5 Signs the Author of the Article you're Reading Doesn't Actually Know Much about Korea

Lately, every Thursday at 10:30am, on TBS radio, (101.3 in Seoul), I've been doing a list-based segment. I've had some fun, and done a variety of topics, and perhaps I'll post some of them on the blog... but today's got a really good response, and I've been asked to re-post it on my blog, for anyone who's having trouble accessing it from the TBS website, or prefers text.

The topic: 5 signs the Author of the Article You're Reading Doesn't Actually Know Much About Korea

You know how it is: whenever global or OECD rankings come out, whenever a Korean hits the global stage, whenever something's written about Korea in a prestigious magazine, or bidding opens for another major global event... it becomes clear that in general, Koreans in high places (and perhaps many ordinary folks as well) really really do care what non-Koreans think about Korea. I've written about this before... perhaps my most memorable (to me) being "In Which Roboseyo Exhorts Seoul City Not To Get In A Snit About Lonely Planet." One result of this abiding interest is the occasional case where some article, blog post, or other bit of writing gets far more attention than it deserves, through social media, netizen backlash, anxiety that someone Doesn't Like Korea, or whatnot. At times, people taking a blog more seriously than it deserves have waged online and even offline harassment campaigns, and shut down blogs and even chased people out of the country.

Caveat: I'm well aware that there are three fingers pointed back at me for a bunch of these. Watcha gonna do?

from here (updated)

So, here are five times to take an English article about Korea with a grain of salt... or a progressively larger one. People trying to learn about Korea should think twice about using an article as a source, and people wanting to defend Korea should think maybe not worry so much about the writer's wrong opinion and respond with "who cares?" instead when...

1. Their main source of authority is marrying a Korean or teaching English in Korea for a while. 

If the topic is "courtship in Korea" or "the hogwan where I work"... buckle in and enjoy a personal story that doesn't have any larger meaning. If the author is making sweeping generalizations, without providing evidence of being up to date and informed in the news, policies, and public discussions about the issue, other than in a really vague "I heard on Dave's that..." sort of way, well, maybe don't bother getting worked up about it, and click the "ignore" button in your head.

Teaching at a hogwan doesn’t make a person an expert in Korean educational policy, and it doesn’t mean they know a single thing about public education. And having beers with a public school teacher to trade stories is not necessarily enough to balance out that weak spot. Same for talking with one's spouse and their friends, unless one's spouse or some of their friends are informed and keep up to date on these issues, and makes statements about them starting with "Well here are the main stakeholders in the issue and what they want..." rather than "Koreans don't like this." When I asked my wife, "What do Koreans think about this?" back when I used to do such things, she used to answer "I don't know. Go find out." This is the best answer.

The caveat of course is that there are trained journalists and excellent researchers who just happen to be working as English teachers and/or married to Koreans... but they'll be pointing to their sources, not to their spouses.

2. All their quotes are from English teachers or bloggers.

In these first two, I am clearly throwing my own under the bus... 

found here

If a foreign correspondent or random writer doesn't know a lot about Korea, or lacks the tools to interview the Koreans knowledgable in an area, here's the first thing to do: a google, and a search of Facebook groups and pages. They'll come across some blogs, and a forum like Dave's ESL or Facebook's Every Expat In Korea, where all the bitter lifers and English teachers who haven't learned the better places to make connections go to vent and preach outdated Korea knowledge to newbies and invent new racist terms.

"Dang. Ricetard didn't catch on! Let's try something new!" Source

For someone who doesn’t know the terrain, it’s not always easy to separate people who REALLY know what’s going on, from people who are good at writing as if they know what is going on. And both bloggers and Facebook blowhards LOVE to act like they know more than they really do. I should know: I am both a blogger AND a Facebook blowhard. To choose to open a blog at all, you need to have a reasonably high opinion of your own views... or you wouldn't project them across the internet... and take someone with a reasonably high opinion of their own views, whose blog isn't getting as popular as quickly as they'd like, and send them an e-mail from the Washington Post... if they're anything like I was in my starting-out blog phase, they'll be so flattered at being asked for a quote, they'll provide one without ever thinking about whether they're actually qualified to do so. I used to. I am still a sucker for ego strokes, ear scratches, and shiny things. I am actually a cat.

