Reader emailed me this analysis piece in the Asia Times on Korea’s changing demographics and the challenges these changes pose for Korea’s occasionally xenophobic social attitudes. Interesting story, even if at times it makes Seoul look like Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion (of course, so does this blog). Anyway, here be just a snippet:
But it is not just the foreign investment community that considers itself a victim of the growing climate of prejudice in South Korea. Many among the expatriate community, from accountants and bankers to teachers and military personnel, attest to a certain dislike of foreigners that is enveloping South Korean society.
American military personnel experience South Korean jibes on a daily basis. After a 2002 military accident that resulted in the deaths of two middle-school students, anti-American sentiment, aimed at the military, has been intense. At its height, daily demonstrations outside US military bases reminded those inside that South Korean xenophobia extended to those who might be called upon to risk their lives to protect the country.
Foreign language teachers also experience South Korea’s brand of unfair criticism from time to time. In Gyeonggi province, the local branch of the Korean Teachers and Educational Workers Union (KTEWU) released a statement squarely blaming foreign teachers for a string of sexual-abuse cases that occurred in English-language-immersion villages. The inadequate education, the lack of morals and the irresponsibility of foreign teachers all contributed to such outcomes, claimed the KTEWU - despite the fact that the alleged sexual-abuse cases involved South Korean English-language instructors.
Read the rest on your own.
18 Comments
I’m wondering if it isn’t the specific groups mentioned (U.S. military, foreign ESL teachers) that elicit xenophobia other foreigners just don’t encounter…in business or professional circles I don’t find anything worse than the occasional “Do you like kimchi?” ignorance.
Business culture is a lot different than ‘regular’ Korean culture, though. A businessman, for example, is much less likely to bodycheck your average white guy walking down the street. I would also wonder how much actual exposure one would get ‘in business or professional circles’ to the non-sanitized version of Korea that exists outside the normal haunts of businessmen.
I suppose ESL teachers and US military might encounter more xenophobia than many, but I would also like to talk to people like foreign factory workers before I made that generalization. From what I’ve heard of the Chinese illegals (many ethnic Koreans) in Korea, the situation of the average ESL teacher or US army member seems pretty rosy. I’d also ask a couple of my former “mixed-race” students (who each had one Japanese parent) how xenophobia affects them.
Anyhow, I kind of doubt that ESL teachers and US military receive more xenophobia than many other groups… They just have more opportunities to bitch about it than (for example) a Russian sex slave, a Pakistani construction worker, or a Korean-Chinese factory worker.
Oh… and my favorite quote from the Asia Times article:
If there was a Pulitzer Prize awarded for ‘most obvious comment in a news story’, I think that quote would win.
This is a complex issue and the Asia Times article really muddles the issue rather than clarifying it. For example, many Koreans fear foreign “buccaneer capitalists” coming in and hollowing out local companies and then splitting with the profits rather than plowing them back into the Korean eceonomy. Is that really all that irrational? And while the corporate entities might be vilified, rather few businessmen themselves are targeted for abuse. The sort of foreign businessmen who live at the Shilla and Lotte Hotels don’t seem to be suffering all that much.
And something else that gets muddled with the race issue is the class issue, many foreigners who get dumped on are viewed as ‘low class’ by a culture in which class is almost everything. GIs are viewed as from the lower classes of American society and language teachers are often viewed as unqualified loafers who are in Korea for booze and sex. Those stereotypes may be untrue, but there are enough high profile ‘incidents’ to confirm the stereotype to all-too-many locals.
Having said the above, it is also true that Koreans can be quite xenophobic. After all, in the past when large numbers of foreigners showed up (Chinese, Mongols, Japanese, Russians, or Americans) some really bad stuff happened to the country. What amazes me is not that there is prejudice against foreigners, but that so many Koreans LIKE foreigners and foreign things to the degree that they do. I mean really, look at how many foreigners are running around Korean having the times of their lives?
Good points from Zonath and Kunsanpvc. If anything, it’s a matter of stereotypes, sometimes confirmed, that brings out the prejudice. I’ve found Koreans to collectively be fairly xenophobic, yet not so much on a personal level if that makes sense.
What’s with all the negativity? Consider the positives:
Xenophobia can work to your advantage.
I work in an international wing of a large company downtown, and while they may not want me to marry their daughters, there is very, very little racism there. There is the same old Kimchi-stops-Sars and Koreans-work-hardest kind of, um, “pride”, but definitely a respect for other cultures.
Xenophobia does not work to the advantage of Southeast Asian factory workers. It’s a little different for a Westerner in a large company…I work in one too, although I have to say I’ve yet to encounter that “respect for other cultures” you talk about–a lot of ignorance of other cultures is more the case.
Speaking of ignorance…
my friend doing his time in the ROK army told me that his boss said Israel won the wars against Arabs because it was a “very Christian nation”
…
Let me put it this way:
English teachers are here BECAUSE of some semi-racist idea that only white Americans and Canadians can speak “standard English”. (BTW, my visa is E2) Now that they are here, they want respect. That is like Pam Anderson flashing her boobs all over the place, and then wanting to be taken seriously as an actor. I am suggesting that instead of griping about how the “media” calls us frauds and threats to Korean culture, take advantage of it. Dance with the girl that brung ya.
