After choosing as the worst foreigners in Korea those foreigners who always speak English or their native language, never learning Korean, and easily meet Korean women they said, “most western men approach Korean women by saying they want to learn Korean.”
They also said there are many foreigners who live in Korea for many years but speak poor Korean. Among the criticisms a particularly strong one came from Japan-born Sayuri, who said, “when you go to a foreign country, learning that country’s language is proper etiquette.”
They also implicitly criticized the attitude of Korean women who get involved with “tall foreign men who speak English.”
Kenya-born Euphracia said, “in Korea it seems that if you’re tall and just speak English well, you’re treated as the king… My other Kenyan friends were so surprised when they went out with they Korean girlfriends.” Germany-born Vera said, “if a German guy is tall then everybody thinks he’s handsome in Korea… They come to Korea and start acting like Casanova.”
UK-born Eva said, “foreign men who were not popular in their home countries are treated like kings… It’s so strange that western men who of course have very plan features are always being followed by pretty girls.”
Eva added, “if a Korean friend of mine is thinking about having a western boyfriend I tell her to let me see him first. Once my Korean friend’s boyfriend from the UK turned out to have a girlfriend back in the UK.”
I'm not going to pretend there aren't foreigners who make no effort to learn Korean, or who use English everywhere they go, or who assume that they'll have an easy time getting dates. They actually hit on a couple good points, judging from the article, but I will leave those for another time. Right now I just want to ask why they'd get into such a topic in the first place. I like how commenter Xnay put it:
I would have hoped that given the opportunity to be seen and heard on TV by many Koreans, these women would have avoided making broad generalizations about people. Instead, maybe they could promote the idea that foreigners come in all different shapes and sizes and are not identical. I don’t think they have the right to judge the nature of a relationship between two consenting adults.
The show's been on for years, and they're bound to run out of ideas now and again. I did give the show a mention in my 2008 "Top 15" list in the Korea Herald---and not simply because I was told to include some positive items---and wrote
The continued popularity of "Global Beauties Chat" has been a pleasant surprise. Some object to the premise, and say that it plays into the fetishization of foreign woman, but these women are smart, sexy, well-spoken and cultural ambassadors for countries many Koreans wouldn't care about otherwise. Plus, whoa, they're speaking Korean!
But I'm bothered about this topic, and the longer I thought about it, from the time I read the Korea Beat post this morning until now, the more upset I got. This isn't one of the playful stereotypes they talk about from time to time, this is an ugly one that has been circulated in the media lately with renewed vigor. Why would a panel of women gifted enough to speak the language enter into a discussion of this topic? Did they simply acquiesce to the demands of producers? Are the women fed lines, as has been suggested? Do they look down on foreigners who aren't privleged enough to study Korean full-time or be on TV? It's one thing to be angry with arrogant pricks who come to a foreign country and don't make an effort to learn the language---though to be fair women are just as guilty of this as men---but it's quite another to conflate that with stereotype of the sexual predator, or to demonize what two consenting adults do with their time (though the article itself does this as well). Furthermore it's especially ridiculous to hear this from people who, let's not kid ourselves, are famous because they're foreign, exotic, and borderline attractive. The show isn't called "Chat with the Foreign Minds" after all, and while most of them have better Korean than I do, we oughtn't pretend the show places higher priority on quote-unquote the issues than on having them wear short skirts and sit on a terraced stage.
I also want to remind readers that this isn't a one-way street. I tried to make this point in a January post but I guess it didn't work, though it's worth pointing out that there are countless websites out there geared toward helping Koreans meet foreign friends. There are even "Special Mission" videos out there that show Koreans how to approach foreigners in Itaewon.
You can look at it one way as ambitious Koreans looking for language exchanges, or you could look at it the other way and assume these women are looking for sex, a break from their regularly-scheduled boyfriends, a night out on the town, or a sense of adventure for a little while before they settle down. Oooh, see how sensational it sounds when I highlight "Special Mission"?
To echo what I wrote as a comment on that post, I wonder when they'll have a "Chat with the Casanovas" episode about why white girls in Korea are so fat, or why Russian chicks put out, or why Korean girls date foreigners under the pretense of learning English. Oh, that's right, they're not mature enough to handle a show with foreign men flirting with Korean women. About the only time we saw a positive portrayal of a white man dating a Korean woman was a program with former Playboy Playmate Lee Pani, a woman who is already considered a slut for posing nude.
53 comments:
Good point well made, Bri.
Has anybody seen the episode to see if the newspaper description jives with the actual episode?
""WAzzuup???--do you mind if I join you?"
yes, I do bitch. I hate it when Koreans say "What's up?" to me. I am not their friend. I do not know them. Show some linguistic distance.
Nothing is more humiliating than being used for my English. I am not an ESL monkey or whore.
