[Kim Seong-kon] Diplomats and cultural interactions

A few days ago, U.S. Ambassador Kathleen Stephens hosted a farewell dinner party for Patrick J. Linehan, minister-counselor for public affairs, who has been newly assigned to Osaka as consulate general. Since Linehan is my good friend, I decided to attend the dinner to bid farewell to him. 

When I met Linehan at the U.S. ambassador’s residence, he seemed to be genuinely sad to leave Korea, where he had spent the best years of his life. Appreciating his special relationship with Korea, he used to tell me, “My name ‘nehan’ means ‘Coming to Korea’ in the Korean language.” I told him, “As you know, Koreans often confuse ‘l’ with ‘r’ in pronunciation. So some Koreans may pronounce your name as ‘Re-nehan,’ not ‘Linehan,’ which means “Coming to Korea again.” In his farewell speech, Linehan assured us that it is every minister-counselor’s dream to serve Ambassador Stephens, who is so sociable that she “blogs, tweets in Twitter and bikes.”

Delivering her welcome speech, Ambassador Stephens impressed the guests with her fluent Korean. She spoke in Korean throughout, except when she wanted address her fellow Americans in English once in a while. Speaking freely, the ambassador demonstrated her ability to deliver a spontaneous speech in Korean that at times was serious and professional and also lightly humorous. Announcing that dinner was ready, Ambassador Stephens once again impressed the audience with her gesture of a modest Korean hostess, playfully saying, as a Korean housewife would customarily say: “There is nothing to eat. But please eat a lot.” Of course, an excellent buffet awaited us in the dining room.

The incoming Minister-Counselor Brent D. Byers, too, pleased us by speaking in Korean. As an English major in college, he obviously had an unusual gift for language acquisition. Kim Su-nam, director of the Information Resources Center at the U.S. Embassy, tipped me that Byers enjoys conversing with people in Korean, rather than in English, perhaps to enhance cultural interaction. So I spoke to him in Korean and found his Korean surprisingly solid and proficient. My impression was that one did not need to speak English in the U.S. ambassador’s residence, which made all the Korean guests there feel very comfortable.

The U.S. Department of State seems to have a policy of dispatching diplomats to countries they know well or were once associated with. Thus if a U.S. diplomat is of Korean origin, has a Korean spouse, or can speak Korean, he or she is likely to be assigned to Korea. The State Department seems to believe that such a policy best serves its diplomatic efforts, which is quite persuasive.

I wonder if Korean diplomats can also comfortably speak the language of the country they are assigned to, and if they are familiar with the culture of the host country, if not an expert on it. Sometimes I come across high-level Korean diplomats who hardly know the culture of the country they are stationed at or can hardly speak the native language. As a diplomat, however, you should be able to deliver a humorous joke or two in the host country’s language at a social gathering. Aside from political agendas, a diplomat can also perform a superb job by demonstrating his or her language skills, cultural understanding and comparative perspectives.

Making friends with opinion leaders and maintaining good relationships with influential people may also be equally important for a diplomat. I know a former successful Korean ambassador who became a good friend of the king of his host country. As a result, he was able to perform his duties smoothly and successfully during his term. Many foreign ambassadors to Korea, too, busily contact Korean opinion leaders and newspaper columnists in order to build friendships with them. I wonder if Korean ambassadors in foreign countries also industriously try to make friends with opinion leaders of their host countries.

Ambassador Stephens stated that the Korean people’s perception of the United States is very favorable now, perhaps better than ever. It seems the primary reason is that unlike during the Roh administration, there are few radical demagogues and politicians who deliberately instigate anti-American sentiment nowadays. Another reason may be the fact that the Korean people have friendly feelings toward President Barack Obama, who has urged the American people to learn from Korea’s zeal for education, and has advised Middle Eastern countries to learn from Korea’s democratization process. In addition, Ambassador Stephen’s favorable image, too, has surely contributed to the diminishing anti-American sentiment in Korea.

However, the recent report that the U.S. Army secretly buried Agent Orange in South Korea in the late 1970s may make anti-American sentiment resurface in the Korean Peninsula. Sometimes, diplomats have to clean up the mess the military created whether intentionally or unwittingly. What the U.S. diplomats will do to cope with this crisis remains to be seen. As the English politician Tony Benn once said, “All war represents a failure of diplomacy,” and as Mr. Spock said in Star Trek, “The purpose of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis.” 

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.