The New York Times looks at the struggles of Korean adoptees:
As a child, Kim Eun Mi Young hated being different.
When her father brought home toys, a record and a picture book on South Korea, the country from which she was adopted in 1961, she ignored them.
Growing up in Georgia, Kansas and Hawaii, in a military family, she would date only white teenagers, even when Asian boys were around.
“At no time did I consider myself anything other than white,” said Ms. Young, 48, who lives in San Antonio. “I had no sense of any identity as a Korean woman. Dating an Asian man would have forced me to accept who I was.”
It was not until she was in her 30s that she began to explore her Korean heritage. One night, after going out to celebrate with her husband at the time, she says she broke down and began crying uncontrollably.
“I remember sitting there thinking, where is my mother? Why did she leave me? Why couldn’t she struggle to keep me?” she said. “That was the beginning of my journey to find out who I am.”
Read the rest on your own.
(HT to readers)
{ 178 comments… read them below or add one }
This guy doesn’t seem to realize that grandmother sincerely believes she did him a major *favor* by sending him to America. Well, best to learn some korean then, before going to meet her.
All Korean ethnics around the world have obligation to learn Korean. I’ve seen mid 40s woman from Russia, she couldn’t communicate with other fellow Korean women because she couldn’t speak Korean. She could have at least spent some time learning it within 30 years of her life.
Ah, the sweet song of Korean ethno-fascism.
“All Korean ethnics around the world have obligation to learn Korean.”
I’m an American of primarily German descent. Do you think I have obligation to learn German?
Yes. Mach schnell!
Do all Irish have the obligation to learn the Irish language? And does not speaking Irish make them any less Irish for it? ‘Cause they’re really pretty good with English.
Yeah, ethno-nationalism is pretty lame, dude. I’m the son of a Norwegian, doesn’t mean I feel the need to learn that. 차라리 한국말을 배우는 것이 좋겠지.
I tend to react negatively to the Asian-adoptees search for identity, though I know I’m being unfair. What I’m curious about is to compare the identity issues of, say, adoptees of European descent brought up in America (or, perhaps it would be better to look at adoptees of South Asia or Middle Eastern descent to see if they have the same issues.) My guess is that for a German kid adopted into an American family, these issues simply do not arise to the same extent. This is likely do to the way society reacts to and treats them. The slightly irritating tendency of Asian adoptees to have identity crises is a symptom of a continuing societal problem (which gets mixed with all the psychological crap that adoptees have about abandonment, et al that makes it all the worse).
I’ve read of parallel situations with white kids being raised in Taiwan, even by their white parents, suffering from confused identity.
@ Koreansentry
What about half-Koreans? Do they only have to learn half the language? And quarter-Koreans? Just 25% of 한글 would do, then?
Now I feel really bad for a friend of mine, who is part Irish, German, French, Navajo, Mexican, and Japanese. She has a lot of catching up to do when right now she only has English and German under her belt.
where’s wangkon? quick! get the mop!
koreansentry has left the building. that’s his style. love ‘em and leave ‘em.
once, i saw a hilarious thing where he went around 4 threads, leaving devastatingly prejudiced sentences, and wangkon tried to remedy the situation. it was funny, it was like seeing a damn burst with increasing number of holes, and someone with only 4 limbs trying to stop the leaks… ^^
Don’t you assholes trapped in Korea teach your children English? What if they refused to speak a Western Language? And what if the broad world beyond Korea spoke mostly Asian languages and the world weren’t revolving around English and Western civilization? I’m pretty sure you’d be scratching something to get your Westerner children speaking Asian languages and in living in Asian societies to speak some Western language. But we don’t live in that sort of world, but I’m sure you’d have the same point of view which Koreansentry is sporting if we did. To put it plainly, the inability to understand such a view as K’s is itself ironically due to Eurocentricism, a certain lax and comfortable and careless “ethno-fascist” insensitivity or whatever you want call it that includes the tendency to ignore context and the conclusion that everything must be morally equivalent because outside of context they seem equal in some way. Think deeper, folks.
when you send over 160,000 kids (orphans and inconvenient babies) to rich western countries and charging a fee, you’re doing your nation a favor: less money spent on social welfare and more spent on economic miracles.
In what would seem to be a win-win situation (infertile westerners get their baby, Korea gets rid of inconvenient babies and gets money to boot), unintended consequences are an afterthought.
I have a funny story about that. I was standing in line at the DB (Deutsche Bundesbahn) ticket office at the Frankfurt a.M Hauptbahnhof, and there was this absolutely all-American, blonde-haired, blue-eyed couple in their mid-30′s in front of me holding up the line with their little peccadillos.
I mean, I could tell they were from the Deep South with their cute little southern drawls and the stupid “Ole Miss” baseball cap this guy was wearing — they looked just like Ken™ and Barbie™ and they were so cute I could’ve just eaten ‘em up.
Nonetheless, it was painfully obvious that they couldn’t speak or understand a word of German either (the Germans lovingly call these types “amis”).
Not to be deterred, however, the ill-prepared ami couple still had the most unseemly sense of entitlement — perhaps b/c of their nordic looks? –that was soooo embarrassing to witness as it was painfully obvious that their nerve exceeded their ability to communicate in the local vernacular.
What they failed to recognize is that German ticket clerks, as a rule, have little or no patience for anyone who cannot speak basic German, which was why it was quite amusing watching Ken & Barbie get squashed — and humiliated — with Teutonic efficiency. Here is how the conversation went:
German rail clerk: Was darf es sein?
Blonde ami couple: Excuse me, do you speak English?
Clerk: Nein. Nächste bitte! (as he waves them off dismissively while beckoning me forward — I was next in line.)
Blonde ami couple: (refusing to budge) Wait, we would like to upgrade our ticket to first-class seating!
Clerk: Ich verstehe nicht. Nächste! (as he gestures them to step away and me to come up.)
Blonde ami couple: But can’t you help us?
Clerk: Ich hab’ keine Zeit. Nächste! (as he looks over them to help me.)
Blonde ami couple: (loudly) Doesn’t anybody here speak English??
Clerk: Nein. Nächste! (this time completely ignoring them.)
Me (unexceptional Korean guy who simply paid attention during two-years of high school German and four years of college German): Guten Tag!
Clerk: Guten Tag! [All of sudden, sitting up straighter in his chair and engaging me with a smiling and friendly face.] Wie kann ich behilflich sein?
Me: Jawohl…Ich möchte eine Rückfahrkarte nach…
[...as I subsequently received some of the most efficient, cordial and helpful customer service from anyone anywhere in the world -- albeit from the selfsame previously grumpy and rude German ticket clerk who schooed away what was probably the most aryan-looking couple since the '36 Olympics with a dismissive wave of his hand.]
In other words, an American with German ancestry not speaking German, is not the same thing as a kyopo not speaking Korean. And there’s a lot more involved here that makes the disanalogy as discordant as it really is… the fact that Germans (Irish or whatever) have a rich and long history with America and the formation of the United States as it is now. And so on and so forth. It’s just not the same.
That is the most absurd and racist statement I have ever read. And besides, how would you know — unless you are Korean — what is acceptable among Koreans and what is not? Are you taking into consideration differences in social class, education, upbringing, family idiosyncracies, etc.? If not, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
My point is that if you are traveling or working abroad, and you want to be treated right — or show a lot of nerve — first try learning a little bit of the local language of the country. And contrary to your first statement, this applies to everyone, whether you are white, black or Asian.
Your story doesn’t match any of my own experiences travelling in Germany as a non-German speaker. Over the course of several trips I have found everyone in a public-facing role in Germany and Austria to be very good English speakers and also exceptionally friendly and helpful to the lone frazzled Ami. And the passers-by were helpful as well. It was a little bit like Korea in that there was always someone volunteering assistance (and distinguishable in that the assistance was actually helpful).
Comment 13 is an add to my comment at 10, not a response to your comment at 12.
#13: I think I get it. The difference is the German-American is not a member of a victim group. If you are a member of a victim group in America, you best be learning your ethnic tongue.
As one of the oppressors, thank Christ I don’t have to learn Norskie. That would’ve been a pain in the ass.
Don’t think that just b/c you’re one-quarter German, one-quarter Irish, one-quarter Scottish, and one-quarter English — in other words, 100 percent American — that the former lands of your great-great grandparents have feeling of affinity, warmth, or connection with you. (There is nothing more comical than an ami telling other Germans in — English no less — “oh, btw, my great great great grandmother emigrated from Germany!” (As the young Germans roll their eyes and exclaim sarcastically, “You don’t say!”)
IIRC, I remember one young ami whippersnapper I met in Germany who wanted me to translate to my German co-workers that his Grandfather happened to be “Prussian.” The Germans I was with started snorting with laughter, and urged me to remind my friend that “Prussia” — as a sociopolitical entity — disappeared a long long time ago, and nobody, except historians ever talk about Prussia.
I concur with Brendon about Germany. English is fairly common (lucky me).
#9 damn -> dam
i found in former east german parts of it people on the street could not speak english i was very surprised because i’d only been several times to the western parts up till then – they spoke russian though..
@17,
Good, I’m glad you’re owning up to your ethno-fascism now. The veil is off, the douche is out.