Source. (warning: cute cats)

A persistent reporter or writer will eventually track down the kinds of people — policy makers, researchers, or other experts or sources who have more reliable answers. And to be fair, some bloggers and English teachers are great researchers, and would give well-sourced replies.  But someone only using sources like blogs, easy-to-find youtube channels, and English teachers… may just not have looked very hard, so factor that in when evaluating their writing. 

3. They use Han, Jung, Confucianism, Nunchi, Chaemyon, and other “Magic words” to explain Korean culture

Examples (added in 2019). Example. Example. Example. Example. Malcolm Gladwell explained all of Korean culture in a doozy of a chapter in his book. There are too many examples to list. 

People talk about the theme of a story as if the theme were like the string that a sack of chicken feed is tied with. They think that if you can pick out the theme, the way you pick the right thread in the chicken-feed sack, you can rip the story open and feed the chickens. But this is not the way meaning works in fiction. (source)

That's a quote from Flannery O'Connor's book Mystery and Manners. She's an author I studied as an undergrad. I love the image of a string on a bag of chicken feed -- once you find the right string to pull, the whole bag comes open effortlessly. There are people who think that invoking "Confucianism" does the same thing: like a skeleton key, all Korea's secrets are magically laid out, just by saying (as pretentiously as possible) Confucianism!

One of my favorite sayings is "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” and this is where a lot of amateur analysts get stuck when they want to write about Korea, but they don’t ACTUALLY know a lot about Korea. Things like Confucianism, or Korea's rapid economic growth, or troubled democratization, or the colonial experience, or any word that a pretentious friend might be likely to intone in a low voice, "There is no translation for this word" runs the risk of being taken, and applied to way more situations than they're actually relevant, or given way more explanatory power (or mystery) than they deserve. Inside the expat echo chamber, and among "I must make sure my expat friends get a VERY specific image of Korea" Koreans, there is great danger of their over-and-mis-use.

South Korea is a society that works like other societies. It follows a logic that makes enough sense to enough of the people here that they can generally muddle through. Most phenomena have specific origins that are discoverable by any searcher willing to read books rather than blogs, and those "magic words" are often part of the background, but they're very rarely an adequate explanation on their own. The mistake people make is to put their finger on something like Confucianism and then stop looking. Confucianism is more often the sauce than the actual steak: often part of the mix, but not the meat.

The danger of "magic word" analysis is that it often comes out of orientalism, or leads to it, and thinking of Koreans as some "mysterious unknowable eastern people" is not conducive to careful critical thought, nor helpful in applying one's knowledge of the country to encounters with actual, living Koreans who don't fit the stereotypes.

Confucianism, and all those other "magic word" concepts, are not skeleton keys. They are single pieces of a puzzle, single threads in a web. Trust writers who are looking at the others as well.

4. They refer to Koreans as if all Koreans share the same opinion on issues, or talk about “Korea” as if it were a character in a drama.

"Korea wants..." "Korea always..." Who is this Korea you speak of?  "Koreans are..." "Koreans all...""Koreans can't..." This is called "monolithic thinking" -- as if Korea were a monolith, an undifferentiated hive mind with no diversity of intention or opinion.

Korea is not actually like this:

Koreans: not the borg. Source.

In fact, Korea is sometimes like this:

Source - 2008 beef protests

and this

and this

and this

If Koreans all generally agreed on everything, a vigorous protest culture and a tradition of public dissent would be inconceivable.

Korea's a diverse, divided country. Left and Right, North and South, Southeast, Southwest and Seoul, Gangnam vs. populists, wealthy vs. the rest, Christian and Buddhist, Pro and Anti [you know which countries go here]. There are robust debates in Korean society on almost every topic, and even in areas where you get general consensus (it's very rare to find Koreans think Dokdo doesn't belong to Korea) you'll still find dissent in the details (but some think public demonstrations, boycotts or rude behavior toward Japanese tourists are the best strategy for laying that claim, while others would prefer it be dealt with at the government-to-government level). A lot of these disagreements spill over into street protests. That a writer hasn't located these debates, or can't access them because of language problems, doesn't mean they don't exist. Burndog regularly points out what you might call the "If I haven't seen it, it doesn't exist" error common on blogs and commentary about Korea. 

