Foreign Drug Crime in Korea

Matt, at Popular Gusts, continues documenting the changes in drug-testing laws for English teachers in Korea, with this fantastic post including comparative statistics, a critique of the media narratives about drug-using English teachers, and reflections on the cumbersome new duplication of documentation that is, once again, being required of foreign English teachers in Korea.

You should go read it right now.

We've been over this territory before, lots of times -- these days I'm happily studying and being a dad, so I'm not as knuckle-deep in the English teacher stuff as I used to, but the main boilerplate remains the same:

1. As for the quality of the teachers coming into Korea, you get what you pay for: either in terms of initial pay, or in terms of opportunity for advancement. No career educator is going to stay in Korea teaching English if they have virtually no chance of ever graduating out of "assistant instructor"status, or going higher than "head teacher"(a position I'd been promoted to by my fifth month in Korea, which meant nothing except one night of drinking's worth in cash extra per month.)

2. As for retaining quality teachers who come, if it's too onerous to stay, because of duplication of already-submitted documents, or invasive medical tests that send the message teachers are assumed to be criminals until proven innocent... good teachers, or teachers who aren't wildly passionate about being in Korea, or ones who simply have a lot of dignity, will go elsewhere.

However...
3. As the politics of English education goes, because English teachers don't vote, and don't push back in Korean, they're an easy scapegoat, and rearranging the laws for English teachers, nominally adjusting the requirements and timing of said requirements, is a great way for a politician to look like they're passionately concerned about kids with virtually no political risk whatsoever, because of the narratives already in place.

A Limerick about Comment Moderation

Maybe this is a little blogger-referential for some of you... but at least it's short. A version of this poem is now my comment policy.

A brave keyboard warrior named Smee

emboldened by anonymity,
with misogyny bile
and a gospel quite vile
posted ravings and rantings freely.

The good blogger knew not what to do
as the racist and sexist words flew
for a while found it sport
to provoke a retort
but then quickly got tired of the spew.

Yet of late this small weblog could boast
twenty, thirty plus comments per post
all because of one dude
whose cartoonishly rude
comments seemed like a piss-take at most.

But the trashy fun starts getting tired
once the blog's entire content is mired
in a back-and-forth row with
a self-righteous blow-
hard whose kneejerk replies seem hard-wired.

So before your own blog gets derailed
see to it the trolls get curtailed
don't let jerks have their mirth:
a good chat is well worth
the due vigilance that it entailed.

If a commenter's words barely link
to the topic on which the post thinks
don't be shocked if the tangent
leads to rudeness more flagrant:
moderate it as quick as a wink.

And if courtesy seems somewhat lacking
let the trolls know they're in for a smacking:
that you keep a short leash
before hitting delete
so the chat in good faith can get cracking.

And if I'm in a generous mood,
on a whim I might answer the rude
get a couple barbs in
for a kick and a grin...
or it might be a ban for the 'tude

'Cause this here is my website, not yours
so I set all the rules and the mores
if there's stuff you don't like
you can take a quick hike
to more troll-friendly sites by the scores.

Korea's New Adoption Law Is Horrible (one part of it, anyway)

[Update: I'm not adding too much more to this post, because somebody much more knowledgeable about Korea's overseas adoption situation than myself has agreed to write a guest-post with more information.]

Step one:
The Korean adoption issue is a tough one, that involves fundamental identity questions for a lot of people. There's a huge number of people who, before they were old enough to make decisions of their own (though some were old enough to remember Korea), were sent overseas to be raised by an adoptive family. Their experiences with their adoptive families vary greatly, their experiences trying to figure out their position in/among/regarding Korea vary greatly. The official Korean narrative of overseas adoption is one of guilt and shame: while he was president, Kim Dae-jung apologized to overseas adoptees in 1998. For various reasons, Korea continues to send kids overseas for adoption. This, obviously, causes a whole mix of feelings, especially for the adoptees whose experiences of adoption, or exploring the Korean part of their identity, has been one filled with hurt or confusion. I won't deny any of that, and I welcome comments and views from overseas adoptees who read this blog. I also invite links to the websites, articles, blogs, and communities where overseas adoptees find community and understanding.

