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“‘Let’s Go to Starbucks’ Is a Modern-DaySeodongyo… You Cannot Silence Children”
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It tells of a song that spread among the children of the Silla Kingdom:
“Prince Seodong of Baekje and Princess Seonhwa of Silla meet every night as lovers.”
The rhyme spread from child to child until it echoed throughout the kingdom.
The Silla royal court was thrown into turmoil. How could a princess of the royal bloodline be rumored to have an illicit relationship with a foreign prince? According to the legend, Princess Seonhwa was eventually banished and later married Prince Seodong, who had been waiting for exactly that outcome.
The Silla court may have succeeded in intimidating adults into silence. But the truth has a way of slipping through even the smallest crack.
That crack is the mouths of children.
The Lee Jae-myung administration and its political allies have devoted enormous effort to elevating the legacy of May 18 into what the author describes as a political sacred symbol, believing it is essential to maintaining support in the Honam region. Measures such as the May 18 Special Act, proposals to include the May 18 movement in the constitutional preamble, and discussions surrounding a Honam semiconductor cluster are cited as examples.
Yet, according to the author, many citizens believe that the symbolism surrounding May 18 has gone beyond reasonable commemoration and entered the realm of unquestionable sanctification. He argues that behind this lies a broader political strategy aimed at consolidating long-term electoral support in the Honam region.
When adults are pressured into silence, he argues, those suppressed sentiments inevitably reappear elsewhere—in online communities frequented by teenagers and even on high school baseball fields.
That, he says, is how the modern-daySeodongyoemerged in the form of the phrase:
“Let’s go to Starbucks.”
Even if Starbucks stores were forced to close, and even if baseball players from Paejae High School were prevented from entering college, the chant—
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go to Starbucks.”
—would continue spreading across the country.
According to the author, attempts to use the Honam region as a permanent political stronghold have transformed May 18 from a national tragedy into what he views as a political farce.
If students from Gwangju Ilgo High School genuinely felt insulted by the Starbucks chant, he argues, their frustration should not be directed at students from Paejae High School, but rather toward the left-wing government and the entrenched regional political establishment that, in his view, created the conditions for such backlash.
The author also recalls learning about theSeodongyolegend in Korean literature class. He notes that he has never heard of children being punished by the Silla court for singing the song.
Yet, he argues, in the Republic of Korea thousands of years later, high school baseball players allegedly had their futures cut short by being denied opportunities for higher education because of a chant.
In his view, this represents the death of liberal democracy.
“But even if people remain silent,” he concludes, “the stones will cry out.”
“And so, even as an ordinary countryman standing in a cornfield in Gapyeong, I will continue to shout:
‘Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go to Starbucks.’”
#FreedomOfSpeech #Starbucks #SouthKoreaPolitics
* This article has been translated by ChatGPT.