But I wouldn’t frame the issue in terms of victims or oppressors. It’s more about majority and cultural- a language’s- hegemony.
Your white or happa children, stuck in Korea as they likely are, are learning or speak a Western language. How pitiful you’d think on them if they didn’t speak a Western language. Can you imagine a 2nd or 3rd generation whitey grandchild of an expat in Korea who can’t speak a lick of English or any other European language? The very same people spouting off their “Hey I’m of Irish descent, do I have to speak Irish?” arguments would be pulling out their hair in frustration and regret.
“yuna” I promise that I will go and find out later next spring. I guess that means I should learn some more German phrases too, just to be safe.
Oh dear not this again.
If I ever adopt a Korean kid, I think I’ll just tell’em they’re Native American. Just let it out and see what happens (yes, the NA’s near me actually look Korean, but with a tan).
#14: Your points would carry more credibility if you knew what racism was. Oh, just point at what I just said now
@abcdefg
But Koreansentry is talking about all people who are ethnically Koreans, and not just gyopo populations (it is absolutely absurd to expect some sort of obligation to learn Korean language from adoptees of all people). And even if just considering the gyopo population, I don’t think you can justify a certain obligation (moral or otherwise) to learn the ‘mother language’. It certainly is encouraged in status quo and it doesn’t hurt to have more than one language mastered, but it’s this thought in Koreansentry’s comment that all ethnic Koreans must learn to speak Korean that irks me.
I guess in another words, it’s the moral imperative that Koreansentry places on ethnic Koreans that everyone has a problem with.
No thanks. You’re holding the mop the wrong way. And, it’s a socialist mop.
abcdefg, while i think it is a pity and a missed opportunity that some korean kyopos and half koreans who are born and brought up in the states, cannot speak english because their parents didn’t force them to speak it at home, i don’t think it’s that bad as you think, and no one should be made to learn a language that they didn’t need to get by, just because of their ethnicity.
on the other hand, i have noted a curious phenomenon that a lot of the times half japanese children speak fluent japanese becaues they speak it at home, (in japan and outside) both with their japanese parent and non-japanese parent who has made the effort to learn the language, whereas the half-korean children rarely do, if they spoke a little at all when they are young, they certainly forget it when they grow up.
i think i attributed this to the cultural strength at the time.
when they feel proud and want to identify with, and want to know what the pop culture (films, music) has to offer, they (this is both the half children and the non-asian parent) will make the effort to learn it and retain it.
I wouldn’t begrudge your experience, however, it goes without saying that a good attitude and smile can go a long way — even in Germany. On the other hand, if you’re saying that Germans and Austrians just love to bend over backwards to help nordic-looking amis — who don’t speak a word of German — I daresay you were just passing through the arrival terminal at a German airport and dealing solely with duty-free clerks.
And as far as getting by on charm goes, let’s just say that Ken & Barbie were not of that variety. These two had a chip on their shoulder, and like I said, an attitude of entitlement — which might work back home, but worked against them in a foreign country where they didn’t speak the language.
Then why don’t African Americans speak or learn their “ethnic tongues”, e.g., swahili, zulu, bantu, etc.?
#15: That was my experience as well, with a good portion of the general populace having a decent command of English too. But then, I’m always distrustful of supposed events that are fueled along by handfuls of juvenile stereotypes.
–BumfromKorea,
I know. I don’t completely agree with Koreansentry, but I agree with the basic drift he represents, and I think that Koreansentry intends something broader. Whereas, I sense that the expats here not only disagree with Koreansentry for the extreme point that he’s literally asserted, but, more so, include as a part of their riducle that broader stance that I would agree with.
Koreans should learn Korean. Kyopos should learn Korean. I’m able to say this without qualification because at this point, there isn’t much variation to the sorts of kyopo and their situations that exist. All kyopos that I’ve known- and who are able to participate in these blogs and think of such thoughts and arguments in the first place- are not far removed from their mother country.
Anyway, I should desire that my grandchildren understand that they’re Korean and at least have an interest in learning it. If I were a French expat in Korea with white grandchildren living in Korea, I’d desire them to speak French.
Who said the Germans don’t have a decent command of English? Of course there are Germans who will indulge English-speaking tourists in the same way Koreans do — whether it be to practice English, be helpful, etc., that was not my point. My point is that amis stick out like a sore thumb in Germany because they rarely any effort to speak or learn German. My story doesn’t apply to all Germans — it is one experience out of many, as opposed to your so-called experience, which in lieu of actually sharing one, I highly doubt you ever even had one.
Well then, I’m able to say without qualification that you haven’t met a wide variety of Koreans beyond the first- and second-generation immigrant community.
On the other hand, how many Koreans who are third- and fourth-generation (and even fifth-generation) Korean Americans, Zainichi, 고려사람, have you met? (For example, my Koryosaram friend who is fifth-generation Korean Russian?) How do you justify your mandate that “all Kyopos should learn Korean”, when neither her parents, nor grandparents, nor great grandparents, nor great great grandparents spoke Korean? What does she speak? Russian and English, b/c that’s what her friends and family speak. Is she interested in learning Korean? Sure, but in the same way that I’m interested in learning underwater basketweaving.
Your story is neither funny, nor true. In fact it is complete and utter bullshit. The Frankfurt station you refer to is among the two or three busiest in all of Germany, and is regularly flooded with loads of backpackers, tourists, and businessmen who speak nothing but English. Every single employee who works in ticketing and is in contact with the public has at least a minimal level of English proficiency, given the variety of customers coming through and the fact that English is one of the default languages of business throughout Europe.
Not to mention that in your absolute fictional pile of bullshit, if you were struck by lightning and an agent somehow did not speak English, their first reaction would be to point you in the direction of the next agent that did, not to yell at you repeatedly. Not only is Carr correct that nearly everyone in Germany and Austria in positions of public interaction speak passable English, but the rate in high-traffic tourist industries is absolutely 100%, without question.
Peddle your wishful fantasies and stereotypes about Ugly Americans being “humiliated” somewhere else. You’ve been sniffed out without the slightest of effort.
congratulations to koreansentry for a hit-and-run that ended up as a multi-car pile-up.
could koreansentry be a troll? or is he just a good role-model for one?
Yoruba or Igbo would probably be better choices.
Oh my! Really? Say it isn’t so! You really need remedial reading — or at least a crash course in German — because you certainly didn’t understand anything I wrote. And btw, just b/c a clerk doesn’t want to speak with you in a foreign language doesn’t mean that said clerk doesn’t speak the language. Got it now?
Oh my, did I hit a raw nerve blueballs? I think your problem is that you just can’t stand the fact that a Korean got better service and treatment in Germany of all places, than a blonde-haired and blue-eyed ami, and perhaps that irks you? Don’t worry about — just learn German!
I understood exactly what you wrote. Your entire story revolves around this:
And that, like the rest of your third-grade fiction, is bullshit. German ticket clerks, as a rule, are REQUIRED to speak English to English-speaking customers. It’s part of their job description, and there’s not a chance in hell that one clerk who acted in the manner you described to a paying customer would be allowed to keep their job. And yet you would like us to believe that as a rule, that many of them are rude and dismissive of English-speaking customers that make up a significant chunk of their customer base. You’re full of shit, and anyone that’s been to a train station in Germany knows it.
I could give two shits what kind of service you got in comparison to the fictional stereotype you created. Your story simply doesn’t add up, and I’ve traveled enough around Germany and the EU in general enough to know what the standards for service are and how non-native speakers are treated. There’s not a chance in hell that someone asking “Do you speak English?” would be waved away dismissively and then yelled at, unless you happened to stumble upon the one German ticket clerk in the entire country that was intentionally trying to get fired that day.
Unfortunately, you can’t even claim that because you were dumb enough to try and claim that the clerk’s behavior is common. Which it’s not. Which is why you’re peddling lies.
Which is why you’re an easily identifiable dumbfuck.
Umm, back to the topic…I know a couple of adoptees who live/lived in Korea, and they had similar stories to the woman in the NYT article. There is a group of adoptees here who are trying to change the laws and culture that have given Korea a bad reputation in this area:
http://cchronicle.com/2009/11/abuses-in-adoptions-from-s-korea/
Umm…8675309, why didn’t you offer to help out? Or is that a silly question?
Funny enough, a longtime missionary couple told me about an American woman who showed up one day in a Korean church in Indiana. She was a native Korean speaker who was not fully proficient in English. Her American missionary parents had raised her in a Korean-speaking household. Probably the only non-ethnic Korean missionary descendant not fluent in the language of her parents, but nevertheless, the missionary couple who told me about this young woman weren’t “pulling out their hair in frustration and regret.” One compelling reason why American missionaries in Korea pass on their native languages to their children is that English has wide international utility.
ok. regarding 8765432′s story – i think it is more to do with the personality of the clerk and german service sector who had a bad day, than the ability/non-ability to speak english.
i have had several germans who lived outside germany for a number of years e,g. US, and other english speaking countries tell me that they got such a rude awakening when they went back because they found a lot of the shopkeepers/bank clerks etc were very non-smiling and ungracious to them and they only noticed this because they’d spent time outside the country – especially in places where they were being told to “have a nice day” constantly by the smiley shop assistants..