Now that we're clear on that... Step 2: the post:

I'm disappointed to see South Korean policy makers taking the wrong cues from the USA, in terms of the way it treats women. The Korea Herald reports on a new adoption law that has stirred up some controversy. How do laws like these keep getting passed without public discussion beforehand? 


[Update:I am informed that this idea was developed by a coalition of unwed mothers and adoptee groups.]

Choi Young-hee (we’ve met her before on the k-blogs) has suggested that women who want to give their children up for adoption be forced to keep the baby for a week before giving them up, meanwhile undergoing mandatory counseling about childcare options within Korea, and the types of support available for parents in Korea. It also requires agencies to search for a domestic adoptive family before looking overseas, and requires more rigorous documentation and background checking before approving an adoption.

[Update, thanks to Shannon, a reader:] The thinking behind parts of the law -- in particular cleaning up the shady part of the adoption "industry," pleading for more support for unwed mothers in Korea, and requiring birth registrations so that legally shady adoptions (tantamount to baby-trafficking) stop, are well and good. I am vigorously opposed to the "seven days" part of the law, for a number of reasons.

Number one: Until I see scientific proof Korean women can reproduce asexually, I’m pretty sure it takes two people to make a baby. Not one. Let’s not be stupid... or sexist... which is what this law is, if only the mothers need to undergo counseling. Daddy’s just as responsible for that little bundle of “what’re we gonna do about this” as mommy, and it’s unfair to write laws that only hold mommy responsible, because she’s the one who carries it to term.

Number two: it assumes that the mother is the one choosing to give the baby up for adoption. We all know this is not always the case. The babydaddy, or either pair of grandparents-to-be might be the ones forcing the mother’s hand, even though she might well want to keep the baby. The article also mentions that the decision to adopt his usually been made before birth. Why compound the alone, isolated feeling some single mothers already have, by forcing them to spend a week with a baby they’ve already decided they can’t keep or raise? And if a single mom gets bullied or guilt-tripped into keeping a baby she’s unable to properly care for, and her family disowns her because of the imagined shame, or gets stuck in poverty because there's not enough social support for her to finish high school or college while providing for a baby... who’s to blame for that? Most of all, why not move the counseling to a time before the decision has already been made?

Number three: if part of the motivation for this is the old birthrate thing (to be fair, the article doesn’t explicitly say it is... but when discussing thousands of babies sent away from Korea, the low birthrate usually isn't far behind), then file this one away with cracking down on doctors who administer abortions, and turning off the lights in office buildings for “Go home and fuck day” as half-assed solutions that don’t address the actual problem in any way, in order to make it look like policy makers are trying to address the problem, without actually having to address the problem.

And here’s the problem: Korean parents are choosing not to have babies, or to give up the babies they have, because of the imagined cost of raising a child in a hypercompetitive country, and because of such a dearth of social support for parents, that mothers feel like they must choose between having a career and having a family. Abortion, adoption, late marriages, people opting not to marry, the "gold miss" phenomenon (as it pertains to gold misses not having babies): all these things are merely symptomatic of those two overarching problems.

Until these two problems are addressed, everything else is window dressing. Making it harder for women to get an abortion, or making it harder for a woman to give up a baby she’s financially, emotionally, or just all-around not able to raise, again, is like raising the legal speed limit on Tehran-ro and thinking that will fix the traffic gridlock at rush hour in Kangnam. There are solutions to the problem, but they are fundamental, infrastructural, society-wide, not cosmetic and ad-hoc.

Here are some suggestions that might ACTUALLY convince families to have more kids, and keep the kids they have:

•  enough social welfare support for kids in single parent OR two-parent families that people no longer cite cost as a reason for not having a kid. 
• enough open public discussions about single parenthood, and PSA campaigns and the like to encourage support for single parents, that families (not just moms, but the parents of pregnant women, and the next-door-neighbors and sewing-circle and church-group-partners of the moms of pregnant women) don’t see anything wrong with single parent families... or see them as opportunities to display human charity and generosity and community support, rather than ostracism. 
• mandatory subsidized childcare centers in office buildings large enough to host more than a set number of employees. 
• expansion of employment options using irregular and flexible hours that will be more amenable for people balancing work and family, but still well-paid enough to make raising a child economically feasible. 
• stronger laws, with better enforcement, ensuring maternity leave, a job to return to, and non-discriminatory hiring practices towards single parents  

Number four: take a woman who feels trapped by her situation and society, fill her up with the mad cocktail of hormones that childbirth releases, and trap her for a week with a baby she doesn’t want, and pressure her to keep it with mandatory counseling, and friends, we’re going to have some nightmare case where an unstable mom does something horrific either to herself, or heaven forbid, to her baby, in order to escape the situation that makes her feel trapped.

