By: Ishani Ghosh
Professor Vyjayanti Raghavan is a Professor of Korean language and culture at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in India. She has also been the Chair of the Centre for Korean Studies at JNU. Professor Raghavan specializes in Korean history and International Relations. She received her BA in Economics at the University of Madras, MA in Korean History at Seoul National University, and Ph.D. in the field of Disarmament at JNU. I had the privilege of interviewing her through email on February 13, 2021. In this interview, Professor Raghavan details her journey in the field of Korean studies, shares insights on Korean academia in India and how to succeed in the field.
Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to interview you! How did you become interested in Korea?
My connection with Korea started a very long time ago, in 1976, quite accidentally. Having finished my BA from Chennai I was looking to JNU to pursue my Master’s. The interest was in studying the Chinese economy because my elder brother was learning the Chinese language alongside his history course at Delhi University. But by the time I reached Delhi, admissions had closed. I had no place to stay. That’s when I spotted an advertisement in the newspapers for a pre-degree diploma course in Korean which was to be started at JNU soon. The successful candidates were assured of hostel accommodation – and that’s why I applied for that course. Then, before the end of the course, I applied for a scholarship given by the Ministry of Education of South Korea to pursue my Master’s course there. The rest, as they say, is history. Just a search for a room in the hostel ended up changing my career totally.
While studying Korea, did people around you tell you to pursue a different or “stable” career path?
Yes, of course, they did. In fact, as I said, I too had taken up the Diploma course only to while away a year before taking admission into a regular course and had never in my wildest dreams thought of making a career out of it. Korea was a country hardly heard of those days. The only historical facts people were familiar with were the Korean War, the division of the country into South and North Korea, and the highly tense relations between the two halves. So my family, friends, and batch mates thought I was joking when I said that I was planning to go to Korea. There are no job prospects, they said. But since JNU had started a course and since the Indian Ministry of Education had made me sign a bond for the scholarship, which required me to come back and work here, there was some hope in my mind of finding a job at JNU.
What were some of the challenges you faced while studying in Korea and how did you overcome them?
The biggest challenge was the language because in Korea those days had hardly any foreigners and the people knew no English. So from the first day onwards, I had to walk around with a dictionary. The food could have been a challenge but I like to experiment with new flavours and dishes. I came from a pure vegetarian household but having stayed in the hostel at Chennai as well as at JNU, I had experimented with some amount of non-veg food. The Korean non-vegetarian food, however, is a completely different kettle of fish, you can say. There were many dishes that even my most accommodating palate and mindset could not handle, like a live octopus, eel, snails, etc.
What were a few benefits of studying in Korea?
Well, the biggest benefit has been that I have become one of the pioneers of Korean studies in India. I got to meet some really wonderful people, made really good friends while I was there, and had some amazing experiences that I might not have had if I had not gone there. For instance, I escorted some orphan Korean children to their foster homes in the US for an organization that provided a very cheap roundtrip plane ticket for the job. Making a trip to the US at my own expense as a student was unthinkable. So it was a very satisfying trip and an eye-opener when I saw the joy in the eyes of the foster parents. Another memorable experience was an overnight ferry ride, during one of my vacations, from Busan to Shimonoseki in Japan. I was able to travel around Japan and also experience staying with a Japanese family in a typical Japanese home of a friend of mine. I wore a Kimono, took part in a tea ceremony, and celebrated New Year in Japanese style. I was just 20 then!
In what ways did you overcome some of the initial challenges you faced while studying Korea?
I had to work really hard on the language because I had to attend the Master’s course with Korean students. Initially, I could barely follow 5 percent of the lecture and the discussions but the Koreans were extremely warm and helpful. They went beyond the normal call of generosity to make a foreigner feel comfortable. In those days, Koreans were not familiar with foreigners. The only ones they had seen were the Japanese, Chinese, and Americans (white and black). They had read about India as the land of Buddha but many confused it with Indonesia. They were quite intrigued to interact with an Indian who was making an effort to learn their language and culture. The love and warmth they showered on me were unparalleled. Korea of those days was quite different from what it is today. They were naive, fresh, and genuine in expressing their feelings and lacked the kind of sophistication they have acquired now. So the challenges I faced never seemed so insurmountable. Also, I had to spend a lot of time and money learning the Hanja script or the Chinese characters that they used with their own script as I was majoring in Korean history. It was a real challenge but I enjoyed it immensely.
