Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Rock]

I'm just wondering if you feel your culture is somehow undermined by your existence here? Of course most of us feel we're at odds with the Korean culture, and the Koreans, our own. But I'm referring to the memories of your upbringing, your sense of where you came from and what you've believed as a kid, your way of life, and whether you think that this will ever again be the same?

I'm talking basically of that Western lifestyle, the white neighborhoods, the 'burbs. All that seems to be a culture in itself, now dying or dead. It's not that I'm into racist reasoning. But now that I've been in Korea/Asia, I've begun to think a good majority of us are being surpassed and usurped, our culture and hometowns being inundated by people I'd never even seen as a kid. Yeah, I'd lived near Chicago, seen a few Blacks/Mexicans/Chinese. What I'm talking about here is a whole transformation of some of the Western ideals of that way of life where I'd felt a majority, where the majority of middle class felt there was succes equated with living in a nice home. Nowadays, I feel like many whites and their cultural cohesiveness are becoming marginalized, many of the beliefs being ousted for those seeking just status and not community, and this sometimes in the name of fecetious factors such as pay and prestige.

About being here, however, I don't think I could ever return to the 'burbs' and live in a white world, although I'd like to say, I doubt it will continue to exist. Being here has somehow changed my perceptions of the past.

Yet this is not supposed to be about whites, nor any race. What I'm wondering is whether you feel that the culture you'd been brought up in, if it be white, is somehow being lost. The reason I think of this is because of all the homogeneity here, and in Asia, and the hodge-podge American mentality back home.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I lost all my desire for the 'burbs when I moved to centre-ville, Montreal.

[Homer]

Yu_Bum_suk,

Your from Montreal man?

Cool, I did my grad degree there....loved it, what a great city.

Rock,

Why would living here or anywhere else abroad "undermine our culture"?

Different and adaptation does not equate erasuse or undermining anything my friend.

[peppermint]

Existential angst coupled with culture shock- ouch!

I spent most of my youth in an area that's about as diverse as small town Korea, maybe less so actually. There were people from other countries in the city, but not in my area, and not at my schools (not by any plan of my parents- just a combo of very little diversity and a lower income bracket than most people of other races in the city- they tended to be university professors or doctors)

The general ignorance of outside culture that you see in Korea is probably also present in my city ( I'd hope there's less outright xenophobia, but I doubt it) If that's changing, then I see it as a damned good thing, and one that's long overdue.

[schwa]

"Whites" dont really have a homogeneous epicenter anywhere anymore. Pushes us into the frontier of mixing it up. All for the good, I'd say.

[peppermint]

Schwa- you've never been to Newfoundland I take it?. My mother's highest compliment is, " They're just like ourselves, sure." and I wish I was joking about that.

[bignate]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[the_beaver]

[dulouz]

Rock has kind of a point. I often wonder if it'd be better for me to bounce Polish or German kids off my knee instead of Korean ones.

I said before many times I am not a fan of diversity. I don't value Iteawon like mixing. I live here mostly for the White people and the tolerant attitude of the locals. I don't like the tensions that really do come with mixing. I appreciate the the break form having to hear about 700 years of slavery or another 10,000 illegals last night. I don't know who these people are and I'm not interested in assimilating with everyone that knocks at the door.

There has to be some compromise between being tolerant and being taken advantage of. I have more in common with White coloured non Americans than I do with nonwhite Americans. Thats pretty strong but I often look at properties in Estonia or Latvia as often as I do at properties in the the states. You don't deserve ga-ga in my book just because you are different.

[weatherman]

Is it that you want Koreans to respect your culture and upbringing they way they demand that you respect theirs?

[Daechidong Waygookin]

Question of the dsay: Why did racists like Doulouz and Rock come to Asia if they want to keep witht heir kind?

As for undermining our culture. Sorry, I dont see it as undermining. I see it as enrichment. And what freaking culture do the suburbs have? They are a black hole, where people go to live out a brain dead existence among a bunch of zoned out drones. No stimulation, just the hum of flat brainwaves.

Doulouz, just because you are white doesnt mean you would be welcome in Estonia.

[dulouz]

Oh please, stop it. I didn't call anyone a subhuman race of monkey people nor did I say they are inferior nor did I say I hated them. I just called them strangers. I've lived in diverse neighborhoods enough to know there are alot of problems and that it is not nirvana and I insist on the right to opt out simply largely you cannot protect me from all of the miscreants in the world.

[Daechidong Waygookin]

[captain kirk]

Rock, that's gotta be the most twisted post I've seen here in awhile. Does anyone here feel they are changing their neighbourhood for the worse, ie. making it less purely Korean for their being white? And moving to a changing population demographic back home where one's childhood neighbourhood, a purer racial experience, is populated with newcomers?
Passive aggression on the question are we having a negative impact on our Korean neighbourhoods. And racism on the implication that back home isn't good old white bread back home anymore.
In Asia the heart and the mind are considered synonimous. Open mind, open heart. If the heart isn't open neither is the mind, and vice versa. Probably not just an Asian thing, but I first heard of it being an Asian/Chinese thing while back home.
There are no borders and races in bold lines. Dumhead/closed hearted people can be wallowing in those tarpits.