Based on my six years living in Germany, I’d say that while 8765432′s story is unusual, it isn’t impossible. Germans can be shockingly unhelpful if they take a notion to be difficult, as I’ve discovered a few times. But that little scenario described by ‘Jenny’s Number’ is more common in France.
One small note, though:
“Nonetheless, it was painfully obvious that they couldn’t speak or understand a word of German either (the Germans lovingly call these types ‘amis’).”
Not just “these types,” but all Americans are called “amis” by the “Germans.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
This article is not about Kyopos or the offspring of expats. It is about adoptees, so abcdefg’s muddily written thesis is off-base here because it is not comparing like with like. (Let’s see, for example, what Romanian or Russian adoptees in the North America deal with and how they deal with it, linguistically.) Koreansentry is crudely ethnocentric (on practically every post) and thinks with his/her blood, arguing that all who share Korean blood have a duty to learn Korean. But I’m not sure about the fascist part because he/she operates below the level of considered ideology, down where knuckles scrape the sidewalk when he/she walks.
“i have noted a curious phenomenon that a lot of the times half japanese children speak fluent japanese because they speak it at home”
I noted the curious phenomenon of a 100% japanese girl living with both japanese parents in england who couldn’t speak japanese because her parents only spoke english in front of her!!
Going for total immersion seemingly, totally unaware that kids exposed to both although a little behind early on tend to rapidly progress in both.
Korean adoptees ought to have it pounded in their heads that if not for overseas adoption they had but one alternative: Death.
Lucky them…having their angst.
Koreans lacked the will – no, the humanity – to care for its most defenseless. Keep that in mind, overseas adoptee, as you embrace your cultural heritage and find an “identity”.
abcdefg wrote:
Whatever. That’s the way you feel about yourself and your family? Fine – so go about telling them what to do. But, as your statements in Nos. 10 and 13 above show, the rest is palpably crap you cast over everyone else.
What is ‘Eurocentrism’ as you use it here, within the context of an English-speaking American adoptee of Korean origin, except a failure to recognise and appreciate cultural difference? Do you imagine all Europeans immediately default to the English language and all things American?Wow, you Asians are all alike.
Germany is not one country–it has the East German Region and the lower Rhine area where northern Germans have trouble understanding low German dialect. The German hicks are constantly riduculed by their northern brothers, huge, and drink more wine than beer.
Um, the last line (‘Wow, you Asians are all alike.’) had ‘sarcasm’ in html tags when I posted it. I would really appreciate an edit on something that is in no way serious.
|Korean adoptees ought to have it pounded in their heads that if not for |overseas adoption they had but one alternative: Death.
You could use a pounding yourself or the alternative u suggest.
gbnhj,
Do you have kids? Do your kids speak a Western language? What if they didn’t? Would you want them to if they didn’t? Would you feel it would it be absolutely OK for European children living in Asia to not be able to speak a European language? Think about this scenario for a moment. See, I don’t care what you do, but I’m betting you’re full of shit.
The point of my posts are: If you see something wrong about Western kids unable to speak any Western language, then you’re no different from Koreansentry. His position is easy to dismiss- I’m sure all of you have heard the argument in some form or another- but you do it while couched comfortably in a Westernized sphere of influence where you aren’t in a situation analogous to , say, the jaemi kyopo’s. I find the dismissive posturing in comments like 3 and 4 rather careless.
Truth is, I don’t care much about it. My grandkids can be ignorant of Korean all they want. It turns out, I don’t believe that Koreans ought to learn Korean– I was being contrarian and hasty yesterday for the sake of a point. I’m pretty sure that at least half of everybody who believe the position represented by Koreansentry is crap would be yapping the same way if they were in a truly similar situation. Being a German or an Irish American who can’t speak Gaelic or German and can only speak English is missing the point here in a very interesting way.
|the missionary couple who told me about this young woman weren’t “pulling out |their hair in frustration and regret.”
Why would they? They’re missionaries passing on an anecdote.
Christ on a drunken rampage, not another story about godforsaken, no-identity-having adoptees and their sob tales. It’s always the same script.
Abcdefg’s logic might apply to immigrant families, kyopos, long-term expats — although there are counter examples. It would not apply to adoptees abandoned by their parent(s) and nation as infants and sent half way around the world like those featured in the NYT, whether the global hegemonic language was English, Chinese (this could happen one day) or Klingon.
Even in a reverse situation, only the most reactionary, racialist fucktards of any nationality would come out as Koreansentry did on this issue.
Some Korean adoptees make the effort, and some adoptive parents go to great lengths to retain their children’s cultural roots for sure. But how can an adoptee growing up in exurban Minnesota in a white neighborhood, raised by white adoptive parents, be expected to learn Korean?
Why would someone who fancies himself a complex and elegant thinker defend the unabashedly atavistic point of view of a moron? Not even our pal pawi, with his omni-directional chauvinism and kneejerk contempt for non-Koreans (except for honorary Filipinos) goes as far in his reactionary rhetoric as the “sentry”.
Who’d have thought that decades of exporting babies would produce some blowback?
Clearly bluejives is more American than he wants to admit….because the only thing Koreans love more than sob tales, is more fucking sob tales. Christ, their entire identity and culture is built on a foundation of sob tales. If you’re not interested in sobbing over the same script repeatedly, then you may want to hand in your membership card.
@ # 9,
wangkon was out celebrating his birthday over the weekend and badly hungover on Sunday. He had a second birthday celebration on Monday and is just a little groggy today.
When did that happen?
@ # 25,
But I’m a registered Republican…
Happy Birthdays, WangKon — for the 7th and the 9th. But how did you manage to get born on two distinctly separate days?
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Re language, I’ve heard rumours that one of the reasons some gyopos speak broken or at least somewhat odd English is because their parents wrongheadedly decided they could ‘help’ their children’s education by speaking to them in (mangled) English. Seems plausible to me.
It’s amazing that people like the grandmother can sell their own blood to a country thousands of miles away and still expect the child to speak Korean. First, there’s the inability to link cause and consequence; and then there’s the chutzpah of imposing a moral obligation on the child (to learn Korean) despite your own dereliction of duty as a parent. Nowadays, even though adoption is less of a problem, you still get Korean parents who send their children away for years to other countries, and then act surprised when the poor kid has trouble re-adapting to Korean society and perhaps would rather stay in the Philippines.
I guess it makes twisted sense if you believe your child is a.) your property to do whatever you like with and b.) carries your essence, Korean language and culture included.
@ # 56,
Damn Chinese calendar!
No seriously… I celebrated with one group of friends (LA crowd) on the 7th and with another group of friends (Orange County crowd) on Monday.
My take on adoptees…
They either hate me and avoid me… because my mere presence proves that they are not white… or… they want to be my friend and are a little creepy about it… kinda like this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_Ge4F4E9JE
About that scene… other than showing a pretty pathetic character in an otherwise good movie, what was the point of it?
There were two adoptees I thought were normal.
1) A guy adopted with his older brother and into a white couple who had like 10 other children also adopted and also non-white. That couple was kind of like a middle-class Angelina Jolie. Pretty cool guy. Had a very pronounced New Jersey accent. Married a Korean-Korean (a gal recently from Korea) who could barely speak English.
2) A gal who was adopted into a Korean woman and American (white) man couple. The American dad let the lady do most of the raising so the gal pretty much turned out like most other Korean Americans.
From my experience, the ones who haven’t convinced themselves that they are white inside and out tend to be the healthiest mentally.
I had the same experience. Everybody seemed to have basic competence in English, and many were quite good at it. People seemed to be slightly offended or bemused if I would ask whether they spoke English or not, as if I were asking them whether they could read, do basic math, etc.
‘other than showing a pretty pathetic character in an otherwise good movie, what was the point of it?’
simply to ridicule asian men while promoting the white man’s fantasy of himself. it ain’t zulus who’ll be running the world. i’m surprised you even needed to ask.
brian-in-cholla, what do you have to say about racist depictions of asian men in your movies. where’s your outrage?
abcdefg,
Rather than simply admitting to a wrongly-held opinion, you retreat with the claim that ‘[i]t turns out, I don’t believe that Koreans ought to learn Korean– I was being contrarian and hasty yesterday for the sake of a point’. Why not simply admit that, for the times and conditions in which we live, koreansentry’s opinion is too extreme?
@63 agreed, although his backpedaling is not as bad as his ridiculous initial stance.
|Even in a reverse situation, only the most reactionary, racialist fucktards of
| any nationality would come out as Koreansentry did on this issue.
So you say. But I disagree. Maybe you’ll get around to showing why when you’re done with the usual internet-creepo rants about the kyopo posters you are obsessed with. Why is comment #2 so bad? I don’t see it. I don’t agree with it literally, but it brings up an issue that I’m sure the Korean folk here are familiar with enough. I am. It’s the kind of thing parents and grandparents would mention at a dinner table; “Koreans should learn Korean,” my grandparents would say.
And my point stands. Most expats here would be the same as Sentry in the reverse situation. That’s what I’m arguing about, the contradiction. It’s not defense of #2 per se that I am interested in.
