Left Flank

After reading Choe Sang-hun's ode to superstition, I recalled Party Pooper's two-part piece on James Randi in South Korea. As if broadband coverage now connotes «civilization» for westerners who know nothing of the business practices of South Korean ISPs and glorified arcades Internet rooms, pairing technology with spiritual gullibility is almost an indictment of 21st Century society. The Randi quote I recall is this one, talking about the stubborn greed of a TV producer:

Nothing, but nothing, took place as planned. People would call, arrange to meet me, and never show up.  There was little, if any, understanding of what I was there to do, though I'd gone into exquisite detail on the faxes.  It took us two days to discover that the Big Producer, Mr. Kim*, had been misinformed; he thought I was a genuine psychic!

Well, that posed a major problem.  I'd outlined 16 tricks-of-the-psychics I would do, along with explanations. And I did them all at the production meetings, to establish that they'd work. Everyone oooohed and ahhhhed, but Kim was quite troubled. He finally announced that I would wear a silver
robe and hat, and declare it all to be the real thing. I counter-announced that I'd do no such thing, and he could only get that costume onto my corpse. [Would like to have heard the interpreters handle that one]. Kim suggested that I say that some of what I did was fake, but most of it was real. I said no. He told me I could say that most of what I did was fake, but some was real. Nyet, nein, no, non. We were not at all happy with each other, and Kim kept saying that the Korean people like to believe that psychic stuff is real, and they would expect me to say that it is.

Choe's article only makes it worse.

There are an estimated 300,000 shamans, or one for every 160 South Koreans, according to the Korea Worshipers Association, which represents shamans. They are fiercely independent, following different gods, sharing no one body of scriptures. And they are highly adaptable. When the Internet boom hit South Korea, shamans were among the first to set up commercial Web sites, offering online fortunetelling. Many younger shamans maintain blogs on the Internet.

Need I say it—opportunism. Eclecticism is just another word for that, too!

«Korean shamanism is very, very materialistic and this-worldly, as Koreans tend to be,» the curator Yang said. «I don't think a Christian pastor can succeed here if he only talks about heaven and does not hint at health and material prosperity.»

Six of one, and a half-dozen of another, materialism and heaven, I say. But, who wants to pay some freak money and not get good news?

Their customer, a 51-year-old nurse, wanted the shamans's help in getting a divorce from her unfaithful husband. Instead, for 5 million won, or $5,400, the shamans promised to help them reconcile.

That's quite a deal compared to a messy divorce, or therapy, or even a shameful stay in a mental clinic.

In a generation, the only venue where South Koreans will watch shamans perform will be in the theater. That's where shamans belong.

Update: For, perhaps, a more sympathetic reading of Choe's article, check out R, Elgin at TMH:

As Choe writes, though there is a modern society, here in Seoul, there is a part of the Korean psyche that still lives in the world of spirits and beliefs that are very old. 

Better liquor will suffice!