I usually don’t let these sort of things get to me, but as the Oranckay could tell you (because I’ve been bitching to him about it via MS Messenger for the better part of the day), both this interview in OhMyNews (the Korean illiterate can read the Oranckay’s post on it) and their little follow up project has me irate. No, I’m not going to blog why I’m pissed off about it — although you could probably make out the reasons — but I just want to go on record to say I’m angry as hell. This is bullshit, and not even leaving some relatively nasty remarks (excuse my poor written Korean) in OhMy’s non-member readers’ comment section made me feel any better. Besides, my comment was probably out of line, anyway.
For such a “progressive” news network, the sexism cum tribalism can be quite astounding. You guys tell the GNP and the Chosun Ilbo to stop inciting insecurity over security concerns, but I see you guys aren’t above a little incitement yourselves, eh?
Excuse my ranting.
11 Comments
I went and clicked ?쨋??짼흹 for you.
Now here’s my contribution to the same comment section.
Marmot, how could such a piece by Oh My Lies come as any kind of a surprise to you? This kind of thing, and you neglect to mention the racism part, is common and acceptable thinking among Korean males, particularly of the Dear Leader generation.
Antti — If I’m able to write half as well as you some time before I die, I’ll die happy.
Kimchipig — No, the fact that some people are using OhMyNews as a forum to grind whatever axes they have to grind does not surprise me. Some people might argue, perhaps correctly, that some commenters do the same here. But I’ll tell you this — reading the comments section over at OhMy on that piece really makes me wonder whether I should feel so bad about the way in which my comments section occassionally degenerates. I wonder whether OhMy realizes that some ??????, ??쨍??짯??? and the ?쩍??????쨈 do read what gets posted on their site. No, the annonymous Netizens who flame on their site do not represent Korea as a whole, per say — 49 comments on a site that may attract a certain crowd does not a nation (or a generation) make. But given the way in which OhMy is making a name for itself both here and abroad, it might be a good idea for the site to perhaps moderate its comments section somewhat — they don’t want some foreign journalists quoting some of the absolutely racist, hateful shit in there. There’s so much of that shit in there, in fact, that a journalist doing a piece on, say, the attitudes of younger Koreans might draw the conclusion that young Koreans are nasty, sexist, foul-mouthed racist hate mongers. And while that description may, in fact, be accurately applied to some (as it would to population segments in most countries), I would really hate to see a whole generation — or a whole nation — get a bad rap just because of the assholes who flame away on a major news network thinking that the object of their comments can’t understand.
Marmot,
Perhaps you see Korea through kimchi-colured glasses but I remember mobs of 100,000 + chanting racist slogans only a year and a half ago. That is hardly a small number.
In addition, the Korean media has been for years publishing crap that would land them in jail for hate crimes in any developed nation. They just managed to keep it in Korean and out of the Herald and the Korea Lies. However, as more waygooks learn to speak Korean, they cannot cover it up anymore. Remember the word “misunderstanding?” Whenever Korea crosses the racist line like in late 2002, it is all a “misunderstanding.”
I do not condone racism in any shape and I am committed to fighting it anywhere I can. However, whities who pretending to be Korean and apologising for it are worse than the commenters on Oh My Lies. The fact is, the Dear Leader Generation is much more indoctrinated than you like to admit. I know this for a fact because I worked in Korea universities for several years and saw the subtle conditioning and racist thinking they were indoctrinated in every day. The whole idea of “Minjok” is fundamentally racist to begin with.
The Dear Leader is winning the porpaganda wars in Korea. I do not really care either way as I feel it is Korea’s right to forge its own destiny but I do not care to see you apologising for it beacuse someday, when you cross an invisible line, they will toss you on the used waygook trash heap, no matter how many hanboks you have.
OhMy forum is a sewage as dirty as yahoo forums, and people use it as such. Unlike what you might think people, even the lefties, read that newspaper with a huge grain of salt. That site is becoming less popular everyday as people get tired of their extremist propaganda and suspect the credibility of so-called “citizen journalism”. For a lefty newspaper, Hani’s forums are better though they also have a lot of anti-Americanism remarks with a good dose of insults.
to Kimchipig, I agree that nationalism itself is a form of racism but I come to think that people are fundamentally racists or suffering from lack of any self-reflection after living here in the US for several years and I plan to go back to Korea. Koreans manifest it more freely with little self-reflection because they are relatively homogeneous and taught national unity is a highly regarded value by the heavily right-wing education over 50 years. Korean lefties haven’t yet overcome it and also use it for pro-North propaganda but they are less racist and nationalistic than Korean conservatives, IMO. Anyway, I think it’s one of the things that Koreans must overcome soon by mixing their bloods diligently by making offsprings with other races.
Minus quite unfair antagonism against the US, it’s usually the left-wing people who have the most liberal values and condemn racistic behaviors of Koreans especially toward South-east Asian workers in Korea. Those left-wingers tend to presume whites as the stronger and so oppresser without realizing that they are actually also a huge minority in the Korean society who could be oppressed by xenophobia.