Writers who say “Korea is” “Korea wants” or “Koreans all…” are usually guilty of lazy thinking: a more careful thinker will write about what specific groups are doing, or want, and how they're disagreeing with other groups, not what "Korea" wants.

5. (And this is the biggie) They don’t know any Korean.

Becoming an authority on Korea without speaking Korean is kind of like being a hearing impaired musician. Yes, Beethoven proved it’s possible… but it’s really really hard and really rare. It’s possible to write a very good piece about Korea, without speaking any Korean — I’ve read some — but it’s much MUCH easier if you CAN. 

Signs that a writer doesn’t know Korean include romanization or name errors — it doesn’t take too long to learn the two main romanization systems, and once you’ve learned them, it’s easy to spot errors. If someone's putting Korean sounds into English letters all helter-skelter, they have seriously put their credibility into doubt — ANYBODY who’s studied Korean beyond taxi level has learned how to romanize correctly, and will. Anyone who uses the wrong part of a Korean person's name as their family name completely discredits themselves - if they call Kim Jong-un "Mr. Un" or "Mr. Jong-un," don't trust their understanding of Korea one whit, because it takes five seconds on Google to learn that Korea puts the family name first, and it should be "Mr. Kim," and they haven't even put in that tiny modicum of effort.

Other signs include using Korean words incorrectly or in the wrong context, or doing what I call “dictionary translations” - where the word they’ve translated IS what you find in the dictionary or google translate, but it’s being used in the wrong way or in the wrong context (usually as if it had exactly the same usage and meaning as it does in English -- the error students make coming the other way when they say 'I was scary when I watched 'The Ring''). These errors show that a writer not only doesn't know Korean, but hasn't even bothered to check that translation with a single Korean speaker. If they have been so lax on doing their due diligence, don't take their writing that seriously.

Another sign of this is ONLY using English language sources — nothing against the English language newspapers and websites, which are getting better every year, but using them means an author receives a filtered version of Korea, not the original they could access if they read Korean. Errors are just more possible if an author is experiencing Korea by proxy, through an extra layer of remove.

And something I've been noticing as I get deeper and deeper into my life in Korea: people who don't bother to work on the language seem to have a pretty hard ceiling on how well they can understand and engage with the country. Once they've bumped up against that ceiling, their investment in the country starts to suffer diminishing returns. I might write about that more in another piece, but for now:

Remember that no one of these signs, totally on its own, is definitive, and as with dear deaf Beethoven, even someone checking all five boxes might write something really good. But in general, checking two, three, four, or all five of these boxes is a pretty good sign that you shouldn't take an article very seriously, and perhaps the article can be taken as one person's view and then forgotten: no need to be forwarded, shared, spread, translated into Korean, or the subject of a netizen backlash. Writing like this speaks for itself, and what it's saying is "not worth your grief."

If you disagree, or love this post, or have some other points to add, feel free to drop a comment in the box below, and thanks for reading!

Thanks to The Marmot's Hole for the link love!

Racist MBC Video: Some Perspective and Marching Orders

Scroozle has posted a subtitled (translated) version of a video made by MBC, one of Korea's major broadcasting corporations, about "The Shocking Reality About Relationships With Foreigners."

The video is exploding on Facebook, and I dare not open my twitter stream...

I have a few thoughts about this piece, and a few ideas about how to respond effectively. I'll try to be as brief as I can.

But first...

Meet Babyseyo. I don't want him to grow up in a country that tells him his mother was a victim of his father.

1. Things are getting better.

As upset as we all are, things are getting better here in Korea, when it comes to this kind of race-baiting.

