Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ilsanman]

Why don't we all collectivelt start making fun of their small noses? Or their flat faces? Or how about how the whole country has the same hair colour?

[Ilsanman]

People in glass houses.........

[Corporal]

What are you babbling on about now? No one's making fun of anyone, or being racist for that matter. I just wanted some enlightenment as to why KOREANS are so fond of lumping foreigners into categories. Stop playing devil's advocate.

[matthews_world]

[kiwioutofthenest]

Well i've never received any comments on my nose till i got here, I had one girl come up to me in the middle of class and stroke my nose, she said it was beautiful because it has a ridge that follows up to my brows whilst hers finished pretty much where it started.

[The evil penguin]

[just because]

I've been told that I have a high nose..... WHAT THE HECK IS A HIGH NOSE???????
Anyway, that said apparently Korean think high noses are fashionable and I'm handsome apparently(I don't see it) because of my nose. Whatever turns on the natives I suppose

[Emma Clare]

Admittedly, the one thing that makes me feel self conscious here in Korea is not the fact that Korean women are slimmer than I am, but the fact that I have a slightly 'prominent' nose and Korean ladies have tiny, pretty, ones. It's not huge mind, it's just not small, and it's not completely straight either. (Got broken as a kid and never fixed)

"kojangee"? M*****F****r!! Some girl walked past me and said this to her friend today. At least I have lovely wide eyes and she definitely didn't. Grrrrrr.....

[HardyandTiny]

You Nosu biga!

Yeah yeah Honey..take your pants off.

[rapier]

Last year I heard one Korean woman commenting on why she married her husband over all her other suitors. The deciding factor was that "when he picked his nose, it wasn't as disgusting as the way other men do".

Talk about picky.

[matthewwoodford]

Here's my take on the Korean thing about noses. Firstly, I've heard the Chinese also think Western probosci are outsized, although I can't speak for the Japanese. Then, secondly, we do have prominent noses compared to Asians, generally larger and if not larger at least more pointed and noticeable. So waygooks in Korea quite often experience the same feeling of surprise and annoyance that Koreans think we have big noses the first time we hear about it. It's a physical difference between whites and asians that asians focus on and whites don't - why should we when every other race in the world has a nose of (at least!) equal size to ours?

Now what physical difference do white people focus on that asians, as far as I can tell, do not? Eyes! Korean 'kojangee' is the equivalent of that unacceptable 'slant-eyes' term we used to hear. Eddie Murphy did a bit in one of his stand up routines where he asked if Asian people stretch their eyes into a round shape and laugh at westerners when we're not there. Tom Clancy (you can tell how cultured I am) has an asian character in one of his books refer to whites as 'round-eyes'. But of course asians don't call westerners 'round-eyes' - they call us 'big noses'! And has anyone actually ever heard the term 'flatface' as they seem to believe we call them? Never even occurred to me before coming to Korea.

So the point is not that I want to trade racist insults but it's ironic that asian and western perceptions differ in this way and both misundertand the other. The next time you feel angry at a Korean for saying 'kojangee' remember they'd probably feel the same way if you said 'slant eyes'.....not that you would of course!

Matt

[Bubbliee]

[Drakoi]

[Corporal]

Kids are kids everywhere and all kids make racial slurs, that can't really be helped. However, when the adults of the society not only tolerate but often encourage their progeny to participate in such antics, something's wrong. I think it's safe to say that Korea has a far bigger problem with judging, staring at, making fun of, or otherwise badly treating foreigners than does midwest America, no matter how white bread the latter is.

[Drakoi]