Update: In case you were wondering, the title of this post alludes to the myth that a sign with such wording was once posted in Shanghai.
Original Post: It must be tough to be Chinese in Korea.
First we read about the lack of Chinese in Incheon’s “Chinatown.
Now the Korea Times reports that some PC bangs (computer rooms) have banned Chinese students:
Some Internet cafes near Kangwon National University in Chunchon, Kangwon Province, are refusing entrance to Chinese students, touching off a heated debate over ethnic discrimination.
Chung, who owns an internet cafe near the Chunchon school, posted a sign in front of his shop that reads “Chinese students forbidden’’ earlier this month.
Chung doesn’t have a problem with the students’ hygiene. Nor is he worryied about their taking his job for less pay. His problem is that they mess with his computers:
“When Chinese students use our computers, they change the language applications on the Internet browsers so they can read Chinese characters. This is causing disruption among Korean students who have Chinese Web sites popping up whenever they log in to the Internet and it takes us time to renew the applications again,’’ said Park.
“There are also times when we have to take care of computer viruses spread from the Chinese sites or deal with pop-up sites that spread malicious programs, which sometimes force us to reformat,’’ he said.
Something tells me that some enterprising PC bang owner in the area is going to make a few extra bucks by designating a few computers as the “Chinese PC zone.” Chung is at best a schmuck for not coming up with a better idea than banning the Chinese kids.
But Chung is not the only jerk in this story.
Having been forbidden from entering a few “Korean only” places, my sympathy is naturally with the students. However, it is just plain rude to change someone else’s computer’s applications and not change them back. Those students who did that are (almost) as bad as Chung bear some responsibility for the situation (see comment #2 about the stuck out section).
32 Comments
Banning Chinese students is far worse than simply failing to set the language back to Hangeul, still you’re right, it’s lost business and maybe another more enlightened PC bang will take the business.
Michael,
You’re right about Chung’s action being far worse. I will adjust the post.
They could simply assign a few computers to be Chinese and then they could serve the few Chinese they have. They should focus on customer service and take the time and step through usage for any Chinese students.
As for the machines being vectors of infection, they are running Windows so that is the PC Bangs problem if their machines are zombi-fied.
God knows Korean websites _never_ have pop-ups, and certainly not malicious ones, no siree.
Mr. Jackson, I figured you didn’t mean morally worse, just rude, so I should have added that. Wasn’t a dig on you.
This is hopefully an isolated incident and shouldn’t get blown out of proportion, at the same time it got picked up by the media, so where’s the government’s response…nevermind.
If the computers become infected, that’s his fault. How could someone who owns a computer related business not know that, at the very least, he should have an anti-virus program running on every computer?
It’s stupid to ban them just because a few Korea customers are too stupid or intolerant to change the homepage and the encoding back to Korean (which can’t take more than 15 seconds to do).
“Having been forbidden from entering a few “Korean only” places, my sympathy is naturally with the students.”
What kind of places in Korea have turned you away?
There should be an icon on the bottom of the screen that you can click on to change the language…but it’s probably like when I’ve been scolded on the subway for talking “loud” (meaning in English). Hub of Asia!
James,
A couple of years ago, quite a few otherwise respectable restaurants and nightclubs in Korea had a no-foreigner policy. A few actually posted signs in no uncertain terms as a statement of their policy.
Correction: A few actually posted signs that stated in no uncertain terms their exclusionary policy.
James (#7),
It has only happend a few times. The first thing that comes to mind was the night I was turned away from two bars in the Shinchon area in a 10-minute time span.
Michael (#5)
In any case I want to be clear. The students who messed with the computers are jerks but they are not in Chung’s league for jerkdom.
An internet cafe should always be set to restart fresh for each new user. Be this done through local software that restores from a previous state when logged off, or by booting over the network and not allowing any changes to be made locally.
Sure these guys could be nice and change the language settings back, but their ability to even cause this type of problem exposes many potentially security flaws with the way the internet cafe is being run.