In 2005, SBS ran an episode of a show based on a controversial post at a website called "English Spectrum" (that post) (that episode)

And this happened. (Chosun Ilbo)

Immediately after the broadcast, the bulletin board on the program's website was flooded with over 1,000 furious posts. "I was so infuriated after the broadcast that I couldn't sleep," one read. "I'm frightened to send my children to an English academy," read another. "Foreign language institutes must do some soul-searching," said a user giving their name as Han Seon-yeong. "We must quickly deport all those low-quality foreign English teachers who try to pick up girls near Hongik University or Apgujeong." 

The extreme nature of some of the attacks has led to concerns for the safety of foreign residents in Korea. "After watching the broadcast, I began to look differently at the native English speaker who teaches in the elementary school where I work and the Korean English teacher who works in the same classroom," a user giving her name as Yun Eun-hwa said.

This time, when MBC does another hit piece, according to Busan Haps, "The video has spawned thousands of comments, overwhelmingly negative, against the broadcaster, with thousands of views and over 600 video shares in a matter of hours."

Comparing the release of photos from 2005's "Playboy Party," which inspired the Anti-English Spectrum, and for example, the appearance of the "See These Rocks" video, which got a week or so of coverage, maximum, and then kind of faded from memory as After School released a new video or something... things are getting a LOT better. Let's remember that, and be willing to mention that when we talk with people about this video.

When the awful awful Suwon rape/murder/dismemberment story was in the news, we got "Half of Foreigners Still Not Fingerprinted" (Chosun), but we also got "Don't Paint All Foreign Workers With Same Brush"

That said... a video like this is still bad, and wrong, and DOES merit a response, every time, until MBC and other outlets figure out that "Korea doesn't roll that way anymore."

Interestingly, a quick scan of headlines shows that the Chosun (the conservative paper) is more likely to  race-bait than the Hankyoreh, the most influential progressive paper.

Oh... and Scroozle mentions the 2018 Olympics, as in "Korea's on the global stage now... this kind of thing won't wash anymore" ... sorry to say it, but the 1988 Olympics were awarded to Seoul barely more than a year after Chun Doo-hwan had massacred hundreds and maybe thousands of democracy protesters in Gwangju, and a mere two years after Tiannanmen Square, the head of the IOC was encouraging China to put in a bid for the 2000 Olympic games that went to Sydney. As blind eyes go, the IOC clearly knows where their bread is buttered, and will cheerfully turn a blind eye to this, and secretly high-five each-other if this is the worst thing they have to ignore in the build-up to Pyeongchang 2018.

2. Let's not forget foreign men are not the only victim of this video...

Along with the old "Korea throwing Foreigners under the bus" thing, let's not forget, and let's be quite loud in voicing the other major problem with this video: the way it treats Korean women as if they are idiots with no self-agency, ripe and passive victims to the blue-eyed voodoo of white males. 

Because this video is just as much about women being easily duped and victimized, as it is about foreign men, and the idea that Korean women are helpless, faced with foreign men, is insulting to the intelligence and freedom of Korean women. It also has hints of possessiveness -- "they're OUR women..." which is also insulting and degrading to Korea's smart, dynamic, diverse, well-educated and self-determining females.

3. The ideal response (to this video)

There's a facebook group that appeared really suddenly, and has amassed over 4500 members as of this writing. They are talking about different ways foreigners could respond to this video. There aren't enough of us to make a boycott matter. E-visa holders run the risk of deportation if they protest something openly. Crashing MBC's website won't do much good in the long run.

So what IS needed?

Well, to begin with, it'd be awesome if there were a civic group in Korea, composed of expats and migrants, who basically acted as a watchdog for stuff like this. An anti-defamation league of language-savvy expats keeping an eye on media in general, publicizing cases, and making sure that racism in Korean media doesn't pass unchecked. But that doesn't exist yet.

I think the most powerful response to a video like this would be another video. A video that reminds MBC of the impact of spreading hateful messages. A video of long-term expats who speak Korean. Or who have families: multicultural families with kids who are Korean citizens, who attend Korean schools, who speak Korean, who have Korean grandmothers and grandfathers who adore them. Speaking to a MBC, and the rest, in Korean, saying, "Don't tell Koreans my father has HIV. Don't tell Koreans my mother is probably a criminal. Don't tell Koreans my wife is a victim. I CHOSE to marry my foreign wife. I CHOSE to marry my foreign husband, because we love each other. Pretending foreigners are all criminals hurts Korean families. It hurts your kid's teacher. It hurts the fathers and mothers of Korea's next generation. It teaches children to hate people, and hate hurts Korea."

