning, “This is Sparta.” “If the nationwide minimum is 200 won, you have to
bring at least 1,000 won. You shouldn’t have to be told.”

You can’t be ironic when you’re being hit with a stick wrapped with black electrical tape. Or, when you’re being forced to prepare a speech every semester to enter in your
school’s Anti-Communist Speech Contest.

South Korea wanted nothing more than for its GDP to skyrocket, but it was dismayed with the widening gap between the classes. Since I lived in the wealthiest neighborhood, I was at the epicenter
of competing ideals for the nation. Gangnam was a nutty place to live in the 1980s and 1990s.

My school enforced rules to make the increasing income disparities less visible. Students were not permitted to wear watches exceeding 20,000 won in value or shoes that cost more than 9,000
won—about $15 and $7, respectively. We were not permitted to be picked up or dropped off at school by private car; this became a matter of controversy, since students were often required to
stay at school very late into the night, so safety was a concern.

Korean law prohibited private tutors for school subjects, for fear that this would give an advantage to the wealthy (this law has since been repealed). Most students at my school had them
anyway. Periodically, the school would give the students a sort of denunciation pop quiz, with questions such as “Who among your classmates is receiving private tutoring?”

My family was not Gangnam-rich. Definitely not Psyrich. And not as rich as one of my high school classmates who, in the summer of 1989, flew with her little brother to Hawaii for just one
weekend because her brother wanted to see the movie
Batman
(the Michael Keaton version) on opening night and he couldn’t wait for the film to come to Korea. Nor were we as rich as
the girl who misplaced a $20,000 violin and did not even bother to look for it because her parents would buy a new one.

Nonetheless, my father had a chauffeur. It was a professional necessity. Any Korean executive showing up to a lunch meeting in a car he drove himself would be laughed out of the restaurant.

The acquisition of wealth is not funny. It was especially unfunny for the titled aristocracy in South Korea who were watching the earth start to crack beneath them. For people like—may I
be frank?—my family. We did not sit around making dry, witty existential comments as these vulgar nouveaux riches rose up among us and started showing up at the fish market in mink coats.

It was a life ripe for irony, but irony did not arrive until much later, after I had already given up on Korea and had no desire to return.

Psy (né Park Jae-sang) was definitely not the conquering hero Korea wanted to lead its shock-and-awe cultural invasion. Korea had been priming more conventional,
beautiful K-pop bands, like the nine-member girl group Girls’ Generation, who were already deified superstars in Asia. But those groups never really gained significant appeal in the west.

Koreans  were not expecting that the man to bring Hallyu to the western stage would be the class clown of the Korean music world, a man who intentionally showed off his sweaty, hairy
armpits and potato-shaped body, who made fart jokes in his songs, and whose outfits looked as though they  were picked out by a Las Vegas stage magician.

Psy is the paradigm shift within the paradigm shift. And his life and bewildering rise to fame are an embodiment of the changes in Korea and Korean society over the last few decades.

Psy and I share a few things in common. We both grew up in Gangnam, Seoul’s wealthiest and slickest district. We both come from “good” and studious families. Our dads went to
the same high school; our moms attended the same university. However, I was born in the United States and only lived in Gangnam during junior high and high school, whereas Psy was born and raised
there. Every cell in his body was nurtured by Gangnam air and water. His family are tycoons going back a few generations; they are among the oldest of the Gangnam new money. His father, Park
Won-ho, is chairman of the Korean semiconductor company DI Corp. Psy was born with a real Gangnam silver spoon in his mouth.

The western press frequently mentions that Psy studied at Boston University and the Berklee College of Music (though it is unclear whether he got a degree), but has very little information about
his childhood, which is surprising given that Psy has the most-viewed YouTube video of all time.

Meanwhile, the Korean media has extensive information on Psy. So why hasn’t any of this made its way into the western press? Because Korean media coverage of Psy’s childhood makes no
sense outside the Korean cultural context. Korean media has focused on his notoriously bad relationship with his parents—particularly his father—which he has mentioned in many
interviews. It’s clear he’s deeply ashamed of it: in Korea, where the Confucian belief that all virtue stems from filial piety holds sway, not getting along with one’s parents is
quite a big deal. But in the western media, the press wouldn’t write about this even on a slow news day.