They should also be taking measures to ensure that spyware and viruses are not a problem, no matter what language users they target.
This problem could easily be solved by replacing the computers with Mac’s.
That way there is no need to enable or disable different languages, because all languages are displayed harmoniously right out of the box with no configuring. However that would never work in Korea because almost every web site is coded in a way that can work only with Windows XP, not even Visa, or anything earlier.
Peter Pan hits it on the nose—all problems can be solved with a few Mac’s. The cafe owner could have managed accounts for both Korean and Chinese students with virtualization software for PC apps like XP/IE, slap-on some DeepFreeze software and never be hurt by a virus or listen to complaining customers. (I seriously doubt that Chinese students are that hard pressed to visit Korean sites though).
As far as the question of responsibility to change your customizations back … well that’s really Chung’s fault for expecting things to always stay the same on computers he rents out by the hour.
Yes, it would be easy to set the computer up to limit access to the settings to the administrator. It would also be just as easy to have reset to the administrator’s custom settings at startup. Don’t need a Mac to do that, either.
So maybe his reasons are spurious…
It’s easy under XP to limit users from changing or messing with the operating system settings. It sounds like the owners are not I/T savvy people and they took the shortcut way out. As for MAC’s, they’re running a business for the average joe public who are used to PC’s, not MAC’s.
This ain’t no corporate environment.
cm,
Do you think the guy might trying to capitalize on the growing ‘anti-Chinese’ sentiment?
I can’t read this script but some friends told me it meant something similar to “no Japanese or dogs” or at least “No Japanese allowed”. I took the photo in Hongdae. Can someone translate it?
sorry.. the embedding didn’t work.. I htink you can see it here.
http://picasaweb.google.com/bg.....6814561634
It says:
日本人 出入禁止
Which would mean:
Entrance and Exit of Japanese Prohibited.
But it doesn’t look like a very permanent sign. Could have been for a ’special occasion’ much like when the World Cup was in Japan and bar owners put up “Member’s Only” signs… Where all Japanese were automatically members.
it was actually on a small clothing shop. I think it went up during the world cup but I took the photo in 2005 so it was up for years. Think it’s down now but not sure.
i’m with the PC Bang owner (and Dogbert). I know how bad korean sites are so i don’t want koreans using my computer, so if he feels the same regarding chinese then good for him.
At the end of the day its his business and he should be able to do whatever he wants with it.
Well, he can choose to not put any security on his computers, because it’s his business and he can run it into the ground if he likes, but he can’t choose to ban a whole race of people. We are allowed freedom of speech/association/business within the limits of the laws, not a complete free-for-all.
peter,
i would disagree. you can’t give one group freedom of business without taking it from other, and i think that a business should have the right to choose who to or not to do business with. while i doubt if it is always the best idea to do this, it should be their choice it is their capital and work that has gone into the business. it’s the owner’s business and he should be able to make what he believes are the best choices for the business.
I think I’ve had a similar discussion with a friend from Australia. I think perhaps people in Australia are more ‘free’ then people in America. (I’m originally from America although my flag currently says Japan.)
For example, I would look at this as:
“One doesn’t not have the right to take rights away from others/You do not have the freedom to take away the freedom of others.”
Where as my Australian friend would look at it and say:
“The Korean businessman is free to turn away Chinese customers, and said angry Chinese customers are free to start their own business and turn away Koreans.”
I guess it’s just a different definition of freedom. My problem with the second way of thinking is that the minority race will never succeed in a business venture run that way, where the majority can get by with denying all minorities access.
But the question is, which way does the legal system work in S. Korea… Does anyone know if it is illegal to do this in S. Korea? Have any cases been brought to court in the past?
I agree with you, Peter Pan, and that is not surprising. We are both American, and Civil Rights history lessons, like the Greensboro lunch counter sit-in, impressed upon us that it is wrong to deny service to people based on their race, ethnicity, religion, or skin color. You are right that Chinese people are not “free” to start their own businesses because starting a business requires MONEY and there may not be enough Chinese nationals to support the business and make it profitable.
