BLOG POST #4

INTERVIEW 1 - written by Ho-Jeong Eom and Seoyoung Kim 

Our first interviewee was Akram from Yemen, a nation that is located in Middle East Asia. He is a full time student in Seoul National University studying Economics, since 2014. Before he came to SNU, he had studied in another university. He said he came to Korea because he was interested in Korean culture and also luckily he won international scholarship from Korea government. He has lived in Korea for a year and a half.

1) Lifestyle

-How he practices Islam in his daily life : He prays 5 times a day depending on the location of the sun. I mean the location of the sun. Each praying only takes around 3 to 5 minutes. On Friday, at noon Muslims in SNU get together at Global House (Pub near the dorm) and pray together. When he has a class or other schedules so that it’s hard to pray, he usually combines two prays into one and do it on the other time. When he is outside, he prays at emergency stairs or praying room.

-Diet : He does not drink alcohol nor eat pork if it’s not by mistake. He eats “halal” (permitted to eat under the name of Allah) meat but it’s impossible to find restaurants which serve halal meat in Korea. So he is getting skinny these days. He cannot eat some yogurt and chocolate if it contains gelatin which is made of pig skin.

-Social activities : He is joining SNU choir. When we asked him about is it okay since the choir sing Christian hymns, he said it’s okay because he joined the club to learn how to sing and what he sings do not mean that it is what he believes. He said it is fun to talk and get along with many people there.

2) What “Living in Korea as a Muslim” is like

-He was not joining any Muslim network in SNU.

-Difficulties : He said it’s really hard to visit Mosque in Korea because there is only one Mosque in Seoul. And he said especially during Ramadan, he feels lonely. This was because in Yemen, whole everyone prepares huge supper together waiting for the end of the day. However in Korea it is hard to find someone who can share that feeling. When he and his friends go drinking, his “not-drinking” makes his friends feel awkward although He is Ok. And at that moment he feels like he is a foreigner in this society, which is a bit sad.

-Convenience or good thing : He said it’s good that if there are some Muslim friends, they can be friends easily because they are a minor group in Korea society. In Yemen, everyone is a Muslim so they cannot feel friendship with others just because of their religion.

. -He said he had not felt particular discrimination from his friends so far. He was open to tell people that he is a Muslim. When he tells others that he is a Muslim, most people don’t really care rather than thinking negatively of him. If they want to know about Islam culture or religion, He liked to tell them those things.

-About “Terrorist” image of Muslims : IS makes him feel really desperate like ‘putting a needle to my heart’. He explained that IS is very very minority in Islam society. They cannot stand for whole Islam. He hoped people to have multiple perspectives of Islam. He pointed out especially media should be more careful because it can control and affect a lot of people. He emphasized that people should judge Muslim based on their own experience meeting them in person.        

INTERVIEW 2 - written by YeonGyeong Song

For the second interview, we were lucky to have a Muslim women from Nigeria as an interviewee. She is an undergraduate student at SNU, who has been in Korea for a year and 3 months.

1)    Being Muslim in Korea

By the beginning, we focused on her daily life as a Muslim in Korea, mainly difficulties. As a Muslim, she should pray five times a day and eat some specific food, known as Halal food, which is permitted for Muslims to eat. Because in Korea the daily schedule as a student is not fit to Muslims’, she said she sometimes does the prayers altogether, meaning maybe once or twice a day. Also lack of places to pray causes problems. The food problem is a big deal for her. Even though SNU student cafeteria offers some pork-excluding meals, because she knows Korean food culture is usually based on pork, and there is possibility that the facilities which are used to cook pork can be used for other food, she said she feels uncomfortable with meals of the SNU student cafeteria.

 The most surprising Korean culture for her was our drinking culture. She said it is “too much”. Even though she understands that people in other culture like drinking, and that especially in Korea it is the important part of socialization, she couldn’t get the culture. When we said it can be an ice-breaker when you get to new club or community, she disagreed. She said, “It is not like that, You just get more weird. I don’t hate the culture, but just can’t understand it. That’s one of the reason why I don’t join any club here. ”

 As she has never been to any other country other than Nigeria and Korea, she couldn’t say if Korea is a particularly difficult place for Muslims to live. She just said lifestyle in Korea are totally different from one in her country. Being asked about any convenience as a Muslim in Korea, she said “maybe nothing”.

