"Mi guk in"
The child's index finger points toward the pointy-nosed, pale-skinned oddity strolling past. "Mi guk in" ("American"), he exclaims excitedly to his parents as if he's just seen some exotic beast, like a rhino or a unicorn. The "American" stops in his tracks, bends down and smiles at the little one "a ni yo, a il lean deu in" ("no, I'm Irish.")
I've lost count of the number of times I've been mistaken for a US citizen. Sometimes the person making the assumption is old enough to know that Caucasian does not necessarily mean American. If I'm having a bad day, I don't even bother to correct the mistake, I just point to my accuser and say "il bon in" ("you're Japanese"). Point made.
Irish, Brits, Ozzies, Kiwis, Boers, Canidiots - all of us in Korea have to deal with the fact that passersby frequently assume we're from the States. There is a plus side to this. Witnessing my bumbling language skills, some may walk away thinking "why can't those Americans learn Korean?" Why indeed.
But still, I don't like the idea that people assume I'm American, not just because it's wrong, but also because, from some Korean lips, the word "mi guk in" is not a compliment.
Here on the peninsula the attitude to Uncle Sam is very complex. On the one hand, many Koreans love American culture, its films, its TV, its sports. Korean parents spend inordinate amounts of their income on teaching their children to speak American, a language which closely resembles English. There are 25 000 US troops in South Korea. The state itself would probably have been swept away five decades ago were it not for the UN troops (mostly American) who defended it during the war.
You'd think then that the word "mi guk in" would be a compliment, not an accusation, but sometimes this is not the case. I've spent some time in China and the West Bank, but Korea is the most anti-American country I've ever visited.
Much of the anti-Americanism in this country stems, in my opinion, from a sense of wounded pride that South Korea still needs Uncle Sam to protect it. Koreans are rightly proud of their country's extraordinary economic success over the past few decades. South Korea is now a country of considerable global importance. But still there are those 25 000 US troops, making the country look like a client state. Still the GIs are here protecting Koreans, irony of ironies, not from the Chinese, or the detested Japanese, but from other Koreans.
I don't like the idea of the US having military bases all over the world but, when it comes to Korea, it bears repitition: the USFK are here at the pleasure of the Korean government. Yongsan is not Guantanamo. If a democratically elected government in Seoul was to ask the US forces to leave then, politically, there would be only one feasible response: "What time's my flight?"
But this has yet to happen because successive governments have determined that the threat of invasion from the North is still real. So the Americans remain and some Koreans remain pissed off. In a marvelously euphemistic phrase, AFN often warns US personnel to stay away from the entrance to Yongsan base because of "a large civil gathering" being held there.
Fair enough, this is a democracy so it's perfectly healthy for anti-American activists to hold protests, sorry "large civil gatherings" outside US bases. I only ask that they remember two things:
1. I'm not an American.
2. Even if I was, you don't have a legitimate beef with "my" government.