Reflection#1. Is there culture in my politics, or is there politics in my culture?

Han,Ung

           10707913

       

         Culture can be defined as various life styles of citizens that have been practiced in a nation. In this regard, not only formal practices such as wearing ‘Barong Tagalog’ are considered as culture but also informal practices such as riding a jeepney for work and drinking iced tea or soda when having a meal could also be considered as parts of a culture. As a consequence, observing different traditions and practices in different countries would allow one to distinguish one country to another.  
         The globalization, which occurred due to wide variety of communication and flow of human capitals around the world, however, mixed the traditions from one country to another and allowed a newly created culture to be practiced more often. Moreover, the colonial period also attributed to bear the diversity of a culture. Birch et al(2001) also emphasized the consequence of culture in neocolonialism where more western values and beliefs were practiced than that of Asian’s even after the colonial period. On the contrary, most people do not acknowledge the importance of the consequences. Culture, whether it is newly created through hybrid or has been existed, is embedded on the citizens without making them noticed.
           The interconnectedness of both culture and politics makes them to be dependent on each other. Culture would establish or shape law, policies, and provisions and politics would also introduce various traditions, practices, values, and beliefs to citizens. This correlation has been cycled along the history of a country.

Korean students wearing school uniform during Japanese colonization(left) and current period(right)

            One of the historical events in Korea that best explains the culture that affected the politics is the Japanese colonization (1895-1945). Before the arrival of Japanese, Korean students wore Korean traditional cloth ‘Han Bok’. Once Japanese colonized Korea, however, Japanese started to distort the culture in order to conquer not only physically but also psychologically. Newly formed school uniform allowed Japanese government to successfully unify the mind of Korean students and oppressed Koreans' tradition and liberty. Even after half century, almost all schools in Korea regulates and unify students through uniform. In this context, we could assume that there is politics, unifying students, in my culture, wearing a uniform.
It is also possible to discover the culture from the politics. Once a state gains the power it establishes laws, policies, and provisions in order to create a social order. The standard on establishing these come from its own culture. The embedded unconscious beliefs and values of a leader play significant role.  

           Culture is not static rather dynamic. Culture can be created, abolished, or amended due to the factors such as, as I mentioned above, globalization, colonization, and independence. Unless the human beings cease to exist from the earth, culture would experience various shapes and be embedded to people.

References

• Birch, D., Schirato, T., & Srivastava, S. (2001). Asia: Cultural Politics in the Global Age. New York : Palgrave. 
• Mulder, N. (1996). Inside Southeast Asia: Religion, Everyday Life, Cultural Change. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books.