 She has never got any negative reactions when the ISIS problem was a big issue in Korea. When she uses subways, because she is black and wearing hijab(as she said), she admitted she gets lots of attention. She said, “You might see it as racism, but I don’t feel negative about it, and just try to think ‘I am a celebrity here’.”

2)    Hijab

 When we mentioned Hijab she wore, she first explained what Hijab is. According to her, Hijab means “covering”. It can be very different. It’s not specific clothes or scarves. It applies to both men and women. Men should cover their body under waist, and women should cover their body except her palm, face, and feet.

For non-Muslim people like us, Hijab is one of the most curious things. We asked why Muslim women wear Hijab, and how she feels when people say that is a kind of oppression to women.  She answered, “Before a women get married, she should be pure for her husband. It’s an obligation. But it’s kind of protection. Some people call it oppression. “Hijab”, the covering, can protect women from being viewed by men, which means they can stay safe and protected. This is just a very simple logic for me. When her husband, who has the duty to protect her, is not around, he can’t protect her. It is just a different way to protect women. People think differently. It is that we have a different view about protection. I wear hijab not because I am obligated to wear it. I just learned why women should wear it and as I grew up, I understood the importance of wearing it and now think I learned the right way. I feel protected.”

3)    Muslim extremist

We asked her about ISIS, which has been a big issue in Korea recently. But as she is a Nigerian, she talked about Boko Haram, the Nigerian extremists.

She thinks “This is not religion. It’s politics. It can be religion in a way as they want to represent the religion. But It’s politics. ‘Jihad’ means ‘struggle(fight for)’. But what are they struggling for? People can read and understand Koran in different ways. They can have their own understandings on it. But one of the important things in Koran is “do not kill people”. That can not/should not be understood in a different way. And then what they are doing is completely out of what Koran says. Yes, Koran says during the war they can kill people, but it still says “no women and children can be killed.” But it seems their main target is more like women and children. That is wrong. (When we said in Korea there is a misunderstanding that Koran says Muslims should spread their belief(religion), and even using violence is permitted) You know, actually Islam is the religion of peace. People should not generalize based on few stories(the terrorists). It is just one-sided stories.”

4)    Comments

“When you try to understand a thing, try to understand at least more than 70% of it before you reach any conclusions about it. Everything has an opposite side. Just try to check on the other side.”, she lastly added.

INTERVIEW 3 - written by Jun Sun

We interviewed a male student attending graduate school who is from Uzbekistan. He has been in Korea about 3 years and he is very fluent in Korean.

Religious life

He told us that he prays 5 times a day as a duty of Muslim. In the summer, the praying time is 3AM, 1, 3, 6, 9PM. The praying time is flexible around the time mentioned, and when it is hard to manage time for prayers so that he unavoidably skips some he can do them all in last. He does his first prayer at his home, and does the rest of prayers in a room for prayer in the language institute. Friday is a holiday for the Muslims so he goes to the mosque in Itaewon for group. There are about 1000 people in the Mosque.

Every prayers should be in Arabic regardless of nationality or language so that he has to memorize the arabic surah(biblical verse of Koran). The Imam, the person who leads the worship, gives lectures in Korean, English, and Arabic. However, the details such as praying pose differs by country as Islam has different historical background among countries(They have same Koran but different prophets, and he said this is 'mazhab')

Cultural difference & difficulties in Korea

As he had the opportunity to visit many countries, there were no such cultural shocks when he first came to Korea. However, he had some difficulties as a Muslim living in Korea. He does not eat pork as he was taught that way since he was young. He tries his best to not drink alcohol, and even he drink a little sometimes he tries not to do anything. He explained central Asian countries like Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan were ruled by the Soviet Union so that the Russians oppressed Islam culture, which resulted to be less strict than the Arabic countries.

