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Waygeek
Joined: 27 Feb 2013
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 Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 4:10 am Post subject: |
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| newb wrote: |
| NohopeSeriously wrote: |
I think NETs in general forget that South Korea is one of the most militarized places in the world.  |
Actually, Korea is a police state. |
Haha yeah, the police are completely in control here!  Why, I must have been asked to produce my ARC to police 5 times today! |
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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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| Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 4:42 am Post subject: |
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Apologists on the other hand, seem to live in a deluded world where Korea isn't steeped in xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, and nepotist corruption. I can understand the guys who have Korean heritage, but the non-Korean apologists I just don't get. Just because you married a Korean woman and/or you learned the language, wear hanbok and sit on the floor for dinner doesn't make you one of them. Never will.
This seems like 'us and them' because it is. Korean culture and the notion of 'Korean-ness' basically instills this in the people. They can't help but view themselves as different to other people, so all of your efforts to assimilate are ultimately in vain. So, why go to lengths to shout people down when they voice sometimes legitimate complaints about Korea? |
As someone who has been tagged an apologist and who has been married to a Korean woman for a long time, let me try and respond
1- I do not think of myself as Korean. That would be stupid. I do not think I am accepted by all Koreans, that would be stupid too. I cared and care that I was accepted by my wife's family, my Korean friends and by some long term Korean co-workers and that happened. The rest are just strangers.
2- Korea has tons of flaws, just like anywhere else I suppose. I have no problem discussing them if the discussion is constructive and is not some thinly veiled bash rant that is basically disguised racism.
3- A legitimate complaiin is fine, what gets posted here usually is pretty far from that. Why react? Because sometimes people post completely wrong information as a part of their rants and frankly because sometimes posts are downright offensive and hypocritical in the extreme.
4- I do not know many people in Korea who live in a "deluded world" and I certainly did not live in such a world. You assume a lot about "apologists" here. A lot of us contribute or contributed to many things in Korea, including helping other FTs with concrete actions.
Now, you wish to actually DISCUSS Korea, go ahead, I am all for it. |
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MiXX
Joined: 30 Aug 2012
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| Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 5:12 am Post subject: |
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| tiger fancini wrote: |
Visiting a place and living there are pretty different. There are countless horror stories of people who've moved to Thailand to set up a business and been shafted left, right and centre. In Korea it's waygukin, in Thailand it's farang. I'm very skeptical that Thais are more accepting of long-term expats than Korea is. I can't comment on other places as I don't have much experience there. However vacationing in Thailand can be extremely pleasant, but then most people I know who visited Korea for a week or 2 have basically loved it.
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There are horror stories everywhere. Not sure your point.
The places ive been are not xenophobic (from ppl that have lived in Thailand they havent made any mention of it). People are a lot more accepting and open to foreigners. Alot more friendlier. |
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joelove
Joined: 12 May 2011
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| Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 5:57 am Post subject: |
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| tiger fancini wrote: |
| In Korea it's waygukin, in Thailand it's farang |
Don't forget "laowai" in China. I wonder who uses their word for "outsider" the most. Maybe China. Seemed to hear it even more there. |
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cj1976
Joined: 26 Oct 2005
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| Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 3:35 pm Post subject: |
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| PatrickGHBusan wrote: |
| Quote: |
Apologists on the other hand, seem to live in a deluded world where Korea isn't steeped in xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, and nepotist corruption. I can understand the guys who have Korean heritage, but the non-Korean apologists I just don't get. Just because you married a Korean woman and/or you learned the language, wear hanbok and sit on the floor for dinner doesn't make you one of them. Never will.
This seems like 'us and them' because it is. Korean culture and the notion of 'Korean-ness' basically instills this in the people. They can't help but view themselves as different to other people, so all of your efforts to assimilate are ultimately in vain. So, why go to lengths to shout people down when they voice sometimes legitimate complaints about Korea? |
As someone who has been tagged an apologist and who has been married to a Korean woman for a long time, let me try and respond
1- I do not think of myself as Korean. That would be stupid. I do not think I am accepted by all Koreans, that would be stupid too. I cared and care that I was accepted by my wife's family, my Korean friends and by some long term Korean co-workers and that happened. The rest are just strangers.
