미국 교수가 본 '한국의 부모가 살기 힘든 이유'
Sam Richard
한류학자 샘 리처드 교수는 인기 있는 유튜버로 활동하고 있다. 펜실베이니아 주립대학에서 사회학을 가르친다. '한국의 부모가 살기 힘든 이유'를 영어 수업 교재로 듣는다. 영어발음 특히 인토네이션에서 유용하다고 하셨다. 반복해서 듣다 보면 리스닝에 도움이 될 것이라 기대하면서... 내용적으로도 외국인이 보는 시각에서 한국의 현 위치를 돌아보기 좋다. 다문화사회를 일찍 경험한 미국이 인디언문제, 노예제도, 멕시코와 전쟁, 대공황등의 역사를 통한 그의 문화비교강의가 흥미진진 참신하다.
Sam Richards, Professor at Penn State University
https://youtu.be/pkFADoLI5SE?si=xq12pvx-Wwm5MsiB
0:21... First I think it's really important that Korea has a very unique
history. You know, looking back to the past 60 or 70 years and since the
war. And I think it's important that when we think about the culture of
Korea, we include what life was like back when I was just a child and how
difficult life was. So that stability that comes with money is really important.
0:43 In the United States we had a very similar thing with the Great
Depression. So people who were say, my parents and my grandparents
who went through the great depression they prioritized hard work and
saving money and making sure that they could pay for their basic
necessities and things that they needed.
0:58 That became really ingrained뿌리 깊은 here in Korea as very very important.
So it's not just money for the sake of flashing money around돈을 펄럭이며 자랑하는 so I can
show the world, hey look, I have all this money but rather money for the
sake of stability and material well-being.
1:15 And second is the idea that Koreans are not just working really hard
for themselves and their own family, but Koreans are also work really
hard for the benefit of all of society. This is the nature of a collectivist or
communitarian culture.
1:28 And this also emerges out of the war that Koreans have really built a
nation out of destruction and great poverty. And so to say소위 for example,
that material well-being is the most important thing in my in the west
whereby me and who I am is really about me and my family in the west.
1:47 But here in Korea me and who I am is also about the people around
me. So you can't separate a desire for material well-being or think that
that's really important from the material well-being of me and the material
well-being of people around me.
2:01 There's a really interesting nationalism here in Korea that is not a
nationalism in the way that we often think about it around the world, but
it is really holding up the nation as a whole and seeing everybody around
us as part of this larger umbrella of community country and nation.
2:20 And so everything that I do I'm doing it for me I'm doing it for my
family but I'm also doing it for other people in the nation. And that has
such great value here in Korea. And it's one of the biggest reasons that
Koreans have been able to grow and prosper and build the nation that
you've been able to build in a short period of time.
2:39 You know parenting around the world is a great mystery. Every
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parents all over the world are doing the exact same thing. In that sense
there's not a lot of difference between Koreans and Americans.
2:51 I think that the one difference that I think is important is that
bringing up a child in a collectivist or communitarian society is different
than bringing up a child in an individualist society, because you're
bringing a child into the world here in Korea to share knowing that that
child is going to be part of this larger nation and part of this place of all
these other people around.
3:15 In my nation for example that part of child growing is much weaker
And so the sense of how the child fits into the rest of the community is
just a little bit weaker. I think one of the struggles in here in Korea is
with perfectionism and children.
3:31 And this goes back to this idea of a culture that is built around
getting the right answer정답을 맞히고 not making mistakes making sure we don't stand
out 튀어서도 안되고. And so we're raising children in a way that you have to make sure
that all that happens.
3:44 And then in the process what you're really doing is raising children
who are going to have to walk a very difficult line and be allowed to and
struggle with making mistakes and not being perfect which is a very
strange thing. And that's hard.
3:58 And imagine a different way which is like I'm going to raise my child
what my child feels like doing. I'm not going to be stressed I'm not going
to put my child in cram달달외우기 school입시학원 the hagwans to make sure that they're the
top scorer in their class and build all this stress around them. That's
very, very difficult to take that position here in Korea.
4:14 Many parents do and I've met many parents who do that. When the
parents do that the children still pick it up 주워 들어 from other people around them
from their classmates. So it's the struggle that's always going on.
4:27 A lot of younger Koreans are delaying미루고 getting married and those who
get married are delaying having children. You know, not to live(like that) it's fine. But if
you want to be in Seoul and you want to ultimately buy a house and a car
and have children, pay for all the bills and so on. it's very expensive.
4:42 And so you're going to need to get a lot of these experiences out of
the way. And so naturally people delay. And we also know that more
educations are more likely to delay the time before getting married and
less likely to have children.
4:56 So Korea in an odd way is a victim of its own success. Now here you say
"Oh we need to have more children in Korea." Well you needed a population
that was less educated. You would have more children. So it's very ironic.
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방탄소년단한류학자 샘 리처드 교수 "한국 강점은 Koreaness"
우리는 다문화 사회에서 살아갑니다.
△한국은 다문화나 ‘다른’ 것을 포용하는 사회에 대해 더 발전해야 한다고 생각합니다. 한국이 다양성을 수용하는 데 있어 어려움이 생기는 이유를 뭐라고 보십니까?
-한국의 강점은 ‘Koreaness’입니다. 즉, 한국인이 공유하고 있는 가치나 태도가 강점인 것이죠. 이러한 강점으로 경제 발전과 같이 짧은 시간 내에 대단한 변화를 이끌어낼 수 있었던 것으로 봅니다. 그러나 때때로 이것이 ‘다름’을 받아들이는 데 있어서 장애 요소가 되는 것도 같습니다. 한민족이라는 공통성에서 나오는 강한 민족적 의식이 긍정적으로 작용하기도 하고 부정적으로 작용하기도 하기 때문입니다. 그러나 이런 한국의 특징적 문화가 있다는 건 결과적으로 긍정적입니다. 그 문화적 인식이 너무 강해서 외부의 관점과 문화를 받아들이기가 힘든 점이 있을지라도 천천히 다양성으로 나아가는 ‘과정’ 일뿐일 것이라는 것을 기억하세요.
△실제로도 한국은 단일민족 국가이기 때문에 다른 사회에 대한 편견이나 선입견이 더 많은 실정입니다. 다문화 사회로의 입문을 겪고 있는 우리나라에서 열린 사고를 위해 가장 필요한 것이 무엇일까요?
-결론적으로 국가의 역사적 사실과 상처를 살펴보는 것입니다. 예를 들어 제 고향 미국은 다문화주의의 아주 좋은 사례입니다. 그 과정에서 많은 실패가 있었어요. 원주민 대량 학살, 그리고 노예 제도 등입니다. 이것은 충격적인 역사로 우리가 어디서부터 이 문제를 어디서부터 바로잡아야 할지 감이 잡히지 않을 때도 있죠. 하지만 우리는 화합을 위해 이 문제를 직면해야 합니다.
한국도 마찬가지일 것입니다. 가장 큰 고통을 안겨준 역사가 무엇인지 또는 해결되지 않은 민족, 역사, 사회적 경험이 무엇인지부터 살펴보는 것이 질문에 대한 답이라고 생각합니다. △식민지 역사 △6·25 전쟁 △조선시대 여성 차별 △신분제 역사 등을 살펴보는 것부터 시작할 수 있겠죠. 이런 역사적 사실과 상처들을 살펴보는 것이 교육적, 실천적 효과를 얻을 수 있지 않을까 생각합니다.