Cue slideshow of cute biracial kids playing with their fathers, mothers, and grandparents.

It wouldn't take that much to put together such a video: the cooperation of a handful of multicultural families, a photo editor, a video editor, and someone who's bilingual and has a nice narrator's voice. That's it. If you're interested in being one of those people, e-mail me.

3.1 The ideal long-term response

The long-term response has to be two-pronged, because there are two main ways Koreans decide what they think about foreigners: the foreigners they hear about from politicians or TV shows (the macro level), and the foreigners they meet (the micro level).

I've written about expat marching orders before, btw.

3.1.1 At the macro-level (policy, laws, and media representations), here's what we need:

A. A group of expats, migrants and sympathetic Koreans who...

B. form an "anti-defamation league" or something like it, that... 

C. watches, and responds, to things like this. Every time. And... 

D. sends out press releases and communications in Korean,...

E. builds ongoing connections and relationships with the bureaucrats and politicians making policy choices about Korea's expat populations...

E. informs the expat community (in their languages) about what's going on, and...

F. perhaps also stages events or...

G. produces materials (classroom lessons, instructional videos, awareness PSAs) that...

H. raise awareness that expats in Korea have a voice, and are stakeholders in Korea, too.

It would be good if some members or allies of this group were long-term, well-connected expats. People who have published books about Korea, or who have sat across from government ministers or top policy makers to talk about these things.

If there were enough, nobody would have to carry the main part of the work load. And when the group is starting out, it wouldn't have to perform ALL those tasks: some would be for a future time when the group is better established. 

It would be good if this group were connected with the embassies of the various countries that send expats and migrants to Korea.

It is CRUCIAL that this group comprise members from EVERY country that sends a lot of expats to Korea. Canada, USA, UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand? Yeah sure. Also Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, China, Russia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. First world expats often forget our migrant/expat status makes gives us more in common with citizens of these other countries than we realize. Our voices are stronger if we're unified.

These kinds of organizations and movements will probably have to be organized and powered by long-term Korea residents: people with families here, for whom it's WORTH fighting the good fight. People with the language skill to complain in the language of the land, so it gets heard. Short-term residents will, I'm sure, be welcome to lend their energy to this kind of cause, but the stability needed to build the kinds of relationships that will lead to an expat anti-defamation league having a legitimate voice will be provided by long-termers.

3.1.2 At the micro level:

There have been other times I've written long lists of things that are good to do, or things that are bad to do, and ways to avoid alienating potential Korean friends (who are also potential allies). 

So have others. (best one by Paul Ajosshi: "Don't be a wanker")

Also: a quick reminder, especially for non-Asian males: NEVER talk about Korean women to a journalist. They won't necessarily identify themselves as a journalist, if crap as shady as this video gets made (it looks like they were holding the camera at their side, perhaps pretending it wasn't on, when interviewing a few of these people), so watch for hidden cameras and intrusive questions, and remember: in Korea, it's OK to do all kinds of fun stuff, as long as you don't talk about it.

So for now, I'll encourage you to check links, and just say again, that we're all ambassadors, wherever we go. For our home countries, and for the idea of multiculturalism and change in Korea in general. Just, kinda, remember that, maybe?

4. Who are our allies?

We have tons of potential allies, and the sooner we can get organized enough to start reaching out to these different groups, the better off it will be for us.

Among our potential allies:

Parents of english students.

Hogwan owners.

Members of the conservative party who are advocating for multiculturalism and globalization - multiculturalism policy is part of LMB's big plan for "Korea Branding."

Non-first-world expats and migrants living in Korea

The progressives who are arguing the social welfare and social support side of the multiculturalism issue, in terms of marriage migrants.