What idiot guy actually watches these chicks? I would rather watch Arirang
I once sat on a train for 3.5 hours from Mokpo to Seoul beside a Korean woman who wouldn't shut the fuck up. I tried to open my book but she couldnt grasp that I found her irritating. Now I always travel with an MP3 and feign deafness when some Korean wants to blab about stupid shit, like "Do you know Dokdo?"
As far as these TV dykes are concerned, some of us live in the sticks and don't have access to language schools.
Even so, it is no sign of arrogance not to want to learn Korean. THere are many reasons why people might choose not to learn a language that have nothing to do with arrogance.
Yeah, and calling them bitches and dykes really helps your argument.
Great article, Brian. As you'll probably read soon enough, I have a few opinions on the subject...
http://chrisinsouthkorea.blogspot.com/2009/07/eight-reasons-korean-girls-go-for.html
In the meantime, I'll continue showing my Korean friends how a Western gentlemen acts.
Because everyone who moves to a foreign country immediately learns the language.
Just take America, for example. Its completely impossible to find a person who's immigrated to America that doesn't speak English fluently...
Uhh, wait... hold on a sec...
I like Kushibo's point. I've read a lot of articles about this show and when I've watched the episodes that are being talked about, I usually get a very different vibe from what I'm actually seeing than what I read in the paper. I'm not sure we can completely trust that the article highlighted the main/real position of the discussion.
ROK HOUND
Take a logic class. It's not an argument--they're insults.
It certainly is possible that the article puts words in the "Beauties" mouths. Even so, I've never liked the concept of that show, or any other program that parades Korean-speaking foreigners in front of a clapping and "ooohhh"-ing audience.
If they really did make those comments about foreigners who don't speak Korean, I find that pretty ironic. The "Wow, a foreigner speaking Korean, how cute/funny/ridiculous!" attitude that fuels the success of that show, is one of the reasons I always felt reluctant to practice social Korean in the company of more than one person. I just got sick of trying out a sentence of Korean at the school lunch table, only to have the Korean teachers clap and laugh as if I were a cute little dog doing a trick.
This Is Me Posting wrote:
Because everyone who moves to a foreign country immediately learns the language.
Dominique, at least, was not referring to newcomers:
Dominique: Foreigners who spend a few months in Korea and can’t really speak are fine, but if you spend, say, 10 years in the country, you need to know the language. Not knowing it makes you seem dumb, and some say Korean culture doesn’t match them… so why are they here? If you go to Quebec and can’t speak French I’ll think it’s annoying, so I think if you live in Korea you should learn Korean.
The opinions made by these enlightened women are self-evident to anyone with an ounce of maturity. You don't need to remind me that there are people here for years who make no effort to learn Korean, or who can't "speak Hangul" as they're most likely to say. But any good points they bring up are negated by the way they presented it. As I said in the OP this isn't a cutesy stereotype they often chat about----Japanese people are polite, for example, or French people like food---but one that's been especially damaging over the past decade.
And it sounds especially crass coming from people who are special simply because they're foreign.
That show makes me sick. All the Korean men there droling over the foreign women. Show Korean women drooling over foreigners who can speak Korean well.
"I don't speak Hangul." I love it when I hear this from a wakgookin. Idiots. The Japanese was right (was it this post or a previous one); if you are living in a country, make an effort to learn the language. It is only polite.
Obviously these women on the show were either told what to say or they are telling the Koreans what they want to hear, with my bet on the later.
It's sad that they parade ditzy broads on stage to malign other Westerners so that Koreans can be validated. Just as one of the early commentators say, I am very hesitant to use any Korean I learn to more than one person because I feel like a trained seal at Seaworld that's to be marveled at or a "validator" for people who have a national sense of low self-esteem.
When the principal introduces me to the parents, she asks me to say a greeting in Korean. The parents clap and do oohs and ahhhs. I'm embarrassed beyond all belief. I didn't do anything spectacular.
Koreans spend too much time trying to be validated. It's becoming quite irritating. It doesn't look good and it makes people respect them even less.
I do think it's important to make an attempt to learn Korean if one plans to be here for a long time. I take the cost benefit analysis: Is it really worth taking time and effort to attain near native proficiency? Not for me. I plan to be here only two years more and I am off to other places. Most of the time I can get by on English.
We have to be realistic. Learning Korean is not like learning French, Spanish or, I dare say, Chinese. Where in the hell will one use it outside the Korean peninsula? Korean is not a prestigious language like French or Chinese and it is not a very practical language like Spanish.
I've learned the Korean alphabet. I do have a book that teaches me basic Korean. I think that is enough for me.
