If you somehow were exposed to visual agents of Korean imperialism, you, like I, should have realized the fact that Korean guys have better skin than an average non-Korean beauty queen. “Our girls look all this good, why shouldn’t we” is the contemporary reasoning behind, but there’s something deeper and historical behind this.
You know that Korean history is in a way like that of Georgia’s: This tiny Caucasian country last had a kingdom of its own in around 300 BC. Ever since they’ve been invaded by one or another empire: There came Romans, Persians, Turks, Russians… They all were really superpowers, not just some ordinary kingdom, and Georgians, after their independence from Russians, if it really was independence, had a state of their own again, in the end, after almost twenty-five centuries later.
Korea wasn’t as unlucky as Georgia but still, the country was invaded by Chinese and Japanese when these two powers got bored, and Mongols as part of Genghis Khan’s unite the world under one banner policy. Koreans repelled Chinese, lived peacefully for a year, then came Japanese. Koreans repelled Japanese, lived peacefully for two years, and Chinese arrived. Koreans repelled Chinese… and the vicious circle continued until a new player joined the game: The Americans.
This history of continuously living at war caused Koreans to develop tactics and one of them was similar to that of Turks during the Occupation of Istanbul, then capital of the (already fallen) Empire, in a different form: Turks are predominantly Muslims and back then, women wearing burqa and even niqab was deemed normal and ordinary. During the almost five years of occupation, one of the local resistance forces’ methods was wearing burqa as men and hiding stuff under the large loose piece of sheet. Some even pretended to be prostitutes and got rid of this or that enemy.
Korean men, like Turkish men, pretended to be women to be able to get closer to the enemy. Not having much facial hair thanks to mother nature, a good shave, bit of skincare and some make up was all that was needed to reach the aim. You know how it is with religions: Invented stuff might change shape but never disappear. Likewise, once a military tactic, good skincare had its essence changed and remained in place.
“Why did it last in Korea but not in Turkey, then” you might rightly ask. The answer is simple: Anatolia was under occupation for a “short” while, not only compared to Korea but overall. Excluding the lands that aren’t part of contemporary Turkey, nowhere saw longer occupation than half a decade. With Korea, though, five years of occupation isn’t even worth mentioning. Besides, Islam is a religion about which I’d rather not comment even in this book, and I hope that this is enough for you to get what I have here to say.
In any case, well done Korean men! Even my wife is jealous of you, isn’t that enough of an honour for you?
PS: Yes, it was me that ripped the parts of the picture. It was after my wife asking why can’t I be as cool as them. A moment of jealousy it was, a moment of innocent madness. Not a big deal, is it?
PPS: I confess, at times I couldn’t get that a girl actually was a boy. Some Korean men are pretty – keep this in mind when taking your husband to Korea, ladies!