How has COVID-19 impacted you?
I really don’t like the online classes where I do not get to interact with my students face-to-face. I find it very difficult to conduct classes talking to a computer. I miss seeing the expressions on students’ faces while teaching. And I have not been able to travel to Korea. I retire next year and have lost precious opportunities of visiting Korea during the last couple of years of my working life. Nor have I been able to visit Switzerland to see my grandson who was born last year during the lock-down.
While pursuing a Ph.D. at JNU, what led you to do a thesis on “The Politics of Nuclear Bargaining: A Study of US-North Korean Negotiations?”
Frankly, there was no other option open to me other than doing some aspect of Korea’s international relations, as I would not have found a supervisor for any other field. North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and trickery or shenanigans were hot topics those days.
There has been an immense interest among Indians to study Korea. What are the contributing factors to this interest?
Today the course that used to be a second or third choice or option for the incoming students has become their first choice while applying, and enrollments are rising every year. I would say that initially, the interest of Indians in learning Korean was the hope of getting a job as Korean companies were making inroads into the Indian market. With that happening and with Korea slowly gaining recognition in the world because of the economic advancement, its initiatives in reaching out to the communist countries like China and the Soviet Union, as well as successfully holding the Olympics in 1988, the world started noticing it. In India, too, educational institutions started including Korean studies to the already existing Chinese and Japanese studies to make it a complete East Asian studies department. Moreover, the Korean government and other educational institutions offered many more scholarships to students than any of the other programmes. This too was a major attraction. Then around 2008-09 the Korean Wave (hallyu) started making inroads into India too, especially in the Northeast and later on elsewhere. Since then the interest in learning the language has been because the fans want to understand the lyrics of the K-pop songs or the dialogue in Korean dramas. It was also because of just love for the language.
JNU is one of the few Indian universities to offer extensive courses on Korea and even has a centre for Korean Studies. What is the genesis of Korean Studies being offered at JNU?
The Korean studies started in JNU at the School of International Studies as part of the Centre for East Asian Studies way back in the early 1970s. JNU has been the pioneer of many such programmes. Courses in Korean Studies were offered to students at the M.Phil/Ph.D level by Professor R.R. Krishnan who was one of the first Indians to have gone to Korea for studies. The language programme was started later in 1976 when the university invited Professor Suh Kyung-soo, a Korean scholar of Indian philosophy from Dongguk University on the exchange programme that the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) had. He started the Pre-degree Diploma programme along with Professor Krishnan at the School of Languages, which is what I joined and started my journey.
The programme at the School of Languages meandered along till the 1990s and then with the support from Korea Foundation became a degree programme in 1995. Korea Foundation supported a Visiting Professor’s post and JNU no longer had to depend on ICCR to invite scholars. Dr. D.Y. Kim was appointed under it. He and his wife were running the programme with a part-time teacher, Dilip Tiwari. It extended to an M.A. course in 1998. JNU advertised for permanent posts in late 1999 and I rejoined the faculty in 2000. I had taught as an ad hoc part-time lecturer from 1981 until 1983 but had given it up when there seemed no hope of any recruitment happening.
Though the demand to extend the programme to include M.Phil/Ph.D had been there for a long time, we did not want to do it until there were more posts. We were able to start M.Phil in 2013, the year we were able to get our own independent Centre, the Centre for Korean Studies. I am proud to say that it is perhaps still the only independent Centre for Korean studies in all of South Asia.
Korean language at the School of Languages had been part of many Centres before it evolved into a separate Centre. It was part of the Centre for Afro-Asian Languages (CAAL) in the 1970s when I initially joined the diploma course, then it had become part of the Centre for Japanese and Northeast Asian Studies (CJNEAS) when I joined it as a faculty member in 2000. Around 2003-04 we got the name Korean inducted into the nomenclature and it became the Centre for Japanese, Korean, and North-East Asian Studies (CJKNEAS). In 2013 we got a separate and independent Centre – the Centre for Korean Studies (CKS).
