The Reason I Adore the Diversity in K-Drama Moorim School

Moorim School: Saga of the Brave

무림학교

Network: KBS2

Episodes: 16

Release Date: January 11 - March 8, 2016

Starring: Shin Hyun-Joon, Lee Hyun-Woo, Seo Ye-Ji, Hong Bin, Jeong Eu-Gene

Moorim School started airing this winter. It's about a secret university that concentrates on training its students in discipline and martial arts.

Yoon Shi-woo (Lee Hyun-woo) is the leader of the idol group 'Mobius'. His rise in popularity and fame made him become arrogant and prickly in nature, but he has a serious problem: he is suffering painful hearing loss that doctors have not been able to pinpoint or cure.
Wang Chi-ang (Lee Hong-bin) is the son of Wang Hao, the president of China's largest enterprise groups in Shanghai. Spoiled and selfish, he acts like he owns the world, yet hides his own wounds: he is an illegitimate son who was born from a Korean mother.
The boys both end up at the Moorim Institute and are forced to share a room together despite an instant dislike for each other. But Moorim Institute isn't focused solely on high academic scores. The school teaches its students virtues including honesty, faith, sacrifice and communication. The teachers and students come from different countries and each have their own stories. As the boys grow in character and strength, they discover that there is more to both of them than appearances suggest.

So, the reasons I like this show are plentiful. I absolutely adore Lee Hyun Woo (To The Beautiful You & The Technicians). And, because of this show, I really like Seo Ye Ji. The story is also really fun (if not that novel, but that's alright, I don't need everything to be mind blowing). I like the relationships between Shi Woo and Chi Ang (bromance!). As well as the four lead kids as a group. Even the teachers have fun dynamics and add a lot of comedy to the stories. I don't mind the adults and their complicated flashback stories and drama. I even tolerate the villains (oftentimes the villains are the most boring characters in a drama, but I don't absolutely loathe them in Moorim). If I'm being honest, the ending fell flat (I blame this on the fact that 4 episodes were cut from the end mid-production).

However, the main reason I'm writing about Moorim School here is because of its treatment of the international cast. There are people from Africa, Europe, South East Asia, and beyond. Of course, the majority of the cast is still Korean, however, the point is that there is an international cast. And what I kind of adore about what Moorim School does is that it just lets its characters be whatever they are.

To be fair, it uses really awkward English (spoken by former U-KISS member Alexander Lee) to show how international the school is. And they also have the Thai character speak Thai even though everyone else always replies to these two in Korean. But I never get the feeling that these characters are being made into tokens.

With the teachers, there's one from Europe and one from Africa. They both only speak Korean the whole time. The European teacher is an expert at martial arts and just does his thing being a badass as he teaches the kids discipline and skills. He's not fetishized or exotified. He's just a professor who happens to not be Korean in a mostly Korean school. I like that. I think that it feels more integrated than if he were the "English teacher" who could only speak English and is otherwise super separate. And this is in a country where that legitimately exists (e.g. white teachers who come to Korea just to teach English).  However, Moorim School doesn't care about those stereotypes. It just does its thing with its international, diverse cast. And because of that its diversity is easy to watch and not awkward. The not awkwardness of it is the best part. And it's what I'd love all of my entertainment to have when it has diversity.

Listen, Moorim isn't perfect. There is are small things that give me a "hmmm" moment (aforementioned English spoken by Alexander Lee). And they aren't oblivious to the international cast angle, it was legitimately marketed as an international Korean Drama. But at the end of the day, it's kind of refreshing to see the branching out of an industry that's mostly Korean and/or token foreigners.

In the publishing industry right now, we have movements like We Need Diverse Books, DiversifYA, and publishers (Lee & Low) who are doing great things like creating Diversity Baseline Surveys for the first time ever! I love it. However, the sad side-effect are books being written and published because they fill a "diversity" niche.*

But are they really?

When I read a book that is supposed to be diverse and I feel awkward when reading it because the diversity is overblown I don't feel like I need to validate it automatically. Like someone waving something shiny in my face and going, "Look-it what I did!  Isn't it great?!"

Because what they claim is a diamond is actually a rock covered in glitter.

And I'm not going to let that fly.

I don't think a book that has an MC that's "diverse" in only superficial, stereotypical ways is effectively filling a void. I think it's actually ripping that void even wider. We don't just need diverse books, we need authentic diverse books. Books where the diversity feels less exotified and tokenized.

I want the YA book version of Moorim School. And it wouldn't hurt to have some eye-candy cuties like Lee Hyun Woo and Hong Bin.**

*Oh hi, soap box, my name's Kat, I'm going to stand on you now.
**I will note that I don't think we should mirror the diversity trends of other countries. I don't think Moorim is perfect in its diversity. It just made me think and appreciate something that is new and diverse. And that's the point of this post. Soap boxing done.

Dive Into Diversity Reading Challenge

So, I am already taking part in the Diversity on the Shelf Reading Challenge. That reading challenge is books about and by people of color. So I thought I would look into other challenges that support other diverse reading too (and luckily My Little Pocketbooks provided us with nice linkies to other challenges). Because I want to diversify my diverse reading challenges and found Dive into Diversity. 