Last thing, I'm here to teach English not to learn Korean. If I were to become proficient in Korean and my students found out they would always try to speak Korean to me. When my students do ask me why I don't learn Korean, I simply reply that they would not speak English to me, if I were able to speak Korean, and that would defeat the reason for me being here in Korea.
Bottom line, There are an exponentially greater amount of illegal Korean immigrants in other countries than there are illegal immigrants in Korea.
All other arguments stop there.
And this, coming from one of the most linguistically retarded countries on Earth. (check out the education expenditure-English exam score ratio for Korean English learners.)
Brian, I tend to think now that we need to take ourselves less seriously, and just let the Koreans do their thing. There is no point in trying to change Korean perceptions of foreigners, because the perceptions themselves are not really about foreigners, but about Koreans and how they feel about themselves. Foreigners only exist to make Koreans look good in comparison. 'Low grade' foreigners (the ones they complain about in the papers and TV) are what Koreans really want, because a superior variety of foreigner would damage Korean self-esteem.
Maybe we need a competition to see which of our merry band of fellows will bang Choi Yunhee first. Look for her around Itaewon or Hongdae when she is on one of those "special missions" and see what happens.
Good points, Keith.
I think it's a good idea to make an effort to learn and use Korean in Korea, and I dislike people who use English all the time. True, we can't be expected to become fluent in a few months, a year, or even a decade, but that doesn't mean you can't try your best to use the language of the country where you're living.
There are many reasons to not learn the language, as we all understand. First of all it's hard for a native speaker of English, and if you're like most people you had no exposure to it before arriving in Korea (unlike Koreans who have been exposed to English all their lives).
Secondly, not all of us have the luxury to study Korean full-time for an extended period. And as Samuel rightly points out, those of us in the provinces don't have access to Korean classes. I study on my own, and that's fine, but there are limitations to that.
And I'll put this as delicately as I can, but it's not like I actually WANT to use Korean with that many people. Koreans will tell you how stressful it is to learn English, and how embarrassed they feel, but I wonder why the sensitivity doesn't extend to users of Korean as a foreign language. I was very gung-ho about studying my first year, but got sick of being laughed at all the time, or being told that I speak like a child (especially be English teachers who, after decades of study, still couldn't pronounce the sounds of English or put together a grammatical sentence). I'm sick of teachers who will sit there and nitpick criticize every pronunciation difference or grammatical error, but be annoyed if I try to correct their English. But that's another issue for another day. I'll continue to study in order to be able to read the papers better and improve my conversations with Koreans, but my enthusiasm has dropped considerably from when I first started.
Some students know I can understand some Korean, though I don't think it hurts me in the classroom. Some students will ask me questions in Korean, but these are the students who otherwise wouldn't say anything to me, or who would just try to get their friends to translate. I hardly ever speak Korean in class---I will write it on the board sometimes---because I hate getting laughed at if my pronunciation is off.
The locals should also remember that there are hardly any Korean learning resources, and if there are, they are usually awful. There is also extremely limited access to Korean classes and again, the standard is often very low. We don't have the luxury of being surrounded by a gigantic Korean language industry (and still failing to learn much.)
If the locals want us to be invested and learn the language (I'm not convinced they do, in fact, to the contrary...) there needs to be some sort of motivating force for that. Hmmm learn Korean (a language that is arguably completely useless outside this country) and live on an E2 for eternity unless I marry a Korean woman and never have any realistic opportunity for citizenship. Wow, what a package, where do I sign up?
It's clear that the majority of the locals don't want us here for the long term, they want us to come, teach and then leave. I guess their real problem is when we do that with their women (yes, you'd probably have to do some free teaching in order to get lucky.)
So it makes sense - if you're going to be in Korea for the long-term (for the sake of argument, let's say longer than a year) it makes sense to learn something of the language. It shouldn't take more than the first couple or few months to learn hangeul - seriously, three hours of studying with the TV off and you'll cement the knowledge with practice.
There's the thought of where to learn, and when to learn. Even here in Seoul I've yet to find a Korean language course that works with the full-time work schedule.
So let's say you want to study on your own. There's hundreds of books on the subject - some of which still use the M-R system of Romanization (another subject for another time). Others don't keep the learner in mind.
Let's review: going to class is difficult / inconvenient, finding a good book to learn on your own is harder than it sounds. Let's say you do learn Korean just by being surrounded by it. There's no guarantee that the Koreans you speak to will even understand you. I say 부천, the person I'm talking to hears 부산. Getting laughed at or given the misunderstood look from virtually every Korean you might talk to doesn't help either.
Kudos to those intrepid foreigners who learn Korean well enough to speak it, but let's face it: for the "Charisma Men" that these women are referring to have little reason or incentive to learn it. Assuming that it's English-speaking white males at issue, consider these points:
1) They are likely ESL teachers or US military in which case their jobs require them to speak in English.
