The Marmot’s Hole

Fantasy

“Just because you don’t see it, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

Okay, CM, I concede this point. Still, I managed to live much better with the possibility of clandestine vilification by the Japanese (if it indeed really exists) than with the unveiled contempt and the open brutality I encountered from the Korean side, which really made me fear for my life at times. You know, I am not a strong energetic man, rather a frail, effeminate creature (though pretty tall), and being accosted by a group of Korean thugs (who later turned out to be Ph.D. students, no kidding) shouting racist insults and clenching their fists in my direction was not exactly a pleasant experience.

This was just one incident, of course, but I had to endure confrontations of this sort on (numerous) occasions, in the ROK and also in other countries where Koreans are resident. And it was invariably Koreans who behaved like this, not Whites (I myself am a Caucasian of Colour), not Blacks, not Japanese, not Chinese…

To be fair, my contact with the Japanese has never been as intense as with the Koreans or Chinese, so my chances of getting into trouble with members of the great East Asian Island Nation have not been not particularly high. Maybe I’ve got this positive concept of Japan only because I do not know the country and her people well enough…

But then the Chinese… - after all I used to live among from age 9 thru age 20 (in HK and S’pore) without encountering major difficulties.

Let me stop here, my (Korean) wife has just (at 17:00 hrs CEDST, i.e. the Paris/Madrid/Rome/Berlin time zone) come back from university and now wants me to go shopping with her.

I wish everyone a pleasant week-end ! See you on Monday !

Fantasy

Hey, non, on Monday noon (German time) let us celebrate:

BADUK IS BACK !

# 46:

“Crazy violent dangerous Josenjins. …they’re going to attack you and rape you then laugh. That’s the violent nature of the “chon” race.”

Please, CM, are you not a tad bit hard on them here ? If you had grown up on the other side of the Pacific you’d be one of them, after all. Just a thought…

# 67:

“And I’m an albino Negro.”

Finally we managed to get hold of a valuable piece of information about Dogbertt, the great mysterious commenter who reads and writes (and presumably also speaks) fluent, almost native, Korean, German and Dutch but about whom we know very little else… Except that he doesn’t like Gyopo.

Fantasy

#71:

“Having been in Germany now, is also quite odd, because being in Leipzig, I can certainly say that not only was I verbally assaulted a number of times (first time I was called a gypsy too), but that it included being shoved into a wall, punched, and the guy ran off…in broad daylight! People just looked and walked by, did nothing…this was on a date too.”

Arthjourneyman,

we seem to be pretty similar - you’ve been called a “gypsy” - and I am actually genetically (though not culturally) a “gypsy”, so in that sense we are really in quite a similar position.

As you probably know I am a German citizen and do, indeed, identify with Germany, although I did not spent much time there, having left the country at age 9 and having permanently returned there only at age 39. I have not encountered much aversion on racial grounds in this country, but then, of course, I did not spend much time here - and, additionally, during the time I’ve been here I invariably found myself in a privileged upper-middle class environment, in which violence does not usually play a part and in which White stock-brokers, Asian CEOs, Caucasians of Colour working as art directors, and even the occasional black surgeon or fashion designer live side by side without major problems and with cordial relations. I myself am definitely not rich nor particularly successful but, for reasons upon which I do not wish to elaborate here, I can afford living in this environment.

I do, however, recognise, more from press coverage and from television reports than from actual experience, that aggression against outsiders (also in the violent form) does, indeed, exist in Germany, more in the East than in the West but to some extent in all areas of the country.

I may, however, point out that that I do not really see this as a “race” issue but rather as a class issue. The problem in Germany nowadays seems to be the existence and the continuing growth of something that even the government refers to as “the underclass”, i.e. a group of Germans of various ethnicities who are in no way interested in working for a living - and are even more strongly opposed to any form of education. The vast majority of them cannot even read or write, not because they are stupid but because they do not feel that learning it would be worth the bother. These people live off the (pretty generous) benefits handed out by the state - and occasionally also of petty crime. The government estimates the size of this group to stand at about 8% of the overall population.

And it is the members of this group who also resort to attacks on racial minorities, handicapped citizens, homosexuals, or simply on all those who are, in whatever way, somehow “different”.

The average German citizen, as well as the government, are literally horrified about the existence of this group, but simply do not know how to keep them at bay. In order to understand the problem better you should also know that Germany (as well as most of the rest of Europe) is pretty “liberal” (no reference to WJK intended), i.e. it is extremely difficult to lock someone up unless they have committed really horrendous crimes. Thus, there is hardly a possibility of effectively combatting this kind of thuggery.

What really shocked me about Korea is not the fact that there is (real or anticipated) violence against foreigners or racial minorities but that those with whom I, as a non-white foreigner, were not some kind of sub-human vermin (as in the German case) but members of the intellectual élite of the country.