2- Korea has tons of flaws, just like anywhere else I suppose. I have no problem discussing them if the discussion is constructive and is not some thinly veiled bash rant that is basically disguised racism.
3- A legitimate complaiin is fine, what gets posted here usually is pretty far from that. Why react? Because sometimes people post completely wrong information as a part of their rants and frankly because sometimes posts are downright offensive and hypocritical in the extreme.
4- I do not know many people in Korea who live in a "deluded world" and I certainly did not live in such a world. You assume a lot about "apologists" here. A lot of us contribute or contributed to many things in Korea, including helping other FTs with concrete actions.
Now, you wish to actually DISCUSS Korea, go ahead, I am all for it. |
I agree with some of what you and the other so-called apologists say - especially about the thinly-disguised racism, but your arguments do not always come across as balanced to me and seem to reflect a clear bias.
You admit here that Korea has faults, but it seems that you rarely admit it at other times, or without bringing up the faults of other countries - as you did once again. It would be better to discuss the problems in their own context.
Eg if someone says "Korean men are the the most prolific clients of child prostitutes in Cambodia", that isn't a racist slur because it is based on facts. The retort that 'there are paedos in all countries' is not discussing the article in hand, nor does it explain why Korean men rank so highly in that particular offence. In fact, that subject has been brought up on a couple of occasions and I noticed a clear lack of apologists chipping in to DISCUSS the matter. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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| hiamnotcool wrote: |
I'm not going to address whether I keep up with the status of Non-white immigrants here. I don't appreciate the way you automatically lump me in with the other NET's that you have met here who don't care or keep up with them. I don't think that I should keep my mouth shut about discrimination in Korea because I'm white either, that is ridiculous.
I will say the effort the Korean government is putting into accommodating international marriages is largely the result of outside pressure placed on them by the Vietnamese and Cambodian government. These two governments threatened to ban marriage with Korean men because there were too many tragic endings to the international marriages. Not only that, but the effort to accommodate international marriages here is not a step towards creating a multi-cultural or multi-racial country, they are steps to assimilate the bride or groom to being Korean and living with a Korean family within a Korean society. It's not about teaching Koreans to accommodate foreigners, it's about teaching foreigners to assimilate to the Korean lifestyle. Again, this is not a moral or ethical imperative in Korean society that I see, it is a matter of self preservation. There is a declining birth rate here so foreign brides are needed, but they will be taken only to the point that they do not disrupt the homogenous nature of Korea.
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I purposefully avoided the word "you" so as not lump you with other NETs who may engage in such things.
Also, the multiculti efforts I'm aware of are not just focused on foreign brides, but on their children. We have programs that focus on the heritage of the mixed kids from Japan/China/Vietnamese/Nepal/Uzbekistan etc.
The thing is that, a surprising number of these mixed kids aren't the offspring of some poor farmer. Some are from rather well-to-do families (that happen to be part of religious movements) and so they have very high expectations and a rather different outlook.
The point is that there is a lot going on that the average NET might not be aware of. |
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maximmm
Joined: 01 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 6:25 pm Post subject: |
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When discussing one of the major roots of the problems in Korea and how foreigners are perceived by Koreans look no further than the Korean media. Read Gusts of Popular Feeling blog and its analysis of the Korean media coverage in order to observe where most of the issues we face originate. Is it any different from Fox News in the USA? No. I despise Fox News as much as I despise the Korean media, though at least in the States they do have several other news/satire outlets that counter the Fox News 'truthiness'.
How big is the media's role in fueling racism? Do you recall how Fox News caused a significant percentage of Americans to believe that Obama was a Muslim socialist from Kenya? Well, we live in a country where fan death is real and plastering windows with wet newspaper is the way of battling typhoons. Now, draw your own conclusions.
Of course, then there's also the cultural aspects to consider. The pure blood concept is very real in the minds of many Korean people and the root of that lies in the parent and perhaps even school education.
While we get racism in the form of very biased media coverage (which usually spreads to other forms of racism outside of the newspapers), we do get fairly good wages/jobs. To find racial discrimination in regards to work conditions/wages, you really need to see how Asian minorities get treated in Korea. So, these are different forms of racism, but racism it still is.
Korea is NOT unique in terms of racism prevalence. Does it mean that people should conform to it? If someone is being racially discriminated against in the UK or USA and when they speak out, should they be told to go back to their country of origin or that they are simply getting a bit of their own medicine (if their nation has racism issues).
