Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Son Deureo!]

Here's an interesting article from the Japan Times. I don't think it would be hard to find examples of similar phenomena here in the ROK.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20120501ad.html#.T5_KUR_xgvZ.facebook

[geedawg]

Thanks, good article. Yeah this has happened to me too many times to count. My favourite though I was standing on the subway platform reading a map and a kind looking old man asks if I need help. I answered no I'm fine thanks. He walks down the platform about 5 meters away then says you are fat you should diet. I retort you're very short you should grow.

[No_hite_pls]

[CentralCali]

[Zyzyfer]

[Mr. BlackCat]

Interesting read. I'm going to nip what I see coming in the bud and say I doubt anyone here would argue that we have it worse than, say, a black person in the South or a Muslim in Europe. But I do understand what the article is talking about and like the author says, it's good to have the language for it now.

I think there's a fine line between sincere caring and dominating control. If I can use the obvious example of food here; I'm a grown man, I don't need to be told every lunch time that I should eat more rice and kimchi and have people try to plop some on my tray. And the speeches about how superior Korean food is to 'Western' food (whatever that means) is tiring, and quite insulting to my family's traditions and recipes. I doubt it would go unnoticed if an American ranted and raved about their food and insulted Korean food to a Korean while he was working there almost every day. I don't want this to become another food fight, I was just choosing an obvious example.

But, again, this isn't the end of the world. It's just a fact of (foreign) life in Korea and it's good to discuss it instead of letting it grate on you.

[fermentation]

[DIsbell]

God... this article... yes, yes, yes 1000 times yes.

I've been trying to pin down what exactly has been grinding my gears so much lately, and this concept of microagressions fits the bill perfectly. Little things like random hellos, or almost always being asked (or asking my wife right in front of me) if I can eat the "spicy" dish that I just ordered, and so on... a lot of negativity has built up. Like others have said, and the article mentions as well, individually these are fairly innocuous, minor things said with basically good intentions, but over the course of a few years and hundreds/thousands of repetitions, the receiver of the microagressions gets fed up.

[edwardcatflap]

I remember when I was 16 and did a French exchange with a kid from Marseilles. When he came to my house in the UK I kept trying to persuade him that everything British was better and force him to try stuff that he probably didn't want to and expecting him to like it and getting annoyed when he preferred French stuff. Even though I meant well, it was probably pretty annoying for him. A lot of Korean adults haven't seemed to move on from this mentality even when interacting with adults. Fair enough if they behaved like this when foreigners first started coming here but they ought to have moved on a bit by now.

[Chimie]

I lived in Japan for a long time in both High school and University. I speak fluent Japanese and other than the color of my skin, by all accounts am (was) a native. It's been a few years since I left Japan, but I have to say this article is so accurate. Especially the bit about responses. The little things the majority does aren't major slights, but they do build up over time and in the end, you basically can't react at all to them without causing a totally unnecessary conflict.

I would say Korea has many of these problems too, but I feel they're not as extreme. Korea seems to have much more international presence than Japan (And that's not saying much because Korea doesn't have very much themselves.) Still, Brilliant article, Definitely saving it and sending it around to my expat circles.

[jdog2050]

I think what starts to bother (and then not bother so much) "long-timers" in Korea is just how scripted the conversations are. If the little questions were different every time, I don't think anyone would have a problem. But it really is the same. f'ing. questions. every. single. time.

So, as much as I don't think this article is 100% true for every case, there's a lot of truth in it that's hard to ignore.

[The Sultan of Seoul]

"The moral of this story
The moral of this song
Is one should simply not be
Where one does not belong."

Bob Dylan.

[cdninkorea]

I also hate the same stupid questions, but guess what? My (Korean) wife went to Canada with me a couple years ago, and almost everywhere she went, with me or alone, when people found out she was visiting from Korea, they asked some variation of, "So do you like Canada?"

[jdog2050]

[Skipperoo]

Anyone who actually gets wound up by this stuff needs to get a grip. If the worst experience of prejudice you come across in a foreign land is someone complimenting you on your pronounciation then you're doing PRETTY OKAY.