When a nation loses its symbol

Korea is an old civilization with epochs of great cultural achievement. But like its neighbor, Japan - another old civilization with great cultural feats by world standards - Korea has long harbored a collective inferiority complex vis-a-vis America and Europe. The Korean propensity to nestle in the collective myth of cultural uniqueness, racial purity and ultimate antiquity is matched only by the preponderance of such impulses on the part of the Japanese.

Hence, the Korean trauma of helplessly bearing witness to an historic national monument burn down to ashes cuts deeper than, say, Parisians witnessing the Eiffel Tower collapse, or Bostonians watching Faneuil Hall burn to the ground. Beneath the pain and fury that the Koreans feel flows a visceral psychological hurt, shaped in part by pride in their old history and in part by an abiding discomfort in having played in recent memory, and in having to go on playing still today, the catch-up game with America and Europe. That some 350 firefighters over the course of nearly five hours could not extinguish a fire inside a wooden structure is considered by many South Koreans as national humiliation of the first order.

Korean - and, as an extension - East Asian attachment to antiquity stands in vast contrast to the future-oriented mentality of Americans. Americans are unencumbered by their youth as a republic or even civilization. One rather obvious reason is that the United States is just barely over 230 years old, while the Chinese civilization is - if not in point of antiquity then certainly in point of continuity - the oldest civilization in the world. Perhaps world hegemony is a most effective cure for collective neurosis, but the forward-looking mentality of Americans was apparent even in the 19th century when the young American republic was at best only a second-rate power.

China may not harbor such acute self-doubt as Korea or Japan when it comes to historical seniority and superiority, because China is indeed the oldest and for much of human history was the world's leader in wealth and technology. On the other hand, or perhaps precisely because of China's once glorious past, the Chinese, too, are particularly sensitive when it comes to protecting their cultural relics and works of art.

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The US government and the American people would never support an exhibition abroad of say, the Declaration Independence. Nonetheless, they were still unable to understand the emotional attachment to centuries-old art on the part of the Taiwanese. The signed copy of the Declaration of Independence preserved in the National Archive in Washington, DC, was sealed in 1951 in a bullet-proof glass encasement with humidified helium to block out oxygen and a filter to screen out light. In recent years, new and improved encasement designs made from pure titanium filled with inert argon have replaced the older ones. Americans, too, care for their national treasure, except that Americans simply do not have centuries-old art or monument to make a fetish of.

In many ways, art and cultural relics in China, Japan, and Korea embody the spirit of independence and national pride contained in the American Declaration of Independence. Namdaemun for many South Koreans was just that - the spirit of the Korean people and the Korean republic. It was certainly something to dote on - a beloved icon that came close to a national fetish.

~  from A blow to the Korean soul ~