Name: Murilo dos Santos- ID: 50131038

Topic: Global Mobility

Korea: Globalized at all cost

I want to begin explaining the motivation of my choice: in my personal view the

“Global Mobility” topic can be useful to establish relations between at least another two

topics - “English Fever in Korea” and “Cross-border Marriages” - and, depending on the

approach, even all the another topics studied until this moment can be connected

by/under the chosen theme. So I will try to bring some of the aspects exploited in the

other topics to this autobiography, under the amalgam of the global mobility issue.

Other important thing to explain is that I will take the liberty of bring some of my

personal experiences in these two months in Korea to the exposition -even though some

people in the academia think that this kind of argument is invalid - since that this is

autobiography.

According to the contents that we analyzed in this first half of the course, it‟s

possible to say that the globalization process - accomplished due to an uncountable

number of technical advances achieved especially in the second half in the of the 20th

century, when the Information Technology field experienced a true revolution - has

brought alarge expansion of information (and also cultural issues), capital,

merchandises and people flows and turned possible a huge process of integration around

the world and, consequently, bringing a new complexity to the global society -since that

now a huge number of social relations become international and involves socio-cultural,

political and economic issues from a crescent number of nations, which one with an

infinite number of particular characteristics.But even though the volume of flows are

increased exponentially the mobility still a kind of privilege, in a world marked by the

inequality between nations and, therefore, between individuals; in a scenario where the

mobility degree of a person is conditioned by a set of factors like income, educational

background, social position, cultural habits and family origin.

The thing is that to acquire mobility,even if only in the physical meaning of it,

an individual need, necessarily, to comply with a series of conditions: he needs money

for the displacement and to stay abroad, a passport, communication skills (even in a trip

to a country where the language is the same of your native language it‟s possible to face

some communication problems), which in its turn also implies in a minimum level of

educational background etc. Consequently, it‟s not difficultto realize that the physical

and the social aspects of the mobility are narrowly related, since that without the

minimum of practical conditions achieve mobility became virtually impossible. Of

course that are exceptions, like on the case of international marriages in Korea, where in

the most of cases,„non-elite‟ Korean men have to search for a wife abroad in poorest

countries, like Philippines, and, at the same time, the chosen wives also don‟t have the

necessary attributes to become a global citizen. But, maybe even in that case it‟s

possible to say that the social mobility have at least some influence, since as it works as

a key factor to the group of Korean men necessity to search for a wife in a strange

country and also for the wives to accept this kind of informal agreement, since that for

most of this women the international marriage seems to be the unique chance to achieve

better life conditions (at least in material terms).

So it‟s possible to say that are a considerable number of barriers to an individual

who wants to achieve mobility and, at the same time, is not difficult to realize that these

barriers can be larger or smaller according to the nationality of the person - due to the

giant disequilibrium among the nations.For example, to acquire mobility must be

considerably more viable for a citizen of Japan - a country with high income levels,

educational quality and social equality - than for a citizen of Angola. Here we can see

some of the concepts introduced by the Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, who

argues that are a large number of differences in the mobility degrees, what he named as

a „Global hierarchy of mobility‟. According to this conception, there are to different

groups of people: the „global elites‟, who have „an unprecedented freedom from

physical obstacles and unheard of ability to move and act from a distance‟ and the so

called „local masses‟, they are the „others‟, the „rest‟ who „have a little chance of cutting

themselves free in order to move elsewhere‟.So in the marriage case we could say that

even though the members of this social agreement achieved some level of mobility they

still be part of the „local masses‟ since as the husbands just keep their position as „non-

elite‟ and the wives became part of this same sector when they arrive in Korea.

Inside this context, Korea and its citizens has searching to increase the

possibilities to achieve largest degrees of mobility, the development level achieved by

the country in a relatively short period it‟s a huge index of the Koreans‟ efforts to

became part of the global elite. The country has pursued a knowledge-based

development, in a scenario where the education becomes a key issue for the Korean

citizens. According to Obama‟s speech at the US Hispanic Chamber (2009), in Korea

„even if somebody is dirty poor, they (Korean parents) are insisting that their kids are

getting the best education‟, furthermore, the Korean students spend a month more in

school than the students in USA. The level of concern with this issue is so high that in

an expressive number of cases Korean parents use to put a lot of pressure over their

sons to achieve good grades and get a good job (in this case a well remunerated job) -

it´s common to find Korean students who chosen their major according to their parents

will. Furthermore Korea has the highest suicide rate among the OECD countries - a 15

years old boy committed suicide less than one month ago - and, according to the Time

magazine (http://world.time.com/2013/03/17/south-korea-rattled-by-suicide-of-bullied-

teen/), Korean government statistics shows that suicide is the leading cause of death

among 10- to 19-year-olds in the country.