The difference of his home country and Korea is that in his homeland, there are mosque(Islam temple)s about one per a street, so he can pray there. But he told that there is only one mosque in Seoul so that although he wants to prey in the mosque he cannot go there every day or 5 times a day.

Moreover, it is hard to find halal(permitted by Islam) foods in Korea. In most Korean restaurants or cafes, the foods are based on pork or the ingredients are made in a facility that deals with pork. For another example, if the cook cuts vegetable with the knife that cut pork, the vegetable is haram(prohibited by Islam). He compared Korea with the U.S. and Europe where he could find restaurants with halal marks easily. In Korea, he tries to cook at home, he reads every ingredients of the sauce and deliver halal medicine via amazon as some medicine contains gelatin from pork. He doesn't even eat 'chocopie' since the marshmallow comes from gelatin.

He founds hope in Korea as more Korean companies are trying to state 'pork inside' or 'produced in facility that deals with pork'.

Wearing Hijab-Is this an oppression?

He explained wearing hijab is a protection from other men to see the woman. If a woman does not cover herself, it is natural for men to see her more so that she is not protected. He agreed that in Islam culture wife is considered as belonging of the husband, and the husband has the duty to protect her. He mentioned that Islam women do their makeups inside when they are with their husbands, so the most beautiful woman to the husband is the wife. When we questioned if this is a gender hierarchy, he said that it depends on the way of looking and inside the Islam culture it is considered that women are respected and protected by men. So this is an open question.

Korean people's biases

He tells he is Muslim when others ask his religion, but he doesn't when others don't ask. As some people are not aware of what is halal and haram in Islam, they recommend him alcohol or pork. He said one of his friends suggest him to eat pork although his friend knew he was Muslim.

One of his female friends knew that he was a Muslim, and he knew her about more than 5 years so that she was aware of Islam culture. But when he was discussing about IS about her she said Muslims as a bad group as a whole, which hurt his feelings. He said the action which doesn't care about other cultures makes him sad.

He also told that the older generation, as they tend to have less opportunity than the younger generation to be exposed to foreign cultures, sometimes judge Muslims as potential to be violent like the IS. He explained that real Muslims who know about Koran does not act like IS. He told an interesting story that one Christian couple was moving across the border of Syria, and when an IS member asked the husband about Koran, the husband told a biblical verse in Arabic and then they can pass. He said this shows IS does not understand Islam truly. What he felt as the worst part of Korea is that it is not multicultural, so that some people do not understand about other culture. He claimed that the process of expansion of Muslim community should be natural rather than artificial force. He said when Muslim population is over 5% of whole nation, there would be a considerable change.

He lastly commented that he wish Koreans to know more about Muslims and Islam culture, and it would be good to have the government or universities to plan events like festivals which can make Koreans know about the Islam culture.

Discussion Questions

 - What did you already know about Muslims (before our presentation) and where did you learn that information?
 - Do you have any personal experience with Muslims?
 - Korean people usually enjoy drinking when they get together. And it is quite true that drinking together even solidify one’s friendship in Korean society. However this cultural characteristic might be an obstacle for Muslims in Korea who want to get close with Korean friends. Is there any Ideas which make all of them feel satisfied?
 - Should the government systematically support for the Muslims(ex: increase Mosque, cooperate with Islam association for halal products) or is it not necessary?
 - Suppose that Seoul Metropolitan office decides to build another Islam Mosque in Jongro(종로) to deal with Muslims’ inconvenience in Korea. Who or which group will approve this decision?  Who or which group will disapprove? And Why?

 - Korea is now having troubles as it is on the road to a multicultural country. At the moment it's mostly about South-east Asians, however in a few years to come, it can be about Muslims. Do you think Korea, or Korean society is ready to accept other cultures like Muslim? Do you think that even though we might have some troubles in the process, we should support or encourage it?
 - [Cultural relativism] "Honor killing" in some Muslim countries is an example of bad custom/practice in Muslim culture as it obviously violates human rights. What about Hijab and others? There are people who try to solve this problem inside and outside. Do you think people outside of the religion can/should try such effort?