7-Opinion

T

o any Korean, the word 
“nunchi” 
rings 
familiar 

bells. Its literal translation 

in English is “eye-measure” and 
can be likened to reading the room, 
but more specifically to gauging the 
sentiments and interests of another 
and then acting in accordance with 
Korean manners and customs. 

So, for example, a friend that 

heads out to the car to turn on the 
AC in the heat of the summer before 
others get in has “quick nunchi” 
because that person’s senses and 
intuition are ahead of the situation. 
For the youngest person seated at a 
dining table, nunchi is second nature 
because they wait respectfully until 
the elders begin to eat first. When 
my mom returns home at 8 a.m. from 
the gym, ready to take over the world 
and knock down anyone in her path, 
my nunchi urges me to get out of bed, 
open up the windows and match her 
energy before she throws me a dirty 
look. Admittedly, I heard the word 
used most often growing up when 
my mom reprimanded me for having 
“no nunchi.”

There is a Korean adage, “half of 

social life is nunchi,” and thus nunchi 
is instilled in children from a young age. 
But as a Korean growing up in America, 
I became bitter at my culture’s high 
esteem for nunchi. I called for family 
meetings where I demanded that we 
instead learn from the latter of my Asian 
American identity and value clear 
communication and conversation. To 
ask directly, “How are you today?” 
“How are you feeling?” “Is something 
wrong?” rather than chastise one 
another for not being a mind-reading 
telepathist. I was burdened by the 
miscommunication that arose from the 
emphasis on reading the room, and my 
mind felt tortured, always calculating 
whether I had missed a nuance from 
someone’s ambiguous glance. 

It turned out that I had missed 

the nuances of nunchi. The Korean 
drama series “Reply 1988” is set in 
South Korea in its progression into a 

socially, culturally and economically 
flourishing state. As I watched the 
beautiful, hilarious, heartwarming 
and tear-jerking story of five families 
sharing struggles, laughter, cries, 
intimate moments, kinship and 
love in a small alley in Seoul, my 
poor appetite for nunchi changed 
as I refined my palate to the deeper 
undertones behind the art. 

I often found myself in tears 

as nunchi wove tighter threads in 
relationships: One late night, when 
Lee Il-hwa falters and fails to muster 
her strength and ask her wealthier 
friend Mi-ran for support to pay her 
daughter’s school fees, she heads 
back home with tears in her eyes 
and her head hung in shame in her 
inability to support her daughter. 
Later that night, Mi-ran hands Il-hwa 
an unassuming bowl of corn; to her 
surprise, underneath it is an envelope 
containing money and a kind letter. In 
another episode, I watched the quiet 
and distant son of Ra Mi-ran sense 
his mother’s witty and charming 
persona disappear into the darkness 
of menopause despite his mother 
assuring him that nothing was wrong. 
In a gesture beyond his comfort, he 
plans a surprise wedding anniversary 
in the neighborhood for his parents, 
rekindling his mother’s spirit. 

Nunchi tugs on your heartstrings 

in ways direct communication and 
blatant requests cannot. Nunchi is 
the serendipitous act of kindness that 
depends on another’s quick senses, 
building kinship between families 
and communities. 

Euny Hong, Korean American 

journalist and author, writes that 
nunchi is more than quaint Korean 
customs in “The Power of Nunchi: 
The Korean Secret to Happiness 
and Success.” Nunchi is the secret 
behind Korea’s progression from one 
of the world’s poorest to now one of 
the richest and most technologically 
advanced nations. It fosters trust and 
connection in a way that opens doors 
in all areas of life — also explaining 
the unlikely modern rise of K-pop to 
the global stage.

The world of “Reply 1988” is an 

antithesis of American culture and 

values. In America, the individual 
comes before all else — even 
sometimes to a fault. We hear it 
today in the riotous cacophonies of 
anti-mask protests that fight for the 
individual’s choice to wear a mask 
and in anti-vaxxers’ dismissals of 
collective safety and well-being.

In the vast regions, cultures 

and backgrounds that constitute 
America, we have difficulty relating 
to and understanding people who 
seem to share different beliefs and 
values from ourselves, and cynicism 
about their intentions often stops us 
from trying. The recent devastation 
on women’s rights by Texas’ abortion 
law, in which other people forced 
decisions 
on 
women’s 
bodies, 

exemplifies this. 

But John Locke, one of the greatest 

advocates for individual rights and 
freedom, still affirmed that the 
equality of man demands obligation 
to mutual love and duties among 
men. In the “Second Treatise of Civil 
Government,” Locke quotes political 
theorist Richard Hooker: “It is no 
less their duty, to love others than 
themselves … If I cannot but wish 
to receive good … how should I look 
to have any part of my desire herein 
satisfied, unless myself by careful 
to satisfy the like desire?” This is an 
echo of the Golden Rule. 

