If I were an anthropologist, the student variety shows that I have experienced at school and university in South Korea would provide excellent material for analysis. Cross-dressing – that is, boys dressed to resemble girls – is always included in such shows. The hall – whether at school or university – roars with conventional laughter; yet in my case, I feel uneasy, because I suspect that the function of this laughter is to reinforce gender stereotypes through the vehicle of humour. People laugh at boys who have donned coloured wigs for mock-beauty pageants because the notion of men exhibiting feminine behaviour is considered absurd.

Sexual diversity remains invisible on the vast majority of university campuses across South Korea. If you were to visit a comparable campus in the UK, there would certainly be a student organisation dedicated to supporting students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (abbreviated to LGBT). Although CNU is a progressive university by South Korean standards, my investigations have indicated that no LGBT organisation or student society exists here.

Before the summer, I decided to raise the issue of sexual diversity in our newspaper-reading class as an interesting dimension of the theme of censorship. A new biography of Mahatma Gandhi had been banned in conservative parts of India, a democracy, because it suggested that this revered figure might have been bisexual. One courageous student in the same newspaper-reading class later opted to give a presentation on the debates surrounding gay marriage. After articulating different points of view and weighing up different sides of the debate, he stated that he could not see any problem with gay people marrying. Classmates didn’t seem especially shocked – though another student asked sceptically whether the presenter had actually met any gay people.

If future teachers in the English Education Department have been given the impression that sexual diversity does not exist in South Korea, this is intensely worrying. Firstly, recent newspaper reports have drawn attention to the high suicide rate among South Korea’s young people (particularly at high school level).   Although many people attribute the alarming suicide rate to intense academic pressure, similar reports in Western countries have drawn attention to the difficulty that teenagers face in coming to terms with their sexuality. Could confusion over sexual orientation also affect a minority of Korean youth and be an exacerbating factor in the country’s troubling suicide rate?

Secondly, one of education’s aims is to present reality as it is, enabling us to make properly informed decisions and thus help human society to progress. If sexual diversity exists in society – and I would argue that it does, though the degree of openness varies from one society to the next – then, by university level, this aspect of human behaviour should not be invisible.

As a progressive university with a proud democratic track record, Chonnam National University should be taking the lead in discussing such issues openly, offering appropriate support to students who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, who will certainly need help and understanding if they are to make the most of their lives and abilities. Let this idyllic campus be a paradise for everyone – not just heterosexual ‘campus couples’. Let no-one be doomed to the silent suffering that accompanies invisibility.

How refreshing it would be, in conclusion, if the head of a school could climb on to the stage after a variety show and, instead of presenting prizes for the boys’ mock-beauty pageant, reassure students that they can be however they like. This is certainly the basis of my ethics: if it doesn’t cause pain to other people or living creatures, it is probably acceptable.

 

#311 Faculty Column