The ministry of gender equality and family (both on the scapegoating Korean women side, and the multicultural families side)

Chambers of Commerce from countries trying to run or establish foreign owned companies in Korea, or trying to employ foreign experts and professionals in Korea

The Canadian, American, South African, Australian, New Zealand, British, Irish, Indonesian, Philippine, Thai, Cambodian, Chinese, and Vietnamese embassies (all countries that send expats to Korea, and have to deal with expats who end up in bad situations because of racist acts or laws)

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea.

And more, I'm sure.

In closing

My views on Korea's expat community have changed over the years. I'm not as optimistic as I was before I joined ATEK, and before ATEK crapped the bed. 

We're a fractious and diffuse community, in a lot of ways, and too many of us are transient. I've written about expat community here, and here: I stand by most of my points in these two community self-assessment-ish posts.  The first one.  The second one.

But it doesn't take THAT many people to form an anti-defamation league, if the right skills (language, writing) are present. And if such a group turned out to have the moral support of tens of thousands of first and second-world migrant workers... that'd be a pretty powerful thing. And a useful thing. And a thing Korea needs, if Korea is to continue down the same road towards being an increasingly diverse society.

One last thought on blackface... for now

[Update: article on AllKpop.com by Tiger JK - a member of Drunken Tiger - is REALLY worth reading]

After a long twitter discussion with someone who failed to see the problem with the blackface stuff, other than that it was tasteless and unfunny... two more thoughts.

1. YES. Fighting racist, insulting or degrading depictions of other cultures in Korean media is a worthwhile battle to fight, for this reason:

The things that are acceptable to show on TV are the things my kid grows up watching. The things that are put on TV, and the public discussions around what's OK, and why this was and that other thing wasn't OK to put on TV when kids can see it: these things set the norms for all media consumers in that society, for what's OK to talk about, to laugh at, and what we should be offended at. Those conversations about TV shows become conversations about what Uncle Vernon, or Uncle Chul-soo is OK to joke about and talk about around the dinner table as well, and helps kids decide Uncle Vernon is either a guy with strong opinions, or just a racist ass: media reflects, at the same time as it dictates, what the norms and taboos are for a society.

And after all content and jokes that degrade a particular group, or treat a group as inferior, are either removed from TV, or framed within public discussions about how it's not OK to degrade that group... after the media has moved beyond denigrating that group, and the dinner-table conversation reflects those norms, there's finally a chance kids in that media's society can grow up with a mindframe that is 100% non-discriminatory towards that group.

And that's the goal.

My twitter pal asked me, "Shouldn't you be fighting real battles about workplace discrimination, banking and working rights, to root out racism?" And I say the battle for a non-racist media and the battle for non-discriminatory treatment are one and the same. Because if a person has been raised in a media that respects all people groups (not ignores the fact there are people-groups, but acknowledges and respects the differences), you say "Well shouldn't a brown dude be able to get an iPhone in Korea?" and he'll go "Well, duh!" rather than throwing up a wall of cultural exceptionalist/ethnic stereotype defenses.

2. It's a fair point that not every nation's media is the same. Given the robust free speech in Denmark, and the robust public discussions about what's OK and not OK, I understand why people didn't think it was right to have a Fatwa declared against the muhammad cartoonist - because in that country, free speech is pretty well protected, and everybody gets their turn to be mocked, but everybody gets a platform to shout "I don't like what you said about me!"

The state of free speech in Korea isn't quite that strong: it's in the middle of the pack, press-freedom-wise, and every time Lee "Thin-Skin" Myungbak arrests or persecutes another blogger, podcaster or critic, I wonder how long it will be until Korea's media is truly free. And those who want  freedom to partake in "irresponsible reckless name-calling" are just as much in the wrong as those who would arrest them.

As for which media should be allowed to make which jokes, and when, I think a good rule of thumb is to put the shoe on the other foot. How would Koreans feel if East-Asians in the USA were still being portrayed like this:
(source)

Instead of like this:
(source)

Yeah that's what I thought.

Blackface In Korea? AGAIN? Bubble Sisters were NINE YEARS AGO!

[UPDATE] MBC has apologized and said "It will not happen again" -- we'll see.