In “Inventing Human Rights,” 

Lynn Hunt, UCLA professor of 
modern European history, argues 
that the concept of natural rights was 
born in history through empathy. 
As humans began to learn in the 
late 1700s that we were all in some 
way fundamentally alike, we began 
to empathize with one another and 
thus expanded natural rights to other 
groups of people. Empathy’s fists 
knocked down the walls of even the 
longest-held prejudices of the time: 
In 1791, Jews were granted equal 
rights by the French revolutionary 
government; in 1792, men without 
property were enfranchised; and in 
1794, slavery was abolished by the 
French government. 

T

he “Michigan difference” is 
not something that students 
from poor backgrounds and 

rural communities often get to truly 
experience — it seems like students 
who yearn for it the most are excluded. 
We go to orientation and hear group 
leaders and staff laud the University 
of Michigan. The University really 
likes to promote a familial feeling and 
an “everyone belongs here” schtick 
to new and prospective students. To 
be fair, this is something that a lot of 
students experience when they begin 
their educational journey here, but I, 
unfortunately, was not one of them.

I did not get to have a normal 

orientation. As a student from the 
rural Upper Peninsula who also went 
to an underperforming high school, I 
was sentenced to the Summer Bridge 
Program. Bridge is a two-and-a-half-
month-long 
orientation 
program 

where students such as myself take 
high-intensity classes in a short period 
of time. We were given talks about 
imposter syndrome and reminded 
that we belonged here. Ironically, the 
entire experience made it feel like we 
did not. While we were in Bridge, there 
was a similar program happening on 
campus — the Comprehensive Studies 
Program. It was much less intensive 
and the students got to pick the one 
class they wanted to take. So while 
most Bridge students were struggling 
to get all of their work done by 8 a.m. 
the next day, CSP students were 
coming back to their residence hall 

drunk from a night of partying. This 
was my first taste of the divisiveness of 
the University.

As freshman year started, I had 

a hard time making friends. I was 
placed in Mary Markley Residence 
Hall, in an all male hall. I was shy, 
and very gay, which made it hard 
to connect with anyone, even my 
roommate. 
I 
constantly 
heard 

whispers between my roommate and 
the other students in my residence 
hall questioning my sexuality and 
making 
uncomfortable 
remarks. 

“Do you think he’s gonna try and hit 
on you?” or “Has he tried to hit on 
you?” are questions I’ve overheard 
more than once. This was a very off-
putting experience for a gay student, 
especially after being told that college 
is more accepting. But, I digress. 

When I could not make friends in 

my residence hall, I tried clubs. I went 
to Festifall, explored the many tables 
and talked to a lot of people. I thought 
that surely I could find a student 
organization where I would fit in. I 
applied to seven different clubs ranging 
from art, music, business and sports, 
only to get rejections from all seven. I 
sadly spent my first semester alone.

Along with my loneliness, I 

struggled with a fear of missing out, 
or FOMO. I saw everyone around 
me living the college experience I 
desperately wanted, even other gay 
kids. I was constantly trying to figure 
out what was wrong with me — I was 
trying everything they told me to 
do. I left my door open, I tried to get 
into clubs, yet nothing worked. After 
a while, I realized the problem was 
most likely my background. 

When I have previously made 

the argument that poor kids are 
treated differently at University, 
I always heard the same rebuttal. 
People always say “How is someone 
going to look at you and know you 
are poor?” In reality, they probably 
will not be able to. You can argue 
that things such as the clothes you 
wear, the headphones you use or the 
organizations you are a part of can 
make you stand out, but that is not 
what I am getting at. When I applied 
to clubs, I had one thing specifically 
that kept getting me rejected: my 
lack of a resumé. Other kids were 
coming in from wealthy suburbs and 
excellent school districts — how was 
I supposed to compete? Some of these 
kids had all the opportunities they 
could want in life, while I was trying 
to survive with what I had. It felt like 
I was always going to be labeled as 
the poor kid from the UP that barely 
got into the University, rather than 
a valued student who has overcome 
adversity to make it here.

As much as I wanted to fit in and 

believe that I was meant to be here, it 
was hard to do so when I felt judgment 
from my peers at every turn. Whether 
it was because I was gay, or because I 
was poor, I have never been able to 
feel like I belong. A lot of people have 
asked why I did not look for support 
groups or clubs specifically for first-
generation college students. I already 
felt like an outsider, and to me and 
many other first-generation college 
students, we just want to fit in. We 
want to try to move away from and 
grow from our past, not have to keep 
living in it. 

