One Little Thing

Before you read any further, you have to read this.

Another day, another carefully worded article about the elephant in the middle of the room that is my chosen country of employment: racism in Korea. Oh, I give the Korean as much latitude as anyone when it comes to understanding their difficult history and where feelings of moral outrage and xenophobia might come from. They were treated like crap by some countries, mostly Japan and China. But they have also been treated with tolerance, equality and co-operation by a great many OTHER countries. At what point does cherishing the memory of the former and all but ignoring the latter stop being written off as their relative inexperience with other cultures and people from other countries and start being addressed as what it really is?

I understand writers of articles such as these are trying to preserve feelings and perhaps coddle the reader so as not to lose academic tone and be written off as a hate literature. So they overload these pieces with euphemisms that tend to soften impolite to reprehensible behaviour that is very common in this country, but facts are facts. In this blog I choose not to pussyfoot around them. And I have lived in Korea long enough to understand that this subtlety and understatement won't get you anywhere with Koreans. In order for racism to be recognized on a national level as economically, socially, globally and in so many other ways, terribly harmful, and for the conception of it in young, impressionable minds as patriotic, humourous, and stylish to change, somebody has to sack up and present this issue in a K-pop song or daytime drama where it is going to be seen and in no uncertain terms. Now maybe it's just a bad, torrential downpoury day of no baseball, slimy humidity and an ongoing battle with the miraculous fruit fly that multiplies by the second and thrives in a garbageless environment like my apartment, but, I dare say this country needs to be kimchi slapped into changing on this issue, not softly persuaded.

It's "challenging" for a foreign teacher or student at a Korean university? No it's not. In many cases, it flat out sucks. This is mostly because foreign teachers and students are viewed as exactly what they are: figureheads. I have been told exactly that by Korean teachers I worked with, who were probably given the wink wink nudge nudge, "We only have them around for authenticity," speech and believed it. It couldn't have anything to do with superior credentials and educational background or experience, it's just that if people go out for enchiladas, they want to see Mexicans in the kitchen. Like accounting laws, anti-corruption regulations, education upgrades, traffic rules, social problems like racism in Korea are seen as things that can be treated with Band-Aids so that the country can APPEAR more global than it is and fake its way into massive contracts available on the global market. And as long as the need for these things is viewed as the route to more money and not the route to a better Korea, this isn't going to change.

And as long as Korean leaders and dignitaries, such as Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, continue to speak out about world unity with an apparent wink wink nudge nudge as he and his country do absolutely nothing about it, Koreans will continue to get the message that it's not a serious issue. Accountants won't implement transparency practices as they were trained to do in the 1997 IMF crisis because those things were just put into place in order to rescue the Korean international credit rating and maintain overseas business. Accountants were not told that maybe, just maybe, if you stop with the lying, cheating and stealing that is the norm, you could attract more of these lucrative overseas contracts and actually HELP your company and even your country. No, they were told, "We have to do this for a while, wink wink, nudge nudge." And the spoiled, entitled children of the Chaebol heads of the country, (like Samsung, Hyundai, SK, LG and Hanhwa), who will be handed the reigns of those ludicrously rich and powerful companies without ever having been taught the importance of international relations to them, just might drag this country into another, even bigger financial crisis.

Imagine the "Peanut Princess," and Korean Air heiress, the erstwhile Ms. Cho at a multi-billion dollar airline deal that could mean thousands of jobs and improved infrastructure in and near airports all around Korea, stomping out because the macadamia nuts were in bags and not on plates! You can bet this sort of thing HAS happened before and since. Many times. Always hurting the Korean company and probably Korea.

This brings up another point that a lot of these articles shy away from but is perhaps the most important point that can be made on this issue: this sort of behaviour is in no way on the decline in Korea. It is on the rise. I can say this with certainty having lived here since the IMF year of 1997. I have never before had any trouble with racism in a middle school class, but this year, it was pretty obvious. And no matter how many Koreans try to defend their country and say it's more of an innocent ignorance of other cultures, they cannot argue that the perception of the person perpetrating the racism is only half of the story. The perception of the victim is also important. Koreans are constantly defending their country or countrymen's behaviour while blissfully blocking out this very valid point. You may not think refusing foreigners entrance into bars here is racist, but it is. Koreans desperately need to be taught the validity of the sensitivity of other countries when it comes to things pertaining to race. But so long as there are absolutely no anti-discrimination laws on the books, it's going to be really tough for Koreans to take these things seriously.

I have been debating with friends lately about the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympics in Korea. They had the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul and I don't remember any problems with racism then. Though there are some really big controversies over some of the games Korea played and when looking at the officiating you realize that their success in the 2002 World Cup was not as miraculous as it seemed, Korea pulled off the co-hosting of that tournament with the hated Japanese admirably as well. I have a feeling that during the two weeks of Olympic Games in the winter of 2018, Koreans will be given the wink wink, nudge nudge speech again, "We need to watch our racism for a couple of weeks to impress the world," and they will pull it off. But there are some who don't share my pessimistic optimism. Many think now that racism is getting harder and harder to cover up, there will be some issues with the Games. I guess we'll see.

In the area of ESL teaching, there is a newly developing exodus to China, of all countries, to ESCAPE racism in Korea. You KNOW you have to do something when... I have actually looked into it a little more closely than ever too. It might actually be worth it to eat the air rather than breathe it to return to an environment of polite, obedient, easy to teach students that I fondly remember in the old days in Korea and that many are reporting having in China. Chinese wages are rising and Korean wages are plummeting. Chinese working conditions are improving while Korean conditions are getting worse. I am still not seriously looking to China because I like the internet, and relatively less crowding and pollution in Korea. But the racism is something that is becoming harder and harder for me to deal with personally.

And the international perception of Korean is no secret any more. I remember buying something at an airport store in Vancouver. The worker there asked where I was going and I told her to Korea. She told me Koreans were not well liked by the airport workers she knew because they are usually very rude. That was many years ago. I've talked to many people from many countries surrounding Korea and nobody says they love Koreans. I've talked to many Koreans about people from poorer Southeast Asian countries and I know WHY! They are considered inferior and ugly by Koreans. This is not an opinion, it's a fact. And it's unacceptable. In my elementary school classes the kids enjoyed talking about how ugly the brown kids in the textbook were and even commented on that to me on occasion. Some of them added racist little doodles to the faces that made them look like dogs or monkey and made the other kids laugh.It's no coincidence that Koreans are starting to lose contracts in these countries; they are not as welcomed as they once were; and in some cases, they are being killed. I would think this would register as more of an issue with the Korean people, but it probably does nothing more than fuel their distaste for the people of the Philippines and other countries where Koreans are not liked.

I'm not saying it's totally the fault of Koreans and their social values that are, as near as makes no difference, shared by all, but the fault of Koreans needs to be honestly and seriously addressed in a forum that will bring it to national attention. This is not something that needs a quick fix Band-Aid. It is one of the biggest problems in this country and it's getting worse. And for those of you who truly understand my ranting and raving about this country, I don't say any of this from a position of hatred for Koreans or Korea. Quite the opposite. I think they could have a wonderful, little country here if just this one thing were focussed on. Well, I HAVE outlined ninety more things to focus on, but for now, just this one little thing. Come on, Korea! FIGHTING!