Kim Seong-kon penned an interest column in the Korea Herald about the assumptions people make about a person’s language abilty based on their physical appearance. Here’s a sample:
Perhaps, then, such discrimination has something to do with Korean-Americans’ physical appearance? Since they look like us, we naturally expect them to speak Korean. When we find them unable to speak Korean, we lose interest in them (unless we want to practice English with them.) At the same time, there are those ultra-nationalists who assert, “Korean-Americans are essentially Korean, so they should be able to speak Korean. Otherwise, they are not Koreans.” It seems many people look first at others’ physical appearances to conjure up certain stereotypes and assumptions about languages the person can or should speak.
On the other hand, in Korean language classes at American universities, Korean-American students sometimes benefit unfairly due to their physical appearance. In his recent newspaper article entitled, “Red Alert: Korean Language Education in the United States,” professor Emanuel Pastreich at Kyung Hee University points out that Korean language instruction revolves around Korean-American students only, thereby alienating European or African-American students who want to learn the Korean language seriously. He argues that many Korean-American students, called “heritage students,” tend to take Korean language courses not because they are particularly interested in Korea, but in order to earn an easy “A.” And yet, language instructors, who are invariably graduate students from Korea, naturally assume that Korean-Americans are much better prepared to learn the Korean language than European or African-Americans, and thus favor the former in class.
Several years ago, I wrote a little “episode” story like this for 좋은생각. We were in a restaurant in Myeong-dong, and the girl comes over to take our order. I give the order, and she confirms with my wife. A small conversation develops in this way—she asks my wife something, I answer, she responds to my wife. It took a little bit for the girl to realize my wife didn’t speak Korean (although she does now), and the Round Eye did.
I used to get upset at things like that. Now I mostly find it amusing.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Years ago I took a couple Hebrew classes at the Israel center in Kangnam. The teachers were Korean bible scholars who had studied in Israel but, I think, then worked in Korean university theology departments.
I should mention here that I’m white and look Jewish, to the trained eye.
I felt all kinds of pressure when one of the teachers announced to the class that I would be beating them all in Hebrew in no time, because “people like JD can learn Hebrew quickly.”
In the end , she was wrong. There was this Korean guy in the class who already spoke French and Chinese and pretty good English. He learned Hebrew really fast. I got discouraged and dropped out.
I read Kim Seong-kon’s article with amusement. He implied that there was a subtle form of racism to be found in aircrew on US-bound US carriers asking him, a man with an Asian face, whether he speaks English. I fly pretty regularly on Korean Air. Never once has any Korean Air staff ever asked me if I speak Korean, no matter which direction we were travelling.
I remember reading somewhere that people evaluated a recording of spoken English as being substandard if they were shown an Asian face and told this was the speaker (versus being shown a white face for the same recording). Has anyone else heard of this experiment? Am I imagining things?
I don’t see playing the odds to be racism.
Asian guy in Korea, chances are, he speaks Korean. White guy in Korea, chances are, he doesn’t.
If the carriers are flying from Asian counties and an Asian passenger gets on, they might want to check if he speaks English or not. Chances are he doesn’t.
Just because we can come up with some kind of exception for every kind of scenario out there doesn’t mean someone is being racist for playing the odds in a perfectly reasonable situation.
I was stopped on the street in Bangkok once by a couple of Irish backpackers wanting to know if I spoke English. Gee, I’m white, and blue-eyed, but who knows? I could be Hungarian, and monoglot.
Korea rocks. Deal with it.
Questioning a white dude in say Bangkok or Seoul whether they speak English or not before continuing with the conversation is simply being polite – after all, it is more annoying when people assume all white people MUST speak fluent English.
Where it gets silly is, like Rob mentioned, when the person you’re speaking to in Korean, Chinese, whatever, won’t acknowledge the fact that you can speak that language purely based on your appearance.
May be that poor Kor-American boy only dealt with lower class Koreans, these at the bottom of the social ladder in S.Korea often dislike Asians including Koreans.
You’re right, PekingMan.
Just today I got the entire “ta ting bu dong” routine, complete with dismissive laughter, as I talked with a third party in Chinese.
I do not speak Chinese well, but well enough, in this case, to manage what needed to be said–the “ting bu dong” commentary was both insulting and absurd, as I clearly was managing to comprehend and communicate well enough.
I drive a Benz. Deal with it.
Physical stereotyping is unavoidable. We are human. We all make judgements on how we look. As a Korean American, I could certainly understand that a Korean Korean expects me to speak Korean really well – just because I look Korean, I have slanted eyes, and I have straight black hair!
I enjoyed your last scenario in the restaurant. Ha ha.
When I first began my formal study of Korean, I had quite a different experience in regard to the attitudes of heritage learners and TAs.
Interesting! I wrote about my experience on Transparent Language’s Korean blog last year. It goes along w/ a similar theme. http://www.transparent.com/korean/a-beginner%E2%80%99s-mind/
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