2) Their expected stay in Korea is unlikely to be more than one or two years
3)There is little use in speaking Korean outside of Korea.
4)Resources for learning Korean are indeed terrible and focus far too much on learning how to *be* Korean than to speak it.
5)One can manage most of their daily affairs without the need to speak Korean, especially in they are in Seoul.
6) If, when encountering a white male who speaks no English, the socially acceptable reaction is to scoff and discount his worth as a person, this is a grave threat to Korea's realization of a cosmopolitan, international, and yes, tourist-friendly place.
7) Oh, and let's not forget that even the slightest attempt at speaking Korean is without exception met with fawning praise that can make the speaker extremely uncomfortable. I, for one, might be very tempted never to say another word of Korean again. It's *that* irritating.
Look, we're riding the wave of another xenophobic storm in Korea. It's just a cycle that all immature democracies and nations go through.
As I have said many times before, we (foreigners) can be our own worst enemies. If we would stop trashing each other to Koreans, in the paper or on television for a cheap buck or brown-nosing points, then many of these nasty stereotypes could go to their grave.
It should be the goal of the foreign community to try and realize the damage that is done when fellow expats trash each other.
These Misuda women have been given a rare oppurtunity to fight against stereotyping and have chosen to perpetuate hate rather than understanding.
I don't know what's worse: The fact that these women continue to spew such regurgitated media-induced hate and hypocracy for a lousy buck or that Korea gives a forum for racism.
Whoops, my point 6) above should say "speaks no KOREAN".
Agreed on the poor resources available to learn the language. I brought myself up to a very conversant intermediate level with DVDs, books, and talking to anyone who would talk back. Learning Korean is not like learning other languages due to the enervating factors involved. You'll get laughed at a lot. Right to your face. Even the simpliest of phrases, you will have to repeat to the person (I like to ask these people if they have an ear disease). Like a poster wrote, they will hear something totally different than what you said. A lot of the time, they think you are speaking English to them (even though I have developed a good accent). You speak Korean to them, they reply in English. Tell them you don't speak English and they get all confused because they are simply people a generation or two off the farm and are now high and mighty salarymen. Then you get hit with the 반말. I blew a gasket at E-Mart a few weeks ago after the cashier talked to in the level of speech saved for friends or children, i.e.- no "yo". The fawning all over you if you say only one thing like 안녕하세요.
Learn as much or as little as you want. But learn something.
Brian, I finally got rather hot with one of my classes that was laughing at my spoken or written Korean. I said look, even if you move to the U.S. and speak only English for the next twenty years, you will never sound like a native speaker. I will always know right away that you are from Korea, just as I know when an English speaker is from India, or the Philippines, or a German-speaking land, etc. I on the other hand will never speak Korean just like you, because you are native speakers. Even if I lived here for the next twenty years, I will never sound just like you. So here's the deal: I don't laugh at your English. Don't laugh at my Korean.
I was hot when I said that, and the students could see it; but I wasn't out of control. Amazingly, not only did the stupid laughing stop in that class, it appears to have stopped in ALL my classes.
I know some people could be rude and laughing at your Korean right to your face. But I must say something to, well, defend Korean people a little bit.
As some of you already mentioned, Korean language is barely used outside of Korea. Therefore, unlike English, Korean language doesn't really have any foreign accents. While English-speaking-people are getting familiar with whole different accents all over the world, Korean people haven't had a chance to be exposed to them. I believe that is one of the reasons that Korean people often give you confusing looks when you say something in Korean.
Thanks for stopping by, Youngbin.
Indeed, and you'll often hear that Koreans aren't used to hearing their language pronounced with foreign accents (though each region proudly proclaims their own dialect). I've also heard that laughter is used when the listener is nervous, and might not always be considered rude.
That said---and most of us understand why Koreans are laughing, whether malicious or not---it doesn't mean our feelings aren't hurt any less. It's all the more frustrating as teachers because we listen with sympathetic ears to mangled English all day, yet I think you'd agree that the same sympathetic ear isn't often opened toward foreign speakers.
But I do acknowledge that some foreigners' pronunciation is atrocious, and that goes for Korean-Americans as well. When a cab driver or clerk doesn't understand you, yeah, it could be that they're being impatient, but it could also be that they have no idea what you're talking about. In a foreign country, using a foreign language, it's a bit hasty to assume that it's always the listener's fault when you're not understood.
I poke fun of bad English a lot here, but I've never laughed at a student or coworker for mispronouncing things or sounding awkward. When I get that treatment from Koreans I often ask myself why I'm not harsher on students.
