Motivation
I just had a call with my dad today, and whilst discussing the cultural differences between Europe and Asia, I realized that I had this deep, un-satisfied need to express my opinion on Inequalities.
Since when did I care about others?
I’ve always been selfish, haven’t I?
It’s funny to think that I actually do care about others, because I have done some a lot of selfish things in the past. And if you ask some of my friends, they might call me extremely selfish or something in that regards.
But it is my theory that a lot of those ‘selfish’ moments stem out from my desire to challenge the general consensus, the ‘socially and politically right’ consensus.
You see, just like how I wrote in my post “I freakin’ hate Time. And a Life Update! What I want to do.“, I took neutral stances in a lot of the social issues in the past. And my conclusion on that post was to speak up about my actual opinion, rather than being fearful of expressing it.
It is quite ironical (and contradictory) to say that “I like challenging people’s desire to stick to the socially-right answers”, since that is kind of taking a neutral stance as well (or is it not?). Since I usually delay my answer (i.e. being neutral) to a question (e.g. “Do you think rape is bad?”), to figure out what kind of opinions the other person actually has in mind.
Where does my desire to help others arise from?
I would argue that most of the humans feel the same way as I do : “You want to help others”, and there’s just no appropriate answer as to why we feel this way.
Speaking in terms of evolution, it would be advantageous for a species to have a desire to help it’s fellow members. But we also do care about other animals (but of course not to the same regards as we do for humans), so the act of ‘helping’, whomever the receiver may be (Plants, Animals, Planets, etc) might be the fundamental and deep desire inside of us.
Since I was a child …
Since I was young, I have stolen some stuff, did some bad stuff to others, acted really selfishly (as all babies do, I would assume), and I still do being a 20 year old. But I always come back to this mysterious world of love and compassion, whenever I am alone by myself.
And I believe I was taught by my parents to donate to the people on the street who are in need. And it’s a pity that now there’s a such mistrust against such people, because some small portion of people who aren’t in need tried (and still does) to take advantage of this situation.
But anyways, I always felt so good when I helped others. And I really, really cared about the situations others were in. How could I just ignore that?
Why write about ‘Inequalities’ all of a sudden during an Exchange Semester in Switzerland?
Well the answer to this question is probably pretty complex, but I can give some number of examples why.
I did not feel ‘fit in’ to the party culture
The best way to deeply understand something is to actually be in that situation. And although I have been to one birthday party in South Korea (which was like a party party – i.e. a proper one, amongst all the other ones), I didn’t fathom being in a party in this magnitude for my life.
I was so surprised to learn the following things about parties :
- You don’t just dance in parties, you talk to people a lot (more than 50%, I would say)
- With a good music and Alcohol (and Psychedelics), you can really enjoy the party itself
- It’s a good place to meet new people and connect with them
Police comes to the place to crack u down
But anyways, sometimes I really enjoyed the parties, but most of the times I felt really bad inside, and felt uncomfortable being there. And so slowly but surely I started missing out on parties (Although I’ve only been here for like 6 weeks).
I witnessed mentally-ill people on the streets
The first time I met this person was probably a month ago or so. He had a speaker (radio-ish thing) on his hand, and was walking around playing jazz music, saying something in German.
I was sitting at the tram station, and this guy was going around with his speaker, and when I had an eye contact with the person sitting next to me, he smiled (and I did too). Why did I smile? I think I thought of that situation as a ‘joke’. Just like how Jokers make fun of themselves, I thought that the situation was funny, it was a ‘silly’ situation.
The second time I met this person was like a week ago, and I met my flat-mate by chance at the exact same station I met this person a month ago. And when I jokingly said “I’ve seen him before”, my friend said “We shouldn’t mock him”. I was still in ‘joke’ mode, and said something similar, but my friend said once again, “I don’t think we should mock him”.
I feel bad that I took the speaker guy as a joke, when it was pretty clear that he was mentally-ill (or maybe not?). And I felt this ‘contradiction‘ inside of me once again, “Do I really care about other people? Or am I still selfish?”
Being Asian
It’s hard to admit, but being a minority race place does affect you (because you don’t look like them, you don’t talk like them, you don’t have the same cultural mindset as them, so you feel un-fit, just like in parties).
I felt conscious about my straight-hair, my small eyes (and when I sometimes virtually meet another Asian in an online class with an even smaller eyes, I get reminded of this, again), my pronunciation (has been bugging me since I was young), my nose (throwback to Improving Nasolabial Angle & tip Projection post lol), the way I dressed.
It was quite stressful and it is still stressful to me now. And being this ‘uncomfortable’ led me to really think about the un-just things happening in this world, the discriminations, the hate, the prejudice, etc.
The Inequalities
There are so many inequalities, but before giving examples, let’s think about what an ‘Inequality’ is.
The Definition
My definition of ‘Inequality’ is :
Inequality refers to a situation where an entity experiences a different treatment (from another entity, or a system) compared to another entity, for the reason he/she doesn’t have control / choice over
And here’s the ‘official’ one :
The condition of being unequal; lack of equality; disparity:
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/inequality
I think that it’s pretty much straight forward what it means. You probably would’ve experienced it in your life, but note that your subjective feeling might not necessarily correlate to an objective inequality (it’s on the border, I suppose)
Wealth Inequality
‘Money’ is a powerful medium for quantifying the value (i.e. quality) of items, services, pretty much everything. So it is no surprise that we can observe inequality in wealth so easily.
Me, coming from a middle-upper class household definitely lived an ‘easy’ life, compared to the ones with less ‘wealth’. I think I first noticed this discrepancy when I was in Highschool.
