投稿類別​：​英文寫作類

篇名​： The Middle Class Crisis in ​Parasite

作者​： 葉佳欣。苗栗高中。二年八班 蔡幸紋。苗栗高中。二年八班 徐翔筠。苗栗高中。二年十班

指導老師​： 吳曉菁老師

The Middle Class Crisis in ​Parasite

I. Introduction

Throughout the history, the class system has been around for ages. Whether it is a powerful country like Japan or a small country in the Third World such as the Kingdom of Tonga, the existence of the royal family leads to the inevitable divisions of the people in a country into the high-statused and low-statused. Among others, the hereditary class system of India even persists under the name of the lawful provision. However, with the growing democratic consciousness and the civil struggles in the history, most countries have discarded the class system nowadays. Even so, it seems not easy for many modernized countries around the world to get rid of the consequent classes following the capitalism. Just like the award-winning movie we would like to dig into --- ​Parasite​, the hidden classifications of South Korean rich and poor people by means of the different forms of residences and their high-lying and low-lying positions have aroused our great curiosity. Thus, we want to dig into the class issue in and investigate more of its cultural sense and then make use of it to examine the phenomenon around the world, including that in Taiwan.

I.1 Motivation

The hard-earned life of the middle class plays a key role in the movie ​Parasite. We found out the director intentionally used the contrast between upper classes and middle classes to describe this movie. After watching the movie, we want to understand whether the difficulty middle class faces in the real Korean society is exactly the same as that depicted in the movie. Is this kind of crisis only exclusive to Korea? Whether problems brought by such wealth disparity between the poor and rich are similar across the world? Whether the young generation of Taiwan will face the same situation in the future? As a result, we have the following research questions and expect to look for some inspiring answers from this thesis.

Research questions 1. What crisis do the Kim family face in the movie? 2. How are some metaphors employed in the movie to refer to class inequality? 3. Does the class conflict get resolved in the end? 4. How much does the movie mirror the socio-economic circumstances in current Korea?

I.2 Methodology By comparing and contrasting the lives of the rich and poor in the movie ​Parasite​, we aim at figuring out what social phenomenon/a in Korea the director tries to reveal and applying this understanding to investigate the struggle of the middle class in Korea. To achieve this, we first watched the movie closely and then made detailed reviews about the backgrounds and settings of the movie. Besides, we enhanced our understanding about the cultural aspect of the movie by reading and watching lots of movie comments. Finally, we have drawn our own observations and perspectives. We also hope to explore this issue of wealth disparity both in Taiwan and around the world.

II. Body

II.1 The Crisis the Kim Family Faces in the Movie

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In the movie, the Kim family represents the middle class at the bottom of the society. The director described many aspects of their life to shape their image. Although the son of the poor Kim family, Ki-woo, and his sister, Ki-jung, are both talented young people, they are unable to get decent jobs because they failed to have diplomas of higher education. In fact, diplomas are highly valued in Korean society, so this has stopped them from obtaining job opportunities and made them caught in a cycle of poverty. In addition, their father, Ki-taek opened the shop selling Taiwanese chicken egg cake following the popular trend earlier, which was in fact misled by a high-rating TV program. This shop then caused Ki-taek to lose his job and put the Kim family into an economic crisis. In turn, they couldn’t afford even a moderate living place. Later, because of a high–statused friend’s introduction, Ki-woo entered the rich Park family working as a tutor. Then, his family, Ki-jung, Ki-taek, and his mother, Chung-sook, entered the Park family one after another to get a job. At the same time, Ki-woo’s desire to pursue fame and fortune was sparked. In the end, such desire resulted in a murderous tragedy. However, the Kim family’s dream of climbing up has never been realized.

II.2 Metaphors Employed in the Movie to Refer to Class Inequality

There are quite a few metaphors used by the director in his brilliant way of telling the story, and we intend to only focus on the following three aspects concerning class inequality to depict the adversity of the middle class.