Hat tip to Eat Your Kimchi.
More at Kushibo, and The Unlikely Expat, and Expat Hell


If the video's blocked on copyright grounds (they're shitheads, but they like to guard their stuff, those MBC folks), contact me and I'll see to it you get a copy of the video from the uploader.

OK, Korean media people. Here's the thing.

You, collectively, get to plead ignorance ONCE. Once altogether. Not once every three years: there's no reboot button. There are areas where you are supposed to have learned the lesson, and then not do it anymore.

And after that first "oh, we didn't realize," the free pass has expired. Forever. That Get-out-of-jail-free card is one-use only.

In fact, if you look at the makeup - all the way down to the white space around the lips -- it looks like the people who did this blackface DID know enough about blackface to make sure the Korean singers' makeup was identifiable as classic blackface.

To compare: (source)

And:

 Note the Koreans in versions of Hanbok: Korea's traditional clothing.

 

 Notice also the TV Station logo on the top right.

 The Koreans lined up in the background, being entertained by the minstrel show.

 The caption at the bottom: one of the blackface painted actors shouts "I love you Korea!"

They're supposed to be dressed as a cartoon character.

That cartoon is extremely racist itself. You can read about it here.

And you don't get to say "Oh. That was another TV station/studio/music company that did blackface last time: they should have learned their lesson, but we can hardly be blamed..." Because you have people in your company who have been in the industry, who have been paying attention to the industry, since the last time some asshat did this. (in January)

So pull your head out of your asses Korean domestic media companies. Because your stuff gets put on Youtube, gets watched by all the expats living in Korea. Pull your heads out of your asses because a month after Girls' Generation got on Letterman, and (as is hoped) a whole bunch of new people started to pay attention to The Korean Wave, and began to be interested in Korea... here's what they see:


And that's embarrassing. Embarrassing for Korea, because some people? All they know about Korea is Girls Generation on Letterman, Hyuna's Bubble-Pop video, and now these screenshots.

Embarrassing for all the people trying to promote Korea overseas, to change and improve the image of the country.

Not all Koreans are racist. That's obvious. But Korea's media makes Korea look like a racist backwater from time to time. And with images like this, Korea's media makes Korea look like a really racist backwater.

And the Koreans who aren't racist, have to kick up a storm when this shit does happen, so that it doesn't happen again, and it doesn't take letters from the NAACP or the Simon Weisenthal Center to cause a retraction or an apology.

If this video gets pulled from Youtube (and it might), contact me. I'm in touch with the uploader, who has a copy on their computer.

Oh, but tu quoque, Roboseyo: you see, Billy Crystal wore blackface at the Oscars! Yes. He did. And he got called on it, a lot, because blackface just isn't acceptable. When "chinky eyes" got drawn on a Starbucks cup in America, it caused a bloggy firestorm. Because while America clearly hasn't solved racism (that's not how these things work anyway), America DOES talk about these things, and everyone can learn where the lines are drawn, because everybody is witness, or party, to these discussions.

It was just a little over a month ago - ONLY A FREAKING MONTH since since the last blackface fuck-up on Korean Television. (SNL Korea's blackface Dreamgirls skit). That time I was talking about the ambiguities on the radio -- why should American cultural sensitivities be suddenly forced on the entire world's media, just because someone might put something on Youtube?...

But when I look at these images, and this video... such attempts to contextualize go out the window.

Look at the video above. This is not a video that would only offend Americans sensitized to blackface. Look at these pictures. Find me an African who doesn't find that offensive. (source)

How about this music video. (Bubble Sisters were 2003. We STILL haven't learned, nine fucking years later?)


How about this fried chicken commercial. (Uploaded 2009; not sure when it aired)


This no longer strikes me as an isolated incident. This strikes me as something Korean society needs to have a soul-searching discussion about.