In the west, stories of hell-raising celebrities are celebrated. They take pride in bad behavior; if you’ve never trashed a hotel room, you’re not really a rock star. By contrast,
Psy’s supposedly rebellious antics are pretty tame. Example: he didn’t study very hard, despite coming from a studious family. In Korea, this is newsworthy. An article from the October
10, 2012, online edition of
Munhwa Ilbo
(“Culture Daily”) commented: “Psy had an Ugly Duckling kind of existence. He was the only member of his family who was a bad
student. . . . His older sister never ranked lower than first in her class.”

This reveals another cultural bias: in Korea, getting bad marks at school is tantamount to juvenile delinquency. It’s also a direct act of disrespect toward one’s parents, a core
violation of Korean society’s ethical system.

The article goes on to give equally unconvincing examples that Psy was a screw-up. You’ll never guess what evil he was up to when he was seven years old: he stepped on the grass where
there was a clear sign that said, “Don’t step on the grass.” According to the article, it was at this moment that Psy’s mother decided, “I give up on my
son.”

Several Korean journalists and bloggers recounted the following anecdote, invariably expressing shock at Psy’s horrible lack of filial piety: apparently, when Psy was still living at home,
his father told him to quit smoking. Psy responded, “Why don’t you quit first, Dad!”

Now, if this dialogue were taking place in an episode of the
Brady Bunch
or
Silver Spoons
or
Diff’rent Strokes
or some other moralistic, family-oriented American
television sitcom, Psy’s snappy remark would be followed by the father nodding and saying, “You know what? You’re right. I should set a good example.”

But in Korean society—back in the day, at least—a retort like Psy’s could have resulted in the father telling the boy to stand on a chair, then whipping the kid’s calves
with his belt. That was a very common punishment among my classmates, usually reserved for very poor grades or very bad manners. Comparing welts the day after report cards were sent home was a
popular recess pastime in my class. Sporadic stupidity, like a tasteless joke, was often met with a sharp flick on the kid’s head by one of the parents, as though flicking off a tick. (The
really serious punishments were usually meted out by the mother.)

In 2001, however, Psy’s rebellion took a more serious turn when he was caught with marijuana. Psy’s last words when he was being arrested for possession were, reportedly: “I
guess I’ll quit smoking now.” Sources vary as to whether he was being serious or sarcastic. His father’s reaction, however, was touching: “It looks like you’re
learning about the world now. I will believe in you even if you do something worse than this.”

Two days after Psy’s arrest, his beloved grandfather—who reportedly gave Psy his first taste of booze and his love of music—passed away. Psy, who missed the funeral because of
his own incarceration, was inconsolable. “It was then that I became an adult,” Psy told the Korean press.

You could say he made it up to his dad. Within less than two months of the “Gangnam Style
”
release, the stock value in his father’s company doubled. It’s hard to
prove, but the surge is thought to be based on the investors’ assumption that the father of such a successful son is probably running a successful business himself.

Most of Psy’s songs are lighthearted, but there is one very serious one in his repertoire, called “Father.” It’s a heart-wrenching ode to his father, in which he sings
that he’s sorry he didn’t understand that his dad was carrying the whole family on his shoulders.

No western pop icon would write a song about his or her parents, with the possible exception of Eminem’s song “Cleanin’ Out My Closet,” which contains the line,
“You selfish bitch, I hope you burn in hell for this shit.”

Psy’s career and his music are as good a symbol as any for old and new Korea—how the nation transformed in the space of a single generation, his and mine. So rapid was the
transformation that a single person can be the entertainer who rules the Internet and yet have a touching song like “Father,” expressing such self-flagellating, Confucian filial
piety.

Psy will go down in history as the first real twenty-first-century entertainer: who else could combine Confucianism and farting?

April 2013, Seoul. I am interviewing three government bureaucrats who represent the species I fear most in the world: Korean teachers.

Sitting on a stiff sofa in a somber room, I realize to my horror that all three of them are staring at my Starbucks cup. I start to panic.

I had fucked up.