[Opinion] Give up the Desire!

Watching the game between our national team and the U.S. team made me think of many things. Although it is just a sport, it is a major feat for us to beat the U.S.. The U.S. is the sole superpower in the world and our players fought well with them. I was joyous and even proud of those young players who seemed to overtake the opponents with their mental concentration. They are clearly different from the older generation who for some reason always felt small in front of the Americans. The future may really belong to the youth.

During my time as an international student in America in the early 1980s, Korea was nothing more than a poor country. It was rare for most people to know where Korea was. We used to hide from Americans when we ate kimchi. Looking back, it hurts one`s sense of pride but things were like that back then. Timid Koreans, that`s how we saw ourselves.

But, then, the Korean car Excel showed up on the market. Whenever we would run into the small compact on the highways or a parking garage, our hearts would fill up with pride. Even if Hyundai auto never did anything for us personally, we just felt happy. Blood is thicker than water.

Many years passed and our country advanced rapidly. Newspapers reported that Korean cars were selling like hot cakes in the U.S. market. Although politics were still messy, we no longer worried that a soldier would infringe upon democratic society. Look at the newly opened Inchon International Airport. This is second to no other airport in the world. China is in high spirits because they secured their place as the host country for the 2008 Olympics, but we`ve been there and done that a long time ago. We cannot help but raise our heads and broaden our shoulders.

We need to become objective precisely at this moment. Soccer and economy are all good, but what is the overall quality of our people`s lives? We don`t even need to compare with another country. How would we assess our own lives? Are we satisfied with how we are living right now?

There are times when we turn on the old films of our past days. "Wow, we lived in houses like that? Oh no, the briquette gas . . . ." etc. Watching the past as we recline in our rocking chairs, the difference between the past and the present seem truly huge. Is that really true, though? Are we genuinely happy now? The poet Kim Kwang-Kyu thinks differently. We were happy back then even though we had to walk. Although we ride in cars today, we do not feel happy.

"we walked everywhere / leaving our home in Tongindong . . . to Dongsoongdong campus / no subways, now buses . . . on paths covered with dirt, sprayed with mud / we walked slowly/now the cars rush by / sounding their horns / we did not rush /not anxious to get ahead, not even by a step."

We have been running like mad. We worked day and night, gazing at America, to catch up to nearby Japan. As a result, we got bigger apartments and got our children private tutors. We no longer need to hide when eating kimchi. We can say that we have arrived.

Yet, we remain anxious. We feel empty without understanding why. Everyday, the world becomes more inhuman and our lives become shallow. As our exterior gets shinier, we ourselves seem to be getting pettier. We react with anger because foreigners criticize us for bo shin tang, but who are really, we who are mesmerized by some unidentified foreign wine called Beaujolais Nouveau? Where do we stand, we who vacillate between extreme confidence and a fathomless sense of inferiority?

The end of material competition can only be empty. A sage of the Old Testament says, "All is vanity, everything is vanity." Rousseau despairs because human beings follow futile desires which only lead to "fame without virtue, reason without wisdom, pleasure without happiness. Even during those difficult days, Mr. Kim Koo dreamed of establishing our nation as a `Kulturstaat` ."

Now is the time to catch our breath and look at ourselves anew. Let us first practice living humane lives. If we can regain our center and live our lives with modesty and sincerity, will not we find a truly number 1 nation? The real challenge has just begun.

Suh Byung-Hoon (Soongsil University, Professor of Political Science)