(haha, say that five times fast).

It is hosted by Reading Wishes and Rather Be Reading Blog.

Here's a blurb about it from the site:

The challenge:
We want to keep this stress-free and fun, so all we challenge you to do is read and review diverse books in 2015. However many is up to you. But remember: the more you read, review, discuss, the better!

I've signed up. Now what?
1. Come January, start reading diverse books!
2. Once you've written your diverse book review, add it to the monthly linky, which will post in the first week of every month.
3. Don't forget to use #DiversityDive to chat, share book recs, let others know what you're currently reading and more on Twitter.
4. Have fun!

Important challenge details:
- Dive into Diversity runs from January 1st, 2015 to 31st of December 2015.
- You can sign-up anytime throughout the year.
- Any book format is allowed - hardback, paperback, ebook, ect.

So, I will update this list as I read more books. Here are the books I plan to read (when I finish I will put up the date I read it and possibly a link to a review I write):

1. Secret (Elemental, #4) by Brigid Kemmerer (LGBTQ, Jan 18, 2015)
2. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
3. Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld
4. Coda by Emma Trevayne
5. More Than This by Patrick Ness
6. The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley by Shaun Hutchinson
7. Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Diversity on the Shelf 2015 Reading Challenge

So I am taking part in the Diversity on the Shelf reading challenge hosted by My Little Pocketbooks.

It runs all of 2015 and the rules are simple.

1. Read diverse books.

(about and by POC)

Done.

Haha, well there's a little bit more. Here's a more detailed description straight from the source:

Pick a Level

Choose how many diversity centered books you would like to add to your “read” shelf in 2015:

1st Shelf: Read 1-6 books

2nd Shelf: Read 7 -12 books

3rd Shelf: Read 13 - 18 books

4th Shelf: Read 19 -24 books

5th Shelf: Read 25+ books

Once you pick a level you can go higher and read more books but you cannot go down a level.

So, I will update this list as I read more books. I am choosing 2nd Shelf level and trying to get at least 12 books read, but I would love to read more. Here are the books I plan to read (when I finish I will put up the date I read it and possibly a link to a review I write):

1. Prophecy by Ellen Oh
2. The Shadow Hero by Gene Luen Yang (illus. Sonny Liew)
3. I Love I Hate I Miss My Sister by Amelie Sarn
4. The Fire Horse Girl by Kay Honeyman
5. To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
+

I am also taking part in the Dive into Diversity Challenge. And I will be posting co-reviews with Books Are Bread as part of our new diversity book club.

Monday Musings: Writing about Diverse Characters (AKA How not to describe your diverse characters)

[Turns from sniffing a flower and notices readers]

Oh hi, I didn't see you there. Welcome to the post where I go on a bit of a rant.

So everyone knows that there have been big pushes to get more diverse books and authors out in kidlit (yay! #WeNeedDiverseBooks). I am 100% behind this. I love diversity in all of my entertainment, so I am down for some great reads that have diverse characters, worlds, cultures, etc.

The downside (and it sucks that there is one) is when an author tries to write about these diverse characters they come across the problem of explaining that the character is...well...not white.

(Note: diverse characters should also refer to sexuality, transgender, characters with disabilities. But this post will concentrate on the race of a character).

Seriously, having mocha skin is not a compliment. Just because you use a generally well-liked food product to describe the person as different, you're still totally comparing them to food. Am I supposed to think that coffee colored skin is tasty? Also, olive toned skin means they're green right?

This Buzzfeed article perfectly turns that trope on it's head (and yes, I know Buzzfeed is not news, but still this article is spot on). I like this article a lot because it just points out how ridiculous it is when we describe diverse characters with euphemisms and weird food-comparisons. 

Some stand out favorites from the article:

11. She had brown, wiry hair and skin that can only be described as the color of the inside of an apple. The mushy ones not the cool, crisp ones.

2. She took off his shirt, his skin glistening in the sun like a glazed doughnut. The glaze part, not the doughnut part.

And my favorite:

3. His eyes looked like eyes because they were eye-shaped, not almonds.

And speaking of that...

When it comes to describing Asians the go-to is almond-shaped eyes. Almond eyes is actually based on a racist description originating from the 1700s when white merchants and explorers wanted to describe the exotic looks of Asians (mostly women). They probably thought it was a huge compliment at the time. But the fact that it's still used today is sad because it exotifies a whole continent of people who happen to have completely different shaped eyes from one another. It also points out something different as beautiful. The problem is that it still points out how different these people are.

I don't often talk about diversity in my reviews of books, however, my former co-blogger Axie does a great job in this review about pointing out where the story went a little sideways in how it spoke about diversity.

Don't get me wrong, I am very appreciative that there are characters in books that look like me. (Growing up my only role models were Sailor Moon and the yellow Power Ranger and Totoro). However, I think that the way we talk about race and culture sometimes contributes to the problem instead of helping it.

And in my desire to read more diverse books (particularly in YA/MG), I am doing the "Diversity on the Shelf 2015" Reading Challenge hosted by My Little Pocketbooks! So stay tuned for my upcoming post about it.