The Harry Potter Phenomenon

Though you couldn't pay me to be 20 again, I sometimes wish I had been born a little later.  Here's why: the way the teen and tween population viewed reading changed dramatically in the years after Harry Potter.  When I was growing up, it was spectacularly uncool to be excited about a book.  I distinctly remember a girl holding up my copy of A Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis and using it to mock me to the rest of the class.  I may have grown up with other avid readers, but they were closeted.

Fast forward to today.  You can see even the cool kids make references to the Hunger Games and Twilight (the series, not the movies).  The ones who spend a lot of time in the library still have cadres of friends.  During the summer, young people abound in the library, many of whom are dying to get the next book in a beloved series.  In a strange twist of fate, our community's middle school queen bees wave to me, the community librarian, in public.  I have finally achieved the social status my twelve year old self was dying for.  

It is no longer uncool to read, and though many young people don't know this, we have the Harry Potter series to thank for it.  Harry Potter was the literary phenomenon that rocked our society.  Kids and adults read it. Everyone talked about it.  Suddenly, if you weren't familiar with Harry Potter, you weren't with it.

In the years following Harry Potter's popularity, children's literature exploded.  Where you would once find one meager shelf of "children's chapter books" at the bookstore--ranging from The Velveteen Rabbit to Sweet Valley High, you now would find ranges of stuff, now divided between "middle readers" and "young adults" (The New York Times Books section, the final holdout, finally divided its bestseller list of "children's chapter books" into middle and young adult sections about a year ago).  Young adult science fiction and fantasy grew exponentially, and was eventually followed by most other genres.  Now there are books for reluctant readers, books for video game enthusiasts, graphic novels that are not about superheroes, and even young adult books for adults.  

I firmly believe the world is a better place for this.  The first post Harry Potter generation is now coming of age, and they are some of the most creative, compassionate, socially responsible, and imaginative young people we have seen in awhile.  And yes, I am familiar with the bellyaching about millennials and their short attention spans/ lack of respect for personal privacy/ poor spelling/ poor verbal communication skills, an opinion that is repeated in different guise with every generation that comes of age.  It's hard to deny that young people create more, write more, and do more for the world they live in.  I'd like to think that Harry Potter, and his help returning reading to mainstream juvenile society, had something to do with that.

West vs. East

I have taken particular notice to the difference between western and eastern cultures for the past few years.  It was overwhelming at first, and my knee jerk reaction was to consider the western way better all the time.  I still have that reaction sometimes, and have recognized it for what it is--I am an American, and will never be anything else.  I will always bristle upon sitting down to a table at a restaurant and having the eldest male pick my entree.  I will always feel more comfortable seeing a mixture of race, dress, and behavior when I step into a large crowd.  I have noticed how the difference between the two cultures has come up a lot in contemporary nonfiction, particularly the difference between Asian students and American ones.  I have gotten into several discussions about the Asian way of having conversations, conducting business, and, particularly education.  And I have decided that, while some methods are clearly superior, the world needs both of us.

Westerners and their coveted individualism are behind some of the most successful off the wall ideas of our time.  Americans in particular have brought us Facebook, the iphone, the telephone, electricity, youtube, jazz, and other creations that were odd in their time.  The individualism that allows us to believe we are right in the face of overwhelming dissension allows American visionaries to bring seemingly absurd ideas to fruition.  There are consistently two or three self-published titles on the New York Times bestseller lists because of the persistence of someone who had every reason to believe she was not a good writer.  You don't see that in Korea.  Notably, you also don't see people performing terribly on stage (as they do in American Idol) and insisting that they are just undervalued as they are booed off of the stage.

Asians and the value they place on education are blowing Americans out of the water in an international job market.  The statistics are clear.  Asian Americans are far more successful in school and in life than their Anglo counterparts.  For some reason, western culture still values popularity and self esteem over actual education, which is the only real road to success.  When I see students here and think back on my own grade school days, I'm embarrassed for us.  That's not to say that there aren't things to value in a western education.  We place more emphasis on individual thought as opposed to giving the teacher what he or she expects, which, in reasonable doses, is a positive thing (see the previous point).  On the other hand, Koreans value hard work and respect someone who works hard, while Americans value get-rich-quick, fad diet, four hour workweek schemes that promise a lot of reward for little effort, but rarely deliver.  This idea unfortunately bleeds into our academics.

Plastic surgery is popular here and Koreans are notoriously image conscious, as anyone who is somewhat overweight can tell you.  On the other hand, you can walk into any crowded space and pick out the Americans because they are often three times the size of anyone else.  There is a healthy medium between obsessing about appearance too much and ignoring obviously unhealthy eating habits, and it lies somewhere between Korea and America.

I suppose we are yin and yang to each other.  Our time in Korea has shaped me, and I hope to absorb the better aspects of it while not looking too far down my nose at the negative ones.  After all, Korea and America both love Harry Potter.  Doesn't that mean that we're fundamentally the same?

Ugh. Again?

Seriously people!  Let's stop acting like asshats in a foreign country.  I have been to several different countries, and Americans tend to display the worst behavior of any nationality when they're abroad.  Every culture has its dirty laundry, but most people know enough not to air it on the world stage.  This frat house behavior is so embarrassing to the rest of us.

So yeah.  Some GI's shot bb's in a crowded area and scared the crap out of a bunch of poor civilians.  It's turned into a big international incident, and there have been protests outside of the Yongsan post.  Not funny.

Speaking of asshats, I get a lot of questions from the folks back at home about whether or not we're safe.  KJU likes to rattle sabers.  I think these are just a little more strongly worded hollow threats.  From what I can see, Koreans aren't incredibly concerned, and neither am I.

Spring!

It's finally spring around here, and we've been enjoying the weather!

I recently saw X licking spoons, then putting them back into the drawer.  I wonder how long he's been doing that.  Kids are such weirdos.