Pedro Vieira de Moura
Portuguese Language in Korea. A few unsystematic reflections.
Although numbers may falter, for being based on slightly dated censuses, there are 210 to 220 million people in the world speaking Portuguese. That ranks Portuguese, according to the most consensual statistics, as eighth among the most spoken languages in the world. Within the Western/European framework and their global projection, it positions it at third place, after English and Spanish. It is also the official language of eight countries in four different continents: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and, more recently, East-Timor. It can also be found as a minority language in diverse regions such as Goa, India, or Malacca, Malaysia.
As of course, 80% of the first numbers is guaranteed by Brazil, with more than 170 million inhabitants, being the only country, apart from Portugal, in which the language is in fact the mother-language. In all the others it occupies an official language status, not guaranteeing that the whole population speaks it. Also, within Europe, it is not one of the major languages, with a population within the country not reaching even 10 million people. Being frank, we also should underline the fact that for several reasons Portuguese is not a language with a general prestige among a general public.
Therefore, the conditions of its schooling in Korea come as no surprise. I would like to say right at the start of this simple approach and presentation of my point of view and experience that I will not present a romanticized view, and I shall be direct, blunt even.
Portuguese is taught in the Republic of Korea only in two universities: the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS) and the Pusan University of Foreign Studies (PUFS). Both of them have an independent Portuguese Department, and the HUFS has two campuses, one in Imun-dong (Seoul) and the second at Yong-In. For the students whose major is Portuguese, the courses are curricular, meaning having obligatory status. The undergraduate course is of 4 years, with a weekly 10-hour period of Portuguese language or related issues (culture, history, economy, and so on). HUFS also offers a post-graduate course of 2 years for the carry-over of linguistic training. While most of the full-time lecturers at HUFS got their degrees in Brazil, the ones at PUFS were trained in Portugal. Still, this is not applicable for all the teachers at one place, for some achieved their PhDs in precisely the other country.
I have been a teacher at HUFS for the past three years, and I am the sole native Portuguese teacher of the Department, although there is still another native speaker from Brazil. The two of us share, alternatively each semester, all the classes from the first to the third year, in which there are conversational classes. These are obligatory only for the first two years' students; for the third year's is optional; and there are no conversational classes in the fourth and last year. From my standpoint, this comes across as an awkward situation: students are confronted right in the beginning with a foreign teacher - and that confrontation is manifold in its consequences - which leads to too many obstacles to surpass; on the other hand, when the students finally reach a level in which they have some extensive training in linguistic aspects, as well as they have achieved a deeper knowledge on some cultural and social features related to that language/set of countries, they do not have the opportunity to spend time with the native teachers, who could help them in drawing a future path of specialization through counseling or research-support, if wished.
I am also responsible for one of the one-semester subjects of the post-graduation course: I have taught twice History of Portuguese Language and once Portuguese Literature (in which we focused the work of our major 19th century Realist writer). The level of the students of this stage is, most of the time, not sufficient. Not only in basic knowledge of the language they reveal certain inadequacies, but also in university-level methods of work, research and plain individual dedication and inquisitiveness.
As I wrote above, Portuguese is not considered an overtly prestigious language in the world, and therefore is not usually one of the first-choice languages of students when they enlist in HUFS. Most of the students have in their minds a goal of studying English, Chinese and Japanese, or even Spanish. Those are the first languages on the average list. However, often their grades do not allow them to enlist in those departments, so they are forced to look for another possible choice. I may say, from interviews with the students, that the majority has joined the Portuguese Department as a third-choice. There are, obviously, exceptions in both ways: some have chosen it as the first language - perhaps 1 in 20 students (encouraged, though, for over-practical reasons: they speak it already, having lived in Brazil; or being Spanish-speakers, and choosing the most similar language); others have been pulled down by their grades to a seventh choice.
One should also take in account what University life means in general in Korea, especially university studies that focus on general issues such as culture and language. Although I think this is neither the forum to discuss that matter nor I am ready to incur in the probable erroneous, highly debatable points-of-view, I would like just to say that I fully understand that this is the only moment in the life of a Korean citizen in which they are actually allowed or have the possibility to enjoy themselves fully, relax with no constraints, and not really being obliged to make an effort. Again, this is just an opinion, and is related only with these kinds of studies. The main consequence of this is, of course, sometimes I feel there's not difference between these University students and my previous middle- to high-school students in Portugal, in what "academic" work is concerned.