W

hen Joe Biden was 
running 
to 
unseat 

former President Donald 

Trump, one of the main talking points 
during the race was that electing 
the former Vice President would 
return the United States to a level of 
democratic norms we had lost during 
the Trump Administration. Indeed, 
much of that has come to fruition — 
our current president has yet to incite 
an insurrection over false claims of 
voter fraud, for example. However, 
Biden has failed to adequately mend 
one of the most damaged parts of our 
democracy: a frequent, cordial and 
informative level of interaction with 
the free press. 

He is certainly an improvement 

from our previous administration. 
Outside of a few minor incidents, the 
notorious spat with CNN reporter 
Kaitlan Collins in June being one of 
them, Biden has afforded the press 
a level of civility that Americans 
were more or less used to before the 
Trump presidency. There has been 
no lambasting of the press as the 
“enemy of the people.” But being a 
nice guy, and giving the press corps 
the occasional presidential cookie, 
doesn’t mean Biden has handled the 
press well. My problem with Biden 
isn’t his civility toward the press, it’s 
his availability. Biden is averaging the 
fewest press conferences per month 
since Ronald Reagan. He constantly 
claims that he “isn’t allowed” to 
take off the cuff questions from the 
press. He does almost no sit-down 
interviews, and if there’s one thing for 
sure, you better not try to overcome 

his press wranglers. 

Biden’s wariness of the press isn’t 

just a partisan talking point — it’s 
a real issue. Sure, Republicans are 
overzealous in their baseless claims 
that Biden “has implied that handlers 
set the rules and determine when and 
where he’s allowed to take questions,” 
and the idea that he lacks the mental 
acuity to interact with the press was 
never founded on any sound footing. 
But, one could very well argue the 
current president does not appear to 
feel it’s a priority to answer questions 
from the press. The press corps 
represents the American people, and 
the American people deserve to hear 
from the leader of the free world in a 
non-scripted format. 

This 
September, 
Biden’s 

apprehensive 
media 
tendencies 

were exposed in a painfully obvious 
way. Prime Minister Boris Johnson 
was visiting the White House for a 
meeting in the Oval Office when the 
two had a brief appearance together 
in front of the media. After brief 
remarks, Johnson invited his fellow 
British reporters to ask questions. 
They did, and he promptly answered. 
One would expect Biden would 
reciprocate the offer to the American 
press, especially given the location, 
but this offer never came. He didn’t 
open the floor to American reporters, 
and his wranglers yelled so loudly 
that the one question he appeared to 
answer was indistinguishable. It was 
frustrating to see, and it made Biden 
look timid at an important moment.

The White House press corps 

formally issued a complaint to the 
White House about the matter. 
When a press corps feels so deprived 
of 
meaningful 
communication 

opportunities that they are filing 

complaints, it is doubtful that Biden 
has restored our presidential press 
relationship to an adequate level. This 
isn’t something that should be pushed 
aside. If those who are doing the 
questioning think it’s a real problem, 
it can no longer be cast aside simply as 
a partisan attack. 

I’ve long felt empathy for Biden 

with his communication abilities, 
especially given his history with 
stuttering. But all the crises his 
administration has gone through 
in the last few months, most of 
which he has been unwilling to 
answer tough questions about, are 
deeply concerning and bode poorly 
for the state of transparency in his 
administration. 

This 
behavior 
is 
mystifying 

politically, 
democratically 
and 

morally. One of the biggest attacks 
on his campaign, and now his 
presidency, has been that he doesn’t 
want to face the music. At this rate, he 
may prove that to be true. Republican 
talking heads couldn’t ask for him 
to fall in line any better. Perhaps it is 
time to ask ourselves if much of what 
Republicans are saying about Biden’s 
press interactions are less so a set 
of disingenuous talking points, and 
more of an unfortunate reality. 

I find Biden to be a strong speaker, 

and he has even been lauded in the 
past by right-wing networks for 
numerous speeches he gave as a 
candidate and as president. With 
policing talks breaking down, the 
deadline for raising the debt ceiling 
fast approaching and the Democratic 
Party infighting reaching a breaking 
point, the nation desperately needs 
its leader to raise his voice, and not 
just to the level he feels convenient or 
comfortable.

Opinion

BRITTANY BOWMAN

Managing Editor

Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

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AND JOEL WEINER

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C

anada recently had elections! 
An odd idiosyncrasy of the 
Canadian political system is 

that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau 
(through the governor general) has the 
power to call elections whenever he 
sees fit. Trudeau called the elections 
in August, with an election day set for 
Sept. 20, in the hopes of securing a 
stable majority in Parliament to pass 
some of his more ambitious COVID-19 
recovery packages. 

