A Cultural Politics of Honhyeol in South Korea: A Study of Two Different Narratives of Mixed-blood Children

南韓混血文化政治：二種不同的混血兒童敘事研究

Yoo-Hyeok Lee

《Tamkang Review》 Volume 54 Issue 2 (2024/06) Pp. 23-45

https://doi.org/10.6184/TKR.202406_54(2).0002

Abstracts

This paper examines the theme of honhyeol, or mixed blood, as one of the important interactions and convergences of different identities and cultures in South Korea in recent years. This type of mix of identities and cultures has a long history. Yet, it has often been completely marginalized and silenced, largely because it has been easily stigmatized as something impure and undesirable. Instead, purity of culture and identity has always been emphasized as something Korean people need to pursue and keep. This paper will deconstruct such discourses of purity of culture and identity, and more significantly, it will give particular attention to ways in which honhyeol can contribute to new forms of culture and identity. To do so, this paper will examine honhyeol children. Although these children often go through difficulties simply because they are mixed blood, a growing trend of the representation of such children in popular cultural media such as film, literature, and TV programs shows that there are encouraging aspects worth our attention in terms of how new forms of culture and identity can emerge. My analysis will be focused on the following two literary texts: The Elephant and Wandeugi. Historically, this trend of the noticeable emergence of children of mixed blood in South Korea goes back to the late 1980s or early 1990s in close relation to Korea's entry into the global economy and foreigners' movement into Korean society. In this regard, this study is my critical engagement with the growth of Korean multiculturalism. Not only will it examine cultural products reflecting the phenomenon of honhyeol to grasp some characteristics of such representation, it will also offer a theoretical perspective on possibilities and limits of honhyeol as a mode of an interaction and convergence of different identities and cultures. Analyzing those two novels of mixed-blood children from the perspective of the Bildungsroman as a genre of becoming will enable us to see how honhyeol children's othered bodies can serve as contact zones that can possibly contribute to the emergence of new forms of hybrid culture in South Korea.

Keywords

honhyeol ； Bildungsroman ； The Elephant ； Wandeugi ； Korean damunhwa ； hybridity

Parallel abstracts

本文檢驗近年來南韓不同身分與文化的重要互動交匯主題之一，亦即混血（honhyeol）。這種身份和文化的混合有悠久的歷史，但卻經常遭到全面的邊緣化與消音，主要是因為這種特質容易被汙名化為不純與不可取。相反地，韓國社會總是強調，文化與身分的純潔性才是必須追求與維持的特質。本文將拆解這種文化和身份純潔性的論述，進一步關注混血如何可以為新型態的文化和身份做出貢獻；為此，本文將研究混血兒童。雖然這些兒童往往僅是因為混血而遭受磨難，但是在電影、文學和電視節目等大眾文化媒體中出現這種兒童的趨勢日益增加，顯示出這種新文化與身份形式的積極面向值得我們關注。我的分析針對《大象》和《莞得》二本小說。從歷史上看，混血兒童在南韓出現的明顯趨勢可以追溯到1980年代末或1990年代初，與南韓進入全球經濟體系以及外國人移入南韓社會密切相關。此研究是我對南韓多元文化主義成長的批判性參與，我不僅會檢驗反映混血現象的文化產品，以掌握某些特徵，還將提供理論觀點，關注混血作為不同身份文化互動與交匯的可能性與限制。從成長小說的角度分析這兩部混血兒童作品，能使我們看到混血兒童的異化身體如何成為接觸地帶，可能促成南韓新型態混雜文化的出現。

Parallel keywords

混血 ； 成長小說 ； 《大象》 ； 《莞得》 ； 韓國多元文化 ； 混雜性