A one and half class is clearly
not enough to cater to the minds of 160 students. I heard my classmates heavily
sighing as our instructor ended our session. My sigh was the heaviest and the
loudest, I guess. Enough of that, I just want to vent these out so my thoughts
would not be wasted. What are thoughts anyway, if one could not translate them
to words?
Two dead girls. A man struggling
with his past. A woman with shaman powers stigmatized by a society which once
revered priestesses. A Christian church struggling to stay afloat. A fiancée who
is a product of a modern society. Nightmares. Tradegies. All of these were
situated in Seoul, the metropolis of South Korea. Here, scientific achievements
thrive, innovations can be found everywhere. Progress is conspicuous.
I often marveled at how advanced
South Korea is. Considering that they bore witness to numerous wars (and
these were recent, y’know), one could not imagine that they could get back to
their feet at such pace. However, if we look closely, we could see how their
society is changed due to modernity—modernity which is often equated to
progress, modernity which often means development. However, modernity is very
Western-defined. And because societies differ from each other historically and
culturally, the Western modernity is not universal. When capitalism,
industrialization and modernity fell into S. Korea, the Korean people’s old
beliefs and values were hastily replaced. I read that before capitalism entered
Korea, the dominant religion was Confucianism. Confucianism does not favor the
growth of the capitalist system. Thus in installing this system, the Western
people first had to change the Korean’s religious system. Soon enough,
Christianity flourished while Confucianism declined.
Another aspect of the ancient
Korean culture that was buried deep by modernity was shamanism. It was clearly
shown in the film how such powers (if such do exist) are stigmatized because it
does not fit the scientific and rational framework of the system. Anything that
cannot be explained by science is branded a ‘sham’. Anyone who is not ‘rational’,
who think and act different from what the system dictates is marked with having
a disorder. Mental disorders are a product of the 20th century. And
there is something oppressive about that. A person with a mental disorder is
seen dysfunctional and socially impaired—unfit for labor, unfit for production.
When Yun (the woman protagonist) was claiming that she has shaman powers (which
were real in the film), she was readily seen as crazy, as someone who is
dysfunctional…
I would love to extend this
analysis if ever I have the time.
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