**DISCLAIMER:**
Since there's a lot of people I don't know who apparently read this (who ARE you?!) I just want to say that I am by no means trying to make Korea out to be a super racist country or anything. I'm just making observations from my personal point of view, which is very Western.
In the States, I personally thought that the "color-blind" approach to racial issues was the lesser of many evil choices. Yeah, I'm white, middle-class, and come from a happy family so I realzie I'm not one to talk about race. But from a young age, living in Korea and then in Florida on/around military bases, I think I was lucky to be surrounded by a lot of diverse people. I had friends that looked different than me while I was still too young to realize that it could be a "problem". One of my first friends was Jennifer, a half-American, half-Korean girl. My second "best friend" was Tanaya, a black girl. I don't remember at any point in my childhood ever thinking about what they looked like.
Of course "color-blindness" isn't the answer to all the world's racial issues. But then again, neither is blackface.
Oooh, Korea, what are you doing?
Again, white, middle-class, happy family here. However, in Korea, the racial stereotypes are a little different. Being a foreigner in general gets positive and negative stereotypes. Being white, some of the stereotypes I encounter include the following.
Positive:
rich, pretty (small face, big eyes, pale skin, etc etc), intelligent (US college-educated)
Negative:
foul-mouthed, drug-user, child-abuser, money-hungry, drunk, has AIDS, tramp
These negative stereotypes stem from a few foreigners. There was once a foreigner who was hired by the government to be an English teacher. Without a background check or call to references or anything, they hired him. It turns out he was wanted for child molestation, and apparently abused several children while in Korea. Koreans also misunderstanding HIV/AIDS, and have called for every foreigner entering Korea with a work visa to have an HIV/AIDS test. I guess if you're diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, you are not allowed a work visa?
More hating here: http://asiancorrespondent.com/korea-beat/-p-2944
So, in terms of racism/xenophobia, Korea has a ways to go. I wouldn't be so indignant about it if it weren't for Korea constantly trying to market itself as a "friendly country" and a "global leader" (I hate that phrase, Korea is obsessed with it).
Korea brings all these native-English speakers to the country, but then doesn't know what to do with them. While it's how I'm earning my money, it's not very effective to have all these expensive script-readers and human tape-players. (And Korea shares this opinion, apparently: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/2010/12/181_77318.html)
This has gotten off topic, but whatever. Korea's a great country, it's just hard sometimes to remember that it is not the West. It is what it is, and for me sometimes that's difficult to accept.
0 comments:
Post a Comment