I was never proud to be a Korean.
Now, don't get me wrong I'm not saying I'm against my country
or I hate my country or anything like that, but being in China
made me think about was I ever so proud of my nationality you know the fact that I'm Korean
because in China
the country where you're from is considered very very important and for some people it's the
main thing from which they form an opinion and judgment about you and also
in China it is considered very crucial to think and speak highly of your own country
Therefore many Chinese people that I met in China show a look of
surprise when I say I don't really enjoy kpop or don't really watch K dramas and
they're also kind of shocked when I don't say absolutely nice things about
Samsung and hyundai, and they are also surprised when I answer "Chinese" to a
question "do you think Chinese food is better or Korean food is better?" which
I've got a lot whenever I said I am from Korea. And they kind of expect me or
any other Koreans to be super proud of kpop how you you know all the Korean brands
because they are very huge internationally. But if you talk to many
Koreans you'll notice that that's not necessarily the case and some will even
have bad things to say about it. It's like Americans don't necessarily or
have to like Hollywood nor do British people have to worship their royal family.
Hollywood do get criticized by Americans even if it's an American thing
and the British royal family do sometimes get criticized by the same
British even if it's the British royal family.
I have many American and British friends and they're not like so proud of
Hollywood and royal that it becomes their lifeblood and they
don't get offended when I say I didn't enjoy watching certain Hollywood movies
or when someone comments I don't find Prince Harry that's charming things like that
and this is because we normally don't associate talking about these
things to spitting up myself right? If something about my country is far from
my preference we do have to right and freedom to think and say that
before worrying about is it going to you know hurt my national pride and am I gonna
lose face? What my country or other people from my country have done whether
that's good or bad doesn't represent me. Simple as that.
So I am Korean and I have
a Korean citizenship and I was born and raised here and let me talk about Korea.
Korea has a huge cultural power with internationally popular kpop, hallyu
fashion and makeup brands and so on and we also have a very big economic power.
It has the 12 th biggest economy in the world, and our GDP back in 1950 was -
and now it's - and this happened in just 50 years.
We started from starvation to one of the most prosperous societies and this is an
unprecedented miracle as a nation and South Korea's achievement deserve to be
acknowledged. Howver, I think because of all the seemingly good parts of Korea
it's easy for the outsiders, who are not born and raised here and lived here as a
Korea,n to think that Korea is somehow perfect and I never thought Korea was a
perfect country nor did I imagine that people from other countries would admire
and some would even be jealous of Korea so much like this until just a few years ago
when I started actively hanging out with a lot of like expatriates and foreigners
who live and travel in Korea, and most of them get good impression
from all the nicely put together people, well-organized
and clean environment, facilities and buildings of nice qualities, and think
that "how can anyone live in South Korea and not want to live here?"
Even when I tell them about how high suicide rate, insanely high competition
high standard and almost everything that's impossible to meet , 왕따 (korean word for bully) issues;
they don't completely understand it. It just doesn't come real
to them because they've never experienced struggles as a
Korean in Korea and that's not their fault they actually don't have to understand that.
So I always thought Korea is a good place to live for
foreigners but not so much for Koreans because they are usually the exception
to the Korean society's social rules, social norm, social judgment that I
believe are making making a lot of people depressed ,miserable and angry and
foreigners can just enjoy the nice environment and facilities that Korea
has created, and I always thought that's quite unfair because that's 주객전도된 상황
All the nice things that Korea has built are
more appreciated and enjoyed by people who are not from here.
Koreans are usually not nationalists. We're not like proud or feel the need to be proud of
our own country. Koreans in general have more fantasy toward
And usually when Koreans say
they don't mean well.
Many Koreans especially younger generation don't think like oh I'm from
Korea, I'm so privileged. Many of us actually have insecurities of
being an Asian and we somehow think you know people from the West will somehow
look down upon us just because we have Asian looks
and had Asian upbringing. And I think not a lot of Korean people realize
how much of a big influence Korea has internationally and I think
this is not all bad. It's actually better than you know a false belief or a silly
sense of duty ingrained in us that we have to protect our country's image and
reputation and think highly of my country no matter what. It means we
at least have freedom to think and say honestly about our country and that's
good that means we are a democratic society and I am grateful to be a
citizen of a country that has achieved democratic institutions good economy
safe and organized environment facilities and what not but at the same
time I also know so many inner issues that people are going through that
should be taken seriously and be redirected into a better path. I know
that my country has upsides and downsides and I can say this freely
because I know my country does not represent every single part of me.
What my country has achieved is not what I achieved ; its what my ancestors
grandparents parents the past government and maybe some luck too
have worked together to build not just one person or one element. I feel lucky and
grateful to have been born in such a developed influential and well-off
country, but as an insider I cannot say that Korea is so good and I'm so proud
of Korea, everything so good in Korea, because it is a country whose societal atmosphere
made me have many suicidal thoughts from very young age and
go through so many emotional turbulence self-esteem issues and so on but
that doesn't mean I should never feel grateful because that altogether shaped
the person I am today. I was more able to develop empathy and it also
made me think about what kind of part or role I can take to
help people who are suffering from similar issues and help the next
generation suffer less. When I was younger a part of me always thought that
it was unfair that I was born in Korea especially when I was you know in the US
where people are more open and have grown up in a relatively chilled and
diverse atmosphere and also looking at all the Korean Americans and Korean
adoptees in the u.s., I remember I envy them so much you know seeing how open
active and chill they are made me think my life would have been so much happier
if I was raised in the US. And I still think u.s. is a really good country
which I will talk about soon, but I also think that the grass is greener on the
other side because I've met many northern Americans who presumed that I
grew up with such privilege just because I was born in Korea, and also told me how
bad it was growing up in the u.s. things like that and that made me think
everything is relative and in one country as insiders and outsiders we are
going to experience and see things differently. You could have been born in
a country that is under a lot worse conditions and you may think like why
was I born here, it's so unfair ,people in the first world country have it better
than I do, and I do understand that. But I think life is not about what you were
given but about what you do with what you were given, and I think no matter how
terrible circumstances you're in, there are always a hidden blessing and greater
opportunities to be drawn from and it's all about attitude and perspective.
