A Dave's ESL Cafe poster started a thread with a complaint letter he sent to the Chosun Ilbo regarding a cartoon accompanying a recent article on the Chevrolet Volt.
Although I usually enjoy reading the Chosun Ilbo in English, it has a reputation among Western expats in Korea as being biased or unreliable. Generally, I don't mind, since I love the pictures of the day and I like the wide variety of news you provide. However, the cartoon accompanying the article "Volt's Car of the Year" (seen here: http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/01/17/2011011700756.html) is incredibly racist and offensive. How would you feel if an American newspaper wrote an article insulting a Korean car and drew a racist cartoon of Korean people? Americans do not have noses like that - it is a racist depiction, reducing us to features that Koreans perceive as 'different' - and we are not all white with blonde hair, either, which is something Korean media seems to ignore.
The cartoon was pulled from the English-language translation but is still found on the Korean-language original.
17 comments:
The real offense is that the cartoon seems to be saying all White people look alike.
But with noses like that, hey, maybe it will attract more females. ;)
The discussion in the Chosun's backroom:
Kim: We got some complaints about our cartoons.
Lee: From who?
Kim: Some foreigners. Not really important.
Lee: You mean we have foreign readers?
Kim: Isn't that why we have an English-language version of our newspaper?
Lee: Hmm... Well, we could take the cartoon down...
Kim: But then people would notice the lack of decent writing in our newspaper...
Lee: Have we had many complaints from Koreans?
Kim: Nah.
Lee: OK, then, let's just remove it from the English version. Those crazy waygooks don't read the Korean version and won't realize it's still up there.
Kim: Good idea.
I'd hate to see the grindstone.
Oh, ChoJoongDong.
"The Volt is about the same size as a Hyundai Avante compact, but it costs US$41,000 in the U.S."
I wonder how much a Hyundai Avante costs in Korea? Koreans were pretty gobsmacked when they found out the Genesis was $20,000 cheaper in the USA. That should probably be the real story.
The Sonata is a car that has been around for many many years. Last year, or two years ago, when the Genesis won it was as a new model. The volt is a brand new model car that is the first of its kind on the mass market. The Sonata is probably a better car that is more practical choice but it clearly lacks the innovation and styling in both the Volt and the Genesis.
What they might consider next year is to release the hybrid accent into American markets (If it already hasn't been released.) That is in interesting car because it is an LPG/electric hybrid. Though I don't know what the state of LPG cars in America is at this time, I don't know if they are legal like in Korea where pretty much every bus and taxi runs on LP.
Besides the accent Korea lags behind the rest of the world in Hybrid technology, or at least the ability or desire to make hybrid cars. As far as I know the hybrid accent was the first Korean hybrid car. They released it two years ago, a good fifteen years behind the Japanese, and ten years behind the Americans.
Puffin Watch wrote:
I wonder how much a Hyundai Avante costs in Korea?
Hyundai Avante runs from 13.4 million won for a deluxe (methinks they don't exactly know what deluxe means) to 18.9 million won for a premier, with all cars having from 1.5 to 3 million won in options (like rear-drive camera) that can be tacked on. In the US it runs from $14.8K to $19.9K or something like that, a bit more expensive.
Koreans were pretty gobsmacked when they found out the Genesis was $20,000 cheaper in the USA. That should probably be the real story.
Were they gobsmacked? That even Hyundai vehicles, particularly the higher-end ones, are more expensive in Korea than in the US is very old news. There are very, very severe disincentives against buying cars with larger engines, regardless of country of origin.
3gyupsal, while I think the LPi is noteworthy, I was writing a year and a half ago that I don't think they could make much of an impact in North America, where LP gas fueling stations are an extreme rarity.
And the Accent is not the only LPi vehicle produced by Hyundai/Kia. Several of its vehicles, I believe, including the Sorento (?) are now available that way, I think.
Anyway, this article in Wired says that Hyundai had been supplying hybrid vehicles to the ROK government since 2004, a bit earlier than their arrival to the Hyundai or Kia fleet in the US, and seven years after the Prius first appeared in Japan. The same article sees promise with Hyundai's development of hydrogen fuel cells.
