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Gwangjuboy
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Location: England
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 Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 2:47 am Post subject: |
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| Why anyone complains about this so much baffles me considering a simple response(in Korean) would really shut them up. If the Korean concerned has said this in response to you having a converstation with a foreign friend learn to say "My friend hasn't learnt Korean yet, so how am I supposed to speak Korean to him?" |
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tomato
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
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| Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 4:53 pm Post subject: |
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 A simple response in Korean would really shut them up.
That's not been my experience. When a Korean gets a notion to speak to me in English, all the king's horses and all the king's men can't get him to stop. If he apologizes, he apologizes in English.
Besides, I don't especially want to talk to a Korean who would even want to speak English to me in the first place. Once a Korean has spoken to me in English, he has told me the truth about what he thinks of me.
Would you ask a Black person to forgive anyone who agrees to stop calling him a jungle bunny? |
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Swiss James
Joined: 26 Nov 2003
Location: Shanghai
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| Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Tomato wrote: |
| I don't especially want to talk to a Korean who would even want to speak English to me in the first place |
| Tomato wrote: |
| Would you ask a Black person to forgive anyone who agrees to stop calling him a jungle bunny? |
Sometimes I read your posts on this and think you've got a point, I mean it bugs you in the same way that other pretty harmless points about korea bug other people. You can't prevent it from annoying you, and you feel it's kind of insulting.
But then you say stuff like this, and just come across as a mentalist. |
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tomato
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
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| Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 8:29 pm Post subject: |
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Okay, enough arguing.
Let me ask you folks a couple of questions out of genuine curiosity.
I promise you I will accept any answer you give me:
1. How do you think the Korean people see you?
2. How do you want the Korean people to see you? |
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adventureman
Joined: 18 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 8:44 pm Post subject: |
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| 1. How do you think the Korean people see you? |
For children, part rock star, part curiousity
For adults, part circus freak, part curiousity
Both have almost never really seem to have any geniune understanding of what kind of a person I am during any superficial interactions I have with them.
| Quote: |
| 2. How do you want the Korean people to see you? |
Couldn't give a beaver's ass how they see me, aside from the people, whom I personally care about and are involved in my life.[/quote] |
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jaderedux
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Location: Lurking outside Seoul
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| Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 8:45 pm Post subject: |
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| tomato wrote: |
Okay, enough arguing.
Let me ask you folks a couple of questions out of genuine curiosity.
I promise you I will accept any answer you give me:
1. How do you think the Korean people see you?
2. How do you want the Korean people to see you? |
1. I don't think of the Korean people as a whole. Some like me some don't. Some don't acknowledge my existence. I try to deal with individuals as individuals.
2. Honestly, after being here over 3 years I don't worry about how they "see" me. I am considerate and polite to people who are the same with me. I make allowances for things I don't understand in their culture. I have no desire to impress anyone. I speak some korean not enough I have not studied enough.
I certainly can't please everyone so I don't try. If people speak english to me I am not offended. I consider that they are just trying to be polite to me. If they speak Korean I try to answer in Korean not always successfully but usually enough to be understood. I guess I am pretty laid back most times.
I have my days where things irritate me but people speaking English to me is not one of them.
Jade |
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nev
Joined: 04 Jan 2004
Location: ch7t
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| Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 9:21 pm Post subject: |
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| tomato wrote: |
Once a Korean has spoken to me in English, he has told me the truth about what he thinks of me.
Would you ask a Black person to forgive anyone who agrees to stop calling him a jungle bunny? |
I'm with Swiss James on this one. I appreciate that Tomato obviously has a very genuine frustration-borderline-obsession with Koreans speaking English and though I don't agree with many of his argument, they are valid points nonetheless.
But then he goes and compares English teachers to disabled people, black Americans deprived of human rights and black people generally suffering direct racism, and it serves to utterly undermine the points he is trying to make.