—
That video Wankgon posted up… Hey, when I watch it I’m thinking it’s funny. That’s Steve Park. He used to be a part of the cast of In Living Color. If you’ve seen the show, you might recall a blonde comedian who was also a part of the show, one of the only two caucasian members, the other being Jim Carrey. She and Park are married.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Park_%28comedian%29
Classic pawi.
The Coen brothers celebrate misanthropy in all their movies. They delight in taking pathetic, sometimes creepy, characters, and inviting the audience to laugh at them (on a deconstructionist level, it’s their secret joke on us: we’re just as bad, no worse, when we crack a smile at their pathetic characters). Note for example that the waitress arrived just as Mike shared his tragic and serious news. The Coens wouldn’t even permit him a dignified moment of catharsis. This man’s tragedy is our comedy . . . and just when you think they can’t undercut him any more, they do. This is a common theme throughout their entire cinematic canon, and they’ve done it with various ethnicities, though most often with white people.
But God fucking forbid they do it to a proud Asian brother! This is evidence of a GLOBAL conspiracy to keep Asians down. Where’s your outrage?
Like I said: classic pawi.
@ cmm, I thought your Chinese, if you are half German then you should at least know how to speak some basic German words.
Anyway, all Koreans (including these mixed and born overseas) need to learn some basic Korean. If you lose your ethnic language then you’ll lose your identity.
Look how many people lost their history to Chinese, American, Russia and British, French and Spanish? Keep your ancestor language alive is at least what you can do for for your ancestors.
gbnhj,
You have me mistimed and mispositioned in the dialectical narrative of things. It’s not Sentry who is right that matters to me, it’s the few responses to him that are wrong. I indicated this much in post 29, before I responded to you, before you had even responded to me. And why don’t you try answering my questions? I’d like to know.
Or you may succeed in replacing it with one that is better (or that you think is better) – as millions of people, deciding for themselves, rather than in accordance with the dictates of one or another self-appointed tribal, ethnic and/or national tyrant, have done all through history.
In my experience with adoptees of Korean ethnicity (albeit limited to four or five such individuals, research, and casual talks with professioal researchers in this area ) there is often an amount of resentment and anger with Korea/Koreans/Korean society in general for having put them in this cultural and ethnic limbo.
How can a kid who grew up in Kansas of Korean descent suddenly understand the silliness that is modern-day Korean culture and society? (I ain’t talking about kimchi and Chuseok. How about the biggies like how a lot of adoptees are (unwanted) females from
married couples; or how–as was stated above–how Koreans think all Koreans must learn and know and fluently speak Korean; and how any person of Korean ethnicity must be 100% in tune with the dominant Korean group-think in its present form at this exact moment (it seems to change every couple of months).
Then, add to the broth an expected understanding of how elders can talk down to
[a Westerner may read "be an asshole to" here] those younger, how–when grannie is being a bitch, it is somehow interpretted as “love.” Finally, such adoptess are expected to understand (once they get to Korea and track down their biological families) that in Korea, we sweep shameful things under the carpet and pretend they never ever existed–and how the unknowing and uninformed K. adoptee showing up and knocking on mommy’s door resurrects the biological K. parent’s stupidity, ignorance, and shameful actions.
What’s not to be angry and/or confused about here?
Who wouldn’t want to proudly declare they are a part of such a wonderful
blood line?
Did y’all know that last week was Hebrew learning week? All across North America, synagogues and JCCs were running crash course programs to get fellow Jews to learn some Hebrew so that they can maintain the Jewish identity. Do y’all know what a “dreidel” is? Look it up, it has an interesting history behind it?
Even Sperwer would not have the balls to go to the Jews and tell them to their face that they might be ethnocentric snobs. And let’s not even mention the fact that Whitey has a big problem with Spanish being the unofficial second language of the US.
‘the depiction of the asian man in the coen movie is simply a view through which we understand oursleves while proving the human condition can be frail. while we don’t want to offend any one group with a fictional depiction of that which is only acted, but not promoted by the camera, is why you’re wrong.’ fauz-granfallon
say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? the scene was a racist piece of garbarge clearly exposing the directum’s sentiment towards asian men. hollywood has long history of racism and you look a bit nuts in trying to deny that.
the scene was racist, plane and simple. it wasn’t even needed in the story. just like black maid cleaning in the background of so many tinseltown extravaganzas.
i never thought i’d see the day a white man would be lecturing koreans on the horrors of racism. that’s why i want brian to write a piece on this, so that i can see he lectures his own while he lectures a thousands year old people. here’s my chinese ode to him:
捶胸大慟
百看不厭
Pawi:
Please don’t make shit up and attribute it to me. It’s exceedingly dishonest.
‘that in Korea, we sweep shameful things under the carpet and pretend they never ever existed–and how the unknowing and uninformed K. adoptee showing up and knocking on mommy’s door resurrects the biological K. parent’s stupidity, ignorance, and shameful actions.
What’s not to be angry and/or confused about here? Who wouldn’t want to proudly declare they are a part of such a wonderful blood line?’ newly arrived angry expat
well, aren’t you proud of yours? you just described an america of yore not too long ago. korea got you down, huh? tsk, tsk, tsk, so saw-ree.
why don’t you go to japan? be sure to use i-maru, the automated information assistant, at the shiny new incheon airport as you leave. please be careful to avoid the door slamming on your ass, which was brought to the world by mcdonalds and the slaughter of billions of cows.
you’re the one being dishonest with that heap of word trash you wrote. just once, i’d like to one of you yahoos stand by your convictions. the scene was just racist. why can’t you just say so?
The main, fatal flaw, in abcdefg’s argument is, I repeat:
“Abcdefg’s logic might apply to immigrant families, kyopos, long-term expats — although there are counter examples. It would not apply to adoptees abandoned by their parent(s) and nation as infants and sent half way around the world like those featured in the NYT, whether the global hegemonic language was English, Chinese (this could happen one day) or Klingon.”
Unless one believes that language is passed on genetically, there is simply no logical basis to expect a transracial adoptee to acquire the language of his land of birth. The language or ethnicity in question has nothing to do with this, except perhaps insomuch as a harder language to acquire as a second tongue might make the expectation even more unreasonable. Only unschooled old grannies (like the one quoted in the NYT) and hardcore nativists (Koreansentry qualifies, based on the written record) would demand this. I have seen countless Japanese-, Korean- and Chinese-Americans who had less than perfect command of those languages struggle with unreasonable motherland expectations and/or claims that they must be mentally stunted.
Now, in the narrower sense that you support the idea that all Koreans (kyopos, emigrants, expats) and their progeny should speak Korean, that’s a widely shared sentiment and thus totally unremarkable — and was therefore not remarked upon above. But it is quite clear that that’s not what Koreansentry meant — even if he’s not quite an “ethnofascist.” (not my term). I’d say an adoptee from Korea who wanted to make a go of the mother country, rather than do a 2-week “roots” tour, would be foolish not to learn at least intermediate Korean before doing it. This reflects my bias, but I think expats (USFK short-termers excluded) are crazy to want to live in Korea without trying to acquire fluency in the language.
I used to think of abcdfg as a reasonably sharp thinker who merely needed a good editor to turn his jargon-riddled, pedantic and awkward prose into something more lucid and readable. Now I have more fundamental questions. And I’d say “internet-creepo” is a bit rich coming from someone who joined this thread with “you assholes trapped in Korea”. I used my pal pawi as a reference point to place Koreansentry beyond the pale of nativist discourse as encountered here at the Marmot’s Hole.
oddly enough I am having this same discussion at http://www.serenityinseoul….She is a Korean adoptee that came back to Korea and has had a rough time adjusting. She is at the tail end of her gig here and has been harrassed by Koreans because she doesn’t speak Korean. This lack of language skills has caused her a lot of grief from Koreans who EXPECT her to know the language of the “motherland”
I commented on her lack of language skills and elicited a response from Sang Shil, another adoptee, who took some umbrage at my comments which basically boiled down to: If you know that you are going to live and work in a foreign country (ANY foreign country) why wouldn’t you make an effort to learn the language?
Marmot might remember Jodi’s blog. She too was an adoptee. She at one point, referenced a blog which i think was called http://www.99.com. It was a site run by Korean adoptees that basically was one long tirade against whitey.
How white folks were stealing poor Korean children from the arms of their parents etc etc. Pretty intense.
Actually pawi, I think you’re the one being racist. The scene portrays the person in question as a man, with flaws and problems. As I mentioned before, the Coen brothers do not have perfect characters, only flawed, human characters. That’s how they write. Their most well-known character is a lazy, not-so-bright, unemployed hippie who goes shopping in his bathrobe and is drunk before noon. And he’s the hero.
But the moment you saw the Asian character on screen, you didn’t see him as a flawed human, like the rest of the characters. You saw him as ASIAN, and therefore special and different from the other characters. In a movie full of oddballs, villains, and a whole bunch of people who are just plain incompetent, it’s the Asian (-American) that upsets you.