By the way, I think you make a good point about how it's not unusual for a brand new car to be picked as car of the year. I'm hoping that the Chevy Volt does shake things up in the US.
Y'know, I'm not sure if my statement that LP gas fueling stations are a rarity is completely accurate. A Google maps search of Honolulu and Orange County reveals a number of places selling "propane," but I'm not sure if that's just camping supply stuff or if its automobile-grade they can affix the nozzle to your car.
I know some people in America retrofit their gasoline-powered cars to use LP gas instead and they somehow manage, but I haven't seen many stations. Even in Seoul, there aren't a lot of them, and I would have to plan out my trips to the various stations.
@Kushibo. The Accent is actually an LP/electric hybrid, which is kind of interesting since LP cars already get pretty awesome millage. I know of about three LP stations in Jinju. (My wife has an LP sonata that her boss gave to her...I don't know if average people can buy LP cars, I think that you have to prove that they are for business or something, hers is a company car that we can use.)
T-Boon Pickens thinks that the U.S. should develop more green technology while using LP as an intermediary, I kind of agree.
I don't doubt that Korean companies could or have produced hybrid technology, but it is worth noting that Hyundai was dragging it's feet for a while. It could be a business strategy to keep R and D costs down and then enter the market when people are more accepting of hybrid technology.
As for hydrogen fuel cells. I don't think that they have much of a future. People back in 1999 were saying that we'd have hydrogen fuel cells now, but they had to figure out how to produce them without using platinum. I think the not too distant future lies somewhere between the Chevy Volt, the Nissan Leaf, and the all electric Ford Focus, and of course the Prius.
I'm guessing that there is some kind of Federal regulation against producing LP cars in the U.S. for safety reasons, sooner or later though LP stations might start popping up. LP is already used a lot for home heating and there are dozens of propane supplier everywhere.
3gyupsal wrote:I don't know if average people can buy LP cars, I think that you have to prove that they are for business or something, hers is a company car that we can use.)
The small company I founded in 1999 purchased an LPG minivan. I think the regulations are similar to what they were back then.
At that time, there were three categories of LPG passenger vehicle available for purchase: (a) taxis, (b) handicapped vehicles, and (c) high-occupany vehicles.
Most or all taxis were/are LPG. Those who qualified as handicapped could opt for an LPG version of most any car made in Korea, typically from the same types of vehicle offered to taxi companies.
The rest of the public could purchase "high-occupany." At the time that was defined as those that could accommodate seven passengers or more, which covered most or all SUVs and all minivans. Our company got a minivan, which we still use.
Honestly, I'm not offended by this. But then I'm not a very politically correct person.
BUT there is no doubt that doing something similar with Asian or black people in Europe or the USA would get you into a lot of trouble.
I'd kind of prefer if people were more relaxed about these things, however, rather than Korea becoming hyper-sensitive like the West, where discussions on race are impossible.
None of this, by the way, is to downplay real and dangerous racism in Korea or anywhere else. But I just don't think cartoons are a huge deal.
I'm with you Subber, I fail to see what is racist about this. You could just as easily claim that the cartoon is being 'racist' towards Koreans, with their depiction as squinty, glasses-wearing, balding middle-aged men.
But then again I'm the sort of person who finds the lack of political correctness in Korea very refreshing.
Kushibo, I did not consider engine size. You raise some good points. My anecdotal experience is Koreans pay more for their Korean electronics than Americans. Imported products like coffee or fruit that theoretically should not cost more are many, many times more expensive in Korea.
Actually many of the Korean male actors pay a lot of money to get their noses to look bigger. Perhaps its self loathing. But I do notice that most of the cosmetic noses on the Korean male actors are out of proportion to the rest of their face. They look like aliens.
It's a stupid cartoon, granted. But isn't the art in "political" cartoons almost always simplistic to the point of being borderline offensive in its depiction of facial features, height, etc.? In my opinion, these cartoons are almost always a waste of space on the page, in any newspaper in any country. I don't see how this one is all that much worse than average.
Post a Comment