The Quebec analogy made by Dominique breaks down, for at least 2 reasons. 1, most employers in Quebec wouldn't hire anyone who isn't proficient in French, and 2, people in Quebec who approach you on the street would usually speak to you in French first. In contrast, most Korean employers require no Korean proficiency whatsoever from native-speaking English teachers, and Koreans who approach foreigners generally speak English to them, in big cities at least; it's usually only older Koreans or very young children who will speak Korean to a foreigner and expect a response. While a newcomer to Quebec would feel strong motivation to learn the local language (preferably before even arriving), NSETs in Korea have far less daily motivation to learn Korean, so is it really such an outrage that some of them don't?
@Brian,
I sympathize and empathize with your desires to learn Korean. But, really, toughen up man! So what they laugh at you? The most successful learners of English, among my K-friends at hagwons in Chicago, are the ones who barrel through us laughing WITH them and sometimes AT them. They don't give a shite.
I think part of learning a language as an adult is finding that ability to lose your dignity and be shameless. You're not going to ascend to fluency by being shy or cautious.
It's a research-based fact that outgoing people learn languages faster simply b/c, well, they USE the language.
I know you're in Jeollanamdo -- where I was born BTW -- so I know how those people are, a bit hot tempered, impatient. Still, if you think you've felt the wrath if inadequate Korean, try for a few days being a 2.0 gyopo who understands ALL the verbal assaults on my conversational Korean (I can respond just fine, though my vocab is limited and pronuncation is Americanized).
Trust me, it's much easier being a white guy and being LAUGHED AT for his Korean, than me, a gyopo who got BEAT DOWN by numerous emo's who thought the Korean was lodged in my head and needed to be shook loose.
I guess what really angers me about the Misuda comments is the underlying assumption that ALL foreign men in Korea drift carelessly through a charmed life, getting anything and everything they want without any effort or appreciation.
Of course, foreign English teachers in Korea do lead relatively comfortable lives (as do the Misuda panelists, I'm sure). But as we can see from the comments here, many of us do exert a lot of effort, and endure a lot of frustration, in attempts to do more than just drift through our time in Korea. Adapting to a different culture is not easy. Learning Korean requires a lot of time, work, and, as has been pointed out already, embarassment. Finding a Korean girlfriend might be relatively easy for some men, but cultivating a real relationship across the cultural divide is anything but easy.
Sure, some of the foreign men in Korea do drift carelessly through their days, putting in as little effort as possible. But couldn't we say that about any group of people, anywhere in the world?
@Brian
Thanks for your comment. But, I didn't try to defend "rude" Koreans particularly. I just wanted non-Korean people in Korea to understand that native Koreans usually are not good at understading Korean with foreign accents.
I know it can't justify the fact that some people did actually laugh at you. It must be discouraging occasion for those who had eagerness to learn our language. It really makes me sad very much.
I just hope there are more people out there in Korea who want to help you out with your journey learning Korean than rude ones. And I am one of kind people. :) If you need any help regarding Korean, you can find me. Haha. XD
True, Brian. That stuff goes on. But what also goes on is regular relationships with Koreans. I've been here 5 years, speak a little Korean, currently date a Korean woman (who speaks very good English). And it's a normal relationship, with all its ups and downs. I have Korean friends, with all the ups and downs. I have waygook friends who have Korean friends with all the ups and downs. I watch that show with my Korean girlfriend sometimes. She thinks it's amusing.
A good friend married a Korean, and, well, call it boring, but they have a boring marriage, LOL.
Your point still stands, but there's more to Korea than what's on the TV or in the newspapers.
nb wrote:
"I don't speak Hangul." I love it when I hear this from a wakgookin. Idiots.
The bigger idiots are the ones who say they do "speak Hangul." ;)
bingbing wrote:
Your point still stands, but there's more to Korea than what's on the TV or in the newspapers.
I think it's important to see what's out there in the news, so to a large extent Brian and others are providing an important "service" by highlighting even the negative stories — especially those have distortions or inaccuracies.
But if one has a steady diet of this — especially if it's typically the main course — cognitive distortion can easily occur. Normalcy doesn't make for good headlines or good blog fodder (blodder™), and ditto for "good stuff," so it's rarely there to balance out the bad. This is why many Japanese and Koreans think their cities are so dangerous, why some Koreans think foreigners are mostly potheads, why some foreign teachers think Koreans all hate them.
Stop reading the blogs for a couple months and see how your POV changes, even if your real-world circumstances don't.
That said---and most of us understand why Koreans are laughing, whether malicious or not---it doesn't mean our feelings aren't hurt any less. It's all the more frustrating as teachers because we listen with sympathetic ears to mangled English all day, yet I think you'd agree that the same sympathetic ear isn't often opened toward foreign speakers.
But that's just the way it is, the way they are. You deal with it and move on.
Koreans piss me off too, sometimes. But I really think too many posters here are too precious.