JNU offers BA, MA, M.Phil, and Ph.D. degrees in Korean. How can students interested in studying Korea at JNU, prepare themselves to apply for these programs?
Well, at the B.A. level it is a common entrance exam for all languages so students wanting to join are tested in language aptitude, logical thinking, basic English language skills, general knowledge, and general awareness. Those interested in Korean should prepare for general awareness about the region and in particular about Korea. At the M.A. level, they are tested on their language skills and knowledge about Korea. The language skills tested include vocabulary, grammar, and a bit of familiarity with basic Hanja. They are also required to have translation skills and basic knowledge of Korean literature and Korean culture. A look at past years’ question papers would give them an idea. However, the format of these keeps changing over the years. Then, there’s a common entrance examination for the M.Phil and Ph.D. students. They are tested on Research Methodology, Korean language, literature, linguistics, and general knowledge of Korean history and culture. Then at the interview level, they are tested on domain knowledge and their oral skills.
You have done extensive research on Korean academia in India. In your expert opinion, what steps should Indian universities inculcate to have a stronger grasp of Korean studies?
As I was one of the first to have studied this field, I was not able to have just one focus. I ended up doing my Ph.D. from the School of International Studies at JNU but because I had done my Master’s in Korea with Korean as the medium of instruction, I ended up in the School of Languages, as there was a need for scholars with knowledge of the language to run the programmes. So, even though I had a rounded knowledge about Korea I ended up falling between two stools – Language studies, and Korean history/International studies.
Therefore, from my own experience, my sense would be that institutions that hope for a robust Korean studies programme should, if they have a Ph.D. programme, have their scholars who are likely to become future resource persons, specialize in different aspects of the language and Korean Studies, to have a well-rounded programme.
How have you contributed to maintaining the student interest in Korea at JNU?
We at JNU make sure that a full-throttle immersion of students happens in the language and culture of Korea. We hold cultural programmes like skits and dramas, K-pop contests, on-the-spot-essay contests, poetry, singing and quiz contests, food festivals, Taekwando demonstrations, etc. at the Bachelor level; and Seminars and presentations at the Master’s level onwards. A number of special lectures by scholars visiting from Korea are held regularly. So the students are involved in a whole lot of activities. I can proudly say that the Korean Centre is one of the most active Centres in the university. That itself is quite an inspiration and catches on like a virus. Hardly anyone stays out of the loop.
What has been your greatest accomplishment in the field of Korean studies?
I think I was instrumental in putting Korean Language and Studies on the map at JNU. This happened chiefly because I piloted a separate Centre for Korean in 2013. Till then it was a part of other Centres. I have also received a Citation from the Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea in 2015 in recognition of my contribution to promoting Korean Studies in India. However, whatever I have achieved could not have been possible without the contribution, encouragement, and support of my colleagues, the university authorities, the Korean Embassy in India, and the Korean Culture Centre here. It is therefore a joint effort and I am ever grateful to all of them.
What do you aspire to accomplish next in this field?
It has been my dream to make JNU the hub of Korean studies not only in India but in all of South Asia. It has to become a complete resource centre for all material and expertise on Korea. I am sure that even though I retire next year, my young colleagues, most of whom have been my students, will carry on the good work and achieve even more than what I had set my eyes on.
Please give some advice to Indian students who want to pursue Korean studies in universities.
My only advice to them would be to remain focused and like the Koreans not waiver till the target is achieved. It may take a lot of time and effort, and sometimes also lost opportunities. But that’s the only way to achieve something. They should draw inspiration from the country they study – Korea. South Korea is barely 1/33rd the size of India with hardly any natural resources but it has turned from a war-torn country in the 1950s to becoming the tenth or eleventh-largest economy in the world and fourth-largest in Asia. They have been able to achieve this only through sheer hard-work, determination, and single focus in becoming Jaeil (the Number one or best) in whatever they undertake to do. My advice to Indian students wanting to pursue Korean studies would also be to stay determined and focused.
(Originally published at https://www.korea.net/TalkTalkKorea/English/community/community/CMN0000006415)
Dr. Vyjayanti Raghavan 