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cj1976
Joined: 26 Oct 2005
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 Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 7:59 pm Post subject: |
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| I stand by what I said. The ignorance of AIDS, the xenophobia and the lack of legislation to protect people against such shameful treatment all described in the article, does not reflect well on Korean society. In hindsight, I shouldn't have used the term 'backward', when 'unprogressive' would have been more accurate and less inflammatory. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 8:16 pm Post subject: |
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| cj1976 wrote: |
| I stand by what I said. The ignorance of AIDS, the xenophobia and the lack of legislation to protect people against such shameful treatment all described in the article, does not reflect well on Korean society. In hindsight, I shouldn't have used the term 'backward', when 'unprogressive' would have been more accurate and less inflammatory. |
Certainly, if we mentioned that Saudi Arabia not legally permitting women to drive reflects poorly on South Korea. Yes, racism exists all over the world. The comment the Busan employee made about AIDS reminded me of a comment I heard from a fellow from the Persian/Arabian Gulf 15 years ago, but that was 18 years ago. He asked if you can get AIDS if you were swimming in a pool. Again, that was in the early 1990s. This man should know better in the year 2011. The fact that South Korea doesn't have laws to where one can take action against those who discriminate against Korean citizens of other races and other foreigners does reflect poorly on Korean society. They should do something about this, have protests against this. They need to change the laws regarding this.
There are many things that reflect poorly on American society, and I'd freely say that. There have been too many shootings in a city I lived in the U.S. That reflects poorly on the U.S. Does it reflect negatively on American culture? Maybe it shows that too many Americans are likely to try to resolve problems with violence just as not enough Koreans are doing something to ensure such discrimination against Korean natioals of other ethnicities doesn't occur. It doesn't mean that one country is better than the other. I hope you're not going down the road. |
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cj1976
Joined: 26 Oct 2005
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm not into the idea of superiority based on nationality or race. This article though had nothing but disaster written all over it. There's no way you can read that and not think something is wrong here. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:04 pm Post subject: |
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Discrimination based on race will become a significant issue as soon as enough non-ethnic Koreans obtain citizenship and form a voting bloc worthy of a politician's attention.
Until that happens (and doesn't seem likely to happen soon) issues like this will sadly be on the backburner.
The only way for this to usually get fast-tracked is for foreign investment and business to make a stink over it, which as I said, I'm surprised has never happened yet and should have happened decades ago. |
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Weigookin74
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:05 pm Post subject: |
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| metalhead wrote: |
| I don't know, this thread feels incomplete without someone popping in to remind us all of the American south in the 1950s, apartheid South Africa, the genocide committed in Tasmania or current day Israel. Perhaps we should be thinking about what the Belgians did in the Congo too for an extra dose of white man guilt. |
We aren't living in those times. If Korea wants to be a modern country with both credibility and respectibility, then it can't behave this way. As for the religion comment, Jesus said love your neighbor. So, Koreans who are Christian need to love their neighbor and lose the xenophobia. (I knew of a local Christian school who kept harping on one of their teachers that ' foriegners are bad'. Guess the Korean bible is different than the western one.)
http://populargusts.blogspot.com/2011/07/update-to-achievements-of-anti-english.html |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Weigookin74 wrote: |
| metalhead wrote: |
| I don't know, this thread feels incomplete without someone popping in to remind us all of the American south in the 1950s, apartheid South Africa, the genocide committed in Tasmania or current day Israel. Perhaps we should be thinking about what the Belgians did in the Congo too for an extra dose of white man guilt. |
We aren't living in those times. If Korea wants to be a modern country with both credibility and respectibility, then it can't behave this way. As for the religion comment, Jesus said love your neighbor. So, Koreans who are Christian need to love their neighbor and lose the xenophobia. (I knew of a local Christian school who kept harping on one of their teachers that ' foriegners are bad'. Guess the Korean bible is different than the western one.)
http://populargusts.blogspot.com/2011/07/update-to-achievements-of-anti-english.html |
Like Banquot's ghost, the AES and ATEK continue to stalk the ESLCafe castle.