I mean, for goodness sake, is it that difficult to do this counseling BEFORE the baby's born - perhaps in the second trimester, when morning sickness has faded, and before the baby bump gets big enough to hinder mobility, so the mother-to-be can undergo the counseling without having to deal with the mindfuck cocktail of childbirth hormones? Can we also make it mandatory for both parents (if the pregnancy came from consensual sex) and all four grandparents (who will probably be involved in raising the kid)? I'd be a little more OK with that. In fact, I'd be VERY OK opt-in family counseling made available for ALL pregnant women.

But singling out a new mother for forced counseling? Forcing her to do this is inhumane, and a recipe for disaster. Singling women out for this possibly humiliating, distressing, seven-day treatment can be read as slut-shaming at a policy level, and it strikes me as needing to go back to the drawing board. Should we do something about overseas adoption being the go-to option for mothers with unwanted pregnancies, and qualms about abortion? Sure.

But I think we can come up with something better than this. Perhaps (and get ready for this... your mind is about to be blown...) we could ask women who abort, who adopt, and who delay marriage and pregnancy why they feel like they can't keep their babies, and then form policy in consultation with the lot of them?

This week in a capsule...

It's been about a week since I last posted, and friends, it's been a week of contrasts.



and this


(Play this video 80 times in a row to experience my Tuesday night)

offset by arguing on the internet about making wild unqualified generalizations, laughing at the Indefatiguable Dragon Slayer's back-and-forth with well-known K-blog troll David T (also known as Archaeologist)

and offset again by "Does Modernization Breed Revolution" (not on its own), does identification with a nation-state, or ientification with marginalized communities within a nation-state, lead to political action? (more or less, but less than one would think), what are the sources of rebellion in Western societies? (perceived lack of legitimacy, history of protest, and past successful protests, among other things), and does poverty lead to terror? (nope)

Also... confucianism isn't enough to explain Korea's rapid development on its own... but probably figures in somewhere. It's just really hard to figure out exactly where, and how, and it's hard to come up with ways to measure "culture" as a variable in a social phenomenon, because culture is such a slippery word.

It's been interesting.


Oh... also... Babyseyo's first day trip happened a few sundays ago, when we took him to a convent where Wifeoseyo and I like to visit, and he nearly caused a riot.


The nuns there had prepared a song for us, which is at the end of this video. Absolutely lovely.

Blog Posts of the week Recap: Best link comes last

These are the blog posts I discussed in this week's "Blog Buzz" feature on TBS radio. See you next Thursday!

1. A sober topic:

http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-about-those-who-are-left-behind.html

The Korean translates comments by Joo Seong-ha, a North Korean defector who's been deeply involved in recent efforts to stop the repatriation of North Korean defectors from China. He describes counting the cost of bringing the repatriation story into the news: due to the publicity, there'll be a crackdown in China, and tougher border control in North Korea... that’s a lot of potential human suffering to be caused by a media campaign... yet in Mr. Joo's calculus, border control has been so tight since the transfer of power to Kim Jong-eun anyway, and China's been so tough lately on North Korean defectors (refugees: let's call them what they are) that  Mr. Joo figures things pretty much can’t get any worse... so it’s time to build international pressure. 

Every time I see coverage on this protest, and government leaders adding their voices to the pressure on China, I'm glad.

2. Hub of Tackiness

http://lostonjeju.blogspot.com/2012/03/is-jeju-going-to-become-hub-of.html

After a lot of talk about the military base, Lost on Jeju is annoyed about some tourism developments around Jeju: apparently, they're developing Jeju’s coastline at Tapdong -- wrecking the natural coast and pouring concrete to build more tourist attractions...