I mean look at all the North Korean escapees who turned their lives around
after escaping; they were born in the worst and the most oppressed country in
the world and even after they escaped in China and in South Korea and in Thailand
they had to go through a lot of terrible conditions and had hard and long time
adjusting to the new environment far away from home. But they're now living in
such a graceful state of mind and they are very enthusiastic about the second life
they are given, and if they can do it I think anyone can pull through.
Back to USA, I think the USA is a great country. Probably greater than many other
developed and democratic countries in Europe or in Asia. I don't mean it's
problem-free; we're talking about human the world here so there's no like
problem free country and I also know that just because I
think USA is great that does not mean like every single one of us citizens is great
Just because I admire former President Obama doesn't mean everybody
is like him right? So I don't have a fixed president or like opinion about a
person based on their nationality because that's very absurd, because
regardless of nationality and how they are brought up culturally, everybody in the end
has their uniqueness and individuality and their own way of
seeing things but I think we should admit that USA has a strong
democratic institution, diverse and open immigrant culture, entrepreneurial society
that provides so many opportunities and cushions for many
individuals to utilize and fall back upon to make the most of their
talents and potential. And it is no wonder so many people emigrate or wish
to emigrate to the USA; it provides abundant opportunities to its citizen
whatever educational cultural and personal background they have and you
u.s. society is more used to and tolerant to diversity and
is more flexible for sure. The USA is a country that gave birth to so many
renowned individuals historically whether that be inventors writer
developers entrepreneurs and many other outstanding individuals who not only
have talents and knowledge but also a sense of humor wisdom humanitarian passion
and I think this is not just a coincidence. It was all possible because
of all the well built and stable, inclusive foundation and institution.
They used what was already there, what was already available for them
that the country has built and so I think that's why building more of such
prosperous countries is very important for the world and for the people
because the more countries there are that are able to offer many good
service, resources and institutions, the more people will benefit from them and
the more inclusive those countries are, people who weren't born into the most
privileged part of the world will benefit from them too. And I wish Korea
would become a country like that too. Actually, Korea has so many potentials
and we have already accomplished a lot economically politically and
foundationally, and we are already doing a lot of charity and
giving financial aid to other like poor countries, but what we lack is
tolerance and acceptance for difference and diversity, and I'm not talking about
diversity in race, language that kind of self surface-level things, but more of
diversity in humaneness, and individual paths, respecting each
other's uniqueness, individual personality, not putting everybody inside
the same box telling us this is what you need to
do in this industry and in this industry this is the way it works and if you
disobey or do things differently you're gonna mess up.
And it is true that Korean society in general
teaches and leads us to a very limited paths of life
and that way the competition gets inevitably higher and higher.
I think the more the society lacks diversity or tolerance for diversity,
the competition among the individuals cannot but become higher and higher,
because they only know of a few good paths that the society taught them, and everybody tries
to fit themselves into that narrow and limited paths, and imagine how pushy and
desperate people will become.
And the more competitive the society is,
the more stress, pressure, self-esteem issues, the intensity of conflicts between people
will increase and become higher and higher and it is only a matter of time
before it becomes an abnormal amount that we end up drowning ourselves.
So as a Korean citizen, I really wish that Korea becomes a country that embraces
and appreciates diversity and encourage individuals to think outside the box and
discover their uniqueness and kind of encourage them to follow their path.
That way, we will be able to form a creative dynamic, and diverse atmosphere
and that will naturally bring sustained prosperity to our country.
Korea is still busy trying to build not just individually but also politically,
institutionally, and on a national level, and that's very good there's nothing wrong with that
but we have already achieved more than enough and it is time
that we take a break and look back upon what we've done wrong and what we lack,
and how we should utilize what we
already have in a better direction. We already have good economy, technology,
intelligent human resources, and why not use them into educating and raising awareness
on human right issues, mental health, friendship, love?
Before I wrap up I recently read the book called why nations fail
and it is a very insightful book that talks about what kind of political and
economic institution decides a nation's prosperity, why America has
turned out to be one of the most prosperous countries in the world,
why's there a huge gap between North and South Korea, and why don't all nations
follow such ideal institution and blueprint that would lead to prosperity.
And I hope that many of you read this book and get some insight
and analysis, and furthermore hope you get to think about the true meaning
of patriotism. True patriotism at least partially is coming to terms with
the problems of your country, knowing what's the best for your country's growth and its people,
and taking action in line with that to solve the problem.
It's not denying, hiding, putting on a good front and trying to build an
unsubstantial reputation
When you have a toothache, you cannot say "No my tooth is so clean.
I heard Sally has worse toothache, so I'm fine."
Because that's only going to worsen your toothache and it would be just a matter
of time before you have to pull it out. At least Sally recognizes that
she has a toothache and she is taking action to heal from that.
And her toothache is getting better because of that.
So, if you want to consider yourself a true patriot, then I suggest you take Sally's approach.
That was it for this video! I hope you like it.
If you did, please give it a big thumbs up and also let me know in the comment section
which country you're from ,what kind of change you wish to make to your country,
and what kind of contribution you can make in order to do that, I would really
love to know and thank you for watching and I'll see you in my next video! Bye!
For more infomation >> US, France and UK weighs strikes on Syria - Duration: 5:25. 
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