Also, with the sunglasses on the woman could have passed for Korean. At first I thought she was an ethnic or part-ethnic Korean from Uzbekistan, what given her name and all.
And since when have ajummas been put off by foreigners in the sauna? Most of the women I know teaching here have at least one "attempted molestation by an ajumma" story relating to a jimjilbang.
Either way I hope the sauna gets hit with a hefty fine.
Last edited by Steelrails on Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:19 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:16 pm Post subject: |
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| ThingsComeAround wrote: |
| She is a Korean Citizen, however her nationality is UZBEK. |
Her nationality is Korean. Her national origin is Uzbek.
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| Thankfully she was willing to fight it. |
I hope she prevails in court. Sadly, I don't think it will have much, if any, affect on the other racists. I'm certainly not holding out hope that South Korea's parliament actually steps up and does something, given some of the xenophobic and racist statements coming from that esteemed institution. |
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Squire
Joined: 26 Sep 2010
Location: Jeollanam-do
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
So if something like this had happened in America or Canada and was printed in a national newspaper...it would reflect badly on Americans or Canadians as a whole?
Come now, you know that's rubbish. Most people would think that it's an example of just one bigoted person. And that would hold true whether it was America, Canada or South Korea. |
Hardly an isolated case though, is it? Most of my relatives are Swedish, and many of my relatives have lived in both Sweden and the UK. To my knowledge none of them have EVER been turned away from anywhere on the grounds of being a foreigner. I was only here for about 3 or 4 months before I was turned away from somewhere because I'm a foreigner |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:51 pm Post subject: |
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| CentralCali wrote: |
| ThingsComeAround wrote: |
| She is a Korean Citizen, however her nationality is UZBEK. |
Her nationality is Korean. Her national origin is Uzbek.
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| Thankfully she was willing to fight it. |
I hope she prevails in court. Sadly, I don't think it will have much, if any, affect on the other racists. I'm certainly not holding out hope that South Korea's parliament actually steps up and does something, given some of the xenophobic and racist statements coming from that esteemed institution. |
Well, the positive thing is that it's news. She is a citizen, has a Korean husband and family. This will hurt that sauna. It should be identified. So many people in the Busan area have relatives who married an Asian from another country, so these things can start to have negative reactions to those folks who are sticking to their prejudicial thinking.. There is a mentality that foreigners are bad for Korean business and that some customers won't want foreigners around. But, sorry, this is 2011. This needs to stop and now. I wish her the best of luck. This has to end.
I am glad the article was reported. Good on the people who support her and "bless" them. |
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Moondoggy
Joined: 07 Jun 2011
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| Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 12:35 am Post subject: |
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| CentralCali wrote: |
| No, a single moronic employee is not representative of a country. The fact that the country has no legislation implementing their obligations under a treaty, though, does represent something about that country. |
You're right on the money.
Actually an anti-discrimination bill still pending in National Assembly since last year would expressly prohibit discrimination and harassment on the basis of ethnicity, religion or national origin. because the government can prevent people from doing such stupid things if they know there's a punishment involved. But sadly it seems that the Korean law makers are always busy with something else. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 1:17 am Post subject: |
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| Squire wrote: |
| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
So if something like this had happened in America or Canada and was printed in a national newspaper...it would reflect badly on Americans or Canadians as a whole?
Come now, you know that's rubbish. Most people would think that it's an example of just one bigoted person. And that would hold true whether it was America, Canada or South Korea. |
Hardly an isolated case though, is it? Most of my relatives are Swedish, and many of my relatives have lived in both Sweden and the UK. To my knowledge none of them have EVER been turned away from anywhere on the grounds of being a foreigner. I was only here for about 3 or 4 months before I was turned away from somewhere because I'm a foreigner |
The University of Michigan is under the spotlight because people have put racist writing in the bathroom.