Though at Iho Beach, development has led to lots of asphalt, but no influx of businesses, so that all you see is a wrecked beach, the redevelopment of Tapdong seems to be going ahead.

Basically... there's a delicate balance that must be reached between developing amenities for tourists, and retaining the charms that initially made a site attractive to tourists. My mind turns to Samcheongdong, which has lost all its original charms, as traditional restaurants and unique cafes have been replaced by waffle cafes, coffee shop chains and accessory shops.

When I saw a "Ripley's Believe it or Not!" museum under construction on Jeju, my heart sank. Importing the worst of tourist trap amenities from the world's other famous tourist traps, doesn't automatically make Jeju Island a world-class tourist destination, any more than getting arrested for tax evasion makes me as famous as Martha Stewart.

Two-fer from INP:

I liked I'm No Picasso's call for more nuance in discussions of Asian masculinity, in this post. http://imnopicasso.blogspot.com/2012/02/jeremy-lin-i-guess-ill-weigh-in.html

even more, I liked her insights into trying to find the kinds of expats you actually want to hang out with, here: 

http://imnopicasso.blogspot.com/2012/03/any-suggestions-for-meeting-people-non.html

This is a risky topic because it’s easy to fall into stereotypes, but basically... there is a spectrum of how seriously people take their time in Korea as an opportunity to learn another culture -- ranging from "Let's drink budweiser and shit-talk Korea" to "Let's study Korean fan dancing together" -- and most expats fall somewhere in between that... but it's important to find people who are at about the same place on the spectrum as you are, so that the level of shit-talk, and the level of "trying to understand" stay at tolerable levels for all involved.

All that to say... don't give up, because those people are out there. INP suggests developing an online presence, whereby you can filter people before meeting them in person, to figure out who's likely to be the kind of person you want to hang with.

Hyori Pushes Back

Every person who's been body-snarked in Korea, or been told they're fat when their body is perfectly within healthy range, has to smile a little inside at Lee Hyori's response to netizens who criticized her no-longer-epically-taut abs.

http://omonatheydidnt.livejournal.com/8606969.html

When Lee Hyori struck back at netizens saying, basically, “well of course people lose a little tone as they get older” I felt a little hope in my heart that maybe fans will start offering their idols a little more leeway to be, um, healthy.

Full disclosure: I especially liked it, because I’m the same age as Hyori.

Ran out of time:

I didn't have time to talk about the awesome mixtape posted at "G'Old Korea Vinyl" -- which has songs ranging from the '80s to 1939, and is a great overview of old Korean music, in about 40 minutes. Go. Listen. Enjoy.

http://goldkoreavinyl.com/

http://www.internationaltapes.com/uncategorized/g%E2%80%99old-korea-vinyl-mixtape/

That is all. go listen to the mixtape.

Go Read Matt's History of Blackface in Korea

[Update: still more great Blackface insights that I'd like to keep connected to the rest of this discussion:

Gord Sellar with another really great insight about blackface in Korea
and Eugene is Huge topped himself, and wrote an even better post about unintentional/intentional racism, and when a "pass"should and shouldn't be granted.

After the storm and thunder, two great last words to add to the discussion:

1. Eugene Is Huge, with a perspective on how much we can infer about Korean people in general, from this Blackface thing. I look forward to the day his comment, "that not everyone in Korea feels that this is not a problem, and that Koreans themselves are not a hive mind" feels like an unnecessary stating of the obvious, when "Oh, Korea" issues come up, rather than feeling like a worthwhile reminder.

2. Matt, from Popular Gusts, has a very well-researched history of Blackface in Korea, tracing the first time blackface was used in comedy, what happened before the '88 Olympics, and a case where Koreans called out a TV station for inappropriate programming, after a case of a Korean comedian imitating a black person.

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.

Are Koreans Afraid of Foreigners? Videoclip plus Facepalm

CJ Entertainment put this video out, to show how scared Koreans are of foreigners.



The only problem is, I don't think it shows Koreans are scared of foreigners.