The Coen brothers would have only two other options: they could portray their Asian characters as perfect, intelligent, strong people whose farts smell like peppermint. Or, they could simply not include any Asians at all. Either of these options would actually be racist (I hope the irony isn’t lost on you). But not the option they did take: to treat an Asian character the way they treat their other characters. Why do you think Asians should be special?
Speaking of the need for an editor and awkward prose, slim… I now think the lack of an edit button on this blog is tragic for you considering your post at 76. Surely, you can do better than that.
So, does anyone know WTF slim is writing about above? Or, try this quote:
I don’t see, even after piecing together your trainwreck of a post, how what you’re arguing relates to my responses here. I don’t care that this thread is about an adoptee – but I’ll get to that now. Is a trans-racial, Korean adoptee, logically, obligated to learn Korean? I don’t believe so. Nothing grounds it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be sympathetic to the more basic view that Koreans should learn Korean; and, more importanly, that doesn’t mean I can’t find fault in the responses to Koreansentry’s intitial post.
Anyway, since you bring up the subject and I think it’s amusing, many of my posts here certainly can be written in that lazy, “follow me if you can” style, written in the syntax of my thinking as it occurs. I like to keep it raw that way, because I’m carefree that way, and because unlike you, slim, I think good writing is overrated and easy to attain. For the small-minded, the ability to produce a clear sentence is the measure of man. For me, it’s just the mood of the day.
“This lack of language skills has caused her a lot of grief from Koreans who EXPECT her to know the language of the “motherland””
I don’t get this. Just like with Yu Bum Suk who complains about being harassed about getting married. Do they harass you so often that you can’t ignore and put it out of your mind once they’re done? Even if it gets to be often, there’s such a thing called diminishing returns, getting used to the environment, etc etc. For crying out loud, we’re not in high school any more.
well, they could have decided to film the asian guy banging the white chick but they didn’t do that, did they? that would have shown flaws too since the lady was cheating on her husband.
your argument is ridiculous; their depiction is par for the course in hollywood. this is nothing new for the asian man in hollywood. don’t get mad when payback comes. the chinese are going to have a vibrant cinema one day. something tells me you guys better fasten your seatbelts.
it’s going to be a bumpy night.
don’t forget the boone’s farm.
I’m having a blast watching John Cho in FlashForward. Hey Babelfish dude, you should check it out. It’s almost therapeutic. Even though his acting kinda sucks.
But umm, I’m not fully convinced babelfish guy is a korean guy. That’s just disgraceful. Babelfish. What the fuck.
Trying to decipher alphabet-soup-man’s prose is about as painful as trying to figure out yuna’s stream of babble.
NetizenKim, that was a good point about Jews and their desire to have their kids learn hebrew. My feeling is, koreans oveseas and in general don’t care nearly as much about having their kids learn korean. So this entire thread, I feel, is kinda unnecessary. Koreans just aren’t that ethnocentric when it comes to language, is my opinion, despite what they *say* to you.
Steve Park’s scene in Fargo was just really odd and off-beat. The character’s being Asian isn’t key. I’m not a fan of Fargo or the directors, but that scene and movie are best perceived as a film with post-racial intent. The character that Park was playing represented that individual only, a guy named Mike, who has a fucked up life, and who happens to be Japanese-American.
You’re welcome, Netizen Douche! How’s that dated, Christian brainwash doing for you today? Still soaking?
Some linguists believe that language is so central to the formation and framing of thought, so intrinsic to understanding the nuances and mores of a society that culture and language are basically inseparable. Those of you who are truly bilingual might already know this, at a deeper level than can be expressed in words.
It is not unreasonable at all to want Koreans to learn or at least attempt to learn their mother tongue. I can’t understand the virulent objection to this harmless sentiment. Why feel threatened by this?
hey! it’s called stream of consciousness.
a la recherche du temps perdu and by james joyce.
people who’ve met kim jongil say he does it too. it’s the style of people whose brain works faster than they can express, with the effect of discontinued, jerky, jumping around topics.
oh, and typical of pisces women. that’s why at one point i thought that abcdefg might be a sister too.
By the logic of your argument, people who grow up not learning Korean language are not Korean at all regardless of their ostensibly Korean ethnic origins – all the more so if they are enculturated in some other language – so please explain again how it’s reasonable to force or regard all such people as obligated to learn Korean language.
At least some of us are not “threatened” by the Nazification of language enunuciated by Koreansentry but, rather, repelled by the implicit gross violation of individual liberty it entails.
yes but the problem is phenomenology, innit- as the article demonstrates, the fact is that there *are* adoptees who, like migrating salmons, are drawn to searching for where they have come from. Not all, but some, and for them it would be nice if they did learn the language.
and even the ones that i’ve met who *are* bitter, might be able to benefit from understanding the language. because at a nitty gritty basic level, a korean grandma telling you “you should learn korean” sounds so much better in korean.
What? I’m not a sister, the last time I checked, but I am a Pisces.
Shit, there’s goes my anonymity. In the future, stalkers and internet-creepos will refer to this very post to try to figure out who I really am. : (
OOOOh!
that was my first correct prediction as an armchair astrologer – congrats to me!- never would have guessed wangkon was a scorpio though.
“so please explain again how it’s reasonable to force or regard all such people as obligated to learn Korean language.”
Isn’t the assumption here that adoptees go back to korea “in search of their roots”, “to find their identity”, in other words to become in some not insignificant way, more korean? Well, then it makes perfect sense. In order to become korean, you must learn its language.
Not at all. Note that I did not say that ethnicity and language are inseparable. I said that culture and language are inseparable.
And also note that I never said it was reasonable to “force” ethnic Koreans to learn Korean (and neither did Koreansentry, that was projected entirely by you in your “enthno-fascist” comment).
At some point in our lives, we all want to discover where we came from, who we are. No one is forcing these adoptees to go to Korea or learn about their past. They do so of their own volition, why deny them the most valuable tool to achieve that goal?
I hope you’re joking here. It’s a gross violation of individual liberty to want to learn about your culture? To want to communicate with your family?
tell that to a 80 year old korean grandma who tells you to learn korean..
in korean…
I don’t think anybody here will argue that a transnational adoptee who doesn’t have the slightest interest in having anything to do with korea has a “moral obligation” to learn the language. You’re really straining after a straw man, if that were the case, to the point that I have to wonder about your true intentions in arguing against it.
할머니, 죄송하지만, 할머니의 정당치 못한 요구는 서양에서 자란 제 개인의자유를 무참히 짓밟는 행위입니다. 존중하지 못할거면 조용히 꺼져주세여.
할머니: 뭐라고? 안들려? 귀신 씨나락 까먹는 소리 자주 하는겨?
ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
‘I’m having a blast watching John Cho in FlashForward. Hey Babelfish dude, you should check it out. It’s almost therapeutic. Even though his acting kinda sucks. But umm, I’m not fully convinced babelfish guy is a korean guy.’
i don’t give a shit about john cho. there’s no need to einstein this. the scene was racist. i want brian to write a post about it. i want to see him crying about his own. i don’t wanna see no john cho. i wanna see consistency.
btw, i love his opinionated piece of drivel in the korea times. the nerve of him trying to tell koreans how to speak english in korean. do koreans try to tell him how to say the ‘l’ in pulgogi? do they tell him the ‘w’ in ‘kwe’ is often pronounced so lightly he might not even here it? i tire of his bellyaches and think he needs to take a dulcolax, though people on or near korean waterways should be forwarned; the guy’s so full of it, there’s gonna be a flood.
捶胸大慟 百看不厭
나는 죤 cho에 관하여 배설물을 주지 않는다. 아무 필요도 아인슈타인이 이것 없다. 장면은 인종 차별적이었다. 나는 brian를 그것에 관하여 포스트를 쓰는 원한다. 나는 그를 그 자신에 관하여 우는 보고 싶다. 나는 죤 cho를 보고 싶지 않다. 나는 견실함을 보고 싶다.
btw, 나는 한국 시간에 있는 drivel의 그의 독단적인 조각을 사랑한다. 한국사람에게 말하는 것을 시도해 그의 신경 한국어에 있는 영어를 말하는 방법. 한국사람을 그에게 말하는 것을 시도한다 ‘를 말하는 방법 하십시오; l’ pulgogi에서? 그들은 그에게 ‘를 말한다; w’ ‘에서; kwe’ 수시로 발음해 이렇게 가볍게 그는 여기에서 그것 조차 인가? 나는 그의 bellyaches에 사람들 위에 또는 가까운 한국 수로가 forwarned 하더라도 피로하게 하고 그가 dulcolax를 가지고 갈 다는 것을 생각한다; guy’ 그것, there’의 s 이렇게 충분히; 홍수이기 위하여 가는 s.
Wait a minute! I’ll have to retract my post about Fargo. I think Pawi may be on to something.
‘Fargo’ is directed by the Coen Bros, right? Aren’t they the same guys who most recently directed and released a ‘A Serious Man’, and isn’t this the same movie that depicts a petulant Korean student and his father blackmailing a professor in the film? Right…
–
My halmeoni is the one who nagged me incessantly about learning Korean, among other things… always asking me about whether I go to church and believe in Jesus. One money quote (translated from Korean): “Ok, I’m fine now with the interracial dating, just please don’t marry blacks.” Grandma, I love you, but sometimes you’re right, and sometimes you’re just wrong.
pawi, stop using babelfish.