II.2.1 Residence

The mansion on the hillside where the Park family lives symbolizes the highest status and economic ability; the semi-basement where the Kim family lives stands for they still have a little freedom but are still controlled by others; the secret bunker where the husband of the housekeeper (Moon-gwang) lives is a metaphor for completely losing freedom. Different levels of residences are employed to refer to different classes in the movie, and the scenes of climbing or going down the stairs appeared several times in the movie as hints of lifestyles belonging to different statuses.

As a matter of fact, there is a wide discussion about this obvious metaphor of “stairs” according to the director’s interview (Jung, 2020). Thus, here we will just introduce the origin of the semi-basement in Korea. Semi-basement apartments, known as ‘banjiha’ in Korean, have been thrust into the spotlight by this film. The semi-basement apartment that the Kims live in is common for poorer residents because of its lower rent, regardless of issues such as dampness and increased risk of disease (Ulaby, 2019). As in one report, “​Banjiha can trace their roots back to the 1970s when the government mandated that basements be built to serve as bunkers in case of any North Korean attack​” (Ng, 2020), such structure appeared due to the political factor and then they were adapted into a form of housing for young people or those with financial problems. Like the Hong Kong’s cage homes and Brazil’s favelas, banjiha is also a symbol of inferiority and poverty. The upper class, on the contrary, will reside in more spacious and bright places.

II.2.2 Smell

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In one scene, the little son of the Park family mentioned that the new coming driver, Kim Ki-taek, had the same stinky smell as that of the poor without knowing his humble background. The Kim parents had ever tried to eliminate this so-called “poor” smell, but their daughter said, “The problem is not whether the clothes of the family should be washed separately, but that there is the smell of the semi-basement attaching to them; we can only get rid of this smell if we leave.” The short dialogue tells us that this stinky smell refers to the “poor and sour taste” of the low-leveled class. Even before the moment of the rich Park Dong-ik got killed, his expression of being intolerable of such “smell” of Ki-taek then inevitably provoked the poor father to kill Mr. Park, his employer.

II.2.3 Cockroach and Spotted Camel Cricket (Stink Bug)

Spotted Camel Crickets (referred to as stink bugs in the movie) are a kind of beneficial insect, and are often found in damp and dark basements, utility rooms, or garages. They often take shelter in structures when the weather becomes hot. However, it is harder to get rid of than the cockroach due to their strong vitality. They are despised by people because of its common and terrible appearance in the household. In the movie, there was a touring sanitation vehicle spraying disinfectant passing through the semi-basement where the Kim family lived. At that time, the whole family were coughing. Among them, the daughter, Ki-jung coughed most seriously, but his father, Ki-taek, kept undisturbed. In our view, it was an analogy to compare Ki-taek to Spotted Camel Cricket. Besides, when the Park family went out camping and the poor Kim family occupied the mansion. Chung-sook, mother of the Kims teased her husband while drinking “if the boss came home now, we would flee like cockroaches met with bright light.”It seems to indicate that they knew their existence is similar to that of the cockroaches, that is, a way of parasitization. As a result, we consider that either stink bugs or cockroaches are taken by the director as the metaphor of parasites, suggesting the pathetic lifestyle of the low-leveled class.

II.3 How the Class Conflict Gets Resolved in the End

The class conflict is wrapped as a series of thrilling killings in the climax of the movie, each with a different motive behind it. We will illustrate how these murders imply the failure of breaking the classes.

2.3.1 The Tragic Murders didn’t Lead to Any Happy Endings

The first person to get killed was Ki-jung, who was stabbed by Geun-sae, the husband of the housekeeper. Geun-sae was full of resentment after seeing his wife kicked downstairs and afraid of his “stable” but humble hiding in the secret bunker would be revealed and deprived. However, he was finally killed by Chung-sook, the mother of the Kim family with a meat skewer to protect herself and prevent their identity from being known. Then, the major scene of assassination was that Ki-taek stabbed Mr. Park with a knife. This killing was not out of a sudden impulse, but triggered after a long psychological struggle since the rich boss kept feeling disgusted by the poor “smell” from him. The price of the assassination was the collapse of Ki-taek’s family and self-esteem, causing him to hide in the bunker as the housekeeper’s husband did. This means Ki-taek didn’t climb “upstairs” but further

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“downstairs.” The initial housekeeper Moon-gwang and her husband Geun-sae belong in the lowest position without freedom, but in the end they didn’t turn the situation around, either. They both died.