To make my point clear: if a newspaper depicts the same crime in very different terms for different racial groups, with one race's crimes always being excused as a misdemeanor, it's racism. If people do the same job but get different wage based race preference, it's racism.
If people of the same race get discriminated against, but one person is too blind to see the said discrimination and ridicules everyone else that ever speak out against it - that's idiocy.
Then, of course, you have people who are not Caucasian and have been discriminated against by the Caucasians in the past (while being overseas) and now say that they are getting a bit of their own medicine - well, that's a very sad case of bitterness that turns people into moron racists (since they never got what racism is, despite having experienced it).
Moving on.
Last edited by maximmm on Wed May 08, 2013 7:58 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 7:04 pm Post subject: |
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| hiamnotcool wrote: |
[ Not only that, but the effort to accommodate international marriages here is not a step towards creating a multi-cultural or multi-racial country, they are steps to assimilate the bride or groom to being Korean and living with a Korean family within a Korean society. It's not about teaching Koreans to accommodate foreigners, it's about teaching foreigners to assimilate to the Korean lifestyle.
Most of the improvements in the NET lifestyle are not due to the good reputation of long term foreigners, they are the result of schools wanting to prevent their NET's from pulling a runner or the need to create a good image of the NET profession in Korea for hiring purposes. We aren't wanted here on a permanent basis. |
Replace "Korean" in the first paragraph with say "American" or 'Canadian"...wouldn't it really read the same?
Yes I know in Canadian schools we are indoctrinated with the idea that Canada is a multi-cultural society...but that's more or less a myth.
From Wiki
| Quote: |
The most common racial groups per province are as follows[46] (only percentages 3% or higher shown; ordered by percentage of visible minorities):
British Columbia (4,074,380): Not a visible minority: 75.2%, Chinese: 10.0%, South Asian: 6.4%
Ontario (12,028,895): Not a visible minority: 77.2%, South Asian: 6.6%, Chinese: 4.8%, Black: 3.9%
Alberta (3,256,355): Not a visible minority: 78.4%, Chinese 3.7%, South Asian 3.2%
Manitoba (1,133,515): Not a visible minority: 90.4%, Filipino 3.3%
Quebec (7,435,900): Not a visible minority: 91.2%
Nova Scotia (903,090): Not a visible minority: 95.8%
Saskatchewan (953,850): Not a visible minority: 96.4%
New Brunswick (719,650): Not a visible minority: 98.1%
Prince Edward Island (134,205): Not a visible minority: 98.7%
Newfoundland and Labrador (500,605): Not a visible minority: 98.9%
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Most of the provinces have a 90+ non-visible minority rate. B.C the lowest has more than three-quarters of its population as a non-visible minority...The Maritimes as a whole is almost 100%.
And the following quote from the study linked below is particularly telling.
http://neighbourhoodchange.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Walks-Bourne-2006-Ghettos-in-Canadas-Cities.pdf
| Quote: |
While recent immigrants arriving in the
1990s were found to be able to catch up to
the Canadian-born faster than was the case in
the past (Li 2003), this outcome is least true for
visible minority immigrants, particularly refugees
from Africa, Latin America and the Middle East
who rarely ever attain occupational levels they
enjoyed in their countries of origin (Krahn
et al.
2000) |
As for your second paragraph...any links or proof that NET improvements were not caused by the efforts of foreigners? As for being wanted here on a permanent basis...A typical NET visa is not an immigrant visa. And if that were true why is Korea offering residency visas not only for foreigners who are married to Koreans but also to foreigners who qualify on a "points" basis? There is at least one person on this board who has qualified for and obtained the "points" visa so it can be done. |
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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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| Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 4:30 am Post subject: |
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| cj1976 wrote: |
| PatrickGHBusan wrote: |
| Quote: |
Apologists on the other hand, seem to live in a deluded world where Korea isn't steeped in xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, and nepotist corruption. I can understand the guys who have Korean heritage, but the non-Korean apologists I just don't get. Just because you married a Korean woman and/or you learned the language, wear hanbok and sit on the floor for dinner doesn't make you one of them. Never will.