Maybe because I'm Australian. But we're good at having a laugh at ourselves. Have fun over here, guys.
PS And good point, Kushibo.
I just read in the Korea Times that one of the Misuda girls from Germany wrote a book in German, which criticises Korea. It also mentions that the Korean show was scripted by Korean writers. In other words, the Misuda girls simply say what the Koreans want them to say! So, they're simply empty-headed puppets helping to spread propaganda for the Korean media!
Here's the link:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/08/113_50536.html
Nice blog Brian, and nice post.
I understand why some of you guys might feel angry and nervous, like you have a sniper's cross-hair on your backs. And taking Koreans' propensity for mindless group-think into account (this, coming from a Korean guy raised in Korea and America!) - especially long nationalistic lines - I can't blame any of you for feeling uncomfortable – the spotlight is shining bright on your heads at the moment.
But with that said, and while simultaneously agreeing on your points about their hypocrisy as white women exploiting white privilege in Asia - I don't feel that these girls have committed a horribly egregious wrongdoing in calling those types of white men out. They simply pointed to a wolf in sheep's clothing and called it out for what it was – a wolf.
Face it fellas. If any one of you had 100 Won for each third-rate 'nobody' from 'Bumf***, USA' that came to Korea or Asia to dick around for a few years and maybe get laid thanks to their invisible white male privilege (we all know the "Charisuma Man" phenomenon), you'd all have fat wallets by now - enough to take all those beauties out for some soju and samgyupsal.
But more importantly, I find it quite curious that many of you guys lament the stereotyping those girls have meted out on you, while failing to acknowledge the simple, immutable fact that each and every one of you are complicit in a system of global white privilege. In other words, you seem to be under the impression that the concept (and consequences) of "race" and “racism” exist in a vacuum, completely independent of historical context.
(Continued...)
[Continued from above]
That is the biggest myth being perpetuated out there amongst 'white liberal' types that are ultra gung-ho about “anti-racism” and “colorblind love/interracial relationships & marriage” (perhaps unintentionally, under misguided beliefs). In fact, it's the biggest campaign of misinformation out there.
If this doesn't register yet, let's pose a direct question to simplify things:
"Why is it a problem for a Korean woman to date a foreign man, but not the opposite?"
You can't even begin to answer or address this loaded question unless you accept the history and current realities of unequal power relationships between white and Korean (Asian) men.
First, there's the colonial legacy. And we all know that (formerly) subjugated peoples eventually come to worship their 'massahs'. Ask a 'house negro' on an 1850s plantation in the American South, or the Chinese colonial mistress of a British magistrate in pre-Handover Hong Kong, or the Japanese war bride of an American GI - they'll all tell you just how lame Asian men are, and of course just how AWESOME white men are!
And now that those shi**y days of colonialism are gone, we have Hollywood filling up the 'white supremacist ideology' niche quite nicely, doing the colonizing on a whole new level – with nothing less than an endless DELUGE of images that glorify white men – (and this is the good part, listen up) while simultaneously pairing those white men up with grotesquely sexed-up Asian female stereotypes, and also making Asian men look like a comic foil against the white man, or excluding them altogether. These Hollywood images are exported to every single corner of the earth including Korea, so it's no wonder that Korean women have a skewed perspective of who you are, as a foreign white man.
[Continued from above]
I know that some of you will argue that after dating, you've come to see the 'real you' in each other and are truly in love. Good for you. I don't doubt that – even racists can fall in love, and even those people who AREN'T racists, but make a choice to silently benefit from invisible white privilege in Asia, can fall in love. It just ain't that deep (on a sociological level) for you to demonstrate a capacity for self-serving love or lust.
A lot of white male expats seem to *conveniently* forget two of the most significant and synergistic even gave them the CHANCE to romantically connect with Korean women in the first place: the Korean woman's predisposed mental image of you as an (heroic, sexy, interesting, smart) American white man, and also your predisposed 'image' of the Asian/Korean woman as exotic and sexual beings that are less prone to shoot you down viciously, as those evil, bad, BAAAD white American women would.
But you know what?
On a practical level it's obviously inevitable that people of different races fall in love (or into lust), the historical and political context be damned. That's probably why some of you are dating Koreans girls, or have married one, IN SPITE of all this unsavory historical, cultural, and racial baggage.
But remember that you were the ones that signed up for it when you decided to live in Korea and decided to exploit this socio-political loophole (whether consciously or not) to date Korean women, and it makes no difference whether you like it or not, or if its 'wrong' for you to have to bear that scrutiny – it's there, and there nothing you or even Koreans themselves can do about it, even if they objected to it. If you're 'man enough' to complicitly benefit from white privilege, be prepared to called out for it... like a man. You can't have your cake and eat it too, you know that.
