Adrian and the Autumn of Han Qiu Chapter 4

The name of Chung-Ang University is very intimidating, but it actually has nothing to do with the "central" in South Korea. People just like to call it "Central", just like the nickname of the landlord's child in a novel must be called "Emperor". A Korean friend took me to Chung-Ang University to participate in a nationwide grand rally against globalization and neoliberalism. I didn't have a clear position on this matter at the time, because I didn't think globalization was terrible. But when I saw the angry workers and peasants at the venue and the revolutionary programs they performed, I was infected by the "fiery life". Only in the real situation of capitalism can you understand the justice of socialism and understand that socialism is precisely to protect the human rights of millions of people.

I also went to the branch of Chung-Ang University. Many universities in South Korea have branch campuses in small cities. The branch of Chung-Ang University is in Anseong, a famous place in South Korea for producing instant noodles. My Peking University colleague Huang Hui teaches there. A few of my friends in Seoul and I went there to play. Every time I go to a university outside Seoul, I think to myself that a university should be built in such a place. Beautiful mountains and clear waters, fertile fields, dogs barking outside the classroom, and chickens crowing beside the podium. We walked in the seemingly endless campus and didn't meet anyone for a long time. On the ground of a square, there were many propaganda posters exposing the massacre of the Korean people by the US military. We went to dig wild vegetables again, reciting "Cai Cai Fu Yi" from the Book of Songs while digging. We dug up something that looked like ginseng and radish, and asked the guard after returning. The guard said that you have no use for it, so we left it. We had a hearty dinner and played poker all night. It was so quiet that it seemed that the sound of poker falling on the blanket could be heard from a thousand miles away. An unforgettable night in Anseong.

Most of the universities outside Seoul were visited for meetings or lectures. I took a quick look around and was not very impressed. The general impression was that they were large, grand, beautiful, and equipped with advanced facilities. This was true of Korea University in Gwangju and Chungnam University in Daejeon. Whenever you see a group of beautiful buildings that are different from others, they are most likely universities. Most of these universities were built after the economic boom in the 1980s. They are very particular about design and seek change. The locations are also good. Almost all of them are in Feng Shui treasured places. When you look up, you can see the stars hanging down over the vast plains. When you open the window, you can see the moon flowing over the river. The space gives people a sense of "big" universities. After visiting Korean universities, you will realize that this is a country that attaches great importance to education. In the corridors of many universities, you can see rows of computers where students can use them at will. There are more computers than students. I remember when I was studying at Peking University, there were not even more chairs than students. Students often fought for seats, and I also had such fights. Peking University relies on the hard-working spirit of "fighting for chairs" to push the pace of the motherland forward. This is certainly valuable, but wouldn’t it be better if the hardware was better, with more chairs, more computers, and more buildings? Of course, this is hard to say. It is said that Peking University was ranked seventh in Asia at its best. If there really comes a day when there are more computers than students, I hope it won’t be ranked 70th.

Kind Yin Huai

According to the Korean book "Records of Famous Officials in the East Sea", Yin Huai of the Joseon Dynasty went out to stay overnight when he was young. The owner did not allow him to do so, so he sat by the yard. The owner's son took out a large pearl, which fell into the yard and was swallowed by a white goose. The owner could not find the pearl, so he tied Yin Huai up and reported it to the authorities. Yin Huai did not argue, but only asked to tie up the goose as well. The next day, "the pearl came out from the back of the goose", and the truth was revealed. The owner was ashamed and asked him why he did not tell him yesterday. Yin Huai replied: "If I had told you yesterday, the owner would have cut open the goose to find the pearl. So I endured the humiliation and waited."

Yin Huai's calm attitude in the face of danger and his calm attitude in not arguing when being insulted is very admirable. He has the style of Su Dongpo, who said, "Don't be angry when being attacked without reason, and don't be surprised when being attacked suddenly." Many Korean friends I met smiled and were kind and friendly when they heard others praising Korea's advantages, but when they heard others making a little euphemistic criticism of Korea, they immediately turned pale, retorted, or even slammed the table and flew into a rage. My senior brother Gao Yuandong pointed out, "Koreans are narrow-minded and competitive." Therefore, I rarely criticize Korea. No matter how big the grievances I encountered in Korea, I tried to swallow them down, and I often advised Chinese who had just arrived in Korea, "Don't give Koreans any advice." At the beginning, I even doubted that Koreans have always had this kind of hot temper since ancient times?

But the story of Yin Huai made me realize that the ancient Koreans also admired this kind of benevolent and elegant style. They could even tolerate being wrongly accused of theft. How confident they were. The bad temper of today's Koreans is probably more directly related to a modern history full of oppression and struggle. When a nation washes away its humiliation and regains its dignity in the world, their temper may become elegant. People as broad-minded as Yin Huai can appear in Korea's yesterday, and naturally they can also appear in Korea's tomorrow.

(Because of my confidence in my Korean friends, I also dare to write some bold criticisms of Korea.)

The revolutionary spirit of the Korean people

I live in the International Hall of Ewha Womans University, where scholars and teachers from many countries in the East and West live. They are far away from their homeland and most of them do not speak Korean, so they inevitably encounter many difficulties in life. Because these scholars are in a bad mood, they often criticize South Korea for being barbaric or backward. I also have my own opinions about South Korea, but in front of "imperialism", I always feel that I should speak from the perspective of an oppressed nation. I said that although South Korea's economy is not as developed as the West and its culture is not as profound as China, the revolutionary spirit of Koreans is currently the best in the world. This is something that not only you "imperialists" should learn from, but also our "great socialist China" should learn from.

South Korea also had a brilliant ancient culture, but the suffering of modern Korean history is rare in the world. After almost half a century of Japanese rule, the country finally recovered, but the entire peninsula was cut in half by the Cold War system. Under special historical conditions, South Korea experienced decades of military dictatorship. Hope for peace, democracy, and unification can be said to be the eternal complex that Koreans are obsessed with and cannot get rid of. Where there is oppression, there is resistance. A history of suffering in South Korea is also a history of resistance by the Korean people. They used unyielding resistance to usher in the recovery of the three Korean lands, and used successive uprisings and revolutions to end military dictatorship and enter the democratic era. I was at the "5.18" cemetery in Gwangju, looking at the layers of tombstones and said: "The blood of Korean youth was not shed in vain after all." What is more valuable is that today, while the economy is growing rapidly and the degree of democracy is deepening, Koreans have not abandoned their revolutionary traditions. In the academic circles of South Korea, many outstanding scholars still maintain a revolutionary sentiment and think about the issue of world revolution. In China, Japan and other countries, as the economy prospers, many people have forgotten that revolution is the nurse of today's economic prosperity. They have begun to settle accounts with the revolution and curse it. Academics have become a bunch of irrelevant nonsense, and professors have become an unbreakable rubber rice bowl. Just as Chinese and Japanese go are becoming less and less vibrant and full of high morale as Korean go, Chinese and Japanese academics are becoming more and more old-fashioned, treating showing off materials and textual research as the first-class realm, and throwing the scholar's mission to the wind.