Freedom, to me, means freedom from discrimination, and having the freedom “of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.
If you define freedom in the Australian sense that I have the freedom to discriminate against you, that isn’t really freedom IMO, b/c that expression impinges upon the freedom of others.
When you talk about the “minority races”, I wonder who you are talking about. Recognizing that 54 percent of the world is Asian, did you mean whites or blacks? Perhaps you meant ‘minority groups’.
Right. And of course, those events were the catalysts and precursors to the creation and passage of the “Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964″, which of course is the landmark legislation that guarantees freedom from discrimmination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, etc., in employment, education, public accomodations, houseing, etc.
IIRC, Korea has an obscure antidiscrimination statute of sorts, but with virtually no enforcement whatsoever, it’s just one of those many absurd paper laws that Korea has on the books, passed with little or no afterthought, namely for the purpose of attracting more FDI. (Such putative laws were designed to give foreigners the false impression that Korea is a modern, well-regulated and law-abiding society.)
“If you define freedom in the Australian sense that I have the freedom to discriminate against you…”
I’m not real comfortable with your assumption that that is a commonly held Australian belief just because a couple occas think so. I’m Australian and regard it a ridiculous definition of freedom, and can assure you that a sign reading, “No [Any Nationality] Allowed” would incur the wrath of our anti-discrimination laws.
i admit, i doubt if my opinions would be widely held in australia.
i would describe myself as a liberal (in the original sense, not the american sense) and view it more as an issue of freedom rather than discrimination. and by freedom i mean negative freedom as i don’t (with a few exceptions) support the concept of positive freedom.
There will always be discrimination or peoples freedoms will be infringed upon, even in this situation. its just a matter of who you think should be discriminated against. in this situation the chinese customers are free to discriminate by not going to any particular shop, or no shop at all if they desire, with no repercussions.
and babotaengi before you go around referring to people as occas, its probably best to consider which side today tonight or ACA would be on as this is probably a good indicator of who the occa is. (no need to say more)
rowan wrote:
“There will always be discrimination or peoples freedoms will be infringed upon, even in this situation. its just a matter of who you think should be discriminated against. in this situation the chinese customers are free to discriminate by not going to any particular shop, or no shop at all if they desire, with no repercussions. “
It seems you are using the word “discrimination” to describe making a choice among several alternatives. We do “discriminate” every day when we consume goods and services. We “discriminate” when we hire the most qualified person for the job. We “discriminate” when we accept some students and refuse admission to others.
When people talk about “discrimination,” they generally mean giving favorable or unfavorable treatment to a particular person or group based on that person or group’s race, ethnicity, religion, or sex. Consumers can practice this sort of discrimination by patronizing businesses owned by persons of the same XYZ or by avoiding businesses owned by people who are XYZ. This is morally objectionable to many people but not illegal because it is virtually impossible to prove.
sonagi,
you can differentiate between the two types of discrimination you gave in theory but not in practice in all situations. Just as a person can choose to go to a what they consider a better hairdresser (for example) based on what you seem to consider valid grounds, so a business owner like the one in this article is discriminating on what he considers valid grounds. whicj leads us to the question of what constitutes valid grounds for discrimination. this is a very slippery topic, and the motive for the discrimination is really only known by the person discriminating, which is why i believe that discrimination can’t and shouldn’t be controlled.
“and babotaengi before you go around referring to people as occas, its probably best to consider which side today tonight or ACA would be on as this is probably a good indicator of who the occa is.”
Ha ha. It’d be just like an occa to gauge his social compass according to what sensationalist “news” programs report.
I doubt TT or ACA would want to report on a story about white businesses discriminating against Asians, as it would give white Australians a negative image which they could not justifiably support.
One Trackback
[...] Korean Apartheid Watch. Now, it’s the Chinese. This is a very good example of something petty that has broader consequences, although South [...]