Also, while it can be difficult one way to deal with this stuff is to just ignore it. In a confucianized society, a yangban shows his superiority by not losing his temper and responding to taunts that are ‘beneath” him/her. Use the local culture against itself. I know from experience that this is not easy, but you can’t win a fight against 40 million people by confirming beliefs that foreigners are uncultured and violent.
I bumped into a multi-lingual Korean-American who is a US diplomat in an Asian country recently and this person decribed the South Korean media as “the worst in the world” — slightly (but only slightly) harsher than my judgement (which is that they are the worst in the FREE world).
I hope that generational change to a post 3-8-6 generation of media opinion shapers will start to vanquish the xenophobia that exists on both ends of the political spectrum.
“many Koreans fear foreign “buccaneer capitalists” coming in and hollowing out local companies and then splitting with the profits rather than plowing them back into the Korean eceonomy.”
Can you give any examples of this? I can’t think of a single one in which a company was ‘hollowed out’ by a foreign company. For example, Lone Star made huge profits, but they took over a nearly bankrupt firm, turned it around into a star performer and sold it at a great profit. Sounds like smart investors to me. Certainly not a hollowing out, and certainly not a con job.
Buccaneer capitalism? If that means taking on a huge risk by buying a bank–at a 19% premium to its stock price–that is down and almost out and that no Korean entity is willing to buy, cleaning up the balance sheet, investing in growth, creating job security for existing workers that had none, bringing management up to global standards, and then selling it at a 400% profit, then count me as a supporter of buccaneer capitalism.
It was reading fairly well until this:
“Korea’s struggle to maintain its independence from foreign invasion goes back centuries. With a history like Korea’s, fearing foreigners seems justified.”
Why do some people continue to buy into this ‘poor Korea’ crap? Yes it was sad but get over it. Korea isn’t the only country which has had foreign invasions but it might be the only one to bite the hand that saved its ass. Which follows somewhat naturally from what we see below:
“Despite being the most connected broadband society on the globe, a veritable poster child for digital globalization, long-nosed foreigners can still generate unblinking stares from the aged and giggles from the young, just minutes away from downtown Seoul.”
No surprise at all. ‘Internet connections per capita’ is a far far cry from ‘most educated/most global, least xenophobic etc.’ All the facts and information from the real world might be at one’s fingertips in South Korea, but this is useless if people want to believe only their own media’s propaganda.
For Lone Star, the legal issue at hand concerns whether management decisions were made locally or not. If Lone Star Korea (headed by Steven Lee, for almost all of the period in question) made decisions which affected KEB, then the business is determined to be managed locally, and profits on the sale of KEB are therefore taxable to Lone Star Korea.
Lone Star’s John Grayken claims that decisions regarding KEB were never handled locally, which is frankly hard to believe. Sure, it incoporated where it could give advantage, but come on - who really believes that Lee was not in charge?
However, for the guy on the street (if he knows anything about this at all), the profits somehow belong to Korea and Koreans, even if Grayken’s claim is actually true. To me, that’s laughable, because had KEB been profitable on its own, it sure as hell would have used the profits wherever it best-aided the interests of the bank and its investors - not Korea or Koreans.
Aletheia: “Let me put it this way:
English teachers are here BECAUSE of some semi-racist idea that only white Americans and Canadians can speak “standard English”.
Certainly some truth in this but they’re here also because they’re most qualified for the job and “Standard English” (whether British or North American) is exactly what many students want to learn, over say Bengali English. And of course teachers want respect - do you like it when your boss changes your contract mid-year?
Let’s talk about that “semi-racism” because it’s certainly out there. In South Korea Whites do tend to be hired over equally qualified (and accented) Black Americans or Black Brits. Such decisions are made by KOREAN employers, who have also been known to tell Australian and New Zealand teachers (also those bad old Whites by the way) to PRETEND to be Canadian or American or British. Ah, do ya laugh or cry?
It’s easy to diss Standard English as ‘racist’ or whatever but it’s preferred by students for a very good reason; to avoid limits to effective communication in international settings. Do you seriously prefer local language institutes and universities hire only Korean university graduates who (maybe) half function in English and pass on Standard Konglish to their students? Students typically get enough of that ‘wonderful’ approach in grade school, don’t they?
Mook,
I simply stated the actual state of affairs. Whether you or I like it or not is a different issue…. I just take full-advantage of the way I was “thrown into being,” as Heidegger might say.
Nobody–Korean, Western or otherwise–likes a contract changed, but the “respect” I refer to is in the media and in the general sense of the “xenophobic” Korean public.
“Do you seriously prefer universities hire only Korean university graduates?” Are you on drugs? Hell no, I’d lose money.
Oh yes, one more thing, Aussies should “laugh.” Part-timing Pols and Russians I know pretend they are Americans…so who is really getting “standard” English anyway?
@Mook: “Do you seriously prefer local language institutes and universities hire only Korean university graduates who (maybe) half function in English and pass on Standard Konglish to their students? Students typically get enough of that ‘wonderful’ approach in grade school, don’t they? ”
I started off at a private language institute before upgrading to university. All of the Korean instructors there had lived in English-speaking countries for many years and had native-like English skills. They were no less qualified than the knapsackers armed with a TEFL certificate from a Cracker Jack box. The indignant tone of some native English teachers makes me laugh because I have a MA TESOL and became certified to teach public school in two states after passing six professional exams. Teaching is my chosen lifetime profession.
You do have a valid point that it’s the Korean employers, not foreign nationals, who sometimes make racist hiring decisions.