by Brittany(Ruiyun)Liang
If you stay in one place, you won’t get lost #shoes
This episode starts with other girls in the Belle Epoque watching Ye-Eun deleting Du-Yeong’s contact and photos from her phone. They are drinking, laughing and celebrating. And later an insurance investigator wants to talk to Eun-Jae. They have a conversation about her mom is now under investigation. While Ye-Eun is keeping herself super busy so that she can forget Du-Yeong, Jin-Myeong is having an interview for a job. Ye-Eun, Eun-Jae and Ji-Won they are all going to help Jin-Myeong pick an outfit for her interview. They end up picking the outfit from the sales rack because others are too expensive. On the other hand, Yi-na is buying expensive clothing using her “boyfriend’s” credit card. Close to the end of this episode, we see Jin-Myeong cannot get the job, and at work her manager accuses her saying she steals two bottles of wines.
When Jin-Myeong is having her interview, she is asked why is she taking so long to graduate and the interviewer also look at her shoes with a disappointed look. In this scene, we can see Korea is such a competitive society. I argue that Korean society people see others’ social status through their physical appearance and education level. People evaluate you not only based on your ability and your experience but also which university you graduate from, how many years you spend in university and your clothing and physical appearance. We as viewers are not told the reasons why Jin-Myeong cannot get the job she deserved, maybe the interviewer disapproves her because she spends more time in university to graduate or because she is not wearing expensive shoes or both.
We know Jin-Myeong stays at university longer than others because of her financial difficulties and she is such a hard-working girl and is full of experience. However, in a society that people care about education and clothing that much she still cannot compete with others. In Kim Doo Hwan and Choi Yool’s paper, they showed the fact that higher education expansion intensifies social competition and inequality (Kim and Choi 2015:457). In Jin-Myeong’s case, even she tells the interviewer that she has lots of experiences and she can handle many situations she is not the perfect person for this job position. In Jeong-Kyu Lee’s paper, he explains one of the negative effects education fever brings to Korean society is the social disharmony between the rich and the poor (Lee 2006:10). In reality, people like Jin-Myeong who has to take years off to pay off a student loan do not have the money to afford expensive clothing or top education will not be hired in better job position whereas the one with better education opportunities and more expensive brand of clothing are hired which even deepen the inequality. Moreover, we see Yi-na knows better when she sees Jin-Myeong’s shoes and wants to give her the ‘better’ shoes. In Korea, they display their social status or desired class through class-appropriate clothing and decorum (Elfving-Hwang 2013:2). At this point, I think Yi-Na has to find ‘sugar daddy’ to afford her materialistic need is even more reasonable.
Conclusively, in Korean society, people evaluate others based on their education level and physical appearance such as clothing. Without better education and better clothing, you sometimes do not even get the ‘ticket’ to enter the competition with others.
Bibliographies:
Kim, Doo Hwan and Choi Yool. “The Irony of the Unchecked Growth of Higher Education in South Korea: Crystallization of Class Cleavages and Intensifying Status Competition.”Development And Society 44, no.3 (2015): 435-463.
Lee, Jeong-Kyu. “Educational Fever and South Korean Higher Education.” Revista Electrónica De Investigación Educativa 8, no.1 (2006): 1-14
Joanna, Elfving-Hwang. “Cosmetic Surgery and Embodying the Moral Self in South Korean Popular Makeover Culture.” The Asia-Pacific Journal 11. no.2 (2013): 1-16
Discussion questions:
1. What do you think could be the reasons why Koreans care about clothing and physical appearance that much? Do you think this would actually deepen the gap between the rich and the poor?
2. What do you think Koreans can do to change this or at least eliminate some of the negativities caused by this social norm?
Age of Youth (Hello, My Twenties!) 
This episode emphasize on people’s change. Yi-Na relieved on her nightmare of kill a girl, and she seems decided to stop being a sex worker and start a new life. Ye-Eun become more independent after her break up with boyfriend, and Jin-Myeong finally stand up against her boss for the constant harassments. The details in the episode is also worth noticing, in the scene Jin-Myeong wears a pair of old shoes to a interview, and apparently the shoes catch the interviewer’s attention. She failed the interview eventually and the bad shoe she wore for the interview might be an important factor that caused the failure. So, as Brittany asked,I think Koreans care about the clothes they wear because it affects their social status. People in Korea judge a person by the clothes that person wear. A person wears better or expensive clothes could receive admire and respect, while a poor dressed person receives bad judgement and bad treatment. As a society build up based on materialism and capitalism, I believe there is little alternatives to change such social norm. However, such social norm that judge people by their appearance could create inequality and unfairness, which I think the discouragement of this social norm teach in Korean education might change this phenomenon in the future.