Michigan State University is on fire after a series of racially-motivated incidents have taken place on the campus. Most recently, a sign that says �No Ni**ers Please� put on the women�s restroom has become the straw that breaks the camel�s back.
�The incident that really jump-started this movement was an incident at Akers Hall where someone wrote �No Ni**ers, please� on a door of a young lady�s room,� said Mario Lemons, the president of the MSU Black Student Alliance (BSA). �The residence life staff told us not to talk about. Of course, someone took a picture of it and sent it to one of us.�
http://whatthehayell.com/2011/10/10/niggers-michigan-state-university-rocks-racial-controversy/
Then, we have Herman Cain, that the GOP (Republicans) chose as their perfect racist. He's African American and said he would hire no American Muslims. That's not in Korea, that's in America, unfortunately. People sue if someone is not served while being black, but Herman has no problem denying someone the job based on their religious affiliation, and he didn't receive a lot of flack for it.
The problem with Korea is can't get its politicians to pass any laws on racism. That reminds me when the Deep South had politicians who weren't doing anything to promote anti-racism legislation or civil rights legislation in the US South. We can't deny someone entry into a club based on race without being sued. There is a huge race problem in the U.S. and it manifests in different ways, but we can do something about it. You can't really do anything about it here. That's what is at issue. It shouldn't be about Korea being backwards country versus America being an advanced one. I am not so sure about that. There are so many backward things about a few Western countries. |
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jamesd
Joined: 15 Aug 2011
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 1:31 am Post subject: |
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| Moondoggy wrote: |
| CentralCali wrote: |
| No, a single moronic employee is not representative of a country. The fact that the country has no legislation implementing their obligations under a treaty, though, does represent something about that country. |
You're right on the money.
Actually an anti-discrimination bill still pending in National Assembly since last year would expressly prohibit discrimination and harassment on the basis of ethnicity, religion or national origin. because the government can prevent people from doing such stupid things if they know there's a punishment involved. But sadly it seems that the Korean law makers are always busy with something else. |
Perhaps, law makers are worried that too many of their Korean citizens will be fined and/or jailed if the law is ever passed. |
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GoldMember
Joined: 24 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 3:27 am Post subject: |
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The Sauna mentioned is located in Texas street, opposite Busan station. Its in a side street from Texas Street.
You can pass laws but the real issue is the attitude of the average Korean. Back home if a business was racist, people would stop going there. Would the average Korean boycott this business or continue to support it? I think we know the answer to that one. |
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The Floating World
Joined: 01 Oct 2011
Location: Here
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| Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 5:17 am Post subject: |
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| GoldMember wrote: |
The Sauna mentioned is located in Texas street, opposite Busan station. Its in a side street from Texas Street.
You can pass laws but the real issue is the attitude of the average Korean. Back home if a business was racist, people would stop going there. Would the average Korean boycott this business or continue to support it? I think we know the answer to that one. |
Ah, it gets interesting.
Texas street is a brothel area, very simmilar to hooker hill in that it is all juicy bars. Unlike cheongyangyi or hooker hill in the 'twon - the hookers at Texas street bars and environs are mostly half Korean / Russian, Uzbeki's etc.
That could come near to explaining why a sauna owner would feel her cutomers would be uncomfortable about women from those nationalities using the sauna?
Now it's not right to automatically assume then that every Russian or Uzbeki woman around there is a hooker and I do not condone that, but one can see this prejudice in a new light now....
Again I'm not saying it's on but in a convservative society and a certain disease that hookers might be seen to be prone to, one could see why hysteria might be involved here. |
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Old fat expat
Joined: 19 Sep 2005
Location: a caravan of dust, making for a windy prairie
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| Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 5:59 am Post subject: |
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| Ahh, just a double standard. Much nicer. |
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