I’m having a blast watching John Cho in FlashForward.
Did John Cho get to pork Gabrielle Union yet or what? I don’t have cable.
OHHHH HELLS Yeah, that was cool. John Cho and Gabrielle. Goodness that is a hot combo. John Cho even gets to correct a motherfucker for calling him chinese, heh heh heh. How do you not know about HULU? Watch it now, man.
http://www.hulu.com/flash-forward
“Shit, there’s goes my anonymity. In the future, stalkers and internet-creepos will refer to this very post to try to figure out who I really am. : (”
Reminds me of something strange that happened a few weeks ago–I was searching google images for some chick, clicked a pic, and the page that I landed on was an angry-asian-man blog where they were talking about our very own Netizen Kim. I read the entry, and apparently Net Kim had found the page too, because not only did he comment, he gave some personal info about himself. Three minutes later with a few google searches, I learned one of our angriest Asian men’s name, email addy, etc.
Don’t worry NK, I’m not going to out you, that’d be a dick move. You just need to be more careful if you are trying to maintain anonymity. It pretty much fell in my lap. Had one been on a mission to find you out, I doubt it would be so hard.
NK, you don’t have cable? Flash Forward is not on cable. It’s network… ABC.
Anyone know a good work-around to watch hulu in Korea? they are catching on to some of the proxy server progs that were designed to view hulu out of the USA.
And what was the angry thing that I wrote, cmm? I write a bunch of stuff on several different places. It’s hard to keep track.
NK, you don’t have cable? Flash Forward is not on cable. It’s network… ABC.
I have an HD antenna and tuner. For some damn reason it doesnt pick up ABC.
It was some of your tired drivel about Asian women, race, etc. Yeah, that doesn’t narrow it down at all, does it. I think it was something that the blogger lifted from here originally.
If you want to know specifically what I found that immediately betrayed your anonymity, just ask, and I’ll email you and let you know. It’s something you could fix pretty easily.
My thoughts on language. Sure, if you feel a connection to a culture then knowing that culture’s language certainly helps you feel more connected I suppose.
The bottom line is that learning a new language (or keeping a seldom used one) takes up a lot of time and effort. People tend to spend time to learn something when there is some kind of economic incentive involved. Why are Americans rushing to learn Mandarin? If an ethnic Korean’s life revolves around knowing English, Russian, Japanese or Spanish well (Korean Chinese still retain their Korean language capabilities well), then they are going to spend most of their time conversing in that language because it is important to their livelihood. Given those considerations, I don’t think any insular and crabby Korean ajossi’s opinion is all that important. Quite frankly, it’s actually none of their business either.
You don’t agree with my theory? How unfortunate.
I probably didn’t agree, but then again I probably didn’t read it all. Reading “your” “theories” often feels like listening to fingernails scraping down a chalkboard. One’s own fingernails.
I put quotes around “your” because a lot of your material isn’t your own, and “theories” because they are usually just ridiculous ramblings from an angry man.
How about because it was fucking hilarious, and it was one piece (of which there were several) in the character development of Marge, showing her interacting with numerous people in her quirky, yet straightforward and personable manner that made her a great character.
If you’re at all familiar with the Coen brothers work, you’d know that their films are stock full of pathetic characters. In fact, pretty much every single character in Fargo except Marge is pathetic. The entire point is making her the moral center and showing how she interacts with the various criminals, goofballs, and dipshits around her.
If you’re going to complain about the portrayal of the Asian dude, you better also complain about the two goofy white hookers, the dipshit Native American mechanic, the dumbass white cop partner, the dunce of a white husband, the white fool Jerry Lundegard, the white asshole father-in-law, and on and on.
And if you’re going to complain about all of them…then you either need to seriously consider dialing back your offense-o-meter, or just stop watching films altogether.
Wanna bet?
No? WTF does this, which started off the entire discussion, mean, then:
Right, and in so doing you effectively have demolished the cogency of any claim that ethnicity and language are coterminus and hence the plausibility that ethnicity alone justifies any imperative, such as the one pronounced by Korean sentry, to learn a language
I didn’t say you did.
Sentry unequivocably stated that it was the “obligation” of every ethnic Korean to learn Korean. My use of the word “force” in the comment to which you allude was a deliberate overstatement, but one which I’m prepared to stand by because I’m certain from other comments by Koreansentry and others of his stripe here and elsewhere that they wouldn’t shy away from employing the same in pursuit of their pathological dream of a single Korean
volkminjung.I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that someone like you who takes issue with claims about their position that have never been made would nevertheless be so quick to mischaracterize my position. Of course, I never said that adoptees should be deprived of a tool that may help them recover their past. Nor that wanting to learn about the culture of your birth parents or communicate with your family is a violation of individual liberty. Only an ignoramus or a a dishonest sophist would suggest as much. My point was that just as they should be free to do so, they should be free from being burdened with any claim that they are “obligated” to do either by ethnic chauvinists like koreansentry.
Yeah, and of course my question to you is, even if Koreansentry is making that crazy argument, why in the hell would you feel the NEED to respond to it with accusations of “Korean ethno fascism” and what not? Get a grip, man.
define “need.”
“define “need.””
“others of his stripe here and elsewhere that they wouldn’t shy away from employing the same in pursuit of their pathological dream of a single Korean volk minjung.”
The need to blow everything even remotely negative about korea way out of proportion. For fucks sake, for the vast majority of koreans anywhere on this planet putting food on the table and sending their kids to a good college and generally living the good life so far dominates anything in their list of priorities that bringing up any discussion of a collective “pathological dream” that’s in any way related to some serious problem of racial nationalism is disingenuous at best and stupid and really just plain nasty at worst. What is it about some of these people here that makes them so hateful towards Korea if not towards everybody in general who happen to get on their nerves? But then, I actually prefer openly hating people like Sperwer over spineless retards like DLBarch.
I happen to agree with the vituperative green grocer that most Koreans are sensibly focused on the pursuit of happiness. Which begs the questions:
why both much of official Korean discourse and the rantings of some of the nutizens in these pages manifest such an urgent need to press an ethno-nationalist agenda with dangerous implications for both such laudable interest in individual self-determination and Korea’s interaction with the rest of the world, e.g., North Korea generally and the ROK
“bird-shit island”Dokdo being serious and farcical examples of poster children therefor; andwhether the hegemonic force of such ideology in the political discourse and practice of Korea is likely to promote or retard the realization of such individual goals.
I'd be delighted to leave Korea to its own devices, but see there's this little problem of this tar baby having its hand in my tax dollars and playing a significant role in the economy of my world.
My overseas Chinese friends who weren’t fluent in Chinese told me that they did not get hassled by locals for not speaking the language well, unlike most gyopos I knew in Korea. The following conversation perfectly illustrates the difference in mindset between Koreans and Chinese:
Passenger: (boarding) I’m trying to get to (someplace)
Bus driver: (gives directions)
Passenger: I didn’t understand all of that. Could you please repeat that?
Bus driver: (repeats)
Passenger: What does (some phrase) mean?
Bus driver: (explains and then asks) What country are you from?
Passenger: I’m Chinese. I’m from (some region).
The bus driver did not berate the passenger for not speaking Mandarin fluently nor did any of the other passengers even have a discussion about it.
I think the difference is that Chinese will routinely encounter other Chinese who are not fluent in Mandarin, being from another region where a different language is spoken.
#117,
I never made the claim that ethnicity and language are “coterminus”. Again, I was talking about culture and language.
In my second comment I hinted at the connection between ethnicity and and the imperative to learn a language by pointing out that Korean adoptees have a desire to learn their culture, in which case they owe it to themselves to at least familiarize themselves with the language, as it holds the key to truly understanding a culture.
So the key question is: why do these Korean adoptees desire to learn Korean culture? If not because of their Korean ethinicity then what? Can you answer that?
You can work yourself into a self-righteous frenzy about Korean ethno-fascism and the Nazification of language (lol) all you want. But I think you are completely missing the point here.
You also asked me to
implying that it was my position to force all Korean adoptees to learn Korean. This is an obvious strawman as no one in this thread has suggested such a thing except you, with your off the wall hyperbole and crazy accusations of ethno-fascism and such.
No, you didn’t say that directly, but when you use such strong rhetoric to equate a proponent of Koreans learning Korean with a fascist, nazi, etc., you make it clear that you find the whole idea repulsive. I can’t understand why anyone would feel that way.
And why do you seem to manifest such an urgent need to equate any innocent comment (like Koreans learning Korean) with the devious workings of a fascist, nationalist agenda. What are these dangerous implications you speak of? Today Korea forces all Koreans to learn Korean, tomorrow the WORLD!
The way you describe it you would think that TMH was the Korean equivalent of Stormfront of something. Get a grip.
Pawikirogii wrote (74):
well, aren’t you proud of yours? you just described an america of yore not too long ago. korea got you down, huh? tsk, tsk, tsk, so saw-ree.
why don’t you go to japan? be sure to use i-maru, the automated information assistant, at the shiny new incheon airport as you leave. please be careful to avoid the door slamming on your ass, which was brought to the world by mcdonalds and the slaughter of billions of cows.
