Thursday, December 9, 2010

Tourism in Korea

One of the biggest changes in Korea with the growth of its tourism is the integration of English into the daily lives of Koreans. Schooling children are required to learn English, signboards now come with English directions and Koreans are generally encouraged to pick up conversational English. This is an evidence of a governmental effort to promote tourism. Since English is a widely-accepted and universal language, chances of meeting English-speaking tourists seeking for help is high. By slowly introducing English into the community, it helps to subtly integrate it into the Korean society without being a turn-off or being mistaken as an attempt to ‘westernize’ the country, which may be met with fierce revolts from citizens.

Some people may see that tourism is the main culprit of commodifying cultures and traditions, but in my opinion, it is a two-sided coin and that there are two ways to look at this issue. The way I see it, cultures and traditions are being commodified by tourism is mainly due to the fact of merchandising. However, it is not entirely the fault of tourism that fuels this cause. The human nature of greed for more money is also an explainable factor that contributes to the commodifying of cultures and traditions.

Merchandising, like the type in Disneyization, is one way to see why tourism is the cause of commodifying cultures and traditions. Sale of mass-produced traditional handicraft to meet demand is one such example. The mass production of such items leads to the loss of value, meaning and significance of these items. Let’s take the Ojibwa Dreamcatcher for example. The primary use of a dreamcatcher before it got over-commercialized was as a protective charm for infants and children. It was believed that the spider web-shaped ornament would catch any harmthat might be in the air, just like how a spider's web catches and holds whatever comes in contact with it. However, it has lost its meaning ever since it became overly popular and got commercialized. It is now more known for its beautifying purposes and as a general protective ornament to be hung in homes. From this, we can see how merchandising can harm a culture or a tradition of a society by making it overly popular and thus, leading to over-commercialization.

However, we cannot fully blame tourism for the cause. I believe that human greed is a contributing factor as well. It is in our human nature to be greedy for more of things that benefit us, such as money. Even right down to the most rural areas of the world, we know that money is an essential commodity that buys you everything that you need in order to survive. In tribes, the concept of money may not be present prior to the external influence from urbanised areas. However, once they have found out what sort of wonders that money can do, they fall into the blackhole. With cultural tourism on the rise, tours to indigenous tribal areas increase and the demand for local souvenirs rise as well. The indigenous people might have developed at greater greed for money than for the purpose of promoting its culture to visitors, and hence seek various opportunities to sell their tangible culture for money. From this, we can picture why the greed for money is the cause of commodifying cultures and traditions instead of tourism.

Although there are two sides to a coin, when you flip it, you will always have one side facing up. I think that tourism as a reason for this cause outweighs the other arguments against it. This is because tourism is the reason why many cultures and traditions around the world are made known. Without tourism, some cultures and traditions, such as that of the Kayan Lahwi (also known as the Long Neck Tribe), would not be known. For this reason, tourism seems to be the major contributing factor to the commodifying of cultures and traditions. However, we must not neglect the other factors that may be present or overlook them.

To read more on dreamcatchers, you can go to: http://www.native-languages.org/dreamcatchers.htm

For Kayan Lahwi, you can refer to: http://www.peoplesoftheworld.org/text?people=Karen

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