Back in middle school, a lot of my friends were wealthy (since it was a special school), so I thought everyone had the privilege I had (e.g. Riding train from school to home every week, going on a field trip to Singapore, etc.).
But in High-school, I had a really close friend who lived in a very small house. And I’ve also met quite a number of students who were trying to get a part-time job as a teacher or teaching assistant at private academies to support themselves financially.
And when I came to university, all the hell broke loose. I don’t recall exactly (I enrolled 2 years ago), but I think I met a lot of students from a really wide range of backgrounds. A lot of them studied so hard during their high-school years (since I was in Science Highschool, I didn’t have to study 24/7), etc.
Now, being an exchange student at Switzerland, I do feel quite a bit of pressure financially. Since the living costs are around 1.5x ~ 2x of what I’m used to in South Korea. And when I heard stories of my friends here getting scholarships and being financially independent, it made me reflect on my own situation a lot.
If we increase the scope of discussion to the whole world, one would probably know the struggles people in under-developed countries (e.g. Africa) have. And it’s not their fault, they never chose to be born in that country, and this wealth (+ social infrastructure / + government’s wealth) inequality is one of the biggest inequalities I constantly think about.
Race Inequality (Racism)
Recently, there has been a shooting that killed a lot of Asian people in the US. When I first came across that News, I was frightened. I imagined myself (or someone I know) getting shot, partly because they were born (again, not voluntarily) as Asian and was at that place at that time.
But of course, my ‘social norm challenging’ part of me also questioned “Was it actually an Anti-Asian shooting? Or is this sentiment biased?”. And until now, even after reading the Wikipedia page of the incident (especially since the gunman described the motive as a sex addiction), I can’t not be affirmative on how much racism played part in this event.
But this event definitely made me reflect on how much race plays apart in our daily lives. It should be noted that cultural inequalities are intertwined with race inequalities since naturally, people with different race grow up with different cultural backgrounds.
It is my opinion that a lot of Asians tend to look up to Europeans as being more attractive, tall and outgoing (cultural aspect). And there are researches backing up this claim (e.g. A study on how Asians themselves valued facial characteristics common in Caucasians as being more ‘aesthetic’, which I read back in 2018 or so), but it just seems sad to me that people (whom didn’t choose their own race) go through these kinds of thoughts, it’s like a self-provoked racism.
And of course, on our daily lives we may judge other’s situation / personality based on their race, which can be a good thing sometimes (diverse cultures & thoughts) and in other times it can be devastating (e.g. anti-race crimes, protests, movements, which destroys other people’s lives).
Social Inequality (Geography)
Even though we are connected now more than ever with the Internet, still there are countries where you don’t have access to a good quality network, or any network at all.
And tying the educational system (e.g. Online academies) and Informational inequality to this situation, it seems apparent that social / geographical inequalities plays a huge part in one’s life.
And less importantly (but still significant), cultural differences definitely can isolate one from events and gatherings, as I can observe quite a number of Chinese (Asians in general) students having their own party on their flat, when there’s a big party with mostly European students.
I want to help people overcome these inequalities
Everyone is the Same
Going back to the thought I had when I was talking to my dad (like 6 hours ago, now it’s 6:45 PM), I would say that this exchange student experience has made me re-think a lot about people, cultures and inequalities.
I used to think that with different cultural backgrounds, we are essentially ‘different people’. But after talking with students from France, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Slovakia, Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, USA, Israel, Turkey, and so many other countries, I learned that we are essentially the same. We feel the same way, we feel joy, pain, all the complicated emotions together.
It’s funny because I literally started my university life back in 2019 by watching a World traveler Youtuber, and he also said the same thing. And since then I’ve read / watched materials from other world travelers and they all said the same thing : “Everyone’s the same”. But it was only after I experienced it first-hand, that I finally understood this phrase.
So after you understand this, helping each other and treating everyone the same makes more sense. Since we are all the same (but born with involuntary inequalities).
Same old Engineering Stuff?
As prevalent from My Portfolio, I am a nerdy, passionate “Engineer”. And I have always wanted to solve day to day problems using my engineering ability (e.g. [Project] Cafeteria Monitoring System (Real time Congestion data provider), and how I ended up receiving an award from ‘Minister of Education department of Korea’).
But now that I think of it, I think day to day problems are cool to solve, but not as important as solving the BIG problems in this world, like the inequalities mentioned above. I am hoping to tackle these problems during my exchange study, in either forms of a video or a research.
As once my flat-mate said, “You are 20 years old, you can always start all over (ex. Bachelors Program in different degree), you are young”. So it only makes sense to dare to challenge myself in this seemingly un-familiar field of ‘social and global problems’. Because you miss every shot you don’t take, and you can only find the new world when you take risks.
Specific plans
Regardless of whether I follow this plan or not, I think that it’s important to lay out my plans to solve this problem (i.e. Inequality) in this post. Some projects (e.g. [Goals] Building a Liquid Propellant Rocket Engine fail miserably, but again, failure is a proof that you’ve tried – p.s. didn’t try that hard on that goal tho’) turns into nothing concrete, but why not.
So here are some concrete plans I have in mind to solve inequality in this world :
- Launch a campaign (and make people believe in the idea) to tackle one specific inequality in legislative / scientific way (e.g. Water supply problem).
- Work on a project that can affect millions(e.g. making an affordable & portable eyesight measurement device for use in developing countries – Youtube Link [Veritasium])
- Have conversations with people who are already trying to solve inequalities in the world, and gain insights & write a blog / do a podcast / make a video about them.
p.s. I think today (30.03.2021) is 2 days after I started writing this, so oh man my procrastination!!
Junwoo Hwang 