I know that Tomato explains this by saying an injustice is an injustice, however big, but that is a sophist argument. Here is a reason why:
Equating the calling of a black person by a racist name is not remotely the same as a Korean presuming you don't speak English. Calling a black person a jungle bunny is a deliberate insult intended to provoke and humiliate. A Korean person does not have these intentions when speaking English to a Westerner. On the most part, they do not expect us to speak Korean because it is a language contained within one peninsula, and also because the vast majority of Westerner's don't speak Korean - which is hardly the fault of Koreans. When and if a Korean insists on continuing to speak English to a Westerners despite Korean being the easier language to use, then that is more just sheer stupidity and ignorance than refusal to speak their great language with a white man.
Again, I say, Koreans speak to us in English because the vast majority of Westerners in Korea speak Korean. Tomato's frustration, as I see it, is that he is treated like the majority, unjustly in his eyes, and equates that to (deliberate?) discrimination. This angers him more than it angers most people.
| tomato wrote: |
1. How do you think the Korean people see you?
2. How do you want the Korean people to see you? |
1. I really don't know. I think some look at me and think "look at the white person!" and think nothing more, some wonder where I'm from and quite quickly vocalise it, others think it'd be great if they could practice their English with me, others make no presumption, others wish I wasn't in their country. etc.
2. I would like the Koreans to not judge me until they've met me.
But, like adventureman, I am more concerned with the Koreans I know, who are more important than random Koreans.
If I may, could I ask the same questions of the OP? I'd be interested to know. |
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Barking Mad Lord Snapcase
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jul 02, 2004 1:13 am Post subject: |
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| maxxx_power wrote: |
| Korean is about as useful, outside of Korea, as a third nipple. |
Try telling Nala (Simba's girlfriend) that a "third nipple" is useless and see how long you last. |
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phaedrus
Joined: 13 Nov 2003
Location: I'm comin' to get ya.
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| Posted: Fri Jul 02, 2004 3:17 am Post subject: |
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Perhaps Tomato has to stop making references to blacks, but instead start refering to French people as "frogs".
Language is not a minor issue. I can't change my native language any more than a person can change their race. |
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kiwiboy_nz_99
Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Location: ...Enlightenment...
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| Posted: Fri Jul 02, 2004 5:41 am Post subject: |
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| The solution is simple, you want to practice your Korean, just speak in Korean no matter what they use. |
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tomato
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
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| Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2004 7:03 pm Post subject: |
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Nev, I'm at your service.
Question #1: How do you think the Korean people see you?
I think Korean children see me as an intelligent person. They realize I'm not fluent in Korean, but they are patient. If they use a word which I don't know, they are willing to write it down so I could look it up.
Children find me interesting. When I lived in Honseong, I taught a weekly recorder class at a local orphanage. I had a large and enthusiastic following. Here in Cheongju, I teach a weekly Korean sign language class at a local orphanage. I have a large and enthusiastic following.
Between classes, children come into my classroom to visit. They look at my picturebooks, play my xylophone, write on the board, and draw on the board.
When I meet children in the library, I read Korean picturebooks in English to them. Some of the children even follow me out the door and walk down the block with me, speaking to me in Korean.
English-speaking Korean adults think I'm nothing more than a Bokanovsky twin, exactly like all other foreigners. Cab drivers immediately assume that I'm going to the bus terminal. After all, foreigners never go anywhere else. Ticket agents immediately write me a ticket for Seoul without even asking first. After all, foreigners never go anywhere else.
When they offer to make conversation with me, it's always the same few questions over and over again. There's no point in discussing anything profound because I don't know anything profound.
Those poor, deluded children, who think I'm intelligent and interesting!
They haven't lived in Korea long enough to realize that a cultural stereotypes should override a fair trial.
Question #2: How do you want the Korean people to see you?
There was a Japanese student in my Spanish class at Indiana University. The teacher treated her like anybody else.
I knew a Dutch violin student at Interlochen Music Camp. The conductor treated him like anybody else.
There was a Korean cellist in the community orchestra in Knoxville. The conductor treated her like anybody else.
