Korea's importance overlooked in Princeton academics

When the papers are replete with up-to-the-minute, in-your-face coverage of Iraq, Iraq, Iraq (it's alarming how normal it is already), sometimes with more than five articles on the same story; when the networks have made the war the most voyeuristic, sensationalistic, disturbing reality television ever; when suddenly, everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Steve Nash to your hairstylist is an expert on the Persian Gulf, I cannot help but wonder: have we forgotten about Korea?

While the media battles it out for the most complete coverage of the war (and next year's Pulitzer for public service), largely relegating updates on the Korean peninsula to Reuters blurbs, the North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun has declared that the Iraqi war is the United States' most blatant act of terrorism yet. "The U.S. is widely known for resorting to brutal state terrorism under various absurd pretexts," it stated this week. The United States and North Korea have reached an impasse in regards to talking about atomic plans (Include South Korea, China, Japan and Russia! No way! You have to! Make me!), and Kim Yong-Chun, the chief of the general staff of the North Korean army, has said that the United States will be held responsible if dialogue fails to ameliorate the crisis. Today, North Korea's withdrawal from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, becomes official.

I think we need to care more.

Korea is far from irrelevant in international affairs, and I doubt it's a bias (my father's parents escaped from North Korea in the forties, both my father and mother grew up in rural South Korea) that makes me believe so. Korea is not just one of the most volatile areas today, but also a country important geographically and economically in East Asia, to the United States and to the international community. It amazes me how many people I have met with glaring misconceptions about South Korea. To them, it's a backwards country of farmers and peasants and meek children using slide rules. No wonder they think it's irrelevant. But consider, for instance, that South Korea has the highest per capita broadband penetration in the world. More than half of its households have high-bandwidth connections, compared to less than ten percent in the States.

The chairperson professor of Yale's Council on East Asian Studies recently lamented that Yale lacks "sustained coverage in Korean history, culture or social science despite the increasing importance of Korea, economically and otherwise, to the emerging global community and economy." Now, more than ever, we can say the same about Princeton.

This year, the Korean language program was cut by a third. Advanced Korean is not offered in fall 2003. There are no Korean history, politics, or culture classes next semester, and it is unclear whether spring 2004 will be any different. The other day a friend at another school complained to me: "My roommate is taking a class on Greek vases this fall, and I can't take a course on Korean politics or history!" I was embarrassed to inform him that at Princeton, my situation was no better. "We should have gone to Harvard," he half-joked, referring to its excellent Korean studies program.

A number of Korean-American students are currently sending letters to the administration, setting up meetings with department chairs, and petitioning classmates in efforts to revive Korean studies at Princeton. Unfortunately, it is not enough that people agree on Korea's importance in principle. When it comes to funding, developing a solid curriculum, or hiring permanent professors, Korea becomes not important enough. When it comes to choosing Korean classes, "given the great faculty here, and all the other great courses you could take," students pass it up for something else. Korea becomes the story lost somewhere in of the paper, the blurb overshadowed by shock-and-awe, the Asian health crisis, the NCAA tournament, the sale of the Watergate papers, Cher's Farewell Tour.

And Greek vases.