(source)

Because if foreigners wearing hanboks is the only acceptable way to put foreigners on TV in Korea -- either in Hanboks, or with bones in their freaking noses... Korea really, SERIOUSLY needs to talk about portraying non-Koreans in the media, in a way that treats them as humans, as adults, as thinking, feeling beings, and not just as embodiments of stereotypes,  (source)

as a validating foreign gaze,
(source)

or as pretty faces saying Korean men are handsome, Kimchi is delicious, and everything Korea is a wonderful! (Misuda accomplished more than that... but it did put otherness on display...and nobody's explained to me why the opinions of pretty, foreign women (put your emphasis on whichever of those words you choose) are more valuable than the opinions of non-pretty, or non-foreign, or non-women. I wrote about that here.

... if those are the only images foreigners get in domestic Korean media, we'll have another generation growing up who are unable to think of Korea's relationship with the world in any frame other than "us and them" and that's not a healthy attitude for a country that wants to be a global player.

The cultural argument needs consideration: last time around, I argued it's ethnocentric to say the whole world must ascribe to our values of what's offensive... but it's also ethnocentric, and just fucking disrespectful, to say "because we're a different culture, we're allowed to mock your racial/ethnic/gender identity group as much as we like. You just don't understand us." (And it's dishonest to continue hiding behind "We don't know any better" (you get to play that card once) or "You weren't the audience" (that's not how things work in the hyper-connected information age. Everybody sees everything all the time). Does Korea really want to be considered an elite/advanced nation? Then set that "Korea's still a developing country" excuse to rest and start taking ownership.

So between the type of tunnel vision that says "Everything that offends me must disappear from everywhere" and the type of tunnel vision that says "Because we don't share every aspect of your cultural history, we're allowed to brazenly continue practices that we are well aware are offensive to a lot of people" we need to find a middle ground where all involved cultures feel they're being respected. It needs to be a reciprocal conversation: not just a dictation of one media's mores to another culture, nor a flat cultural argument and a subsequent refusal to listen.

And the way to find that middle ground is to talk about it. Continually -- these kinds of discussions are never completely finished (cf: Billy Crystal), but every time we revisit the same themes, we've come a little farther, learned a little more, and are more likely to get things right. So let's talk about it. In English, and also in Korean.

Because here's what happens next: Korea's One Use Only "Get out of Jail Free" ignorance card has already been played (back in freaking 2003, when the Bubble Sisters used blackface)

Now that the free pass has already been used, every subsequent time garbage like this gets on Korean Television, or in Korean newspapers, bloggers are going to write about it. And send letters to groups like the Simon Weisenthal Center and the NAACP about it, and contact the journalists we know, and share it on facebook and twitter. And cause as much embarrassment as possible for korea, until the TV producers who say "Yeah, sure, paint her face black. It'll be funny." Stop saying that. Until the KTO has a sit-down with the chairperson of MBC and says "Stop undoing our Korea promotion work with your racist brain-sharts." Until SM Entertainment and JYP lay a little smackdown on local Korean media for making their Hallyu venture harder to achieve because instead of "K-pop? Weren't they on letterman" the initial respons becomes "Korea? Isn't that the country that still makes blackface jokes?"

And while we're here, let's not forget: there's already an anti-Hallyu backlash in Japan, and other places. As Block B discovered, it doesn't take much to get an entire nation up in arms at a percieved slight (cf: Jay Leno's dog eating joke and here), and you never know when this or that story unexpectedly goes viral. If MBC decides to mock the Thai, or Filipinos, or Vietnamese, next time their variety shows can't think of a joke, if the next target are some dirty Chinese instead of some blackface pickaninnies, that rumbling anti-Hallyu backlash could crystallize into something too big, and too angry, for an apology video to smooth over.

Korea wanted a place on the world stage. Well, now that you're here, this is what happens. Everybody watches everything, and dirty laundry gets hung out for the world to see. There are no more secret shames, so let's hope Korean TV programmers, music video producers, and the like, start treating non-Korean cultures with a little more respect and responsibility.

We haven't forgotten about you, T-ara. Don't worry.



More links:
Hitler and Anti-Semitic stuff:
Bar named Gestapo
Hitler bars.
Let's not forget the kinds of apologies Koreans have been known to demand in the face of insults to their heritage.
The Nazi Coreana ads: using Nazi symbols and Hitler references to sell cosmetics.
Explaining why Koreans suffered more than the Jews. Because it's a contest, and the people who suffered the most win.