It is evident, then, that adult status is freely granted foreigners in my country but not in Korea. I'm going to fight for it. I'm going to keep hitting the books until I pass the proficiency test. Then I'll show my certificate to every Korean who tries to infantilize me. If that's not enough, I'll enroll for a degree in translating. Then I'll show my certificate to every Korean who tries to infantilize me.
Then I'll say, "If you think you can speak English better than I speak Korean, go ahead."
Last edited by tomato on Sun Jul 04, 2004 6:54 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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nev
Joined: 04 Jan 2004
Location: ch7t
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| Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2004 12:11 am Post subject: |
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I think, I hope, we may be reaching a compromise.
| tomato wrote: |
English-speaking Korean adults think I'm nothing more than a Bokanovsky twin, exactly like all other foreigners. Cab drivers immediately assume that I'm going to the bus terminal. After all, foreigners never go anywhere else. Ticket agents immediately write me a ticket for Seoul without even asking first. After all, foreigners never go anywhere else. |
I've not had this experience. In many months of using taxis, only once has an assumption ever been made (the driver thought I was going tio a hotel in my area). I'm guessing you live near the bus terminal and when most foreigners ask for that area of the city, their intentions are for the bus terminal. That's just the taxi driver following routine. Aside from that, after more than mere initial contact with a Korean, I've never felt like I'm being treated like an identi-kit white man.
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| When they offer to make conversation with me, it's always the same few questions over and over again. There's no point in discussing anything profound because I don't know anything profound. |
What language are these conversations in, and what level of English/Korean does each party know? Language ability often limits depth of conversation.
As we're from a foreign country, I expect the same questions to arise. I've had this in many countries aside from Korea - "Where are you from?", "Ah, Braveheart! Trainspotting! Men in skirts!" (I'm Scottish...), "Why are you here?", "Do you like it here?" etc. These are reasonable curiousities (well, the Braveheart comments can be wearing but as it's often just about all that is known of Scotland, I let it go).
As for profound discussions, well, I barely have these anyway. But:
- Do you find that (presuming there is little language barrier) Koreans deliberately steer away from such conversations because you're a Westerner?
-Would they otherwise have that conversation if you were Korean?
-Do you think that is because they believe you're incapable of such depth of thought? Or incapable of expressing such thought in Korean (even if you demonstrate competency)?
-Or that Koreans are simply reluctant to have profound discussions with foreigners?
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Those poor, deluded children, who think I'm intelligent and interesting!
They haven't lived in Korea long enough to learn the cultural stereotypes. |
I agree with you here. There are cultural stereotypes (that we too must be careful to avoid, though it is often difficult). One of these is that foreigners can't speak Korean, alas reinforced by the unfortunate fact that the vast majority of foreigners can't speak Korean. It is up to us to help break that stereotype.
However, I don't believe this is best served by this attitude:
| Quote: |
| Besides, I don't especially want to talk to a Korean who would even want to speak English to me in the first place. Once a Korean has spoken to me in English, he has told me the truth about what he thinks of me. |
It is better served by this attitude:
| Quote: |
| I'm going to keep hitting the books until I pass the proficiency test... Then I'll say, "If you think you can speak English better than I speak Korean, go ahead." |
Until then, perhaps pretend to Koreans that you don't speak English, and are Croatian or Hungarian. And appreciate that changing a stereotype is not an overnight occurence and takes time, and until then just try (I know there is no switch) to exercise patience that some Koreans can't quite grasp that you want to speak their language. |
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tomato
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
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| Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2004 7:12 pm Post subject: |
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Hello, Nev!
Thank you for the message from yesterday.
I promised to stop arguing, and I intend to hold to that promise.
I admit that I would have trouble understanding any Korean who said anything deeper than "Do you like kimchi?" But when it comes to written messages, there is no problem. I have an e-mail address and I have a Korean dictionary. When it comes to written messages, a foreigner can take all the time he needs looking up words and it won't strain the Korean's patience one bit. Maybe I should make it more clear that I am willing to communicate by written word.