I'm not surprised at all, given the fact so many Koreans' main experience with English is connected with Very Important Tests, or Evaluations That Could Bugger Your Upward Mobility Forever (even if you never need English in your work), that many are nervous about speaking English. If you could measure English Speaking Anxiety, I don't doubt Koreans would be near the top of the international rankings. But I'd say this video proves Koreans are afraid of speaking English, not of foreigners. Most Koreans I've met are pretty curious about foreigners, if they're brave enough to start talking.

I took issue with EBS's racism video earlier, basically for editing video to tell the narrative they wanted it to (that time, that Koreans like whitey more than South Asians)... and it's interesting to contrast these two videos, to demonstrate that yeah, the white guy also has trouble finding useful help, and some people walk by the white guy, too.

Another angle: if a Korean were walking around on the streets of Toronto or Baltimore, they'd probably have just as much trouble finding help, or being passed by. Because they're not speaking the language of the land. Not even trying.

As a traveller like this guy is dressed up to be, and especially as someone living here, not knowing the basics of the local language kind of inexcusable. It's not THAT hard to learn a couple of phrases, to learn to count, to learn left, right, straight, and "over there," and it'll help you find what you're looking for, and get along with the natives. If you can't be arsed to learn that, while staying here longer than a month, you should only travel to countries that speak your language, or stay well on the beaten track for tourists, where odds are higher you'll eventually bump into someone who can speak with you.

While we're in Korea, and while it's sweet that CJ cares so much about how anglo tourists fare in Korea (did they make similar videos for tourists speaking Vietnamese, Cantonese, Thai, Mandarin, Mongolian and Tagalog?), let's remember that Koreans in Korea are under no obligation to learn the languages of the people who visit Korea, and if they do learn, and if they speak it with you, they've doing you a favor, to which you are not entitled. Let's be clear about that.

And this doesn't prove Koreans are afraid of foreigners. That is all.

Sigh. Do I HAVE to write about Jenny Hyun?

So Jenny Hyun is a person I never heard of before, and she wrote some racist things.
Write-up. Write-up.

I usually don't write about Korean-American or Asian-American things.

Because I'm not Korean, I'm not American, and I'm certainly not Korean-American. Where those discussions intersect with questions of Korean identity and Korea expat identity, it interests me, and I link "I Am Koream" on my sidebar because it's related often enough...

but since everyone's writing about Jenny Hyun's racist tweets, I guess I will, too:

Is Jenny Hyun a typical Korean-American? No.
Is she a typical Korea-Korean? No.
Has she lived in Korea? Not that I've gathered so far.
Do her tweets say anything about Korea? No.
Do her tweets show us anything about how Korea Koreans feel about black people? No.
Do her tweets show us anything about how Korean Americans feel about black people? No.
Is there any reason I should care about her racist dumb comments more any other set of racist dumb comments? No. And hers even less than the other trolls racists and dumbasses, who are more likely to have been in control of themselves when they write their drivel.
Is this going to kill the Korean wave in America? No.
Should Girls' Generation or Chocolat continue to employ her? No.
Should Ms. Hyun have a twitter account if she knows this is one of the ways her mental condition manifests? No.
Last I heard, the situation is being explained as a possible schizophrenic episode... and should I get my knickers in a knickerbocker over words that are nothing more than the manifestation of an unwell mind? No.

Does she deserve to get off the hook if she really is sick? Not off the hook... but she clearly needs help here, either for dealing with racist attitudes, or for dealing with her condition. And she should have a few people around her who are filtering stuff like this.

If the schizophrenic thing is a line her agent or handlers are peddling to get her off the hook? That's just as bad as the stuff she tweeted (and her unapologetic response to the backlash), because schizophrenics and others who struggle with mental illness do NOT deserve to have their condition filed with "I was drunk" and "He's lived a hard life" as excuses for bad behavior that deserve to be met with jaded "oh yeah?" responses. Poisoning the compassion the unwell deserve is the most deplorable thing I can think of.

The final takeaway... probably the only real takeaway here:
The response to racism (Mayweather's comment) is not more racism.
The response to Hyun's racism, is not more racism, either (NB: people using this to say all Koreans or all Korean-Americans are racist, because of their tangential association with Ms. Hyun.)

OK I'm done.

Also... Jeremy Lin... Taiwanese-American. Intersects with the themes of this blog even less... though I like a good sports Cinderella story as much as the next guy, and it's really easy to root for him.