Worries on Cultural Erosion
A comparative approach between developed and developing countries with examples from Korea and East Africa..

There is no single country nor tribe in the world that can withstand cultural erosion in this era of globalisation. Most people don't want to say culture is being eroded but dynamism or advancement! For the most countries that were colonised, their present culture reflects the culture of their former masters. Very few countries have retained a significant percentage of their culture. In Africa there are some few tribes that have tried to retain their culture, and these includes the Maasai in the East Africa (Tanzania and Kenya) and the Hadzabe in Tanzania. Traditionally these are gathers and hunters, they survived by hunting wild animals, eating fruits, milk and meat from livestocks until recently. But with alteration of their natural habitats that has led to increased population of these families, but with limited resources such as wild animal declines, imposed protection laws and regulations by the respective governments that do not conform with the life styles of these tribes, have significantly affected their dream. Furthermore, some political leaders in these areas are addressing and imposing development policies that have been copied from developed countries or established during colonial rules without making changes depending on the current situations. Life styles of these tribes/communities and nations includes their languages, for example in countries that were colonised by British, if one can not speak or write good English is considered to be ignorant, uneducated and so on. Tanzania being one example, Tanzania official language is Kiswahili, a language that is now being spoken in many countries in Africa including Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi and DRC-Kinshasa, but you will be surprised that the education system uses English as a teaching language from Secondary schools to higher learning institutions including Universities. Although the media of communication in most public offices is Kiswahili, but one is surprised that interviews for screening employees is normally held in English! Currently there is a debate whether to change the media of teaching from English to Swahili, but some influential people with old mind would urge that the nation will be isolated from the entire World community, and that it will significantly affect the rate of development, but sometimes in public will agree and pledge to support the proposal of using Swahili.

I am one of those people that significantly differ with those minds, having seen the level of development that Korean has attained, the technology they have all sort of exports they are making, they have reached this level using their language..Korean language... Korean is not the only example that use their language and have attained such high level of development in Asia but it is a unique example that some of our developing countries in Africa can learn from, because it was once a colony of Japan, and then afterwards entered into a three year war with their relatives, the North Koreans.

As highlighted above that in this era of globalisation, it is very hard to maintain the original/traditional status quo of the culture, but at least some remnants should be retained. Korean have tried to retain some unique cultural aspects such as dressing (but these days only on important functions, festivals and memorials) example the Hanbok (한복), the Korean traditional dress is very rarely seen dressed by people in these days especially in Seoul. It is now not uncommon to see ladies dressed in very short skirts...the mini-skirts, I happened to ask some old people here, they are saying in those old days one could not dress such short skirts and go in public events, it was considered as misbehaving but now they have accepted the wind of change by young generation in the expense of globalisation. You will see many boys (mostly teenagers), wearing ear rings which is thought to be a different culture of the old Koreans. Language has remained the special entity of the Korean culture, although there is also dynamism in languages always imposed by young people who always want short cuts and this is also happening in most communities. The street language and the language used by young generation is different, but the Korean have retained the honorific aspects in their language. Different patterns are used when making official speeches, writing articles in news papers, speaking to old and respected people, and this makes learning Korean language difficult, but a unique entity of their culture. There are also popular English medium schools in Korea especially in Seoul, which is a good thing, but still all Koreans use their language (한국말) everywhere you go. The other good things in Korea, they have many museums where one can see, experience, learn their history, and these museum are very much maintained and visited or used by Koreans and foreigners who live or visit Korea. However, Koreans have maintained the Taekwondo as one of the most traditional martial arts, it has gained an international reputation and now included in Olympic games. Kimchi is also their traditional food. These are most common and known traditional symbols of Koreans.

In summary, I am not trying to say that countries should be isolated from the entire world or completely resist the changes in their life style, but at least every country/ region or tribe should struggle to retain their good traditional culture as much as possible, this would be important to the future generations. If culture is left to be like a free trade, then all countries whether developed or developing may be loosing an asset that may regret in future!

Prepared by Jasson John
Seoul National University