However, I still hold to my claim that some Koreans think we're stupid generally, and not just regarding the Korean language. I would give examples from my own experience, but that would be too unpleasant. |
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Son Deureo!
Joined: 30 Apr 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2004 6:58 am Post subject: |
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| tomato wrote: |
I admit that I would have trouble understanding any Korean who said anything deeper than "Do you like kimchi?" .... Maybe I should make it more clear that I am willing to communicate by written word.
However, I still hold to my claim that some Koreans think we're stupid generally, and not just regarding the Korean language. I would give examples from my own experience, but that would be too unpleasant. |
Tomato, I sympathize and agree with you 100% that many Koreans act like they don't know the difference between a Korean-speaking foreigner and a talking dog.
Your pet peeve is Koreans who talk to you in English. Mine is Koreans who are overly (and blatantly insincerely) complimentary when they hear me speak even the simplest Korean.
Example:
Me: <Says hello and successfully orders a roll of tuna kimbap.>
Ajumma: Oh my god! You really speak Korean well!
Me: Thank you.
Ajumma: WOW! Your Korean is so good. How long have you lived in Korea?
Me: I've been here for two and a half years.
Ajumma: Really? That's so amazing!
Me: Thank you. I do the best I can.
Ajumma: <Goes to the back and cackles with other ajummas imitating my accent>
The last time I brought this up on the board I was lambasted, told I was being too sensitive, and need to go home before my bitterness consumes me. So be it. I have a hunch you know where I'm coming from.
As irritations go this ranks up there with being complimented for my amazing chopstick usage and ability to consume kimchi or soju. At least it does for me. It's a constant reminder of the fact that as a foreigner I'm not expected to be capable of handling even what a kindergartener can while they harass their own children until they all get MBAs from Harvard.
HOWEVER!
There are a few points I hope you'll consider. You mention yourself in the section I quote that your listening comprehension is not very good, and I remember you mentioning this before. I have troubles with this myself, so again I sympathize. I'm willing to bet this is a symptom of your having learned largely from self-study. But if you don't understand the Koreans you're trying to talk to, is it really so surprising that they may try another tactic to communicate with you?
Perhaps this is a sign that you need to work on improving your listening comprehension. Try music from Bugs, movies with Korean subtitiles (DVDs are good for this), TV and eavesdropping. Drop the books for a little while, and focus on listening and conversation.
If you're lacking conversation partners try one of those cocktail bars that's overstaffed with barmaids to talk to the customers (I'm not talking about juicy bars here, just cocktail bars). Don't drink? Fine, sip virgin daiquiris for 6000 a pop and think of it as tuition. Their job is to talk to you as long as a drink is in your hand, and my experience has been that while they balk at first they have fun with it once you chat them up for a bit.
Second, your comparisons of being spoken to in English to Jim Crow, slavery and the Holocaust are so
different in degree as to be different in kind. They aren't winning you any sympathy from anyone here.
Finally, you've mentioned before that you're living in a small town. Perhaps the ignorant attitudes wouldn't be quite as bad in a larger city in Korea. Then again maybe they wouldn't. Ever thought about giving it a try?
Good luck, Tomato. |
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ladyandthetramp
Joined: 21 Nov 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2004 7:18 am Post subject: |
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| Son Deureo! wrote: |
If you're lacking conversation partners try one of those *beep* bars that's overstaffed with barmaids to talk to the customers (I'm not talking about juicy bars here, just *beep* bars). Don't drink? Fine, sip virgin daiquiris for 6000 a pop and think of it as tuition. Their job is to talk to you as long as a drink is in your hand, and my experience has been that while they balk at first they have fun with it once you chat them up for a bit.
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You could also try one of the *special* cafes. I remember someone on this board mentioning earlier that he practiced his Korean a lot with those ladies (supposedly nothing more). I bring this up only because I recently realized why all the cafes in my new locale are always closed during the day...oh, look at the time! I'd best be on my way  |
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