As for the focus of their learning, and repeating a previous thought, most of the full-time professors of the University were trained and educated in Brazil, so it will not astonish anyone to say that most of the students are lead into a wider access to Brazilian sources and contents and, consequently, the interests will be predisposed towards that direction: Brazil as a market partner, a possibility of a commercial-oriented career, as a good platform for furthering linguistic studies (and then return as a Portuguese teacher), and so on. However, and unfortunately, most of the history, cultural and even literature classes are given in Korean: there's not much reading, or practicing, with the exception of some translation exercises, which I wonder if they help, being mostly on politics, economics and law-related subjects. Conversational skills are not well-developed, or a least to the full possibilities, so something like 50% of the new graduates are not capable of a simple get-to-meet-one-another conversation. Nevertheless, there are wonderful surprises: even if I do not count the students that have spent some time in Brazil or Portugal, with or without scholarships, and that have attained a good or excellent conversational-cultural level of Portuguese, some students that never leave Korea are brilliant, dedicated learners. Also, rest assured that I am perfectly conscious that Portuguese - especially phonetically and semantically - is not an easy language to learn; I am always baffled to speak my own idiom with students, no matter how much I desire it could be slightly improved.
A graver issue, however, is culture, in the German sense of the word. To put it bluntly, most of the students do not know much about Portugal. Some of the views on the country are misinformed and occasionally even embarrassing. Little by little, a struggle against common misapprehensions, erroneous views and simple ignorance takes place in the classroom. My own personal stress in class is both on specific linguistic aspects - expressions that can conceivably convey a singular Portuguese Weltanschauung - and on cultural issues, usually contemporary, through as much resources as possible.
There are many characteristics and facts on Portuguese reality that most people are not aware of, from simple facts of daily life, to its importance in some steps of world history. For instances, the existence of its dual political system, with a Prime-Minister as a Chief of Government and a President of the Republic as Chief of the State; its socio-economical levels of development, that makes Lisbon as much a cosmopolitan city as any other in Europe, although with its perchance retro charm; its mesmerizing biodiversity for such a modest area; the simple fact that it is a member of the European Union since January of 1986. But more important, deeper facets are its indispensable role in the history of globalization, as it were, during the 15th to 17th centuries: one cannot study documents from this time period without recurring to Portuguese sources, including in the study of West-Korea studies, according to the proceedings of the very First Portuguese-Korean Historical Studies Seminar, held at the Portuguese Cultural Center in Seoul, last 2001. Or if one wonders where do the red chili peppers, essential for kim'chi, come from. More recently, it is quite important to learn about the development of a "Portuguese Commonwealth", the CPLP - Portuguese Language Countries Community - and its importance in mutual aid, economical development, closing of bonds between the involved, and so on. Also, if one thinks about it, why has East-Timor decided to stick to the language of one of the old colonizing nations? The answer is a value that cannot be erased from the newborn country's memory.
A few students have been quite foresighted and have entered in unknown territory for Korean scholars: Portuguese Language African Literatures, Contemporary Portuguese History, Specialized South Korean-East Timor relations (both humanitarian and military support), using Portuguese as a platform for African-related issues, learning expertise techniques on certain trades: wine production, textile manufacturing, even computer systems designing, in which, perhaps surprisingly, there are a few advanced representatives in the country, and so on. There's a mish-mash of potential and promising sectors to be explored through the learning of Portuguese language, as with any other (developing) country, but it takes a while for single efforts to bear fruit.
Do not get me wrong: the challenge of learning Portuguese, or other less available languages, is not an easy one, not only for its intrinsic linguistic difficulties, but also for its perchance limited - in a solely materialistic point-of-view, too prized in our days - interest and scope. To know people that have dedicated their lives to it is to meet people that have followed their own dreams, goals and idiosyncrasies, despite all. To talk to students in my own language is something that keeps being a surprise. Nonetheless, and hoping not to fall into rosy generalities and niceties, I think that to a better general development of a country, that dedication should be done fully-hearted, as a first-choice thing. For that, a more general undergraduate education on the diversity of realities of the world (cultures, countries, languages, and do on) should be pressed on, as well as a more sincere expansion away from plain practical, acquisitive goals. A new view toward a deeper understanding and acceptance of culture diversity is, above all, a long-term investment: changing road signs to English may be a good start, but it is not the end to building a cosmopolitan society.
Copyright © 2002 by Pedro Vieira de Moura
