Korean Job Discussion Forums

NohopeSeriously · Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:26 am Post subject: Is this normal for a gyopo?

Nowadays I'm slowly agreeing with most of those back-talking racist anti-Korean remarks from some of my NET co-workers. This is despite that I'm a gyopo and I'm the only gyopo in my hagweon.

yodanole · Joined: 02 Mar 2003 Location: La Florida

This may be the first time I have seen "normal" and "gyopo" used in the same sentence in this forum. Rolling Eyes

KimchiNinja · Joined: 01 May 2012 Location: Gangnam

Steelrails · Joined: 12 Mar 2009 Location: Earth, Solar System

It's a phase. Believe it or not, back home about 4 years after I started going to K-Church, I slowly slid down the spiral of hate. I'd go on about what "idiots" they were and how badly they did things, the food, etc.

A couple things made me realize something- First, I had to put up or shut up. A lot of the higher-ups in my church all owned businesses or had good jobs. Many of whom, were born with far less on their plate than me. Here I am, some 20-something who has accomplished diddly-poo telling them that they are idiots. Well, the proof is in the pudding. Go out and accomplish if you are so smart. Maybe I am not as smart as I thought I was, maybe they aren't as dumb. I also got it drilled in that they did not exist to make me happy and do things my way. This is what they offered- it was up to me whether to accept it or not.

Another big change was coming over here. I came here expecting the worst. I had to check out the place though. Things went rather better. A big thing was that I firmly believe that if you go to another country to live, you play by the home rules. You don't bring your expectations and judgments. Something out of Star Trek- When Riker or Picard go onto a Klingon ship, they don't start spouting off Federation judgments, wincing at the food, and insult the people's culture and habits. They do as Klingons do. I've always thought that Star Trek is rather spot on about a lot of things, intercultural interaction being one of them.

Also, general aging helped. You start to look at the big picture and realize that the world is never going to be perfect and fit your mold, and you can't spend your life being upset at every. little. thing. In the end, people are far, far, far, more alike than they are different.

It also helped, having grown up Western, acclimated to Koreans through K-Church, and then coming over here, that I was experienced and familiar with both cultures. The first time around with the Koreans, I really had no experience of people saying "well your culture does THIS, why are you judging us?". When it happened the first time, I reacted as any basher would. However after passions white heat had faded and sober reflection set in, you realize that, yeah, from their point of view, my culture does some pretty messed up things. Things we might take for granted or not even notice, but come across as utter barbarism.

One other thing happened coming here- I became a lot more sympathetic towards African-Americans and the subtle, even unintentional, bigotry they face. Both from watching Koreans towards foreigners, and from NETs towards Koreans. At the start, its just making a "see it happens back home too" point, but after you throw out example after example, you start to realize "Crap, black people back home really do get treated like crap a lot. I understand a lot better now."

Anyways, those feeling will always creep up. When you deal with some general Korean ignorance that makes you just want to explode and "teach everyone here the truth", it gets frustrating. The same way when I'm in Burger King at 3AM and see some drunk foreigners come and behave in an abominably drunken racist way. Or fatigue after seeing the latest act of Islamic terror, or senseless "urban" violence. But the choice is do you "vent" and "rant" and let it boil, or do you use sobriety and reason to control your emotions and let your mind make appropriate choices?

wooden nickels · Joined: 23 May 2010

@Steelrails

I think your posts in the past were too much to the apologist side. But hey man, you have been posting some pretty well balanced stuff lately. Informative and Insightful