No Brain works under the label Rock Star Music. But the group says it has never signed a contract with the label. Yes, the band that has risen to superstar status in the past 10 years has never signed a contract concerning labor conditions or distribution. This would be impossible for a small- or medium-sized label, let alone a major record label. How did this happen? This is when we began thinking of the culture of the Korean sentiment, ``jeong.''
Out of all the Asian countries that use Chinese characters, only Korea and Japan use ``jeong'' as an independent word. It's a difficult concept to explain to a foreigner. Koreans unconsciously define and remember relationships through ``jeong.''
This cultural practice could be difficult to understand in the Western world, where contracts are crucial, and from a Chinese perspective. But in Korea, the close connections of a ``jeong'' culture positively influenced certain areas of rapid economic development. The culture of ``jeong'' can also be found in a cultural world growing as fast as the economy. The reason No Brain was able to work without a contract can be found in Korea's ``jeong'' culture.
We asked the band how it was possible for them to work without a contract. Vocalist Lee Sung-woo replied, ``Having a contract just makes us nervous, and I think we work harder because we don't have one.''
It is clear that the relationship between No Brain and their label comes from Korea's culture of trust and ``jeong.'' But there's more to it. We might have understood this relationship through Korea's unique culture of ``jeong,'' but in 21st century Korea, that couldn't be the only reason.
The author of The Joshing Gnome had an interesting series in 2008 called "What is Jung and How Can We Kill It?" and each time I read about how unique Korea's jeong is, I think about this passage from part three:
Koreans claim that jung is an untranslatable Korean concept. The reason that Koreans have a difficult time translating jung is that it is, in fact, an alien concept to them. Korean culture draws that ten foot trench between those you care about and those for whom you feel nothing. To feel some affinity for someone on the other side of that trench is jung. And it’s totally outside of the basic bounds of the culture. That’s why jung is such a hard thing for Koreans to explain to you. Because you already feel it all the time. It would be like you explaining buoyancy to a fish. You’s be at such a loss to express the concept that fish would merely nod in wonder when you told them ‘I guess buoyancy is a human concept that you just wouldn’t get.’
9 comments:
Can we say 'jeong' as 'affection'? I think they are very similar. A interesting fact is that I find jeong(affection) everywhere. Jeong is belong to everybody not only to Korean people. The major difference is western people(and some countries)use jeong with more rational ways. Some koreans (I think many others too, but more koreans?) uses this concept of 'jeong' in every fields directly and indirectly to give and take help; In many cases, it ends up with bad relationship. I think joeng is been used less rationally in korea becuase Korea is fmailed absed country, not multi-cutured, raced society.
not multi-cutured, raced society.
My friend Ben is a mixed race Korean and says he feels no jeong from Koreans.
Being one myself (not Korean), does nothing to help me understand his situation here.
The whole thing is just really weird to me.
The best way to explain "jeong" is that its a connection you feel with someone. This could be an expected connection (family, school friends, work mates) but is often used to express a non-expected connection to someone outside one's own circle. Making connections and friends outside your own circle is difficult for a "Korea raised" Korea (as in one who has not been outside Korean much). Jeong is a form of an emotion, similar to friendship / companionship / lite-love (not the heavy duty stuff).
The problem with definition is that the English language is too limited when it comes to describing emotions. We only have one word for "love" although that emotion has many different tones and flavors.
@ palladin
"The problem with definition is that the English language is too limited when it comes to describing emotions. We only have one word for "love" although that emotion has many different tones and flavors"
love: devotion partiality
emotion enchantment adulation enjoyment passion affection fervor piety allegiance fidelity rapture
amity flame regard amorousness fondness relish amour friendship respect appreciation hankering sentiment ardency idolatry "soft spot" ardor inclination taste
attachment infatuation tenderness
involvement "the hots" cherishing like weakness liking "wild for"
crush lust worship delight mad for yearning devotedness zeal etc.
The best way to explain 'jeong' would be as an ideological gambit fabricated by the totalitarian government of the 1960s and 1970s to create a fantasy of racial exclusivity and unity between people who ten years earlier would have happily machine-gunned each other in droves for supposing a different political affiliation, and to distract from the imprisonment, torture and execution of thousands of 'enemies of the people'.
Jeong aside, I would like to know more about the nature of the non-contract work. Does the band not have a contract with a record label or entertainment company. In some ways it might be to the bands advantage to not have a contract with something like SM or YG, because contracts with those companies are basically slave contracts.
So for me the questions are, do they work without contracts because of Jeong?, or do they work without contracts because they don't want an entertainment company to take 80% of their profits?
Having once signed a contract with a smaller label in Korea, I can attest to the fact that having or not having one tends not to make a lot of difference unless you're big enough for the revenues to be the basis of your income. (We, in our case, never saw even 10 won for the CD we put out, which may not be wrongful -- we had to earn out studio recording costs, after all -- but we also never saw the data on how many CDs were sold.) And I am inclined to wonder how fishy it was, since at least one bigger artist with the label (and part of its staff) had a falling-out with the label later.
I also suspect that there's a big meme that dominates thinking among indie musicians here, which is that being "independent" is a good thing in and of itself. This could easily lead them to repudiate the binding nature of contracts.
As for jeong, I agree with Stevie Bee, and as for what Joy says, it sounds like mistaking what Koreans say about their society for reality. Whatever its earlier usage, "Jeong" is now a part of the fabricated and fantastical meme spread back after the Japanese left, which claims that Koreans are uniquely united, uniquely virtuous, and feel an instinctive solidarity with one another. That the idea is bandied about in various contexts that Westerners would not use it is another issue, but I can attest to the fact that in practice, mapping family feeling or a "sense of family" is a common manipulative ploy in business, criminal organizations, churches, and all kinds of other organizations... worldwide. There's nothing particularly special about the Korean usage as far as I understand it.
I especially would like to thank fattycat for rubbing Palladin's face in his error. Just because you don't have a big English vocabulary, doesn't mean English lacks words for something. And there are more words, too: we even use words like "eros" and "philia" and "agape" -- all Greek -- in English.
(Sorry, but it's a sore point ever since I discovered my students had been told by a Korean professor that English had only one word for, say, the color blue, making it inferior to Korean with its array of fine-tuned color words. I couldn't help but respond, "So, azure and aquamarine and baby blue and powder blue and sapphire and cerulean and... [skip] don't exist?" They spent a couple of minutes looking up those words and for some it was that moment when one realizes that just because someone has a PhD doesn't mean he actually knows something about what he's discussing...)
"Korean culture draws that ten foot trench between those you care about and those for whom you feel nothing. To feel some affinity for someone on the other side of that trench is jung."
Good writing. Kudos to you, whoever you are.
Korea is a Hierarchial society with a strong military dictatorship infleunce from the past 30/40 or so years. Jeong is not Korean only, because its a Chinese Character. Japanese call it Jo. Not sure about Chinese. Anyway. Jeong, mostly means, in these cases, that people know their places in regard to each other, and will respond accordingly, if its done for face, respect, begrudgined respect, or duty. "Koreans understand Koreans" is a point of training. They dont understand each other as much as the ideas of how to deal with each other.
Korea is developing socially, but alot of this wont be gone for a few more generations, if any.
Not my problem. Im happy Im not Korean. Charity is way better than Korean Jeong, imo.
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