Today I’ve been more updated on tensions in Korea than I would like to, but I too have a lot of feelings around this so I couldn’t ignore to read about it nor speak about it.
There are two sides of this story, both sad to hear about.
First, the continuous harassments in various forms against foreigners living and working in Korea, and then mostly English teachers. It’s come to my attention that some Koreans have gone even further than their “regular” prejudice in order to keep the country “clean”. English teachers have told stories about being constantly followed by Korean men, who upon confrontation ask for drugs and things of the like in order to bust foreign English teachers for illegal activities. It also seems to have occured that Koreans have found out foreigners’ adresses and phone numbers, inlcuding their workplaces phone numbers and printed and put up posters at bars and cafés accusing the teachers for being all from drug addicts to child molesters and urged the public to call the work places and demand they be fired. These people have taken their patriotism to an extreme and obviously seem to live to get Korea back to the isolated peninsula it once was, and it’s scary.
I am aware that there are issues with Koreans being overtly suspicious of foreigners. I’m sad to say that the Korean society is not always very condoning towards being different in any way, in the least being from somewhere else. But I also strongly dislike many of the comments given by expats due to these revelations, giving the potential discussion a very agressive tone both ways. I’m not saying people shouldn’t do anything about being harassed, but some of the solutions people have been giving is certainly not helping.
Which leads me to the next side of this issue. Misgruntled expats who seem to strongly dislike (I still don’t want to say hate) Korea and see no problem in also aggrevating the situation with a, probably to them funny and wry humour when looking at Korea and Koreans. I am mostly thinking of one in particular, but both because I do not want to spread it any further, nor take part in some sort of campaign against this specific person I will not mention any too revealing things. Only that I can totally understand the frustration of foreigners in this country, and I might even understand what this person tries to say, but the tone used in the texts written feels demeaning towards, not only Koreans but to people in general, and with a view on people so dark and cynical, no wonder this person didn’t like working and living in a so different culture from ones own.
Parts of these texts could be a sort of raw humor that I would appreciate if it came from within…as usually said about joking about your own ethnicity or religion (see Russell Peters), but integrated with just crude stuff like that Koreans are like savages and particular people are unintelligent, also coming from someone who hardly knew anything about Korea before going there, then it’s not funny.
I have so much thoughts on both these subjects but I will not bore you much longer with it. I am aware that my situation in Korea is different. People don’t aviod or point and stare at me because I look different, but I’m still often met with even more scepticism since I look like a normal Korean until I open my mouth. I’ve accepted it. I’ve also accpeted that some streets sometimes smell like sewage and it’s very crowded and you have to shove your way through these crowds. It’s part of the experience of living in one of the most overpopulated cities in the world.