To marmot, I also thought that comment about “inappropriate behaviors” is really inappropriate. I think I’d be incensed if I were in your position. It’s nice to see things from the other side, so I’ll drop by from time to time. But I don’t have my own blog (I don’t plan one), nor will advertise your blog to other Koreans unless you wish it.
I remember the video from 2002 protests where the whole large crowd of protests at Camp Red Cloud were shouting and pointing their fingers at an Asian woman and black soldier standing on the platform inside the camp.
The only times I was challenged to a fight in Wonju were when I was walking or standing beside a Korean female student and once a Korean female I met once in France. (In Seoul and site seeing, I was simply challenged (rarely) for possibly being American).
I found from my adult students, the women had little trouble with mixed couples. Most of the men would go along with the majority opinion in the class. Some wouldn’t really offer an opinion. Occasionally, some males (at times older at times in their 20s) would say openly how they hated it. But many of them (both female and male) would remind each other how one of Korea’s greatest claims to fame was their homogenity….When I began teaching kids too, I heard the same thing about the blood thing from them too.
Anyway, why don’t some of you in Korea who will get really pissed off about the up coming fad of reporting at Ohmynews take some time one weekend or another and take some digital photos of the red light districts in your town?
I would if I were still in Korea.
If I find a Korean run massage parlor in this new city I’m in, I’ll post it. I’ll have to get my sister to email me again the photo of the Korean women getting put in the back of the police car in the small town where I went to high school. The Korean mafia out of Atlanta had opened up two massage parlors which was a new thing there.
Jamie may be right about growing skepticism about Oh My News, and I hope he is. (I think he gives self-described Korean “progressives” far too much unearned moral credit and that the left in Korea may actually be MORE nationalistic than the right — how else to explain the appeal of North Korean propaganda to, say, teachers unions, student councils and the Hankyoreh editorial board?)
But it is worth remembering that OhMyNews the outfit that Pres Roh Moo-hyun chose to do his first post-election interview with. Imagine the umbrage if George W. Bush gave the first of his — still very few — exclusive media interviews with a white supremicist website.
There was a time when I played pool (aka “pocket ball” here) 6 hours+ a day. Yeah, I basically spent my days in a pool parlor. The people were nice to me, the owner was a great guy, in his own ajosshistic way, and all was hunk-dory as soon as I stepped inside the parlor.
One day, we were having food (lunch? dinner? breakfast? no idea?), and after we finished the meal, one of the girls stood up and cleared the dishes (think we had ordered Chinese).
The owner turned to me and said: “See, Didier, you have to marry a Korean girl. They are just great. They serve their man. They are beautiful. Get yourself a Korean girlfriend.”
Wow. Alright. Let’s try something here, I thought. “May I call you Father (????짼????) from now on?” I asked, implying that I wouldn’t mind “knowing” his daughter. He looked stunned for a few seconds. And made a strange sound. Then: “Oh. I see. We Koreans have still some way to go… Hmmmm…” Of course he never introduced me to his daughter, but at least approved heartily of my girlfriend (who’s now my wife) when, a few months later, I brought her to the pool parlor.
I have numerous similar examples. This one is the funniest, though (at least to me: you shoulda seen his face when I implied he should introduce me to his daughter!). Racism in Korea is omnipresent, but directed to strangers. The bloodline first. Strangers to the family, to the region, to the political party, to the country. It is applied in different shades and amounts, and while racism directed to foreigners gets more consensus and footage than, say, racism to people outside a certain branch of the Min family/dynasty, it is not always the most virulent.
I do not really care either way as I feel it is Korea’s right to forge its own destiny but I do not care to see you apologising for it beacuse someday, when you cross an invisible line, they will toss you on the used waygook trash heap, no matter how many hanboks you have. - kimchipig
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Nobody is gonna toss Marmot “on the used waygook trash heap”. His genuine interest in & love for Korea will be thankfully returned with the same amount of love by his Korean friends and colleagues. This is maybe something, that you cannot fathom, kimchipig???, eh?
It’s the weirdest and coolest thing I’ve heard, that Marmot as a white dude is walking in hanbok gear through Seoul. He’s not an apologist of Korean misbehavior, he only tries to have a balanced, fair view on controversal topics.
Marmot–Ohmynews is a news outlet in name only, as you know. As for the racism, Jamie summed it up well, even if I don’t agree with every last detail. That’s why I was disappointed with your report about whether Jun Ji-hyun was part Chinese–it was a good occasion to be critical of the race obsession here, but you seemed to buy into it. Who gives a shit what ethnicity she is? Why does she need to defend herself? This only shows that Korean society has a long way to go, and while I have no doubt Korea is going in the right direction, this sort of childishness doesn’t need encouragement.
Hey Slim, George W Bush did give an exclusive interview to a white supremacist tabloid on his trip to the UK last year. It’s called The Sun.
Coincidentally enough, it’s owned by Rupert Murdoch, he of Fair and Balanced Faux News fame.
For the record, there was little to no umbrage on display with the exception of a couple twits at the Guardian and Independent.
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