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I agree with what @harrylinzebin said. If we assume that the shoes that Jin-myeong wore were one of the reasons why she didn’t get an interview, it demonstrates that appearances are very important in Korean society as it could be a display of wealth. As we are aware that wealth is a symbol of higher social status, it reveals this cycle of the need to look good in order to show one’s status in order to be treated better. I believe because of this, it can deepen the gap between the wealthy and the poor because the poor will not be able to afford the expensive brands that are a symbol of higher status, preventing them from climbing the social ladder, whereas, if someone has a bit of money, they can try to fake their way into the social ladder which would help them gain more wealth and widen the wealth disparity gap.
Something I wanted to point out was that right after the scene of Jin-myeong’s shoes, there was a direct contrast of her shoes with Yi-na’s shoes. As we are aware of Yi-na’s wealth compared to Jin-myeong’s, it subtly highlights the wealth disparity between the two characters which could be an allegory for the real-life wealth disparity happening in Korea. Especially the fact they live with each other, it depicts that the wealthy and the poor co-exist in very close proximities and how it is a very real issue which needs to be solved. Interestingly, the drama presents one possible solution which is when the wealthy support the poor, not so much by giving them money, but by helping them with their social status. This can be seen in Yi-na trying to give her shoes to Jin-myeong (which she ultimately fails to).
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As @harrylinzebin and @jasminekan13 said, appearance is important in South Korean society as it displays one’s wealth. I think part of the reason why physical appearance is so important is because it is emphasized so much in South Korean society. An example given in class is how people applying for jobs in Korea are required to submit a picture/headshot, even if it’s not for a customer service job or anything related to physical appearance. The concept of beauty (and just physical appearance general) is firmly established in the society and it’s different sectors (such as the workplace from the above example). The people are very conscious of their looks, and with such a hyper-competitive society, it is no wonder that physical appearance is strongly emphasized.
I believe this emphasis on looks does deepen the gap between the wealthy and the poor. Being wealthy allows one to get more things that can show a person’s higher status. It gives the wealthy person a bit of an edge in a society that clearly focuses on looks, and they are given more opportunities that could help “fix” their physical appearance as opposed to someone with less money who needs to get the basic necessities before splurging on things that would “enhance” their physical appearance.
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As Zebin, Jasmine and Alex said, appearance plays an important role in Korean social life and has become almost synonymous with one’s social status. Koreans place so much emphasis on their appearance that they try to dress and make their appearance looks better. I think that’s one of the reasons why cosmetic surgery is so popular in Korea.
Also, in addition to what we saw in this episode, Jin-Myeong didn’t get the work because she wore cheap shoes, I’ve heard that in Korea if a woman wears the same clothes for two days, she will be considered that she did not sleep at home but sleepover outside. The phenomenon of judging people by their appearance is particularly exaggerated in Korea so that I would worry that if this trend will make more people care about their appearance rather than enriching their inner selves.
For the second question, I think the media should be a good way to eliminate the negativities caused by the Korean appearance norm. For example, the ordinary can be mentioned in advertisement or magazines.
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In Korea, the site of the body occupies two realms—the national and the individual. A major reason why everyone is essentially trying to “keep up” in terms of the latest fashion and cosmetic procedures moves beyond individual narcissistic reasons and actually intersects with neoliberalism and the growing social competitiveness within the Korean economy. Epstein and Joo argue that there is a Momgap (body price) which allows men and women to confer status in the workplace or when applying for jobs. When perfecting your appearance directly affects the chances one has in their economic and social mobility its not a surprise why it has become such an anxious point of consideration for many Koreans in their hyper-competitive society. I feel that this does indeed widen the gap between rich and poor because only those who have money can afford good quality cosmetic surgery which essentially gives them an edge on their competition.
To change this, perhaps Koreans can promote body positivity and pride. As an African American I have studied a great deal about Black pride and self love. It wasn’t until the 1960s when Marcus Garvey—a Pan-Africanist—began to popularize the idea that “black is beautiful” and our natural skin, hair, and features do not need to be manipulated to fit closer to European standards to be beautiful. To eliminate the societal pressure of achieving “physical perfection” then Koreans need to reclaim their beauty in its natural form and take pride within their natural features.
Bibliography:
Epstein, Stephen and Rachael M. Joo. “Multiple Exposures: Korean Bodies and the Transnational Imagination.” The Asia-Pacific Journal 10, no.33 (2012):4.
-Vanessa A.
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Vanessa’s comment is just gold. Whole discussion is good. Be careful to include final . in the biblio, though.
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