Korean Job Discussion Forums

[in_seoul_2003]

This aticle is just strange.

First, there's the obvious stupidity: can chinese tourists not already get foot massages from Korean massage establishments? Hell, can Koreans not get foot massages in the US from white people? In fact, can you not get a foot massage - in places specializing in massages - in almost any country in the world regardless of the race of the masseuse?

Of course, foot massages here is being used to denote economic subordination. But it's interesting how economics is being fused with race, physical service, paranoia (and racial paranoia at that) and what the authors take to be the humiliation in giving a foot massage.




http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/03/113_40443.html

Koreans love massage. And China is a massage paradise. It�s much cheaper and better there. Now, with China�s booming economy, in 10 years, the situation may go reverse: it might be Koreans who might have to do foot massage to Chinese.

In a column, titled �The Day When Koreans Do Foot Massage to Chinese,� Chosun Ilbo Saturday described a trip by a group of Korean school teachers to China, who visited Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao, Shanghai and other major cities. They toured factories run by South Korean companies such as Samsung and LG and Posco.

The visitors were quite impressed by the rapid adjustment of Chinese workers in the Communist country to capitalism-based work routines, including incentives for those high-achievers.

They also attended a lecture by a Korean manager there. They were told: �Now, Chinese people are better accustomed to the competition and incentive-based system of capitalism and they are actually more capitalistic than Koreans.�

The manager then proceeded to warn them: �If Deng Xiaoping had started the economic reform 10 years earlier, then the situation between Korea and China might have been different from what it is now. Korea achieved a rapid economic development while China shut its doors to the outside world during the Cultural Revolution.�

He continued: �Today, we receive foot massage from Chinese. But if we don�t work hard enough, in 10 years it will be Koreans who might have to do foot massage for Chinese.�

The article didn�t say whether that �warning� will alert the teachers enough to educate their pupils better.

China, the world�s economic magnet, is confident that it will get out of the global financial crisis faster than any other country, Chinese state media said quoting economists

[ruffie]

What a strange article. I doubt the workers at that factory or Chinese officials would appreciate the tone of that tour and lecture.

Just the idea of that leg of the tour itself is problematic. Do Americans go on tours of US owned Mexican factories? How is that a vacation turn on? I can just imagine some Chinese dude sitting there sewing up some Basic House or Lecaf rags while this gaggle of overdressed, designer sunglasses and giant sunhat wearing Koreans are led through to ooh and ahh at him as if he were an Oompa-Loompa in the chocolate Factory. How can that possibly be good for morale in the factory? How does that help to decrease the growing anti-Korean sentiment in China? Perhaps, as the tour leaves (no doubt heading to one of the city's Korean restaurants) the Chinese workers are murmuring under their breath, "One day, I swear,with every stitch I sew into this nonsensical I'm Juicy Mom Revolution T-shirt, you will massage my children's feet, and their children's feet, into infinity!".

As for the lecture, I don't get it. What does the warning to be careful really imply? Wouldn't Korean investments in China inevitably add to China's growth, and narrow the foot massage/race divide?

[in_seoul_2003]

[Yesterday]

[Kuros]

[Pojogae]

The thread title was intriguing! Just had to click it!

Aren't the reader's comments on these Korea English Newspaper sites weird. Seems to be the same bunch of guys sustaining the same running arguments and flinging the same insults and accusations of racism over three or four papers - like one of those fights that seem to spill from room to room. They've probably been at it for years.

[ChinaBoy]

I don't understand the whole thrill of the foot massage. Damn stupid if you ask me. Would feel better on any other part of my body.

[Tjames426]

Koreans have been washing [kissing / licking] the feet of the superior "elder brother" Chinese since the Joseon. Nothing really has changed. I don't understand the big fuss over it.

I guess it is better to be the dog of China than the slave of Japan.

[buymybook]