Foreign students get busy plating food at the Korean Food Institute of Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul on Aug. 19, 2016. The students are participating in the institute’s program that teaches traditions in cooking Korean cuisine. (Photo provided by Sookmyung Women’s University) (Yonhap)
In this photo provided by Daegu Metropolitan City, a Korean woman shows a group of foreign tourists the way to pack herbal medicines in paper during the 2016 Daegu Yangnyeongsi Herbal Medicine Festival on May 8, 2016. (Yonhap)
Any ROK Heads in Seoul interested in serving on this council that the Seoul government is trying to establish?:
Seoul Metropolitan Government said Monday it would begin accepting applications from foreign residents of the capital to create a representative body for consultations. The body will be made up of 45 people and will advise the local government on policies to meet the needs of foreign residents and interracial families.
“Migrant workers, foreign students, foreign spouses, adoptees or refugees can apply for the positions,” a city official said.
The representatives will serve a three-year term and collect foreign residents’ opinions on issues such as human rights, cultural diversity and the living environment.
Those wanting to become the members should be over 18 years old, have stayed in Korea for more than a year and in Seoul for more than 90 days, and be recommended by at least 10 other foreign residents. [Korea Times]
Below is a post I thought some of you may find of interest from Reddit Korea in regards to a man visiting Korea for the first time with his Korean fiance’. I think his concerns of confrontations with other Koreans due to being with a Korean female is overstated. 10 years ago I think this is more of a concern, but no longer. It doesn’t mean however that it won’t happen. If something was going to happen it would more than likely be on the subway with some older drunk ajeosi. It is best just to walk away and not get into a confrontation with one of these people which is best advice I can give. Something that may take some getting used to though is the stares. I get this even when not with my wife, but it is even worse when I am with my wife. Anyone else have an opinion on this?
One of my favorite Anti-English Spectrum cartoons from 2005.
My Korean fiance and I are going to Korea soon and she is freaking out as she heard stories about locals (usually (old) men) expressing hate towards Korean girls that date foreigners.
She left Korea when she was very young, but still speaks perfect Korean and understands the culture fairly well.
The things she is scared of are…. 1. her extended family judging her for dating a white male as it is considered “prostitute-like” 2. Strangers on the street verbally abusing/staring at/swearing at her for being with a white guy. 3. People assuming that I am a white-trashy dude who is with her for cheap sex.
She says that every single one of her Korean friends (all three of them :p)that visited Korea with her Caucasian husband/bf got verbally abused on the train/bus by total strangers and apparently one of them has been physically attacked by an old man on the train in Seoul.
I find it hard to believe that it is that bad and want to know how true this is.
Do they really hate Korean girls dating outside their own nationality? If so, why is that?
What are the chances of noticing/experiencing the hate towards us when we visit Korea?
What can we do to minimise the chance of getting physically/verbally abused? [Reddit Korea]
For those going out to clubs in Itaewon over the long 4th of July weekend, here is one club you will not get into:
An upscale nightclub in Itaewon, Seoul, has stopped accepting foreign customers over the past two weeks in fears of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a virus that has taken lives of 33 people in South Korea, the owner of the club said Wednesday.
Kim Jong-hyun, owner of Lounge & Club Move contacted The Korea Observer and requested that we remove an article that we published a day earlier as he believes it implies the club has a racist policy in place.
“We absolutely don’t accept foreigners because of MERS,” said Kim. “Above all, Korean people don’t want them. This is Korea, isn’t it?” [Korea Observer]
Here is what he had to say about US military servicemembers:
“Most of the time when a customer loses a cellphone, the CCTV reveals that the thieves are Middle Eastern people or foreigners.”
Kim agreed with his manager Lee’s statement that the club has been hesitant to have foreign customers because it is hard to make them liable when they cause property damages, sexually harass customers or start a brawl.
He also stressed that foreign customers frequently start a fight with U.S. servicemen.
“U.S. servicemen don’t behave badly. The problem is other foreign customers who constantly provoke them into a fight,” Kim said.
“It is better not to have them because we lose too much for trying to make a small amount of money from them.”
You can read the rest at the link, but US servicemembers have been accused for so long for being the ones to start fights in Korea that I don’t know how to react.
What the bar owner says about what expat patrons have been doing in his bar sounds pretty bad, but you can’t tell me that Korean customers haven’t done the same thing before?:
Fiesta pub, near Korea University in Anam, Seoul, has been denying entry to foreigners for three years due to promiscuous and irresponsible behavior, the bar owner said.