I had a direct contact with the Korean parents approaching in the students‟ lives:

at least two of my Korean friends admitted that they had chosen their majorsbecause of

the parents. I also had another interesting social experience about two weeks ago, when

I went to the cherry blossom festival in Yeouido. In this festival I meet two Korean

sisters with 13 and 7 years old and their father. The two kids started to talk to me in

English - since that my physiognomy makes easy to see that I am a stranger in Korea -

and, for my surprise, their level of conversation are pretty high, at least in terms of

pronounce and vocabulary. Even though my English knowledge are not the same of a

specialist or a fluent speaker, I´m sure that the level of those kids are higher than the

usual for children of non-English speaker countries and that their abilities are not

achieved without a huge amount of efforts - since that the English language are widely

different from the Korean language in almost all the aspects. I am not saying that in

general the English level of the Korean kids is higher than in other countries, but those

two kids are, at least in my personal view, a significantexpression of how important the

education is in Korean society. Furthermore this case provided me a direct contact with

another important issue in the Korean way to face the globalized world: the so called

„English Fever‟.

Even though in my opinion the income conditions (including the distributive

aspects) are the most important factor to determinate how effective a country can be in

offering mobility conditions for its citizens, the English is, indubitably, a key factor to a

country who wants to became part of the „global elite‟, since that is the most important

tool to communicate in the international ambiance, and the Koreans seems to know it

very well. In Korea the English education is so important that it becomes more than a

tool to communicate to the rest of the world, it is viewed as a key factor to the country

competitiveness in the global arena and also archived the condition of social

differentiation, as a synonymous not only of global mobility, but also of personal

competence and access to well remunerated jobs and elite schools. On this point we can

look to the factor that seems to be the most important for achieve global mobility, the

financial/incomeconditions, including its distribution among the citizens.

First of all, the spent on public education of the Korean government is lower

than the average of the other OECD members and most of the best universities of the

country are private (and relatively expensive). This laissez fairementality about the

education issues established a scenario where high-income families spent 8 times more

than lower income families on their children´s education (Korean Statistics Office),

helping to increase the educational and, therefore, social inequity in Korea´s society -

according to CIA´s „The World Factbook‟, the Gini index of the country increased at

least 11 points between 2000 and 2011. This panorama creates a kind of competition for

the best conditions, not only in mobility, but in all the material aspects, in Korean

society; and maybe this is the main cause of the way of the Korean families look at the

education issues.

This high-competitive scenario guides some families to take extreme measures,

as split the family in order to educate the children abroad with a better English

experience - in general the mother and the kids move to abroad, while the father stays in

Korea working and sending the money to cover the expenses. The problem is that this

process involves high costs, both in material and psychological aspects, to the so called

Kirogi families; since that the expenses level to maintain two or more people living

abroad could be pretty high and also difficult to forecast - due to, for example,

exchange´s floating - and,in the other hand, it‟s not difficult to realize how

uncomfortable is the situation for the families, since as the father lost the physical

presence of his wife and kids and, in the other side, the wife and kids will probably miss

the father‟s presence. This situation might bring to Korea society new problems, as

Kirogi fathers diagnosed with depression or even committing suicide, advance of

divorce hates and, maybe the most complicated consequence, the difficulties to the kids

not only due to the distance of the father but also when they return to Korea, since that

now they might face some difficulties to readapt to their home country and,

furthermore, loses important characteristics that defines their identity as Korean

citizens.

My conclusion is that even though Korea is achieving a relative success on its

tentative to become a more globalized society - with a higher number of members able

to become part of Bauman‟s „global elite‟- the country still needs to pay more attention

to the welfare issues, especially in the case of the younger people, since as the material

aspects are important but happiness and realization also have a key hole for a better

society - despite of the fact that is virtually impossible to measure it.Other point of

concern, in my view, is the increasing of the inequality levels, since that this

phenomenon can bring a lot of difficulties or even breaks the country‟s development

process - as in the Brazilian case. The problem is that is substantially difficult to create

and implement measures that can relieve the Korean citizens efforts without lose part of

the country‟s competitiveness and, for this reason, I think that the Korean citizens will

continue to make significant sacrifices for the sake of a „Global Elite Korea‟.