Last week, I flew to Los Angeles to chair an international conference at the University of Southern California. When I landed at L.A. airport, I found more than 200 international passengers lined up at immigration to receive an entry stamp. Unfortunately, there were only six officers processing the seemingly endless, serpentine lines. Worse, they were doing their job in a leisurely manner without haste, as Americans tend to do. For an impatient man from Korea, the hour or so wait felt like torture.
Nevertheless, LAX immigration officers were friendly, often smiling or joking around. I saw a signboard that said, “We Are the Face of Our Nation,” which is absolutely true. Often immigration and customs officers create the first impression one gets of a country. Airport officers may find greeting an endless flow of people quite tiresome. But if they are even just a little friendly, they can significantly enhance the image of their nation. Finding that I was a professor visiting USC, the U.S. immigration officer became courteous and treated me with due respect.
When I finally passed through the entry inspection booth, I approached the customs officers. Since Asians, including Koreans, tend to bring in a variety of agricultural products to L.A., U.S. Customs seemed determined to stop the flow; a host of customs officers were busy asking the passengers questions. As I approached one of the customs officers, he asked me, “Any food?” “No,” I answered promptly. Then he let me pass through. He was neither intimidating nor rude.
Upon the conclusion of the USC conference, I returned to Seoul. Incheon airport seemed much more spacious than any other airport in the world. At Incheon, the process was so simple that it took me only a few seconds to pass through the entry inspection booth. Of course, foreigners may have taken longer to pass through, and yet Incheon airport is undoubtedly much more efficient and faster than LAX.
An unexpected roadblock awaited me, however, as I approached a customs officer after breezing through immigration. She glanced at the customs reports that I handed to her and to my surprise, callously said, “Put your bag on the X-ray inspection table.” But I had only one tiny carry-on bag! Besides, there was nothing valuable in my bag. Perhaps I looked like a smuggler to her, but she must have seen my occupation written on the customs report. Teachers and scholars have lifestyles that are far from luxurious. They do not usually buy expensive things overseas and bring them in. It is almost an insult to inspect the bag of a scholar or a teacher in Korea.
The same thing happened when I returned from Frankfurt last year. At that time, I also carried a small carry-on bag that contained nothing valuable. A young female customs officer at Incheon airport bluntly said the same thing to me, “Put the bag on the X-ray inspection table.” I did as instructed, and another female officer mercilessly looked through my tiny little bag and found nothing valuable.
Meanwhile, they let a host of passengers carrying huge bags pass right through. So I came to suspect that perhaps they did not want to bother checking big bags unless they were tipped in advance. Since they were obliged to check bags randomly, however, perhaps they picked those with small bags which require much less effort to inspect. If that is the case, I should have carried several huge bags instead of a small carry-on.
Or perhaps, I am not a woman’s type, because I have not had a single issue with male custom officers in my whole life so far. But then, it occurred to me that my wife married me and my daughter likes me, so I don’t think I’m threatening to women.
The third suspicion is that perhaps I did not look like a scholar or a teacher, but rather a gangster or a smuggler. Then it’s my fault for being stopped. In Korea we have a maxim that says: “When you are over 40, you should be responsible for your face.” It means when you reach 40, your face should reflect your decent personality, aged wisdom, and the nature of your profession. Perhaps living in a precarious zone of political and academic conflict has made me fail in cultivating a face of an esteemed scholar and teacher.
I know one’s occupation is not supposed to factor into whether one is screened or not at the airport. It may be a random process or perhaps contingent on where one returns from. Perhaps customs officers are alerted when passengers arrive from cities like L.A. or Frankfurt, where many Koreans reside. If so, I can fully understand the situation, even though the female customs officer completely spoiled my otherwise pleasant trip.
Nevertheless, I still wonder: does the beautiful tradition of respecting scholars and teachers no longer exist in Korea, or is it my grim face that triggers suspicion? Between L.A. airport and Incheon airport, I was momentarily confused.
By Kim Seong-kon
Kim Seong-kon, a professor of English at Seoul National University, is editor of the literary quarterly “21st Century Literature.” ― Ed.