2.3.2 The Ending Song Suggests Mr. Kim’s Losing Freedom Permanently

The ending song, translated to “546 years,” refers to the time Ki-woo has to work to make enough money to get the mansion and save his father out of the bunker. The title of the song is an allegory made by the director himself that it will take approximately 546 years for Ki-woo to finally earn the amount, which also suggests that this middle-class family will never afford to make it (Harris, 2019) and Mr. Kim will lose freedom forever in the bunker.

From the ending of the movie, we feel that the director portrays vividly the misery of the poor eager to turn over a new leaf, but ultimately all just turns out to be still a dream. The solid gap between the poor and the rich is always there; the class conflict can’t be solved; the Kim family is still at the bottom of society.

2.4 How Much the Movie Mirrors the Socio-Economic Circumstances in Current

According to our observations, we think the director tries to mirror the gravity of the middle class’s struggle by means of this comic tragedy, especially the adversity of the young people nowadays. Furthermore, this movie also has highlighted some harsh socio-economic situations in nowaday South Korea, as conveyed in the popular phrase “Hell Joseon.” In this section, we will detail some social reality that this movie intends to reveal to the public.

2.4.1 Hell Joseon

Hell Joseon is what South Koreans call the current state of their own country, and it has become popular since 2015, when the country encountered a great financial collapse (Kim, 2019). But why would they call their country a “hell”? Though seemingly prosperous, the current situation of young people in Korea is that they are a group of high unemployment rate, serious wealth disparity, high housing prices, low birth rate due to their fear of getting married, and the keen competition in the working place, all of which contribute to a society of heavy pressure. Meanwhile, another similar expression emerging about the same time is the “generation of giving up five” (陳慶德, 2017), which young people in South Korea used to call themselves because they were forced to give up five things: having a relationship, getting married, giving birth to children, building personal connections, and purchasing a house. All of these five things cost a lot of expenses.

2.4.1.1 The Competition for Diploma and Decent Jobs in South Korea

In the past, if one graduated from the SKY, Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University, it would equal to a guarantee for a good job in the future. However, in recent years, even the university students from SKY won’t find simply a job. Take Ki-woo and Ki-jung of the movie for example, They didn’t have any university diploma, and that is the reason why they were met with many obstacles

4 The Middle Class Crisis in ​Parasite when finding a decent job. Why does diploma matter so much to them? It is because the culture of South Korea tends to make comparisons between people. Many parents are often heard to say to their children that someone else’s child achieves great success and how about you? They gave their children lots of pressure. This may also explain why the South Korea suicide rate is higher than many other countries even with high-level economic prosperity. According to a survey (宋佩芬, 2016) showed that the suicide rate of South Korea among youths aged 10-19 in 2016 was 4.9 per 100,000 people, increased 16.5% from 4.2 in 2015, and according to World Population Review, South Korea had gained the ranking of the fourth-highest suicide rate in the world in 2019 (Salmon & Shin, 2020).

2.4.1.2 Personal Connections Play an Important Role Everywhere

Besides, the use of “connections” to get ahead, both rich and poor families, seems to be highly emphasized by the Korean, as we can see in the movie, which is also the key to unfolding the whole story. This is because the social hierarchy is still very obvious even after young people go into the workplace. “​In the workplace, men and women with a middle-school or secondary-school education are often treated with open contempt by university graduate managers​” (U.S. Library of Congress), which is the phenomenon resulting from class discrimination. Hence, people must know one in the upper class to ensure his or her own status not only within the educational system but in the company. This means, building personal connections plays a vital role in Korean society for success. In other words, for those lacking personal connections like the majority of the poor, it is impossible to change their status and life.