[Continued from above]
So in other words, shit happens. I don't speak for all Koreans or anyone else for that matter, but I can accept the fact that people are people. White men will continue to marry Korean women and have a beautiful happy family and that's cool, but the important distinction here is the moral obligation (or if you care f*ck-all about morality – call it simple linear logic) for those white guys to understand their complicity and cooperation in what is an inherently unequal, and thus racist system of global proportions. They ought to educate themselves, their wives/girlfriends, and their children, about all this. All this is obviously compulsory for any “interracial” party that truly claims to be 'enlightened' and 'not racist'.
If they don't understand and respect the fact that they're standing on a pile of privilege that they did absolutely nothing to receive – they're effectively just post-colonial leeches, and in some cases, boastfully ignorant ones too. That sounds kind of harsh, but I guess there's no way to really sugar-coat it.
I seriously doubt there will be a nationwide pogrom to root waeguk namjas out of the country or anything like that. We live in the 21st Century, after all. But there's a lot of responsibility that you guys signed up for whether you even realized it or not, and you ought to know by now.
And when you guys take your new Korean wives back to America, sit down and think about how Asian-American guys in the U.S. feel EXACTLY like you do in Korea – like you have your hands tied behind your back and a muzzle slapped on your face. Keep in mind that for Asian-American men, this doesn't happen in a foreign country, like it did to you – it happens to us in our own country, where we were born and raised.
So please think of that, the next time you decide to feel sorry for yourselves over media misrepresentation.
nb said...
"That show makes me sick. All the Korean men there droling over the foreign women. Show Korean women drooling over foreigners who can speak Korean well."
nb: Oh cry me a river.
You don't have to have anything of the sort. As a white man, the entire WORLD is a show written for your self-aggrandizement. And you can thank Hollywood for that.
I'd bet my last dollar that almost none of you look anything like an American movie star, but some Korean girls still have that obscene notion implanted in their brains like an indestructible brain-control micro-chip implant.
That's the power of mass media for you.
So for god's sakes, quit yer whining. You don't even take a moment to realize the pile of white male privilege you sit on while living in Asia, and you throw a tantrum over this? Get real, pal.
J wrote:
I'd bet my last dollar that almost none of you look anything like an American movie star
Brian looks like Bill Lumbergh from "Office Space."
I'll reply more fully to your comments later, J, but I'll just say that most Koreans probably think I look like Tom Cruise, since they can't tell white people apart. But most white people think I look exactly like Kevin Bacon.
J said...
"A lot of white male expats seem to *conveniently* forget two of the most significant and synergistic [forces that] even gave them the CHANCE to romantically connect with Korean women in the first place: the Korean woman's predisposed mental image of you as an (heroic, sexy, interesting, smart) American white man, and also your predisposed 'image' of the Asian/Korean woman as exotic and sexual beings that are less prone to shoot you down viciously, as those evil, bad, BAAAD white American women would."
^ Just to clairfy. When I say the above, I am not implying that you (the white male expat and Korean woman) see each other in only these absolute terms. That would also be stereotyping.
But I am saying that these are SIGNIFICANT factors that white guys almost always seem to underestimate, or even deny outright - I've never understood why people *always* think they are above the rabble.
So to clarify once again: think of it in terms of a dating or pick-up situation (after all that is the unavoidable pre-cursor to any torrid love affair that bridges cultures, continents, races, and all that horse crap).
She's a shy Korean girl who's seen one too many Hollywood movies like The Notebook and thinks that any mousy white guy with spectacles looks just like Ryan Gosling... with glasses. He is her dream, embodied. And he speaks rudimentary Korean?? It's love! She's HIS!
And you're an average white dude from Michigan, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, what-have-you. You've dated some, but it wasn't like it was effortless. And the girls you've dated were mostly at or below your level in terms of attractiveness. You might even have dated an Asian-American girl, perhaps a self-loathing one trying to fit in with her white peers, or a Korean adoptee.
You also recall the countless times you didn't have the courage to ask out who you really wanted to, like the blonde bombshell dating the black captain of the basketball team. Or one of the gang of smoking Asian girls who were always hanging around those Asian gangster-wannabes. But of course, you never did.
But now that you're in Asia, you gradually come to the realization that the chips are stacked in your favor by weight of sheers numbers (you're a fleck of white in a sea of yellow) and because of the inherent naiveity of Korean women. So you're emboldened now. You do things that you never thought you had in you in the past. You now have what is called, "TRAVELLER'S COURAGE". You are the king of the world - if one shoots you down, screw her, there's ten more waiting for you to talk to them.
So now you've got a little swagger in your step: you start calling white girls "butch", "lesbians", and proclaim loudly to the world just how UNIQUE, SPECIAL, and WONDERFUL you are, in tandem with your Korean girlfriend.