This seems like 'us and them' because it is. Korean culture and the notion of 'Korean-ness' basically instills this in the people. They can't help but view themselves as different to other people, so all of your efforts to assimilate are ultimately in vain. So, why go to lengths to shout people down when they voice sometimes legitimate complaints about Korea? |
As someone who has been tagged an apologist and who has been married to a Korean woman for a long time, let me try and respond
1- I do not think of myself as Korean. That would be stupid. I do not think I am accepted by all Koreans, that would be stupid too. I cared and care that I was accepted by my wife's family, my Korean friends and by some long term Korean co-workers and that happened. The rest are just strangers.
2- Korea has tons of flaws, just like anywhere else I suppose. I have no problem discussing them if the discussion is constructive and is not some thinly veiled bash rant that is basically disguised racism.
3- A legitimate complaiin is fine, what gets posted here usually is pretty far from that. Why react? Because sometimes people post completely wrong information as a part of their rants and frankly because sometimes posts are downright offensive and hypocritical in the extreme.
4- I do not know many people in Korea who live in a "deluded world" and I certainly did not live in such a world. You assume a lot about "apologists" here. A lot of us contribute or contributed to many things in Korea, including helping other FTs with concrete actions.
Now, you wish to actually DISCUSS Korea, go ahead, I am all for it. |
I agree with some of what you and the other so-called apologists say - especially about the thinly-disguised racism, but your arguments do not always come across as balanced to me and seem to reflect a clear bias.
You admit here that Korea has faults, but it seems that you rarely admit it at other times, or without bringing up the faults of other countries - as you did once again. It would be better to discuss the problems in their own context.
Eg if someone says "Korean men are the the most prolific clients of child prostitutes in Cambodia", that isn't a racist slur because it is based on facts. The retort that 'there are paedos in all countries' is not discussing the article in hand, nor does it explain why Korean men rank so highly in that particular offence. In fact, that subject has been brought up on a couple of occasions and I noticed a clear lack of apologists chipping in to DISCUSS the matter. |
Perfect example and thanks for using it.
I have no problem with the statement of "Korean men are the most prolific clients of child prostitutes in Cambodia" if you have FACTS to back it up. My issue is that too often these statements are made without factual support and just an opinion presented as fact. I would react the same way if someone said "foreigners in Korea are the biggest clients of underaged prositutes". No facts = a person blowing smoke out of their rear end.
Furthermore, it is not because "numerous posters on an ANONYMOUS online board" post the same thing that it thus becomes more factual.
I am just very wary of taking some of the stories on here are true or factual. Some posters do support their assertions with facts or simply are credible enough.
Conext is critically important but so is perspective, and those elements are often sorely lacking on here. That however is the nature of the beast for an online forum. |
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WadRUG'naDoo
Joined: 15 Jun 2010
Location: Shanghai
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| Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 5:37 am Post subject: |
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| Xenophobes *shiver* |
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littlelisa
Joined: 12 Jun 2007
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 6:10 am Post subject: |
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| newb wrote: |
| War Eagle wrote: |
| crescent wrote: |
| War Eagle wrote: |
| @newb It's called a superstition. Every culture has them. To the Koreans, the ones from our culture sound just as crazy. |
No, it's not just a superstition. A good portion of the population thinks it's real, and there are actually M.D.s who link it in autopsies. Have you not seen the news reports every summer illustrating 'the crime scene'. |
Sorry, don't want to hijack the thread so this is all ill say. If you want to continue the conversation, I'll gladly do so in another thread or PM.
Maybe I should have said urban legend instead of superstition. The definition fits better. However, there are many superstitions and urban legends alike that were propagated over time in the West, and were believed by a large portion of the population, even doctors.
I don't think it's fair to label other cultures "crazy" because one's own culture doesn't still hold those beliefs true, unless you are also willing to concede your ancestors were just as crazy. Then it wouldn't come across as looking down on others for their beliefs, as was the case in newbs' post. |
I agree, except that those superstition or urban legends were believed hundreds years ago. But believing in "fan death" in highly connected modern world is just ignorant. Thus, I was saying justice won't be served in an ignorant culture that believes in "fan death." |
How about the belief that eating sugar/candy gives you a sugar high? Let's at least pick a superstition that is still alive and well in the west to compare fan death to. Also, justice has nothing to do with credulity, anyway.