Based on the above social conditions, most young people feel what they face is like a hell. They can’t afford any houses if they fail to get decent jobs. In addition, they dare not get married to support the entire family. They can’t not live a steady life at all. No wonder, a recent survey (Salmon, 2019) found that 79.1% of young women and 72.1% of young men want to leave Korea, that 83.1% of young women and 78.4% of young men consider Korea “hell”, that is, 75% of young want to escape from this “hell.”

2.4.2 South Korean Political Bonds with North Korea and America

In the movie, there is a laughter-inducing scene, in which the former housekeeper Moon-gwang and his husband threaten the Kims to send the video about their real identity to Mrs. Park by acting like a dictator from North Korea, intending to press the missile launcher. In this scene, we see not only the black humor of the director but the in-depth long-term anxiety from this country’s political rival and threat, North Korea. On the other hand, the rich family’s son, Da-song’s strong obsession of Native American toys and Mr. Park’s forcing Ki-taek to wear the Indian headdresses at his son’s party both reflect the impact of colonialism and political reliance of South Korea on America. From the point of view, this reminds us much of Taiwan’s political bonds with Mainland China and with America. As a result, in the following analysis, we will include Taiwan in this discussion about the middle class struggle.

2.4.3 Comparisons of Middle Class Crisis in Taiwan and around the Globe

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Compared with the phrase Hell Joseon of South Korea, Taiwanese young people also call their country as Ghost Island owing to the similar socio-economic difficulty they are faced with (沈道廷, 2019). Nevertheless, it seems to be a common phenomenon for young people of this generation to afford to even a house of their own because of the severe wealth disparity, including some advanced and developed countries. According to the gap between rich and poor of global ranking in 2019, the ranking No.4 is China, No.5 is America and No.10 is the UK (落一墨, 2019). These countries appear rich and powerful, but the middle-class people of these countries are difficult to climb to the upper class simply by working hard. Another case is with Hong Kong, which has the third highest housing price in the world (黃可昀, 2019), average young people there would rather rent an apartment than buy any house, which seems impossible for them of a lifetime.

How about the situations in European countries? Behind their high-quality of life on the surface, the load of heavy taxes to support the aging populations of the countries has become a great burden for the younger generations. This burden has also caused serious social problems for the Japanese young people, for Japan has ranked No. 1 in the world when it comes to aging of the population (非常日報, 2019). Since South Korea and Japan both have typically conservative societies, under traditional concepts, there are even more restrictions on young people in the workplace, family, and interpersonal relationships. All the above has made the life of young people in these two countries getting harsher and harsher.

III. Conclusion

From our investigation on the movie, ​Parasite,​ we know the crisis of middle class is not an issue taking place solely in South Korea. Even though the director of the movie dealt with this issue dramatically, we still believed he aimed to elicit some more significant revelations and reflections about the current socio-economic circumstances of South Korea. As we have analyzed in this thesis, we find class inequality indeed exists in the forms of residences of high-level and low-level, and this inequality of South Korea prevails in competing for diplomas and decent jobs. People from the middle class are often despised and discriminated against as portrayed in the movie by different disgusting symbols, such as poor smells and stink bugs or cockroaches. What’s more, we find interpersonal connections are heavily dependent if one wants to climb to the upper class or positions. However, all these efforts sometimes turn out to be in vain like those in the movie because this inequality among classes is difficult to break and change. Finally, we conclude these difficult socio-economic conditions might explain well the origin and popularity of the phrase Hell Joseon referring to Korea, and even part of the phrase Ghost Island referring to Taiwan. In terms of the comparisons of the middle class in South Korea with those in the globe, we consider wealth disparity under capitalism has led to the consequent class inequality and living adversities, especially for the young generation across the globe. It is urgent that this universal issue be put onto the top priority for the governments to handle, or the living conditions of the middle class might go into a vicious circle and cause more irreversible results.