As far as you are concerned, you are the shining beacon for interracial tolerance and color-blind love. You have arrived, and you are riding off into a perpetual rosy sunset.
*CUT SCENE, END CAMERA! IT'S A WRAP PEOPLE!*
... now you wake up from your delusions. You realize that you, just like any other person in life or any rule of nature, falls into a pattern. A sinking realization falls over you. You are not unique, or special - and neither is your Korean girlfriend. And then life goes on.
^ I know that won't apply to all expat males in Korea to a T, but I more than suspect that it does in part, to varying degrees.
kushibo said...
J wrote:
I'd bet my last dollar that almost none of you look anything like an American movie star
Brian looks like Bill Lumbergh from "Office Space."
October 19, 2009 5:37 PM
Brian said...
I'll reply more fully to your comments later, J, but I'll just say that most Koreans probably think I look like Tom Cruise, since they can't tell white people apart. But most white people think I look exactly like Kevin Bacon.
October 19, 2009 5:41 PM
Haha... come on guys. You didn't go there. =)
I will grant you this, though: just like how white guys in Asia seem to fetishize those extreme Asian features (you know what I'm talking about), Koreans and Asians seem to think that anyone with a reasonably high-bridged nose and deep-set eyes are "handsome" in that Marlboro Man way.
I'm not saying that "Lumbergh" or Kevin Bacon are totally hideous men. But we all know that they aren't exactly the paragon of Western male beauty - at least to anyone in American who is really "in the know".
But of course, Korean women don't know any better, and they'll take what they can get. All that matters is that it's white, and if possible, American. Haha.
I live in an area with a lot of Korean students. I don't ever hear them speaking any english. I'm sure they know plenty, of course, to be able to attend York here in Toronto.
But in Canada no one really cares if you're speaking a whole other language with your friends. And in Toronto, no one gets too hyper if your command of english isn't the greatest.
How much of Korean should you learn if you're only planning to be in the country for a couple years?
I tried to learn enough to be polite, to be able to tell a cabby where I wanted to go, to be able to order in a restaurant, etc. Greater fluency simply wasn't worth my time as no employer in Canada was going to hire me because I could speak passable Korean. I spent my time acquiring marketable skills.
On the subject of "oh those white men and Korean women"... a few thoughts:
Lots of entirely average looking British/Irish/Kiwi/Aussie guys parachute into North America and suddenly have women swarming them. I don't know of many Americans or Canadians that complain about this.
The Korean line goes:
1) They steal our women
2) They only date the ugly ones
Hmmm. If Koreans were coming to Canada in droves and dating/marrying our ugly women and making them happy, I'd judge that a marvelous thing. Koreans, you're welcome to them.
Puffin Watch said...
On the subject of "oh those white men and Korean women"... a few thoughts:
Lots of entirely average looking British/Irish/Kiwi/Aussie guys parachute into North America and suddenly have women swarming them. I don't know of many Americans or Canadians that complain about this.
The Korean line goes:
1) They steal our women
2) They only date the ugly ones
Hmmm. If Koreans were coming to Canada in droves and dating/marrying our ugly women and making them happy, I'd judge that a marvelous thing. Koreans, you're welcome to them.
^ LOL @ Puffin watch.
Sometimes I wonder where and how guys like you come up with your comical leaps of logic.
Aussies and Brits that come and take all "your" Canadian babes are STILL WHITE. There is no racial and colonial baggage.
That is why no one really complains. It's like a Chinese or Japanese man coming to Korea and finding a Korean wife: sure, there's some history, but at least it's not a post-colonial leech trying to use his race as a crutch to get laid.
I once took a Swedish ex-girlfriend to Italy, and believe me, those greasy goombahs grumbled all the way to the Coliseum and back when they saw an Oriental with their image of "blonde perfection". I guess men will be men where ever you go, eh?
And as for foreign men taking the "uglies" out of the equation: white guys in Asia generally seem to do an excellent job of this anyway. I guess the coin falls on both sides, in this case. :)
J, give it a rest. I've tolerated you through several lengthy comments, but I've heard quite enough.
J, give it a rest. I've tolerated you through several lengthy comments, but I've heard quite enough.
Perhaps you're trying to silence him just because you refuse to acknowledge your White privilege & hidden racist tendencies?
Tolerated? haha..Just because you don't like what he has to say.
I agree. There's so much I love about this show, but there's always been these cringe worthy moments where I feel like they are making those broad generalizations. You and many others have already mentioned that the show is fairly if not completely scripted, the conversations not impressively deep and furthermore some of the beauties can barely speak Korean, but are just on the show because they are foreign and are simply there for their appearances. Additionally, it's difficult to justify yourself sitting on a stage looking pretty/having the resources/time/money to study Korean full-time whilst criticizing those who do not.
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