Response:
. . . . . . . . . . . . .No response. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Exit86 chooses not to respond to primary school-level comments]
‘. . . . . . . . . . . . .No response. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Exit86 chooses not to respond to primary school-level comments] ‘ angry expat
what a moron! i was doing shit like that long ago. it’s a tired strategy.
try again.
There you go again.
I never suggested such an equation.
I objected to sentry’s claim that anyone of Korean ancestry is “obligated” to learn Korean.
If Korean adoptees, and any other member of the Korean diapsora, want to learn Korean, good on them and godspeed; I couldn’t care less, really, one way or another.
Suggesting that they are “obligated” to do so,though, seems to me to be adding insult to injury to an already injured, and often deliberately wronged, group of people – in the case of adoptees. And that’s repellent, both on a simple human level and for what it strongly suggests about the disrespect for individual choice and freedom on the part of proponents of the view that they, and any other persons of Korean ethnicity, are “obligated” to learn the language and the culture. If you don;t understand what that position conceivably entails, I suggest you sign in for a refresher course at Kwan-li-so No.22 Haengyong or one of the other camps that the NORKS so thoughtfully provide those north of the 38th who haven’t gotten with the program. [And, no, I'm not suggesting that i expect anything similar to materialize in the ROK - although it's worth remembering that the ROK had its own version of such places not so very long ago - but even when the mindset that produces such abominations stops short of doing so, it can produce other effects that are harmful to individual choice and liberty].
My only quarrel with you, aside from your persistent willful misrepresentation of my position, is what I, reading your words at face value, understood to be your defense of sentry’s position when you prattled on about the connection between culture and language, concluding: “It is not unreasonable at all to want Koreans to learn or at least attempt to learn their mother tongue.”
This is either trivially unobjectionable – if by all Koreans it is meant ethnic Koreans people born and living on the peninsula and entitled to full rights of citizenship in the Korean state – or it’s quite problematic – if “Koreans” is intended, as sentry clearly does, to subsume all people of Korean ancestry everywhere in the world.
You attempted to overcome this problematic, it seemed to me, with your claims about the relation between language and culture. I simply pointed out that your argument fails, because by its own terms ethnic Koreans who don’t learn Korean but some other language must then be regarded as having been enculturated in the culture of the language(s) they did learn and, consequently, it makes no sense to claim that they must learn Korean in order to learn their own culture.
It was a nice try, nonetheless – although you could have made the argument much more cogently if you really knew anything about the linguistic theories to which you alluded – but I guess I overestimated what you were trying to accomplish or perhaps what you are capable of accomplishing as a thinker. Good luck with the florist business.
sonagi,
伱的諷刺刺激我
Hey Sperwer, you failed to answer the central question:
You couldn’t have missed it. So why did you avoid it? The answer is not trivial,
it gets right to the heart of the matter.
You pointed this out previously? where? It doesn’t matter because this is a
painfully contrived argument that you just made up. Critically, if fails because
it assumes that a person can only be of one culture – the one you are
enculturated in, the one associated with the language of your upbringing. Yet
the real life examples of the adoptees profiled in the article clearly
illustrate that this is not the case. Even the kids who have had no contact with
Koreans, no knowledge of Korea (and their evil ethno-fascist language nazis),
feel an almost biological imperative to connect with the culture. Why? The
question has already been asked. A question you refuse to answer.
Funny, I’ve seen you use that exact same ad hominem on someone else a while ago, accusing them of being incapable of advanced thought or some such drivel. If I recall, you were pretty flustered in that thread, increasingly relying on personal attacks and incomprehensibly dense verbiage to mask the sloppy thinking and weak logic underneath.
Your argument that I quoted above is a perfect example. Strip the verbiage and it boils down to – If Koreans grow up with a language other than Korean, they are no longer culturally Korean, so why do they need to learn Korean in order to learn their culture? Sperwer, that is an argument for simpletons. I’m disappointed in you, but not really as insulted as I should be, because I would never mistake a wordsmith for a thinker.
Sperwer speaks of individual choice and liberty. Often, these things are merely an illusion.
What say did the adoptees have in the fateful decision to send them abroad to be raised by white families in a foreign country? To what degree did individual choice and liberty play in any of this?
International adoption is nothing less than another form of human trafficking. Human trafficking is the practice of displacing individuals, against their will or without their consent, into alien environments. In this sense, international adoption is a distant cousin of the slave trade.
In that sense, ANY adoption is a distant cousin of the slave trade. Just varying degrees of “alieness.”
131 – Right. Thank God most of us had the presence of mind at 6 months old to argue strenuously against any suggestion we might be sent to an orphanage, or God forbid, abroad.
@131
That’s a good argument against Locke’s tacit consent, not… international adoption.
I have asked this before and I will ask it again, why the strong preference for Asian babies by do-gooder Americans? Why not babies from places like Africa?
Madonna and Angelina have taken all available African kids.
I don’t think ordinary childless US couples are thinking in do-gooder mode when seeking to adopt. It’s more a function of availibility, cost, transaction time, etc.
There was for a time great demand for Russian babies as well as Romanian children but after a number of horror stories regarding the physical and mental health of these children the demand, at least in the states has dried up.
A decade or so ago there was a number of white families that adopted African American children but that resulted in charges of racial genocide not too different from some Korean adoptees.
No good deed shall go unpunished.
No good deed shall go unpunished.
Don’t you mean “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”?
Children not adopted don’t choose their parents or communities either. Kids whose brains are permanently damaged by the mother’s prenatal substance abuse didn’t have any choice. Kids raised in unstable homes with a neglectful parent have too much liberty and not enough security. Children have little control over the things that make them happy or unhappy, but adults DO. You and your life are what you make it.
No joke–I saw in the Chicago papers about 10 years ago a Q&A self-help article where the friend of adoptive parents asked this question:
Q: My friends recently adopted a baby from Korean. When she grows up, what language will it speak?
141 – Well, according to several of our illustrious correspondents here, that girl better be speaking Korean — or else.
Netizenkim.
I think it depends on the family. You might remember Natasha’s story of TED.com. It seems to me, a non adoptee, that THIS particular family did everything right by making sure that Ung Sook had an understanding of her Korean heritage and yet if you read the comments on TED.com one would think that her adopted family were the spawn of Satan.
Go fuck yourself.
Who the fuck do you think you are to able to tell any adoptee how to feel?
Really, go fuck yourself, asshole.
You’ve never heard of Ethiopian adoptees? Peruvian? Guatemalan? Russian? Ecuadorian? This “strong preference” exists in your own warped head.
My theory is that these American do-gooders were educated with Korean textbooks, and are now deathly afraid that an African baby will come equipped with a loin cloth, spear, and a bone-through-the-nose.
yeah, thank god they are not educated with some variant of a failed globalized british comedy:
Korean textbooks are a variant of failed comedy. It’s just unintentional.
Btw, here are the relevant statistics for foreign-born adoptions from the 2000 census. Page 12.
Korea still on top! World best #1!!! Suck it Japan!
unintentionally failed?
that’s a good thing then..
Unintentional comedy. Look it up.
@ # 93,
Why wouldn’t you think I’m a scorpio? I actually think I fit the standard profile of a scorpio quite well.
@ # 123,
A very succinct and accurate rebuttal.
@ 114,
IHBB… times are changing. Asian American men are being given more realistic and challenging roles in media, whether or not it’s as an anchorman for ESPN News or the guy who get’s the girl at the end. But for a VERY long time Asian American men were generally given role as the most pathetic, weakest or pitiful comic relief character.
Expats are sensitive of how they are portrayed in Korean media and I think that’s understandable. Can’t Asian American men be equally concerned with how media in the states portray them?
@ #143,
I’d say that Natasha had the good fortune of being able to blend in very nicely into middle America given her corporeal likeness to the typical white American. However, I was a little confused as to why she had a fobby accent given she’s been in America for so long.
I fail to see the putative centrality of this question to the issue raised by my objecting to Koreansentry’s ethnic imperative about learning the langauge of one’s birth parents even if one is raised in another culture – which is the only issue with which I am concerned.
As far as the question itself is concerned, you now seem to be saying that Korean adoptee’s desire to learn Korean is “determined” by their ethnicity. That’s a bit (racist) nonsense, which also happens to contradict your original assertion that language is a function of culture not ethnicity. As for why any particular adoptee decides to learn or not learn Korean, I think you’d have to ask them. In any event, it’s simply irrelevant to my argument with Korean sentry – unless of course, contrary to your originally expressed culturalist argument you do subscribe to a racial (and racist) notion that culture itself is biologically determined – as suggested by your current comment that “Even the kids who have had no contact with “Koreans …. feel an almost biological imperative to connect with the culture.”
Well, now I see that your reading comprehension level also is quite deficient. I made the point in my original response to your first comment @ 90 and again in 117; sorry it wasn’t dumbed down into the Cliff’s Notes version for you.