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IV. References

宋佩芬(譯) (2016)。​憤怒的數字：韓國隱藏的不平等報告書​。台北市​：​高寶出版 社。 沈道廷 (2019)。別再說台灣是鬼島！你知道日本、瑞典、美國年輕人都在比慘 的嗎？當你自認處在地獄，你就真的在地獄。今周刊。2019年8月16日，取自 https://www.businesstoday.com.tw/article/category/80392/post/201908160005/ 焦點新聞 非常日報 (2019)。2019全球老齡化國家排行榜，日本27%全球第一，中國排名 第十。2019年3月25日，取自​https://kknews.cc/world/r54b64o.html 風傳媒 (2016)。比鬼島還鬼島，青少年自殺率爆升4倍！韓國是怎樣的社會，逼 孩子不得不放棄？2016年6月14日，取自​https://www.storm.mg/lifestyle/126690 陳慶德 (2017)。再寫韓國：臺灣青年的第一手觀察。台北市​：​月態出版社。 黃可昀 (2019)。台灣房價所得比全球第10！第一名「不吃不喝150年」才買得 起。ET新聞雲。2019年8月27日，取自​https://house.ettoday.net/news/1507840 落一墨 (2019)。世界上貧富差距最大的國家排行：南非第一，中國第四。每日 頭條。2019年8月16日，取自​https://kknews.cc/world/z8pz8rp.html 2019. 1.12 GradeSaver . (2020). ​Parasite Study Guide.​ Retrieved November 11, 2019, from https://www.gradesaver.com/parasite Harris, H. ( 2019). ​Parasite's​ Choi Woo-shik Is Optimistic About the Movie's Overwhelming Ending​. ​Vulture​. Retrieved 23 January 2020, from https://www.vulture.com/2019/10/parasite-movie-choi-woo-shik-bong-joon-ho-endin g.html Jung, E. A. (2020). ​Bong Joon Ho on Why He Wanted ​Parasite​ to End With a ‘Surefire Kill’. ​Vulture​. Retrieved January 15, 2020. from https://www.vulture.com/article/parasite-ending-explained-by-bong-joon-ho.html Kasulis, K. (2020). Oscar-nominated ‘Parasite’ speaks to a growing divide in South Korea. ​News Break​. Retrieved February 7, 2020, from https://www.newsbreak.com/news/1504711985313/oscar-nominated-parasite-speaks-t o-a-growing-divide-in-south-korea Kim, M. (2019). ​Why "Parasite" Is Bong Joon-ho's Biggest Hit and Darkest Film Yet​. ​Cinema Escapist.​ Retrieved May 18, 2020, from https://www.cinemaescapist.com/2019/10/parasite-korean-movie-review Ng, N. (2020). What it’s really like to live in South Korea’s Parasite-style semi-basement homes. ​This Week in Asia​. Retrieved April 5, 2020. from www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/3074017/what-its-really-live-south --parasite-style-semibasement-homes Salmon, A. (2019). 75% of young want to escape South Korean ‘Hell’. ​Asia Times.​ Retrieved November 20, 2020, from https://asiatimes.com/2019/12/75-of-young-want-to-escape-south-korean-hell Salmon, A., & Shin, M. (2020). Why South Koreans kill themselves. ​Asia Times.​ Retrieved November 20, 2020, from https://asiatimes.com/2020/07/why-south-koreans-kill-themselves Ulaby, N. (2019). ​The Hit Movie ‘Parasite’ Puts Basement Structures In Structural Inequality​. ​NPR​. Retrieved January 15, 2020, from https://www.newsbreak.com/news/1454828613268/the-hit-movie-parasite-puts-basem ent-structures-in-structural-inequality U.S. Library of Congress. Social Classes in Contemporary Society. Retrieved October 10, 2020, from ​http://countrystudies.us/south-korea/37.htm Vermont Center for Ecostudies. (2020). ​Atlas of Vermont Orthoptera –Spotted Camel

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Cricket (Ceuthophilus maculatus).​ Retrieved January 25, 2020, from http://val.vtecostudies.org Willimas, M. (2020). A hope in hell: Why do young people in South Korea refer to their country as hell? The answer depends on who you ask. ​ABC News​. Retrieved July 25, 2020, from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-30/south-korea-hell-joseon-sampo- generation/11844506?nw=0&pfmredir=sm

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