“We no longer accept foreigners because we had many issues with them. I had many bad experiences three years ago when I ran this place almost like a ‘foreigner only’ bar,” the owner Baek said.
“I even had to pick up used condoms while cleaning the bathroom. Our bar is not a motel. Sometimes we could hear customers moaning in the bathroom.”
Baek said he found a condom in the bathroom twice.
He stressed he could not tolerate the lewd behavior of foreigners anymore and that he was very upset with a female customer who took a shower in the bathroom after sex and some male customers who would sexually molest intoxicated female customers.
An expat recently visited Fiesta but was denied service even though the bar was empty. [Korea Observer]
It seems like every few months someone in the Korean media feels the need to make sweeping accusations against foreigners in Korea to drive page view traffic I suppose to their site. Via the Marmot’s Hole comes this latest example from the Donga Ilbo:
In May, a young man by the name of Kim got a urgent Kakao Talk from a female acquaintance of his who’d gone to a club in Yongsan. She was passing out and worried something might happen to her. He went to the club, found her passed out and surrounded by two foreigners, and rescued her. The next day, she told him that the foreigners gave her something to drink which had apparently been spiked.
She was rescued, but the Dong-A reports that there are women, defenseless against foreigners will ill-intent, who have been sexually assaulted. For instance, on Sept. 10, a 20-year-old woman was sitting at a Gangnam club with two foreign guys and a Korean guy. They gave her a drink which they’d spiked with sleeping pills. They brought her to a nearby motel, where they began filming parts of her anatomy with a cellphone. When she protested, they beat her. After a two week investigation, the cops arrested three guys for sexual assault, including a French guy and some model. [Marmot’s Hole via a reader tip]
You can read the rest at the link, to include a lively discussion on this topic in the comments section. I just like how the article makes no mention about sexual assault in Korea by Koreans which has been a significant issue that has gained increased attention in recent years. By the way this is not the first time the Donga Ilbo has been spreading lies, I called them out a few years ago when they were spreading lies about GI crime in Korea.
What else I found of interest is how the Donga Ilbo has pretty much did a recycle of the reporting done on the English Spectrum incident. I guess their reporters are even too lazy now to find new xenophobic angle to report on.
Foreigners compete in a Hangul (Korean alphabet) writing contest organized by Yonsei University Korean Language Institute at the private university in western Seoul on Oct. 6, 2014. (Yonhap)
Discrimination of foreigners in Korea is nothing new, but recently it has been getting a lot of attention because of the current Minyeodeului Suda Scandal. This scandal has caused at least one K-blogger to start an online petition to protest KBS’s racism.
Well now the Korea Times has an article about foreigners being denied access to swimming pools and saunas:
Connie Arnold, a middle-aged English teacher at Pochon CHA University in Songu-ri, began having hip pain earlier this year and went to see a doctor. He identified it as muscle strain and swimming was prescribed.
Arnold knew of only one pool in town, but when she went there she was told, “No Foreigners Allowed.’’’ She asked a Korean co-worker to call for her and explain that she had to swim for health reasons.
“I explained about you (doctor’s order) but they said no,’’ the co-worker wrote in a follow up e-mail. “Foreigner(s) cannot use the pool.’’
None of this is really surprising to me because foreigners have long been treated like second class citizens in Korea. However, the ones that have it by far the worst are the people who come from third world countries to work in Korea’s manuafacturing businesses. Korea’s Confucian thinking puts these labors way at the bottom of the class structure. That is the real reason why foreigners are denied access to swimming pools, saunas, and even internet cafes:
Arnold said that besides the swimming pool and sauna, she has been refused entry to PC bangs in Songu-ri because she is a foreigner.
A reporter asking to use a computer at the Joy PC Bang in Songu-ri was told foreigners were not allowed to use the service.
I have never been denied access to an internet cafe or even a sauna, but the denial of GI’s to bars and restaurants is quite common, but also keep in mind the denial of Koreans and other foreigners to American only bars happens as well, which I don’t agree with. This is done the ville areas outside of some of the US military installations. The bars are owned by Koreans and just goes to show that they are willing to discriminate against other Koreans in order to make a buck.
There is plenty of discrimination in Korea, but I really think it has been getting better in recent years and the netizen outrage to the KBS show is encouraging, however it is going to take a whole lot more Hines Wards out there to end discrimination in Korea any time soon.