Before the election, Trudeau was 

the head of a minority government, in 
which the largest party in Parliament 
is the governing party unless a 
coalition rises to supplant them. 
Opinion polling indicated that it was 
likely he would be able to obtain that 
majority in Parliament, so he called 
the snap election. In the end, after 
a drop off in polling for Trudeau’s 
party, the Liberal Party and a surge 
for the rival Conservative Party 
(Tories), the election ended with 
disappointment for most parties 
involved, as none of the major parties 
saw significant shifts. Even though 
we saw no dramatic wins or losses, 
there are still teachable moments 
for American political observers, as 
Canadian voters prioritized the same 
issues as American voters this cycle: 
COVID-19 and the economy.

If you are unfamiliar with 

Canadian politics or parliamentary 
systems, just imagine that by virtue 
of being the boss of the largest 
party in Congress, House Speaker 
Nancy Pelosi became the head of 
government. The main parties in 
Canada that you have to know about 
are the ruling centre-left Liberal 
Party headed by incumbent Prime 
Minister Justin Trudeau, the center-
right Conservatives headed by Erin 
O’Toole and the social-democratic 
New Democratic Party (NDP) headed 

by Jagmeet Singh — the first person of 
color to head a major Canadian party. 
Also in the mix, while not winning 
any seats this cycle, is the right-wing 
anti-coronavirus lockdown People’s 
Party of Canada (PPC). Other minor 
parties are the environmentalist 
Greens and the Quebec Separatist 
Bloc Quebecois, but these two are 
much less analogous to American 
parties and institutions. 

The first lesson from this election 

is that there is an upper limit on 
energizing the youth. Jagmeet Singh 
of the New Democrats ran a youth-
centered campaign. Singh, a turbaned 
Sikh with a west coast surfer accent 
and a hipster vibe, prioritized issues 
young people are supposedly in 
support of, such as taking decisive 
climate action. He was a constant 
presence on TikTok, and he even 
played Among Us on a stream with 
his American counterpart, U.S. Rep. 
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. 
All that to only gain one seat in 
Parliament. It makes sense to at least 
partially center youth issues into the 
fun social democratic party, given 
that young people tend to be the 
most amenable to social democratic 
policies and Singh’s aesthetic. But the 
NDP did not do as well as they hoped, 
gaining only one seat to increase their 
total to 25 members of a 338-member 
Parliament. That is not to mention that 
even though they were successful at 
winning a plurality of voters in the 
18-35 range, they only beat out the 
Liberals by a few percentage points.

It wasn’t even that Singh did a bad 

job. According to recent polling, even 
after the loss, 82% of NDP voters want 
Singh to stay on as leader. Singh often 
polled as the most popular of the 
federal party leaders, but artificially 
limiting a movement to youth 
aesthetics is not a recipe for success. 
We know that the NDP can have 
electoral success because not even 
three elections ago, in 2011, they had 
more seats than the currently-ruling 

Liberals under leader Jack Layton. 
So we know the problem is not that 
Canadians detest left-wing policy. 
There are only a limited number of 
young people with a propensity for 
voting, and parties (or progressive 
wings of American parties) hoping 
to effect national change should not 
limit their policies or aesthetics to 
the young. Focusing on a group as 
uniformly distributed across the 
country as young people does not lend 
itself to electoral success. Focusing on 
turnout above all else, which is the 
trap many left of center organizations 
can fall into, has limited effectiveness 
as you scale this strategy up and out of 
the most progressive districts because 
even if you energize the youth into 
voting, there is no guarantee that they 
will vote for you.

The 
second 
message 
is 
for 

American 
conservatives. 
Parties 

without a shared narrative or a 
shared voice will inevitably fail. The 
Conservative Party’s leader. Erin 
O’Toole, an unassuming former 
member of the Canadian armed 
forces, adopted a strategy of extreme 
moderation for the conservatives. 
Pro-carbon tax, pro-choice and pro-
banning certain models of firearms, 
O’Toole did everything he could to 
seize on the center of the Canadian 
electorate. The fact that these are not 
traditional issues championed by the 
Tories did not go unnoticed by voters. 
Moderation will be seen as pandering 
when the Conservatives are perceived 
to have abandoned many of their 
signature issues in hope of securing 
the keys to the Prime Minister’s office.

This gamble failed, as you may 

be able to tell from my tone in 
the last paragraph, and caused a 
surge in parties to O’Toole’s right. 
Meandering down the middle of 
the road ultimately proved to be an 
ineffective way for the Conservatives 
to pick up stray votes. 

Two lessons about American politics 

from the Canadian election

What do you say, Joe?

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
8 — Wednesday, October 13, 2021 

America, let’s learn from Korea’s “nunchi”

LILY KWAK

Opinion Columnist

DEVON HESANO
Opinion Columnist

Being gay and poor at the University of 

Michigan is an isolating position to occupy

JULIAN BARNARD
Opinion Senior Editor

JACOB FENLON
Opinion Columnist

MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com