And I didn’t make the contrived argument about culture; you did. I simply pointed out that your argument didn’t and couldn’t support the position you were adducing it to defend. Neither does your current reference to the fact that in the real world people often have not one but a multiplicity of cultural identities, which may be more or less compatible or incompatible with one another. Assuming that to be the case may explain why someone may want to explore ones other than their ostensibly “primary” one. It does not explain or justify the claim that s/he is “obligated” to do so.
failed comedy = bad
unintentional comedy =bad
unintentionally failed comedy = quite a feat.
unintentionally failed comedy = Inchon
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084132/
Quite a feat.
i have a babelfish in my brain which switches on when i read anything by koreansentry, (or baduk) which translates it all into korean. then i fail to hear the ethnic imperative. i think that’s the whole point about languages.
Sorry Everyone.
PM for Pawikirogii:
I’d love to meet with you in person to discuss this issue at length.
Where are you based? I am based in Seoul at the moment.
Please e-mail me (exitplan86@yahoo.com) and we can arrange
a time and a place to sit down and talk over coffee.
I travel a great deal to the US and Canada, so I’d be happy to meet with
you wherever you may be.
Take care.
We always have choices, although they sometimes may be severely constrained or even tragically limited. The best of the Holocaust literature makes this plain.
In the case of adoptees, few if any had any choice, except (if they were old enough to be capable of doing so) acquiescing or rebelling against their adoption. This wasn’t a difficult matter for the one adoptee with whom I am friends, who narrowly escaped being killed by the ROK police in the late ’50s when, according to him, the authorities routinely “disappeared” street kids who hadn’t made it into the orphanage system, particularly if they were obviously not pure Korean, i.e., fathered by foreign servicemen during the war and its immediate aftermath. Others have had a much more difficult adjustment, apparently in very many cases projecting onto their adoptive parents and country/culture the complex emotions that, psychologically, are more appropriately directed to their birth parents and country/culture. BTW, it’s interesting that NK includes the qualifier “white” where the description of the adoptive families as “foreign” would have sufficed to convey the essential nature of the problem of adoption outside of the sib.
What can one say about the final paragraph except to observe that it’s logic seems to be on a par with that of the phrase “Arbeit macht frei” or any of the many examples of Newspeak provided by Orwell in 1984.
That’s sad, sobering and frightening.
sperwer, i thought you spoke korean fluently..
even if you are tattooed muscular man in your 60′s you’ll still get a clip around the ear by a korean grandma in her 70′s if you started reasoning the way you do – would you punch her in the face for that?
Much of my personhood is described by “Asian American”; indeed, all things considered, “Asian American” may be simplied to “Asian.” I.e., I am Asian. This pretty much covers a central part, the soul, of who I am. “Expat,” however… I hope you expat guys haven’t lived in Korea for so long that “expat” should make up such a significant part of who you are. Add to this the fact that Asians don’t have decades of internationally known, popular movies portraying them in the best light. So let’s kill the comparison between expats and Asian Americans. Itsy-bitsy news segments about “expats” should be nothing to cry about.
It’s a real shame that Clark Kent’s parents did nothing, nothing to allow young Clark to explore his Kryptonian heritage. It’s quite telling that only after Clark’s own exploration of his heritage did he truly find himself, and become a “super” man.
However, he still couldn’t speak Kryptonian. It’s okay, though, because apparently, Jor-El spoke English. Makes sense: he was white.
Three out of four ain’t bad.
abcdefg,
BUT… as an expat is one of the few times that one can actually feel like what it’s like to be a minority… to be physically “different” if not somewhat culturally different then most everyone around them. You and I understand what this is like on a daily basis. In a generally accepting culture like most of America in the 21st century it’s not a big deal most of the time, but there are several things that stick out and are irritating. How much Hollywood films dump on Asian American men (while elevating Asian American woman to an almost objectified level) are one of those irritating things.
Granfalloon,
Reminds me of what the Marlon Brando Jor-El said, “He will look like one of them… he will blend in.”
Passably, not fluently; and having come at it from English, French and German I was (and am) not likely to succumb to the sort of ethnic solipsism that you suggest (and I agree) it reifies.
Please, I haven’t had my hwan-gap yet.
People generally – grandma’s included – as a rule hesitate, and (excepting Korean taxi drivers and other ajosshi with IQs lower even than their testosterone levels, who get to learn the hard way) make the correct decision not, to try to get physical with me. Since grandmas also don’t represent a significant threat, unless they are holding a 10 inch chopping knife or an umbrella, I normally just let them hurt themselves by landing a punch or two and verbally excoriate them for being ignorant and rude – although I did once pick up one who whacked me with an umbrella while trying to cut in front of me at a ticket counter where I had been waiting for 30 minutes and literally threw her to the back of the line. She was pretty hardy, though; if she had been enfeebled I probably would have acted the the other role of the gentleman.
sometimes I can’t figure out the point of yuna’s babble.
funny sperwer, 환갑도 안지냈으면, 아직 영계구먼..your story reminds me of that scene in gran torino where clint eastwood has that exchange with the asian grandma next door.
cmm, only “sometimes” ? that’s good..
the point of my babble is why god put woman on earth – no point- just entertainment.
In some cases, yes. Some adoptees do learn Korean when they grow up. Why? Can you point to another reason that doesn’t ultimately trace back to their ethnicity?
No I do not subscribe to that notion. That’s nonsense. If you told these adoptees that they were Chinese, they would be going to China and learning Chinese to reconnect with their culture.
But the universal drive to connect with (what they think is) their ethnic identity, to BELONG, is the same regardless, and THAT may or may not be biologically determined. Maybe a product of human evolution. It’s a basic human instinct that ties together ethnicity, culture and language. To disregard it entirely, or to ascribe it to some enthno-fascist motive is pretty ignorant on your part.
How so? I deconstructed your argument and showed what an amateur logician you are. Are you just re-asserting that very same argument here? Or do you have anything new to add?
First of all, I never made the argument that people of Korean ancestry have an obligation to learn Korean whether they wanted to or not. I made this clear several times. Why are you still stuck on it? And why do you continue to misrepresent my position?
Secondly, you are again just re-asserting an argument. When a response starts with something like “I already proved that…”, or “As already shown…” or something to that effect, it’s a sure sign that you’ve exhausted your capacity to actually argue a point.
I know the predictable Sperwer response would be to question my “reading comprehension” or to say that I lack the “intellectual capacity” to understand or some nonsense, but I assure you, I understand you perfectly. I’m just not buying what you’re selling.
I do admire the occasional old man who has to resort to doing it all with smoke and mirrors though. No longer as intellectually nimble as he once was, easily flustered, given to fits of crankyness. But when coupled with an insufferable attidude such as yours, it’s downright pathetic. Maybe you should stick to pumping iron and throwing little old Korean grandmothers to the back of the line. LOL.
Actually, the only way in which age has changed me since I was a stripling is that I am no longer at all willing to suffer fools, bad manners, cant, bad logic or bad prose (or poetry, music, films, etc) in silence – although that may have to do less with age than with no longer being tempted to trim my course to catch a payday.
In your original comment you objected to my criticism of sentry’s claim that every person of Korean ancestry is “obligated” to learn korean, saying
Since you can’t defend that claim with any plausible argument, you now say you didn’t make it.
You’ve now demonstrated that you are not only intellectually feeble but dishonest. I’m done with you. Rave on, if you want.
You certainly fit the standard profile of a USC “grad” quite well.
@ # 170,
What? Graduating with $30k in college loan debt?
you on the right blog? maybe you meant to type http://www.rjkoelher.com
denkst du nicht dass man den Satz “mach schnell” besser versteht wenn man flussig deutsch spricht? moi, je crois ca..on peut comprendre la psyche de la nation seulement par la langue…
or maybe others will think it is equated to stockholm syndrome..
“the point of my babble is why god put woman on earth – no point- just entertainment.”
That’s why I like Yuna — funny, and honest to a fault.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Sperwer, I never made the claim that people of Korean ancestry should be forced to learn Korean. Far from it.
Show me where I made that claim. Put up or shut up. It’s intellectually dishonest, and I see right through it, as would anyone else who has been following along.
I think you are a little confused here Sperwer. Please go back and reread my original comment (#87). I wasn’t responding to you. Nor did I reference Koreansentry’s (or anyone else’s) comment. So where did you get this impression? Perhaps you have me confused with someone else? Do you often have trouble keeping things straight?
LOL. Yes, take your ball and go home, you sore loser. There you will be free to rant and rave all you want about those dangerous ethno-fascist Korean language nazis. LOL.
@ # 166 and # 173,
That reminds me of a quote from Mad Magazine:
“… and man was lonely so God created woman… But man soon tired of woman so on the eighth day God created Monday Night Football.”
Isn’t Monday the ninth day? The Ancient of Days must have gotten confused . . .
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Well I paraphrased incorrectly. The correct quote, I just found out, is:
“…and on the eight day, God created Woman. And when man grew tired of woman, God created Monday Night Football.”
A couple more things.
Adoptee poster girl, the Hipster Grifter, gets a Law & Order episode based on her!
http://gawker.com/5375354/hipster-grifter-law–order-with-hot-dogs
The actress who plays Ferrell is a lot hotter.
An adoptee and awkward moments in a Korean restaurant…
http://iamkoream.com/awkward-korean-restaurant-moments/
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