I mean, sure, there is xenophobia here and also there are many things I find unjust. Obviously you find unjust things everywhere. But really, give up on this fan death thing. You sound obsessed. Smile, nod, and move on. |
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maximmm
Joined: 01 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 6:38 am Post subject: |
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| littlelisa wrote: |
How about the belief that eating sugar/candy gives you a sugar high? Let's at least pick a superstition that is still alive and well in the west to compare fan death to. Also, justice has nothing to do with credulity, anyway.
I mean, sure, there is xenophobia here and also there are many things I find unjust. Obviously you find unjust things everywhere. But really, give up on this fan death thing. You sound obsessed. Smile, nod, and move on. |
I think the problem is not that it's a superstition - it's a superstition that was widely reported in the news, with the participation of Korean doctors who supported the notion that fan death was real.
As for the plastering windows with wet newspapers during typhoon bit- that was all over the news last year. Korean media=fox news.
The main issue is that when the fan death stories are in short supply, they turn to 'foreigners are evil/drug addicts/pedophiles' stories - creating a similar urban myth to the Obama is Muslim/socialist/etc on fox news - which often leads to mass hysteria/increase in racial tensions. |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 1:49 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm curious - did the bombing in the Op ever make it into the news? |
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big_fella1
Joined: 08 Dec 2005
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| Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 3:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Captain Corea wrote: |
| I'm curious - did the bombing in the Op ever make it into the news? |
Part of the OPs initial frustration I'm afraid. It was reported but the "manhunt" is receiving no coverage probably because there is nothing to cover.
I had a student who was a prosecutor on a campaign to stop corruption or as he put it different people being treated differently. I now really feel for him in his battle against his own culture. |
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hiamnotcool
Joined: 06 Feb 2012
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| Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 10:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
| hiamnotcool wrote: |
I'm not going to address whether I keep up with the status of Non-white immigrants here. I don't appreciate the way you automatically lump me in with the other NET's that you have met here who don't care or keep up with them. I don't think that I should keep my mouth shut about discrimination in Korea because I'm white either, that is ridiculous.
I will say the effort the Korean government is putting into accommodating international marriages is largely the result of outside pressure placed on them by the Vietnamese and Cambodian government. These two governments threatened to ban marriage with Korean men because there were too many tragic endings to the international marriages. Not only that, but the effort to accommodate international marriages here is not a step towards creating a multi-cultural or multi-racial country, they are steps to assimilate the bride or groom to being Korean and living with a Korean family within a Korean society. It's not about teaching Koreans to accommodate foreigners, it's about teaching foreigners to assimilate to the Korean lifestyle. Again, this is not a moral or ethical imperative in Korean society that I see, it is a matter of self preservation. There is a declining birth rate here so foreign brides are needed, but they will be taken only to the point that they do not disrupt the homogenous nature of Korea.
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I purposefully avoided the word "you" so as not lump you with other NETs who may engage in such things.
Also, the multiculti efforts I'm aware of are not just focused on foreign brides, but on their children. We have programs that focus on the heritage of the mixed kids from Japan/China/Vietnamese/Nepal/Uzbekistan etc.
The thing is that, a surprising number of these mixed kids aren't the offspring of some poor farmer. Some are from rather well-to-do families (that happen to be part of religious movements) and so they have very high expectations and a rather different outlook.
The point is that there is a lot going on that the average NET might not be aware of. |
Ok, sorry for looking too far into what you said.
I agree Korea is making a big effort to deal with immigrants. I actually favor the South Korean approach to helping immigrants assimilate over the USA approach because I think it will lead to less problems down the line. I can't buy into the idea that is ever going to be a mulitucultural society. It may be multi-racial, but if it is I think that will be another taboo subject here. Like I said I don't have an issue with this approach, I just think it's the way it is. The 1st generation or naturalized citizens that make their home here will have their work cut out for them when it comes to fitting in and making a life for themselves. That is not something I see changing in Korea anytime soon, or ever for that matter. I think that is where the term xenophobic gets placed here, the local population seems to be overwhelmingly scared of the changes and influx of foreigners would bring. Maybe they their fears are well placed too, I don't know.
As for NET's, I do have a problem with that situation. I mean come on, we are at most here for a few years. I can still can't wrap my head around the aura that surrounds us wherever we go here. It is truly strange. |
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